Usage of Generals

[Quirk]

Hey all,

I wonder what the experienced players do with all those generals?
When I am able to form divisions and corps, I unite all the brigades under my best generals and am therefore
left with all those 3/1/1 generals I have no need for anymore and park them in Washington or Richmond.

Do I miss something important here or is that the way to go?

Thanks in advance!

[Leibst]

i use with the Union stacks of one division with two generals.
Also with the corps it permits detach one div with 2 generals and its operative 100%.
generals with garrisons, generals giving conscripts, generals training green troops...

[Longshanks]

Yup, what Leibs. said. You can stick a general with any garrison near the front (or along the coast if you're CSA). Usually, it's the Union that has spare ones more than the Rebs. If you're the Union and you are preparing an invasion force, have some generals there early, rather than bringing them up late.

If you want to be "gamey" against Miss Athena, you can send generals off as scouts all by their lonesomes in green/green/evade mode. They will rarely be seen by your enemy, but you'll scout all across the other guys territories (not usually permitted in PBEM games).

[Caffran]

Use them to garrison coastal cities or capitals (state).

No sense letting them kick their heels in Richmond

[GraniteStater]

Yup, what Leibs. said. You can stick a general with any garrison near the front (or along the coast if you're CSA). Usually, it's the Union that has spare ones more than the Rebs. If you're the Union and you are preparing an invasion force, have some generals there early, rather than bringing them up late.

If you want to be "gamey" against Miss Athena, you can send generals off as scouts all by their lonesomes in green/green/evade mode. They will rarely be seen by your enemy, but you'll scout all across the other guys territories (not usually permitted in PBEM games).

How are the vets spozed to beat up on noobs if you give the cool tricks away?

[Captain_Orso]

When divisions can be formed, you can take the extra general concept a step further with 3 generals(1). Take 3 generals with a distinct order of seniority, eg 51, 53, 55. Make the general with 53 seniority the division commander(2). Now make a stack of the division and the other two generals.

Now you basically have a division-stack with two possible commanders; twice as many chances of having one of them be active on any given turn. If General Fifty-One is active just move and fight the division-stack normally. If General Fifty-One is inactive, check General Fifty-Three if he is active; if he is split General Fifty-One out of the division-stack and you still have a division-stack with an active commander with all the command-points covered.

(1)You need lots of generals to do this; eventually you will run short.

(2)Don't try to build your division exactly in this manner; you will wait forever for General Fifty-Thee to go active that you can build that division.

How to Build the Three-General-Division-Stack™: Stack all of the brigadier generals into one stack and click on it so that they appear in the Unit Display. Now with your mouse pointer, hover over the Unit Tab in the Unit Display. A 'hint' will appear with all the generals in it; the ones with the asterisk next to them are active. Pick the active ones out and the matching inactive generals just above and below and now go and build your division(s). You will have to play around with this to get the right combination and you will not always get generals to match up for this Three-General-Division-Stack™, but in the long run it will be worth it.

Also note that later in the war, the Union gets a bunch of generals with seniority 90 and above; many of them have the same seniority; don't use generals with the same seniority in the same stack as the game tends to shift them back and forth to the top or bottom of the equal-seniority-stack and you may find that your Three-General-Division-Stack™ is suddenly under-commanded.

How are the vets spozed to beat up on noobs if you give the cool tricks away?

Anybody with more that 500 posts is due to get their butts kicked a bit by a n00b .. oh, wait..

[Jim-NC]

Maybe you should bump it up to anyone with over 614 posts is due to get their butts kicked.

[GraniteStater]

I'm 0-4 in PbeMs, ya know.

P.Cleburne, 0-2, both as Union. 0-2 against Longshanks, once as North, once as South. And the North loss was an 1862 start, IIRC.

I'm terrible. I could swear I know something about this game, but...still learning.

Now I'm trailing in NM as the South in a tourney game; it's almost mid-'62. His NM is 107 and I'm treading water at 93 or so.

*sigh*

I hafta put the AI on Very Hard^2 when I play the Union; I've played the CSA maybe a half dozen times, now, all told, and quickly see that I need to goose that, too.

But I struggle against humans. Still, they're the most fun.

[Captain_Orso]

Maybe you should bump it up to anyone with over 614 posts is due to get their butts kicked.

I'll bump it no higher than 540, good sir apy:

!!Thought!! Wouldn't it be awesome if we could train a n00b in the shortest period of time to like kick ... P.Cleburne's or Longshanks' butts

We would be like a collective Henry Higgens ... sorry, I've never liked that film, but you know what I mean ..

The Rain
On the Plain
Makes artillery
Insane

[Longshanks]

heh, in my case a n00b of a couple of days would give me fits! no challenge there! sic 'em on Gen. Cleburne. He's got a 6 defense rating!

[Quirk]

Thank you very much all for your input!

Definitely some great ideas to make use of the generals. I guess my problem is, that the AI, be it South or North, never was a real match in my games, so I did not have to go too deep into the details (eg. active/inactive generals or adding generals to garrisons).

Seems I have to tweak the settings a bit, to get a better opponent. Any suggestions on that? Though I kinda hate it when the AI has (illogical/ahistorical) gameplay advantages...

[Captain_Orso]

For my taste, to get the most realistic and best AI behavior

• AI Ranking to Colonel (1)
• Use All Behaviors X
• Activation Bonus -X-- (2)
• AI Detect Bonus --X-- (3)
• Aggressivness -X- (4)
• Give AI More Time X

(1) At lower settings Athena will not user her leaders very sensibly. Good generals will not be put in charge of the best armies and stacks and will sometimes be sent out on scouting missions (5), which is a total waist for a good commander. The lower the setting the worse she is.

(2) As far as I can tell, this increases all the AI's generals' strategic rating by 1. I've seen this during battles, that generals that I know are 3-1-1 are 4-1-1, etc. Having an AI opponent constantly be more mobile will wear you to rags trying to follow him everywhere and is not very realistic IMHO.

(3) I've not played around with these settings, but an AI opponent that "sees" much more than it should will not "play" normally and you will learn to play far differently than vs a real player who doesn't have such a viewing advantage.

(4) This is only relevant to patch level 1.16 and most of the 1.16RC (Release Candidates). I've not player around with this setting, but before 1.16 setting to medium would have Athena performing some pretty outlandish deep raids, which usually ended is the raiders being cutoff deep in enemy territory with no supply. So with 1.15 and earlier, set to Low Aggression. At 1.16 set to medium. Athena still doesn't know when to call it quits when she's being besieged and hounded in and around Pittsburgh and return to the bosom of the south, but she will keep you busy trying to nail her down.

(5) Athena does something that you will probably not see allowed in any PBEM game. She sends generals into your territory on Green/Green (Passive Posture/Retreat if engaged) with the Evade Combat button pressed to scout out your side of the front. I've often seen her send a few into very deep enemy territory to gather information.

You will not often see these scouts and sometimes get a message while moving over one such undetected leader stating that your moving unit avoided combat in a region where you see nothing there and have 100% MC. You cannot attack these leaders successfully and they will never starve for lack of supplies. You can drive them off at times with cavalry, but they will just sidle off to a neighboring region and return later.

They generally stay stationary in their regions as long as the front has not shifted, so if you've detected one it's good to know that it's there and just a leader lest you drive yourself crazy chasing ghosts.

[Quirk]

My current and all time settings are:
AI Ranking Sargent
Use All Behaviors X
Activation Bonus X---
AI Detect Bonus X----
Aggressivness -X-
Give AI More Time X

So your settings are quite different. I am curious as how it is going to play out
I will start a new game as the South with your settings after I have beaten the rebels in my current round. Already took Richmond, so it shouldn't take too long anymore.

Seems RUS has to wait some more days/weeks.

[Captain_Orso]

Off with you then, hunt down that vampire hunter Lincoln and do my bidding...

I was in a school play once

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

heh, in my case a n00b of a couple of days would give me fits! no challenge there! sic 'em on Gen. Cleburne. He's got a 6 defense rating!

And don't forget entrencher, one of the best traits in the game

As for the AI, if you want to move onto humans, I actually don't recommend playing on colonel. Level 2 or 3 will work fine. Colonel will give you unrealistic expectations on what can actually happen in a pbem game. The higher cohesion and speed can even be bad for the AI, as it makes it quicker and more bloody for them to bounce their heads off of good entrenchments. I prefer giving the AI +3 detection. +4 or 5 will make the AI prone to going after your interior cities. This is all based off of 1.15 experience though. I haven't spent any time at all with 1.16 AI.

[Quirk]

Alas, took me much longer to beat the South than expected. Although the military victory was clear, I couldn't get their morale to the needed level...forgot that I had to take New Orleans.

I am going to play with Colonel (no pbem for me) now and hope that I get a sound beating
Biggest problem for me playing the South always was the lack of War Supplies.