Jake4228

As the title says. Thanks for the help!

I'd love to see a "Total War Rome-Ultimate General" hybrid game - by which I mean a campaign mode with its own campaign map encompassing the entire country where you raise, disband, heal, equip and move your armies around according to your own volition. When one of your armies comes into contact with one of the enemy, you can auto-resolve or fight "ultimate-general" mode on a randomly generated map. That has all the pieces necessary for a truly epic, open-ended ACW game. I'm probably dreaming, of course. I would be almost as happy for added campaign packs like OP suggests

Units on hold seem to have difficulty auto-targeting. Sometimes an enemy unit will wander within just a few rods but my friendly unit will not fire. I agree with OP that a skirmisher button would be nice.

Hmmm... I went into Washington with 120k men (playing max army size campaign) by the second day I had 90kish left, which should have been enough to hold everything. The mistake I made was leaving a massive force to defend Fort "Let's leave one side completely open" Slocum, which I figured would be the hardest to keep. Turns out the Union barely pressed Slocum at all and so De Russy was the oddball out in my plan and was overrun. Luckily I made a few saves through the battle and I have no doubt I can shift things up a bit and claim victory day 2. Really it seems that if you want to conquer Washington, you need an ungodly amount of troops. I can't imagine a "lean but mean" army doing too well there. Additionally, I feel like Washington's defenses can hold without Fort De Russy - I wish victory were not contingent upon this isolated fort that really plays no major part in the more interior defensive lines - sure, I lost it, but still held every other fort including the associated trench lines, and Grant's force had suffered appalling casualties in every other assault... but my general sees doom and gloom without this crappy fort and so I guess decides to surrender for no good reason at all. Sigh.

Love the patch. One brief thing: The Battle of Washington should not advance to the final phase if the Confederate player has already "lost" the battle. During Grant's counter-attack I lost Fort De Russy and was unable to get it back (although I was damn meters away) before the timer expired. The battle then shifted south again to Washington, Forth Washington, and Fort Thomas. I fought this portion of the battle but didn't get another shot at retaking Fort De Russy, so I had already "lost" the battle. I don't think the battle should advance to this phase if the battle is already "lost." Thanks, really enjoying the new battles!

When Gettysburg first came out for this game, it was comically easy for the CSA. By the time you're pushing onto cemetery hill you've already smashed all the union out at the seminary etc, and the cemetery is guarded by tattered remnants of the early union forces, and a trivial amount of fresh troops. With plenty of time its basically impossible to lose. The devs fixed this, I think, by greatly reducing the amount of time you had. While it's still possible, fairly easy even, to win the battle day 1, you have to move your troops, run them even, from the second they enter the map. IMHO it's not particularly fun. Running in an all out blitz for the cemetery feels gamey and historically implausible. Why, though, would I do anything different when doing so saves me at least another day and potentially tens of thousands of lost men? I'd have rather liked an alternate day two where Meade decides to try to recapture cemetery and culp's hills through assault, but for whatever reason the devs decided not to go that route.

More battles/features/campaigns? Hell yeah I'd pay for that! I think this game has nearly infinite mileage with something like a scenario/campaign editor, and that seems like something they could do a DLC for.

I also beat Gettysburg day 1 as CSA. I play on Brigadier, not hard, but I just completely steamrolled the Union in this battle. I forgot to screencap the victory screen but I suffered ~6k losses to the Union's ~22k. The battle wasn't even close. It was a complete rout from the first volley. I'm kinda disappointed that my army didn't get to fight day 2 or 3 (although low casualties is a plus). Sid Meier's Gettysburg had a scenario where if the Confederate General captured all the day 1 objectives (i.e. Cemetery and Culps hills) then the Union would attack in force the next day in a bid to regain them. Perhaps the devs could integrate something like this in order to keep the battle going with a crushing confederate victory on day 1?

Man Rio Hill really is a frustrating battle. IIRC I used 4 750-man Cavalry brigades equipped for melee and had them run around as a massive doomstack slaughtering the small union units until my reinforcements arrived, whereupon I actually secured the objective and won.

This unit is so beat up, they wouldn't attack a chicken coop!

I love creating and maintaining my own army. Choosing officers, weapons, replenishing with recruits, etc. It's really fun watching your army become more seasoned and better equipped as the war progresses. Civil War Generals II, probably my second favorite Civil War game (after this one), had a feature where you could equip your armies, but your options for officers were limited, and you couldn't recruit new units or replenish old ones. UGCW's army management is just so dang fun!

Battle of Fredericksburg: "General Burnside, sir! We've lost 40,000 men in the last half-hour. Half of our brigades have broken and fled. Our biggest remaining brigade has 312 effectives. Rebel casualties are light, their ammunition plentiful, their artillery wholly unscathed. What should we do, sir?" "Rally our 816 remaining men and hit them again, damnit!"

Adding my voice of agreement to this idea. I think the fallback command is good most of the time, but is imperfect. Sometimes I click fallback and my units fallback towards the enemy.