Late October 61
Virginia:
Banks has had its glorious day ( and has now a seniority of 2) by beating Beauregard. Interestingly, the CSA army is rather small ( attrition) and short on supply.
BTW, K. Smith leaved the Pittsburg siege since the last turn for an unknow destination.
In the Western theater, i toyed with the idea to send Grant on Ft Donelson or Paducah, but first, the Confederates are keeping some garrison here and the Union force is yet underorganized and armed. I've begun contruction of river ironclad at Cairo ( a SVF feature, these ironclads will not be built in the Great Lakes
) and the last game has cured me from the "Forward" syndrom...
I'm building a depot at Louisville ( rmember in SVF 2 supply units are needed) to prepare the spring advance.
In missouri, Johnston assaulted the large Saint-Louis garrison and lost. he inflicted to my forces more losses but was forced to retreat.
Winter is coming. Normally, the AI should become more cautious, but winter offensives aren't totally excluded ( SVF is randomizing a bit AI behaviour in winter).
In any case, comparing to the last game, AI is globally following the same patterns with a large variation in Virginia, being this time more aggressive. In the reality, Beauregard and Jackson advocated offensive in the North from 1861, and the path followed by the AI in the game is corresponding to Lee's moves in 1862 and 1863. The possibility of an offensive action by the South , without any much of the long range raids in the vanilla, is just forcing Union to need to protect MD and PA. I definitly have to capture Harper's Ferry soon.
