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3 hours ago, Aetius said:

This is actually more realistic than it might seem at first glance. Many charges failed to reach their objective. In Pickett's Charge, only Armistead and Garnett (and a handful of others,  I think?) actually reached the Union lines and engaged in melee. I've read before (can't recall where) about the dynamics of infantry charges - the attacking troops often wanted to stop and shoot back, and when they did it was very difficult to get them moving forward again. It got to the point late in the war where attacking Union soldiers would be ordered not to place percussion caps on their rifles, so that they wouldn't be tempted to stop and shoot back, and thus break the momentum of the charge.

To a certain extent I believe you are correct.  Seems there are two different things here--one being troops trying to make it across a field--Pickett--and failing; and one where they stop to fire then fail to finish their charge.  I'm only an amatuer history buff in regards to civil war tactics, but  you are correct that there was some difficulty in getting troops to cover ground without stopping--it was dependent on stage of the war, commanding officers, trying to keep units in order so that they arrived simultaneously without being exhausted and demoralized --a lot of things.  In general I believe troops were trained they were better off covering the ground as efficiently as possible--with notable exceptions in how that was historically executed on the field.

[Combining Brigades]

Got it thanks--so.....that is reflected in taking recruits from the rookie pool (since they are already your troops)--or do you have to take them from the Veteran pool at a premium price?

[Combining Brigades]

45 minutes ago, Aetius said:

This does happen, kind of. When you disband the unit, they get mixed into the recruit pool, increasing the recruit statistics proportionally. If your recruit pool is at zero, you can add them right back to another unit with their original stats. If you have the resources and space, you can temporarily put all the recruits into cheap brigades so you can disband and re-assign veteran troops with no loss in effectiveness.

Thanks for the info--will have to look into this more--not sure if I completely understand what you are saying--in any case would be easier if they just had two pools of recruits so you can see what you are doing better.  Just watched your Antietam--very impressive attempt to hold them off!

[Combining Brigades]

And yet...taking all that is said above into consideration and using all of these strategies...I still find there are times where two brigades that are supposed to be able to combine following the game's rules, won't combine and one or both units will begin to wonder away from each other.  Also, it seems to me that if you want or need to disband veteran units in camp, you should be able to get these troops as veterans when adding to or creating new units.

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4 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

The rewards you get from performing better in a given better are theoretically: more captured weapons (nerfed on Legendary) and more experience for your troops (technically matters insofar as the enemy scaling will soon put them at stat cap anyway while you then have room to scale up stat wise without being adjusted to). Otherwise, playing the campaign is more about husbanding your strength and developing your own troops while still winning battles.

Understood, however, where this really began to get to me was when (in the legendary mode--which is hard enough)  I crushed the Union at 2nd Bullrun, completely eliminating many brigades and about 7/8 of the army--but at a cost in troops--and then a few battles later I am facing 150,000 plus Union troops at Antietam in brigades that are primarily 2 or three stars and 2950 strong--whereas I didn't do anything but weaken myself by being aggressive throughout the campaign--yes you get a little more experience but I was thinking at the least i would be weakening their experience levels in future battles relative to mine.  In any case, I am hoping that they continue to work on the gameplay which is my real beef as mentioned above--better control of manuevuering brigades, combining brigades needs work, and issues like how fortifications suck and balancing the strengths and effectiveness of various unit types--I think this game could be great but right now it is very frustrating.  While I am at it...does it make sense for the AI to have troops charge a strong defensive position and then stop right in front of it and take massive damage without completing the charge--as often happens?  Makes the game a little easier but unless I am gravely mistaken the whole idea of a charge was to engage the enemy in melee.  Fortifications are great for melee but ridiculous for volleys.

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On 4/4/2017 at 6:55 PM, Moltke said:

I absolutely love how the dev team has done the overland campaign. I feel like you guys have truly captured how much of a grind it was historically. In addition, you all show how the civil war is changing into a war of trenches and attrition. It no longer feels like 1861-1862 nor should it.

The AI is also greatly improved. I can really tell you all worked long and hard fine tuning the AI. The AI actually plans and executes great assaults and made me feel like I would lose at Laurel Hill. Indeed, I actually did lose my CSA Left Flank control point on Cold Harbor. I recovered by moving my infantry quickly to a lightly defended Bethesda Church control point which saved the battle for me. This new AI has forced me to be much more cautious and meticulous in my planning. I love the AI and will have to play some prior battles in historical mode to see how it reacts there.

I recommend this game to everyone I know. For $30 you all have made a tactical masterpiece. 

I cannot wait for the battle of Washington and have confidence the dev team will do as great of job there as they have with the rest of the game.

One other thing i have a problem with--but not sure about this and just need clarification...I play with lots of pauses and even in Legendary mode, in some battles I have been able to crush the Union army--the problem is I thought this would lead to some sort of   better rewards--but actually Union strength seems unaffected by how badly they were crushed in past battles--and the only thing that pressing on and destroying nearly the whole Union army did was to weaken my number of troops moving forward in the campaign.  I want every battle to be hard but if I play too aggressively in destroying enemy forces, it just hurts me in the overall campaign--feel like I now need to start over as I am getting into some very hard battles at this difficulty level

and I have weakened my forces unnecessarily by pressing my advantages in some battles.

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On 4/5/2017 at 1:37 AM, Hardcase726 said:

Watching this vid made me a new subscriber. Yeah, Legendary is way unbalanced.

I actually liked playing against the massively uneven Union side at Newport and other battles in the legendary mode.  It is very hard with some battles but am able to win though I have to play with lots of pausing to position my troops effectively.  My beef is more with the gameplay that still needs work--repositioning brigades without getting flanked, the fallback option still often sucks--should be able to choose the direction of fallback since the AI can't seem to get it right, the fortifications don't work right--the fire rate is very high but with almost no damage per volley.  I like how hard it is in legendary but gameplay still needs a lot of work.  There is also that kink in some battles like Newport where Union brigades taking a lot of damage in the river just sit there until completely destroyed.

[UGCW Feedback v0.78+]

Don't know if anyone has this problem but I am playing the Confederates at the legendary mode.  The fortifications do not work well--the fire rate is very fast but the volleys do almost no damage to enemy units (about 3 kills per volley).  In some battles like Newport, the fortified coverage in the city is worse than just being in the city next to the fortifications--and same problem--the fire rate is fast but does ridiculously little damage and the city coverage is 100% whereas the fortifications is only about 70%--I am taking more damage in the fortification than the Union troops standing exposed in the river bed.  Even so, it is possible to win--have done so every time but I don't use the fortifications.  In First Bullrun, I just noticed that my infantry unit in its first engagement in the battle (1300 troops) against 400 +/- Union calvary were routed within seconds even  when I ambushed them at a ford and sent a full volley into them and then attacked while they were stationary in the river.  Also having trouble with the fallback option as it is hard to control the direction of retreat--often puts the brigade out of position for no good reason and is only adjustable by exposing the brigade's flanks--very frustrating and unnecessary--there should be a way to chose the direction of the fallback command.  For that matter--there should be a way to fine tune the positioning of brigades without the brigade going through some crazy maneuver that invariably exposes it flank.  All very frustrating and has led me to the point where i am done with this game until the kinks are worked out--this could be a great game but too many kinks--another one that REALLY bugs me--Antietam is hard enough at this level--with the Union having 150,000+ troops--when they suddenly appear at the bridge there are just all of the sudden about 12,000 troops all on the bridge at the same time and one large calvary unit that suddenly appears literally right on top of one of my brigades on the other side of the bridge--how does that work?  There are other battles where the opposing troops just all of the sudden drop right onto the screen right on top of my troops.