>>>Ultimate General: Gettysburg Feedback <<< [UPDATE] Patch 0.81 27/6/2014

[grrunt]

where is the mac update for all this?

[Lannes]

How long before the finished product?

[soccercw]

.

[Imperator]

Hey guys,

 

Just picked up the game last night, was a big fan of Darth's Total war mods and so far really enjoyed my first battle with Random AI as the Confederates!  Just a few things I noticed in the first battle:

 

1.  At one point I had Archers Brigade on Oak Hill (I think?) for the VP point, At one point I noticed my brigade, an enemy brigade and another unit on the field seemed to be "stuck" when trying to fire, I would notice the animation of the rifles being readied to fire and then nothing would happen and the the animation would run again and nothing would happen.  Happened about 5ish times before the troops were able to start firing again.

 

2. I think I have seen other feedback about this but is there going to be a tether restriction placed on the skirmish/vidette units?  I noticed I had to really try to micromanage my own skirmish unit to keep the Union Videttes and infantry skirmish units off my artillery units.  However the ai was sneaky and had the units on either end of my artillery to keep up their harassment.  I dont mind the skirmish units at all I just would prefer them be forced to keep within some sort of distance with a main force unit so they can still harass but cannot end up deep behind enemy lines alone. 

 

3. Is cannister shot muted in terms of damage?  At one point I had the Videttes in range of cannister shot, but I noticed after firing, perhaps only 4-5 soldiers were killed and this was at point blank range?  Afterwards I noticed the condition of the artillery was extremely low (perhaps 5% or less) so does that effect the lethality of my shot?  I would have figured canister shot at the Videttes with about 150 ish troops left would have been a serious blow or at least caused a route but it was highly ineffectual. 

 

Otherwise the game is a lot of fun, and considering its only 10 bucks, and the facts I have gotten hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of darthmods for various total war games for free I am a very happy gamer today .

[icefenix]

The contours are helpful but the contour interval is all over the place, for someone who uses actual topo maps I get a brain fart when I try to use the lines. For example just south of the town you go from 500 to 488 with one contour line and then you drop from 488 to 424 in 3 contour lines.

 

On Herr's ridge it goes from 460 to 468 in 3 contour lines.

 

On Mc Pherson's ridge the high point is listed at 448. If you follow the third contour down to Lutheran seminary, it takes seven contour lines to get to 445.

 

On Oak Ridge and Lutheran Seminary it you go from a table of 456 to a saddle and then what seems to be back up to 445. I'm assuming 445 is marking a high point, and if it is, the contour that 445 is on should actually be higher than 456 since it uses more contour lines to get there. If it is a depression then depression contour lines should be used so we don't put our artillery in a pit.

 

If anyone wants to learn more page 12 is a good place to start. http://www.nwcg.gov/pms/pubs/475/PMS475_chap2a.pdf

[Seminole]

First game since the latest patch (that has the new video launcher).  I'm using the standard launcher, started a new campaign as the Confederates.

My first two brigade reinforcements were working over a skirmisher unit that had gotten behind my initial brigades and was threatening my artillery.  One brigade was charging the skirmisher and the other was forming a line of battle and firing at the fleeing soldiers.  The skirmisher units counter began declining rapidly, so I focused on it to see if it would be eliminated.  When the unit was eliminated the game froze.  Wasn't able to use the bug report feature because of that.

[drewww]

Overall the flow of play is much better. Speed is great, contour lines are fantastic.

 

A small laundry list of feedback:

 

• Facing is still not quite there. Middle mouse is a weird thing to hold in general, since it's often a scroll wheel for most mice, which makes it sort of awkward to press and hold. 
• Drag commanding is great, unless you have units that are quite far apart. It's super counter-intuitive since in normal RTS command models selecting all units and clicking somewhere will essentially group them. Here, if you select units that are not right on top of each other you're going to maintain distances. Not real concrete suggestion here, just something to be thinking about. Perhaps don't focus on drag select so much and do a double-click style select that auto selects nearby units of the same type? 90% of the time that's what I want anyway, and it would encourage people not to be drag selecting units far apart.
• Selecting artillery that's on top of infantry is messy. Frequently I'll click on the artillery badge and get the infantry anyway.
• Artillery behavior is still wacky. It runs into close combat sometimes, which is pretty annoying.
• I also really don't get how I'm supposed to kill artillery. I'll frequently get a brigade in point blank range, shoot shoot shoot, and have very little impact. Sure the artillery might run away but I feel like in that context they're not going to be running with their cannons, they're just going to break. 50-100 guns facing 1500 men in firing range should be a much bigger problem for artillery than it seems to be right now. Right now, they move at the same speed or faster than the brigade and unless I chase they just re-set-up and continue to fire.
• Short range cannon fire might be over powered or normal shells might be under powered. I have this feeling (which may just be due to the visual effect) that makes charging artillery totally terrifying, even if they're not defended, and a desire to move my cannon into point blank range because otherwise I'm just sort of tickling a big brigade. This might just be unrealistic.
• In general, artillery feel too mobile. I kinda wish they had a setup and tear down time or something. This would encourage more thoughtful placement, and would punish artillery that didn't retreat early enough by holding them in place while they get pummeled. I imagine this would cause some second order AI issues in terms of deciding when to move, but I think it might be worthwhile.
• Rivers feel weak to me still. Formations happily spread across them, they don't seem to slow movement particularly; they just don't feel like obstacles. Sames goes for gettysburg proper and other buildings, but I'm sure that's on the list for the future.
• I think there's a bunch of work to be done in terms of communicating gameplay systems more visually. For instance, adding morale and cover icons to reinforce how those systems work. Some sort of reload visualization to help you understand when they're going to fire.
• I get a sense that the amount of micromanaging I do is screwing up fire/reload cycles on units. Like, if they're at 100% reload and I move them, sometimes there are a few shots, it resets to 0, and the brigade starts to move. Not sure if this is intentional do discourage me from fiddling so much, or an issue.
• I'm sure this is in the cards too, but some post-campaign artifacts would be so great. Replaying the battles symbolically over the multiple days on one single high level map. Perhaps using the visual style with the brigades as bars, moving in a very abstract way, like they show you in videos about the battle. Likewise for before the battle starts; zooming in in your section of the map thats in play, giving you a sense of broader context, and helping you see how the different strategic choices will play out.
• It would be nice to be able to re-see the briefing for a day. Once I've selected an option, sometimes I'll quit and come back later and then forget whether I'm the aggressor or the defender or what the reinforcement situation is.

Anyway, just lots of nitpicky minor stuff. The foundation of UGG is super super solid. Much love. Sorry for the wall of text!

[David Fair]

drewww, if you just move your division right next to the artillery it will start to melt away. If you don't charge you can melt an entire row of enemy artillery, so I agree with your characterization, wacky.

Ranged artillery fire during the ACW was pretty ineffective. Only 6% to 8% of the combat casualties were attributed to artillery by the medical services.

Statistically about 1 round in 15 caused a single casualty at Gettysburg.

If you factor in some rounds hit more than 1 person (canister fire) then the average dropped to 1 in 25 or less.

50,000 artillery rounds were fired inflicting between 2,000 to 4,000 casualties.

Note that not a single infantry unit was routed from the hour-long artillery barrage preceding Pickett's Charge. Additionally, all of the CSA divisions closed almost to musket range before the attack was disrupted and retreated.

If you want to play a game representing the ACW and Gettysburg beefing up the artillery to anachronistic Franco-Prussian levels isn't helpful. Note that the percussion fuze was invented in 1870 - after the ACW but just in time for the Franco-Prussian conflict where artillery played a substantial role in the result. By 1914 artillery inflicted 72% of all combat casualties.

Substantially all of the guns on both sides were operational on July 4 after three days of battle which included a number of heated artillery duels.

The transition to rifled artillery with pointed projectiles preceded the invention of the percussion fuze. While rifled guns were more accurate the shells tended to bury themselves in the dirt. Bormann time fuzes were difficult to cut to the precise length to have the projectile detonate at the precise moment to inflict casualties.

Ft. Dix, U.S. Artillery School, estimates that artillery in the Napoleonic war system inflicted about 12% casualties and they state that ACW artillery was technologically a step backward.

From a historical perspective the artillery at both long and short range is overpowered.

John Gibbon who wrote, "The Artillerists Manual" wrote the effect of artillery is primarily psychological weapon. So I like the impact canister has on morale but agree with your statement that it inflicts too many casualties at close range.

Artillery in the game less mobile than ACW artillery.

There aren't any "rivers" at Gettysburg. The water features at Gettysburg average about 4 feet wide and can be crossed just about anywhere in July without getting your feet wet. Suggest you google images to confirm for yourself.

I'd like to see a pre-phase map of the entire battlefield to get a sense of the Phase I'm fighting and the overview of the strategic situation. Also I'd like to be able to influence where "out-of-phase resources" are deployed to have more of a role as the commander-in-chief. Post campaign artifacts would be nice as well.

Excellent observation regarding the fire/reload cycles. I don't understand why targeting an enemy infantry division results in the fire/reload bar dropping to zero.

[Nick Thomadis]

New patch 0.82 available. Making new thread (http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/1123-ultimate-general-gettysburg-feedback-update-patch-082-572014/) and closing this for clearing up feedback.

Thank you for all your help!