kondor999

I also feel the AI improved substantially with the last patch, although I can still pretty much wipe the floor with the AI at this point, regardless of which side I take. I still feel UGG has the potential to be a real game-changer in the way Sid Meier's games always were. Just for sake of comparison, I've gone back and played SM Gettysburg again and It just isn't nearly as good as this game. I've never seen a Gettysburg game before that gave you the ability to manage the entire battle in a fairly realistic manner and yet not be overwhelming. Added to that is the fact that the game is pausable real-time. UGG is already a real achievement, and I have no doubt that the devs are listening and will eventually iron out the wrinkles. This having been said, there's still a ways to go, especially with regards to the "wandering brigades way behind enemy lines" problem. As far as the VP structure goes, it seems clear to me that they're going off the system that was present in SMG (Sid Meier's Gettysburg). I think it would be more interesting to implement a system where all the important terrain has a VP value, thereby avoiding a tendency to over-focus on just 2 or 3 patches of ground. That would also dilute the AI'ls tendency to go for a last-minute kamikaze run way behind enemy lines just to grab a frequently meaningless VP location.

Once again, I want to make it very clear that I love this game. It's just that it's still in Beta. For anyone out there on the fence about spending $10 for this game, let me just say that the game is worth double that - even with these issues unresolved. It simply plays far better than the old classic Sid Meier's Gettysburg, which is extremely high praise indeed.

Not really. The idea of detaching an entire brigade just to provide rear area security when Hill's entire Corps will shortly arrive and annihilate a lone Union brigade that decided to commit suicide is fairly ridiculous. This never happened in real life, as no one would waste an entire brigade either to go on such a short-lived, one-way kamikaze mission or to try and defend against it. In addition, since things like ammo, food and water are not in the game, there is nothing to prevent a brigade from going on one of these ridiculous romps. Were those factors simulated, such an errant brigade would soon find itself short of everything and would be reduced to standing around, waiting for someone to happen by to accept their surrender. There are 2 ways around this: 1. Either simulate the underlying logistical factors which would prevent such silliness. 2. Impose a limit on how far units can stray from their corps commander. The latter solution is more in keeping with the scale and focus of the game, and accomplishes the "logistical tether" without a lot of fussiness about keeping track of minutia.

Paul's brigade seems to be operating commando-style again, about 4-5 miles away from the nearest Union unit and with Ewell's division all the way down there in the bottom right corner. Paul was routed earlier, somehow managed to retreat to the north, then decided to make a big end-run around the Confed left flank for a VP location that is miles behind enemy lines. Right now, there's nothing stopping either a player or the AI from such shenanigans. We really need something to keep the AI from doing this, because it's both implausible and "gamey". Some kind of massive loss in morale for being so far from the rest of your forces seems like a sufficient deterrent for human players. For the AI, some kind of rule to direct it not to send units this far from any support source would do it.

I hope the devs are reading this stuff! Just to check, I played the Union 3 times on the 1st scenario and on all occasions I wiped the floor with the Confederates, taking Herr's ridge on max difficulty. How anyone can say that the Confederates are "vastly overpowered" is beyond me. If anything, they break a little too easily (although I am able to handle this when playing as them). More importantly, I hope they will fix the "retreating through formed brigades" issue. No one ever gives up in this game right now, and every brigade eventually (much too quickly in most cases) recovers to re-enter the fight. They've done a good job, however, of making those recovered brigades quite fragile.

I agree that the Confederate combat power seems about right at the moment. I just don't want the devs to downgrade individual units to ensure that the overall battle goes as it did historically. When you read about this battle, it really strikes you just how many mistakes were made in terms of being alternately hesitant and then (when Lee finally got his way) disastrously over-confident at the Corps and Division level of command. I seriously doubt anyone playing as the Confederate would replicate these mistakes. The best way to see if a wargame is historically-accurate is to go ahead and replicate the original battleplan and see how it works out. If the outcome is reasonably close to the historical result, you know you've probably got verisimilitude. If not, you go back and pick apart various aspects of your model, looking at (perhaps) smaller engagements to see what's not right. Perhaps its the effect of terrain, or the combat algorithms, etc. Of the variables which get plugged into the combat system, the values of the various brigades are probably the best-known, and therefore the least likely to be wildly incorrect. Note that I feel like the devs have done a fantastic job so far with getting those values right so far. I urge them not to mess with a good thing, just because some folks can't figure out how to play as the Union (referring to the "Confederates still vastly overpowered" nonsense on another thread).

Yes, that's another great example Hawke. The game is improving exponentially and I really hope the devs happen across this discussion. As it is, I spend a fair bit of time just chasing around these random brigades that ended up deep behind my lines after routing. It's even worse with the skirmishers, since they are slippery by nature to start with. My Confederate artillery spends at least 1/2 its time firing behind the line of battle, instead of supporting my brigades. It's as if my artillery has been turned into some kind of anti-partisan unit, meant to suppress enemy brigades who earlier routed and are now just wandering around, shooting at random crap, attracted to VP locations like moths to a flame. Those "commando brigades apparently have infinite ammo and are completely calm in the face of operating miles behind enemy lines without food, water, ammo or support of any kind. Just to be clear to any prospective purchaser, however, let me say this: BUY THIS GAME NOW. IT IS AWESOME. WE ARE JUST ROUNDING OFF THE SHARP EDGES.

"Never Surrender" Issues persist with how units never surrender. I've surrounded units Cannae-style and had them literally retreat right through a solid line of high-morale brigades, after which they promptly became combat-effective again after bouncing around like a ping-pong ball for a while. This is unsatisfying and needs fixing: Here is the Cannae-like setup: And here's what happened a few minutes later: Every single completely-surrounded-and-routing Union brigade escaped, rallied and fought again. They all routed right through strong, fresh high-morale Confederate brigades. "Nerfed Confederates" Please don't keep nerfing the Confederates to "force" either a historical result (which was nearly entirely due to Confederate Command blunders - not the effectiveness of individual brigades) or to make the game more "balanced". To achieve balance, alter the victory conditions but not the quality/firepower of the units. Consider the fact that the Army of Northern VA had just whipped this same Army of the Potomac twice pretty handily. It's highly unrealistic to make the two Armies "even" in terms of man-for-man combat power. Of course, the Union army is larger and Stonewall Jackson is gone, but this has nothing to do with the combat power of individual units.

This site hates IE11, so I can't quote or even cut-paste. So this is in reply to the "unless you consider the French, Prussians and English" assertion above. I did consider that. Exactly what other army-sized assemblage are you putting forth as better? The French in 1863? I hope that's an attempt at humor. Read about the Battle of Sedan a few years later to see why.

Based on my extensive reading on the battle, had Lee or his subordinates acted more decisively, they would have won this battle decisively. The fact that they came close at all - despite a plethora of large mistakes - is mute testimony to this assessment. For instance, in the game, if Ewell's corps has a chance to secure a strategic hill with zero opposition, you would instantly seize this gift, correct? Well, that's exactly what Ewell didn't do IRL. Had he done so, the entire Union defense plan would have been untenable. All the confederates really needed was a hill with a flat top, overlooking the union position. This is exactly why they fought so hard for Little Round Top. Had the confederates been able to park a Napoleonic-style "grand battery" up there, the union troops could not have remained in their entrenched positions for long, and any assault against them would go in with massive artillery support. As it was, Lee never did secure the key high ground, and Hancock made brilliant use of interior lines to shuttle troops to threatened sectors. Pickett's Charge was Lee's final throw of the dice, and it failed for the same reasons that all the other assaults had - lack of proper artillery support, insufficient numbers for the task, and the sheer folly of frontally assaulting unsuppressed (note this also refers to the poor artillery support) entrenched defenders in an era filled with massively greater firepower than Napoleon's tactical system ever had to cope with. Getting back to the point now - after knowing these facts, do you still find the Army of Northern Virginia "overpowered"? Because they had never lost a battle up to that point and weren't even that badly damaged by this "defeat" at Gettysburg, although the South's chances of winning were all but extinguished on July 3rd, 1863. In contrast, all the Union had to do was "not lose" in order to win. Time was on their side in a massive way. But this isn't a strategic wargame. It's about a single battle, and in that battle, the Army of Northern Virginia was probably the finest field army on the planet as of July 1st. To be accurate, the game *must* reflect this. And your tactics as the Union player must deal with it. Don't blame the game just because your opponent doesn't make the same mistakes as Lee, Heth and Ewell did. Or if you are unable to assemble a defensible position and use interior lines to keep it firm, as Hancock did. To the devs, please consider these points before Nerfing the Confederates any more than has already (unfortunately) been done.

Fantastic improvements, but we still have the "roaming skirmishers" problem. Just play the first battle as the Confederates. You'll find that your artillery is spending all of its' time firing at these wandering intruders. This isn't realistic or fun. Skirmishers should be tied to a parent formation/leader so that they can't just "go commando" and run around deep behind enemy lines like this. It really sucks a lot of fun out of an otherwise outstanding wargame.

I agree that there needs to be some game mechanism which would deter these "Spetznaz"; style raids in the middle of a general engagement. I would suggest the following: Have the Skirmishers Morale and Condition (the latter to represent the difficulty of resupply so far from your army) drop the farther they stray from the nearest Corps Command unit or Line Unit - whichever is closest. This way, you could still try this rather crazy tactic if you really wanted to waste a Corps commander to do it, but it would probably be just as foolish as it was in real life. And it would tether these roaming skirmishers a lot more closely to their parent formations, as was their intended usage.

I hate to reply to my own topic, but is this driving anyone else nuts? From a gameplay perspective, this really hampers my enjoyment of playing as the Confederates especially.

And here it is again. It's actually occurring every single game at this point. In this case, I planted my own skirmishers and an artillery battery on a VP location just to ward off these Union Spetznaz guys. But now all the Union skirmishers are running around in my rear areas, ensuring that my artillery spends 100% of their attention on these low value targets (as opposed to supporting my offensive in any way). IRL, this wasn't a viable tactic except perhaps for cavalry. Your guys - running around completely isolated from your other forces - would run out of ammo fast and would become both helpless and hopelessly trapped behind enemy lines. Anyway, this once again isn't fun or realistic, and though I love the game this really needs fixing fast IMHO. Everything else is amazingly good.

This keeps happening. The skirmish AI is a little bugged. It keep sending its skirmishers on these suicidal raids deep behind the lines (in this case, it's Gamble's Skirmishers - aptly named I think). And they're nearly impossible to eliminate once they're there. This isn't fun or realistic. Some kind of "tether" logic would be great to prevent the skirmishers from going off willy-nilly like this.

You know, this game is already so much fun, it really makes you yearn for that little bit more to make it *perfect*. What tends to get lost in that process, however, is an acknowledgment of how good the game already is. I went online to the Smithsonian's interactive map of Gettysburg, and I can tell you that my battle worked out very similarly to what actually happened - right down to the day. This is something I routinely do with a new wargame - I test it against history and see if a similar outcome is possible. That, I'll tell you, is a test that few very serious wargames manage to pass. And here we have something which is incredibly easy to pick up, difficult to master, and has oodles of that "What if I try this next time?" factor that made Sid Meier's game the ne plus ultra of accessible wargames. The King is dead - Long live the (new) King!

IMHO terrain needs to matter much more in terms of its effect on both movement rates and cohesion. Just something to add some flavor. Right now we have the best looking map I've ever seen and yet the game itself takes very little note of all the intricate features it displays. Terrain does matter for cover, but it seems like my units can go through towns, woods and across streams as if they weren't there. This kills immersion and waters down the gameplay considerably. It would be great if anchoring your position along woods actually mattered (because it would vastly slow down an outflanking maneuver). Another example would be a big temporary reduction in cohesion/effectiveness during and for a period of time after crossing bad terrain. This would add a tremendous amount of depth with zero increase in complexity.

So, you're basically saying that being able to adjust speed is bad because you happen to like it the way it is. What about everyone else? Wouldn't it make a lot of sense to have variable speed so that people can adjust it?

The game was made available just 2 days ago and you've already played for 20 hours? Are you...OK?

I also heartily support the the idea of a variable speed slider. Right now the gameplay is simply too frenetic IMHO. I think that Sid Meier's Gettysburg is the one you want to emulate - Not Starcraft.