AACW strategy guide
From AACWWiki
The concepts
Concept #1 - The Tactical Defense is Really Strong
You may not know much about the American Civil War, but you have probably heard of Pickett's Charge, where the rebels advanced across a wide field against the Union soldiers on Cemetery Ridge who were massed behind a stone wall. You may have heard of the battle of Fredericksburg, and the Confederate defense of Marye's Heights, where the Confederates were defending behind a stone wall, and were able to shoot down wave after wave of Union soldiers who tried to advance against their position. You may even have heard of the battle of Cold Harbor in 1864, where Union soldiers tried to make a frontal assault against an entrenched position and took about 7000 casualties in only a few minutes.
Indeed, the overarching lesson of the Civil War is that the defenders had the advantage in most battles. Any time you are lining up hundreds of guys in close order, and telling them to march at an enemy armed with accurate rifles and cannons charged with double canister, you are going to lose a lot of guys marching at the enemy. I know I would rather be behind that wall at Marye's Heights, rather than trying to march up to it while guys shot at me.
AACW does a pretty good job of modeling the supremacy of the defensive in this kind of combat. Defensive fire is stronger than offensive fire, and units that are entrenched are able to dish out heavy casualties on an attacking force.
With this in mind, the best player tries to fight defensive battles in AACW, not offensive battles. The skillful player does not send his digital soldiers to advance up a hill at an entrenched position. The acme of skill is to take up a defensive position that the enemy must attack, and then fight the battle on your ground. You will maneuver armies whenever possible to achieve this result, and you will avoid attacking entrenched positions whenever possible, preferring instead to move around or avoid such strong points.
This is the first and most important concept to keep in mind while playing, and several other concepts will derive from this primary idea, which I will flesh out in later topics.
Concept #2 - Attack With a Superiority of Force
This will be the first idea that grows out of concept #1, that The Tactical Defense is Really Strong. It is a known maxim among military people and wargamers that an attacker is supposed to have a 3-1 ratio of attackers to defenders in order to conduct a successful attack on a position. Even so, I regularly see players ignore this basic idea, and attack a brigade with a brigade, a division with a division, often with terrible results. In some cases, players will actually attack with a great inferiority, sending two cavalry regiments at three entrenched infantry brigades, or a single division against an enemy corps. These attacks are foolish, and must be avoided.
Consider that AACW is really not a game about battles. You don't control the battles. Your generals fight them for you. You cannot send an equal force at your opponent, and somehow move your joystick faster than he does and outfight him with superior skill. No, the battles are out of your hands. Instead AACW is a game of planning and execution, which is fine, because most battles are won by the movements of the armies before a shot is ever fired.
The key of the game is to get there the firstest with the mostest, to paraphrase Bedford Forrest. That's how you win battles. You make the movements which will give your forces local superiority at the point of contact. You put your generals in position to win.
So, attack a regiment with a brigade, a brigade with a division, and a division with a corps. This is especially true if your opponent is entrenched, in which case you should try to bring as much force as possible, and you should expect some casualties.
Don't make an attack with equal or lesser force, unless you have special reasons to believe the defenders are understrength, very low on cohesion points, or perhaps if you have a very good leader and they have no leader or a very poor leader. All things being equal, the defender will always win an even battle, for the reasons stated in topic #1.
Concept #3 - The Division
As I said, AACW is a game of planning, organization and execution, and part of that organization is raising troops and forming them into effective fighting formations.
The key to making effective armies is first to create proper divisions. Divisions are important, because they incorporate 4 brigades or more into a single fighting unit, which cost fewer command points as a division than they would as separate brigades in the same stack.
Consider a stack of units with 4 brigades and a one star leader. Each brigade requires, for example, 2 Command Points, so our stack requires a total of 8 command points. With only one leader, this stack will fight at a 30% penalty, because our leader will only be able to provide 2 command points. We are short 6 command points in this stack.
Since we pointed out last topic that AACW is a game about putting your generals in the best situations to win battles and succeed, we obviously want to avoid going into battles with big command penalties.
The most efficient way to cut down on command point penalties is to form all the brigades into a single division. Every division costs just 4 command points. If we merge our 4 brigades from the example above into one division, we cut down the command point requirement for the stack from 8 to 4, and the combat penalty for the stack going into combat will be cut down from 30% to 10%. This is clearly much better.
So, what does a division look like? Most of the best players will agree that the ideal division looks like what you see in the image to the right:
Here we have a full strength blue division. It consists of:
- 1 Leader
- 11 Infantry regiments
- 1 Sharpshooter regiment
- 1 Cavalry regiment
- 4 Artillery batteries
The total is the maximum of 18 elements allowed. You can substitute other specialty regiments such as sailors, marines, etc instead of the regular infantry regiments in some cases. You could use a few more cavalry regiments if you are so inclined.
Pocus has stated that the frontage rules do not allow for more than 4 artillery units to fire in combat at a time, so using more than 4 artillery batteries is not advantageous, and an all artillery division will not fight well.
You can also use cavalry regiments and horse artillery to form cavalry regiments if you wish. Using regular or light artillery may (or may not) slow down the movement of a cavalry division.
Keep in mind in all cases that the purpose of the division is to cut down on command point requirements. You should only contemplate forming a division for stacks with more than 4 command points. If a stack only requires 2, 3 or 4 command points, you are better off leaving it as a stack of individual brigades/regiments.
Keep in mind also that a few large divisions make more efficient use of command points than forming several small divisions. Don't try to form little divisions with all of your leaders. Pick your best leaders, and them form divisions as large as possible around them.
Concept #4 - The Corps
So now having introduced the division, a few words about its parent formation, the corps. I mentioned that reducing or eliminating command point penalties was one requisite for success, and the best way to eliminate all command point penalties is to form corps.
A corps moves as a single body, and puts 18 command points or more into a single powerful stack. With so many command points, you can pack 4 full divisions or more into a single corps. If the stack contains a second in command leader with a high strategic rating, or a signal unit, you can get even more command points, allowing you to put maybe 5 divisions into a single stack with no combat penalties. This is how you build large armies.
Find your two star generals. They are very special people because they are the generals who form corps! Use them in this role. Don't use them as division commanders. That is a waste of their talent. Form a corps with them. Use one star leaders to build divisions around, and put them under the leadership of the corps commander. Your units will get combat bonuses for both the attack/defense ratings of the division commander and the corps commander.
Tip: If you are short on one star leaders, but have a few corps commanders around, you can in some cases form a 'loose corps' that consists of independent brigades. With 18 command points, you can still pack a lot of brigades into the formation with no penalty. (By the way, I think the Confederate 'corps' of Hardee and Bragg at Shiloh were organized like this.) Later, you can reform the brigades into divisions.
Corps are also very powerful in AACW because they are mutually supporting, and allow you to 'march to the sound of the guns'. This feature allows you to spread out over multiple regions and hold territory, knowing that the corps will fight together if attacked. Indeed, a chain of adjacent corps can form a very strong defense for the Confederate player.
Concept #5 - Stacks, Leaders, and the Second in Command
So, I've talked a bit about divisions and corps. They are important, but sometimes you don't have an army leader present, such as say in the Trans-Mississippi, or do not have a two star leader to form a proper corps.
There is a lot that can be done just with leaders forming individual stacks. Each one star leader provides two command points. Each two star leader provides four command points. This is pretty powerful.
One key thing to remember when stacking leaders is that generally, only the stats of the most senior leader count in combat. He is the senior guy, and he is in command. All the other leaders just provide extra command points for the stack. In some cases their traits will apply, but bad traits generally will not as long as the leader in question is not the senior leader in the stack.
Got 2 one star leaders? Use one to form a division. Alone he fights with a 10% penalty (4 CP needed, 2 CP provided). Give him a 'second in command', another one star leader who is lower in seniority, and you have a 4CP stack which is independent and fights at no penalty.
Got 4 one star leaders? Use the above method twice, and you have an ad hoc 'corps' of two divisions.
Playing as the Confederates and don't have enough divisions allowed to form cavalry divisions for Stuart and Forrest? Form big stacks of cavalry brigades and leaders until you have the equivalent of divisions.
McClellan destroying initiative of your Union corps commanders? Form an independent stack. Use a two star leader in command of two divisions. If each division has a one star leader attached, you have an independent 'corps' of 8 command points which will not be penalized by McClellan and will fight as well as the two star leader you assigned to it.
In short, if you have enough leaders, you can form independent 'divisions' and 'corps' that will fight at no penalty and can accomplish quite a lot. The only disadvantage is that unlike official corps, you won't be able to max out the leaders' command point potential (18 CP stack), and the 'corps' so formed will not 'march to the guns' and be mutually supporting of corps in adjacent regions.
Concept #6 - Jockey for Position
This is really important, and I hesitate to spell it out because I am really giving away my book here, but it is critical to Jockey for Position.
This is a natural outgrowth of the a few concepts already mentioned, in particular that The Tactical Defense is Really Strong and that corps are mutually supporting. Given those facts, it is critical to deny ground to your opponent by holding it. The Union player must jockey for maneuver room, because if the Confederates are allowed to hold key locations and entrench them, then they can form a powerful line of defense that will be very difficult to break. The Confederate player wants to hold locations to restrict Union movement, and build an entrenched line. Too many novice players don't see the value of position, and allow their opponents to form powerful defensive positions which they cannot later break without devastating casualties.
The AACW map is like a chessboard, in that having pieces in certain locations is very powerful. Let's take the region from Chattanooga to Atlanta, to use Sherman's 1864 campaign as an example.
Let's say the Union armies are around Chattanooga, and they want to advance on Atlanta. There are three more or less direct advance routes, as illustrated by the red, blue and yellow arrows on the map below.
Obviously, the Confederate player will want to block that movement. With just one army stack and two corps, the Confederate player could form a mutually supporting line of defense three regions wide across the path of advance, as illustrated here by the orange, black and purple lines.
Now, because The Tactical Defense is Really Strong, it is imperative for the Union player to take any of the regions in question whenever possible. Taking and holding them prevents the Confederate player from digging in. This opens up lanes of movement for the Union player, and removes the need for costly assaults against entrenched positions later on.
The novice player sees only that Atlanta is valuable. The expert player knows that all of the regions are valuable.
From the Union perspective, try to take any region which you think you will want to advance on later. Don't let the Confederate player form an unbroken entrenched line under any circumstances.
From the Confederate side, the opposite is true.
Concept #7 - Have a Plan!
This is especially important for the Union player. The Civil War is a big undertaking, and it does not fight itself. You have to make clear goals, recruit troops to achieve those goals, and then put them into action turn after turn. You cannot just push forces around here and there and keep hitting 'Next Turn' to see what happens next.
You literally have to say to yourself, 'Okay in 1863 I want to occupy all of Arkansas', or whatever, and then take steps to make that happen every turn.
Some players who don't know much about the Civil War clearly have no idea how to go about prosecuting the war. Having a knowledge of history is an advantage here. While the Union made some mistakes historically, they did do a decent job of winning the war, particularly in the west, and the player can use the movements of Grant and Sherman as a blueprint.
The Confederate player has less of a burden in this respect because he only has to defend what he has and not take territory (at least initially). Thus I believe it is much easier to play the CSA side, but even so, the Confederate player will have to plan. The player will need to be able to say to himself, 'Gee the Union looks like it is really making a push for Arkansas. What steps do I need to take to defend that territory?' and then recruit and move troops accordingly.
Concept #8 - Foreign Intervention
Lots of players dismiss the possibility of foreign intervention in a game of AACW. That is a mistake. It is very possible to gain the entry of England and France into the war, and this should be a primary goal of the Confederate player, and something the Union player tries very hard to prevent.
Foreign intervention is triggered when the FI score gets to +100, or forever impossible when the score gets down to -100. The most important thing you need to know about foreign intervention is that it can go up or down one point every turn for the side that has the higher morale, and one point for the side that has the most victory points.
So this dynamic becomes a game of chicken between the USA and the CSA as to who can stay ahead in the VP and NM standings. The Union has some pressure to take the lead in at least one of these categories, because if they don't, the foreign intervention constantly increases.
The key then from the CSA perspective is to be very careful to keep the lead in both categories, and gain 1 or 2 FI points every turn. Unchecked, this constant accumulation will get the score up to 100 some time late in 1863 or 1864, and can tip the scales of the war.
All of the strategic cities on the map are worth victory points, so keep the VP lead by holding strategic cities as long as you can. From the Union perspective, you want to take some strategic cities as fast as possible, so that you are gaining more VPs every turn and working towards taking the lead in VPs. Try to gain the lead in national morale points by winning battles.
Also, be careful not to lose the VP or NM lead by abusing the draft options or the financial options. Maxing out the draft or printing money may cause you to lose the lead in either category.
Don't ignore the political options available to both sides! They can help a great deal in moving the FI score, and giving your side extra VPs or NM points. The blockade gives the Union VPs and NM points, while the embargo gives the Confederate side NM points. Both options tend to move the FI score in that side's favor. Use them.
By the way, if foreign intervention is triggered, that isn't the end of the game. The foreign forces available to the CSA player are not terribly large, and amount to only about two or three small corps. It isn't a massive intervention. Depending on how the game is going at that point, and how the CSA player uses them, they may or may not be decisive.
Concept #9 - Cities are Traps
Stay out of the cities. There is, as far as I know, no combat advantage to having your forces inside a city, and there are quite a few disadvantages. I've stressed the advantages of the defensive and the need to block enemy movement by holding key regions, and those advantages are wholly lost when you put your armies inside a city.
If you put your army inside the city, you are inviting a siege. You don't prevent your opponent from entering the region, and an enemy force can move into the region without any combat at all, and put your force under siege. Then the besieging force can get into defensive stance and start digging in. The aggressor becomes the defender, and gets all the advantages of the defense, which I've indicated is the way you want to fight your battles. In order to get out of the siege, the army inside will either have to try to fight its way out, or get relieved by some other outside force. What's more, the besieged force is cut off from outside supply and reinforcements, and can start taking extra siege hits every turn. This is potentially a disastrous situation for the defender to be in.
So, keep your armies in the field and in their entrenchments. Being in the field blocks the movement of the enemy, or at least forces them to fight a battle to move into the region. Even if the battle is lost, you can retreat rather than have your force besieged and cut off in a city.
This applies in winter too. Don't move into the city in winter, surrendering all of these advantages, just to try to avoid winter weather damage to your troops.
Forts are an exception, because forts provide a strong defensive benefit. Still they are subject to the same problems of siege, so defend the region the fort is in with units in trenches outside, with a smaller force of defenders inside the fort.
Concept #10 - Don't use your AI tricks against a Human
Most players learn how to play the game against the AI, and that is fine, but I also think it hinders them to some extent when they then attempt that first PBEM against a human. Naturally, these players immediately try to use their favorite strategies they had been using to beat the AI, but often have their plans frustrated, particularly when playing the Union side.
I am not an expert on the AI becuase I never play against it. Even so, I am confident in stating that humans are capable of doing many things the AI is probably poor at. Specifically, a human will be much better at seeing your moves and reading your intentions. Having done so, the human opponent will immediately begin to devise a counterplan, which will make your original plan much more difficult to execute than it was against the AI.
For the sake of argument, let's say your favorite tactic to throw the AI for a loop is to launch an amphibious invasion of Wilmington, NC. When you park your amphibious force off the coast, the AI might not be too good at realizing that an invasion is imminent. A human on the other hand, who has seen through your plan, might move reinforcements to the area, causing a disaster on the beaches for your landing force.
When playing a human then, you must take your planning to the next level. You must always ask yourself, "How will my opponent interpret this move, and what is my opponent likely to do in response? What is my opponent capable of doing to ruin my plan?"
If it is not too cheesy to say, stop thinking like you are playing a game, and make your moves as if you were really fighting the war. Give your opponent credit for being a competent general, and then try to make moves that you are pretty sure can succeed even against a human opponent who is thinking along with you.
Concept #11 - Cohesion
I've said before that winning battles in AACW is the art of putting your forces in a position to succeed, and one key to doing that is to make sure you are monitoring your troops' cohesion levels, and keeping them as high as possible.
Cohesion drops rapidly with movement or combat. As it does, combat power is rapidly lost. A force that has to march for more than 1 turn (15 days) will often be at a severe disadvantage if it immediately goes into combat. A unit that has lost half its cohesion will often have lost about half of its combat power as well. If you move units too much or too far, say across the entire state of Missouri, they can literally melt away to nothing. Don't do that.
Keep in mind that the units in AACW are not panzer divisions, and no matter how much you may be enamored of Erwin Rommel and big slashing movements and deep penetrations, in AACW the units are big formations of soldiers and horses walking cross country. The more rest you can give them, the fresher they will be, and the better they will fight. Civil War armies spent a good deal of time in camp, and tended to march in stages. In AACW, steady (not slow) advances are the way to go. This may mean moving one region at a time. If you have the option of moving three regions in two turns all at once (30 days), or three regions in three turns (45 days) with some days of rest each turn, consider that you may well have more cohesion at the end and more combat power if you take the three turns to get there. There is no point in getting to a region really fast with no cohesion, just to lose the battle in a hurry.
As a rule of thumb, a unit that has moved for a turn needs to rest for a turn before it goes into combat. You want at least 75-80% of your cohesion before you commit to a battle.
Mud slows down movement so costs a lot of cohesion too. Often, you are better off not moving at all in mud conditions, but just sitting still and waiting for clear weather before you move. This will save time later, as you won't have to rest the troops after a 15 day mud march.
The tips
These are things which I like to do because I think they help me, but are not necessarily crucial. Your mileage may vary.
Tip #1 - Recruit in Divisions
The first of these stems from concept #7 - Have a Plan, and that is to try to recruit in divisions. If your plan is again to occupy all of Arkansas, then you may evaluate the forces you have on hand, and then decide you need two new divisions to achieve that goal.
Instead of recruiting a brigade here and a brigade there turn by turn, recruit all of the elements for a new division at one time. Then when they are ready, you will know exactly what they are for and where they are to go.
This is especially handy at the beginning of a year when you call a new draft, for example. Instead of recruiting random brigades, say to yourself, 'Okay I want to recruit two Missouri divisions, one Ohio division, and two New York divisions.' Then purchase all of the elements you will need to put those divisions together, as best you can at one time. When they are ready, you will remember state by state what you wanted all of the units for.
Tip #2 - Don't Forget Your Units
Sometimes I see opponents forget about a unit or a stack completely. This usually happens in the west or the Trans-Mississippi. The opponent loses a battle, the stack retreats to Laredo, TX or someplace, and my opponent forgets about the stack when he does his turns. Meanwhile, the troops run out of supply and wither away.
To avoid this, get in the habit of cycling through all of your idle units each turn using the E,R and T,Y keys.
Tip #3 - Handling Replacements
I don't know if this is an issue for some players or not, but I thought I would briefly share how I manage my replacement options.
Generally speaking, the key thing about replacements is to keep enough replacements to absorb the losses you might incur in any one turn, but no more. I have heard some players say you should keep 10% of your total force in the replacement pool, but I think that may be too much, particularly in the case of the most important category of Line Infantry, which will be the most used. Consider that conscript points in the replacement pools are troops that are not on the map doing something good for you like defending a key region or attacking the enemy, so you don't want to keep too many resources idle here.
Below is a pretty typical replacements screen for one of my games. This one is for the CSA.
As you can see, I like to keep 10 line infantry replacements. I find this is generally enough to cover for any one turn, even if I fight a large battle. Other categories like cavalry and artillery get 3 or 4 replacements only.
I like to keep at least one point in all of the combat categories like skirmisher or light infantry at all times, just to make sure that they have replacements available.
The April 1861 gives a lot of free militia replacements, and I have a hard time using them up because regiments convert from militia to line so quickly. As a result I never purchase militia replacements, but simply rely on the free allowance.
The noncombat and specialty categories at the end like heavy artillery or supply units I often leave empty unless I specifically want to supply replacements to these units. The reason for this is that many of these categories are expensive to replace, or often do not need replacements, so I leave them at zero until needed.
Finally at the bottom, notice I have not spent all of my money and conscript points, but still have a reserve in each category. This insures that if combat depletes my replacement pools, I will still be able to purchase new replacements next turn as needed. You don't want to spend all your conscript points as soon as you get them, and then fall short after a few big battles. Thus your available replacement capacity is a mix between what you have purchased in the replacements screen and the reserve resources you still have to call on. Generally, I will purchase new units freely until I get down to about 100 money and 100 conscripts, and then I am careful to maintain some reserves until I can call for new volunteers and/or a new draft in January or July.
Tip #4 - Additional tips
Tips about defense
- Prepare the entrenchment for your units in some strategic points long time before the real front is moving to it: You can hold some militia with a low-cost light artillery on a second line front. These forces will reach a good entrenchment level, and when the front is moving to them, your redeployed armies can join these small forces. Doing so, they will receive the same high level of entrenchment!
- You can merge two militia into one unit (much the same as you do with divisions. This new unit still only requires 1 command point. It can strengthen the defense of your second line depot-cities against raiders a bit.
- It's far better to always avoid merging a Totally Static Units with a big stack or a division. Because if you lose the battle, this force will stay and be massacred instead of retreating...
Tips about attack
- At this strategic scale, one of the best arts of the attack is what is called "La fourchette" (the fork) in chess: Try to move your attacking force to a place where it will be able to move to at least 2 or 3 strategic points the next turn. Your opponent will have to defend them all badly or to defend well one and let you grab the other(s). Of course, there is still the problem of trying to guess which one he will choose to defend well...
- Keep in mind the most difficult situations for an attack (where having a larger than 5-1 ratio of attackers to defenders is recommended):
- Amphibious landings from naval units
- Amphibious landings using river transports
- Modern fortifications
- Enemy units with more than a level 7 of entrenchment
- Mountains
- Blizzard
Tips about the management screens
- Be careful with the known bug of the displayed conscription policies screen: As for the financial policies (the more Victory Points you have, the more money you get), the amount of conscripts you gather is linked to your number of Victory Points. So as strategic advice, you will understand that, especially with the South, the more you wait to have a lot of victory points, the more money and conscripts you will get when you sign such policies during the same turn.
- Be careful with the known bug of the displayed balanced budget: The costs of the units which repair railroads and the immediate costs of the policies causing inflation are not displayed in the budget line. It means you won't have a red budget line for these reasons when it actually should be. If you order a lot of railroad repairs and sign a lot of policies causing inflation in the same turn, it's better to aim for a budget with a large surplus this turn or you may discover that you'll miss a lot of the units you just purchased or that your new divisional generals still have penalties during the next turn.
- Be careful with the industrialization screen : if you ordered some industrialization in some states at one turn, this orders will stay next turns untill you stop them (right-clic on the icons). A lot's of player start and forget this investismment ...and then lack money...
Tips about river naval strategy
The Union needs as strong a river force as they can create. Every ship can be put to good use, especially ironclads. Ironclads are the fighting ships that can survive bypassing forts and can defeat enemy navies. Gunboats are better used as blockade, escort or scouting ships. The Union should be aggressive in use of their river capabilities.
Thoughts for the CSA : The Rebels need a reasonable river force as well to disrupt river invasions/evacuations and also allow movement across rivers. In particular, they need ships if they intend to use land forces around Nashville or Bowling Green. The rebels should always bear in mind the use of entrenched artillery to block river supply as circumstances dictate.
Preventing river crossings
One capability of ships is their ability to prevent enemy ground forces from crossing rivers.
4 boats or more are needed, whatever their order is (offensive or defensive), to block the crossing of enemy ground forces in a water region. Look carefully for blocking all the water region (sometimes you can cross a river using two different regions to reach the same land region. This is a very valuable capability, since you can prevent some areas from infiltrations while you concentrate your troops in other strategic places.
However, a blockade can be negated by just one enemy ship entering the blockaded river region. A small blockade of one, two or three gunboats may not prevent a single enemy gunboat from remaining in a river region and ending a blockade. But 5 or 10 gunboats is very likely to immediately drive off or sink a single gunboat and maintain the river crossing blockade. Sometimes you need a large number of ships to guarantee blockade of a river region. The bottom line is if both sides have ships in the same river region, the river is not blockaded and both sides can cross the river.
Amphibious landings
A second major capability of ships is to land amphibious forces behind enemy lines. The Tennessee, Mississippi and other rivers offer excellent opportunities for attack behind rebel lines. However, once landed behind enemy lines, those forces must receive supply either along a river or by a land route. Forts or entrenched land forces with artillery can block river supply. Land forces with artillery need a certain level of entrenchment (5?) before they will block supply. River invasions will be very shortlived if the invasion force cannot receive supply. One temporary solution is to use fully supplied river transports as a supply source. River transports can also be converted into supply depots but they still need an unblocked supply line either by river or land to resupply once depleted. River transports are substantially cheaper for creating supply depots than using wagon supply trains.
Raid support
Finally, river ships are very good for dropping off cavalry for quick raids by either the US or the CSA. However if evacuation is necessary, getting troops out can be very tricky for raids or failed regular water invasions. It's not absolutely certain but it may be that if even one enemy ship is in or enters the same river region as troops loading onto ships, that enemy ship will halt the entire loading process. If enemy troops are in close pursuit of a raid or your evacuation is under attack and your troops cannot load onto ships if your opponent is able to get ships into the loading region, your force can be lost. It takes five days to load onto ships. Just beating off the one enemy ship, regardless of the size of your navy, halts the loading process. Not good if you are in a hurry to escape. An alternative escape is to use the non-ship river transport. River transport only takes one day to load, so you are on the river much quicker instead of being pounded by ground forces.
References
- Original contribution from Runyan99 at the AGEOD forums
- Other page contributors : Jagger (based on his post at the AGEod forums, Rafiki, Andatiep, ...etc.
