Feedback (UPDATED: 11/9/2015)

[RichardMcCor]

I've had a couple of SP battles recently all on scenario 1 where a union brigade shoots and damages a CSA brigade but no CSA unit is targetted by red at all.

 

If a brigade is shooting, is a target unit always shown with the red marker on it, or are there circumstances where the unit shoots but no red marker is shown at all.

 

I'll do a screenshot next time it happens

[David Fair]

GShock...

 

You might want to check your history regarding artillery.  

You've stated above that, "...the arty not being half as deadly as it should."

 

The power of the artillery in UGG is vastly overpowered for the ACW in my tests over the last 12 months.  

 

Hospital records, rounds fired, projectiles/round, all confirm that artillery in the ACW accounted for 6% to 8% of ACW battlefield casualties.  

 

Currently artillery in UGG results in >20% + of the battlefield casualties - more than 2X than the historical performance.

 

I'd be interested in your battlefield stats on the batteries because our results should be reasonably similar.  

 

Either we are using artillery differently or your "historical baseline" is way off of the ACW hospital records, AAR's, projectile performance characteristics, etc...

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Also, it is not clear what historical basis you have for suggesting the skirmishers should have faster recovery and slower loss of moral.  Buford's men suffered just over 100 casualties at Gettysburg.  Why make these units that screw up the history more powerful to further skew the game in the direction of fantasy?

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I guess there is tension between those of us looking for Gettysburg as a historical battle vs. personal preferences.  

 

c'est la guerre

[RichardMcCor]

Put this in wrong place originally and have updated it with two more days of playing 1.02 SP no clicks as the union.

 

"I just played a set of no-click battles as Union in scenario 1 using 1.02.

Played against most of the AI commander personalities.

Start the game, widen view to max , watch what happens.

 

Union still got a draw or win against most of the AI personalities which seems a little worse than 1.01 no hot fix when the AI won sometimes with a minor loss to me as Union. Now it gets a draw vs me or i win a minor (offensive, risky, cunning) or major (cautious)

 

A few things i notice in 1.02

 

- AI brigades Davies and Brockenburh chase videttes to much. I just played against risky and notice that he could have won at oak ridge but davies left the VP to chase devins videttes so CSA lost the VP. Keep them focused on the VP and not distracted.

 

- AI arty seems to hang back more than in 1.01 than in 1.02

 

- AI use of commander to support it's best brigade seems better. Sticks with it more. Provides better support when Offensive (which is good).

 

- AI offensive and cunning seem to go for the south VP in scenario 1 but change their mind and go back to oak ridge as they get close to the VP and Cutler. This may happen at about the same time as another brigade gets fixated with a vidette so perhaps the AI is too focused on the videttes vs VP

 

- AI brigades sometimes stand at long range to videttes and pound away doing no damage. A small move forward or a charge would route them. The AI should realize that 100 videttes will not impact it's 2000 strong brigade even if shooting from the rear and ignore it vs moving to support an attack on a VP. The AI should count for 2 or perhaps 3 volleys only. If the volley has little/no effect on targetted brigade then change tactic. Don't just keep doing the same thing.

[GShock]

That's a sound suggestion for the AI logics.

Good 1.

[OLee O'Hara]

I found a bug:

• The brigade (Baxter) is 'losing' morale and condition and there is no enemy close to it. The brigade has been in melee some time before and it seemed that it somehow got kinda stucked in this melee fight. It's still possible to give the brigade new orders but two soldiers don't stop to swing their rifles :  https://www.dropbox.com/s/m8i8uu775stftj6/2014-12-01_00001.jpg?dl=0

and a suggestion:

• Is it possible to create a random map/scenario option for multiplayer? There is already a random function but it just selects one scenario of the list. It would be nice to have a real random scenario option like "small/medium/big random battle". It could choose a random position on the map, and set some random victory points and  two balanced armies with random arrival times of reinforcements... Dependant on the random scenario/map settings the player would have rather to attack or to defend. The battle situation wouldn't be so predictable anymore, and it would be always a new battle map for the players with some potential of surprises.

[OLee O'Hara]

I just lost two mp battles cause of some stupid decisions by me but also cause of the following bugs:

 

• In the first battle a routing brigade lost around 400 men in just a few seconds as if it was in melee. But there's been no or only very little contact to the enemy brigades. I guess a single soldier might have had contact to the enemy but from what I could watch the heavy casualties didn't make much sense. Unfortunately i've got no screenshot. It happened between the two houses of McPhersons farm. I remember a similar situation where a skirmisher unit on a wooden hill slightly touched the flank of an enemy brigade and lost about two hundred men in just a moment.
• In the next battle I did more screenshots. Biddles brigade had just routed and his flag had disappeared and the brigade was still losing morale: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v6nb54tyqqu4b7e/2014-12-03_00001.jpg?dl=0. Ofc it didn't take long and the brigade routed again. I tried to turn the brigade and the 'unit shadow' appeared far away from the highlighted unit: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xb5cnwyuhmdx197/2014-12-03_00002.jpg?dl=0. A few minutes later the flag reappeared and Biddles brigade even joined the fight again. But since the brigade was absolutely exhausted Biddle routed another time: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4nc3lxubbyci6j5/2014-12-03_00003.jpg?dl=0 and got totally wiped out in just a few seconds without any enemy impact. In the moment I took the screenshot the brigade had 496 soldiers. One moment later it was gone: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hp48ad2bxvz76xg/2014-12-03_00004.jpg?dl=0
• I also noticed that I had lost the 3000VP victory position although some of my troops were still holding it and were at least closer than the enemy brigade. And it also didn't stay white neutral and already changed to red before my last troops were driven away from the hill (as to see in the last two screenshots). It might be explainable since the fight was actually lost, the confederates were much stronger and in fact had already conquered the position.

[UGGloyalist]

UGG Team,

 

I know I have asked this before. But, are you guys still planning on implementing 2v2, 3v3 multiplayer? This being implemented in this game is the one feature I am aware of that would bring in more people. Thanks for all the hard work! Version 1.02 so absolutely excellent!

[Nick Thomadis]

 

UGG Team,

 

I know I have asked this before. But, are you guys still planning on implementing 2v2, 3v3 multiplayer? This being implemented in this game is the one feature I am aware of that would bring in more people. Thanks for all the hard work! Version 1.02 so absolutely excellent!

 

We cannot promise when we will be able to implement this feature. There is currently work for ipad and we need to make plans for the next game. Multiplayer and UGG will constantly get add-ons according to the time we have. 1.03 is our next update which will make gameplay even more interesting and very challenging.

[UGGloyalist]

UGG Team,

 

Thanks for the response! Looking forward to 1.03. Also, an Ipad version will be great! And of course. I am looking immensely forward to the next game, and I will continue loving this one until that comes out.

[Nick Thomadis]

New patch is live

Ultimate General: Gettysburg Patch 1.03

 

Gameplay

Various AI improvements to all characters. AI will defend and attack much more efficiently.

• New optional AI boost settings to increase the challenge. Boost enhances subtly the long range accuracy, the condition recover when idle and the charge bonus, according to AI character. Indirectly of course morale, efficiency and other factors are affected but overall the boost should provide more challenge without overwhelming odds against the player.

• Artillery will move faster according to distance of waypoint making maneuver columns.

• Skirmishers condition will not decrease so fast when they move.

• Artillery will be more vulnerable in direct projectile attacks (Something that up to now made AI effort very difficult, as Artillery got minimal damage and inflicted 100's of casualties with canister volleys). Additionally artillery vs artillery fights will cause more casualties.

• Slight Union decrease of long range combat effectiveness vs the Confederates.

• Slight Confederate artillery more accurate at long range fire.

• Condition changes more dynamically and will not remain to zero state during firefights so often. Careful management of units now is creating a dynamic, more challenging tempo throughout the battle.

• Various gameplay balances to morale, combat lethality and melee.

• Improved auto-targeting, especially for artillery which will choose the closest threats much more effectively.

 

Battle Flow

• Confederate Thomas brigade is available on speculative 1st day 3rd phase of the battle (requested in forum). Historically it was kept in reserve but since Slocum and Stannard are coming it is logical to appear in the battlefield.

• Confederate McLaws division arrives in a more south position in battle of Devils Den (requested in forum). This is more historically correct to make possible the planned envelopment maneuver for the Confederates.

• Iron Brigade and Cutler will arrive in a slightly more northern waypoint in the 1st engagement and reinforcements arrive in more varying delays.

 

Multiplayer

• New multiplayer map: "Chance to change history". In this historical scenario of 1st July 1863, the Confederates attack with great numbers from West, North and East, heading to Gettysburg and Cemetery hill. The Union forces have a hard task to delay them and hold their ground.

• Various fixes to existing multiplayer maps according to feedback. The most important are:

    - Reduce of battle delay in some maps that was too big.

    - Balance of VP in some maps that was needed for more balanced battles.

    - Blended in time the reinforcement arrival time for many maps.

    - The Battle of Devil's Den has McLaws to arrive in a more south position (see above in Battle flow).

    - "The confederates counterattack seminary ridge" map is extended to the west, including Cemetery hill and Cemetery ridge and Stannard does not participate. As a result, many more tactical choices are available.

• Updated the gameplay to fit new single player improvements.

• Chat messages include punctuation characters (Chat was incomplete without them).

 

Bug fixes

• Fixed targeting bug which made units in wavering mode to stop firing. This was very annoying for artillery units which stopped to target and fire until their morale increased or they routed.

• Fixed morale code bug that affected mostly AI actions, eventually making it weaker vs the player. Units that were standing did not receive the proper morale impacts, resulting eventually to just stand and win easily in many cases when in defense. This bug affected also the multiplayer.

[Yarev]

I like that artillery is much more vulnerable to volley fire.

Is it just me or the casualty ratio is much higher now ?

[RichardMcCor]

Early 1.03 results from my normal union no click test show some interesting changes.

The new final location of IB and Cutler plus the more varied arrival time of reinforcements means i'll have to run it a few times before drawing any conclusions . However, as a person who is always happy to jump in with little data ....

 

1. initial canon fire from Calef now targets archer vs davies. Not sure why the commander changed his mind but he did. Not change in overall effect either way.

2. CSA AI ARTY is much more aggressive now. He hurries up with the troops much better. All AI types seems to do this. Very good.

3. CSA brigades still get distracted and chase after small vidette and skirmisher units to the demise of their overall mission. They need to stay more VP focused and not keep wandering off to shoot at small vidette units.

4. Overall results after about 10 games against various AI personalities show minor loss or draw for the CSA. Bah!! I still want offensive, risky, determined and cunning to kick the no-click union butt but they do not.

[R.E.B.Blunt]

Issues with game freezes and disconnects during multi-player seem to be greatly improved. Many on my friends list have claimed that a lot of their disconnects have ceased. There are still issues with STEAM not allowing you to access the screen shot and chat options during game. Sometimes it will, sometimes it will not.

[RichardMcCor]

1.03 is a nice set of improvements. Love it.

 

I Played a set of no click campaigns last night right to the end. I chose Union, set the AI as CSA and hit FIGHT. I then just watch.

 

At each scenario choice i chose the one for the union that was most defensive (as i'm not giving them any orders) so no point picking one that needs them to capture anything.

 

Tried it against CSA AI on balanced, cunning and determined. I did NOT select any boost.

AI lost in all 3 cases (which was a shame) but with determined did manage to capture a number of the VP in some scenarios and used it's ARTY and Commander much better than before.

 

Overall observations.

 

1. CSA brigades still get distracted and chase after small vidette and skirmisher units to the demise of their overall mission. They need to stay more VP focused and not keep wandering off to shoot at small vidette units.

2. In scenarios where many CSA brigades must attack at once they get bunched up, overlap each other and cross each others path at a diagonal. This wastes time for the CSA and also seems to cause the AI to hold back it's brigades waiting for them to sort themselves out. Either line 'em up behind one another or spread them out. A huge bunched up mass does not work well against the union line who were all nicely spaced out and pick them off one by one. Remember i'm not clicking here so my Union brigades are choosing their own targets.

3. Single unit rush - in many scenarios the CSA sends a few brigades rushing in right away vs waiting for the other brigades who are just behind it. The AI (like a human) should know it has reinforcements coming and wait a little.  Those first brigades get routed right away, then try to recover and overall lose effectiveness. If the AI knows it has other brigades on map or as reinforcements it should evaluate waiting for a mass attack vs individual unit suicide charges.

4. Long range charge - in day 1 scenario 1 we see Archer and Davies do long range charges against the Skirm/videttes. Sometimes this resulted in 2000 man Davies getting routed by 400 skirmishers. I know this wont work so the AI should also know not to long range charge (even if set on determined or offensive)

5. Rate of Fire - did this change in 1.03. I now see some union units (3 star) shooting much faster than CSA units. Last night it was the CSA brigade under Armistead in the defend cemetery scenario with 1500 or so men vs a 3 star Union brigade with 700 or so men. I dont recall the 3 star union brigade name (maybe Cross but I can't check it right now) but he fired 2 x faster than Armistead. His reload speed was amazing. The % ready just flew by as i watched.

6. VP focus and choice of VP . In a number of scenarios the union is not defending it's initial VPs very well. I'm not clicking so don't fix this. The AI does not seem to care that a VP is almost undefended and flings his troops against the bulk of the union army or VP closest to the CSA starting positions. If the AI would evaluate it's target VP for points value and how well defended it is it would do a lot better against my no-click army. Sending units one at a time into the jaws of the black hats vs going a little south and capturing a VP defended by a small ARTY seems much more sensible. The AI should focus more on getting a nice undefended VP than just rushing to the closest one.

7. Ignoring some VP. In day 1 scenario 1 it's a rare thing for the CSA AI to capture the Oak Hill VP. It used to do it in earlier releases but since 1.0 it does not bother. It only takes a few mins to swing a brigade or Heth Skirmishers via Oak Hill and capture it

8. Much better use of commanders. They now really help their brigades attack. Good stuff

9. Much better use of ARTY. Maybe the 1.03 tuning helped but CSA ARTY now seems to make a difference and picks of the ARTY or Union Brigades very well. I see some brigades routed now after being focused on for a while.

10. The Red Unit Target Symbols. If i highlight a Union unit and watch just him for a while i see him change target and the red target symbol moves from the old unit to the new unit. No issue. Nice to see. However, sometimes he has NO TARGET unit but continues to fire anyway and do damage. Its like the red target symbol just gets forgotten . If the unit he is shooting at routes the red target symbols moves to a new unit. I'm not sure here why the AI does just continue to shoot at the routing unit. Perhaps it's this that causes the red target symbol to get lost sometimes.

 

Dev team. Great job. Keep it up.

[MadKarateMan]

Ok, damn.  I got a hung machine when exiting the game from the MP menu screen.  No freeze in SP mode.  Kinda sux.

[Nick Thomadis]

Thank you Richard for detailed feedback. We will continue to improve AI in next patches.

 

 

Ok, damn.  I got a hung machine when exiting the game from the MP menu screen.  No freeze in SP mode.  Kinda sux.

Did you have enabled Window mode from options?

[Mr. Mercanto]

Ever since update V 1.03 I have seen a resumption of freezing. Though not as frequent as it was in 1.02, the game occasionally freezes for brief periods (as if stuttering) and occasionally hard freezes.

[OLee O'Hara]

Sometimes the brigades are bugged and lose all condition. I've watched it on mp "Battle of McPherson ridge" several times but it might happen on other maps too.

 

Wilcox brigade lost all condition, there's just been a short fight with vindettes (which he had successfully killed):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y661r6u5xh9gpl8/1.jpg?dl=0

The brigade didn't recover and the remaining morale even decreased:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/41erbomf3lxxwwu/2.jpg?dl=0

After another routing the morale went up a bit... I remember to have seen this other times too. Sometimes brigades gain morale by routing:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hj97wyel0jy8381/3.jpg?dl=0

...but loses it again soon:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w1gdczod9lf8949/4.jpg?dl=0

I got him on a good position but Wilcox brigade didn't reload anymore. It was always stuck on 14%.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t4nsvnz8lkdiet9/5.jpg?dl=0

I finally just sent the brigade to a calm position, but it still didn't recover and reloaded neither.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lz38r65rb5yc88a/6.jpg?dl=0

And Wrights brigade had lost all its condition too. I can't say for sure but I think it also happened too fast and I guess it was caused by the same kind of bug. But at least Wrights brigade was still shooting and hold its position.

Compared to this the one star brigade Davis which even has been under fire all the time had no problem at all and did pretty well.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j61iigqry9zozs5/7.jpg?dl=0

 

And on mp "The armies approach Gettysburg" the battle suddenly ended although the time wasnt up yet. My opponent said he hadn't left the battle either.

[MadKarateMan]

Thank you Richard for detailed feedback. We will continue to improve AI in next patches.

 

 

Did you have enabled Window mode from options?

 

No - Window'ed mode is off.  Let me just say that exiting from MP menu doesn't always hang the machine but seems to occur on random basis.

[llcw08]

First, I have always Loved this Game! [i have been a tester for about 2 years.]

 

Nick Thomadis’ early premise for a New RTS game with a Super DarthMod AI was both Inspiring and Exciting. [A premise that Nick and his Team have worked very hard to make a Reality for all his fans.]

 

‘Inspiring’ because of Nick’s Bold and Principled response to the Shabby treatment Nick got from Creative Assembly as their Lead Modder.

 

‘Exciting’ because Nick’s idea for a New RTS game would have the Iconic DarthMod AI and Atmosphere, and it would add a ‘4^th Day’ to the historic Gettysburg Battle. [The ‘4^th Day’ scenario that I have lived in My Dreams!]

 

Ultimate General: Gettysburg as a work in progress: Suggestions. [From game play and YouTube observations; December 17^th 2014.]

 

The Briefing Map: Not Interactive.

 

Suggestions: Hover the cursor over map points to reveal; VP’s, Unit Types and Identify Map features like Hills and Ridges.

 

Battle Map Landmarks: a keystroke to call up all map features, in Bold. No One on YouTube knows where the Hills and Ridges are!

 

Artillery LoS: Too Subtle! If an area is blacked out; let it be Blacked Out. As well, if an Arty unit is Blocked by terrain; show that its LoS is Blacked Out.

 

Highly Accomplished and Widely followed YouTube gamers are still trying to Aim artillery and do Not see that their Arty is being Blocked by terrain features!

 

The game needs a device that tells the Player When and Where reinforcements are coming, on a Map.

It seems that GameLab has a Philosophical dread of an interactive, small, Radar Map. I do not understand. [Aesthetics?]

[GShock]

The tooltip for map features is a great idea we already submitted but it's not a priority because there's bigger things to work on, in my opinion.

The LOS is a genuinely huge suggestion I share with you and we've been discussing about it for weeks now. I'm sure we'll have some fixes in that department.

 

From the looks of the Ipad version, the game has changed for the better (a LOT for the better!) and it's a great testing platform to port new features into the PC version.

I hope to see some patch before Xmas.

[Nick Thomadis]

Patch will not be available before Christmas as the team is busy with ipad version. I personally hope it will be available in the first week of new year. Thank you for your posts.

[GShock]

Your post on the "work in progress" was dated 17th.

It's ok, the Ipad version is just as great.

[thorisgodpoo]

Hello, would like to start off saying thank you so much for making a game like this. I enjoy historical and strategy/RTS games so this was a no brainer to try it out. Even though it was limited gameplay (due to playing at late night and not giving it a real formal playthrough), I found this game thoroughly enjoying. I am a bit confused on how the different shots for artillery works, but have mainly figured out the basic controls with ease. One thing that stood out to me was cover can really dictate advantage in the battle. If I was to say anything else about this game it would be an unfounded opinion without any gameplay to back up so I will probably post another feedback review later.

 

Have there been any plans to expand this project to other battles, or possibly expanding it to the whole scope of the Civil War? A game like this starting off already is diverse from what is already on the market and could capitilze off the Civil War RTS genre that hasn't been touched in a long time.

[GShock]

Thoris, the game is just out and it's in its "ironing bugs out" phase. It's very likely the engine will be used for other battles of the civil war and it could very well be used for ANY kind of battle in human history with some adjustments. However, at this point in time no future intent has been revealed yet.

 

All in due time.