Lincolns Mullet

You can definitely lose battles and continue. You will still gain some cash and men even with a loss, but you will lose reputation. Lose too much reputation and you will be relieved of command (game over). In fact, its imperative to know when to retreat/withdraw from a battle you know you are no longer able to win. Don't continue losing men if there's no chance of winning. This is where a good General swallows his pride to save lives but lose reputation. They can live to fight another day and hopefully win that next battle.

Hi Louis, I've primarily played from the CSA campaign during testing but regardless of your losses, you will be given the opportunity to replenish them and continue building your army. Consider you are building an army at the start of the war, so you are provided with men and money as you progress. You will lose the entire campaign if you suffer too many defeats, and actual losses of men will affect your ability to fight the next battle. Winning battles provides greater cash/men, and if you invest in politics you will receive even more cash/men after a battle. You CAN suffer enormous losses and still win a battle, but you will realize that this is not sustainable long-term. You'll be forced to replace losses with rookies, you'll lose weapons and have to replace them with cheaper ones, etc. You won't gain new skill points to invest in things like politics or medicine, which help offset losses. So, there is a very real penalty for losing a lot of men. When you see your favorite veteran brigade get decimated, you'll cringe. Replacing 1000 veterans can cost upwards of 30k for a single brigade, or more if they're using expensive weapons. And as your army expands from being 7k strong to 30k strong, replacing 15k men will be cost prohibitive if trying to do so as veterans. The majority of your replacements will be rookies, who will perform far less effectively.

Are you talking about singleplayer or multiplayer? Just wondering as I've been able to hold all the VP's in the first battle of day 1 as Union even against boosted AI.

I'd venture to say your total losses as the Confederates has something to do with it, not necessarily the ratio of losses. Considering that the campaign victory score is in context of the larger war effort, if you lose 25k troops as the Confederates, it doesn't really help even if you killed 35k of theirs. An "Epic" victory would mean you still have the majority of the AnV intact so as to be able to follow up on your victory and continue your campaign invading the North. I could be wrong though. I mean, it all makes sense but its not exactly clear either when you start a campaign. On one hand, VP's would appear the primary goal in each map. We're ingrained as gamer's to get all those big VP's you see on the map, at whatever cost. But if you suffer terrible losses taking them it doesn't really matter.

I was going to write something out about all this, but I've calmed down now and just want to say I loved Gamelabs' response and I hope all this publicity fills their coffers.

I spent pretty much all of my spare time helping with the latest patch, so once that was out I took a break (and have been very busy!). I'm itching to get back into UGG though. It's unfortunate that Civil War history has suddenly become a hot topic over a tragedy here in the US. It's not surprising though.

How doesn't that make sense? The AI gets zero bonuses over you. If they beat you they beat you fair and square. Some AI's are harder because they use all of their available brigades and attack/defend effectively. Easier AI's may not commit all of their brigades to an attack, or not try and flank you, which makes it easier on you.

How would it work if you separated it? Ammo being one condition, and fatigue being another? How would that significantly change the way you play? As stated above, its an abstraction to represent general combat effectiveness. When possible, I keep brigades in reserve so they can replace exhausted units that have been fighting for a long time. Ammon shouldnt even be represented, because how would you like that to be handled? If a brigade can run out of ammo, do they just stop shooting? So both sides would have a bunch of units that could only charge to be effective. So just replace the word "condition" with "fatigue" and forget about ammo. With the General affecting "fatigue" is splitting hairs in my opinion. You keep your Generals nearby your brigades = benefit. Again, lets say they make it so the General only helps morale. The AI plays by the same rules so I'm curious how these changes would positively affect your game experience.

I agree with you. In a way though, by putting emphasis on certain cities you create a defacto VP system without actually calling it that. But as you said, by adding a political layer to battlefield victories and where/how far each army advances into enemy territory (and its effects on logistics) you create a more realistic campaign that keeps the focus on manuevering and successful battles. Looking forward to hearing more from you!

David, I like where you're going with this. It's not an easy undertaking if the devs wanted go this route. There are two key issues that would be a major factor in the development of this "campaign" game. And I highly stress the word key here: the level of detail the game will simulate and provide for player input/choices, and the creation of a map editor for players to make their own maps/scenarios. I've never mentioned it, but I love the map in UGG. They did a great job with that and I'm sure it's not easy to recreate, to a realistic scale, the entire topography and layout of the entire battle. It'd be interesting to hear how they made the map in UGG. My short-lived career in game design for a professional company was the result of making homemade scenarios using a proprietary map editor for a little game called Empire Earth. They saw what I did, liked it, and hired me to work on two follow up games making scenarios. I can't stress enough how important this tool is to the longevity of a game. And if created, the UGG team will basically conscript a small platoon of amateur map editors to create battlefields that anyone can download and use in the campaign game or multiplayer. These battles wouldn't necessarily have to be "approved" by the dev team. The community can decide what is useful and what isn't. When there were homemade scenarios uploaded for Empire Earth, people could rate and review them. The # of downloads was also a testament to the popularity of a scenario. So there could, eventually, be "community approved" scenarios that are generally accepted as being as close to the historical battle/map as possible. Having the devs' stamp of a approval would be great too, of course, and maybe all they would need to do is review someone's final product and suggest changes to make it "approved by the devs". This alone would alleviate much of the work in creating new battles by the dev team. If they build a scenario editor that can create maps, drop down trees, fences, buildings, etc, and allow for basic scripting (if this VP location taken, send Stannard division in from this location on the map) then the devs would basically allow for years of amateur development using this game engine. Imagine if you will, that over ten years time, dozens of Civil War battles have been meticulously created, both small and large engagements. They can even add the ability to graphically mod unit types. I know they said that would kill performance, but PC players who *can* take advantage of having Zouaves and black hats on the Iron brigade can choose to do so. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. lol. The other key factor is level of detail in terms of the overall campaign. What are the core elements we want the player to focus on? Maneuvering armies? Do we want to make the player responsible for rebuilding decimated brigades after a battle? Do they control research and development? Building fortifications? How many different unit types will be represented? How are these units created, trained, joined into divisions? Who leads them? How are officers handled? Can they be killed, sacked, replaced? Are naval units represented and how are they built and moved around? The list is quite endless. Blizzard has been very successful at what they do because they create and test a simple game element to see if its fun, and expand on it. Is clicking on a monster, killing it, and getting a shiny new weapon fun? Yes. Let's work with this. The core element of the grand campaign needs to be awesome. That is, the "thing" you're going to be doing the most of when playing the campaign. Is it maneuvering of the grand army? Managing your "side" by balancing several factors? (Morale, Money, Army Strength) Let's say the grand campaign focuses on 3 core aspects: National Morale, Finances, Army Strength (Ie, building/maintaining the army, fighting battles, etc). This would mean the grand campaign is about balancing your ability to build, maintain, and fight with your army. That's it. The North, as you mention David, may have the finances backing their military but their national morale is fragile. Lose too many battles, or lose key battles, and the war may end early. As the South, your finances are tight but your national morale is high. You can afford to lose battles, but you can't afford to keep replacing men and arms. This kind of "core" game design (not saying my above example is it) would need to follow in UGG's footsteps and provide a seamless, easy to learn but difficult to master game that doesn't bog the player down in minutiae. Otherwise, if you go down that path where you start adding more and more detail, you start competing with grand strategy Civil War games that already exist and did a great job at creating a deep campaign experience. Of course, the big difference with this game would be the ability to actually play out those battles. But still, its a slippery slope to go down when you start deciding what "detail" needs to be in a grand campaign game and what doesn't. As you mention David, a lot of elements can be abstracted or simulated in the "background" but still factoring into the actual gameplay significantly. This is fun to talk about, that's for sure. And we're probably wayyyy ahead of ourselves here but I think we all hope Nick finds enough success with these games to keep going bigger and better, and maybe one day be able to do something like this!

Alright, here's my bright idea for a campaign. It's a pretty long-term commitment on the part of the dev team, but it wouldn't require making a entirely new game AND it would fit with the mobile app market. And at the end we'd have a bunch of great Civil War battles to play. Nick and crew would have to find a way to design a good number of the major Civil War battles (Shiloh, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, Antietam, etc). These would be separate entities like UGG currently is, and Antietam will be. The campaign map would be a geographic map of the US, primarily where these major battles would occur. When you start a new campaign as Union or Confederate, only the first battle is available to you (First Manasses?). When you "win" the battle, it unlocks the next on the grand map and follows the historical timelines of the battles. If, for example, the initial battle is First Manasses, then there would have to be specific conditions to "winning" that scenario for either side since it was a historically terrible battle for the Union. Or, the major battles could be contained only to the ones where historically, either side could've won. Your overall "score" at the end of the campaign is the combined casualty rates you inflicted throughout all of the battles. Unit losses, etc wouldn't carry over from battle to battle. Each battle would be self-contained in terms of what units were fighting there, so losses at Antietam wouldn't affect who shows up at Gettysburg. Victory Points wouldn't be a cumulative score for the campaign, and only beneficial to calculating a specific scenario's victor. The overall goal is to win battles, but ultimately destroy your enemy by the end of the campaign. So you could lose Shiloh and Chancellorsville, but win Antietam and Gettysburg and still have a chance for a positive victory score like UGG currently works at the end of the battle (Minor, Major, Epic, Triumphant). Of course, we'd need Nick and his team to basically make all of these battles separately and then combine them into a grand campaign linking them together. Then add a multiplayer component. Bam. Done deal. lol. Not asking for much am I? .

A campaign game that doesn't require a 3 inch manual to figure out would be great. It seems Nick is trying to tailor his game around the mobile "app" market, so it would have to be something feasible to play on tablets too. One of the great achievements of UGG is how much detail is represented in the game, but without the player having to read a manual to figure it out. Trees provide cover, fighting uphill is hard, crossing rivers is slow, shooting your opponent from behind is good, etc. Certain aspects aren't as apparent until you see the effects in-game (1 star units not being as effective as 3 star units, etc). So for a campaign game, I can see a similarly streamlined experience that's easy to grasp, but has layers of complexity hidden within. This is an entirely different ball game we're talking about here though, and much more difficult especially if the idea is to experience real-time battles with the armies you create and manage in the campaign game. What kind of maps will be used? How are divisions handled, timing of reinforcements, etc? UGG handles all of those elements by using historical reference points, but a campaign game would create mostly ahistorical battles and locations. A smaller request (maybe lol) would allow for the branching campaign in UGG to be played out in multiplayer. The downside to this is, what's the market? As cool as it would be, will Nick really sell a lot more copies by developing that feature? Typically single-player elements sell better than multi-player. I heard the next game might be Antietam? Seems logical, and most people who bought and enjoyed UGG will buy Antietam. I know once Firaxis released "Antietam" after SMG, I immediately bought it. Then we'd have two great Civil War games available, and hopefully Nick has made enough $$ after that to go even bigger and better for his 3rd title.

Unfortunately VP's are a standard game element thats necessary, as Nick pointed out, for various reasons. Meade and Lee were able to focus on destroying the other army because there were greater political and strategic implications that we, as players of UGG, do not have to worry about. If there are no VP's and both armies hold defensible positions in a scenario, there is little incentive to be the first one to attack. It'll turn into trench warfare. And the VP's are very valuable in programming the AI so that they behave somewhat realistically.

Hi David, I commend your deep research and integrity to the history of the ACW. I love history and feel like I know quite a bit about a lot of subjects, but its times when I read posts like yours and realize I'm a tadpole in an ocean of avid historians. Games like UGG need your expertise, and the community is better for it (and, hopefully, the game developers who listen to everyone's input). First of all, I want to say that I posted my comments without playing the game to great lengths. I only had a handful of games under my belt and that is never enough to get a definitive answer on game balance issues. The artillery did have very high kill counts, but it also didn't diminish my enjoyment of the game. My point is that ultimately, the Prime Directive of any game developer is to make money. Unfortunately, if that means skewing an ACW game towards something unrealistic, then that's the developers decision. That typically means alienating avid historians (considered a niche audience in the gaming industry) in order to attract greater "casual" gamers. I can't speak on behalf of Nick or what he intended when making UGG but, in my opinion, he strikes a perfect balance between fun and history. Its very difficult to do. When the old Close Combat games came out, there were a lot of historical inaccuracies that the community raged over and produced a whole lot of mods to "fix". But CC was revolutionary at the time. It did what UGG is doing: making a fun, historical game accessible to a general audience. Everyone's term of "historically accurate" only goes so far as their knowledge of that history. A casual gamer might only know that artillery is overpowered, and know nothing about their historical usage and effects on combat during ACW. They're trying to play a game, and if they aren't having fun, the historical elements don't matter. I've been in the game industry and worked on pseudo-historical games enough to know that history oftentimes takes a backseat to gameplay for the sake of making more $$. It sucks, but its reality. Look at the Total War series. If any historical game could be 100% historically accurate AND fun, they'd hit the golden ticket. All ACW historians would rejoice, and all casual gamers who don't know much about the war will buy the game as well because they heard it was really fun. In your case (and many others), the fun of the gameplay IS the exacting historical details. I completely get that. In the case of the overpowered artillery, that's an easy fix. That's tweaking the numbers. I've gratefully been added to the focus testing team and been happily providing reams of feedback and details (on gameplay) to help make UGG the best game it can be. I don't think I'm at liberty to discuss the details of those tests, but an issue with artillery is a relatively easy fix (which Nick has publicly stated is addressing). My question is...if artillery is balanced correctly and feels historically appropriate, is that the only major issue you have with the game at the moment?

They're OK to attack with if you manage to get behind the enemy. The key is to let them engage units that are already fighting. Hitting a brigade from behind with skirmishers is a great way to break their morale. Just make sure they fallback before any enemy brigades turn their 1000 rifles on them. That's the fun of skirmishers, harassing enemy units behind the lines or on the flanks. Hit and run. Delay, harass and disrupt the enemies plans.

Great vs artillery and delaying advances. Can also be used to flank or rear attack engaged units. Dont let them stand and fight for long. Fire and move.

Thanks Koro, that's good to hear. No, MP can never be perfect but as long as there isn't some fundamental balance flaw then most scenarios should be winnable by either side, when facing opponents of similar skill. My worry was that my steamroll of the AI in the single player would translate into MP due to some balance issue with the Union. Nick, yes I'd love to test out the beta stuff if you need fresh eyes. I'm an old modder from the Empire Earth RTS era (worked for SSSI at one point), and did some balance work on Titan Quest. I definitely don't have the time to spend 8 hours a day doing that anymore but I hope I'd have an eye to help out where I can!

Interesting, thanks for the info. I suppose I didn't notice because all of my Union troops act like 3 star crack brigades and the CSA 1 star Green troops. lol. The challenge against the AI is definitely playing from the CSA side, so I'm thankful that part of the campaign works well. Would enjoy losing a few phases/battles as the Union though. I'll try Boost AI and see how that goes, then onto MP.

Thanks! I'll dive into MP soon. That's definitely where the real challenges await, but also where any balance issues will come to immediate light. Is MP generally more balanced than the single player scenarios, or do people find the same issue with the Union being overpowered? If multiplayer battles play out in a more balanced fashion, then it may be that the AI is incapable of using its units properly.

That's great to hear. Perfect follow up!

So now I have 4 games under my belt, 2 CSA and 2 Union. First Union game against Balanced AI ended in a Major Victory, and I played through a number of phases/maps. I just finished my 2nd Union game against Determined AI, and it was even easier. Wiped out the CSA in 3 maps for a Decisive victory. They lost almost exactly twice as many men as I did (15,000 to my 7,500). I dominated all 3 maps to the point I was basically spawn-killing units as they tried entering the battle. CSA artillery wouldn't even have a chance to unlimber before they were gunned down. Out of the top 12 units, 11 were infantry, 1 battery, 1 skirmisher. Only one unit was CSA, Daniel's Brigade. #1 Iron Brigade 736 deaths/1697 kills #2 Cutlers Brigade 555/1036 #2 Bucktail 667/945 #4 Daniel (CSA) 782/823 Now, I obviously don't have enough playing time to make any definitive recommendations for changes here, but I'll offer my observations. It seems the actual number of troops in a unit is a major factor in inflicting casualties, with no counter-balance. All things being equal (morale, condition, cover) a 1500 man unit will tear through a 750 man unit. Add a height advantage, and now we're talking about a killing field. A counter-balance to the Union numbers could come in the form of poor morale, since UGG doesn't model experience levels (Crack vs Green troops, for example). SMG's experience system factored in this level of detail to great effect, offsetting larger Union units (Green) against smaller, experienced CSA units (Veteran/Crack) with better morale and faster reload times. In other words, the Union has the manpower on its side but no discernible weakness against CSA units. The game says the Union has lower morale than the CSA, but I have yet to see that. I also think the melee doesn't seem to be working well, which is a major disadvantage to the CSA who must rely on fast charges to take hills and rout the Union. Since individual unit experience isn't modeled in the game like SMG does, the main factor that could offset the strength in #'s would be lowering overall morale. From my short experience playing the game, CSA morale takes an utter beating from the Union. These guys are constantly running for the hills. And I would be too if I were taking the kinds of losses my Union troops inflict on them (And its NOT artillery, although I'm sure that factors into their poor morale). Basically, if as the Union commander you manage your troops right and keep morale/condition/cover at decent levels, the CSA simply doesn't have the firepower to overcome this advantage. Especially since the CSA is attacking the majority of the time and face uphill attacks against men in cover and canister shot. Or maybe I'm some strategic magician? hah. My final attempt at playing as the Union will be against a Determined AI with the "Boost AI" button activated. Hopefully this levels the playing field for the CSA a bit. After that, I suppose I'll have to take my Union army online and see how that goes. Anyone else have similar experiences playing as the Union? Does this hold true online as well?

Wow. Some fantastic detail/history here. I'm a game designer at heart/old trade, so as I read these posts I can't help but come back to the question, "Yea, but is it fun?" It seems there's too much focus on the numbers. Game kills vs. historical kills by artillery. Forget history for a moment. What really matters here is the overall balance and effect artillery has on actual gameplay. You want to make everything realistic? Then you no longer have a game. If the game is balanced and fun, then I don't care if artillery numbers are too high. If it works, it works. Not historical? That's ok. Its a bonus, but not necessary for me to have fun. I've won as the CSA and the Union...artillery sucks on the receiving end, but you have artillery too. Use it, brah. And as someone else said, any historical game can go down a very long and hellish slippery slope of "realism" that would tie the devs up for years on this one game. They have a business to run and, apparently, Antietam to work on next. Bring it on, because I'm already going to put more $$ on it!

Been playing this for days now, so thank you for taking up all my free time! I've played 3 full campaigns now, twice as the CSA and one as the Union. First two campaigns as Union and CSA were against the Balanced AI. CSA outcome: Minor Victory (1st game I played of UGG) but my casualties were too high. USA outcome: Major Victory. I literally wiped every CSA unit off the map in the final scenario. There seemed to be an issue as I had all VP's and was handily winning but the game kept "delaying" the battle. My last game as CSA against the Dynamic AI ended in a draw. Apparently I did well with casualties but didn't capture enough VP's. I definitely felt hesitant in that game and should of pressed my advantage more often. My next game will be as the Union against the hardest AI. I felt the last time I played as Union was far, far too easy. You guys have done a fantastic job here, though. Its much more streamlined than SMG, and for the most part I don't find myself missing buttons like "Volley" and "Limber/Unlimber". I like that my units take care of themselves the majority of the time, I just need to be smart enough to put them in the right positions at the right times. Maybe its because of my long time playing SMG, but I found that if you guys added in the "sagging flags" that SMG used to indicate morale, I probably wouldn't even look at the UI for Morale/Condition/Reload at all. I do miss SMG's visual cue of morale bonuses (adjacent units, nearby Generals, experience etc) so you could see how much of a beating they could take. If morale is different per unit, then what "100%" morale means could vary from unit to unit. Does a unit near a General, on a hill, with two flanking units next to it the same at 100% Morale as a unit alone in an open field? So, I rely almost entirely on experience from my days playing SMG to determine whether my men are positioned in such a way as to give them morale boosts (i.e, if they are flanked by units with a general nearby, I know I'm giving them better chance at success). I also miss the unit audio from SMG. Definitely added a lot of flavor to the gameplay and gave you feedback without having to look at any UI. I definitely miss experience from SMG. Crack units vs. green units, even if the green units had twice as many numbers, could go in favor of the smaller "crack" units. Now, overall # of men in a unit is more important. If 2100 men are at 100% morale and condition, they're going to overwhelm a smaller unit no matter what. There's no x factor in terms of unit types. They just have different names and troop counts. Despite that complaint, UGG is still a blast to play. I can tell there's a LOT of stuff going on "under the hood" to provide a realistic combat experience and its amazingly simple to play, yet the dynamic AI and branching campaign choices will surely make this game a long-term experience for me, just like SMG and Antietam before it. I haven't played enough games to test the AI fully, though. So far, the CSA is a great challenge against the AI. I've had a lot of fun with both CSA games. With my overwhelming victory as the Union however, I'm curious to see how the hardest CSA AI handles me or if the Union always as the advantage. There's always that curious "Boost AI" button I can press too, I suppose. The unit info/position carryover is a welcome addition. I've heard some complaints about it, but for the most part I don't mind the minor position deviations. What I do love is that every success, every hill taken is carried over to the next map. That will ensure every single game is played differently each time (along with the AI). The longer battles are also a huge plus over SMG. I can actually feel and see the battle develop, opportunities open up (and close), and allow for long flanking maneuvers, attacks and counter attacks, etc. There's certainly an epic feel to the battle and because each scenario lasts a long time, every victory/defeat is felt and feels important. Heavy losses are felt because units aren't magically replenished in the next phase/scenario. I'm sure there's a bunch of Civil War buffs out there grinding their teeth at night over uniform inaccuracies and whatnot, but forget them. This is your game. Its a game, and its fun. If someday you can dedicate yourself to modeling every boot and weapon and unit, go for it, but in the meantime I hope you keep making UGG better. Maybe one day we'll see more battles like Antietam! Thanks again, and great job. Highly recommended from a long-time SMG fan, and a Sid Meier fan in general. I imagine Sid's played UGG quite a few times already.