Inaugural Challenge FoF AAR

[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