Myes!

What an amazingly stupid thing to say.

That would be very much out of bounds with what UGG is about. You're a general, commanding either multiple divisions, or entire corps. It is not your place to give a shit about whether infantry brigade #35 has their regiments in one or two lines. That's for the brigade commanders to worry about. In addition, part of the gameplay is based around the concept of individual brigades having the sufficient basic low-level AI to allow them to perform simple actions actions without orders form the player. (Maneuvering, engaging hostiles, falling back, moving to support, taking ground, adjusting their facing and formation, and so forth.) A brigade isn't a remote-controlled robot, but a body of men that is again commanded by an individual human being, with his own ego, situational awareness and human fallibility. This reinforces the concept that the game is about giving broad orders to the large, many-tentacled beast that is your corps, and broadly managing a chaos. Not micro-level nit-picking. That said; the option to have a bit more strict control if wanted, is something I too could get behind - within reason. Things like specifying that a brigade is to move a long a road in "road formation" for increased movement speed, for example. Perhaps being able to give brigades a basic "behavioral stance". ("Defensive", "Aggressive", "Support", and so forth.)

I like the feature, and I like the out-of-focus blurring, but I do think the filter should be made less dark. It almost makes it look like the game is supposed to take place at night, or something. It's a bit unpleasant to play. If you look at the original concept art, the filter was at no point intended to be this dark.

Any specific reason as to why you don't model surrender?

I fundamentally disagree with every damn word you said.

Gods; yes.

The CSA are still overpowered?

Suddenly, artillery ordered to target a specific brigade will start physically moving up to the target as if given a move-order, Videttes won't shoot at given targets, (They'll move up within range and skirmish back-and-forth, but never actually discharge their guns.), and the bug that causes deselects to be interpreted as "move infinitely in a random direction" seems to occur even more often than usual.

Very good idea.

I don't know. I think the current auto-fallback is fucking infuriating, and has nearly lost me objectives.

The battle-gameplay of Ultimate General: Gettysburg has that "easy to learn, difficult to master" -approach. A turn-based "Grand Campaign"-mode would probably have to follow the same philosophy, so as not to make the experience jarring. Less of the joyless number-crunching as some of the dryer turn-based strategy games out there, in other words.

Perhaps you could call it "Ultimate General -Mode", or something.

The third option. Frankly, I find it baffling that you even found it neccessary to ask. You can just add an "Iron Man"-mode for the masochists, and let the rest of us decide for ourselves how we choose to play our own damn game.

I just noticed that choosing "Abort Battle" only takes you back to the main menu; it doesn't actually let you abort anything. The game just picks up right where you left it when you choose "Continue". This leads to a question, and a worry. Does the game not have a "Restart"-function? I know the main menu has a button labeled "Fight New Battle", but I have been afraid to click it for fear of the game spontaneously wiping my entire progress and forcing me to start over at the first scenario. I want the possibility to click "Restart" during a scenario, and be able to start that scenario over from the beginning, like in every other game.

Not gonna happen.

Yeah. You should totally pray a lot. All the time, actually. Because if it's one thing that has been reliably and repeatedly proven, it's that prayer totally works in real-life.

Darth himself stated that the full game is not likely to look in any way different from the tablet version. Which, yes, I find to be a problem. Everyone with even below-average eyesight would be able to immediately differentiate a Zouave or a Sharpshooter from the rest of the soldiers without zooming in, even remotely. And you know this. Generally, the "kinds of troops". Yes. A brigade/regiment of Zouaves should look like Zouaves. I do not think this is an unreasonable request. See, the two aren't mutually exclusive. It is very much in my interest to be able to immediately discern which on-screen soldier is what, at a glance. Also, it just looks better. This is another issue I have, but, like you said, that's a topic for another day. Related to what I said, above. It looks better, and is more informative. --- Exactly. A tablet game. That just happens to be playable on a computer. If this is Darth's true agenda, then it is disappointing. Deeply so.

Indeed. From what I understand, it is at present practically an iPad game that just happens to be running on a PC, as well. And that is not a good thing. I mean - seriously - each faction only has one single model for infantry/cavalry/artillery? No matter what kind of troop it is? That's fucking insane. Has anyone ever heard of any other game that does this, since 1995? (Stop. I take that back. That's not fair to games from 1995. Imagine if Command & Conquer 1 or Close Combat only had one single infantry or tank model, no matter what type of soldier they are? That's right. Even back then, you wouldn't be able to get away with this shit.) This is such a massive, massive "concession", I almost tought it was a joke. I'm still not sure that it isn't. Hell, If you didn't know better, you'd almost suspect that Darth was only ever really interested in making an iOS-game, but found the Steam Early Access-program to be a convenient source of beta-testing. Hmmm...

Good, comprehensive video, even if it's just the first AAR again, in video form. I particularly appreciate the arrows and narrating text. I too do think the game pace could be reduced a bit.

The game certainly seems to be doing quite a few concessions in favour of the tablet-versions, if some of Darth's posts are to be taken as evidence. So I share your concern.

So you're saying both the Union and Confederate side will only have one infantry model, each? Also, do you consider this primarily a tablet, or a PC-game? I had sort of taken it for granted that you consider it a primarily PC-game, but after comments like this, I'm starting to have my doubts.

How about Early Access-date? Weeks or months?

There is nothing nitpicky about movement speed, nor how bayonet-charges are modeled. Surely you must realize this. The pace at which soldiers move, and the frequency of which bayonet-charges are depicted in the gameplay footage have got absolutely nothing to do with the game's graphical style. And you must surely realize this, as well. That said; I'm glad Nick Thomadis confirms that he has taken this into consideration.

What about the charging?

Indeed. Total War-style borderline offensive arcade -idiocy like that were some of the very things DarthMod was famous for fixing, back in the day. It would be a great disappointment to see those things make an appearance in Darth's own game.