

I don't watch many 'let's play' type videos because I find them a little bit, um, boring (although the ones I did watch for Civil War II did give me one or two ideas for the best ways to fight as the CSA).

I've certainly never read any of the manuals from cover to cover - I've only checked them when something happens I don't understand (like the supply issues I mentioned). Serious answer though, the tutorials are okay at giving you the basics but won't teach you the more complicated stuff like supply/unit postures so you may need the manual for those.
ALEA JACTA EST TUTORIAL 28 CHARLES HOW TO
Finally, things begin to click and when my soldiers die in pointless battles or of starvation it's because I've forgotten to do something which I knew how to do, rather than not knowing how to do it in the first place. My usual learning curve usually goes thus: I blunder about blindly in my first few games, make tons of mistakes, shake my head in confusion as my armies march into the same territory as my enemy and refuse to do battle, send thousands of soldiers to their deaths in pointless skirmishes and many thousands more to die of starvation atop a forgotten mountain somewhere because I hadn't figured out how supply worked. I've played several AGEod games but not AJE (although from what I've read it's one of the easier ones to learn).
