First impressions

[Stuie]

This looks incredible Darth.  I'd definitely be interested in assisting with any testing if needed.

[Nick Thomadis]

Incoming long reply post!
 

Hi Darthy

 

Must say that i´m very impresst by all the infos and the pre alpha photos i seen so far 

It reminds me of the magical moments the young age era with strategi games alot, and the best of all, it´s North & South.

 

I cant wait to hear, read and see and in motion or better what, to play the final version and to experiment with the nature world and the AI it self 

 

Think i need to cool my self down, this summer just of sudden really become HOT Darthy   hehe...

 

Awaits steady and strong and eyes on you 24/7  ^.^  A new Epic era as arrived ladies and Gentleman.

 

 BR AN.

My friend Arek thank you for coming here to provide your positive energy. I am sure you are going to enjoy this game, especially you.

 

I must say that I do like the style of the promo art, however. What is the art direction you have in mind? Because the current art style reminds me of those old 1960s Civil War Trading Cards a la these ( http://www.authentichistory.com/1860-1865/3-1962cards/index.html ) I think unit cards in this style would be awesome and act as a good nod to the retro world.

 

There are so many strategy games out there that look photorealistic, which is nice, but seeing a historical game wit a more creative design, whilst retaining accuracy would be even better.

We are thinking to provide some options for visuals, so the player can have the visuals he enjoys more. We have not decided yet.

 

I was a little over excited and I ended up posting in the section of the naval battle game but, h-here I go!

 

I loved this game at first impression as of a few hours ago, looking for a tablet knowing this game would be on there pushed me over the edge. I can't wait, also, how will matchmaking happen and is this a strictly 1v1 game? can there be 2v2's?

Multiplayer is in our schedule. It is just too early to announce something right now.

 

First I just want to say I'm huge fan of Darthmods, they make TW games a vastly more enjoyable experience. Ages ago the first strategy game I grew up playing was Sid Meier's Gettysburg and I like that this looks like an updated version of that old game. I noticed on the website that this game will be available for tablets, would it happen to be available for chromebook as well? I'm dying for a decent strategy game to play and this looks like it could be the one. 

We will try to provide availability to many system platforms. Those that are sure are Windows, Mac, Android and iOS. It will be a matter of system specs for the game to work in a tablet or even a phone with large screen. Sid Meier's Gettysburg was one of my favourite games of my childhood as well as Civil War Generals 2. Trying to make something similar with more modern and effective way is now a big challenge for me.

 

Love it, where do I enlist?

Later you can enlist to our first closed beta team, although I warn you... it is already becoming full.

 

DarthMod to the rescue. I love the sounds of it - and if what DarthMod did to the AI in TW is any indication - this one is going to be exciting! Especially like the evolving campaign .......  Awesome!   The balance between playability and realism - right on.  The game should convey a sense of the battle and feel for eb and flow and events - not recreate them in detail... Excellent.   I'm with SoldierKing - where do I enlist?

Thank you for your kind words, indeed we have exactly this goal. Later we can have closed betas. Please visit the forum from time to time to see latest news.

 

Sign me up.

 

I always wondered why someone as talented as you wasn't making games instead of fixing CA's messes.

 

Will there be any simulation of communication delay? Or is the scale all in bugle range?

 

Will the campaign have (semi) randomized weather?

 

Also, is chain of command implemented in any way? I suppose this is a scale question again. 

 

Again, very very excited about this game. 

-I plan to try this delay in communications but later because currently it will not work well with all the debuggers and pre-alpha settings we have.

-About weather no, because it will clutter the tablets performance, but we will add lighting according to time.

-Yes chain of command will be implemented following the historical order of battle for both sides.

 

Very excited about this game, DarthMod. I'm a gameplay programmer at a big publisher on a MASSIVE team, and I'm always interested in the development of games like yours. I love to support crowd-funded projects, give feedback, and keep up to date with the latest news. With that said, I have some questions/ideas/advice:

 

Questions that a lot of people might want to know:

• Do you plan on crowd-funding this project? Not sure yet how we will market the project. There are lots of available options. We will let you all know asap.
• Is there an over-world campaign map, or is this simply one battle that is played on an enormous scale? The battlefield of Gettysburg is our full map that is divided in various historical or speculative smaller scale engagements.
• Besides realistic graphics, what are your team's limits? Performance for tablets limits us to use currently a fully 3D environment.
• What will the differences between PC and tablet be? We are not sure yet if they are going to be differences. Probably the PC version will allow some better graphics settings.
• Will this be available on iOS AND Android tablets? Yes for both. 

 

Ideas for the game:

 

You're probably looking to set your game apart from the Total War series. Obviously the Civil War is one period Creative assembly has left out (probably because the studio is outside of the U.S.) which is a great idea and I'm sure everyone loves this as much as I do. But there are other ways you can do so.

• No over-world campaign map. The entire game is one simulating battle that is happening in real-time. This is difficult performance-wise, but the large PC rigs will appreciate it, and you probably shouldn't be targeting graphics on a tablet anyway with a large scale strategy game. To do this, you use LOD to your advantage. Zooming out shrinks armies into single objects and shows large text and landmarks, while zooming in reveals smaller units and groups and allows for control. You can separate micro and macro strategy but allow them to play together. When zoomed out, the game relies on statistics to resolve conflicts. But zooming in relies on precise A.I. and player control. The player can pause the game and give precise orders or use time controls to fast forward through night-time, conduct night raids, etc. Having a real time simulation with time controls makes the world seem a whole lot bigger and can give a single battle dozens of extra hours of gameplay. This could put Total War's turn based gaming to shame.  To confess this was my original idea but in the process we had to limit it for performance issues. Already there will be zoom in/out ability to be able to command from very high altitude or close enough. Later we can have other time frames with campaign maps that will use this idea you told or a mix of many other.
• More than just combat and movement. Supply lines, civilians, bridges, and attrition, were important factors of the Civil War, and have not been micro-managed well in Total War games. If you're fighting in the North, there should be civilians that must flee to the north to seek shelter with Union troops. Likewise, southern armies have the opportunity to raid civilian properties for supplies, or hold up in them over night. destroying bridges can hurt the enemy's supply lines, and staging ambushes on caravans could be a cool mechanic. Supplies must be transferred to the front lines every day to feed the men who need them the most. Between days there will be a planning phase that will allow the player to decide about supply and other things. We are still researching it.
• More scripted events. Total War battles are not very scripted, which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, if you're not going to have a clear and interactive over-world campaign map, then individual battles will need more things to happen to make them lifelike, interesting, and fun. Imagine men of the local population joining the South because the Union soldiers burned their houses down. Caravans can move around the map and deliver supplies. Bridges can be destroyed, forcing troops to find other ways to cross rivers. If your army is forced to retreat, maybe you choose to burn everything in sight and leave nothing for the enemy. But that could cause more militia to side with the enemy. Artillery may destroy a forest that could have been used for cover. Prisoners can be taken. Dead bodies need to be cleared. Wounded need to be tended to. Because the battle is real time and AI has some inherited fuzziness as well as the losses, randomness comes naturally. Each time you play the battle can be really different and we can add also additional random events to blent even more.

You may not consider a lot of these ideas because of development resources, another vision, or you simply don't think they're that interesting. Doesn't matter. Just something to think about.

 

Friendly Advice:

• Crowd-fund it! What do you have to lose?
• If you do crowd fund it, be sure to include some footage of whatever sort of prototype you have. It goes a long way to see a single cool feature in action.
• Release developer videos
• Talk with other developers. A video of a conversation between you and a Creative Assembly designer or someone else would be really cool. Brainstorming sessions can excite a lot of the community.
• Don't forget to talk about what this ISN'T. Your history with the Total War series will continuously come back into this development process and you don't want people thinking you're making a Total War clone of the Civil War era with this game. Set yourself apart, but you also don't want to get caught up in debates about.
• Do some videos of you playing strategy games and talk about what you like/don't like about them that your game plans to address.
• Don't give up, although you don't seem like the kind of person who does.

 Good luck, and I look forward to hearing more about Ultimate General: Gettysburg in the future!!!
I generally do not want to continue the bitter past I had with CA and Total War because of all these amazing things the Total War community has offered me and of course the Total War games themselves. Total War games inspired me the most, comparing to all strategy games I have played in my life. I must be grateful for that. Thank you for all the advices.

 

Thank you so much for this very thorough post. I tried to reply to all inline.

Part 2 below...

[Nick Thomadis]

WOW....mate, you are finally breaking CAs unpleasant monopoly! Plenty of admiration heading your way!!

 

Anyway, just briefly, i 100% back Mr ramcord on his advice about supply wagons having to regularly resupply troops. Its a must. And its never been attempted before.

 

Thing about it, a soldier goes putputput oh outofammo....no, an ammunition cart has to come along! and THIS is the reason you must never get cut off and surrounded (besides your ace morale reasons!   ). Also, for soldiers recovering behind the front line, think of the morale boost if general lee gave them access to a wagon of the finest southern tobacco! THey'd practically volunteer to lead a Pickett's charge! THis is a mechanic that i must see in your games!!

 

Thanks so much!

 

Thanks for your support. I warn though that supply wagons can confuse AI, and currently we do not want to make it damper, but effective. We can try though.

 

Nick/Darth, I'm glad seeing you doing something like this,  it looks really promissing.

Jam my friend for TWCenter thank you for coming here. Reading below now and replying inline with red letters.

 

Ammo ressuply is a must, for artillery and infantry. In ETW there was just no point in keeping artillery in reserve, as there was no need to preserve ammo for important part of battle, which was quite essential for sucess.. Anyway, regarding infantry ammo, it was not strictly restricted to supply train only. On lots of occasions reserve units just game their ammo to front line, cavalry units passed their cartridges to infantry etc... As I said before, I agree but our first priority is to make the AI efficient and this can confuse it. Furthermore this is more important in a full campaign map not in a battle like now, even if it is a long one.

 

Anyway for any pre-battle movement and maneuvering, speed of march was important. For infantry major factors impacting speed of march was food supply and having boots. While it might sound silly for some, having undamaged boots had great impact, and practically whole Battle of Gettisburgh happened just because Union Generals had info about large supply of new boots in Gettisburgh warehouses. Very true, currenty we have columns which drastically affect a unit's fatigue and maneuver speed in battle, and AI already uses them very well.

 

Also, while role of cavalry during ACW was not as big as during Napoleonic Wars, Cavalry was crutial force for finding enemy line of march, identifying their main forces, attacking their rear guard, and fighting any delaying actions. Cavalry practically tranformed into all Dragoon force, where usually cavalrymen fought dismounted, anyway would be good to see cavalry fullfiling their true role being an Eyes of the Army. I am going to make a poll for cavalry soon. The plan is to give a very special role to cavalry as you said, but I am concerned of its ability to mount/dismount in the mid of battle.

 

Oh, and one very important and quite overlooked thing is the smoke. Smoke played a big part in battles, obscuring the battlefields making any long range accurate fire impossible. Units accuracy should decay fast after first few salvos due to smoke and confusion until a point where continuing fire was just a waste of ammo. Anyway direction and strength of wind should also make some impact on battlefield awareness, where smoke could obscure certain parts of battlefield making it harder to identify enemy units..

We will try to have as much smoke as possible... you know from DarthMods that this was one of the priorities.

 

And i'd like to mention the formation issue (but you are for sure well aware of this), there should be several standard formations unit can have, like Line, Column or skirmish order,where each formation should have its own benefits and negatives. Column for example should be the fastest moving, should allow transformations into other formations (it was quite hard to do anyformation or movement changes while deployed in Line) etc, but should have limited firepower and be quite vulnerable to artillery. WHile ACW columns were not as tight as Napoleonic columns, artillery effectivity improved dramatically so columns were much better targets than ever before. Anyway even such dissadvantage didnt prevented Europeans to use them sucesfully (Stoss taktik) during Prussian-French and Prussian-Austrian wars. While American historians defend ACW forces to be superior at ranged combat, truth is, Prussians and French used much more advanced weapons (rear loaded early bolt action rifles) and still using the colums tactics for attacks instead of undecisive ranged shootout of two line formation at the range. Weapon argument is quite popular, anyway weapon accuracy was not that great either. During 1991 Austrian Military Museum in Graz performed live fire tests of their exeplars at shooting range and found some quite interesting facts. For example 1861 rifled musket was found having just average accuracy at 100m, matched by late 16.century (high quality) heavy Matchlock musket! or short flintlock pistols having similar performance and dispersion at 30m as modern Glock 9mm pistols..  so clearly quality of manufacture was quite important for weapon performance, and standard issue rifled muskets were not well known for overall quality.. (i will try to find one study about ACW which investigated this issue in more detail)

In civil war formations were not that complex but we will definately simulate those used back then. Also, the units are brigade level so their formations are internally handled automatically. More on this matter later.

 

 

So first off, wow this looks really good. Very excited to hear that Darth is making a full game as I loved the Darthmod series and was the only reason I picked up Shogun2. Now for some questions.

 

How will the behaviour of the AI be set? Will it be randomised or can you set it?

Will soldiers in the back lines end up shooting their teammates in the back by accident since the bullets were unreliable?

How much will weather impact a battle?

 

If you guys need any testers I'd be happy to give you my assistance, I also have some old laptops that I could use to test the software on.

AI characters will be the only difficulty system of the game. Each character will have many different, internal settings suitable to desribe the level of difficulty.

Friendly fire is already implemented, yes there will be collateral damage.

We do not consider weather yet as a battle factor. We want to stick with the historical weather setting.

 

 

Hello Darth! Very happy to know you start develop your own RTS game!

What game engine you planning to use?

Thank you! We use the Unity Engine and lots of internal code.

 

Hello, Nick

 

Very intresting project, I don't know if you can zoom in your game but if not I think it's a good thing! It will be easier to make the game pretty, and it will stay a strategy game... 

I don't know what are you finicial possibilities but like Ramcord told if you can crowd-fund the game it may have a succes. If you can stay as far as possible from CA it will be nice   .

 

Your game have a very great potential, will follow it.

 

Good luck !

Thank you, crowd funding can help, will let you know for this asap.

 

Love the look!

From what I can see each brigade is represented by the correct amount of soldiers, unlike the Sid Miers games, is that right?

Good luck guys... Because you will be getting compared to the Sid Miers games and they were amazing! So looking really forward to this one!

Each brigade will have the correct amount of troops and their number will be always indicated so to know what is going on fast (in the promo pics this is not visible). Thanks for your positive energy.

 

Hello Nick,

 

I am always quite excited for new Civil War games coming out.  If there's any historical research/input you may need, I am beginning my doctoral studies at Mississippi State University in the fall, with history, with an emphasis on Military History.  I will do what I can to help!

 

Have you ever played Sid Meier's Gettysburg or Antietam?  Or Civil War Generals 2?  If not, I'd recommend a quick look at those.  The Sid Meier games remind a me a lot of this one, as they are RTS without the game building aspect.  Purely strategy, (realistic LOS, rallying for tired and wavering troops).  The Sid Meier games also had one soldier represent 20 I believe it is, due to the system limitations of the late 20th century.  CWG2 was a turn based game released in 1996 by Sierra, which contains unit supply, morale and excellent use of terrain, and some of the best LOS attributes I've ever seen in a game ( though the AI was lacking).

 

Another game you may want to take a look at is Take Command and Take Command 2 at Mad Minute Games. http://www.madminutegames.com/  Perhaps any and all of these games can provide some insight or inspiration on where you want to take this, or ensure you don't repeat their mistakes etc!

 

One aspect of the Total War series I always appreciated was the ground littered with the dead bodies of soldiers who fell in battle.  Unlike FPS games (like COD or Battlefield) which remove bodies of dead players frequently during the course of a match, you gain a true appreciation of the sacrifice these soldiers make.  As a commander, it is your duty to attempt to win with the fewest casualties possible.  One way to realize this responsibility is to have as many men as possible represent the fallen on the field.  

 

___________________

 

I would also like to see the ability to replay the battle once finished, from a top down view as such:

 

 

For history gamers (as I am sure many will be drawn to this game), this would be a very welcome addition.  I suppose the map could be represented as it is in Supreme Commander, that kind of top-down view the commander has.  It gives the player a chance to analyze mistakes, missed opportunities and the ability to develop AARs should one be so inclined.  One print screen later and now viewers can follow the battle as if it was an actual historical engagement.  

 

Or time stop moments, such as above.  Or "critical moments" in the battle, where major engagements occurred that shaped the course of the battle.  These decisive moments in review I believe would add much more depth to the playing experience, and would be utilized to great effect.

All these you said will be implemented. We share the same ideas. Thank you for this so much detailed post. Especially for the dead corpses.... you will see many and they will stay not disappear. Battle replay... great to know that it is needed because I was considering to add

 

Part 3 below...

[Nick Thomadis]

Really excited that someone is finally making a new Civil War RTS. Haven't been able to get my fix since SM:G and SM:A.

 

Just like in the SM games and in Total War, I think you should try to have commanders out there as their own unit. It could be something like the further the commander is away from his respective unity, the worse the unit fights and the close he is, the better it fights. Obviously, enemy units would be able to target said commanders. Also perhaps make different types of commands, brigade commander, division commander, etc. Each tier higher could have a larger sphere of influence and give different bonuses based on who and what they are (i.e. Longstreet maybe gives a defensive bonus to all units in his sphere of influence).

 

Of course I am not telling you how to make your game, these are just things that I would personally find pretty cool. Anyways, good luck and I look forward to seeing the final product   .

Yes yes, your ideas are helpful, we are making something similar. When we are able to talk more about it we will inform here.

 

Happy 150th anniversary of Gettysburg all!

Hey Norbak, my friend! Thanks for coming. Check the forum frequently.

 

Wow, this is awesome! Just read on an italian site and followed the link and i discover Darth is developing his own game. Good!

Unfortunately it's not my best historical period, but realistic RTS like these, with good gameplay an AI are really welcome.

I wish you the best luck.

PS: have you considered starting a Kickstarter campaign to help funding the project?

Vastator, your videos will be most needed in future Thanks for coming. Replied above about funding.

 

Great news, Nick, can't wait for you to deliver your terrific ideas! Can you tell us a little bit more about the parent software house "Game Labs" and how you came about with this title? The miniaturized soldiers look awesome in the first screenshots. I do hope for epic scale maps though and confrontations that last more than half an hour. Anyway, whatever your creation will be, I will definitely get it.

 

Τα σπας, αδερφέ! 

Epicness is what I will try hard to achieve in gameplay. Game Labs is a new international gaming studio (people work to it internally or via Internet) and I am very happy that I became part of it this year.

 

I really like the graphics in the screenshot and the idea of deep stratigical gameplay, striking a balance between simpel controls, with not too many options and depth.

 

However I was wondering, is this meant to be only singleplayer? Because I think that would be a real shame..

I would like very much to add single player dynamic campaign, skirmish and MP all together on release. We are not sure yet if we will be able to achieve all of them together.

 

This looks incredible Darth.  I'd definitely be interested in assisting with any testing if needed.

Thank you! Your support will be needed.

 

I will reply to all other threads asap. Thank you a lot for your participation.

[Imperial Dane]

Well it's certainly refreshing news to see a game like that announced. Though to be honest i've never tried the Darthmods. I do not doubt their quality. Just that some run ins with previous modding communities have largely left me cold when it came to that.

 

Very curious to see how it will turn out as it sounds quite ambitious on many levels in particular in regards to the AI and i certainly wonder to what extent your troops can act independently. Will they automatically take up defensive or ambush positions if standing still ? Charge and so on.

 

And also curious if Commanders and chains of command will possibly have an effect on that. So overall. Sounds very exciting and looking forward to seeing the game in action and just generally hearing more about it

Though a part of me wonders if this could eventually result in a much larger game something akin to total war maybe with these battles just being part of something grander

[mennelik76]

I'm looking forward to this project but hopefully the batlle itself can be seen in a realistic manner and with proper  unit sizes, landscapes, A.I ofcourse, like they where in real life. And i did read some interisting wishes, so this one is certainly one i'm gonna follow.

 

greetz

 

"Come on you 54th"

[TacticalWargames]

Love the visual design. Very interested to see how this comes along.

[The Great Dane]

Hey Nick - Monty from Denmark calling!

Being a Total War veteran from way back in 2000 I've have played every single game CA have put out -- thanks to your mod I've just recently played Napoleon again.

And that time around was much better than the first (original version).

I've too played Gettysburg back in the day and no doubt CA was inspired by this great game...

 

I'm a huge TW fan but what has always been a problem with the games is, that it's often up to a year AFTER release, before they are patched up to a state, where they ought to have been released.

So very often I'm bored of the game long before, because the AI is so dumb.

 

So what am I saying?

Do not release before it works the way you want it. Marketing will push for release, but if this game is to make a serious difference, the AI needs to kick some serious ass!

 

I have reached a state, where I long for a serious butt-kick from the AI -- NOT the most fancy graphics in the world.

And I'm not the only one who wants more than words, when it comes to developing a serious advanced AI.

So potentially you could strike on a gold mine if this suceeds...

 

Heres some input for the game:

1) We need soldiers surrendering and walking off to the rear - an ever missing feature from TW-games. Hate that everyone routs when it's more realistic (and cool) seeing soldiers surrendering.

2) Involvement in the units and officers (a bit like TW Rome 2's aiming)

3) Slow moving action - I'm tired of being rushed, when strategy is important. Instead there could be some isolated desperate moments, when I have to react fast.

4) Scarred environment. Farms, fields and woods burning. 

5) River and rail transport

6) Release through Steam - this has been great for the smaller Indie games.

 

Question:

Any details on release of: Alpha / beta / full version.

Know it's early, but how about pulling a future game up to WW2: Island jumping as the Americans did fighting the japs in the Pacific!

Landing troops, fighting for air superiority, organizing taskforces and supplies. That would be epic

 

Best of luck to you!

[Korvin]

 

 

Tell, please.

Is it game screenhot?

[Husserl]

Hey all! Here I am.. Congrats for this effort of yours, I'm gonna watch closely...

[KERA_AK]

Hey all! Here I am.. Congrats for this effort of yours, I'm gonna watch closely...

Welcome onboard Hussel u2

BR AN.

[Zin]

Tell, please.

Is it game screenhot?

 

I believe that is conceptual art.

[trooper11]

I really like the look of the concept art.  Its a stand out style among so many strategy games going for the gritty realism.  You guys are taking on an ambitious project, but it sounds like its going to be something special.  I can't wait to see gameplay in the future.

 

I did have a question about the tablet support.  You mention supporting Windows via the PC and iOS/Android tablets, but I was hoping you would also be supporting Windows 8 tablets (arm and x86 variety).  I happen to use a Surface tablet and I would love to have a game like this on it.

 

Related to tablet support, do you guys have any plans to share data between different versions?  Lets say I have the pc and a tablet copy of the game, would it be possible to share saves between them, to jump into games on either platform?  I ask since you said that the difference between the different versions amounted to graphics. 

[Clinch]

Looks and sounds great.  As a huge fan of CWG2 I was always hoping someone would reproduce these fine games.  I have one question that I havent seen asked in this forum.  I almost feel stupid asking but will there be fog of war?  Im sure the answer is yes but I just wanted to hear for sure.

[Huberto]

Looks very nice, great idea and battle choice.  I know this battle well and have walked the field many times. 

 

I second comments about cavalry being largely limited to recon/raiding units in the ACW.  Google "Elon Farnsworth and Gettysburg" if you want to learn about how cavalry assaults on infantry positions turned out in the ACW.

 

Anyway sounds like a great project.  Would love to help you playtest.  Go, go, go.

[tvGuy]

I love the topic and the idea behind the game. Obviously, I'd love to test it if there's room, but if not, I'm just as fine watching the development from the sidelines.

Best of luck to you on this great venture.

[Evanovic]

Finally someone has the guts and vision to attempt this sort of game. I had envisaged this sort of game for ages, an alternative to TW on PCs, and also tablets being largely untapped by historical RTS; CA woefully disappointing with Shogun 2: Battles. CA is good at visually and verbally abstracting what their games are meant to be about, but they continue to fail to really get to the core of the RTS gamer's deep urges.

 

A lot of those shortfalls have been in making the battles engaging on a macro-level; you often felt a very big disconnect between your campaign strategy and how the battle actually played out.

 

In most of their games they've also failed to really get a physics/particle system going that really feels visceral. The motion-capture may look 'realistic' in isolation, but it completely kills the momentum of the melee encounters in their battle and feels ultimately anti-climactic. I want a game that really packs a punch, I want the visual impact of my charge to be seen on screen; for the each fighting stat calculation to be visually represented in each stab and clash in that melee, not obfuscated by 'motion capture'. Even if it's small dots on a screen with a fixed camera zoom, as long as the particle interactions are intuitive and informative, it's going to be a lot more fun than a triple-A budget motion capture battle.

 

AI is largely and perennially accepted as the weakest part of Total War too, and evidently is something you've criticised and addressed a lot in your DarthMods. The problem is CA completely lack innovation or critical thinking in that area. Every year they merely tweak the thought process of a flawed-since-day-one Battle AI. What I don't think they realise is that they're not going to get an AI to feel real if the battles themselves completely lack an obvious motive behind them. An AI which has the same ultimate objective every battle (to kill your whole army) is not going to feel 'real'. Its faction/general/unit traits need to be expressed in its thinking process and the battle-map needs to actively predetermine an AI's approach to a battle. It simply does not work to build one 'chess-player' AI and then drop it into multiple scenarios and expect it to spontaneously give you a challenge and act historically at the same time. The AI needs some scriptedness to get it going on the right track before it begins to 'think for itself'. Looks like you're thinking more deeply than they have in terms of AI, looks promising.

 

This sort of turned into a rant about my Total War bugbears (not that I dislike the games, but I think their potential is vastly underexploited), but it was sparked by the fact that you have noticed and want to address those problems in your own game. I really do hope you make a success of this game in the places that CA has failed, because I am dying to play a TW-style RTS that does not have immersion-burying flaws like TW has.

 

I fear that a lot of people are going to come on this forum and, out of mere enthusiasm, pressure you down a route where they want to see complex and micromanagement intensive features in the game. I urge you to stick to your original vision; focus almost purely on making it intuitive and visceral experience. Subtly does more than complexity for these sorts of games. Good luck! I'll just be following on the forums, contributing with odd suggestions when prompted and would love to participate in a beta at some point, should you need people.

[Nick Thomadis]

Thank you very much for your ongoing positive energy and your very helpful ideas. I am extremelly busy these days and I will not able to reply to all of you. But will read everything.

I am also very happy that I see good friends from TWCenter arriving here. I will be able to talk to you more later.

[ziggystardust41162]

I'm so pumped for this game.

Initially all of my hype this year was for Rome 2. I said to myself "Gee wiz this game is going to be good, and Darth will make it great."

Alas you announced that there wouldn't be a Darthmod for Rome 2 and what i said to myself at that point was "Welp, i guess there's no amazing RTS' to look forward to this year, because CA can't program their AI to fight its way out a paper bag." But lo and behold! Darthmod himself is developing a game, a game, that, in my opinion is going to eclipse CA's monopoly!

 

Great work Darth, and good luck in the future. 

[Zin]

I'm wondering if you thought @Nick Thomadis to include a random terrain generator that would allow for an infinite number of plays and variations, kind of like the Civilization V model.  Especially for multiplayer (if it's included) this would add dynamism to the game in a way that the Total War series cannot.

[reamond]

Thanks DarthMod, 

I like all your work for TW, which I really enjoyed. Good plan for a new game and hope you will be able to realize it.  I love strategic gaming and my fear always that games evolves to a sorts of "Warcraft like" with the goal to continuously occupy the user. What I seen... I found some tendencies in Rome 2 as well, which point in that direction and hope my fears will not become reality. I really like NTW3 and all the effort the team behind it to make NTW more than what it was intended to be. So most of their changes and really battle related findings are highly recommended by me. 

 

Regarding your effort... I love the game Sid Meier´s Gettysburg!... Mr Meier and his team did a very good job that time... you can find many inspiration in that game.... there are some functions I would like to promote in a new game like yours ( by the way I haven't went through yet all the discussed functionality, and I believe not even half of your functional wish-list will make it into the first release anyway. I would recommend to keep the eye on the big picture and enhance it later), So here is a top 10:

 

1, Pre battle plan connected to "boxes" representing bigger troop formations (based on preliminary info about opposite forces, not just position of troops but planning of movement... connected to time... similar discussed or used in multiplayer mode & formations in NTW3 with "3 party storyboards")

 

2, Communication between general and troops (commanders) ... there should be delay or no communication if the troops are far away or cut of from the general... cut off troops should be taken over temporarily by the AI (reusing AI on many level) and should work in connection to the preliminary battle-plan (or try to reconnect to main body). 

 

3, Troops with lowered moral should surrender / lay the weapon down... some case runaway is not possible... (both enemy and own troops) avoid that troops repetitively coming back! In reality it's never true in a big battle mainly because they need to be reformed and extra guided (usually loose commanding officer)... and so on.

 

4, Player should be able to use AI as your battlefield general (with proposed characters) responsible for... left right or centre and user can give objectives... by that maybe complexity can be reduced for bigger battles (if user wants or in case of use of non "PC" devices...handheld)... it also promote the user to think strategically and step by step take over the whole game / battlefield.

 

5, In case of cut-off troops the chosen AI character should guide the troops to reach their objectives (if there are any). I would even go as far as if the general (actually the user) is dead... the battle should be taken over by the AI based on the battle-plan and AI character / characters (when user chosen field commanders for the wings / battle groups or centre ). User need to take care of the general... 

 

6, Added strategic-view, which shows troops as "boxes" ... similar as Rome 2 will have (both for planning and overall control under the game)

 

7, Implementation of delayed reinforcement appears on the battlefield (act in connection to preliminary battle-plan)

 

8, Able to occupy artillery and use against the other side / but in a limited way

 

9, Fog of war, enemy should appear on the preliminary battle-plan based on "indicative information" with over or underestimated numbers and position with clear visible difference between verified (enemy in sight) or expected position (scouting indication). The same under the battle... of course the possibility to hide units... similar to TW.

 

10, Somehow promote action by user using combined troops, both horse/artillery/foot (maybe not fitting for civil war period but can built on when you choose other battles or time period)

 

00, Multiplayer... If you are looking for a big user base. You need that one.

 

...so... it become a longer post i planed, sorry for that. Last but not least what Sega seems to forget (look at their videos, posted nowadays , strategic war games appreciated mostly by man in higher ages (sorry girls and teens)... and they do it under long period of time. Have you tried again one of older TW games... just to get in the "mode"... than you are one of us.

[enoch]

Hi Darth,

 

I played many of your TW mods and am very excited about this game! Like many I was disappointed by your retirement from TW modding, but its good to know that you have moved to a bigger and more ambitious project. Gettysburg is one of my favourite battles which I have played on pc on a couple of turn based table top versions. I have great hopes for your version knowing that you will bring to it all of your TW modding experience. 

[majordon4679]

I am so very interested in your game.I am a Canadian and have played wargames for many years now and am currently playing Darthmod ETW 8.0.01, and War in the Pacific Adml's Edition.

Your choice of The American Civil War is an inspired one since,in History ,it was studied by Generals from Europe and the U.K.,leading to new fighting tactics used in 1914-1918.

Please let us know when a Pre-Order is available and I would be vey pleased to order up.

I wish you Good Luck and every success with the game.

[templarteppo]

Greetings everyone and especially to Mr. Thomadis (you'll always be Darth Vader to me!) and all those working on this awesome project.  I can not begin to tell you just how happy I am for you guys working on this project.  Mr. Thomadis you won't recognize my name on this forum but on twcenter I go by wargod2009.  My posts on your thread have always been fanboyish.  I have been a HUGE fan of yours since Empire Darth Mod and that mod is the main reason why I bought Empire as well as Napoleon. 

 

I believe that I am done with Creative Assembly at least until they start work on Warhammer Total War.  Rome 2 has shown itself to be unfriendly to modders, horrificly casualized and simply pretty with no true advances in gameplay improvement.  You can't imagine how thrilled I was when I saw on the front page on TWcenter that you were making this game.  For me historical authnticity IS EVERYTHING!  If you guys start a campaign like Steam greenlight, be assured that I will financially support you as best as I can. 

 

I will have plenty of questions in the future but my first one is will there be persistent corpses on the battlefield like in Total War?  This is critical to the immersion factor for me and others.  It was one the first things that stood out to me when I played Shogun back in 2001.  Also I hope that the pc version is not a port of the tablet version.  I hope that the PC remains the main focus, as I want to see a true competitor to the now stagnant Total War series.

[Nick Thomadis]

Hi again all,

 

Thank you for coming to say hello and to write so generous comments about me. It really means a lot and provides the necessary positive energy to keep going strong with the project. I am sorry that I have been silent but I have to confess that there is so much workload at the moment that I can barely find time for anything else than trying to make Ultimate General: Gettysburg the unique, special strategy game you expect from me.

 

I have published some info of our progress in my blog: http://www.ultimategeneral.com/blog/mid-summer-status-update.
Please read to get an idea of the current state of the game.

 

You can read also my first interview about UG:G  in RockPaperShotgun http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/19/the-flare-path-gettysburg-addressed/.

Soon I am going to post more interesting content in the forum and would require some interaction from your side about specific gameplay elements. Until then, please keep posting anything interesting that comes to your mind that can help the design process.

 

PS.

Will try to reply to your personal messages asap.