New player's initial comments

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Gentlemen, 

First, well done. This is going to be a brilliant game, years of replays lay ahead. I see where you're going and I like it immensely. 

You asked for feedback, this is it. Playing this for exactly one weekend, knowing a bit about the war and this genre, this is what stands out to me: 

• UI needs to be simplified. Maybe you could color code commands. Right now it's difficult to discern what a unit has been ordered to do.. Example: 'Charge' needs to expire when a unit reaches a state of exhaustion. It doesn't, and It is difficult at this point for a new user to tell if the charge command is engaged or not. 
• Players should be allowed to specify whether a unit marches in line or in column.Additionally, there has to be an easier way to make a division of troops fresh to the battlefield march down a road in a more logical fashion. 
• Players should be able to specify artillery rounds. It is hard to properly site batteries when you cannot fathom to the range of specific munitions.
• The campaign game's army creation tools, the way you've layered it, is kind of brilliant. It makes perfect sense when you understand it, but it is not easy to figure it out at first glance. 

Again, Great Job! Please keep it up!

For future reference, what is the general policy suggestion for providing feedback? 

[jwsmith26]

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.