AGEOD Forums

Hello again -- need some advice on what others feel is the preferable setting for CSA Brigs and Commerce Raiders, for the Blockade/Shipping boxes. I have been picking defensive posture with retreat when engaged checked, as well as the "evade combat" button.

Pasive / Pasive & retreat if engaged

For what i know posture does not matter on the boxes ( it does on the way there, beware!) so no need to use offensive even for raiders either.
So just use passive or defensive (no cohesion loss).
Evade combat does work there i think, so better use it. It's also very handy on the travel form port to box and back.
Regards

arsan wrote:For what i know posture does not matter on the boxes ( it does on the way there, beware!) so no need to use offensive even for raiders either.
So just use passive or defensive (no cohesion loss).
Evade combat does work there i think, so better use it. It's also very handy on the travel form port to box and back.
Regards

Offensive posture has a cohesion hit? I didn't know that.

I guess I should also ask, while I am at it -- how many brigs does everyone think should be in the blockade box(es)? They are expensive (in war supplies) to build, and I am just wondering if it is a good idea to use what precious resources the South does have, towards an almost non-existent Navy? What I mean is, do the ends (return in money/war supplies) justify the means (production cost that could be going towards land units)?

Opinions?

IMHO ... Brigs are one of the best investments you can do.

They bring WS or $ depending on what you are more needed.

Only If you could have 40 brigs by mid 62... !

Coregonas wrote:IMHO ... Brigs are one of the best investments you can do.

They bring WS or $ depending on what you are more needed.

Only If you could have 40 brigs by mid 62... !

LOL! Yeah, and they would be using the money to buy things for themselves, cause with that kind of expenditure my armies would all be dead.

just beware... in the best conditions (enemy just quiet for a year) an USA player can bring 40 divisions by spring 62! As CSA you can "only" get 30.

Your ports can be targeted. And your building fleet destroyed (or captured)

Coregonas wrote:IMHO ... Brigs are one of the best investments you can do.

They bring WS or $ depending on what you are more needed.

Only If you could have 40 brigs by mid 62... !

+1!
As Coregonas says, brigs as blockade runner work so good they mass use can be even gamey.
Many expert CSA players prefer to use many brigs instead of doing industrialization. 8-10 units per box is a very good number to have. And Expert PBEM players usually try to buy all the available CSA brigs as soon as they can.
They bring WS and money each turn, depending of what you need more so they are very flexible. And usually survive one encounter with USA navy so you can send them to port to repair and don't lose any. It takes two encounters in a row to destroy a brig. It can happen, but not often.

Commerce Raiders are not so interesting IMHO. They do some damage in $ and WS to the USA but the CSA don't gain anything in return so... i usually just use the few frigates i get for free if at all.

About cohesion loss and offensive, yes it does.
Different postures have different cohesion cost. Defensive is usually 0 turn negative, but offensive usually erode your cohesion little by little. Assault is even worse i think. Passive is best for fast cohesion recovery
You can check it by looking at the tooltip over any land or sea unit. Change posture and look at the cohesion numbers.
Regards

I'm not quite a BRIG ONLY convert yet, but I'm testing it in a game vs. the AI currently. I still think that a small amount of investment over the long term plus about 5 brigs in each box will net you a pretty nice little sum of money and War Supply each turn. Brigs are a good investment early....but not so good late IMO

The brigs are all but fish in a barrell late in the game when a smart PBEM Union opponent gets his blockade percentage up in the 80-90% range. Hopefully you've defeated him before then though .

Brigs are COMBAT units.



This was a very succesful game of course.

55 WS per turn... not bad at all!!
And indeed, they fight back when attacked.

yikes....Well I suppose there is an argument there for them. Whoever you were playing against certainly wasn't doing a good job maintaining his blue water blockade. I'm sorry, but 12 gun brig doesn't stand a chance against a 28-44 gun frigate at all....and it'd take at least 2-1 odds with the brigs to make a dent otherwise they're dead. .

In what game year was that screen shot?

How about 20+ brig units stacked toghether under Semmes for an ultra gamey blockade runner fleet?
The would not stand against the main USA fleet but sure they will pack some punch...

arsan wrote:How about 20+ brig units stacked toghether under Semmes for an ultra gamey blockade runner fleet?
The would not stand against the main USA fleet but sure they will pack some punch...

You'd starve your armies of men and money if you built that many IMHO. If you were playing against a smart human opponent. It'd probably work against the AI.

Banks6060 wrote:You'd starve your armies of men and money if you built that many IMHO. If you were playing against a smart human opponent. It'd probably work against the AI.

Sure i could not do this (or anything) against a good human player. I only play against the AI
But i´m sure Coregonas, Jabber , you or some other expert player could do this and still maintain a good land army
With this tactic it is not the number what matters.
It's to put them all toghether like a combat fleet instead of separate them.
I'm not 100% sure but i bet they would be as hard to catch together as they are when separated. And with Semmes commanding, still harder.
The good thing is that when they were caught they would be a hard nut to crack and will deliver as good as they get. And the hits would be distributed between them so nobody would sunk.
And in addition, they will give teh CSA 50 WS or $ per turn
Regards!

It is aprox spring 62. Around 30 divisions also were achieved.

It is not achievable normally. It requires a lot of planning, a few lucky turns, and enough mistakes on the enemy to add for some extra NM to use. And of course the most important, enemy naval power is not being used too much.

It is a more posible achievement to get this around spring 63... If survived to the enemy mass...

Game was without attrition of course.



Edit-> This can link with the superaboundant resources affair... see the Huge CSA Army thread.

Coregonas wrote:It is aprox spring 62. Around 30 divisions also were achieved.

It is not achievable normally. It requires a lot of planning, a few lucky turns, and enough mistakes on the enemy to add for some extra NM to use. And of course the most important, enemy naval power is not being used too much.

It is a more posible achievement to get this around spring 63... If survived to the enemy mass...

Game was without attrition of course.



Edit-> This can link with the superaboundant resources affair... see the Huge CSA Army thread.

ah ha...yes an absence of historical attrition would certainly make this possible...I just can't play without that though. Otherwise I really feel like I'm cheating myself and not presenting a historical challenge...one that enormously impacted many of the decisions made.

@Arsan--thanks for the "expert" compliment, but believe me....I'm pretty sure i'm nowhere near the league that Jabber, Core and Runyon are in. Although I have a pretty different playing style so maybe you could think of them as the "American Baseball League"....yanno with the Designated Hitter rule....and me as the more traditional "National League".

Indeed, I have yet to tweak all of the options for my preferred gameplay (waiting to complete the current PBEM game I am in for that), but I simply cannot do away with historical attrition.

arsan wrote:Sure i could not do this (or anything) against a good human player. I only play against the AI
But i´m sure Coregonas, Jabber , you or some other expert player could do this and still maintain a good land army
With this tactic it is not the number what matters.
It's to put them all toghether like a combat fleet instead of separate them.
I'm not 100% sure but i bet they would be as hard to catch together as they are when separated. And with Semmes commanding, still harder.
The good thing is that when they were caught they would be a hard nut to crack and will deliver as good as they get. And the hits would be distributed between them so nobody would sunk.
And in addition, they will give teh CSA 50 WS or $ per turn
Regards!

The price of brigs is the same for "expert players" as it is for anyone else. When I use this strategy, I build lots of cavalry at the same time, and hope that I can buy enough time with raiding for the runner fleet economic effect to kick in. If I can survive for 6 months or so, then I can afford a good land army.

I don't know the algorithm for detecting fleets, to tell you whether they are harder to find if they're separated. You're absolutely right about Semmes, and about survivability through distributed hits.