Tutorial

[Revolutionarythought]

Greetings,

I have been, for many years, a huge fan of war games in general and games involving the American Civil War in particular.

I heard about this game from someone I play eve with, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

After downloading the demo (I can't pass up a try before you buy) and trying out the tutorial I'm a bit confused.

It doesn't appear to me that the tutorial was written by a native speaker of English. The English isn't bad, but I've also noticed the text spills over the tutorial UI and is totally unreadable at some points.

When you couple these two facts with the complexity of the game I'm a bit confused (as I've said).

I've made it as far as ending the first turn, and I've been asked to merge a number of units. I've merged some of them, as asked, but the end result is not (from what I gather) what I'm told the end result should be.

Specifically, I ended up with 4 corps instead of 3, and only one of those is attached to general Grant's army (the tutorial suggests two of them should be).

That's all besides the point, I was wondering if anyone has a link to a player created walk through of this tutorial, or perhaps a player created tutorial? Or just some tips for the tutorial in place?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,

-S

[Groove74]

I too am in you same situation. But What I have been told is that the in game tutorial is out of date because of the latest updates, there fore I have been trying to learn the game on the fly whisch by no means easy.

But the good part is the game is real detailed and fun yet frustrating. but the fourms are chalked full of good information and lot of helpfull experenced players and the dev's are active on the boards as well.

As far as the mergeing of armys and the basics of the game I am still learning. but I would say after playing many differet game about the civil war this has to be one of the better one, if you have the patience to get through the massive learning curve. I is defintly one that will take a long time to understand.

[arsan]

Hi!

The text spill over is probably a problem with your windows fonts setting.
The game needs the standard 96 dpi fonts.
You can check your DPI setting and change it by doing a right mouse click on your desktop, selecting "properties", then the "configuration" tab and clicking on "advanced options".

About the strange English wording on the tutorial text… i'm not a native English speaker so i will have to take your word on that matter...

The tutorials may be a little outdated (many improvements are added with each patch) but i think it should be VERY USEFUL to get the basic of the interface and game concepts.
The interface it’s mostly a simple drag and drop one, but with many subtleties that can take a little to get.
But after all falls into place is a most excellent interface.

By the way, on the demo you also have the tutorial on pdf. It can help you to check it.

Cheers!

[Primasprit]

Hi Revolutionarythought!

The tutorial was updated for the game version 1.08 so in theory it should work as intended. But you are right, it is a bit confusing sometimes.
If you have questions concerning specific parts of the tutorial please ask. This will help you to avoid frustration and Ageod to improve the tutorials.

Cheers
Norbert

[Revolutionarythought]

Don't get me wrong, the English is actually quite good. Its just that parts of the tutorial are sometimes strangely phrased, and sometimes suggest a meaning other than the one I believe the tutorial wants to suggest.

That and the game is complicated, so I'm really struggling at times figuring out what to do.

Basically, I have gotten to the point where you move all the units to a specific region (I don't recall the region atm) and you are told to combine a number of corps.

Here is where things get fuzzy for me. I'm told to combine the corps of Critterdon and somebody else. When I do this, the other general takes command leaving Critterdon just floating in the stack. He's got no troops (that I can see) under him.

I find myself wondering, should I place him charge of a division? When I tried to do this, after enabling division command on him, the game doesn't let me combine him with a division.

Also, the tutorial suggests that this new combined "corp" should be under the army of the Tennessee. Its not, its still under the Army of the Ohio.

Also, I'd like to point out that combining these two crops (as suggest by the tutorial) results in a stack of units with a 10% or 20% command penalty.

I am then told to combine troops from Nashville with general Sherman's corp. I do this and this seems to be fine.

In the end I am supposed to have, according to the tutorial, 3 corps total. 2 large corps under the army of the Tennessee and 1 smaller corp under the army of the Ohio.

What I've ended up with is 4 corps. One smallish one under Sherman in the army of the Tennessee and 3 others under the army of the Ohio.

Clearly I am doing something wrong here.

Do you guys have any suggestions?


-Scott

[chainsaw]

A great introduction that may answer many of your questions is here:
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=6823

The "AACW 101" thread by Runyan99

Don't tie yourself into knots because it does get easier once you read through some of this stuff. Couple quick tips that might help:

1. Plan some "Senior Field Trips" - sometimes the more senior generals have to be sent on a long field trip to allow less senior, but better, generals to take command (you mentioned the problem with other general taking command when you combined a stack - now your problem is solved!). Point is just don't keep them in the same region or same stack with your good units - put them in a backwater somewhere, or command a small garrison in a city behind the main lines;

2. Cavalry + river steamboats = fun fun fun! Use a good cav leader with 2 cav units and you can raid deep into enemy territory. Rivers can be blocked by manned forts, enemy ships, or land stacks that are deeply entrenched with artillery so you have to avoid those blocking points. But think of the river syatems as the autobahns/freeways that allow you to strike deep into enemy territory. You can capture small amounts of supplies that will keep your guys well fed, but don't get into a major fight (use the "evade combat" stance);

3. In reverse #2 = pain in the arse! So look to protect your own rivers and block raiders with small flotillas on combat mode, forts with artillery and always have a reaction force ready to go after the bad guys when they show up. [I'm paying a game now where it's late 1862 and I'm still chasing raiders around in parts of southern Iowa and northern Missouri because I did not pay attention in the west - bastards have taken Omaha, and even tried to go after Denver...the AI is getting smart about making me waste time and resources chasing them down)

3. Leadership is crucial - learn the importance of the 3 ratings and use the good leaders to your advantage (e.g., General Dix is great on defense so use him to command Washington or some critical garrison like Ft. Monroe)

4. As the US don't industrialize - early on I made the mistake of industrializing (building new factories to create war supply, ammo, food, etc), and did not understand that you pay the costs of industrializing EVERY TURN...so don't do it unless you have scads of money and you want to bring jobs to your consituents in West Virginia or something.

5. Build rails and river transport - moving supplies to the front is important, plus you always need to move those artillery units by train or river cuz they take too damn long to walk on their own!

6. Lastly, & most important: think offensively, but fight defensively. Read Arslans' thread and he will explain it in detail. Bottom line is to move your armies to take key positions, then hold them and make the enemy attack you when you are rested and dug in. Attacking with a 2 to 1 odds in manpower is crap if you are disorganized and he is entrenched. Think Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, 3rd day at Gettysburg...and use it.

Good luck!