Paul_KT

I've noticed playing as the Confederates since the latest patch, I can still win battles, but I'm wrecking my brigades to do it, when means in the next phase I'm really struggling. I love that I'm now faced with the choice of winning a phase but loosing the battle, or rather accept limited victory points in the the first phase but still have an army left afterwards. This dynamic of not going for victory at any cost is very thought provoking and introduces an excellent persistant campaign feeling

Played Confeds 1st phase, Dynamic UI. The Union seems much more interested in maintaining a cohesive line, with more retreating from positions to maintain that line. This gave the impression that the Union was often retreating, almost too quickly. But the effect was to maintain the army over all and not present any obvious weak points. The AI seems much more willing to give ground to achieve other objectives, which I really liked. AI attacks seemed more coordinated than before, with both single brigade attacks to tie down units, but critically these attacks did not overextend like before. Instead the Union would launch a cautious single brigade attack and withdraw before losing too many casualties or becoming cut off. I loved this new behaviour. There were also highly coordinated multiple unit attacks, focused on regaining VP locations or hitting over extended lines. Overall it felt like the AI was much better at knowing where to spend units and where to be careful. The only bad behaviour I saw, and this isn't unique to this patch, is units bunching up making great targets for artillery but blocking each others line of fire. The AI needs to improve holding units in reserve is there is no space on the front line. Ideally in a position where they can fill any gaps yet stay out of fire.

You can issue orders while the game is paused, then they will all happen when you unpause.

It would be cool if the historical options in custom battles were unlocked from the start.

I have a bit more AI feedback from the first battle. Played as the Union on Dynamic AI. I found two main issues. Firstly the AI wasn't co-ordinating it's attacks, rather it would send in brigades one at a time, which meant that each was overpowered by my skirmishers. The AI continued to do this throughout the battle, sending in attack piecemeal. Although when playing as the Confederates I found the opposite was true, the union would send coordinated attacks with multiple units, usually after they had repulsed one of my attacks and my line was unformed, very clever. The second problem I found was Davis' brigade decided to take Oak hill and met with early success, however I was soon able to mount an attack to retake it with 3 brigades. At that point the AI would have been better off moving Davis back to the confederate main line, but instead the brigade locked into taking Oak hill and launched several doomed to failure attacks until the end of the battle. It felt like the AI had seen an opening and launched an attack but kept going even when the opening had gone. It would be great if the AI would review plans after being repulsed and maybe decide to reform the line rather than attack what is now a strong position. Over all it feels like the Union AI has vastly improved in .83 (great!) but the confederate AI is now lagging behind (bad). I feel that Dynamic is the hardest difficulty and so both AIs should be expert and a real challenge (like borderline unbeatable).

Not sure what AI changes you made but I now have a much harder time playing a Determined AI. He seems much better at knowing when to hold back and when to launch an all out attack of an weakened enemy. Also army cohesion is much better, I'm getting far fewer issues with commando raids. Great job guys, seems like a smaller patch but it's really made a difference to how I play the game.

Just thought of a little cosmetic change that would really help. When you click on a general all the units in his chain of command are highlighted green, which is great. Could you highlight units in his zone of influence another colour so it's easy to see what units are getting a bonus?

That would be brilliant! Instead of having button, to show a map of the area with Corp markers and movement arrows showing units approach the battlefield. Then highlighted areas for each of your optional battles. It would really give you a picture of how the battles were linked together.

I'd love to see dismountable cavalry. But if that was too much work then I'd be happy to get rid of mounted cavalry altogether and represent them as skirmishers as they are now.

Manassas would be great, because you get to see the difference in the armies due to battle experience. 1st Manassas would also offer some very interesting battle choices as the Union player decides to attack head on or launch a flank attack as they did historically. The down side is that it's only a 1 day battle so you don't have the build up of Gettysburg. The Waterloo campaign could work really well with Quatre Bras, Ligny, Wavre and Waterloo.

Army cohesion seems better, I had less skirmishers running around the back of my line, although they were still pushing to flank.

I'd love to see more ACW battles. After that Napoleonic seems the next logical step, introducing infantry squares and attack columns, plus european cavalry. That added complexity would be a challenge to get working well in the game but with a few ACW battles under their belt it should be possible.

If you were going to move the unit by left click dragging then you could keep the arrow as you have now. But give the second option of ctrl+dragging to get the placement marker. I wouldn't have the placement marker as the default as I agree, it would look ugly. But it would be great as a second option. Controls would be the same as now, you'd just be enabling for single units as well as groups. I do agree with keeping things simple, it's one of the things that attracts me to this game.

I love the ctrl+drag option to set the position for a whole group, as you can see exactly where the units will end up, including the facing. Would it be worth allowing you to use the same system for a single brigade? You should still have the arrows because they look great, but it would help in situations where you want to see exactly where the brigade will end up, for example over cover or next to another brigade.

I like to play through even with my mistakes, but I think a lot of people will like option 3 and if you want to play ironman and not restart, then just don't restart!

Could I suggest starting a new thread with a new patch and locking the old thread. It makes it easier to see exactly what each post is talking about, rather than having to hunt to find the first post about the new patch. [EDIT] After playing 8.1 for 3 or 4 hours here is my feedback. Contour lines Love them! They really help sight artillery and give a better picture of the battlefield. Comparing them to the map background you can see some areas have really good representations of the slopes and others not so good. So having the lines is a big help for these areas. I echo other calls for a few more numbers on the lines so you can get a better idea of ridge height quickly without having to count back. Battle speed I like the new speed, it makes things feel more like a civil war battle. However I also liked the old speed, which made things feel like a civil war game. I enjoy both although they do feel like very different experiences. In fact I'm surprised how different the game feels with such a small change. The only way you're going to make everyone happy is with multiple speed options. I'd have 3 levels with the current level as slow, then a fast and fastest option with 0.8 speed at fastest and something in the middle for fast. No unit flags on the edge of the battlefield This can be confusing for units at the edge of the battle and I liked the idea of having just the flags visible over the edge. Variable reinforcement times This needs some tweaking as I've performed badly in battles where I need reinforcements to do anything but they turned up so late I couldn't attack in time to claim VPs. I love the variable timers but you should have a minimum chance of achieving your objectives. AI changes Hard to quantify because it's such a variable thing, but I did find playing more of a challenge. Now for a couple of suggestions. Ambient sounds I love the sounds of birds and rivers, but the musketry can be confusing. I spend time looking for an engagement which isn't happening. Random difficulty How about the option to set the difficulty but have random aggressiveness? That way I can set the level of challenge but still be unaware of how aggressive the enemy will be.

Something that would be great is a graphical order of battle for your units on the battle selection screen. Something like a family tree showing the general's portraits then the brigades and batteries under them. You could include links to the Wikipedia articles for that general / brigade like Crusader Kings 2 does for characters. It would really help add historical flavour and also improve the educational value of the game.

Defending a high position gives you the advantage that any enemy has to climb the hill to approach so will be more tired when they get there. Apart from that there might be a morale advantage to being up slope?

I've yet to have a battle that wasn't delayed, including one battle where I held all the VP locations and the enemy were running from the field. Yet it still delayed the battle. What criteria needs to be met for the battle not to be delayed?

That would look great and and some colour and personality to the battlefield.

How about having general portraits at the top of the screen, clicking on the portrait would zoom to and select the general. Also are there any plans to model having units under a general have to stay close to him? Units very close to a general currently are buffed, but outside of that you can have units from different divisions and corps spread all over the map. It would be interesting if there was a mechanic to encourage keeping corps close together, or am I over complicating things?

Just bought and really enjoying the game, thank you Lord Vader and team! Some feedback on unit facing, when you select a formation and set the facing the formation faces towards the mouse cursor, which makes sense. But when you hold the middle button to set the facing of a single unit it does not, rather moving the mouse rotates the facing but not towards the mouse. Is it possible to change single unit facing so it points towards the mouse pointer and this seems the more natural way. Feature requests For a feature request, a elevation overlay would be great, as currently it's a bit hit or miss when you place artillery. Bugs None as yet