Inaugural FoF AAR - Union side

[cillmhor]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for moving the thread, and for your interest. Yes, the double attribute. Sorry, I'm learning a lot myself as I go along in this one, and so everything is so new to me, I forget how new it will be to most other folks too.

In the game there are options to train up individual brigades with a certain skill/attribute for a certain set of resources, whether that is money/iron/labour/horses or a combination of some or all of those. I'm not sure how many possible attributes there are, or if some require further building of research facillites or accumlation of research bonuses (depending on what type of buildings you have and the number across the states gives you research points in various categories such as naval/training/weapons etc which in turn give you bonuses).

But there are various attributes available to me at the moment such as Sharpshooters (improves fighting ability of troops and gives you a better chance of wounding/killing enemy general), Zouaves (improves initiative chances when fighting) and so on. You can also give a unit a cavalry attribute, which has some bonuses. If you choose to train an infantry brigade twice in the cavalry attribute or twice in artillery, they turn into a brigade of that type but drop down an XP/quality rating. This is a much cheaper and quicker way of generating cavalry or artillery units than producing them. So hence my strategy to go with some double attribute brigades to give me some low quality cavalry and perhaps some low quality cavalry.

I'l try to explain some other things as I go along, but as I said I'm a bit overwhelmed myself by all the detail, and as can be seen am not familiar with all the intricacies of the game. The game seems to me to have a good feel, lots of options on how to spend your resources and on how to research, depending on your strategy. Other than the blockade and two small well-armed armies, I haven't thought too far ahead. Hopefully if I can get to winter without any disasters, I can plan with a little more thought. Movement in winter is very difficult and so as a result is campaigning. Though again troop and general attribtes can help this. You cannot train general attributes I don't think, but perhaps experience in battles can give you extra ones? Also some general attributes are hidden and are only slowly revealed, so you don't always know how good your generals are until they have tasted battle!

Cheers

Alasdair