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.