Inaugural Challenge FoF AAR

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

INTRODUCTIONs

As stated elsewhere there has been a fair amount of interest in ‘Forge of Freedom’ from both owners & non owners of the game, so what I will try to do here is give both a commentary on the Blitzes ‘Inaugural Game’ as it unfolds, and give a flavour of the game for non owners (this is a shameless attempt on my part to get more folk interested in playing the game )

I will use this post as a test to see if I have the techy stuff right for including screenshots.

Refresh about the game.

In FoF you play either Rebs or Feds, there are 5 scenarios and you are in sole charge of winning the War for your Nation, you will have to get to grips (and it’s a steep learning curve) with all aspects of the War; Military, Economic, Political, & Logistical.

There are 3 Rules levels, Basic, Intermediate & Advanced with a further 15 (including a Tutorial) levels of Difficulty. The solo game has a very sophisticated ‘Detailed battle’ option which can be played with 3D animation or 2D and gives everything we always wanted added to John Tillers BG games plus some, eg Cavalry that can see as it goes, line of sight alters depending on terrain, Infantry can deploy into line from column and from column into line and much much more, sadly it is too complex due to the initiative factors to be played as PBEM.

I will now try adding a screenshot of the suggested Setup I sent to Alasdair (Feds have to set the game up) hopefully it will show non owners the range of options open for setting the game up as you wish to play it.

Just in case it doesn’t come through, we are playing ‘the Coming Fury’ July 1861, me as Rebs Alasdair as Feds, with Advanced rules and at Sgt Major level, this is with the historical economic background (the Coming Fury’ can be played with a non historical balanced economy)



As I have never done one of these Report thingys before, any comments or advise (constructive please :) ) would be helpful, Cheers.

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Reb Turn 1.

Setting up for War.

The 1st job I do as President of the CSA is to sort out the Military units to suit my preferences, when I first started playing FoF I found the container system a bit awkward to get to grips with, so now on my 1st turn I go round my nation and rename and flag up my armed forces, this, while time consuming, I find helps with identification and personalises my Forces.

Here is an overview of the Staring Military Containers setup, Fed Fleets are very faint anchors in the sea zones.



And here a screenshot of the Eastern Theatre.



After I have renamed and flagged up ANV. (an exapmle not form this game)



So as I don’t forget, 2nd job is always the 2 Confederate Blockade runners, these are vital to Rebs as they will bring in sorely needed resources, to start with I never send them out after anything with a danger level over 30%, the longer they are successful the stronger they become, in this case I was quite lucky and had 2 good targets within range, so Carolina Pride was sent after 30 Iron at 80% chance of success/30% chance of damage, Georgia Peach (for the curious, yes she is named for Gram Parsons, unhistorical I know but ... ) was dispatched to hopefully retrieve 40 money at 70%/20%.

Next Braggs Pensacola Div I set to Siege Ft Pickens by encirclement, its 2 Florida brigades are reinforced by Alabama line bgds and Garrison troops from the Mobile river area 2 of which have muskets supplied to them (that uses up the Reb gun stock) and I buy 1 of those the Medical attribute to lessen the risk of serious disease to all units in the Divisional container, arming and attributes have to be done before moving to Pensacola as there are enemy units there and that stops those actions, if all the bgds do actually join Bragg he will have a full Div of 6 bgds (the Reb maximum).

As Reb controlled Ft Henry is in neutral Kentucky space, in order not to antagonise that state I redeploy the Garrison to the Cumberland river area and Disband Ft Henry (which way Kentucky goes, Reb or Fed and when, can have a massive impact on the game).

Movement

Starting in the far West I move Van Dorns newly renamed (as are all containers except Prices ‘Missouri State Guard’) Texas Div (1 line bgd, 1 Garrison bgd from Austin) towards the Railhead at Monroe where it can be deployed either North towards Memphis and filled out with Independent bgds there, or South to New Orleans if an Amphibious landing takes place (a sometimes AI tactic)
In the lower Mississippi river area Twiggs Louisiana division is augmented with 2 Garrison bgds and moves into the city of New Orleans (where practical I put troops into either a City or Fort container as it saves on supply costs) 1 other garrison is sent down river to help man the defences at Ft St Philip

[note, some of these garrisons are from Forts that have more than 1 garrison assigned, some from Forts I intend to Disband and some from Cities deep in the heart of the Confederacy, that said, I rarely leave State capitols un-garrisoned, as capture of State capitals looses the resources of the whole State]

Further up the Mississippi around Memphis and the West, I order Prices Missouri Guard (2 Cav & 2 Inf bgds from Osage to the Ozarks to shield against any incursion by Lyons Div in Black river and to cover the movement of McCullocks Arkansas div (2 Inf bgds, this was formally ‘the Army of the West’, that name has been reassigned to Polks army around Memphis) to make sure McCullock doesn’t enter Ozarks first I move Price there then press the ‘S’ key that means McCullock acts as support for Price moving to Ozark and he will not go in till Price is there, I then move McCullock south to White river where 2 Inf bgds moved up from the Little Rock area will be added to his Arkansas div.

[It’s alright folks I ain’t gonna do this amount of detail for the whole of the Confederate War machine this has just been to give some idea of what goes down.]

Some Tennessee bgds are moved from the Cumberland Gap to reinforce Polks army and Island No 10, leaving 3 bgds in Ft Donelson and 1 bgd in Nashville. From Alabama and the heartlands of the Confederacy spare Ft and City garrisons are shifted North East towards Virginia And North West towards Chattanooga/Knoxville I try to leapfrog the units so as during the course of their movement they move from Ft/City to Ft/City, again to save on supply costs, eg Raleighs grs will move to Petersburg ready to join ANV next turn while Wilmingtons grs moves to Raleigh, and so on back down the line.

In my experience 99% of the time there is a battle in Fredricksburg this is true playing either the AI or Human opposition I think it must be designed into the game with a tiny percentage chance of battle being avoided etc. So with this in mind I will again attempt (probably futile, never done it yet) to reinforce Beauregards ANV, to this end I Force march Johnstons 1st Corps from the Shenandoah Vally to Fredericksburg and move Magruders Peninsular div by Rail from the James river to same

Here is a sceenshot of how I hope ANV will look with reinforcements come the battle.



[note the movements you give your units show as done on the map before you ‘End Turn’ but that in no-way guarantees they will be where you sent them come next turn, for eg bad initiative rolls or weather may delay or stop completely your planned movement ]

To be continued.

As I now have battle files in my inbox (typical, they all come together like London buses!) I will stop here for the moment and do builds etc latter/tomorrow.

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

Reb Turn 1 cont.

On to the Economic & Political stuff, this will mostly be done from the ‘City Detail’ page

Firstly I check out how many bgds I can try to Muster, as an example see the screen shot below for Atlanta, it has 4 population (I never except in dire emergencies recruit [Muster or buy] units if it takes the population below 2 as that impedes production) in the bottom right corner under Military Production I see I would have an 80% [I have had to change the screenshot to resize, it now reads 50% but it was orriginally 80%] chance to muster a bgd there with a -10 for the Governors approval rating (this is important as Govs can damage economic production or diplomacy etc if they disapprove) that’s not so bad, BUT looking top right corner I see Gov Brown opposes Volunteer Musters, so I cannot Muster in Atlanta anyhow, so no Muster there even though the population is willing.



Scrolling through the City details for each city I find 6 cities with a Muster success rate of 70% or over 5 of which the Gov supports Volunteer Musters ( unless desperate I rarely try Mustering at less than 60%) they are Memphis, New Orleans, Norfolk, Petersburg, & Wilmington, so I click their Muster tab to set that in motion.

Next I deal with Impressments (in the same box), here again unless desperate I rarely go for anything with a danger higher than 10%, so in the example of Atlanta there is 30 Iron with an 80% chance of success and a 40% chance of provoking Unrest, so No to that one. Unrest in a province will have severe consequences (and can last several turn), eg production for that province will stop and Military units cannot move through it, into it yes but not through it, there is also a strong risk that the unrest will spread to adjacent provinces, this largely depends on National will or if there is a Church (helps stop unrest but cannot be bought) in the province.

Scrolling through I find 6 cities that have a 10% chance of unrest, 5 I try to Impress in, the 6th, Chattanooga is 20 Labour at 50%/10% I don’t impress there as the success rate is too low (failing to Muster or impress can reduce the chances in that city by 10% next turn, better IMO to wait till National will increases and so improves the success %).

So I try to impress in
Augusta GA 40 labour @ 60/10
Baton Rouge 20 money @70/10
Galveston 40 money @80/10
Nashville 20 money @80/10
Norfolk 10 Iron @70/10

Buying stuff.

During the reorganisation of the Military I have been buying the Medical attribute fairly heavily the reason for this is as mentioned re bgds joining Bragg, to reduce the chance of disease. Disease is a Nightmare, when it strikes and it will, it can in an army, kill thousands of troops and also lowers unit disposition, my aim is to have at least 1 bgd in each div container with the Medical attribute, sometimes you get lucky and one of the ‘Legendary units’ will have it already, by shifting those that do around the divs you can save on expenditure

I also upgraded the defences at Island No 10 near Memphis & Ft St Philip near New Orleans this use of my starting money (I didn’t have to pay anything for the Muskets) has used up nearly all my funds, but I do have the resources left to but a mine so I check out on the ‘City list’ page which city has a foundry (this doubles Iron production) Columbus GA fits the bill so I order a mine built there.
Back on the ‘City Detail’ page (bottom left) I alter the Resource production for next turn by changing some cities money & horse production to labour & iron respectively here is how it panned out;

Money from an expected 148 to 103
Labour “ 28 to 64
Iron “ 31 to 53
Horses “ 131 to 97



And finally on to Diplomacy on the Nation page



As it happens I have no money for Diplomacy this turn, but as all 3 foreign powers are at the moment vaguely supportive of the Rebs (note the national icon on the CSA side) I will use some money for it next turn as the availability, amount and Quality of runner goods is dictated by diplomacy and I need to keep the resources flowing in.

I now end my turn, and then I am given the chance to promote someone to a 3 star General I choose Longstreet as he has Good initiative and I hope to have him in command of 1st Corps as an indedepentant attck force.



Fraid this has been a bit scrappy so far as I have tried to show both how FoF works and what I am doing in our game, this will hopefully move more towards just reporting our game as we progress and I have less explaining of FoF mechanics to do.

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Turn 2

An extract (he can be a Longwinded bastard when he gets the bit between his teeth. Mr Burt, Secretary to the President), from the President’s ‘Address to the Nation’.

“Fellow Citizens! Yesterday near the Railhead at Manassas junction Confederate arms were blessed with Victory and the invading Yankee army was thrown off the sacred soil of Virginia.

[Pause for rapturous applause, Yeeehaws etc. ... go on you can join in :)]

General Beauregard’s Army of Northern Virginia, although outnumbered stood their ground firmly against the advancing Yankee hordes, and then in their turn, advanced on the foe with the utmost vigour to send them at day’s end, scuttling back to Washington, their tails firmly between their legs! ... ... ... "

The screenshots below show the report generated about the Battle, as you can see there is a fair amount of detail for the ‘Numbers freaks’ :) . Through this and other info anyone interested in following the exploits of their Home-state Bgds could do so for the whole war (‘Just a thought’, as a considerable amount of detailed research has gone into this game that might make a good School project for the summer holidays)

Top of Page



And Bottom of Page.



Well I again failed to get any support to ANV, it fought alone before either Johnston or Magruder could get there, as mentioned before Movement is never guaranteed, here’s how it turned out in Fredericksburg at the end of turn 1, and after the battle. It shows that while 1st Corps successfully integrated with ANV, Magruders Peninsular div reached Fredericksburg but didn’t join up with ANV.



And here is more info on the battle from the on-screen Battle tab.



While the victory at Manassas is good, there has been disastrous news for the Rebs, Kentucky has joined the war on the Yankees side (I have never seen Kentucky decide before Dec 1861 before). This is a real bummer for me as I have not as yet had a chance or the resources to create an ‘Army of Tennessee’, something that I do to cover the eventually of Kentucky going sour, this is going to fundamentally alter my immediate plans.

Kentucky in Union hands is a severe problem for Rebs as it borders the strategic (now vulnerable) Cumberland Gap; it also sits on top of the main East West Railway line and of the Industrial Tennessee cities of;
Nashville (2 Foundries, 1 Arsenal & a Hospital)
Chattanooga (2 Mines & a Hospital and Rail Road station)
Knoxville (2 Mines)

I can only hope Alasdair ain’t in a position to take advantage of this development so early in the war.

Kentucky-Tennessee border, Screenshot not from this game.



To be continued.

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Turn 2 continued

At the beginning of each new turn there is an Events page that shows what has happened in the last turn, have had to split it into 3, sieges are always the 1st thing that happens in a turn.







And here is the ‘City Detail’ page for the beginning of turn 2

[/b]

Out of the 6 attempts at Mustering I received 4 new Bgds, Wilmington & Petersburg failed, these Musters as well as flaging up with their State flags, I also give province names to for eg ‘** Bgd Bayou’, a personal quirk maybe but it shows where Bgds originated from and again helps personalize my armies.

Not sure what went down with my impressments but nothing showed on the Events report and they are still showing the same figures so I will try impressing them again this turn.

Both Runners brought home their targeted goods without damage and have been sent out after new cargoes.

This turns money was spent on medical attributes for ANV and increasing Forts defences, I also built 1 RR station in Austin and a Division & Corps containers in Richmond. I will from now on be trying to invest fairly heavily in RRs as I am a firm believer in taking advantage of the Confederacy Interior lines of Communication for defence purposes, and the ability to move large bodies quickly is dependent on RRs, hopefully I will eventually get the ‘Centralised RR’ upgrade which will double all RR movement.

Movement

Out West McCulloch moves to White River to collect the 2 Arkansas Bgds them moves back to Ozarks (it is now strong enough to face Lyons on its own should he push south) Prices MSG would normally be moving West with an eye to linking with Arkansas div and taking Kansas for the Confederacy before slipping over the Lower Mississippi and into the Union far West.

However with Kentucky going Fed I may have to shelve that plan, so instead I compromised and shifted MSG closer to Polk by moving to Crowley ridge, it can quickly turn back later on if I deem it safe to do so; again with the Kentucky development I shift Texas & Louisiana Divs towards Memphis, in Twiggs case I am a bit reassured re New Orleans as on the Replay I noticed the Blockade fleet off Pensacola had moved back towards the Atlantic, it may be going to load troops and return or blockade elsewhere, will have to keep an eye on Fed naval movements.

While Island No 10 has had its defences strengthened it is still without heavy guns, so Polks Army stays put, no doubt sampling the flesh pots of downtown Memphis while it waits. The reinforcements from Cumberland Gap I continue to add to Polks Army rather than move back.

(Apparently Alasdairs Intelligence reports the Troop concentration around Memphis now shows at c200,000 I quickly tried reassuring him that that was merely the Ladies gearing up for battle :whis:)

Garrison troops from the Heartlands continue to move NE & NW, and some have already joined up with ANV.

In Virginia I add 7th Virginia div to 1st Corps and detach that from ANV moving it to Shenandoah to protect the Railway, it is also in a position to move south to protect Knoxville or hopefully to do some mischief further north, while at the same time keeping in touch with ANV, only time will tell.

Lorings Franklin div newly reinforced from Knoxville will join 1st Corps in Shenandoah; this is in some ways a faint, as are most of my moves for the first few turns to see how Feds respond without them ever really knowing where or even if I intend to strike.

From experience I have found that with movement of units being somewhat unpredictable, at least in the early months, it is often better to move containers to where troops are, load up then move back or elsewhere depending on aims. With that in mind I move both ANV & Magruders Peninsula div to Petersburg where Peninsular div finally joins ANV, as does Hugers Norfolk div and the Southern Garrison troops that have been doing the Tourist bit in Lynchburg & Petersburg. Also joining ANV are Garrison troops from the Richmond and the James River area + Bobbie Lee who is now available, ANV then moves back to Fredericksburg to guard our Northern Frontier.

There were no battles at the end of turn 2, I know this as if battles take place the screen goes black and there are vague Boom, Boom noises in the background, so now I wait to see what Alasdair is doing in turn 3, ie with the Kentucky situation I have to await developments rather than dictate them, hopefully that won’t last long.

I am hoping that next turn I will be able to give some details re my overall strategy etc, but for the moment that’s enough.

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Apologies folks, the picture size is messing up the layout on this.
After the test run (Introduction) I found the size to fit so no scrolling involved. I set the pictures in Photobox @ 800 x 600 for 15” screen which works fine, but some of them seem to have grown since, after resizing I replaced the original and then post that here.

? what am I doing wrong?

I will go back today and try resizing the screenshots again and then edit them out and replace in the thread. But I tried that late last night, replacing the link code etc (turn 1 City Detail Atlanta) but the picture is still showing 1024 x 768 in its Properties :hissy:.

In the meantime, anybody any ideas?

All the Best
Peter

[Steel God]

I would say don't obsess too much over picture size, I'm enjoying this so much I'd rather scroll a bit than wait for you to figure it all out and have it pretty. ;)

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Ta for the kind words, it just bugs the hell out of me, having been quite certain re picture size etc. then have it go all wonky!

Turn 3 has just been finished so hopefully I will have something up later tonight (got BG battles files to do) wrong picture size not withstanding :)

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Turn 3

I have previously made mention of disease, well here is what can happen; this is from another game, same state as this one. ANV has just won a small battle (Manassas) in Fredericksburg with 1750 casualties, then disease struck, c3250 dead and in spite of the victory ANV is now on Low disposition.



As said, a lot of research has gone into this game to make it historically accurate, and disease was I think, the biggest killer of all.

Well for the 2nd turn running (not bad going on turn 3!) disaster has struck the Rebs, the impressments at Norfolk & Baton Rouge have provoked ‘Unrest’; 5 turns worth at Norfolk & 3 at Baton Rouge, there, it has spread to New Orleans for another 3 turns of unrest, so both cities with only a 10% chance of unrest did so, ironically I received the resources 20 money & 10 Iron respectively.

How this impacts the game; in the case of Baton Rouge as it is a state capital I will receive no resources from Louisiana till the turn after it ends.

Here is a screenshot of Norfolk’s 'City Details'.



As you can see the Money, Labour, Iron & Horses fields are blank, but also Norfolk is one of only 2 Reb cities with shipyards (you guessed it New Orleans is the other!) so if my Runners are damaged running them into Norfolk will not see them starting to repair till after the unrest is over. Norfolk also has an Engineering school, & an Academy for training Military groups (Divs, Corps, Armies), so again no benefit will accrue, finally and as I don’t have the resources at present academic, Norfolk has 3 foundries each add +2 to artillery builds, so there would be no point in starting a build till the unrest is over.

Each turn there is unrest there is a risk of it spreading so in both cases it must be dealt with, I am therefore diverting Twiggs Louisiana Div to Baton Rouge (New Orleans has churches which help quell/prevent Unrest so hopefully that will soon die down there, without the churches New Orleans may have had even long unrest).

For Norfolk the Newly commissioned James River Div has been given 1 Bgd from ANV in Petersburg & 1 from Drewrys Bluff and placed under the Command of R E Lee with orders to move to Norfolk, I now keep my fingers crossed that both officers carry the clout to reduce Unrest.

Why Lee got the job in Norfolk



At the bottom of the page are details re Beauregards abilities, at the moment he has far better stats overall than ‘Massa Bob’ so he is staying in command of ANV, Lees stats came out at; Initiative Fair, Leadership ??, Tactics Fair, Command Excellent. I like my commanders to have high Initiative where possible as later there will be times when I wish to avoid battle and a high Initiative helps.

As you may have gather from above ANV didn’t rush to Fredericksburg to defend the Northern frontier, Reb movement has been plagued with misunderstood orders and bad weather so ANV will this turn move North without the newly formed 11th Div, (not at all what I wished as the reason for another div was to take up some of the independent bgds in the army.

Bgds in a div commanded by a 2 star Gen have the chance of picking up some of his abilities eg Dreaded, Oblique fire or Fast (this will be show on the Events report at turns end, and the ability icon added to the bgd )

By way of an eg, here is the ‘Stonewall bgd’ from another games 1st turn.



The Stonewall bgd is a Reb legendary unit and these often come with weapons, abilities and/or attributes, in this eg they have Richmond muskets and have the Heroes (Blue star) & Disciplined abilities (these are what 2 star Gens and above can pass on) + the Pioneers & Brigade Artillery attributes (Sgt stripes +, these are normally purchased, as I have done for the Medical attribute mentioned for disease etc.). The 5 Sgt stripes in the units box indicates that this bgds Moral is at 5 ie Experienced.

In the West, McCulloch has again failed to meet up with the 2 independent Arkansas bgds (remember provinces can cover a pretty large area of land) so he is staying put in the Ozarks while I move his reinforcements to him! Van Dorns Texas div is moving up the Mississippi river towards Memphis (using the river provinces to move can often save time as for eg 2 river provinces may be adjacent to several land provinces), while I have crossed Prices MSG over the Mississippi to Hatchi with the idea of maybe moving him to the Cumberland Gap.



The above screenshot also shows the newly purchased 24-pd Coehorn Mortar I bought for Island No 10, it is the best available to me at present, I will upgrade as soon as I am able to. The defensive attribute for Island No 10 are Breastworks (the castle icon) which lessen siege damage by 25% and Abatis whereby besieging Inf do 25% less damage, I could have chosen instead to have for eg Rifle pits which would have given my Inf 25% better chance of killing Yanks, but at the moment most of the garrison don’t have either Muskets or Rifles so I went for lessening the chance of damage to Island No 10.

Mmmm, a lot of detail in the last few paraghraphs (don’t want to bore folk rigid) so lets move on to builds etc. but 1st just to finish off my movements, 1st Corps now under the command of Longstreet I’m leaving as is in Shenandoah as I think there may be some Fed movement that way soon.

My runners Carolina Pride and Georgia Peach I have sent after 50 weapons @ 70/30 & 10 Horses @ 80/30, there were more profitable cargoes than the 10 horses but with 40+ risk, next turn I may start going for 40% risk targets as both Runners have had some successes.

Overall with the Kentucky thing and now the Unrest I have been knocked a bit out of phase for what I would have liked to do, ie go cause mischief, IMO the South cannot afford to just sit on the defensive it must do damage while it has the advantage in troop/commander quality, this won’t last (the game is programed for it not too) and the longer the war goes on the smaller the gap between the armies etc.

Builds

Apart from the guns for Island No 10 already mentioned, this turn I purchased the Medical attribute for one of the bgds in Twiggs div and the same for a bgd joining 11th div James River. Another RR station was ordered built in Montgomery Alabama this will take 6 turns to build, another Mine (6 turns) was started, again in Columbus GA.

With an eye towards the perpetual problem of supply for the boys at the front I started a Logistics Laboratory (6 turns) at Milledgeville GA to take advantage of the +1 it’s University provides to 'Upgrade Developments', that however meant all Mill’villes build slots were used up (4/4) so I also started a Plantation (12 turns) there, when complete it will give me another 4 build slots + adding 1 money 2 labour & 2 horses to Mill’villes resource production.

The University cities of Mill’ville, Raleigh & New Orleans are where I concentrate my Upgrade establishments due to the +1, I will if I can later add schools there as that gives another +1, but that is a long way in the future. To round off builds I am trying for another Muster in New Orleans it still has enough population and at 80% with the Gov in favour of Volunteer Musters it would be rude not too.

So as viewers can do the tourist thing in the comfort of their own homes I will use a different Confederate city each time I show an end of turn ‘City Detail’ (state of my economy at turns end etc.), this turns star, and please Folks, give it a very warm Blitz welcome, is ... Richmond! :)



Nuff for now

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

Aaaaghhhh!!! it's happened again, next doors cats are gonna suffer tomorrow.

I religiously made certain every screenshot while in Photobucket was 800 x 600, I replaced the original etc etc, now all but one are showing here at 1028 x 700; buggered if I know what to do about it, sorry.

All the Best
Peter