adishee

Units do already march in column if you order them to move a long distance. And I personally direct my units to use roads if they are available, or any open ground, for movement. I'm positive that the modders can't modify pathing logic.

@pandakraut Is there any way to disable the battlefield visual effects, eg shell craters and bodies? For performance issues.

I'm excited to see where this mod goes in future, PK. I wish I had the know-how to help.

My beloved tactical batteries.

Oh I see, I hadn't considered that. Thank you. I mostly do the $5k trickle method as described by you and Fiasco.

So the damage curve is in fact a smooth gradient? I had been wondering about that.

Have you tried using decent guns with experienced gun crews? It can be very effective.

The experience slider adjusts with the add-manpower slider, so you can clearly see when you will lose a perk by adding too many recruits. What is the problem? PK can't change any core mechanics of the game, and this sounds like just the sort of interface mechanic he wouldn't be able to change. A little trick: add recruits until just before it takes a star, and then add nothing but veterans.

On the topic of skirmishers and damage output, I'm wondering why repeating rifles' reload rates are so low? The Henry for example is 130. I would expect these revolutionary weapons to pour down a continuous stream of fire. I'm toying with figuring out how to do it myself and changing it to about 300. (And on the broader topic, I find it annoying that weapons' descriptions sometimes specify if they are single shot, cylinder, whatever, but in fact they all fire just one shot without any exception. Shouldn't a revolver fire six shots and then reload? Is there a way to effect this?) Also, is it possible to change the fire pattern of skirmishers -- or any unit -- to a kind of "fire at will" firing style? I think you can see this when routing troops are falling back, they fire without cohesion unless I'm mistaken (and if I understand correctly, in J&P this fire is very ineffective?). Would there be a way to select this fire pattern for units? It seems to me (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that skirmishers would have been likely to fight in this sporadic way.

Hi all. I recently rediscovered the UG series after having played UGG briefly a few years ago. I don't game that much anymore, partially because I am laptop-bound now, which has prevented me from playing the only thing I have really wanted to lately: the Europa Barbarorum 2 mod for M2TW (I've played EB off and on for ten+ years now). (UGCW runs on modest hardware.) I think this game, UGCW, is absolutely brilliant (especially with the J&P mod). I am completely in love with it, and I think it's perhaps the best tactical wargame I've ever played, along with Close Combat which I think has a similar feel (despite the obvious disparity in scale). I guess I don't need to sit here and sing UGCW's praises too much, as you all are already here and get it. I'm writing to express my fervent hope that the developers are not quite finished with UGCW -- or failing that, with the UG series expanded into other conflicts (perhaps in Europe in the 19th century, of which there were many). Specifically, I am tantalised by the prospect of playing multiplayer campaigns. I don't just want individual multiplayer battles, although this would be a leap on its own. Because while the tactical mechanics in UGCW are fantastic to the point of being, in my mind, close to perfect, I've come to find just as much if not more enjoyment and addiction in the careful curation and development of my corps, divisions, brigades, pickets, batteries and squads. It's a testament to the game that I can't actually figure out which part I like more, and I don't want to. I spend hours poring through unit and equipment stats, moving officers around and growing their careers, and trying to eek out enough kit and units to take on the next battle -- and trying desperately to keep as many alive during the battles as I possibly can. Even carefully constructing a naming convention that is both entertaining and useful -- or whatever else you want it to be (roleplaying, historical) -- has become a great enjoyment. Because of how carefully and delicately we treat the Camp screen in this game (especially with J&P!), making mistakes *really* hurts in this game -- that feeling when you lose a swath of your veteran rifles from a dumb mistake hits in your gut. That is, unless you just restart the match and play "perfectly," because you will unless you're playing with house rules. This is the area where I hope UGCW's potential does not end up going to waste, by not having a multiplayer mode. What if you *couldn't* restart the match -- at least not without the consent of your opponent, which he surely will not give -- ? What if you had to own every mistake, and so did your opponent, and your carefully cultivated and considered unit gets slaughtered? I can foresee a level of tension in a multiplayer campaign that I've never before imagined from a wargame. Because YOUR carefully built units will be dying. You will really care when some of your units get killed off (or, alternatively, not care so much about the cannon fodder), and what better way to simulate the consequences of war by having our beloved units get wasted? That James battery you were finally able to field? Oh, it was flanked by speed skirmishers and melee'd to death. Oh, you finally got up a squad of two star snipers by dropping a high level colonel in to get that second perk and using your rep points to order some scoped Whitworths from the government (and went into negative morale because of it)? Oh sorry, you left them just out of cover and they got cut in half by the Union's (much better) heavy guns. And the colonel was killed. Sorry. Etc. To have two players brawling it out in a campaign, along with all the penalties and rewards that are applied to the single player campaign (withheld or rewarded forces based on victories/defeats, political points, and even randomness) instead applied to each other, I can't imagine how fun that would be. And further, how much longevity it would lend to this title. That's the kind of thing people would play for ten years or more -- even without new content, which Darth has mentioned an interest in producing! Honestly, I would beg the devs to make me buy another multplayer-only copy of the game if it meant it would actually get made, because I will gladly do it. A final note on the single player experience. Being a creation of Darth, obviously the AI is really good. It is. And with J&P, the campaigns get challenging to the point of being unbeatable -- which is fine. But I submit that they are unbeatable in a specific way: you have to stack the AI with so many advantages to get a real challenge. And you have to learn how to play more or less "perfectly" in a specific way, to juice the game into giving you experience that your troops need to progress against such stacked odds. This is not the same challenge of facing another human player, who is also desperately trying to conserve his troops, and we all know it. And on this latter point, in that case we might actually get more historically correct casualty numbers -- instead of 10x what they should be -- as players would perhaps prefer to cede a battle or two than lose all their troops as killed/wounded/surrenders. And we certainly wouldn't have the opportunity to farm experience from another human player: they wouldn't allow it. Anyway, thanks for reading, sorry for any errors. I hope Game-Labs don't miss the chance to put the final keystone in what they've already built, as it would be a real shame not to. Cheers.

@Nick Thomadis

You could have multiplayer campaigns. Easy.

Lol. Nice. There is a lot to learn in this game + your fantastic mod I am slowly discovering. I'll be playing it for years (fingers crossed for expansion pack, if they still make those).

Thanks PK.

Ah, that's interesting. Thanks for the explanation. So if anything, if I wanted to handicap myself in a Union campaign further, I would actually increase the XP-gain difficulty -- because the AI would be less affected than me?

@pandakraut Is there a way to modify these values just for the AI player? Do you just add those into the AI config file?

Thanks for responding, PK. I kinda regret writing what I wrote, I was just really frustrated. Obviously the mod is meant to jack up the difficulty a lot. I absolutely love the mod in general, and the mechanics changes. I'm still tinkering with the config files + difficulty settings + some house rules to try and find a play style I like. I've watched a lot of your and Fiasco's videos, and they're instructive. I'm wondering, is there a setting in the config files to increase the AI player's experience growth? I'm playing as Union, and I'm trying to get the effect of playing a more experienced CSA army with a more numerous, recruit-heavy Union army -- kind of a historical-ish play through. I couldn't get the desired outcome tinkering with things on MG, they all just turned into SS super soldiers who still outnumbered the shit out of my forces. (One of my house rule is that I never revert to saves -- all decisions, including camp selections, are final). cheers and thank you

Well done sirwaldi. I gave up trying and edited config files. The game certainly has a lot of longevity trying to get through it on MG ... I really wish there was a multiplayer capability.

Thanks joxer. I've changed the CSA army size to something a bit more historically accurate (Union apparently outnumbered CSA after the Army of Ohio reinforcements arrived). Currently playing through it again and having a lot more fun -- still very challenging, but no more 9k-man bayonet charges on my 120-man skirmisher unit levels of absurdity. I'll change it back after I get through it.

Is there a way to edit a file in order to just somehow bypass Shiloh? Because at this point, I can no longer even play the game + mod.

I have to agree with the complaints about Shiloh on MG. The most I can get on the field is about 30k troops, two 2-star infantry, plenty of quality troops ... there is just no way to win. I've tried about ten times, gone back to refight the campaign three times to optmise my army, and just now spent about eight hours straight trying over and over again. This shit is really broken to be honest. It's not fun. You can't beat it and even if you manage to, it would just boil down to some fluke or blind luck or some anomaly with the game. I had no problem getting through Shiloh with the base game. Something is wrong here imo.

I would really, really, really love to see even a basic multiplayer support. Campaign would be way better. It would extend the life of this game for years for me.