What's the most effective counter to CSA CopperHeads and Partisans?

[LCcmdr]

What's the most effective counter to CSA Copper Heads and Partisans?



BTW, I went through several pages of search results but saw nothing about this. I searched "killing irregulars" and then just "irregulars."

[Cardinal Ape]

Small units of cavalry (3 or 4 elements) work well.

When ordering your force to move, you can drag and drop their icon directly onto the unit you wish to attack. This will order your force to attempt to intercept the target unit. Your force will follow the target through regions in an attempt to engage. A big warning when using this action: Your force will follow the targeted unit where ever it goes and you can find yourself in very hostile territory.

[LCcmdr]

Small units of cavalry (3 or 4 elements) work well.

When ordering your force to move, you can drag and drop their icon directly onto the unit you wish to attack. This will order your force to attempt to intercept the target unit. Your force will follow the target through regions in an attempt to engage. A big warning when using this action: Your force will follow the targeted unit where ever it goes and you can find yourself in very hostile territory.

Wow, in all my playing thus far, I wasn't sure about that focusing on a particular enemy unit.

thanks

[ArmChairGeneral]

It is probably just as well for new players that this is not a well documented mechanic of the game. Heed Cardinal Ape's warning, it is VERY easy to lose stacks because of this order. Using it does not actually increase the chance of bringing a stack to battle. If you can detect it but fail to engage, you can follow it to its next region and try to engage it again, but with no better chance to succeed than the first time. If you do succeed, you will be fighting with lowered cohesion because of the days you spent following them to the next region.

This order is most effectively used to run down Passive posture retreating enemy stacks that are slow but doing their best to avoid fighting you so that you can follow them to the next region if they manage to Evade you. It is NOT effective for bringing enemy scout stacks to battle unless you have a lot more cav elements than they do, and even then it will be unreliable. A fast moving stack can chase another fast moving stack two or more regions, possibly beyond your LOS. You can bet that their home base will have another enemy stack there, which you will automatically try to attack since you have to be in attack posture for the chase order to be useful in the first place. Did I mention that you are low on cohesion when you get there? You get the picture.

When using this order for running down retreaters it is helpful to have a lot of high Patrol elements (cav, especially cav with experience stars) in the stack to increase your chances of actually engaging a foe who is trying to Evade you. The important stats are Hide vs. Detect for spotting and gathering map intel on stacks, and Evade vs. Patrol to determine whether a stack can avoid a battle or not; Passive (Green) posture and the Evade Combat Special Order (ECSO) also affect the Evade vs. Patrol determination.

[ArmChairGeneral]

But back to the original question, I just ignore them unless they are threatening a depot or cutting rail supply lines to my troop formations (my starred cities are already held too strongly to be bothered by a Copperhead). If they are making trouble I can't ignore, I send a couple of cav after them to bounce them out of wherever it is I want kept safe, and if I can, I box them out of places where they can resupply. If it is winter I can often just freeze/starve them. They are not enough of a strategic threat (other than annoying Message entries because I have lost control of some size 1 city somewhere) to warrant a huge response.

[ArmChairGeneral]

BTW, the AI does not use Partisans effectively. You want to sneak them up next to strategic enemy depots and use the RGD to try to blow them out from under them, but Athena never does this, so her Partisans are not nearly as dangerous as human controlled ones.

[LCcmdr]

BTW, the AI does not use Partisans effectively. You want to sneak them up next to strategic enemy depots and use the RGD to try to blow them out from under them, but Athena never does this, so her Partisans are not nearly as dangerous as human controlled ones.

Okay, but come over and tell my Athena to stop killing my small cities. Athena has wiped out small cities in MO, TN, and WV (while I was playing as USA). It took me forever to corner and kill those Copper Heads. They seem to have a much higher evasion rating that Cav do for spotting them.

[Rod Smart]

What's the most effective counter to CSA Copper Heads and Partisans?



BTW, I went through several pages of search results but saw nothing about this. I searched "killing irregulars" and then just "irregulars."

I used to have fast moving half-strength cavalry divisions. Using cavalry and/or fast mover trait. You'll want to have these anyway for the larger Forrest/Quantrill/Mosby raids.


Lately, I've changed my strategy. I keep one militia unit inside all my bordertown structures, and any small towns I take on my drive south. Even a 18 power militia regiment is strong enough to keep a copperhead unit from doing anything damaging.