Wars in America: A 'how-to' AAR

[Teodor]

Great AAR! I really love this game and I agree that it is one of the best in the AGEOD series. Personally, I prefer to play the french as I like the guerilla warfare. Losing Fort Duqesne so early is bad but it is possible to recapture it with your indians. With some luck you might even capture the British artillery which is a great way to strengthen the defences of Fort Duqesne (the only location I have ever built a depot when playing as the french).

[Narwhal]

explains a lot ... there will be some nasty acts of brutality by the English Indians later in 1756 ... now of course the reason is made clear they are really ----- Englishmen dressed as Indians

If you wanted to avoid Indian "brutality", maybe you should not have murdered their peaceful leader and then attacked their main village twice, actually razing it by late 1756.

[Sir Garnet]

Thanks, it's easy to miss how to recover Indian strength. How do you get the "build a fort" button to light up as available for use so a fort can be built? (Other than the automatic forts reported in messages.)

[Narwhal]

Thanks, it's easy to miss how to recover Indian strength. How do you get the "build a fort" button to light up as available for use so a fort can be built? (Other than the automatic forts reported in messages.)

You need four elements of guns (heavy don't qualify, I believe) and four elements of supply in the same stack (bateaux don't qualify). No unit in the stack must be locked, for some (engine?) reason.

[Narwhal]

July 1756 – Breaking the sieges

In July 1756, the French natives start again what they do best : war crimes. Fort Western is taken by force.



As you can see on this map, I am following the rules of the war in my siege of Saint-Jean.


Fort Bull is also threatened by these hordes of sauvages. Happily enough, Sir William Johnson brave Indians are healed up (see the efficiency of a good depot at the good place) and are ready to attack the natives giving them a bad name :



The civilized Indians will chase the French-backed sauvages then rest in Fort Oswego.
I can afford to do this, because for now there is now French threatening to go South from the Champlain. I only spot some scouting units.
Actually, I know Montcalm is in the area (I saw him during turn resolution) but I have no idea where. If I don’t see him, it means his army is not big enough to be spotted, thus not threatening for now.

In any case, the militias are being mustered again, and I have an awful lot waiting for me in Boston – probably at the news of the French atrocities :



In the West, some more sauvages are pacified :



Delaware Indians will burn the village. Locals. English don’t burn villages [burning villages down takes a few days and I wanted Braddock to come back to Duquesne as soon as possible].



Notice the very low cohesion of Braddock army : my rangers have circa 50% cohesion, my regular 25% and my guns 0. Due to this, my regular have 9 “combat power” (compare to circa 40 for full cohesion regulars) and my guns have 0 or 2 combat power compared to 40 when max cohesion.

Beginner’s corner : Cohesion

As Vinraith said in a previous post, in Wars in America (and AGEOD games in general), “strategic” places are not strategic because they allow you to have more resources or to limit the enemy resources, places are strategic because they are a “jump point” before more conquests. And you need these “jump-points” because if your army moves for too long without resting, it will arrive with no cohesion and be destroyed.

According to the manual, “[cohesion] indicates an element’s current number of Cohesion points. Cohesion points are an expression of an element’s combat readiness and impact on most game functions (morale, speed, combat efficiency, etc.). The higher the value, the more able an element is to conduct military operations.”
The game gives you (green bar) the “average cohesion” of the unit, but remember each element has individual cohesion value.

What is the effect of cohesion ?

Cohesion mostly has an impact on the following elements :
- Speed (on the map) – a unit with low average cohesion will move verrryyy slowly. Remember that an army moves at the speed of its slowest element, so if one of your gun has little cohesion in our army, it will dictates the pace of everyone.
The malus applied to all elements of a unit is half the difference between max cohesion and current average cohesion (not by element) of the unit.

Let’s take an example. This colonial infantry (speed coefficient : 100) has 100% (60/60) max cohesion. It takes it 8 days to go from Fort Duquesne to Monaca.




Given that a regular infantry in Braddock’s army has 25% (21/80) cohesion and the same speed (speed coef. 100) , how long would it take it to go from Monaca to Fort Duquesne ?

Answer : Its speed malus is 75%/2 = 37,5%, so it should take it 8 days * (1+37,5%) = 11 days.

Check :



- On combat : a unit with less cohesion will fight with a “power” corresponding to the ratio of its current cohesion compared to the maximum, ergo a unit with 25% cohesion will fight with only 25% quality
When a unit receives damage in combat, the chance to rout depends on its cohesion. A unit with no cohesion will actually not engage, a unit with 1% cohesion will rout immediately if it receives a “hit”.


How much cohesion does a unit lose / gain per day ?

Obviously, It depends on what it does…

For land troops :
- Marching on a road with regular infantry takes away 1 cohesion / day. This is modified by the terrain, the weather, the posture (offensve takes more, then defensive, then passive), the military control of the region, and whether your army is in force march or not.
For cavalry, it is going to cost less per day on normal terrain (0,5/day), but more in forest. Guns will have an horrible time in difficult terrain, while irregular / Indians will be just fine (I think it is like 0 cohesion loss when Indians are moving).
- Units in a boat will lose cohesion very slowly, whether the boat is moving or not, except if hit by a storm, in which case it will lose cohesion fast.
- Battle will lower cohesion. Hard to say how much – it all depends on how tough was the battle, whether the unit committed from the beginning or never. According to the manual, you lose 2 CP per round of combat, plus 5 to 15 more points per hit received. Remember it is per element, so you have to divide this number by four when you want to calculate the impact on average cohesion on a 4 elements unit.
- Units standing idle will recover cohesion according by 1,00 points / day, with the following modifiers :
+1.00 CPs: Unit is stationary in Passive Posture. (PASSIVE, not DEFENSIVE)
+1,00 CPs: Unit is stationary and inside a structure. If the unit is in DEFENSIVE posture, it will still gain the “PASSIVE” posture bonus of +1,00 CPs/day.
+0.50 CPs: Unit is stationary and located in a loyal region according to the manual. Cannot check in the FIW since there is no loyalty system
+0.50 CPs: Unit is a stationary Irregular unit.
−0.50 CPs: Unit is in Offensive Posture.
Terrain and weather will bring more modifiers.

Here is an example of units in and out :
- Militias





- Mixed unit with 3 elements of regular infantry and one element of light infantry :





As usual, the manual is bogus .

It is important to remember the impact of posture on the cohesion recovery. Offensive posture is to be avoided.

For boats :
- Ships will lose cohesion per day sailing, whether they are moving or not. It depends on the weather. Fair weather will make a light ship (brig, frigates) or bateaux lose 0,5 cohesion per day, but 0 for larger ship. Bad weather will ramp that number up quickly.
- Once again, offensive posture will have more effect then defensive, for some reason.
- Boats recover 2 CP per day in an harbor, flat.

Other things to know about cohesion

National Morale has an impact on max cohesion : each point above 100 in NM increases max cohesion of every unit by 1%. Every point below 100 diminishes it by 1%.
Every level of experience, an element gain +10 max cohesion.

How do I use that ?

Don’t try to remember the number, just remember what has what effect. And remember the importance of posture.
Also remember that most units have between 40 (militia) and 80 (elite troops) cohesion. This means that your militia will be completely exhausted after 1 turn of march, and your elite troops after 2-3 months of march. It also adds up – after one month of march, your army will march must slower, thus increasing the time to reach the objective and hence the cohesion lost.
If you have guns, those will be completely useless after one month of march in difficult terrain, and will completely cripple the speed of your army – which will march at 50% of the gun base speed.
An army needs in general two months to recover its cohesion in the wilderness… if the weather is good… which you could not plan 2 months in advance when you started your march.
Ergo, if a target is at more than 1 month of march in difficult terrain, or 2 months of march in “easy terrain”, you will most probably have to go for an “intermediary” target, or build a fort / depot on the way, hoping not to be jumped at by the enemy light troops.
Alternatively, do a “all-light” force ; but it won’t be enough to take moderately protected strongpoints.

End of the beginner’s corner

Now, an additional points in the complex situation of Fort Cumberland.

I have built Fort Loudoun, thus securing the help of the Cherokees.



The Cherokees sent me a war party in Fort Cumberland, which was sieged. This war party is composed of 2 Cherokee leaders with 4 elements of Indians .



Good news, as Fort Cumberland was sieged. Here is the situation and my orders (I separate my forces in three) :



As you can see on the picture, the elements of Indian warriors are in the same unit as the leader. You can see it because you see “status bars” (health and cohesion) with the picture of the leader. This is very common in other AGEOD games, where you create “divisions” under the command of the leader, but in Wars of America, only a few units are created with this characteristic and you cannot create “divisions” this way. This represents leaders who brought their own men to war, most usually Indians, but also French couriers. It has little game impact, except that you cannot separate the leader from his men, and that the men in question fight better.

You won’t see this much with me, as only 4 English units are concerned in this campaign :
- Sangarecha’s warband, but the French murdered him as soon as ’55.
- The North Cherokees, under the command of Ostenaco (picture) – this won’t last.
- The South Cherokees, under the command of Attakulakulla (picture) – this won’t last either.
- Robert Rogers Rangers, probably the most powerful unit of the English – not yet arrived.
The French have much, much more units concerned by this rule, so if you see leaders with health and cohesion bars in Loki’s screenshots, you will understand why.

[Stuyvesant]

Okay, made it to the current stage of the game. Very enjoyable: I'm learning a lot about the mechanics, I like seeing the action unfold and learning your reasoning for your actions, and - finally - it is very entertaining to read all the accusations of war crimes and savagery flying back and forth.

[loki100]

Okay, made it to the current stage of the game. Very enjoyable: I'm learning a lot about the mechanics, I like seeing the action unfold and learning your reasoning for your actions, and - finally - it is very entertaining to read all the accusations of war crimes and savagery flying back and forth.

I think Narwhal is doing a brilliant job in explaining the game mechanics ... It really makes the in-game dynamics and option so much clearer.

Its probably worthwhile stressing there are no 'accusations' merely perfectly correct descriptions of English actions and unfounded mis-representations of French actions ... in particular the unfortunate incident with the cooking pot that Narwhal presents as a 'fire'

Great AAR! I really love this game and I agree that it is one of the best in the AGEOD series. Personally, I prefer to play the french as I like the guerilla warfare. Losing Fort Duqesne so early is bad but it is possible to recapture it with your indians. With some luck you might even capture the British artillery which is a great way to strengthen the defences of Fort Duqesne (the only location I have ever built a depot when playing as the french).

Its certainly fun with the French. Its sort of liberating when you're playing the side that lost in any case - I sort of feel I have a ready made excuse.

I probably could retake Duquesne, but it would mean quite a transfer from the Mont Royal sector & I'm not that confident yet. But I have a few goes at snipping its supply lines and trying to stop the English moving any further west from there.

If you wanted to avoid Indian "brutality", maybe you should not have murdered their peaceful leader and then attacked their main village twice, actually razing it by late 1756.

hah, see, this is the 'cooking pot incident' presented as 'burning a village down' ... I'll correct the record in my next full post.

and as to the 'murder', the only people who died in that battle were French so it raises the question of who did the deed?

Thanks, it's easy to miss how to recover Indian strength. How do you get the "build a fort" button to light up as available for use so a fort can be built? (Other than the automatic forts reported in messages.)

You need four elements of guns (heavy don't qualify, I believe) and four elements of supply in the same stack (bateaux don't qualify). No unit in the stack must be locked, for some (engine?) reason.

Again, hugely useful to have this explained and the Indian trick is pretty essential

[loki100]

Ever since I started playing this game I reckon the Gang of Four's old classic is a much better soundtrack than the classical music supplied.

Anyway ... lets go about correcting the incorrect record shall we?

First, my peaceful Indians holidaying around Fort Bull were attacked




and the same happened at Fort Cumberland ... we're there, hunting, cooking, doing the male bonding things ... and bang -- and one of my officers was 'killed'



At least the first battle near Duquesne was some small revenge - I'd set up an ambush and the English blundered into it ... but again notice the deliberate targetting of my leader.



Not sure about the second battle though. We were having a funeral, remembering the heroic dead and bang --- its the sort of thing they do .

So having been provoked, I had to respond



now that of course was a perfectly legitimate act of war ... no attacks on Indians having a picnic or attending a funeral.



... move along ... nothing to see here



Here's Fort Jean - heroicly resisting the English siege despite some losses



this is a bit further down the east coast, my 'tourists' have gathered near a new picnic spot ... time to light the nice big fire to kebab the moose? Non?



and in the Ontario region - having spotted that huge English stack, my combat brigade retreats a little (remember the other one is recovering from winter attrition and Montcalm is making his way here at the moment). Over in the east, my forces are preparing to cook a particularly delicious daube, unfortunately the fire was a wee bit ... well a bit large.



and in the south, I'm going to unlock the last of the tribes near Atlanta (which is perhaps too strong to attack) while the other group carry on visiting the locals in a spirit of peace and harmony ...

[Stuyvesant]

Peace and understanding... Can't we all just get along?

Call me cynical (or pessimistic, also a good one), but the sense I get from the last update - apart from the fact that your native friends are a bunch of misunderstood, peaceloving hippies who are clumsy with the tinderbox - is that you're frittering around the edges, doing a little looting here and there, an ambush maybe, but that you currently don't have anything substantial going on. The initiative seems to lie with Narwhal.

[loki100]

Peace and understanding... Can't we all just get along?

Call me cynical (or pessimistic, also a good one), but the sense I get from the last update - apart from the fact that your native friends are a bunch of misunderstood, peaceloving hippies who are clumsy with the tinderbox - is that you're frittering around the edges, doing a little looting here and there, an ambush maybe, but that you currently don't have anything substantial going on. The initiative seems to lie with Narwhal.

yep, thats a pretty good summary. Having made such a mess of the defense of Duquesne, I'm more or less reduced to trying to distract him, or at least make him cautious at splitting his forces &/or moving forwards ... but thats not easy against a very experienced player .... though later in 1757 I think I manage to pull off an interesting wee stunt ... I may have burnt down your current address (apols if so). I'm back to my natural mindset of when on the defense, keep your army in being is your first goal ... and wait, keep looking for opportunities and isolated forces I might be able to overwhelm.

[Kasorg]

great AAR! very interesting!

[loki100]

So the first chills of winter are felt ... time to make sure my poor couriers and Indians have large camp fires to keep warm

in the meantime we both seem to be busy raising new forces:



Over at St Jean, the English siege guns do more damage ... but my heroic defenders continue to resist, I'm now hoping they will survive 1756



(as a side note I believe we are now formally at war .. taken a while but there you are)



Down in the south, my large raiding party carries on visiting the neighbours and introducing themselves ... so easy to misunderstand I realise ... My goal down here is to threaten and hopefully provoke a response, but as Stuyvesent pointed out its all trivial stuff



this takes out Rumford, no great gain or loss but it gives an air of progress ...



and I gambled on a large assault on Fort Bull ... most of the gamble worked (ie it caught an isolated force and almost overran the fort), but in the end I was beaten off ... all those units now have very low organisation so I think thats them for the campaigning season.



whoops who put that in the file ... not true of course



These are the moves in the Lake Champlain region - My army is fairly strong and Narwhal is taking his time ... I've probably been too cautious but didn't want to split up and risk losses of impossible to replace formations



and to the east, Narwhals 'Englishmen dressed as Indians' have gathered at Fort Niagara - this is not good news as my only mobile force is very disrupted after the Fort Bull battles.

So at a guess, we have October and then Winter ...

[Narwhal]

August 1756 – Disaster at Cumberland

Still not much move from me – I don’t have the force yet. It will change in 1757.

I tried to break the siege at Fort Cumberland, but I slightly underestimated the French force.



As you may remember, I divided my forces in 3 stacks. Out of these 3 stacks, 2 stacks retreated, first the people en route to Duquesne, which were caught back and destroyed, then later in the battle the Cherokee force, which was caught back and destroyed as well. The last part of the force, the militia in the city, survived the battle !

It was a disaster for me – I lost 8 elements and did not even know that I killed de Contrecoeur. My two Cherokee leaders are wounded – I suppose they are coded not to die as they are supposed to switch side at some point.

Here is what is left in Fort Cumberland :



In the Albany area, still no French, except a moderate force, not threatening at all. Good thing, because my forces were, well, moderate as well.



As you can see, my Indian force disperses the savages around Fort Bull. They are now heading to Fort Niagara, where they will have a look at what the French have to eventually assault the city.
Sir William Shirley was called back in England, so the mostly useless James Abercromby will replace him.

The good news is that I receive a new commander in New York – Earl Loudoun, the McCleland of the FIW. Good at making an army out of militia, but bad at everything else militarily, and always convinced he was surrounded by much more opponents than there really was.



I have some job for him, as I need to train my army. I have a lot of militia heading to Albany, first by boat, then by Bateaux through the Hudson :



A good hint is to make sure to split the initial bateaux force to always have at least one in New York and one in Albany, as you will never have to use all your transport capacity at once.

The French tried a couple raids on Fort Duquesne. Here is the result of one :



Ah !

Meanwhile, I am raiding their trade myself… and trying to use my own trading boats :



Finally, more French / Indians crimes :



In the South, where really there is nothing more than retired people doing jogging and voting Republicans, the French attacked the small settlement of Ninety-Six (name given due to the average age of the inhabitants) and killed everyone.

I am a bit worried, as really my defense there is nothing more than an handful of militias, almost not mobile, and the territory at risk is huge… Nothing I can do, though, for now.

[Stuyvesant]

There, there, not everyone in the South is geriatric and Republican-voting. I live there, for one, and I'm not old, nor do I vote, period (but that's because I'm Dutch and most countries, the US included, do not let their permanent residents vote).

The most interesting thing I saw in the last pair of updates is that it seems that you both have some large weaknesses - just not in the same location. So, you both have your areas of concern, even if Narwhal is overall stronger.

Fun to read, thank you gentlemen!

[Vinraith]

Does the "native units have to recruit in cities" oddity also mean that native units are best served to winter in cities?

[loki100]

Does the "native units have to recruit in cities" oddity also mean that native units are best served to winter in cities?

wish they did, but no, they are hardcoded to go back to their villages over winter .... so if you want them to reinforce you have to take them to a city during the campaign season - which is a nice dilemna

great AAR! very interesting!

glad you like it ... its a fantastic game to play - nothing to detract you from some very in-depth game play and lots and lots of options to try out

There, there, not everyone in the South is geriatric and Republican-voting. I live there, for one, and I'm not old, nor do I vote, period (but that's because I'm Dutch and most countries, the US included, do not let their permanent residents vote).

The most interesting thing I saw in the last pair of updates is that it seems that you both have some large weaknesses - just not in the same location. So, you both have your areas of concern, even if Narwhal is overall stronger.

Fun to read, thank you gentlemen!

Yes, I think thats right, we both have areas of strength and weakness at the start. What I'm slowly reaching for is a means to lever my advantage in the south to something real ... and may (rather belatedly possibly) have stumbled on it.

My partner (who is also Dutch) has a similar issue in the UK - wonderfully she's allowed to vote in the Scottish elections but not for the UK parliament .... now was there something said at some stage about 'no taxation without representation'?

As to Narwhal's post - had I realised just how close I'd come at the exceedingly confusing battles around Cumberland, I would have attacked again the next turn ... damn. And, of course, the issues of French 'crimes' has already been refuted in earlier posts ... I mean accidents do happen when you are kebabing a moose --- everyone knows that.

[Narwhal]

September 1756 – Preparing for wintering

After the intense action of July-August 1756, September is fairly calm.

I replace my garrison in Fort Cumberland :



Good think Loki100 did not insist on it.

I finally see Montcalm near the Champlain



It is too late for any offensive. Moreover, I will soon have 15 000 men in Albany (I went down to 2000) so I am waiting.
In Niagara, the defense is poor, so I will be the one playing with matches this time !
As you can see, the French savages tried more of their nasty works…


In the South, the French carry on their war crimes ! Will they ever stop ?



Finally – I have to retreat from Saint-Jean ; the siege was a complete failure… this year. Next year, I will just assault the place !




[Edit : God blesses the recycling bin]

[loki100]

I'll combine these turns as things started to wind down with the great 'lets get home for winter' events dominating both armies.

Though a lot of my forces don't make it ...



Fort Niagara is the scene of one disaster. First an Indian band moving back to recover is ambushed and ... well not many of them had a nice winter ... and, to make it worse, the fort itself was stormed.



down south, Fort Prince George resists a bit of a half-hearted attack (the Couriers were off to spend winter chatting up some more Indians)



as you can see, the English and ... err ... someone else burnt down a few things



& this shows the position at Lake Champlain. The English now have a terrifyingly huge army at Albany, most of my army goes to the north of the lake to winter ... and my indians pay a house call on their way back to their villages.



Since its the effective end of the campaign season, here's the NM and VP position - it doesn't look too bad till you remember that 1756 is meant to be my best chance.



My larger force in the south has a final poke at Fort Prince George - that place has withstood 4 attacks now & its starting to irritate me.



and a smaller end of season attack in the south ... which also failed, pity that my basically succesful campaign down there rather ended ...



& this is what happened when my peace loving Indians went to visit their neighbours



My garrison at St Jean survives, a bit battered but that English force will suffer in the snow on its way home



well ... I'm sure it happened but don't know who did it?



and since its November, all the Indians go to bed, and are now locked in their villages for the next 4 turns.



but when they wake up ... there will be even more of them to have fun and visit their neighbours

[Narwhal]

October – November 1756 – No winter for criminals

For me as well, October and November 175 were fairly quiet.

It started with an outstanding news – my assault on Fort Niagara was a success and the Fort was destroyed :



Actually, this was a mitigated success for me. I would have preferred to capture the fort intact – but my Indians did not agree – and I would have preferred to capture the boats – but failed.

Ah ! Nevermind – let’s see that again :



The army remains one more turn on the spot – so the French don’t try to take the spot back, and prepare to evacuate in December 56.



Note that I sent one of the Cherokee leaders (Ostenaco – I suppose you did not remember his name) out of the hospital to command the Indians. I did not notice then the Iroquois / Cherokee difference. My Indians are actually fighting worse with him as a leader… So far, that guy has been more of a burden than anything else.


Not much happens – everyone is preparing for winter. By November 1756, I have quite a decent force in Oswego to defend it, still led by Abercromby :



Due to the size of the force, I will slowly drill my supplies there, but should hold until spring.

In Albany, I now have 10 000 men. Several thousands will leave in December, though, as they are militia. Here is a part of Loudoun's force :



Near Fort Duquesne, some French Indians reoccupy the village I forg… I decided not to burn in my selfishness. Ah ! Since they use it as base, surely to prepare new attack, a force is going to destroy them. It is led by Lyman, so it could as well fail.



In Saint-Jean – Mockton's retreat is surprised by winter. Some attrition, but nothing too bad, especially since I lose no element and have a lots of supply production in Halifax (so I will recover the hits) :



Finally, in the South, there is unfortunately no winter, and the Indians carry on their crimes 12/12 (no wintering for the “Southern” Indians :
- In October



See – more villages destroyed. Those infernal columns are rabid dogs, uncontrollable spirits that attack our cities, destroy our homes, kill our children, free our slaves ! They must be destroyed if we want to save Western, and Southern, civilization.

- And then in November, yet more Indians being a nuisance - but nothing more :



Obviously, they have run out of steam - probably due to Loki not knowing yet the rule for hit recovery for Indians (in French cities). They will be back… but I prepared them a surprise for 1757…

[ANO1453]

I found out this by accident, and didn't even know the game, but I'm finding this very interesting (and complicated).

(I don't know why, but I feel sympathy for the French - the English need to lose every now and then too )