What To Do During the First Six Turns

During the first six turns, assuming you are playing the full campaign starting in April, a lot of decisions are made and options selected that affect how the game will go even though you have almost no troops that can move. Some of the most important decision relate to raising money and troops for both sides. The reason these choices make a difference is that the game starts with the Early April turn with all Money and Draft choices available. If you choose these for Money (any) and/or Volunteers the game will indicate you will have to wait six turns before using these again. However, on the Early June turn they all reset to zero so you can choose any again on the Late June turn. You can therefore choose any of these options on turns 1-4 without locking them out for rechoosing on the June turn. The execption is Full Mobilization. It is on a separate counter that starts counting down from 18 relative turn 1 regardless of when you use it.

There are a wide range of combination of choices for Money and Drafts. The best combination depends on what you personal objectives are on things like Inflation, Morale, and Victory Points since each choice affects these. Timing is also important because the amount of money raised is modified by the Victory Point level and the number of conscripts raised is dependent on National Morale. Also, especially for the South, it is pointless to use options too early since there aren't sufficient War Supplies to use them effectively.

For Raising Money you have three catagories to choose from; War Bonds, Taxes and Printing Money. I know for sure Bonds and Taxes reset in June so you can use both twice during the first six turns. I did not test Printing Money since it is an extreme measure for this early. Here are some of the choices you have and their costs:

War Bonds

• 5% - Raises $104,000 at cost of 0% Inflation and 25 VP
• 6% - Raises $156,000 at cost of 1% Inflation and 50 VP
• 8% - Raises $311,000 at cost of 2% Inflation and 75 VP

• Measured -   Raises $117,000 at cost of 0% Inflation and 1 MP
• Graduated -  Raises $170,000 at cost of 1% Inflation and 1 MP
• Exceptional - Raises $373,000 at cost of 2% Inflation and 2 MP

For Volunteers your choices are:

• No bounty paid         - Raises 129 conscripts
• $1000 per Conscript - Raises 258 conscripts
• $2000 per Conscript - Raises 357 conscripts
• $3000 per Conscript - Raises 437 conscripts

For Mobilization it is one shot, no reset in June, but you do have choices:

• Partial - Raises 536 conscripts at cost of 4 MP, 25 VP
• Full -     Raises 734 conscripts at cost of 5 MP, 75 VP

The numbers I gave are examples and more or less correspond to the Union values on the first game turn when playing the Full Campaign with Kentucky option. They change every time a new patch comes out as they adjusts costs so they are only a rule of thumb. If you look at my examples below you will find they don't match because of these changes.

To see how different choices affect the overal results I ran a series of tests using minimal military actions so things wouldn't be affected by external events. In the tables whenever I executed an event like Call for Volunteers I showed the number of turns before the event can be used again which it displays on subsequent turns. When an event is used I indicate it by displaying the numbers of in red. Below the Table I show the actual totals for money and conscripts produced. Money is shown in thousands of dollars. Some of the abbreviations are: WB - War Bonds, Measd - Measured Taxes, Excep - Exceptional Taxes, Mob - Mobilization, and VP - Victory Point Level.

The first example shows using early calls for money and volunteers on turn 1 and waiting until turn 6 to make a Full Mobilization call along with a Call for Volunteers, raising money through another Bond and an Exceptional Tax call.

Turn	5%WB	Measd	Excep	Call Vol	Part Mob	Full Mob	Morale	VP
1	92	104	373	154	462	616	100	50
2	6	6	6	6	462	616	100	60
3	5	5	5	5	462	616	100	98
4	4	4	4	4	453	607	97	144
5	0	0	0	0	453	607	97	193
6	141	159	508	144	451	605	97	243
7	13	13	13	13	13	13	86	198

Totals: Money = 84+103+136+486= 809   Conscripts = 151+141+602= 894   3% Inflation

First, the totals - notice that the numbers don't match the red numbers. That is partially because the ones the game displays are estimates and partially because the underlying numbers used to calculate them changed when you executed other affecting events. In other words, the act of say mobilization will change the current morale and VP levels which affect how much money and volunteers you can raise.

Next, note how the number of turns until the event could be reused changed between turn 4 and 5. This is the reset event firing for the fact that turn 4 is Late May and turn 5 is Early June. This means that the next turn, Turn 6, you can execute these events again without having to wait. Also, if we had used the Full Mobilization event you would have also seen a count down but from 18 and it would not reset on turn 5.

And last, look at how the Morale and VP levels changed. When the Full Mobilization option is used the levels take a major hit. That is why I waited to use this one. It allowed me to get the maximum from the Money and Volunteer options which are dependent on these.

The second example shows using early calls for money, volunteers and Full Mobilization on turn 1.

Turn	5%WB	Measd	Excep	Call Vol	Part Mob	Full Mob	Morale	VP
1	92	104	333	154	462	616	100	50
2	6	6	6	6	18	18	96	15
3	5	5	5	5	17	17	97	28
4	4	4	4	4	16	16	98	75
5	0	0	0	0	15	15	98	125
6	126	142	453	146	14	14	98	175
7	13	13	13	13	13	13	97	200

Totals: Money = 84+330+120+430= 900   Conscripts = 139+143+613= 895   4% Inflation

Again the total numbers don't match the red numbers.

In this one I called for Exceptional Taxes on turn 1. This resulted in more money but at the price of higher inflation rates.

And in this one I executed the Full Mobilizaton on the first turn rather than later after the money calls. If you compare the amounts for the Turn 6 money options with those of the previous table you can see the affect of this due to lower VP levels. The other interesting thing is it had no affect on the total number of conscripts raised.

The most important point to get from all this is that if you fail to execute the Money and Volunteer options during the first four turns you lose out on a major call for money and troops. I tend to wait to make the Mobilization call because I usually find for both sides that they don't have the resources to use these extra men. However, the Union is more likely to be able to use them than the South so you can try an arms race to see if you can out build the Confederacy in the first few turns.

And, tied into these decisions is how much money do you need and is the price of inflation worth the extra funds? This is a hard question requiring a lot of analysis. You will find both sides start off with insufficient money to build all they want. The Union has a different money problem from the South. They have enough income that they are usually conscript limited in their production so they can raise enough money to pay bounties which can help them raise very large armies. The South on the other hand rarely can afford to use money to raise troops. But keep in mind that inflation doesn't increase prices until January of the next year. Making calls for a lot of money and taking the inflation hit so additional troops can be raised is a good tactic later in the war even for the South.