OOB - ANV vs AoP

[jchastain]

In the AAR thread, we've been discussing the ANV versus the AOP. I thought it might be of interest to grab a few screen shots of the starting OOB forces.

First, here's the AoP. You'll see more than just that as this is an overview of the entire USA miliatry, but you can see the AoP within it. The first thing to notice is that it isn't a single Army, but rather 3 separate armies. So moving it enmasse isn't necessarily a given. Support costs for 3 armies is also greater than for one. Ideally, the Union would like to build some Corps and collapse this into a single army to make it less unwieldy.

Next, notice the troop and quality levels. Quality = Morale, so that is a critical factor for each army. While many starting elements in the game are random, the quality level of the starting forces are fixed so that is what you'll get each time.

[jchastain]

Next, we'll look at the CSA.

But you'll start by seeing that the ANV is a real army, with Corps (Divisions) assigned under the overall army. That's a much more effective organization. The troops quality is also a good bit higher than the Union's. The entire Army has a quality level of 2.87 with many divisions at or near 3.0. The USA's 3 armies top out at 2.22 with one below 2.0. That's a big deal.

EDIT: Replaced partially bad image.

[jchastain]

But that's not the whole story. The CSA has better generals and better staff officers. When we look at containers, we see their staff officers. Logistics officers impact supply and movement of the army. Command Staff impacts combat performance. Here's a look at the first Army of the AoP.

[jchastain]

You'll see at the bottom where the Army commands are Poor for logistics and Bad for Command. These actually do change from game to game, but they tend to sit within a general range. The following values were for all of the units in the AoP in the game where I took those caps and they seem to be pretty typical.

A - Poor / Bad
D - Bad / Poor
D Poor / Poor
D - Normal / Fair

A - Normal / Fair
D - Poor / Bad
D - Bad / Bad
D - Poor / Normal
D- Fair / Poor

A - Normal / Terrible
D - Terrible / Bad
D - Normal / Terrible
D - Fair / Poor

[jchastain]

In the south, on the other hand, staff officers are pretty solid.

[jchastain]

The remainder of the ANV staff officers are:

A - Fair / Great

C - Fair Great
D - Fair Good
D - Good / Great
D - Good / Good

C - Normal / Good
D - Normal / Fair
D - Fair / Good
D - Fair / Good

C - Fair / Fair
D - Fair / Excellent
D - Normal / Great
D - Fair / Excellent


In the lists above,
A = Army
C = Corp
D = Division

They should tie to the OOB shown above. The ratings for each should be the logistics / command rating for each container.

[jchastain]

So, the bottom line of all of that is that at the start of the game, the AoP cannot stand toe to toe with the ANV. Of course, the Union has the economic and numerical advantages and over time should be able to build up its army to overcome the rebels initial quality advantage.