Midknight

Was playing today as Union, the Rebs seemed to do the Total War sit there and do nothing. Damned if I was gonna rush in from my defensive positions so we waited, then as Reb reinforcements arrived from the north we received a co-ordinated attack from multiple angles. It knew damn well it couldn't beat my defence until re-enforcements arrived - I was really impressed how the AI didn't just mindlessly run in until it had the advantage. Really liking the game.

The concept is great, but for me it'd have to be real time. How amazing would it be to move around armies in a continental map then zoom into a battle as it unfolds.

Yes and no, from what I've seen the graphics do represent damage. When rounds miss they don't cause any casualties, when they hit I generally get an indication. What is silly is that I'm just doing another play through and my union artillery has been pounding away all day and only scored a fist-full of body count. Part of my opinion is, I can play and win without artillery, and as a death from afar fan, I find that a little disgruntling. I find it cumbersome and unwieldy to use and that wasn't the case in history. Part of my drama with canister isnt the damage, more like the fact it cannot be aimed inless the enemy is charging the artillery. If the enemy charges a unit in the line, to the side of the artillery, then canister cannot be wheeled around and fired quickly enough which is frustrating.

I do like myself a good artillery barrage but not feeling it with UG. I've yet to fully look into the details but : 1) I feel round shot is useless, it should really hammer morale when hitting from a long distance as huge balls of red hot iron plough through ranks kicking up dirt and stone as fragmentation. In my experience I don't really get a chance to engage in long shooting because of FOW is too low, plus it's too inaccurate and hardly causes casualties. I'm play testing as I write and a battery of 4 cannon hitting a mass of 2000 men made 2 casualties, if it makes 1 casualty, the round will by it's nature make many more as it punches through the ranks. Flank shots with this ammo should be absolutely devastating. 2) Shell is my favourite and I always put my artillery on that setting, sometimes it only kills one or 2 men even though the whole battery hit. 3) Canister is nice but I find the enemy wildly outflank a battery - it seems to take them an age to actually touch the powder for some reason and they end up wheeling the cannons around in a circle, then routing. I find myself thinking "for god sake SHOOT !!!" 4) Cannon wheeling is really annoying, as mentioned above the canister shot. I know I can use the hold command (be nice if the GUI was say, red, when this is selected instead of a slightly lighter grey...) but this micro management of the artillery is frustrating. When they hit 100% reload they should be ready to fire, instead of a 5 second pause, then shuffle, pause, shuffle - rout. Keep up the good work, very promising game