mrm5117

I'm starting another campaign and had some, perhaps, final thoughts on this wonderful game, or maybe better said suggestions for the next one. Ability to view the historical battles as they actually unfolded. This may be too difficult to do because of the chance outcomes of each engagement event and having to script it, but it could be a fantastic learning tool. Might require a team-up with a sponsor like American Battlefield Trust or similar. Ability to play through the various minor battles of the campaign with historical troops and commands outside of the campaign. Would require work to study who the commands were and their strengths and weaponry at the time of that battle. A randomized battle simulator to add some replay-ability and some unpredictability. For example, if you know the history of what happened and the terrain of the big battles, there is little surprise and little sense of what a field commander would have had to deal with deploying troops and grasping the terrain and where the enemy would come from. Maybe you could have options to select the relative balance of troops engaged to make it easier or harder. Terrain would be randomized. I've seen people suggest multiplayer and thought it would be difficult to do. It could be done, however, but obviously the timing would have to be synchronized so maybe it's always at regular speed but each player gets one "slow down/half speed" to use for 30 seconds during each battle. It would simulate the chaos of battle pretty well.

I had finished a Union campaign previously and last night unexpectedly completed a Confederate campaign. I had played through the Battle of Washington but lost the southern half of that battle at the end (couldn't hold the city itself). I was just playing around last night from a mid-point save and realized it wasn't early enough to try to deploy one of my stronger corps to the southern portion of the battle instead but kept playing anyway. Apparently I held out just long enough that the battle ended and I won the campaign. I was moments away from losing the city with only one brigade left and had only one artillery battery defending one of the forts so it felt kind of cheap, but it worked. That plus the fact that once you win the campaign for either side you get a quick summary screen and then simply back to the main menu made it feel underwhelming/anti-climatic. Because of the monumental achievement (or failure if you lose), shouldn't there me a bit more pomp and circumstance at the end? A short video? A montage of newspaper headlines and music? A chance to view your entire army on parade? A chance to ride up and down your dress-parade assembled division lines with your corps commanders and get a hurrah from your troops as you pass by? Something to reflect the final pride you should feel after a win? After a campaign loss, maybe you get to play through a surrender formality and see your divisions lay down their arms and march behind enemy lines for capture and have your corps commanders relinquish their swords. Something to add more drama and finality to it all.

Allow tactical withdraws from maps and/or one side just deciding to end the battle early to avoid units being trapped in the corners of maps and annihilated. The reputation system might have to be adjusted because the player would too quickly be relieved of command if this strategy was used but could be interesting. Different armies for different theaters. While one example to support how the current campaign works is Longstreet's departures for the Carolinas and for the Tennesee theater, the game is mostly unrealistic that a corps goes to the west to fight a minor battle then back east to participate in the ensuing major battle. Maybe you have two or three different armies with separate resources to build from? Or maybe once you commit a corps to a theater, it stays there for half year or through the current "major battle campaign" until it can be moved again. Would add an element of strategy. Ability to see movement slowing effects quantifiably for elevations of different grades and more easily tell what the actual elevations are (hover over an area and it also tells you relative elevation) or the change in elevation (contour lines can be toggled on/off). Aesthetics - ability to see division commanders (maybe see only when division brigades are grouped) but they can't be moved independently of the division to avoid too much micromanagement; uniform differences for different historical units (maybe won't work at brigade level?); more casualties shown on the battlefield. Different effects of streams - shallow and narrow ones can be crossed quickly but deeper and/or wider ones have longer times to cross if at all possible. Maybe it's already like this but could be more apparent by hovering over the water as opposed to having to try moving your unit across and seeing the movement effect or the reroute to the nearest ford/bridge. Strategy - be able to decide what victory conditions you want to target. For example, if the victory conditions are capture A, hold B, hold C, casualties less than 30%, maybe going into the battle you can decide your only goals are hold C and casualties less than 30%. Less reward but more preservation of your army. If you know the odds are against you this could reflect a more defensive strategy. In later campaign battles the victory conditions require ghastly casualty rates storming trenches and I sometimes target a draw but can get in trouble with the reputation points system by doing so, but I'm more interested in prolonging the struggle and maintaining my army's numbers, for example. Non-linear major battle progression. Maybe keep the progression to start but if some battle result would have really changed the course of a campaign then break from the standard progression. For example, if the CSA wins Gettysburg maybe go straight to the Washington campaign. Or maybe make a randomly generated battle (random, bespoke map with arbitrary victory points and random name for the battle after a terrain element or made up town, for example) or two for some variety. For example, if Union win 1st Bull Run, maybe there is a new made up battle somewhere outside of Richmond and if they win that they go straight to Battle of Richmond, but if they lose go back to the normal progression.

I hardly think about this because it's so instinctual, but don't you left click after the artillery is selected to tell it where to go but right click to tell it what unit to target? If you right click and the artillery moves, it's probably because the unit is out of range to hit that unit and so moving up in order to get them in range?

Thank you again for a wonderfully engaging game that keeps you coming back. Looking forward to the follow up game. *fingers crossed for [American] Revolutionary War*

Maybe in time many of the line-battle/gunpowder era wars can be made with enough historical research support to the developers. However, if we could only have one, the American Revolutionary War would be fantastic. It's a smaller scale, but just reduce base unit size from the brigade to the regiment. I actually prefer the smaller engagements anyway because I have no confidence in AI division commanders and otherwise have to pause to micromanage troops in a large battle or at least play at 1/2 speed. But the Rev War - 8 years across New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Southern Colonies. Maybe even Quebec. Lexington and Concord as the first skirmish of a campaign and potentially ending at Yorktown if the Patriots survive the war. The developers could model British troops and German Hessians (maybe easy enough to also do the green outfits of Queens Rangers?), as well as Continentals and militia (with very poor morale and simple farmers clothes) for the Americans and even French troops at the end of the war. There is certainly more or less that could be done there but that would depend on the developers' art resources. Yes balance could be an issue, but you could argue balance was an issue in making UGCW too. The Confederates were handicapped for manpower and economy/industry. Their advantage seemed to be a lot of fighting on the defensive and leadership superiority. In the American Revolution, maybe the American side would only need to draw battles by sustaining less than some percent casualties and prolonging the war while the British side would have the same reputation points system that both sides have in UGCW. Just some quick suggestions but I'm sure this community could come up with a bunch to make this an engaging follow up title. I would buy this game in a heartbeat if it lives up at all to UGCW.

I doubt there are but I have thought of and hoped for the same thing. If the combat system is based on percentages and multipliers, etc., it might not be easy to show historically what actually happened withing that framework. This would be fantastic, though.

This really works.

I've recently been trying to keep divisions together and when possible moving and forming lines by division instead of current proximity on the field. It takes a little effort but I'm getting some pride from doing so. I'm trying to think about tactical maneuvers in terms of divisions now. Selecting and moving by division also helps to not have extremely long battle lines drawn when you're trying to command a bunch of units simultaneously. The shorter lines allow you to stack divisions as assault waves (or defense in depth) and that's a pretty cool new element I'm now enjoying. I have not, though, tried testing out the differences in command bonus for these divisions being held together versus not. Still hoping somebody gets the time and motivation to do so.

It's a generally regarded maxim that it's a good idea to take the high ground when setting up a defensive position. I don't think anyone will disagree that in general, for battles of this era, better sight lines, better angles for artillery, and slower ascents of an attacker up a hill give the defense an advantage there. I'm sure someone can expand upon this and it might be fun to hear quotes from a military manual of the time. In this game, we can see a quantifiable difference between holding certain areas of a map. When holding a line behind a river of stream, the attackers are slowed down massively by crossing the water and have zero cover while doing so and/or are forced to funnel through a bridge or ford removing their ability to have a broad firing line. You can hover your mouse over the screen and see the %cover and %speed the attacker must overcome. When hovering over a fortification, you can see the melee, cover, and projectile resistance bonuses. When hovering over a field or forest or town, you can similarly see the numerical defensive advantages. However, there is no such way to see the numerical differences between two relative elevations. 1) Does the game actually provide some sort of defender advantage or attacker penalty to attacking up a hill? (has anyone tested this with identical units, weapons, and one side at the top of a hill and the other on the bottom?), 2) how can one see this quantified?, 3) does the game factor in that steeper slopes should have more of a defending advantage than more gradual ones and scale in between?, and 4) if there is no way currently to tell, could a patch be introduced so that when you hover over a hill's slope (or top of the hill?) you can tell its defensive advantages like you can for forests/streams/etc.?

What is the best strategy for victory as the North at the Battle of Richmond? I'm not familiar with this battle historically, so didn't know what to expect coming in. I have become incredibly weary of the game's strategy prompts after getting burned by it many times, for example at Chickamauga being told to advance and capture the crossroads when inevitably you will take huge losses after being counterattacked. In this battle, the prompt says you will be best off rushing to capture the objectives before southern reinforcements arrive. Knowing I could replay from an earlier save, I tried it against my better judgment and was slaughtered in both phases of the opening part of the battle. Battle is not yet over, but I am fairly sure I will lose. On my next play through, I would think to play much more defensively until later in the battle. Really I would prefer not to attack entrenchments at all and just surround the town and outward defenses with my army, entrench myself, and lay siege until they run out of food and supplies. I don't think the game will allow that though! So what is the best strategy here historically or specifically for the game?

I took the objective (as the Union) on the 1st day, 2nd phase, of the Battle of Cold Harbor and instantly won the entire battle. It felt a bit cheap because my right flank was crumbling and I was about to have my 4 brigades routed that had just barely taken the objective but the moment that objective was mine the battle was declared won, but I can't complain because I kept drawing this battle in the past and absolutely had to win it to keep command based on my reputation score. I don't like that you have to know what objectives will win the battle on what phase of what day and can't just play through the campaign using your best tactical and strategic judgment, but still a great game overall. Maybe have an option where you can continue the campaign as a new army commander after you are relieved of command or have an option to remove the reputation system? Some of the win/draw/loss objective scenarios are quite complicated toward the end of the battle, but viewing the victory conditions doesn't even explain it well. Maybe there should be more thorough explanations saying that you could hold one of these objectives and all of these to win, or just get this one objective on phase X of day Y.

A lot of these battles also have casualty limits to win so sacrificing 3-4 brigades to a frontal assault rout seems like it wouldn’t work. I’ll give it a shot though. Did either side actually have dedicated assault brigades or divisions? I haven’t heard of that. I would hate to go too far from historical just to meet the campaign’a requirements.

I’m playing a Union campaign and haven’t been able to make it through the wilderness campaign through Cold Harbor with my appointment as army commander. I had lots of trouble with the Chickamauga campaign and the Cold Harbor campaign, side battles included which I usually had no problem winning. I’ve been replaying and eeking out draws, but now I head into Cold Harbor with 33 reputation and no choice but to win. So what is the optimal strategy for the Union to achieve its victory conditions at the Batrle of Cold Harbor? I am uneasy assaulting fortifications so now with most battles featuring that I tend to stay defensive.

I’ve been doing a campaign on middle difficulty as the Union. Won or drew every battle except for the one where you have to hold Pittsburgh Landing at the end of the battle. I always hold off the rebels well far from it and as soon as that is the new objective the enemy cavalry gets there and claims it before I can detach forces to hold it. As soon as the CSA claims it with cavalry the battle is over. I had three solid corps and one half assembled corps going into Gettysburg. I also had a high reputation, only spending maybe 20 points on artillery from the government because I don’t want to waste reputation points that exceed 100. My strategy was to go into Day 1 with my smallest, most inexperienced 4th corps knowing that I would take heavy losses and that it was okay to lose day 1 and really make a stand on day 2. I put up a good fight, but kept falling back and ceding objectives to save my corps. At the very end, I was barely able to escape with a division left and no objectives held. Much to my surprise, I was immediately relieved of command instead of being given the opportunity to repel the rebs on the heights south of town on day 2. I felt ashamed. All that work building my army and it was all over. Luckily the game had an auto save right before the battle so I can back and try again, but that was very surprising. Next time I’ll bring a stronger corps and make a stronger stand at the northern and western wedges of town. I guess not spend any reputation points prior to that battle either.