General Kazden

I agree this would be useful. I like how Total War has done the skirmish mode with the unit falling back if the enemy gets to close and reengage once far enough away. As of now I can use the hold command but if I take my eyes of that unit for a moment it could end up in a melee with a full brigade and the skirmishers are dead. There is a lot going on in a battle and not having to micro every single skirmisher/cavalry unit for the sole purpose keeping distance would definitely improve my ability to command.

In "Wargame: European Escalation" when you select units and order them to "fast move" to a location they will automatically head for a road and use it to get close to the destination before going into the field to where you ordered them. I think something similar can be applied to this game. In some of the battles with so many brigades it can get very tedious to draw lines along the roads for each one when trying to get them to the front as quickly as possible without losing to much condition.

I just feel bad for those units I have absorbing all the fire so I try to give them any advantage I can. Because of that I never thought of giving my brigades the farmer muskets that I captured but now thinking about it would really help in holding the line against Confederate charges in the early game. My goal was always to get away from the Springfield 1842s asap and get into the Lorenz and Springfield 1855s once available.

I like that idea for the extra supplies. I try to favor logistics when I can as I hate running out of ammo half way through some grand battle. This all sounds good. It's nice to know I won't need to max out AO and 6 would still allow me to fight against the enemy effectively. I have been using the strategy of making a few bullet sponge rookie brigades maxed out with Palmetto muskets though I think maybe they should have Lorenz rifles. My more elite brigades I try to get the Springfield 1855.

Unfortunately I am more a McClellan than a Jackson. I was always in a sorta panic when I saw 2500+ man confederate brigades that I just started trying to max out all my brigades at the highest manpower. Maybe a few 1500 elite types and 2500 man rookies. I have been looking for AO tips that would give me a good idea of what to prepare for. Sort of like 4 points by Shiloh, 6 points by 2nd bull run, 7 points by Gettysburg ect..

This is what I believed happened to me the first time I fought at Shiloh. I remember my army being 2 corps with 3 divisions at four brigades each and I couldn't cover my flanks properly against the number of enemy brigades they brought at me. I think I only had 3 points at that time in the army organization. I remember having some of my brigades get triple teamed by the enemy. I ended up restarting the campaign to put more into army org to have at least 4 divisions per corps and 5 brigades per division and of course a better setup to win that battle. All my playthroughs since have been putting points into army org after certain battles as if they were assigned already. The points from other battles are the ones I feel I really get to customize or decide on what I really want like more supply, cheaper vets, more money, ect.

Does the AI scale the number of the brigades it fields or just the numbers in each of those brigades? So is anyone up for the ultimate challenge..? Legendary Difficulty + 0 Army Organization. I think actual prize money should be given for such a victory.

Hello all, I was wanting to post this and see what others thought about the Army Organization in the career tab. One of the biggest issues I have with army org is that it never feels like an option. What I mean by this is unlike the other choices, like Medical, Recon, Politics and so forth, Army Organization feels forced and obligatory to pick. I have a feeling there are commanders here who can win the campaign without any points in some of the other options, however there is no such chance to win without Army Org. If you fail to put enough points in at the right time you will lose the game and have to start over to make sure you put the points in at the right time. Now this might just be me but I don't like it at all. My suggestion would be to remove Army Org and either replace it with something like a reduction in commander costs or commander chance of death reduction... something like that to make it feel like an option compared to the others. I believe that as you progress through the campaign the additional slots and sizes for brigades, divisions and corps is awarded to you much like the end of the 1st Battle of Bull Run where at the end you are given a second corps. I believe this would help players to focus more on the building/composition and maintenance of their army over the constant worry of if they have enough army org points for the next battle. Currently it feels as if certain points are already allocated to army organization anyway since if you don't put them in you will not have a large enough army to win. Having the game(government) promote you with a larger command would make more sense as well. Which brings me to a quick thing of the player character. I don't think we should really have an avatar or command part unless a command slot in the OOB is designated for a Army Commander. It makes no sense to me that my avatar is "commander of the army" but also just a regular corps commander. This is made more out of place if you play on colonel and place yourself as a division or brigade commander just to get exp to promote which could take several battles. The campaign should start off with you being just a division commander at the start and then you promote and grow as the game progresses. Anyway those are my thoughts... maybe file it under, "random internet player #234213 suggestion", for the next game.. which I can tell you is already preordered in my mind. General Kazden, Cmdr. Army of the Potomac

Also @Gael I love the movie Gettysburg I can only imagine how awesome it was to be apart of that. However I was only 11 when the movie came out but that movie really got me interested in the history of the civil war. Ended up doing a report on the 54th Mass. Regiment for National History Day in middle school. Anyway the quote above reminds me of what General Lee said in the movie. "To be a good soldier you must love the army. To be a good commander you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love." Does anyone know if General Lee actually said this to Longstreet during the battle? Was this just a nice bit of dialog from the writers? To me it seems to fit the problem of General McClellan pretty well.

Move your avatar to a division command or even brigade command to gain exp faster. Put a different Brigadier General in charge of the Corps until you are promoted to Brigadier General.

This issue of the hold command and the general behavior of the brigades caused me a rage quit last night and near abandonment of the game (for the time being). This has happened more then once despite patch notes saying it has been worked on. However I will a give two of the incidents of what happened just 2 days ago. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Example 1: A rebel cavalry of 260 strength charges head on into my line infantry of 863 men. The cavalry takes little damage and starts to waver my infantry. (This is frustrating because I have never had my cavalry do this for me and that's with me charging the rear or flanks of the enemy. Anyway I tell my infantry to start falling back as I bring up reinforcements but soon they route and proceed to "retreat" towards the cavalry and enemy lines. I lost an entire brigade in just a few seconds. Unacceptable. Example 2: I pincer charge a rebel infantry of roughly 900 men with two brigades each a little over 1400 men. The rebel infantry wavers and then routes. Awesome right!? Not so fast, as they route I tell my two brigades to halt and shoot the retreating rebs. Well this doesn't work, my infantry keep chasing/melee the enemy. Hold command does nothing, ordering my units to advance in a different direction does nothing. What happens? Well they in turn start to waver because of lost morale... you know because driving the enemy from the field would make me panic too. Well the waver turns into a route and I bet you can guess which direction they choose to route in. If you guessed that they routed straight into enemy lines to be annihilated then you win a free beer. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ How I still have an intact desk is beyond me. Why do I take out my anger at my desk? Because I can't punch the face of the dumb ass AI leading my men into unnecessary slaughter. I do not need the AI's help in getting my men killed. I make enough mistakes on my own to do that. I just would like the few times something awesome happens to then not have it snatched away like that. Well in my rage I uninstalled. Not a big deal since it only takes a few minutes to install back but I hated doing it. I really love this game and I want to really get hyped and excited for the big battles but I can't. I can't do that when in my mind I know there is a really high chance that the brigade AI will do something so dumb, something that would get a commander executed for treason would do and cost me an entire brigade or worse, the battle victory. Honestly I sometimes wonder if I don't have rebel sympathizers as commanders. If I am going to lose let it be because I failed as a strategist/tactician not because the AI decided to screw everything up for me. I'll order my own "Pickett's Charge" thank you very much. P.S. It felt really good to vent. I feel... better. Guess I'll reinstall and start up a new campaign.

+1 Yes please, need some kind of indicator. I rarely ever notice the notices pop up telling me important information. I don't realize a general is KIA/WIA unless I happen to notice when selecting the unit or on the officers tab at the end of the battle. Playing on a screen resolution of 2560x1440 those notices are tucked away in the top left where my eyes rarely go.

I would love to see "Ultimate General: American Revolution" as the next game. I would enjoy playing the British and attempt to reclaim the colonies.... it would also mean I can keep referring to my enemy as "Those damn rebs". But if everyone is tired of American history battles I think Napoleon's campaigns would be awesome to fight all while keeping the same concepts of the civil war game.

Dear OP: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! The new patch is really awesome. Maybe you should go order yourself some french cries as you wallow in your own self pity. Stream it if you can.

Hello all, Just wanted to thank everyone for the replies. I do understand more now about the cover and what to expect from it and I am making sure when engaged to have cover of units above 40%. Though I made a dumb mistake in my last battle having a brigade charge in the open field directly into cannon.... that canister shot... whew, never saw numbers drop so fast. I was sure my men would have reached melee before the cannon could reload. Not doing that again.