Stonewall47

So I started a new job a few weeks ago that has sapped my time. I came back to the game after two patches and feel a bit lost. I resumed my Union campaign and have started Parker's Farm a few times, each time being less satisfied than the last. First, you can't see who is firing at you in the fortifications. That would be fine, if my troops would have the ability to at least fire in the direction of where they're taking hundreds of casualties. Then, I move them out to find 5-6 brigades that whittle my 3 star units to a nub pretty quickly. So, I restarted and tried the offensive from the start. I stayed in cover, maneuvered well and still seemed to take a crazy amount of losses for being in cover and having elite troops. Am I missing something?

While I agree with the sentiment, I don't think that's the OP's intent. I actually would love to see UG:CW have DLC, simply so I can give Nick and the Dev's more money for their work.

I could be wrong, but I doubt Game-Labs will do DLC anytime soon. Nick comes from a Total War modding background, which I would guess leaves him with a bad taste in his mouth towards DLC. In case you aren't familiar, TW would release a half-done game, then proceed to charge for features/factions/story modes that should've been in the game to begin with. I think the goal is to make the game "complete" the first time around. Again, this is mostly conjecture based on past experience, but just my two cents. For what it's worth, I think that the final game will have a significant number of battles. Probably close to 30 for both sides!

Ok, I will go back and try to micro better! Personally, I would like the hold order to have to be toggled. Example, I move Stonewall Brigade into line and hit the hold command. They stay put. I see a brigade in their firing arc is mauling one of mine. I order Stonewall Brigade to fire on them. they remain in the same place, fire and don't stop until ordered otherwise or the enemy unit falls back. Even when said unit falls back, my brigade remains where it was initially ordered. They only move when I say, or when I undo the hold command.

So, if I tell 4 brigades to hold, they won't wheel? What about when told to attack an enemy brigade? Does that eliminate the hold order? May have to put more testing into it. I notice this more often in large battles, so it may just be a case of the mirco being too much to keep track of.

They did it while the "Ultimate General" cursed them for their stupidity. I think some clarity may help. I've seen the hold command make my units behave oddly (not fire, or turn to face enemies, ect). I would like to know exactly what that command is meant to be. I don't think it quite works like Total War's, which is what I'd like. I just finished a Confederate campaign. I feel like that it was weighted better than the Union. Antietam and Fredericksburg both saw me inflict heavy casualties on the Union, but both battles felt touchy at times. The Union advance across Burnside Bride nearly broke my line, which would've turned the tide decisively against me. Also, a heavy attack on my left at Fredericksburg nearly shattered my defenses there. Overall, the Confederacy has a harder time. I was constantly trying to scrape together money or conserve troops because I knew I was barely breaking even in the long run. I would like to see something to help balance it out a LITTLE. It's hard to maintain experienced brigades because of a lack of resources, but I honestly don't have a solution. Maybe they get a discount on veterans? Maybe the Union gets a small boost in equipment costs? Just musing.

So I have complained about the auto-charging before and realize what it is. If you tell a brigade to attack with a right click, it seems like sometimes they will follow their target if they fall back. This led to my most elite brigade charging into a union mass at Antietam. Following this moronic move, they then proceeded to rout into the enemy mass and be annihilated. Fun.

That's fine in theory, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the game, maybe the devs should just scratch that first phase and move straight to the full attack.

You were right. The first day only had 10k. The problem is, they never attacked any part of my line. I fast forwarded through the whole phase and never once saw a blue regiment. They ended up with 70k on the field, left it with less than 30! Also, after the second phase, my reinforcements were reset, even though I had staged a brilliant flanking maneuver...

I think the scaling may need to be readdressed in the next patch. The disparity here I think is a bit too massive. I reported this as a bug as well.

If you read any non-fiction, just try to read some reviews. There are quite a few books that confuse "history" with "mythology."

I'm not asking for the high end rifles to be kept in massive quantities, I couldn't create regiments because I lacked the standard rifle, which to me, is kind of dumb especially as the Union. As far as accuracy, I don't really care too much about that. It's a game predicated on the chance of an alternate history.

Merry Christmas Generals! Make sure you take a moment to ENJOY the holidays!

Just played through the Union campaign on Normal. Here are some thoughts: I really like the new scaling system, however, some tweaks may need to be made. I won 2nd Bull Run with only two corps. Granted, I smashed the Confederates at Malvern Hill, but it still seemed a bit too easy. I think the side missions are perfect. Most of them feel like they could go either way if I make a mistake, enemy numbers seem good and the missions are pretty diverse. I'd like to see more guns in the armory. Not different types, but just quantity. I would often run out of the Springfield 1842, (like before every major battle) which really shouldn't be that big of an issue. I reported this, but the "Defend Pittsburgh Landing" phase saw me fast forward through it because the CSA never attacked me. They never even came close to my lines. For most of that phase, I could only see one brigade. Overall the AI seemed to be more passive. It could be that I've gotten better, but I'm sure the devs will be able to determine if it's something they did. I've read a couple places here about scaling back the casualties. While I like that idea in theory, I would think it would mean the every battle and skirmish will have to be redone to make sure there is adequate time. Fredericksburg wasn't all that fun. Maybe it needs to broken up into three phases? The hill, Mayre's Heights and then the Post Road (I think that's what it's called). I took the Heights, the CSA moved north to flank me, so I just pinned them there and sent skirmishers to take the road. Again, the scaling kind of messed this one up for the AI. I outnumbered them by 20k. I think maybe making it a three part battle and losing one of the battle nerfs may help.

My problem is often trying to select a single unit and getting two. Most often, Ill want to pull my artillery back, when I try to select them, I get them and the infantry unit right next to them.

I totally agree. In UG:G you could change types manually with the range adjusting g accordingly. I'd love to have that function back.

The game is also a statement that graphics are not the deciding factor in making a solid game. I would totally be fine with the style staying the same, while just changing the setting.

Haha! Great reference. I'm guessing that you didn't get all the capture points?

I've been seeing a decent amount of negativity the last little bit, so I decided to give the Devs some encouragement! What's your favorite thing about UG:CW? Mine is the immersion. I get attached to some of my brigades and try crazy hard to keep them from taking heavy losses. I don't know if I have ever played a strategy game where I cared that much about my units... Now it's YOUR turn!

What Adonys said, is what the OP should've said. However, the language, outrage and direct attacks on Nick are a little much. Game-Labs isn't some behemoth developer. As far as I can tell, it's a few people trying to create some nostalgia-inducing strategy games. Sure the Devs should have said more about the next patch, but it's the holidays and the game is in early access. Just can't see why anyone would get that frustrated over a delay. Seems childish. To the moderators, maybe this thread should be frozen or taken down? It isn't constructive or helpful, much a less a "discussion."

I don't think they could all be incorporated. Just some different ideas that maybe could work! That's kind of what I am thinking. The only "problem" would be making sure that there is a second corps available. I don't think that it's by any means game breaking, I just think it may add some incentive to using the entire army.

So, I have read some things about players only using a single corps for most of the game. I am guilty of this also, so I wanted to float some ideas about how to make the whole army viable. I fully understand that the caveat right now is the scaling, but Nick and Devs have said that's being addressed! 1) Random "blitz" missions - I am thinking these come up after a smaller battle where only one corps is used. Another corps, not previously used is automatically thrown into a skirmish. The AI army should be scaled in this instance and a handful of randomized scenarios could work. For example, hold this hill, ambush an enemy brigade, capture this town, protect point for "X" amount of time. I don't know how difficult that is on the technical side, but could be worth it. We are playing the same battles over and over again, anyway, so there doesn't really need to be a ton of variation in the random maps. 4-5 will do. 2) Maybe create a side set of missions where a corps needs to be dispatched to a different theater. I'm thinking Longstreet in Tennessee, historically. Lets say you are fighting the Peninsular Campaign, but before the large battle, you need to dispatch a corps to help hold a rail junction that could out flank another army. Again, scaling would be mildly appropriate, along with a window of time to complete the mission. With that window, if player A doesn't have a second corps, but wants the benefits of that victory, maybe they play a skirmish and create one. Again, the player would be unable to dispatch their first corps. 3) I would guess this would require a slight re-working of the AI XP progression, but if that was scaled back a little bit, then other corps could be rotated without feeling like the player is losing the "teeth" of their army. I would love to have 1 or 2 elite brigades that are in my 2nd or 3rd corps, but because the AI is throwing 2 star brigades at me after Bull Run, I feel like I can't risk the mismatch. These are just a few ideas I had! Please leave any other suggestions or feel free to poke holes in mine! Still loving the game devs!

Not that I know of. Most of the time, I shift my attention to something else and look back a second later and they're halfway across no-mans-land. I think the problem is the unit is behind another, so the computer tries to close in, but ends up in melee. That's just a guess based off what I've seen. This is more than that. This is me struggling to stop them from moving forward. May just be impatience on my part, but its happened a decent bit.

I have followed Nick's work since Total War and have put a decent amount of time into UG:G. As soon as I saw UG:CW, I had to pick it up. Even in Early Access, it's a fantastic game, with tons of replay-ability. However, I have seen some issues that I thought warranted a post. 1) The auto-shifting and alignment of brigades. Sometimes the brigades just move, or charge or don't shoot. No explanation, no warning. I'll set my lines and shift to another part of the battlefield, only to come back with a unit routing because it charged into the open or decided to move laterally down the line. This was a problem and UG:G that I think needs to be fixed here. The same goes for how the brigades rotate. 2) RETREATING This one is so incredibly frustrating. My units retreat behind their lines or vice-versa. This becomes "game-breaking" in the larger battles when you're literally stretched paper thin on every front. You rout a brigade and it retreats to YOUR rear. Another problem from UG:G that needs to be readdressed. 3) "Mob Firing" I think the reason that point 1 happens is because of units not wanting to fire through their own or enemy units. Therefore, someone needs to move. However, sometimes I have units fire from behind other units and other times I do not. Sometimes they just charge instead of firing. The computer seems to have none of these problems though. At Antietam, thousands of Yanks occupied the same field and fired continuously, without shifting or charging or rotating awkwardly. 4) MELEE! Melee is fine for the most part. The frustrating part lies in what happens after they've won. Sometimes they fallback well, sometimes they get tangled and stay in melee perpetually, and sometimes they just follow the retreating units back until they are obliterated by it's friends. I want to end on a high note, so... Game-Labs, you have brought me a piece of my childhood back, and for that I will support your work always. The Sid Meiers and Sierra Games were favorites of mine, and you have made them so much more enjoyable 20 years later. Cheers!