Mexican Army

[Offworlder]

Finally I managed to get the French and English to intervene on behalf of the CSA while playing as the Union (through constant hard line diplomatic stance and several losses in the East courtesy of McDowell and his successors). Thus I got to use the Mexican army about which I have several questions.
a) do the forces in the capital ever get unlocked?
b) do the forces in Chihuaua ever get unlocked?
c) What about the Mexican forces that appear once one enters in the Laredo and Vera Cruz provinces, do they ever get unlocked?

In practice one only gets about a division's worth of troops through the Exercito de Mexico (and a pretty decent leader too). Am I right?

Thanks in advance

[Doomwalker]

I believe all you ever get is the divisions worth of troops. I am not too sure as to the locked units being unlocked. All I have ever seen come out of there is the small force.

I know when I get it to trigger, playing as CSA, the left-most region in the southern block (think it is Mexico City) is a blocked (read that as you cannot enter) region.

[Offworlder]

As the CSA its pretty easy to sweep Mexico out of the game. All one needs is one extra division to take out the Chihuaua garrison together with the French Expedionary force.

Darn! I was really hoping that I could use the Mexicans to overrun Texas, which the AI normally leaves almost undefended. The Regulares brigades seem to be pretty decent, but there is only one in every group which is spawned. Or at least the release of the militias could be turned into decent soldiers through training under some US generals and used offensively.

The CSA gets a much better deal with the Brits and French.

[Doomwalker]

Oh without a doubt the CSA comes out better with the English support it receives. The French forces aren't much help since most stay locked in place. The true joy of getting Foreign Intervention to fire for the CSA is the blockade lifting fleets that you get from both the English and French.

[Offworlder]

Yeah. The irony is that when I played as the CSA the British and French fleets got their heads handed to them by massive Union fleets (mostly made up of blockade squadrons) but when I played as the Union, I couldn't stop the English. That is, until I realised that when I damaged a British or French ship, they all made for Norfolk. You would be surprised what a few extra coastal artillery batteries and ironclads in the Fort Monroe area can do to the enemy fleets (especially if they have an artillerist general commanding).

BTW does the BEF ever come over to the US or Canada? It seems that it is stuck in Britain in all the games I ever played as the Union.

[Doomwalker]

Yeah those extra cannons can wreck entire fleets.

I am not sure if the AI will bring the BEF over. When I get the BEF in my CSA games its first stop is Boston, then on to whatever I can take up north. I really get a kick out of watching the Stars and Bars flying over New York city.

[Offworlder]

Either that or hit New York (via Brooklyn) rapidly. That really hinders the North's recruitment efforts.

I also tried landing it in Canada and basically using the army already in Canada to invade the North in the central states, while the BEF invades from the north towards New York. It's really time consuming and the AI mounts a better defence especially if it had been able to raise a few units up north. Still its fun...

[Jabberwock]

Don't forget New Jersey / Eastern PA as a target. Those cities are are all so close together.

[Doomwalker]

Oh yeah, the northeast is yours for the taking when you get the BEF over. Not too sure how that would work out against a human opponent, but it works great against Athena.

[beefcake]

I can personally vouch that the Mexican division the USA gets isn't very powerful. They captured Laredo, TX for me, then got mauled by the French expeditionary force quickly afterwards.

Out of curiousity, how strong is the BEF? I'm playing as the Union against the AI, and I let the foreign intervention trigger. I've got 100K men in Tennessee, 100K men in Virginia, and I'm currently redirecting an additional 40K men to Pittsburgh to dislodge a powerful Reb division that captured the town. But I don't see that the British Expeditionary Force has landed yet. Should I be thinking about pulling Grant's army out of TN to reinforce the Northeast US for a British invasion?

Thanks.

PS--I *love* the unknowns of fog of war, coupled with the European intervention. I've been playing the game non-stop since I got it, and it hasn't gotten old for me yet. But this adds a whole new possibility to the game. LOVE IT.

[Doomwalker]

I'm not sure how much you have up north as far as a garrison goes Beefcake, but if the BEF lands up north it will take a decent amount of troops to dislodge it. I'll try to get a screenie of it next time I unlock it.

[Jabberwock]

I can personally vouch that the Mexican division the USA gets isn't very powerful. They captured Laredo, TX for me, then got mauled by the French expeditionary force quickly afterwards.

Out of curiousity, how strong is the BEF? I'm playing as the Union against the AI, and I let the foreign intervention trigger. I've got 100K men in Tennessee, 100K men in Virginia, and I'm currently redirecting an additional 40K men to Pittsburgh to dislodge a powerful Reb division that captured the town. But I don't see that the British Expeditionary Force has landed yet. Should I be thinking about pulling Grant's army out of TN to reinforce the Northeast US for a British invasion?

Thanks.

PS--I *love* the unknowns of fog of war, coupled with the European intervention. I've been playing the game non-stop since I got it, and it hasn't gotten old for me yet. But this adds a whole new possibility to the game. LOVE IT.

All told the BEF is about 3500 points (100K men). There are about 30K Brits in Canada to worry about, maybe 800 points in the mobile forces.

I've done the same as you, and I haven't seen the AI bring them over. However, I tested back around v1.04, and there have been significant improvements to Athena since then.

If you reduce FOW for her, and increase her activation bonus, she will be more aggressive. Increasing her aggressiveness setting makes her take too many risks IMO.

EDIT: There may be a problem in v1.09 with reducing FOW (increasing AI detect bonus) for Athena. She seems to be locking on distant targets occasionally, and not defending properly. There may, however, be an explanation for this behavior that is completely unrelated to the detect bonus. The problem is discussed in this thread.

[Offworlder]

Well the BEF is normally organised in about 6 or 7 divisions, one of which is cavalry. When playing as the CSA and get the Brits to intervene, I reorganise them in 6 infantry divisions (including one made of several guard formations) and 1 infantry division. Wherever one lands, the AI tends to be slow in reacting to the Brit invasion and most garrisons (even of big cities) would easily fall to a single corps. The biggest problem is really keeping the cities once captured since most of these states are die hard unionists.

The army of Canada is only a couple of division strong and can easily be knocked out by one or two decent sized union corps.

The Mexicans are, unfortunately, a bit undergunned as a faction. If only the locked forces in Chihuaua and those that appear in Laredo and Vera Cruz are unlocked, a decent corps could be formed for an invasion of Texas.

[beefcake]

Thanks for the info everybody.

I won my current campaign in mid-1863 by capturing Richmond, and the BEF never showed up (Foreign Intervention triggered the year before). But I think I will keep playing to see what happens.

In my next game, I will definitely try the adjustments Jabberwork suggested.

Regarding the Mexican army, I noticed that other formations spawned in the game, in Tuscon, AZ and Laredo, TX (after I liberated it again). They were locked in place, but it was nice to see that additional troops did show up. It made me wonder how far north these formations would appear, or if they could only trigger in regions close to Texas/Mexico.

[Offworlder]

Thanks for the info everybody.
Regarding the Mexican army, I noticed that other formations spawned in the game, in Tuscon, AZ and Laredo, TX (after I liberated it again). They were locked in place, but it was nice to see that additional troops did show up. It made me wonder how far north these formations would appear, or if they could only trigger in regions close to Texas/Mexico.

I've never seen other formations spawn other than those mentioned but those that do always remained locked Its would be really nice if those forces and the one in Chihuaha actually unlocked at one point, because one can build 2 or three decent divisions out of them.

[beefcake]

One of the formations, under Ramon Corona, unlocked on his own. He's a 2* general, so I designated him as a corps commander under Diaz's army. But now I've got a joint Mexican/USA army moving into Louisiana from the Houston, TX area.

[Jagger]

In the PBEM mod, I added a very small number of Mexican units to the reinforcement pools which can be purchased by the Union once a year after Mexicans entry into the war.

IIRC, I think it is one infantry brigade, two infantry regiments, one light regiment, one cavalry, one artillery and one supply train. If they survive a year after entering the war, you can add a few units to the mexican army to replace some of your probably high losses.

I also added an upgrade event for Mexican early war to late war infantry. French and English troops do not have upgrade models available. Although they start off pretty strong from the beginning.