Ah, that delicious feeling of hair-shredding frustration

[Taiaha]

Just coming back to SoWG after not having enough time to really play games for a while. Pleased to find that it is still kicking my arse! I'm still trying to beat the McLaws scenario which is, for my money, the hardest of the stock scenarios. I was losing handsomely. The entire Federal army Zerged Kershaw and Semmes and the units in the Peach Orchard just stuck in place; I had to wipe out entire regiments before they broke. It became obvious after about half an hour (it took the Feds only about twenty minutes to shatter two entire brigades) that I wasn't winning, but I played it out for pride. I ended up with all of Barksdale's and most of Wofford's brigade still fighting, in good order, trying to extricate themselves from a developing salient in just south of the Peach Orchard (by this point the other half of the Union army had made its way over). Suddenly, all but one of my regiments broke and ran for the rear. Their morale was good, they were tired but not desperately so, and they were running! WTF? I was cussing up a blue streak, calling Norb and the team every name under the sun, impugning their parentage and the like when I happened to look more closely and noticed that all the units were out of ammunition.

Oh.

Which taught me two things:
1) the New Year might be a good time to take some anger management classes.
2) the great thing about this game is that when the completely unexpected and idiotic happens there is usually a plausible reason for it.

On the plus side, fought the Barksdale brigade scenario again and after having just squeaked out a major victory last time I was able to my up my score quite a bit: had all but one regiment intact, and captured a lot of artillery and even a supply wagon.

Can't wait to get involved in the multiplayer campaign. . .but I need to become a General first!

[Little Powell]

Hi Taiaha - Have you seen this thread?

http://www.norbsoftdev.com/index.php?op ... =103#23251

I wrote up a little AAR after winning the scenario. I agree it is one of the hardest (if not he hardest) scenarios but it is winnable. My AAR seemed to help one guy, let me know if it helps you.

[Taiaha]

That is a good AAR, thanks. I was trying a strategy that was generally similar but I don't think I moved aggressively enough at the beginning. I think my only (mild) quibble with this scenario is that while it is winnable, it doesn't seem to be winnable with all variants. There are some that seem to make it completely impossible from the get-go (my last attempt had the perfect storm: aggressive and stubborn troops in the Peach Orchard, no action at all from the Anderson area of the field, and a blue hammer descending on two brigades). Of course, this could just be my generalship (or lack thereof) but I've been racking up some pretty reasonable wins in most of the other scenarios.

I did have one question about your AAR, if you don't mind. You mentioned that if Anderson et al were really banged up in the "To the Roundtops" scenario they wouldn't be of much help. Does this mean that if I can go back and improve my score in that scenario I can expect a little more help from that quarter? So far, each time I've played McLaws, there is little sign of the attack that is supposedly already under way in that part of the field. Anderson in particular seems to be more interested in camping out in the woods and making coffee.

[Little Powell]

The McLaws scenario (GB11) is carried over from The Round Tops scenario (GB7). In other words, any casualties sustained will be carried over to GB11. So if you fought Anderson hard and he took a lot of casualties, this will affect how effective he is when he attacks the Wheatfield in GB11.

So yes; if you go back and replay it, improve your score, and make sure Anderson doesn't get chewed up too bad, then it will help. It's not a show stopper if Anderson is chewed up bad, but it does help your attack on the Wheatfield if he hasn't taken much of a casualty hit.

[Neal]

I was having a tough time with some sandbox scenarios until I realized I had the enemy aggression level cranked up to 5 among other things to maximize difficulty. I set it like that for practice and forgot and got used to it in sandbox. Not sure if it also applies to stock scenarios, but it might be worth checking and reducing to a more reasonable value, like 4. LOL



N