Raising Large armies

[CFC67]

I've just watched an episode of the acclaimed Civil War documentary which often gets shown on Discovery or History Channel - playing this game has sparked an interest to know a lot more about it.

This episode dealt with late 1861 up to the end of Shiloh. It covered Gen McLelland's 'peninsular' campaign of early 1862. Apparently he sat outside Yorktown and did nothing, having been deceived as to CSA troop numbers by the cunning of Gen Magruder. Anyway, it said that McLellands force numbered above 100,000. Obviously there would have been further armies covering Washington, Mannasis, maybe further west as well.

Playing this game as the Union I am unable to raise anything like so strong an army by early 1862 especially if I also allocate resources and reinforcements to Tennissee as well. Does the game part from historical reality here or am I missing a trick or two??

[arsan]

Hi!
Its quite possible to do it. In fact expert players can create armies bigger than the historical . It all depends on how you manage the economic and recruitment options.
Just in case... do you know that by clicking over the text of the economic and recruitment options you can cycle over different version of them??
Like giving 1.000$ or 2.000$ or 3.000$ rewards for getting more conscripts, imposing different taxes etc??
Reading some of the AAR shoudl show you some expert tips, specially the PBEM AAR.
Cheers!

[bburns9]

While Arsan is correct, you can raise armies that large, I don't think you are able to do it by Feb 1862 even using full mobilization and the highest bounty for volunteers. There has been a lot of discussion in the forum about getting the OOB's more in line with what they were historically. I know Grey is devoting serious research time to help facilitate the adjustments and corrections, but as you can imagine, that is a huge undertaking. Further, the real trick is to be able to get that large without Full or Partial Mobilization which the Union did not use until 1863.

One of the best parts of this game is the ongoing support it receives from the forum contributors here. I'm hoping that they'll have the OOB's correcting sometime in the next year, but there is no ETA currently.

BB

[W.Barksdale]

With the current game setup it is near impossible to get historical numbers of troops even with giving 3k bounties, definately not if you delay your drafts.

The only reason people are seeing larger than historical armies is because they are massing the forces they raised into these armies. Historically, soldiers were much more spread out where as players like to mass them.

[enf91]

The only reason people are seeing larger than historical armies is because they are massing the forces they raised into these armies. Historically, soldiers were much more spread out where as players like to mass them.

True. How many players put 12,000 men at Harper's Ferry? That's how many the Union had there when Jackson took it.

[Captain_Orso]

Gray stated, I believe in the 'official update thread', that the man-power numbers were implemented into the game as an afterthought. Originally the game used only hit points to keep track of a units size and health, and these were measured to give the game the right feel. The man-power is an estimation in comparison to hit points and has no direct historical basis. I believe Gray's term was that it is a flavor text and has been adjusted at least once to give the game the right feel.

Additionally I have to say that with any game, whether attempting to recreate an identical historical situation or not, it will be very difficult to compare number, because the statistics in reference denoting troop strengths may or may not include things like support troops working in depots and other general administration, which may not be considered a part of the game. You may end up comparing apples and oranges.

I don't know how much of the military structure during the ACW was devoted to behind the lines duties, but I have read often that during the WWII that about 90% of all troops in the military had administrative and support roles, general administration, supply, training, procurement, weapons development and testing, etc. etc, only about 10% were ever 'on the line' were they could actually be involved in combat.

So trying to field an army exactly the same size as McClellan's on the in the peninsula will probably be a futile task.

[Cromagnonman]

Part of the reason that the armies are smaller is, as said before, how hit points are translated. An infantry regiment with full 20 HP has 600 men, whereas this would have been more like 1000 historically. Not that many formations were able to remain at full strength for any length of time in the field.

At least according to Wikipedia, Hancock's II Corps (AotP) alone had 81 regiments/46k men/29k effectives going into the Overland campaign. You can only get 4 divisions into a corps without command penalties, and each division can only hold 17 regiments. That would limit a corps to 68 regiments, a strength of 41k but no artillery.

I admit that in fighting Athena, I never concentrated more that 35k men on one battlefield, and that was to crush a force half my size. My divisions hold about 7500 men, my corps about 2 divisions, and my biggest army about 5 corps. Thus, in the entire Virginia theater I have about 90k men, against probably 10k remaining rebs. Athena hasn't so much straggled to raise troops as to feed them.

I agree, building the numbers of troops, even at 1000 men per regiment, that were present historically is nigh impossible. However, I find my non-combat losses to also be ahistorically low.

Note that, at the same time that MacClellan was creeping up the Peninsula with 120k men, Halleck was moving on Corinth MS with a similar number of men and at a similar rate. Best of luck comitting a quarter million troops to just two objectives before Summer '62, especially without a draft.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[soundoff]

<snip>
To be honest... I wish they had never added these rather silly flavor multipliers to the game because it has led to nothing but confusion since the numbers have ZERO effect on game play and the combat resolution formulae. Had the game been designed around real manpower numbers from the start and used those numbers in the combat formulae then it would have been much more acceptable and for sure far less confusing.

At last Gray... we agree on something.... Have a nice Christmas adversary....and a happy new year to you and yours.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Banks6060]

When it comes to troop numbers. I think in several cases they were inflated...as is with most records throughout history. I certainly know of no really reliable records for the Confederate side.

[Cromagnonman]

It's true that many of the historical numbers are unreliable. The union was generally better at keeping records, or at least preserving them.

If we look at the Wikipedia numbers above, the 29k effectives include 10 batteries of light artillery, so that's about a thousand men. That gives an average of about 350 men per regiment in the Second Corps. Take into account the large "heavy artillery" regiments that were pulled from the Washington defenses to bolster the field forces, and most of the veteran regiments would have brought roughly 200 men.
What really makes numbers difficult in this game is that we tend to replenish our regiments to full strength. I doubt many of us take our regiments into battle with just 4 or 5 hit points apiece. I also have not yet seen regiments take HP damage from disease, which generated the majority of historical casualties. These 2 factors combine to keep our regiments much larger than they were historically. However, it does seem that our ability to raise historical numbers of regiments is limited, which keeps down our total troops.

The big issue is not to match the flavor numbers to historical ones. So long as you can maintain an historical balance of forces, that should be enough.

[bigus]

For anyone wishing to revert back to the original "flavor" numbers, I have reverted the numbers back to the original in the Scenario Depot thread. They are part of the New Models file in the second post of the thread.
You will be able to use this file with all scenarios including the Campaigns for 1.15 final patch.
The changes in these files were reverting the troop strengths back and the addition of a few leaders.

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?p=118997#post118997

[enf91]

For those of you talking about losses due to disease, etc.: are you playing with Historical Attrition off? It is significantly weaker than true historical attrition, but it is something.