MacBlain

I'm having trouble with this, too. Do friendlies block artillery fire, or what? I do a lot of little artillery adjustments. What can you see now? What can you see now? What can you see now?

I'm pretty unclear on how all this works. Is "condition" representing concepts that could be depicted visually, either through the behavior of the troops or the addition of staff characters? I'm not very good at the game yet, but I find that a lot of my time consists of clicking on units to check that blue meter, to see how "gassed up" they are. "Is the Iron Brigade ready to go in again? How about now? How about now?" Even a guide that would tell me very specifically what "condition" does, and how I spend and generate it, would be very useful.

A battle replay feature would be really great. It sounds like the devs could learn a lot by studying master players and adapting the AI to try and defeat them.

I think Mr. Vader is very intent on having the AI play by the same rules as the player. The more convoluted the game mechanics are, the weaker the AI will be.

Unlimited quicksaves are possibly the worst invention in the history of videogames. I'd appreciate an optional "Ironman Mode", and, more importantly, that the game be designed with the assumption that this is the real way to play, and that abusing savegames is cheating. Not that games shouldn't have cheats available. Put in all kinds of zany ones.

I second the above suggestion: Please, please, please use your ingenious powers of design to communicate as much as possible to the player without resorting to colored bars, flashing circles, numbers, icons, etc. Look at Starcraft 2. All those fancy graphics, but the game is just a hideous cloud of abstract UI. I'm thinking of Mario, who changes size instead of having a life bar, or the knight from ghouls n ghosts who loses his armor when he gets hit. Spyro the Dragon has a colored dragonfly to indicate his hitpoints. For example, is there anything that could be represented by the behavior of ancillary characters? Musicians and medics and such? Maybe different kinds of logistical personnel running around? Maybe simple "panic" or "fatigue" animations that would become more widespread as a unit deteriorates? UG is quite elegant and beautiful thus far. I'd like to have a mode where I have virtually nothing but game-world graphics on the screen most of the time. Perhaps, for example, I could choose to have the unit status icon clusters appear only by mouseover, or by holding a key. I want to spend my time looking at soldiers and terrain, instead of remaining engaged with abstract UI elements.

This bears an uncanny resemblance to the Hawk's club mods for American Conquest (from the developers of Cossacks). I urge everyone to check them out at www.mastersofthefield.com . Might provide some food for thought.

The community plays drastically modified versions that omit all economics, and are instead set-piece battles that look very similar to Ultimate General. Look on youtube for the channel "the drake", made by one of the leaders of the Hawks Club.

Video games are too full of colored meters. I say see how far you can get without this feature.

I logged on to this forum with this same phrase in mind: "Take my money!" I've admired your work for years and I still play DM RTW/BI. I wonder, are you familiar with the "Cossacks" series? There is a small but dedicated community still using this engine for Napoleonics/ACW over at mastersofthefield.com. You should check out "Hawks European Warfare" and "Hawks Divided Nation". I bet that community will be thrilled with your game.