mattm310

Clicking Find Opponent - its working today though

Just says "Connecting..." Doesn't move past it

I'm still experiencing this problem V 0.8 Rev 4469 P

Sorry if this has been covered already but I just want to either reiterate what others have said or voice new topics. First off, I played Sid Meier's Gettysburg competitively online during the the 2nd and final patches (3rd patch + XP). It was more or less capture the flag but hey, there were some tactics involved. Secondly, I am a Civil War reenactor and have been for 30 years. I have done everything from Infantry to Music. I am currently a Principal Musician for the 2nd Regiment USV (http://www.usvolunteers.org) and to be named Principal Musician of the Brigade at the end of the year. I have quite a bit of on field experience as well as gaming experience. I have tried a few of the other games out there over the year but nothing really suited me. This one is close and I bought and played the Early Access game. Let me try and cover my suggestions topically below: 1. Artillery - This has been quite annoying. Now, I like the way it lines up right behind the infantry when grouping but I swear to God, the "AI" aspect of the "non-micromanagement" on the field is killing it. a) It moves through the infantry lines to fight targets that are clearly in front of them, engaged with the infantry. In SMG, if you wanted to specifically target a unit, it would do its best to fire at it. If it was blocked by LOS or infantry, it would say it was "BLOCKED BY XYZ" and not fire. In this game, if it is blocked by infantry, it moves in front of them, and then take a huge hit and retreats off the field. I want to be able to target without it moving all over the place. If I place a piece of artillery somewhere, I want it to stay there and find a target anywhere in the 360 deg. field of view from there. When I put them on hold, I can't target another unit without it moving around again. In SMG, you could also select "Target Infantry", "Target Artillery", or "Auto Target". I find that my artillery, when on auto, usually targets other artillery in the distance or skirmishers, instead of the unit that is marching right at my infantry. Something along those lines or preferred target selection would be nice. If none were in its field of view (or LOS), then it could go to the other unit type. c) Placement - I love the map, I really do. Its graphically the best thought out idea I've seen for real time strategy game. However... I honestly have so much trouble finding a place to put it. LOS is fine, but the terrain in other games (SMG) was much more detailed, topographically, that I could easily see where to put them. If I put 2 batteries on top of McPherson's Hill, I honestly think they should be able to see a little bit more than I can in the game. It's just not defined well enough for me to visually see the terrain differences. I would suggest a way for players to find a good way to place artillery, based on elevation and that provides good, direct, fire on incoming infantry. d) No limber? no problem.. - I'm ok with slow moving artillery without the use of horses but the way I know where to put artillery in "real life" (reenacting) is behind the infantry, usually on elevation. This gives them a nice clear line of sight on the opposition. Because of where the arty gets placed in the "Formations", its right up against infantry, and to get them moving backwards quickly is impossible and usually ends up being a retreat off the field. They need to be back a little further if you are going to put them that close to infantry (and possible have them wander around to attack targets (See articles a-c in this section)). e) Load vs Distance. In some ways I would rather see long load times for greater distance firing (real life evaluations/calculations of distance) and faster reloads as the get closer (canister spray-and-pray). I feel the longer shots also are only inflicting 1 casualty at a time. Now, I'm not asking for a mass killing on one shot (unless you take longer to load/fire) but you either missed or you hit more than one. 2. Infantry - Not horrible game play, but man is everything moving around fast. a) Fall back works well. I like how that works, but when you are clearly overwhelmed and need to get out of there quickly, we need a retreat. There is a clear difference on the "field" during an engagement where you are at the wrong place at the wrong time and need to get out of there now. It looks to be impossible to "flag" (capture) the opposition so a "retreat", in addition to fall back, would be nice. Retreating through the lines ... umm what? So a lot of times, I'll play the defensive Union but sometimes when playing confederate, the Union will get on a flank but my arty/infantry will force them to retreat. Several times this causes them to retreat "backwards" and towards my artillery. This causes the arty to move to avoid incoming attackers... except they aren't, they are retreating. If they are retreating towards artillery, they would surely get a wad of canister (or double canister) and be blown away. They should be going the other way or my arty should stand there and blow them away. They shouldn't be able to go that way or they my arty should stay put and spray them full of holes. c) Charging - So I like the way the animation looks. I like how they get into combat. I just can't tell what's going on during it. In the SMG world, you would watch your bar-driven morale and either make the early retreat or finish it up and force the opposition back. In SMG, when you forced them back, you claimed that spot and continued to fire (halted). In this game, it almost seems like they keep running... forever.. and its a little unclear as to the status of the charge. The flags also jump all over the place. I know that's to probably signify that its still in "Charge" mode but you can't tell who is moving where easily. d) Obliques (I see it's coming so I'll hold off on asking for it. Just know its needed) e) Advancing. In SMG, you could click "Advance" and move forward "X" number of yards, keeping your same facing, just moving directly forward. It doesn't need to be far but I find myself wanting to move forward a lot, without reforming into column or changing my facing. (See Obliques). Any aspect of a short move forward to keep pursuit without having to" Click" would be nice. 3. Game Speed / AI Non-Micromanagement / Force Strength a) So I don't know what is really entailed in this AI but I like a little more control and a little less AI. I like placing my troops strategically and letting the battle develop. It seems them move a lot. Not entirely sure why. I do, however, want to prevent opponents (or the AI) from stacking 20 units on top of each other so you can never really reach a VP or location. So, making flanks like up and disallowing overlap is fine. Just don't keep moving the troops all over the place. The game moves fast. When you are playing and have a crap load of troops on the field (addressed later), its hard to keep track of time. Audio alerts from SMG made it easy to understand how much time was left in the scenario. I'd actually like it if the game speed was just a "little" slower. Not much, but there is a lot of ground covered quickly and the time to set up troops is a little hasty. Not much... Its just when you have 30,000 troops on the field and you are fighting from one side of the map to the other, troops get broken too fast for you not to pay attention to them. An opponent to this would say let the "AI" part of the game take over... I say, give me the option to slow it down. In a 2v2 or 3v3 (or 2vAI) kind of online play, where the 30,000 troops get split between 2 or 3 people, the game speed is probably OK. c) Lots of troops - man they look good. Lots of visually appealing, aesthetically pleasing visuals. However, again, with the number of troops on the field and the speed of the game, I found myself looking for a smaller scenario. Most of the time I play the first day scenrio because it has the right amount of troops. I'm hoping in a future patch, a "Random" scenario generator picks units from a Corps (or two) and lets you play random engagements with different sizes (skirmish, small, medium, large).. especially for ONLINE play (in the future) d) Scoring - I can't be the only one looking at the final win/loss screen and looking for more numbers/math. I wanted to know why it's a minor victory or "epic win". e) Order of Battle - It would be nice to see all the troops on the field, in an order of battle format and then be able to click on the unit and they would be selected. With 30,000 troops, finding Cutler's brigade can sometimes be daunting. And... having an order of battle (with current vs. initial strengths) would make it easier to see how that "Balance" bar in the top right really relates to what I think is going on during the battle. Please take these as suggestions, I like the game. However, in its current form, I probably wouldn't be a long term player. Some of these quirks just need a little more realism and a little less "game-y" for a balanced experience. Hope someone on the DEV team finds these helpful.