In anticipation of the upcoming sequel, (actually I just felt like it, didn't know AACW2 was coming until I came back to these forums...) I have bought myself a new copy of this wonderful game and created a new forum account. Somehow after all these years I lost my cd-key/login etc. Time for a fresh start.
My problem is this: Every time I start up a GC1861 game against Athena she blows it before December throwing her army waaaay behind my lines. In my first game as the Union, as soon as divisions enabled the Army of the Shenandoah made an immediate beeline for Trenton, NJ of all places, and when Milroy took my best troops in a well commanded stack to trounce him, Johnston "retreated" to upstate NY! The next game went much the same way, but with Harrisburg as the target instead of Trenton. In my latest game as the CSA, the Army of NEVA went straight to Winchester the turn it unlocked, but was too exhausted to assault the single militia garrisoning the city. Suspecting the army would stay put to take the city, I had Johnston circle north to take Harpers while a substantial part of the ANV went to rendezvous with him, and in the process eliminate the last region of union MC supplying McDowell. The plan worked after a fashion; McDowell's supply was completely cut, and he had no way home except through my troops. Particularly since he had taken the turn to drive SW to the county north of Charlottesville.
I don't remember this happening in earlier patches, but it has just ended three straight games for me. Does anyone else have this problem? Is there AI behavior I can tweak to solve this? Ending the game before corps unlocks felt impressive the first time I did it, now it just feels like a bug.
Second, while I'm dealing with this, what is the best method for finally pinning these troops down and ending them? Now that armies can retreat into 0% MC it seems like it's impossible to destroy an enemy army, even when it has no friendly territory for 7 regions and is completely out of supply. The army just retreats to some region with a harbor, draws up to full supply by magic and gains back a little cohesion and reinforcements to be crushed again. I suppose I could enable historical attrition for the AI, but given the poor performance I'm seeing from it I don't know that that will help.
Final, unrelated problem: What do you do about promoting leaders who are not in command of a stack? Do they have to remain outside the stack for the whole turn? If you don't want a subordinate leader promoted when you promote his stack leader, does he have to go too? Hopefully this system is improved for AACW2.