UGCW Feedback v0.78+

[Wandering1]

 

9 minutes ago, AJ McCully said:

Currently, the only options I have for this battle are

1. Conventional draw by defending and retreating (and failing most of the time)
2. Cheese victory by withdrawing to Sharpsburg, luring the Union army there and then sneaking individual brigades onto all victory points
3. Retreating right at the beginning taking 0 losses and taking the reputation hit

 

 

#2 is really the only practical way of getting a victory on Antietam as CSA on Legendary. Basically, if you can't hold both of the bridges where Burnside is attempting to cross, there's no point in getting rear flanked. And holding both of the bridges is going to be expensive either way; was only able to do it on BG/MG by parking my 24 pdrs at the bridges and micro-managing the shells/canister rounds when they attempted to cross.

[vren55]

On 4/10/2017 at 5:17 PM, AJ McCully said:

Also, I tried the same thing at Gettysburg and had the Union on the run but my army was exhausted from constant fighting and walked so slowly up to cemetery ridge that I almost threw my keyboard out of a third storey window when the timer clicked down to zero. Luckily my next day reinforcements took Little Round Top and calmed the rage. Was not happy with Ewell afterwards.

 I basically made a beeline for SOuth Seminary and then cemetary. Take the southern hill and don't bother with the north (until later) then instead of walking up through the town I flanked them. Basically I had some divisions keep the union in the town (not necessarily engaging, but fixing) and then swung three of my best brigades over the open field... they sortof collapsed from then.

Edited April 13, 2017 by vren55

[MishaTX]

On 4/10/2017 at 2:05 PM, Aetius said:

I've got a Legendary Ironman Confederate run going:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl9g3AKsEm20uIM8vM9rb6O2vRZgq7H0r

I restarted because of the store issues, so I believe it's all on the 0.79 hotfix so far.

I've been enjoying your series immensely, so thanks! It has taught me a lot of stuff not necessarily only for Legendary too.

And I do agree, there are things that need to be "fixed." Like the refusal of the AI to retreat in a rout if they're standing in water, and that goes for lower difficulty levels too, because I've seen it numerous times. Apparently the best place for a routing enemy to be in is to be in the worst possible position imaginable, which is milling about in a river. Granted, on lower levels, that really doesn't help it because you can massacre it that way but...

The ability to magically recover from a rout and be fully functional almost instantly, which the AI apparently has on Legendary. I do understand the philosophy behind buffing the AI on higher difficulty levels, that's pretty much the point of upping the challenge by going up a step, but seriously, as I've seen on your videos, a routed enemy literally retreating a few yards, then reforming and firing a volley that causes the unit that just wrecked it to rout itself?

I'm all about increasing the challenge with increasing difficulty level, that's the whole point, but I like for the challenge to be at least plausible. If a unit just lost 50+ percent of its combat strength just to get it to fold, then it's exceedingly unlikely that it will almost instantly reform to its original level of fortitude before it has at least retreated out of harm's way.

And then there's the weapons and men buff. If we're going to go that silly about it, we might as well just give the AI drones, jet aircraft, panzers and MG42s.

Early access and all, and I love this game. It's the most fun I've ever had with my clothes on and I'm quite frankly amazed at just what's been done with the AI, so I'm not slamming, I'm just suggesting improvements to a game that I have absolutely fallen in love with.

Edited April 15, 2017 by MishaTX

[Mason Price]

Don't know if anyone has this problem but I am playing the Confederates at the legendary mode.  The fortifications do not work well--the fire rate is very fast but the volleys do almost no damage to enemy units (about 3 kills per volley).  In some battles like Newport, the fortified coverage in the city is worse than just being in the city next to the fortifications--and same problem--the fire rate is fast but does ridiculously little damage and the city coverage is 100% whereas the fortifications is only about 70%--I am taking more damage in the fortification than the Union troops standing exposed in the river bed.  Even so, it is possible to win--have done so every time but I don't use the fortifications.  In First Bullrun, I just noticed that my infantry unit in its first engagement in the battle (1300 troops) against 400 +/- Union calvary were routed within seconds even  when I ambushed them at a ford and sent a full volley into them and then attacked while they were stationary in the river.  Also having trouble with the fallback option as it is hard to control the direction of retreat--often puts the brigade out of position for no good reason and is only adjustable by exposing the brigade's flanks--very frustrating and unnecessary--there should be a way to chose the direction of the fallback command.  For that matter--there should be a way to fine tune the positioning of brigades without the brigade going through some crazy maneuver that invariably exposes it flank.  All very frustrating and has led me to the point where i am done with this game until the kinks are worked out--this could be a great game but too many kinks--another one that REALLY bugs me--Antietam is hard enough at this level--with the Union having 150,000+ troops--when they suddenly appear at the bridge there are just all of the sudden about 12,000 troops all on the bridge at the same time and one large calvary unit that suddenly appears literally right on top of one of my brigades on the other side of the bridge--how does that work?  There are other battles where the opposing troops just all of the sudden drop right onto the screen right on top of my troops.

[Mason Price]

On 4/5/2017 at 1:37 AM, Hardcase726 said:

Watching this vid made me a new subscriber. Yeah, Legendary is way unbalanced.

I actually liked playing against the massively uneven Union side at Newport and other battles in the legendary mode.  It is very hard with some battles but am able to win though I have to play with lots of pausing to position my troops effectively.  My beef is more with the gameplay that still needs work--repositioning brigades without getting flanked, the fallback option still often sucks--should be able to choose the direction of fallback since the AI can't seem to get it right, the fortifications don't work right--the fire rate is very high but with almost no damage per volley.  I like how hard it is in legendary but gameplay still needs a lot of work.  There is also that kink in some battles like Newport where Union brigades taking a lot of damage in the river just sit there until completely destroyed.

[Mason Price]

On 4/4/2017 at 6:55 PM, Moltke said:

I absolutely love how the dev team has done the overland campaign. I feel like you guys have truly captured how much of a grind it was historically. In addition, you all show how the civil war is changing into a war of trenches and attrition. It no longer feels like 1861-1862 nor should it.

The AI is also greatly improved. I can really tell you all worked long and hard fine tuning the AI. The AI actually plans and executes great assaults and made me feel like I would lose at Laurel Hill. Indeed, I actually did lose my CSA Left Flank control point on Cold Harbor. I recovered by moving my infantry quickly to a lightly defended Bethesda Church control point which saved the battle for me. This new AI has forced me to be much more cautious and meticulous in my planning. I love the AI and will have to play some prior battles in historical mode to see how it reacts there.

I recommend this game to everyone I know. For $30 you all have made a tactical masterpiece. 

I cannot wait for the battle of Washington and have confidence the dev team will do as great of job there as they have with the rest of the game.

One other thing i have a problem with--but not sure about this and just need clarification...I play with lots of pauses and even in Legendary mode, in some battles I have been able to crush the Union army--the problem is I thought this would lead to some sort of   better rewards--but actually Union strength seems unaffected by how badly they were crushed in past battles--and the only thing that pressing on and destroying nearly the whole Union army did was to weaken my number of troops moving forward in the campaign.  I want every battle to be hard but if I play too aggressively in destroying enemy forces, it just hurts me in the overall campaign--feel like I now need to start over as I am getting into some very hard battles at this difficulty level

and I have weakened my forces unnecessarily by pressing my advantages in some battles.

[Aetius]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3xlQJX2CvM

There are two moments I want to highlight:

34:30 - 34:55: I didn't catch it directly in the video, but watch the 1st Ohio and the 1/2 Rifle on the Confederate right. You'll hear me complaining about the 1st Ohio charging, and then a few seconds later the 1st Ohio no longer exists. The AI is now so aggressive that it performed a suicidal charge, with a unit that was at less than 40% strength.

55:30-55:40: Watch Wilcox and Jackson on the left. Wilcox, despite being heavily outnumbered, almost surrounded, low morale, and low condition, makes another suicidal charge into Jackson - except this time, Wilcox is in such bad shape and takes so much damage that he gets captured.

The recent buff to Morale recovery for AI units is leading to ... poor decision making on charges when units are retreating, at low strength, and / or surrounded by enemy troops. I'm happy to get the extra troops from the capture, but this is probably something that should be fixed.

[Fred Sanford]

5 hours ago, Mason Price said:

One other thing i have a problem with--but not sure about this and just need clarification...I play with lots of pauses and even in Legendary mode, in some battles I have been able to crush the Union army--the problem is I thought this would lead to some sort of   better rewards--but actually Union strength seems unaffected by how badly they were crushed in past battles--and the only thing that pressing on and destroying nearly the whole Union army did was to weaken my number of troops moving forward in the campaign.  I want every battle to be hard but if I play too aggressively in destroying enemy forces, it just hurts me in the overall campaign--feel like I now need to start over as I am getting into some very hard battles at this difficulty level

and I have weakened my forces unnecessarily by pressing my advantages in some battles.

I understand that the AI army needs to be able to regenerate itself for gameplay reasons.  But I think there should be an additional Rep reward for inflicting casualties so the player is encouraged to fight.  Say 1 Rep point for every 500 casualties over your own.  And lift the 1,000 max additional recruits cap for captured units.

[Aetius]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeH12fW_1Qg

I just F11'd an issue on Stay Alert that permits the player to bring more brigades into the battle than the scenario cap permits. It appears to be because reinforcements are based on division. I'm allowed ten brigades total. The initial deployment is six. If I initially deploy most of 1st Division, one brigade from 2nd Division and one brigade from 3rd Division, the rest of 1st and 2nd Divisions still deploy as reinforcements ... giving me a total of 11 brigades on the field.

I believe I've seen and mentioned this issue before, on Port Republic, so I'll be keeping a lookout for more instances of it.

[civsully1]

10 hours ago, Mason Price said:

One other thing i have a problem with--but not sure about this and just need clarification...I play with lots of pauses and even in Legendary mode, in some battles I have been able to crush the Union army--the problem is I thought this would lead to some sort of   better rewards--but actually Union strength seems unaffected by how badly they were crushed in past battles--and the only thing that pressing on and destroying nearly the whole Union army did was to weaken my number of troops moving forward in the campaign.  I want every battle to be hard but if I play too aggressively in destroying enemy forces, it just hurts me in the overall campaign--feel like I now need to start over as I am getting into some very hard battles at this difficulty level

and I have weakened my forces unnecessarily by pressing my advantages in some battles.

1) I concur with this statement. It seems whatever side you play you suffer your casualties, carry them over into the next battle and have to refit. But for the AI it doesn't seem to be the case. It appears to get full/near historical forces without regard to the losses suffered in the previous battle/s. Of course you get some small benefit like minus quality of firearms or a small deduction of starting forces for the AI. But when one is lucky enough (in my case) or skilled enough (for most) to cause massive enemy casualties it just doesn't seem to be reflective  for the next battle.

2) Boy did I find that out after Antietam! Killed 59000 union but lost 27000. And since then I'm at a huge disadvantage in the following battles where I am fielding just 2 Corps of 1800 man brigades. Now facing Stones River and I had to reluctantly spend reputation for just 3500 men to fill my 3rd corps with 3 new 1000 man brigades. Gadzooks! I just didn't understand how to grow my army fast enough from when I first started. I focused on getting better weapons early when I should have been forming more units. Lesson learned here for sure. And not a game issue. Still just an unfinished game and so addictive! WoW.

[civsully1]

3 hours ago, Aetius said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeH12fW_1Qg

I just F11'd an issue on Stay Alert that permits the player to bring more brigades into the battle than the scenario cap permits. It appears to be because reinforcements are based on division. I'm allowed ten brigades total. The initial deployment is six. If I initially deploy most of 1st Division, one brigade from 2nd Division and one brigade from 3rd Division, the rest of 1st and 2nd Divisions still deploy as reinforcements ... giving me a total of 11 brigades on the field.

I believe I've seen and mentioned this issue before, on Port Republic, so I'll be keeping a lookout for more instances of it.

Thanks for posting the link Aetius! I really find it helpful to see a visual reference to an issue. Kudos!

[Andre Bolkonsky]

14 hours ago, Mason Price said:

One other thing i have a problem with--but not sure about this and just need clarification...I play with lots of pauses and even in Legendary mode, in some battles I have been able to crush the Union army--the problem is I thought this would lead to some sort of   better rewards--but actually Union strength seems unaffected by how badly they were crushed in past battles--and the only thing that pressing on and destroying nearly the whole Union army did was to weaken my number of troops moving forward in the campaign.  I want every battle to be hard but if I play too aggressively in destroying enemy forces, it just hurts me in the overall campaign--feel like I now need to start over as I am getting into some very hard battles at this difficulty level

and I have weakened my forces unnecessarily by pressing my advantages in some battles.

Sorry, I have to ask. I know a Mason Price. You don't live in Texas, do you? 

[Hitorishizuka]

19 hours ago, Mason Price said:

One other thing i have a problem with--but not sure about this and just need clarification...I play with lots of pauses and even in Legendary mode, in some battles I have been able to crush the Union army--the problem is I thought this would lead to some sort of   better rewards--but actually Union strength seems unaffected by how badly they were crushed in past battles--and the only thing that pressing on and destroying nearly the whole Union army did was to weaken my number of troops moving forward in the campaign.  I want every battle to be hard but if I play too aggressively in destroying enemy forces, it just hurts me in the overall campaign--feel like I now need to start over as I am getting into some very hard battles at this difficulty level

and I have weakened my forces unnecessarily by pressing my advantages in some battles.

The rewards you get from performing better in a given better are theoretically: more captured weapons (nerfed on Legendary) and more experience for your troops (technically matters insofar as the enemy scaling will soon put them at stat cap anyway while you then have room to scale up stat wise without being adjusted to). Otherwise, playing the campaign is more about husbanding your strength and developing your own troops while still winning battles.

[MishaTX]

14 hours ago, Fred Sanford said:

But I think there should be an additional Rep reward for inflicting casualties so the player is encouraged to fight.

I couldn't agree more.

I know the reasoning behind the scaling and it's basically a good one ("otherwise the game would get boring towards the end if you fought well"), I certainly don't have any better alternatives off the top of my head, but it feels to me like there's really no incentive to press an advantage or to be aggressive overall. "Sure, I've routed his entire flank and could probably crush him by rolling his line up, but that will mean leaving cover and taking casualties for no gain, so I'll just sit back and re-read McClellan's memoirs for the fifteenth time ;-)" 

More captured weapons? I don't know about that. After obliterating the Union Army at Stay Alert I picked up about 300 Springfield 1842s. Had the battle been a harder one, I certainly wouldn't have risked my units on a counterattack for that kind of reward.

[A. P. Hill]

8 hours ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

Sorry, I have to ask. I know a Mason Price. You don't live in Texas, do you? 

Sorry, derailing is not permitted in these forums!

[Mason Price]

4 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

The rewards you get from performing better in a given better are theoretically: more captured weapons (nerfed on Legendary) and more experience for your troops (technically matters insofar as the enemy scaling will soon put them at stat cap anyway while you then have room to scale up stat wise without being adjusted to). Otherwise, playing the campaign is more about husbanding your strength and developing your own troops while still winning battles.

Understood, however, where this really began to get to me was when (in the legendary mode--which is hard enough)  I crushed the Union at 2nd Bullrun, completely eliminating many brigades and about 7/8 of the army--but at a cost in troops--and then a few battles later I am facing 150,000 plus Union troops at Antietam in brigades that are primarily 2 or three stars and 2950 strong--whereas I didn't do anything but weaken myself by being aggressive throughout the campaign--yes you get a little more experience but I was thinking at the least i would be weakening their experience levels in future battles relative to mine.  In any case, I am hoping that they continue to work on the gameplay which is my real beef as mentioned above--better control of manuevuering brigades, combining brigades needs work, and issues like how fortifications suck and balancing the strengths and effectiveness of various unit types--I think this game could be great but right now it is very frustrating.  While I am at it...does it make sense for the AI to have troops charge a strong defensive position and then stop right in front of it and take massive damage without completing the charge--as often happens?  Makes the game a little easier but unless I am gravely mistaken the whole idea of a charge was to engage the enemy in melee.  Fortifications are great for melee but ridiculous for volleys.

Edited April 17, 2017 by Mason Price
correction/clarification

[Wandering1]

18 hours ago, Fred Sanford said:

I understand that the AI army needs to be able to regenerate itself for gameplay reasons.  But I think there should be an additional Rep reward for inflicting casualties so the player is encouraged to fight.  Say 1 Rep point for every 500 casualties over your own.  And lift the 1,000 max additional recruits cap for captured units.

It would have to be a lot higher than 500 casualties for 1 Rep point if we wanted to have scaling rewards based on overkill; Fredericksburg as CSA would easily give you 100 rep if you basically annihilated the Union army. Maybe more like 5000 or even 10000; having too much rep from overkilling the enemy can basically ruin the Rep economy by virtue of being able to buy out the entire shop, generals included.

[Bigjku]

I agree the rewards badly need tweaking for crushing performances.  I am finishing my first play through on easy (wanted to go to BG but wanted to finish it out first) and I just inflicted around 55,000 casualties on the CSA at Gettysburg.  Basically wiping them out.  I took around 20,000 casualties primarily because I swept around the left flank on both day 2 and 3 and routed dozen of brigades but took a ton of artillery fire in the process.

It wasn't worth it in the end.

The other area that needs a good deal of rework at least on the union side is equipment.  Simply put I have captured more Fayettvilles (like 4,600) and Enfields (like 15-20,000) than I am able to buy Speingfields at any price.  That makes little sense with a winning record in almost all battles.  The price of weapons really should vary as the war moves along.  Springfield rifles should by 1863 be cheap for the union player.

[Aetius]

14 hours ago, Mason Price said:

While I am at it...does it make sense for the AI to have troops charge a strong defensive position and then stop right in front of it and take massive damage without completing the charge--as often happens?

This is actually more realistic than it might seem at first glance. Many charges failed to reach their objective. In Pickett's Charge, only Armistead and Garnett (and a handful of others,  I think?) actually reached the Union lines and engaged in melee. I've read before (can't recall where) about the dynamics of infantry charges - the attacking troops often wanted to stop and shoot back, and when they did it was very difficult to get them moving forward again. It got to the point late in the war where attacking Union soldiers would be ordered not to place percussion caps on their rifles, so that they wouldn't be tempted to stop and shoot back, and thus break the momentum of the charge.

[AdmiralGeneralAladeen]

First of all, great game overall, really impressed and it seems to get better at every patch.  My only problem is that there is no difference as far as rewards between inflicting 1,000 casualties and 100,000 casualties. As a result, I find myself usually doing the bare minimum for victories during a campaign (not aggressively fighting the enemy in situations where I could inflict very high casualties, waiting to take Victory Points until the timer has almost run out to minimize my losses, not defending points I don't need, etc.). I hate using these gamey solutions, but when there is no reward for fighting hard it sometimes becomes the smarter choice. The solution I thought of was to reduce the Reputation, Recruits and Cash rewards for a Victory, Draw, or Loss by about half, and then implement a system where the amount of casualties you inflict would be reflected in your rewards, which could be adjusted by difficulty level.  For example if you inflict X amount of casualties, you gain X amount of recruits in addition to your reduced regular rewards for the battle. This system could be used for Cash and Reputation as well. Figured a system like this or something similar would get players to actually fight the battles  instead of just finding the easiest way to win. Even making this an optional way to play the campaign would be awesome, I know its probably a little late in development to implement a system like this but just a thought, keep up the good work!

[Mason Price]

3 hours ago, Aetius said:

This is actually more realistic than it might seem at first glance. Many charges failed to reach their objective. In Pickett's Charge, only Armistead and Garnett (and a handful of others,  I think?) actually reached the Union lines and engaged in melee. I've read before (can't recall where) about the dynamics of infantry charges - the attacking troops often wanted to stop and shoot back, and when they did it was very difficult to get them moving forward again. It got to the point late in the war where attacking Union soldiers would be ordered not to place percussion caps on their rifles, so that they wouldn't be tempted to stop and shoot back, and thus break the momentum of the charge.

To a certain extent I believe you are correct.  Seems there are two different things here--one being troops trying to make it across a field--Pickett--and failing; and one where they stop to fire then fail to finish their charge.  I'm only an amatuer history buff in regards to civil war tactics, but  you are correct that there was some difficulty in getting troops to cover ground without stopping--it was dependent on stage of the war, commanding officers, trying to keep units in order so that they arrived simultaneously without being exhausted and demoralized --a lot of things.  In general I believe troops were trained they were better off covering the ground as efficiently as possible--with notable exceptions in how that was historically executed on the field.

[Luckybluemoon]

Another Lucky review incoming!

1.  The most annoying bug of losing all your supply wagons on the Union Side with the start of the second day is still there.

2.  The enemy is much more cautious now.  They tend to line up just out of musket range and then sit there, getting rained on by my artillery the whole time.  For hours at time. This was on BG difficulty.

3.  Enemy skirmishers are nearly invisible in open fields.  Even when I have my own skirmishers out, my brigades cannot see the skirmishers in range to fire.

Keep up the good work!

[A. P. Hill]

I've seen it said before, and I see it's still a problem. After how many updates?

Can we expect to see the forces of Beauregard's Army of the Potomac ID in the HUD, to make troop selection a bit easier? 

Thanks. 

[Hitorishizuka]

Rather late but my very slow CSA campaign finally got to Rio Hill. What a horrible mission.

 

Two main pieces of feedback:

1) For whatever reason this mission definitely scales the enemy Skirmisher weapons to whatever is equipped on your entire camp screen, not just the army you brought. I am all but certain that there are a number of other missions previously that don't care and will only give Skirmishers Spencer carbines if you didn't bring sniper rifles on the actual mission, but this one will give sniper rifles if you had any at all equipped in camp. Rather irritating how this doesn't seem to be consistent behavior (unless I am hallucinating the previous ones).

2) LOS is very limited for reasons that aren't readily apparent. You can't see at all to the NE of the VP unless you are sitting on the observation point, but that thing is a bullet magnet death trap so good luck holding it. You also can't see at all to the S of the VP unless you have someone on the isolated observation point to the south, but good luck holding that also. Both combine to make not only skirmishers but the enemy cavalry more daunting than they really should be if you are trying to defend the VP.

[The Soldier]

18 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

For whatever reason this mission definitely scales the enemy Skirmisher weapons to whatever is equipped on your entire camp screen, not just the army you brought. I am all but certain that there are a number of other missions previously that don't care and will only give Skirmishers Spencer carbines if you didn't bring sniper rifles on the actual mission

It's consistent behavior.  The entire enemy force will always scale to your entire force, with the weapon quality is averaged out.  So if you've got one unit armed with sniper rifles, the quality is going to be at it's highest, but if you then make another unit with Hunters, the quality is going to average out between those two weapon, whatever that happens to be. Rio Hill however, even if you have precisely no skirmishers (meaning lowest weapon quality) will always have repeaters as it's lowest.  It will scale to sniper rifles very easily, though.