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Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865)
Cheat Codes:
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Submitted by: David K.
How to Win as CSA:
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Written by Chief Wiggum
After many trials and errors, here are some ideas on one way to win
as the Confederates!
-=Early to Mid Policies=-
For starting Policies I like Southern Pacific Railroad, Industrialization,
and King Cotton. This helps with the economy, and building weapons, and
gives you more population!
My preference is turn off Automanage, Order Delays, and Feuds.
At the start of the game, resist the temptation to build anything. No new
ships, no upgrading mines! You want money for buying weapons and paying to
equip a large army, and to not go bankrupt!
For the first Policy, I go for Militia Act 1 (1 Year), as it’s quick at only
10.2 days, and it gives you a nice head start on building armies. Once it
finishes, immediately recruit the max number of Volunteers. I build as many
armies of 3x Inf + 3x Cab + 3x Arty as I can.
For the second Policy, I like Diplomacy for a (relatively) quick rush of the
British Rifles Project. It takes a while to reach the $5 million Diplomacy, but
then buy the max number (50,000) of the Enfield Rifles and 50,000 of the Enfield
Musketoons for your Cav. Both are very good early-mid game weapons!
Your third, fourth, and fifth Policy will be Militia Act 2 + 3, and Military
2 + 3. The priority is Militia Act for the extra volunteers. After this go for
Conscription Act as it extends the existing volunteer contracts to 3 years,
which is huge.
After this go for Government Funding for the Print Notes and Tariff Act to
help with cash flow for recruiting and weapon purchases.
-=Project Objectives=-
The next big objective Project wise is Sharps Rifles ($3.5 million Military) as
they are arguably the best inf and cav weapons in the game. When the Project is
enacted, go for 50,000 of the Sharps rifles and 50,000 of the Sharps Carbine
for Cav.
What I found out about standardization, is that it will tick up as the order
progresses towards completion. The Sharp Guns (Inf and Cav versions) are the
only guns you need to produce. The Enfields will tide you over till the Sharps
start to roll in.
-=Army and Navy Management=-
OK now onto the army and navy management.
As CSA, I don’t bother about navy early to mid-game. To reduce your navy cost
to zero, just put your ships in harbour (ie. don’t have Admiral Fleets). If
you want to play the Navy game, I suggest getting Ironclad Gunboats, and
building one small-ish sized Ironclad Gunboat fleet with some of your Frigates
to hunt down the Union fleets. This is a cost effective fleet. By contract,
a large wooden fleet will cost an arm and a wooden leg and is much less combat
effective than an Iron Fleet (ie it wont get wiped out by Drogon during the
Battle of King’s Norfolk Landing).
At the very start of the game, you can combine all of your Virginia armies
into one bigger army (your armies can move). I usually combine in Richmond.
Also, having a good Admin General like Johnson or Bragg will ready the army
to readiness a little faster.
As already mentioned, when the Militia Act 1 finishes (10 days in), immediately
recruit the max number of volunteers, as it gives you a head start on building
armies. I build as many armies of 3x Inf + 3x Cav + 3x Arty as I can.
When these armies are green readiness, I move most of them (remember to allow
fast travel by rail & water) to Alexandria. You should have your Armies ready
a little faster than the Union, and from there you can pick and choose your
battles. I like to outnumber the Union soldiers by as much as possible. A
good starting rush is Frederick, MD for the Iron Mine next to Hagerstown. Try
to win the first few engagements.
I like to build a Hospital near Leesburg (just west of Alexandria), and a
Supply Depot near Alexandria as well.
Remember to keep recruiting as many volunteers as possible as you research
each successive Militia Acts (each Act gives you more volunteers).
For out west, I like to focus on taking St. Louis and Louisville, and a bit
later try for Covington and Cincinnati. Remember to build a few Supply Depots
here and there.
One last thought - sometimes the enemy likes to engage at a distance for long
auto-fights. That’s OK as long as you have the advantage. When you see
additional enemy armies coming to join the fight, I often like to engage the
existing army before the reinforcements arrive. Hope these tips help!
Economy Guide:
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Written by williamcarter1993
Your economy happens in the background. You can choose to automanage/autosubsidy
everything and just focus on tactical battles and campaigns if you wish. But for
those who want to get involved manually in any manner- here you go.
Your economy is a compilation of all your buildings and farms and everything that
is needed to make an army, navy, and have a populace. Food, water, iron, weapons
and ammo production, even livestock production, all matters. You have buildings
that you can build and/or upgrade and each one has a particular reason for
existence. You can mouse over the economic indicator tab at the top (usually near
the invasions tab) and a pop up cloud will show you what is needed
(ex: we need 50K tons gunpowder but only enough factories for 30K tons)
You have regular buildings, which you can just start anywhere. These are private
buildings, such as a group starting a factory or a family starting a farm.
* Farms - required to grow food, livestock, and horses. Basic farm, imagine the
farms at Gettysburg or Antietam. Build them anywhere that there is grass.
* Brickworks - required to make bricks. These are necessary for forts and houses
and things.
* Foundries - these are required to make iron/bronze, which is further required
to make artillery and weapons and ironclads. Build them near the other things
that you want to produce, such as forts or depots for ships/arms respectively
* Ironworks - they take the iron/bronze made from foundries and turn them into
weapons or ammo or ships. Build these near major ports or major cities with
arms factories.
* Lumber mills- created cut wood, for building
* Factories - factories can be for anything, from canned food to cloth for
uniforms.
* Flour mills - for bread. Bread was prime food in those days. Build them near
farms and metro areas.
* Plantations - southern massive farm for a cash crop, such as soybeans or sugar
or cotton. Requires some slaves
* Saltworks - used to create salt for food preservation.
Try to build them near oceans
You need all levels of buildings to have an effective economy. For example, if you
want to build artillery, and you have plenty of ironworks, but minimal foundries
near the ironworks, then you won’t be able to build much artillery, OR it will be
delayed, because a critical aspect of the process is missing.
There are also federal buildings, or regional/state buildings
* Hospitals - self explanatory. the injured from battle go here.
* Market - this is a collection area for the food from all the farms in the region.
Buiid them near metro areas
* Newspapers - help for the propaganda/diplomacy fight
* Prison camps - you can send captured soldiers from battlefields here. Also, beware
because if the prison camps become overcrowded (you can mouse over it and see) your
reputation will go down a little like it did when people heard about Andersonville
or Camp Douglas
* Military School - imagine West Point or VMI. In game, the US has west point, the CS
has VMI/Citadel. Having military schools means that any officer from that state that
you enlist after the school is complete will have experience added to him due to that.
Finally, there are subsidies. You can go to the economy tab and alter your subsidies
with a sliding bar based on which aspects you wish to put more money into. More money
into a certain subsidy means more activity. For example, if you raise the subsidy of
MILITARY to HIGH, eventually you will get more funds for certain policies, like
producing spencer rifles or buying international guns. You can mix and match as
you wish, or automanage it all.
How to Make Good CSA Army:
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This plays nothing like total war. Throw all that knowledge out the window. Watch
the game manual videos on youtube. There are a lot of subtle mechanics that have
a huge impact on the performance of your army. If you enjoy games of this style I
encourage you to continue playing and learning as this game is very rewarding and
enjoyable once you understand the mechanics.
-=A few tips=-
* You will lose battles. Don’t be afraid to retreat. Take your time.
* Use your skirmishers to harass and delay.
* Well positioned artillery and timed artillery bombardments will win battles.
* The ai is not as smart as a human but it is capable of surprising maneuvers.
* Cavalry is best used as scouts on the flanks and harassment.
* Don’t try to treat them like the Napoleonic times and charge them in as it will
more times than not end badly.
Tips to Economy:
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So here’s the deal. This war is gonna cost a lot. No matter what side you play,
your debt is gonna climb and your credit is gonna plummet. Playing optimally and
successfully managing the economy is all about slowing down the rate at which your
economy tanks. There are a number of things to keep in mind.
A common mistake most new players will make is to look at the economy warning
tooltip and see that they are underproducing a product that is in high demand and
then instinctively building farms or factories to help produce that product.
Building expensive buildings using money from your treasury (without having accrued
enough subsidies) is a bad idea. Instead, what you want to try and do is make the
existing buildings more profitable so that they can automatically upgrade on their
own without you having to spend government funds on them.
If you’re a decent player and you’re playing the unmodded vanilla game, the chances
are you’re going to win the game by late 1862 to mid 1863. Building things like
factories and ironworks simply don’t pay for themselves in a span of 2 or 3 years.
As a matter of fact the general consensus is that you should avoid building most
buildings so as to keep your economy afloat. This is especially true as the
Confederacy.
With that said, there are still some buildings that are quite useful and some that
are actually vital to help keep industries profitable.
Markets are fantastic. They significantly increase the amount of goods that can be
bought and sold per week in the IIPs (important infrastructure points) like towns
and ports around them. Prioritise them around your large ports or railways that are
bringing in high sales taxes. Having markets around industrial zones as well as
around large cities is a great idea. Cities generate a lot of demand for non military
goods and allowing more trade volume around these areas means you can collect more
sales taxes. More sales taxes helps ease the pain on your bottom line every year.
The reason you want markets around your main industrial zones (where your factories
and ironworks are) is so that they can sell more products every week (again more
sales tax) and also because you want more pre-goods (raw materials) to reach them
to keep costs down. Markets will help make a lot of buildings profitable.
When a building is very profitable due to low production costs and high demand for
its products, private investors will upgrade it from level 1 to level 2 to level 3.
As the armies grow huge, the demand for provisions skyrockets. Provisions require
food and salt. Food becomes a huge bottleneck in the early game. Food can be
produced in a factory using either grain, livestock or flour. The availability of
salt multiplies the food output by a factor of 1.5. So salt becomes a HUGE deal
(as it was historically). It is an excellent idea to build enough salt works to
meet the demand as early as possible. Put them in areas with high workforce
ideally around factories so they can buy the salt nice and cheap. This will make
food production very lucrative for your factories and help keep them profitable.
Food is always the most highly demanded product throughout the entire campaign.
Another imporant thing you should remember to do is to mothball the supply depots
in your rear areas that aren’t supplying your armies. You put them on red to make
sure they stay empty and prevent them competing with the forward supply depots on
the front line for vital supplies like ammunition and provisions.
Be smart with where and when you build supply depots. An army of 120 thousand men
can actually stay very well supplied without a single supply depot in range if
it’s in a city with a huge port and railway towns in range. Supply depots are
expensive to build, expensive to fill and aren’t always necessary. Local supply
can often more than meet an army’s demand with the added benefit of generating
more sales taxes for you in the area where your army is encamped. This is why
control of the railways, rivers and ports is so vital (again as it was historically).
Always try to plan your offensives so that your armies will be in range of a
railway or even better, an unblockaded port that is connected to the rest of
your trade network.
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