Gen’l,
One of the most important things the player will be doing, is army management: from recruiting troops to appointing commanders to lead them, and to organizing the troops into units and effective armies. Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) also allows a number of ways for the player to customize the units he commands.
Volunteers Needed!
War! War! War! The beginning of the Civil War saw both sides mustering volunteers to fight for their cause. When the war was said to last ninety days tops, there was no lack of men willing to join the ranks. The initial recruitment system was not designed for a long war. As the war dragged on and number of casualties kept rising, the fervor died with the brave volunteer soldiers. Soon both sides would struggle to fill their ranks.
During the campaign of Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865), player will need to manage the armies carefully to keep on fighting. Here, support and morale play a key role. Each state is tracked for support for both sides of the war, and the morale of the population. With high morale, or war fervor, you will find volunteers to fight for the side they support, especially if the contract time is short. Some states will end up supplying troops for both sides. But as the war drags on and list of casualties within the state grows longer, the willingness to join up will diminish. While volunteers could be difficult to lead at times, especially when the end of the contract period is near, drafting could cause opposition among the public and increased rate in desertion.
This means, population is the key. And there are ways to influence the population, from policies to economy and to immigration, to having armies foraging up all the food in the countryside or even raiding and burning the crops to deny support for the other side. With mismanagement of the population, you could end up with no-one left willing to join the ranks, and many of the service men reported being away without leave.
Getting Organized.
In addition to recruiting new units, infantry, cavalry and artillery, player has the tools to manage the organization of the armies. Single brigades can be formed into divisions and corps, and placed under armies, or garrisoned in fortifications. This is done in the army management view (as seen in the image above), by dragging and dropping units inside the order of battle. While changes within an army will happen fast, transferring unit to another theater will take time.
Whenever a new unit is created, player has the ability to appoint the commander he wishes. Managing the commanders is important, and here too player has some options. There are three types of commanders available: professional soldiers (mostly Westpointers), volunteers and high ranking political figures, and each type has its own characteristics. The professionals are trained for warfare, and come with a special experience in one of the four main “branches” in the U.S. military of the time: infantry, cavalry, artillery or engineer. Even though most are captains, as the U.S. army is merely 16,000 men prior to the Civil War, they can be trusted with command responsibility wherever needed. The volunteers are from the recruiting state, and usually have no experience of military matters. They too can rise in rank, but require combat experience. A political strongman, assigned in high command within your army, could bring in the support of his state, but could also create personal issues within the leadership, and be hard to get rid of without a political backlash.
In commander management, the personalities matter, as will seniority and fame, and political influence. Not always you can put the best man in command of the largest armies. And in case of defeat, even the best commander could lose the trust of his men and the population, and needs to be replaced to avoid a drop in support.
Unit Customization.
When recruiting, player has the first opportunity to customize the new unit (though this is not necessary, if the player does not want to). The color of the uniform can be changed for the unit to stand out, or the main weapon changed. In case of weapons, most important weapon types of the Civil War will be available, but being able to use them requires money, industry, or import. A mix of obsolete weapons like flintlock muskets for infantry or shotguns for troopers will always be available, and the more standardized weapon types will cost a lot less money and time to produce in numbers. So, while equipping all of your army with repeating rifles or breech-loaders could sound tempting, it won’t be possible for your armories to produce the more complex weapon types fast enough in required numbers.
When the volunteer (or forced via conscription) greenhorns are formed into brigades and ordered to join an army, they are not much of soldiers. Drilling them will do some good, but only with combat experience, “seeing the elephant”, will they become an effective fighting force, especially if well led by a competent officer.
When a unit gains experience and stands out from the rest, it’s possible that they get specialized training (a ka an attribute, a perk), that makes them more effective in certain way of fighting, or allows them to carry out feats others cannot. The unit could become known for its fearsome charge (“Texans always move them!”) or sheer discipline (“They must be made of iron!”), or it could have specially trained sharpshooters for effective long range engagements, or engineers to build pontoon bridges. The number of these perks will be limited, making the specialized units really stand out. With enough experience, or a heroic feat in a battle, they will get better in their trait, and even become an elite unit, in which case player can rename the unit (yes, it does make a difference whether a unit is called “1st Brigade” or “Iron Brigade”, doesn’t it?) and give them a unique flag they will carry proudly in battle. Armies and fleets can also receive custom attributes to make them more effective: a balloon corps would help in intelligence gathering while rigorous forced marches could earn fame as a “foot cavalry”. To mention a few…
The unit customization options are historical, and hopefully will make you care more about your units and the fate of the men serving in them. They will not make super-soldiers out of your troops, but the public will love great stories about the famous units, and in a desperate fight, the arrival of an elite unit could rally wavering men to stand their ground instead of turning and running.
Most Respy,
Gen’l. Ilja Varha
Chief Designer, &c.
Comments
Shannon Crapps #
The anticipation is killing me. I cannot wait for release.
Jeb Smith #
I hope this works out as well as it sounds.
joseph colao #
Thanks again for the updates I like the level of detail.
James Michael Smith #
I can’t wait for the next update.
Bugwar #
So because the Yankees had three times the population of the boys in gray, they potentially will have three times the number of troops?
iv (Author) #
Potentially yes, but it’s not as simple as that. Support, number of needed workforce in industries etc. also play a role. So it could be that the potential is there, but will need some policies in place to fully utilize it… Like conscription. But drafting will not make citizen happy.
B.C. Milligan #
I might politely suggest that, as far as I know, during the Civil War, new recruits were not commonly referred to as “greenhorns,” but instead were called “fresh fish.”
As a longtime Civil War enthusiast and living historian, I am very much looking forward to this game!
Noah #
Hi, I recently bought the game and am loving it. I just had a question about army management. When I was creating a new army and several corps they were all separate on the campaign map but they are in the same army in the management tab. I was just wondering if there is a way to merge them to make it possible to move them together.
iv (Author) #
Noah,
The army management is designed so that armies and corps are moved on the map separately. There is no way, currently, to merge them to move as one.
John Bagby #
When in campaign mode how do I combine corps into my army. Say for instance I wanted Jackson’s Division to not act separately but be included directly under Lees command..therefore the single Lee army icon on the campaign map would now represent a larger force?
Alexander J Reindl #
How Do I form new Corps in my armies? It seems like all I can make are new divisions. In the ARmy of the Potomac for example, in the Spring 1862 start, McClellan has 5 corps under his command that all behave like individual armies. How can I make this happen in the Western Theater?
iv (Author) #
Alexander,
The early armies in the west are effectively corps. Create a new army and place it in the west. Then you can add corps under it: for example in 1862 you can make an army and add+rename armies of the tennessee, mississippi, ohio as a corps under it.
Timothy #
I’d like to make a suggestion there should be an option to delete an entire army instead of just units
Alex #
HI. Very nice
Crono900 #
First off, Wonderful Game.
Second, I’ve been heavily experimenting with the military’s table of organizations screen, and I’ve noticed that once someone is promoted they can’t be reassigned to a lower rank. Example being, a Colonel can’t be assigned to an artillery battalion like it was irl, Captain was in charge of a battery (4-6 guns). Also if you look at Fort Pickens Garrison at the start of the game you see that Israel Vogdes should be a Cpt, but is instead a BG. I think he should keep his rank of Cpt in the BG position, and be promoted up to BG over time and battles. It would give people a chance to reassign him so he can rebuild his reputation and skill. He isn’t the only one in this situation.
Like I said Wonderful Game. Can hardly wait to see and play the finished product. It’s by for the most immersive civil war game I’ve seen since Sid Meyers Gettysburg.
iv (Author) #
Hi Crono,
In the game you can assign lt. to lt.col. in command of artillery battalions. In most cases artillery bn or bde commanders were captains-majors.
Regarding Vogdes and other fort garrison commanders, there was a bug where they were automatically promoted to brigadiers, when loading a saved game. This should be fixed already (next public patch).
Todd #
I would like to say that I am really liking the game overall. Good job!
I am wondering about state support, however. Currently, as the confederacy, I have 9% support in Virginia, 13% support in Maryland, about 43% support in Kentucky and all the other southern states are above 90%. This makes my troops from Virginia and Maryland immediately rout at battles. Why are those two so low when all the rest are high? Is it a glitch in the pre-release? How do I raise the support to a more realistic level?
I have won 23 battles to the Union’s 5. I’ve won every major battle. I currently occupy Washington, DC, and have another army in Frederick, MD. Therefore, I have no armies in Virginia because none are needed (no Union around). Does the AI think that I have abandoned Virginia (thereby causing no support) because I don’t have any army there? I don’t have any army in many other southern states either, but their support is not at 9%.
Appreciate any help. Overall, keep up the great work.
iv (Author) #
Todd,
Such low support can be due to one of the following reasons:
-You have drafted units from these states -> drafting has a major support hit
-The enemy has captured cities in these states and held them for a long time (in this case, Virginia?)
Smaller support hits can come from:
-raiding
-casualties among troops from this state
-support higher than national morale -> support starts to move toward morale
To increase support you can appoint political officers from that state or with certain policies/acts (see the tooltips). To reduce support loss you can use security subsidies (support hits are lower than normally).
But as the support is already that low (9, 13%) there is not much you can do at this point.
Hope this helps!
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