P*Funk

Well the AI definitely doesn't seem to care enough about his casualties to ever retire from the field with a unit intact it seems. My last major battle as Union I took over 25% casualties and inflicted like... 80% on the enemy because despite being routed repeatedly he stayed on the field to fight until all his units were blown to bits and ran off the map on their own.

Personally I hate that idea. Its not like winning teaches you something about being a better soldier or anything. Its not like losing the battle doesn't involve individual units experiencing great success and local victories. Certainly it ought to have some effect on morale but on the whole it seems gamey, and counter intuitive. Lots of these meta systems in the game seem to really really encourage gamey thinking, not to mention punishing a smart commander for saving his army from defeat, even through excellent tactics, with a major experience hit. Its the same thing with wounded officers. It leads to officers who were involved in many cases were the critical phases of battle being denied experience while the ones who did nothing continue to climb the ranks of command. Being wounded isn't a sign of incompetence (necessarily :P). I like it a lot better that losing would punish you badly in the long run with government support for your future, meaning that the balance is with bleeding your units to take objectives versus saving them because you expect to not get the funds to raise more of them.

Shouldn't they just add a generate officers button that replenishes your officer pool to a minimum number of lower tier unassigned officers accounting for both unhired and reserve? It would go very well with the disarm brigade button to make swapping weapons around easier too. Too many round abouts in the gui right now.

Pretty much this. On the first day of Shiloh my skirmishers were permanently detached from my brigades until they either got too damaged to operate effectively or the mother brigade took too many causalities to be effective and they were reattched. At the end of the first day reviewing my well micro'd skirmishers showed that for most it was something stupid like 600 kills to 80 deaths or the like because they were permanently waylaying advancing enemies, holding vulnerable flanks, and constantly shooting and scooting before return volley fire or were always taking fire when in heavy forest cover making their losses per enemy brigade volley something stupid like maybe 1 or 2. They are the most valuable thing I have, particularly this early in the Union campaign where your manpower and funds should be directed mostly at building up infantry brigades rather than dedicated skrimisher units. In the end I have a single dedi skirmisher and in day 1 he took 50/50 KDR because he was less experienced than my vet brigade skirmishers who had good muskets. In the end for building your Union army up to Shiloh at least you can basically only focus on making your divisions have nothing but infantry and one cannon unit and do anything asked. Skirmishers offer all the needed intel that cavalry afford you at no extra cost due to being organic to your brigades and tend to be far more survivable than low veterancy cavalry as well. They're excellent for holding a thinning line as you withdraw and they are excellent flank cover. The detachable skirmishers are the single greatest feature added to this game moving ahead from UGG. Suddenly when yo ustart using them all those battles where you're under manned waiting for reinforcements you can hold a much bigger space than if you kept them attached.

Having just come from playing UGG the controls in UGC are rather disappointing. Clicking to select and move units is far twitchier than in UGG and I find myself pausing the game just to give orders to large groups of units so that I don't inadvertently tell a unit that's engaged on a line to start marching when I meant the unit next to it to do that and so forth. I also find the twitchy controls have lead me to not use the feature of drawing the path for unit advances most of the time. I just right click instead because its far easier. In a multiplayer game this would be really frustrating when you can't just pause.

By the looks of it nothing at all. Most definitely a bug I'd say.

Its not about making the player have to micromanage one more thing its about representing something which may or may not affect tactical decisions in a realistic way. You don't have to make the player have to do anything while representing ammunition supply. The way in which it could affect the player is in causing him to not be able to fire guns if an isolated unit is out of plausible supply range while still being able to replenish the stamina of his men by being out of contact. Its kind of like if cavalry flanking your units causes them to lose morale and route more quickly then thats not something you micromanage as much as its something which directly affects your decisions without adding another button. Its an abstract notion which affects your mindset, exactly the same way you observe the condition of your troops to see if they're able to continue fighting. And to the poster above to said this is a tactical game and as such ammo is outside its purview I say... how can ammunition not be a tactical consideration? Apparently in the IDF in order to load your 2nd to last magazine you have to get permission from your team leader and to load your last mag you need permission from your Platoon Leader (or something like that). Ammunition or a lack thereof is a very tactical concern. Its the acquisition and resupply of it that is however largely more strategic. I just got my beta key so I'll be looking closely at what happens to units out out of contact but who are also clearly outside of any clear link to the abstracted supply chain that explains the majority of units' resupply. That will probably greatly inform my stance on this.

Well if they succeeded in maintaining a high degree of supply should that on its own preclude the concern from being in the player's mind? Should the system never model ammunition shortage if I have a part of my army strung out and in a bad position that in real life would likely never have been supplied? Tactics and Strategy at the time were very much focused on keeping friendly units massed and in proximity to the flanks (assuming non cavalry) so by default the unit layout would afford opportunity to resupply. What if the player ignores the strategy of the times and allows his lines to be granular and strung out, with elements being resistant but alone on a strong position? What if you have your ammunition dwindling and the choice of withdrawal or linking up is the only one you could consider before ammunition runs out? I haven't played the game obviously, and I am no expert on history, but perhaps it isn't best to just assume that players will automatically adopt identical thinking to that of the time frame which is what made things play out as they did. Perhaps ammunition resupply would have been a serious issue if Meade thought like a modern gamer. Just my thoughts, and I'm prepared to be totally wrong. I'm just getting familiar with this place so please feel free to eviscerate any bad ideas I have.

I'm just thinking that one of the most famous events of the battle was predicated on a unit being basically out of ammo. It dictated a tactical decision. Perhaps it should be balanced that it is only a concern if a unit is in constant contact without supply for too long. How you determine "in supply" though could be a whole different can of worms.

Count me as interested. Long time RTS/Strategy game fan. Huge Darthmod fan. Some experience beta testing for bigger community mods (Project Reality, The Grey Wolves for SH3).