Is it important to try and spend all you can every turn?

[iceboy]

Thoughts? Or is it better to save and wait?

[marecone]

I always spend all I have.
I have more use of units in field then in pool

[frank7350]

agreed.....

i spend all i can too

[Wilhammer]

What happens in a deficit Situation?

Does the game remove purchases to get back into the black?

[Rafiki]

At first, your investments get cancelled. Dunno what happens if that isn't sufficient since I've never been in that situation

[Kotik]

At first, your investments get cancelled. Dunno what happens if that isn't sufficient since I've never been in that situation

I have seen industrial investments being canceled becuase I didn't have enough men, I have a surplus of everything else, I find that weird.

[Pdubya64]

I have seen industrial investments being canceled becuase I didn't have enough men, I have a surplus of everything else, I find that weird.

That's a WAD (works as designed) deal. Basically, when you do Industrial investments, it is per turn. The initial settings you choose will remain from turn to turn unless you either a) manually cancel or change it. or b) start a turn with insufficient money and/or war supplies. In the latter case, your investment icon is removed (although possibly just some of them).
Also, the manual recommends that you pursue a steady level of investment in a state or two and stick with it. Don't constantly change where and how much, as it supposedly has a negative effect on results.

Some other things you guys might try with regard to your budget:

Wait to "sign off" on taxes and other morale-influenced measures until you have captured a few early objectives and won some VPs and NM from the opposition. This is mostly a CSA strategy, particularly in the first few months.
Take Norfolk, Ft. Sumpter and possibly Laredo and either Harper's Ferry (difficult but possible) or Grafton. Then recheck the financial measures to see what kind of return you will get. Another benefit is the fact your VPs and NM are much higher so you have some of them to "burn" in effect.
Oh, and read the tooltips... some obscure info is in them!
Hope that helpful.
PW

[blackbellamy]

Wait to "sign off" on taxes and other morale-influenced measures until you have captured a few early objectives and won some VPs and NM from the opposition. This is mostly a CSA strategy, particularly in the first few months.

The optimal Southern money/men taking strategy is to always delay until the last possible turn. This way you maximize your return and retain the ability to perform these actions back-to-back; an economic "double-move" if you will.

These are the optimal times to take money/men:

Early June: Volunteers, Bonds, Taxes
Early December: Volunteers, Conscription, Bonds, Taxes

If you take these options at any other time you are screwing yourself.

Volunteers, Bonds, and Taxes all reset Late June and Late December, and Conscription resets Late December. Since the money collected is impacted by the VP total, the best time to take money is right before the reset, when the VP total is the highest.

Conscription hurts VPs also, so it should be taken at the last possible moment i.e. Early December (you can take it as early as Late June since you won't be hurting your Early June money intake, but if an emergency comes up and you need to take more money, a pre-Early December Conscription will hurt you - best to delay and retain maximum flexibility).

Also, you should always take the maximum. Maximum taxes, maximum bonds, maximum conscription. For Volunteers you should always take the 2,000 or the 3,000 option if you can (the first two takings are hard to do with 3,000 since you kind of really do need that money for the initial expansion, but try at least to take the 2,000 option). The Southern problem is not money or weapons, it's men. You can increase your money or your war supplies, but conscription numbers will only go down. It doesn't seem that way at first, when you spent all your money and still got 1k conscripts in the bank, but it will.

Don't make the mistake of maximizing your money and men or optimizing your spending patterns to be able to spend both down to zero. Buy only what you need and remember that you don't need all your men up right away. The Union is uncoordinated and has crap for leaders the first year so it's not like they're going to charge down the pike and put Richmond to the torch. Take all the men that you can and save them in the bank until you get enough cash and then put them into play. Remember your entire objective for the first year is to construct a nice army for the summer of '62 so that Lee has something to play with. Don't need to spend all the men early '61.

Don't worry about inflation or losing VPs or Morale. These are non-penalties as far as I'm concerned, for the South anyway. What would you rather have, millions of extra dollars when they can actually help you, or paying 36% less for troops in '65 that will be steamrolled by Sherman? Same with Morale. You think you will delay defeat by husbanding your precious Morale but your lack of men will show on the battlefield and you will lose more battles and will wind up losing more Morale than if you just spent it in the first place.

P.S. The entire 'wait until the last moment' takings strategy is largely nullified once (if) you hit the money taking cap. It's 1.2 mil from Bonds and Taxes each, so once your taking 2.4 mil from both it doesn't really matter when you take them since it's not like decreasing VPs will hurt your money intake. However, it's still smart to take them as late as possible to delay inflation.

P.P.S. When figuring out your financial/conscription strategy, don't forget the CSA regular income goes up. You only get around $30 per turn early on, but later that year it hits $100 and goes up a little bit more.

[tagwyn]

What about the Union strategy? L3

[blackbellamy]

I don't know specifically, I don't play them much, but the mechanics remain the same. Delaying money taking until the last possible moment will maximize the return.

As for Morale, the Union has less of that to throw around, so taking the maximums might hurt. Still, if the Confederates consistently take the maximum but the Union does not then they might have a much tougher time chewing through the Rebels.

[samwise]

Here is a question that is a variant on this theme. Currently, I have approximately 10% of my field units sitting in the replacement pool. For instance, if I have 30 infantry ( line ) units, then I will make sure I have 3 units sitting in the replacement pool for line infantry units. However, having now played a few campaigns, it seems to me that that strategy might be conservative and needlessly using financial resources ( money, men and war goods) to sit on the shelf. Any thoughts on what is the right level of replacement units to keep after each turn?

[Nial]

I've heard several people use the 10% model. It works pretty well as a bellweather. I tend to fluctuate as my resources do. So at times I will have the 10% or even more. At other times reinforcements are not my primary need and I will let the number drop until I can afford to sock some resources into them. I think it's important not to be too inflexible about any one thing. But address needs that are critical. Of course in a perfect world you would have addressed those needs before they became critical. But your resources are finite. So that is not always possible.

Nial

[richfed]

I build/spend slowly as the CSA -- this seems to work in the long run. I buy only what I need during that first year, allowing war supplies to build up a bit.

As for my replacements, I follow the 10% rule - except for my line infantry where I usually keep about 10 units.