jwsmith26

It's my impression that the crisscrossing brigade paths occurs because the AI is trying to get all the brigades to arrive at their destination at the same time. As I said, it's only an impression, I haven't checked this extensively. If I'm correct it's a pretty lousy reason for this behavior. Regardless of the reason, it is extremely irritating and makes this potentially useful feature almost pointless. Aetius, on the issue of pursuing a brigade for miles, I've seen similar behavior, but when I've seen this it occurs for the following reason. If you specifically order your brigade to target an enemy brigade your brigade will then continually attempt to keep the enemy brigade within firing range and will pursue it to accomplish this. It's easy for this to occur if you have set your brigade to fire at the enemy brigade as it charges in to attack and then you forget to turn it off after the attack is repulsed. I'm not saying this is what occurred in your case but that's been the situation when I've seen this behavior.

This does seem to be a thorny problem. Sid Meier couldn't solve it either; his Gettysburg game suffered from a similar issue with enemy brigades resuscitating behind your lines and creating havoc.

One of my issues with the game is the way it handles AI brigades that are cut off behind my lines. There have been other posts in this forum (linked below) about how brigades rout in the wrong direction and end up behind enemy lines (and this needs to be addressed as well) but this post is more about what happens to these brigades after this happens, and it ain't pretty. These cut-off brigades act as if they are in complete command control and suffer no adverse effects of being out of command and isolated. Instead of attempting to avoid combat and and extract themselves from their precarious position they act as if everything is just peachy; they form line and calmly proceed to attack my line from the rear or form little Bastognes that I have to reduce. Instead of ignoring these formations that should be largely ineffective due to severe morale issues I am forced to devote several units to guard my rear while I attempt to shepherd these errant enemy interlopers back to their own side so I can reform a coherent line. If I attack and demoralize them they simply retreat and reform deeper in my rear and then eventually return to cause more disruptions. Preventing enemy formations from being cut off behind my lines is now one of my most important tasks when I consider how I might maneuver against the enemy. If I can't drive the enemy brigade back into its own lines then it's probably not a good idea to attack that brigade. This is the opposite of how it should work. Isolating enemy brigades should be an objective, not a situation to be avoided. I know there are historical instances of strong points being held tenaciously as the enemy lines move forward around the strong points such as happened at Shiloh, and there are undoubtedly instances where cut off brigades held firm and survived, but to have brigades act as though nothing at all has happened to them when they are cut off behind enemy lines is just wrong. Having them operate intelligently, in apparent cooperation with an army they cannot contact is just wrong. Here's a thread that discusses the wrong way rout issue - http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/17732-these-left-over-problems-from-ugg-are-what-drive-me-mad/#comment-342508

Ok, that command makes more sense now. Thanks, guys. It seems like the button should be named "Combine Brigades", but I get it now. That makes me wonder what happens to this new "combined" brigade after the battle? It seems the new brigade must separate back into the two original brigades when back in camp, if not, how would the game deal with a brigade that has two leaders and possibly two different types of weapons? I really appreciate the info about this feature but it sures raises a whole basket of new questions (I don't expect you guys to answer these - I'll do some testing to see if I can answer them myself.) Can artillery or cavalry be joined this way? Can you combine two brigades and then use the same command on this combined brigade to join with a third brigade to make a 3 strong combined brigade? How are the various weapons ratings, like range, determined for a combined brigade that now has two different types of weapons? How are troop ratings like stamina and morale determined when you combine two brigades with radically different ratings? Which brigade leader takes command of the combined division? Are there circumstances where you cannot combine brigades? Can you combine while under fire? How close do the 2 brigades need to be to combine?

Andre, I like you suggestions. Here's how I force line versus column. If you draw out a line that is long enough your brigade will always form column unless it is close enough to an enemy that it is in danger. So if I want to force my brigade to move in column until the very last moment before contact I'll pull out a line that is drawn through the brigade I want to eventually attack and then pull it far beyond that enemy unit to force my brigade to move in column formation until the last possible moment. Sometimes the brigade waits a bit too long to form line, putting itself in danger, so you do need to micromanage this a bit. It's a bit awkward but it works for me. Ordering a brigade to form line is just a matter of not pulling out a line but rather right clicking on the map, which tells the brigade to move in line formation (unless the destination is really far away, in which case the brigade may still move in column). It'd be nice but I don't really expect reinforcing troops to move logically. The AI has no idea what your plan of action is for this battle so it just sends the brigades into the battle zone in a straight line. I think its up to me to give them orders if I want them to move where I want them. I agree that artillery ranges for different rounds needs more visual clarity. Personally, I'm not really interested in manually controlling the type of round as long as the AI does a good job of making that choice, but some indication of the range at which those rounds will be employed would be very welcome.

Well, that's unfortunate. If divisional cohesion has no impact then I don't understand why you would ever use the Combine Division (V) button (at least with the game in its current state). It's unclear to me how this button works and it raises a slew of questions. How do you know which division the brigade will be attached to when you press the button? Can you use this to attach a brigade from division A to division B? When would you use this command, because as far as I can see there is no way for a brigade to become detached from its division in the first place? I suspect these questions will be answered via updates. I'm hoping that the existence of this button foretells bigger things to come for divisional organization. OK, after thinking about it some I can see that there is currently one narrow use case for this command. If you utilize the AI division command system, then adding a brigade to a division allows the AI to command that brigade. So far the battles in the game have not been large enough for me to resort to turning over parts of the army to AI command, but maybe when the second group of battles are released ...?

I haven't read that there is a "division command radius" anywhere. Is there some visual indication of the radius onscreen? What are the consequences of being outside the radius?

I haven't been playing the game that long so my opinion on this may alter when I've got a few more games under my belt, but my initial impression so far is that the game really pushes you to keep your brigades at full strength, or at least as big as you can get them, which is rather counter to historical norms, especially for the Confederates. Those guys tended to let brigades wither into thin shells of their original strength - tough as nails but pretty thin. Again my inexperience could be giving me a false impression, but it looks like if you have more brigades in the corps that you have deployed than are allowed in the battle then the game gets to decide which brigades get deployed. As a result, in the game you have a much better chance of controlling which of your troops are involved if you create big brigades so you have fewer of them, allowing you to more accurately determine which will be involved in the battle. Besides, if you only get 4 brigades, you certainly don't want 4 that are half strength. This system, that determines your on-field strength based exclusively on the number of brigades that you can deploy, pushes you to create ahistorically full-strength brigades. This problem (at least I see it as a problem) could be corrected by determining battlefield deployment based on overall manpower rather than number of brigades. The game could determine the maximum manpower strength allowed and then let you decide which brigades to deploy within this maximum. From a player's standpoint this would certainly be a more satisfying way to enter a battle and would not punish you for having an army composed of small brigades. Another way the game rewards you when you have brigades that are absolutely full strength is when you occupy prepared fortifications - in that case your brigade always completely occupies the fortification even if you've only got 200 guys in the brigade. It's much better if you can stuff 2000 guys in that same space. Melee in general also seems to favor the big brigades. I've seen a big Union brigade charge across a river, up a bank, and into a dense forest, all while absorbing continous fire from 1000 experienced Confederates that are supported by artillery. The Union brigade made contact and blew the Confederates out of their protected position simply because they had a bigger brigade. I understand that having twice as many men will have that effect on a melee, but if I can't possibly stop the charge with gunfire then what chance do I have when faced with charge after charge if I have smaller brigades. The answer that the game provides is - get bigger brigades. That just doesn't seem right to me. It wasn't the brigade structure that determined who got deployed to a battle and it wasn't brigade size, but rather the total number of men (among other factors), that determined who won melees. Why can't several small brigades occupy a fortified position? That is purely a game mechanic that has no basis in historical reality and unrealistically compromises the effectiveness of an army with smaller brigades. I'm enjoying the heck out of UG:CW but there are a few things that bother me and the need to maintain big brigades is one of them.

I would like to be able to change the name of my divisions to match the commander's name, especially for the Confederate forces. I know they have an impact through perks but as it is currently the divisional commander's are pretty much invisible except in camp. It would be great to know you are moving Jackson's division on the map.