Lessons by a new player, for new playes

[Courtenay]

Or, "Mistakes I made my first game of AACW in 1861."

I have completed 1861 in my first full game of AACW. There were a few 'games' of a few turns which I started just to learn the interface, and one game that I aborted when the Confederate Army of the Potomac marched on Pittsburgh. I restarted with the AI on passive in the hope that this would stop suicidal deep raids. (It didn't.) At any rate, I have now finished through the end of '61, and I have leared a few things the hard way. Some of these lessons I gathered from others people's posts (#2, #3, #5, #6, #16), but I repeat them on the theory that the more places the better.

This post is a list of lessons that I have learned. Each of these was learned as a result of mistakes I made. There shouldn't be anything new here for an experienced player. I am posting this in the hope that future new players might someday find it and not make the mistakes that I did.

The first two are what I think are the most important; the others are in the order I discovered them.

1) After you have done your move, cycle through all your stacks, using the 'cntl-E' and 'cntl-T' commands, and check that your stacks are going where you think they are going. Check in particular that each stack is not inadvertently following another stack. One checks this using the information proviced by line of type in white just above the unit display that I did not even see until it was pointed out to me. After you have done this, do it again, this time looking at postures. Do not try and do both these checks at the same time -- your eye has to move to do so, and eventually you will miss something. After you have done these checks, check the stacks you are attacking with, one more time. After you have done this, check the leaders you want to promote. Changing their orders can sometimes remove a promotion.

After you have done all this, you will find you still have misorders, or at least I do, but you will have fewer of them.

2) Financial, draft and political options become available again each Late June and Late December, except for Mobilization, which is only in Late December. Gains from financial options are increased by higher victory point totals; those from draft options are increased by higher national morale totals.

3) The recruitment leaders must be inside the town they are sitting in, and in command of their own stack. They don't have to be commanding anything, but they must be in command. They work best in the towns that recruit best to begin with (Washington, New York and Boston).

4) If one wants to put a force inside the structure it is currently sitting on, hold click on the force and hover the cursor over the structure. If you get the right place, you will get a flashing message on the tooltip saying "Release mouse to enter structure". Be careful if there is a fleet in a harbor there: The message might read "Release mouse to enter fleet", which probably isn't what you want to do.

5) You can see if a unit has missing elements by selecting that unit and any other unit in its stack, and selecting both of them (cntl-click on one of them) and putting the cursor over the "combine units" button (+ sign, middle special order screen.)

6) If one imbeds subordinate leaders in a brigade (use the combine key), that unit gets a 3% bonus per that leader's attack and defense values. This is mainly useful before divisions can be formed.

7) If the other side preemptively attacks Kentucky, the prohibition on entering Kentucky applies to building units there, too.

8) When fighting in a region with disupted control (i.e. Kentucky), check the rail lines. Despite the presence of enemy troops, you might be able to use them.

9) If on a rail line useable only by the enemy don't dillydally. Blow it up. Examples are the St. Louis-Ironton RR and the short stretch of the B&O that is Confederate owned.

10) Frigates (all types) can not go up rivers, but brigs and ocean going transports can. The Missisippi is open to all shipping as far as Baton Rouge.

11) It is reported that moving units can not receive replacements. This is false.

12) Be careful merging stacks. Always merge the stack with the lower fortification value into the one with the higher fortification value; otherwise you lose your fortifications. You can even move a stack into another stack's existing fortifications, and then move all the units of the original stack out, and retain the fortifications.

13) The 'Training Officer' ability is only used by a commanding officer who is in command of his stack and does not move that turn.

14) Fort Smith is on the south bank of the Arkansas river. I don't suppose anyone else will make this particular mistake; it led to a spectacularly ineffectual operation, that was almost catastrophic.

15) The base of each units icon tells you the entrenchment level of the force, and whether it has guns. This also applies to enemy stacks.

16) The battle log is very interesting reading, and will tell you why you lost or won a battle, who exactly you were fighting, and exactly what and how badly you damaged it. Also, it can tell you why the battle you thought would happen, didn't. If you turn on "error logging" on the system menu, you will get even more information. The battle log is only created when you quit AACW, in the file Logs. AACW will automatically erase everything in that folder each time it starts, so if you want to save it, move it.

17) If you click the 'promote' button, all the generals in the stack that are eligible for promotion will be promoted, not just the one named in the tooltip. If you want to promote just one general, you have to put him in a separate stack.

18) Winter can strike earlier than you think.

[Mickey3D]

2) Financial, draft and political options become available again each Late June and Late December, except for Mobilization, which is only in Late December. Gains from financial options are increased by higher victory point totals; those from draft options are increased by higher national morale totals.

Note that you can wait before using an option, i.e. you don't have to use it the turn it becomes available. This allow to wait for better national moral.

8) When fighting in a region with disupted control (i.e. Kentucky), check the rail lines. Despite the presence of enemy troops, you might be able to use them.

You can use railroad movement as long as your military control in the region is 25% or higher.

[MikeV]

5) You can see if a unit has missing elements by selecting that unit and any other unit in its stack, and selecting both of them (cntl-click on one of them) and putting the cursor over the "combine units" button (+ sign, middle special order screen.)

This has to win some kind of award for "Most Obscure GUI Misfeature Ever." Why doesn't it just display placeholders in the unit panel when selected?

18) Winter can strike earlier than you think.

Yes, we need to respect General Winter.

I'd add one more, even though it's a bit cheesy:
19) The "Home" key is your friend. After you hit "End Turn" and it cycles through the AI's half, you can back up: Esc to the main menu, single-click to select your current game file, and use the Home key to revert to the previous turn. It (usually) brings you back to the end of your 1/2 of the turn, all orders intact, so you can tweak them and/or add the ones you forgot.

[McLandish]

As a new player, many thanks Courtenay!

[Gray_Lensman]

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