The Bluecoats: North & South

The Bluecoats: North & South

11 Achievements

2-4h

PS4
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Great strategist

Great strategist

Win three times in a row in difficult mode

4.6%

How to unlock the Great strategist achievement in The Bluecoats: North & South - Definitive Guide

In simple terms, beat the game three times in a row on Hard difficulty. If you play and/or beat a game on any difficulty other than Hard, your progress resets.

I like to mention one important detail that occurred during my attempt at this achievement. On my 3rd game straight on Hard mode, the game crashed at the end of a battle. I reloaded the game and beat it, but the achievement never unlocked.

Another TA gamer, Dingadilly stated this in a comment on a different North & South achievement that leads me to believe that exactly what happened to me was the same problem. Ding's statement:
Restarted north and south was able to continue from the save file. But upon winning my 3rd in a row I did not unlock great strategist.
I had to play Hard mode another three straight times without crashing before I got the achievement. I like to give credit to Dingadilly for confirming my thought on my experience on getting this achievement.
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12 Sep 2021 21:54

2 Comments
Unfortunately, I can confirm. Also, quitting to try and save yourself an embarrassing outcome seems to void the streak. At this point, I'd try to always play full games in one sitting.
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By Epsilon Theta on 21 Aug 2022 20:34
So if you crash out, here's what you do: Start a new game. I won 2, crashed early in my third, booted the game and started a new game, won it, achievement popped at the end. Key is to not finish a game where you crashed.
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By The Globalizer on 30 Dec 2023 16:05
Warning
Quitting the game during battles and crashing will break your chain, making previously won games not count towards the streak. Possibly also quitting mid-game. However, quitting the game after winning a game does not break the chain.
You need to win three games on hard difficulty mode but can change other settings as desired. Personally, I played with the south (switch factions is the topmost, often overlooked option), with no raids by Indians or Mexicans and without the Storm. I left reinforcement on and played all battles. The latter is important as you don't want to leave it up to chance.

For the most part, train and fort battles are easy FPS sections that you shouldn't struggle too much with as they are rather easy, even on hard. What was really hard for me were the top-down strategy mini-games with your troops, the field battles. However, once you figure out a few details, you are set. Firstly, use your cannons from the start and target the enemy infantry. Often they will either not move and die or move them forward so that you can line up a follow-up shot as infantry often moves in a straight line. Learn to judge distances and you can easily take out their infantry. To take out their cannon(s), move your cavalry forward while avoiding their cannon fire by cycling units and moving yours a bit as they fire their cannons. The most dangerous units are their cavalry. I tried to keep my cannon with my infantry as some nicely line up shots can cripple their cavalry, either cannon or infantry shots. But it is all a bit luck-dependent unfortunately. However, when they charge early on, it isn't a bad idea to counter them with your own cavalry. Take out most of their cavalry with your infantry men and finish up the rest with your cavalry. If you kept your troops in the back moving, their cannon shouldn't be a problem.

As far as the board goes, I tend to chose the battles in '63 as playing the South gave me an advantage. Keep the port (right-hand side) safe and you will get reinforced on your second turn for free. The AI should either bolster the east coast or their centre. If they bolster the east coast, you just need to hold off their first attack as they will not reinforce and attack a second time. You will get reinforced so no worries here. If they bolstered the centre, just match their units while taking land west. Your goal is to take a tile between the forts on the top, respectively top as you can then intercept the train and starve them of cash. Do this and you can easily wipe out the enemy as they can't reinforce. Move up in the centre and take more railways in case you loose a tile. As long as you get their cash, you can loose a unit or two.

To end the game, destroy their units and capture the fort on the top left-hand side. Once they have no means of generating cash and no troops, you win.

Alternatively, you can take a third fort in the west as they will try and get it back. But since the fort defence game is also quite easy, they should never succeed. You can bind their troops while securing the railway and slowly overpowering them.
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22 Aug 2022 12:01

This is the only challenging achievement in the game, but it can be made pretty easy and consistent with the following settings:
 
  • Play as: North (this is the default)
  • Difficulty: Hard
  • Battles: Inactive
  • Attacks: Inactive
  • Reinforcements: Active
  • Storm: Inactive
  • Battle: 1864 (the last one)
The North has a very clear advantage in the battle of 1864, since it starts with three of five forts, and more states controlled. It may sound counterintuitive to turn off Battles, but this eliminates all skill from this achievement. With Battles set to inactive, it becomes a matter of who has more army members to win each fight, and with the steps below, you will always have more than the AI and therefore always win.

Turn 1
  • Move your rightmost unit south one state to North Carolina, where the lighthouse is
  • Move your second unit from the right down one state
  • Press button-x.png to open the shop, buy a Job, and place that new unit where the unit above just came from
  • Move that new unit one state down to merge it with the existing unit
  • Move your northwestern unit (the one on the northwest fort) southeast one state, to the uncolored state
  • Move your last unit southwest to merge with the unit you just moved
HERE is a clip of me showing the first turn, so you can replicate it. This is the most important turn since it sets you up for victory pretty easily.

AI Turn 1
  • They will always move their southeastern fort unit up to North Carolina and attack you, to try to take this key state. It's a 50/50 chance who wins, since you have equal numbers. For the purposes of this, I will assume you lose since that's the "harder" scenario to deal with (but not hard at all)
  • They will attack your merged unit in the center. You have a double unit here so you will always win
  • They will move up on the west side. If they attack you, they will lose since you have a double unit. If they don't attack, you will next turn

Turn 2
  • Your western unit should attack any remaining enemy unit in range, if any is left. That'll clear out the west. If none left, move south, aiming to be on the state just east of the southwestern fort. You want to be on the railroad. DO NOT attack the fort from where you are
  • Your central unit should move south one more state, onto the railroad tracks. If there is still an enemy unit left on one of these southern states, pick the one they're on so you destroy them and also end on a railroad state. If there isn't an enemy unit left, move southeast to the state just west of the southeastern fort. You want to be on the railroad track next to it
  • Assuming your eastern unit lost to the enemies taking North Carolina, nothing else to do here. Save your money. If, by chance, you won, you can move south and try to take the fort with that unit each turn
AI Turn 2
  • Their train will come. If you are successful in stopping it with your unit on the railroad, they won't get any money and won't be able to deploy any more units. If they succeed, and they have enough money to deploy a unit, they will do so
  • Their only remaining unit may by the one on the east coast. It will move up toward the northeastern fort one more state

Turn 3
  • By now you should have at least $6 saved up. Buy a unit and place it on the northeastern fort
  • Assuming the enemy unit isn't on the state just south of this fort, move this new unit one state south. You should be just north of the enemy unit on the east coast
  • Buy a second unit, place it on the same fort, and then move it south to merge with the previous one. You now have a double unit ready to take out the enemy unit on the next turn
  • Your western unit, if it isn't already, should also be placed on the railroad on the south, one state east of the western enemy fort. This is to increase the chances of interrupting the train
  • Your other unit(s) in the south should stay on the railroad but continue attacking the southeastern fort. If you succeed, you'll win next turn. If not, no impact to your unit. It'll return to the railroad state
AI Turn 3
  • Their last unit on the east coast will move up and attack you. They'll lose easily. They should have no more units left
  • It's pretty unlikely their train will successfully get past both of your units, but if it does, it doesn't give them enough money to buy a new unit

Turn 4+
  • If you still haven't won, spend your money on the Reload item from the shop to increase chances of taking a fort/train, and each unit in the south attacks a fort from a railroad state
AI Turn 4+
  • They have no units and will just be trying to get money from their train, which assuredly won't be succeeding
That's all there is to it. I won in three turns for all three matches. As long as you go into every battle with a double unit (which is easy to do with the above stategy), you will always win. It might be annoying waiting for your units to take a fort, since the Reload item in the shop doesn't seem to stack three times like it claims it can, but you will eventually win without any chance of losing.
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