WesleyBarras

I think Pickett's Charge is still very unrealistic. Seminary Ridge needs to be moved back. It's just far to easy for full brigades to get close to the Union line, in tact. When the first lines are charging, I barely get one round of artillery fire off before they are at the stone wall. We all know that half of them were blown up by the time they got back the fences (where are they btw). This is The recent patch has made this better. The Union troops now seem to get more short range firepower on their side which evens the odds a little bit. But the artillery never has a change to do its job because in a matter of 60 seconds, they're at the stone wall.

Thank you Mr.Mercanto, I've been saying this for years. The Union had just as good as soldiers as the Confederates. They withstood things that would break most armies. It was their LEADERS who were terrible.

After reading countless books about this battle and going there twice, I am convinced that General Lee could have never won this battle. Furthermore, he would have gained little if he did. While I have great respect for him throughout most of the war, this battle was a serious error of judgement that he should have been able to easily avoid. Hindsight is 20-20 but he should have known better. Interior Lines His men could have never concentrated enough men at enough points to counter the Union's interior lines. After the 1st day, he should have disengaged. He should have known from his own experience at Fredericksburg that when have the high ground, compact interior lines and plenty of ammunition, its every hard for an enemy to dislodge you. He must have really thought that his men were superheros. Note: In 1864, Lee had these exact same lines again at North Anna. He was waiting for the Union to attack him and Grant, wisely, disengaged. Unfortunately, weeks later he decides to attack at Cold Harbor??? Gettysburg Would Have Been Empty Victory Lee did not have the men nor supply lines to conduct a really long campaign. He needed to play defense. That was the plan. Even if he had won the 2nd or 3rd day, it would have depleted his men and supplies to follow up with any smashing victory. Let's say that Pickett smashing the Union Center. Then what? He still would have lost half his divisions doing it and the Union could have counterattacked with fresh troops on the 4th. There was little to gain from victory. I'm Convinced: Lee Prefered Offense Lee gets a lot of credit for being a smart commander. However, not enough people talk about how many equally dumb things he did. He wore his army down by going on the offensive too much. His object needed to be not only to win but conserve his resources. This happened at: - 2nd Manassas (at first) -Fredericksburg -Antietam (I think he won) -Wilderness -Spotsylvania -Cold Harbor -Petersburg Look at the casualty reports for these battles. The different between the two armies is glaring (2nd Manassas he was on the defense at first but then went on the offensive), Now look at these battles: -Seven Days -Chancellorsville -Gettysburg Note that in two of these battles he wins....or does he really? These battles took a tremendous toll on his army. In these battles he hurls his army at the Union. In two of them, he wins. But, the losses cripple him in the long term. Longstreet got the message. He seems a bit smarter than Lee to me. I think he should have been the Major General. Lee secretly loved to go on the offensive whenever possible. He was a high risk taker. Problem is, he wins small to medium bets and then bets the whole house on a couple pair of aces. Lee Underestimated The Union You have probably heard the CSA has better soldiers than the USA. We've heard the myth that "one rebel can kill three yankees." You probably have also heard that rebel soldiers were better because they were shooting muskets since they could walk. Lies. The soldiers on both sides were about equal. You aim doesn't matter when you're firing in ranks and black smoke is covering the battlefield. Union soldiers were just as brave and good as Confederate soldiers. We all talk about Pickett's Charge but the Union had many smaller ones as well. They were usually on offense and did not have the "home court advantage." They lost more battles in the East because of very weak leadership at the top. Thier major generals were total idiots. Gettysburg proves this. When the tables are turned, guess who wins? Now the Union has a halfway decent General and they are fighting on their "home court." He found out that city boys can make great soldiers too. His prejudice was partly responsible for this very unnecessary battle that crippled his invasion.

He dropped the ball. His role was nonexistent

Agreed David. This is a huge flaw that needs to be addressed. The terrain does not give the defensing force enough of an advantage. These issues don't annoy me on the 1st day because both armies are on the move. The 2nd and 3rd day when at least one side is somewhat dug in is what makes your point really apparent. Little Round Top gives Vincent's Brigade little advantage and can be overrun with ease. The same can be said about the 3rd day in the Union Center. Without terrain adjustments, the realism goes way down. You might as well have 100% flat land and let both armies slug it out.

I would be willing to donate. There are not too many games like this being made so I appreciate any developer who takes the time + risk to do this. I know I point out a lot of flaws (to make the gameplay better) but I also know that it is hard as heck to plan and program everything that needs to be done. Despite the things I don't like, I am beyond impressed that Game Lab takes suggestions from its users and fixes them. I don't think anyone else has done this before.

The AI is much better in this game. Sid Miers has some good features but it's way too easy. I found myself willingly putting myself in bad situations just to give the computer an advantage to make it challenging.

Hahaha, too true. The Irish Brigade and Vincent's Brigade or darn near invincible and but every other Federal unit sucks

Yes this needs to be fixed. Far too often I route an enemy and they run to the back of my lines. 5 minutes later, they recharge and attack my cannons or hit me from behind. I then have to divert units from the actively attacking force to deal with them. This happens again and again.

Agreed. You should have the option to do it. When you have the high ground and are not being attacked, that is what you should do.

MikeK, you are sort of right but I would argue that it is not enough. The Union has a very distinct advantage in this battle. That fact really pronounced on the 3rd day. High ground + their artillery advantage allows them to blow up half the enemy before they even come near the center. In this game, its far too easy for me to win the 3rd day as the CSA. I've never lost when playing as the rebels. Reason: the artillery advantage is neutralized.

MikeK, I'm sorry but you are wrong. The Union did entrench when they had time. Example: Culps Hill, they build up log entrenchments. I think it was Green. That is why they were able to replush Ewell. They had sent so many of their men to help the right flank that they were weakened. As strong as their position was, if they didn't entrench they would have gotten ran over on the 2nd and 3rd day.

Here here!

This scenario has happened to me 15+ times and has cost me games. As soon as the routed force has regained then they can hit your flank.

The fense would help make the charge on 3rd day more realistic. They get to the center too fast.

Its actually super easy to win as the rebels. They don't wear down until you run their moral to 0% and then rebuild it quick.

I strongly believe this is something you need to add, but it should be for the artillery. Having unlimited ammo negates the Union advantage. However, I think most focus of everyone has been the type of cannons the Union had. Let's take that out of the equation for a minute. It's important but I want to shelve it for the moment because the rebs had plenty of cannons, albeit them being mostly smoothbores. I need you to think about supply. This is what always killed the South. They had problems supplying things to its army. Food was probably its biggest supply problem but for this topic I want to mention shells. This is why them capturing some newer Union cannons was a catch-22. In many cases, they didn't have the shells to go in them. They could use what was in the box but then it would be a dead cannon until they found some more. There were two major arms factories in the South: Richmond and Atlanta. Each cannon needs different types of shells and the South had trouble making them all of them. Okay, having said that its amazing how much the South did make due with what it had. The Tredegar Iron Works keep the Confederacy in business by scrapping whatever they could find to turn out shells, balls, etc. But then you have to transport them to the army and this is where the Union always wins. They had a better network. Take a given battle where the Union and Confederates have the same amount of cannons and the Union batteries will be better supplied. They will not only have better weapons but more shells to keep the firing going for a long time. The CSA batteries could never withstand a long firefight...and this was in Virginia. Now this is Gettysburg we're talking about. This problem becomes significantly worse because you have little chance of resupplying yourself. Once you run out of shells, you are out until you capture more or go back home. Which is a slight problem that became major on the 3rd day. The CSA ran out of artillery ammunition. They couldn't support the army. When their fire slackened, the Union soldiers who were covering for dear life, stood up and went to the wall. Who knows how the battle would have been if the fire could have been maintained.

CSA units are realistically better than Union Infinite shells (didn't CSA artillery run out before Pickett's Charge) Can't dig in on flat or high ground. Lessons natural advantage on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill Calvary...as blood_phenix said, they are "Super-Commandos" lol The distance from Seminary Hill to Union center is too short.

This game has a lot of potential! In fact, it could be the best Civil War battle game made. However, it's missing some pieces. I wouldn't post this if I didn't care but I think Game Labs actually cares what the players think. Here are crucial elements that affected my gameplay. They seemed minor at first but got really annoying after a while. I will make a block of text Italic when its background information for supporting my complaint. 1) Confederate Army Has Obvious Advantage That Goes A Bit Too Far This is a complaint that some other players have said and after playing with both armies, I totally agree. The CSA has a distinct advantage over the Union. At the start of the war, the CSA had a distinct advantage in generals and quality of soldiers. Many of the generals had experience with the Mexican War 13+ years back and the men who made up southern army handling guns from the time they could walk. What's more, people from rural backgrounds will most likely be able to handle the rigors of long marches, lack of food, lack of adequate shelter and stress much better than their city counterparts. Having said that, as the war drew on, this advantage disappeared. For one, many of the best southern generals were killed and the northern soldiers were catching up. By the summer of 1863, the quality of soldiers from the Union was pretty close to their southern counterparts. The reason the Army of the Potomac was losing battles had nothing to do with its soldiers. From all accounts, the men who were present at Fredericksburg, 2nd Manassas and Chancellorsville were as brave as you can be. It was the successive appointments of unqualified and incapable Major Generals (many of whom got their position by their connections in Washington) that were responsible for blunder after blunder after blunder. Now...back the the game. The Confederate troops are unrealistically better than the Union. Its overblow to an obvious level that gets frustrating quickly. They can withstand the worst of situations (very low moral and condition) while the Union troops seem to run at the first volley that gets fired at them. Every charge done by the CSA ends in a route for them. Pressing "charge" for any Union unit is a complete waste of time b/c it never works. They always loose the melee. The Iron Brigade and Vincent's Brigade were not the only decent units at Gettysburg. 2) Infinite Artillery Negates Union Artillery Advantage There should be a limit to the amount of shells each artillery unit has. They either need to run out until the next battle or have to resupply. The only advantage the Union army has in this game is its superior artillery. They have more artillery most of the time and can be better concentrated multiple artillery units because they have shorter interior lines. You can really mass artillery units together to help make up for your poor quality troops. The amount of artillery available to each army is relevant to the battle. Some may call me nitpicking but this has a HUGE IMPACT on the battle. The CSA had enough cannons but couldn't resupply them as fast as the Union. They lacked quantity of shells and the supply wagons that carried them were significantly further back. This could never be more true than during Pickett's Charge. The whole plan of General Lee was to bombard the center into smithereens and then send 15,000 into a softened center. Problem is, they ran out of artillery ammo shortly before the charge started and couldn't support the army. They had more 170 guns massed in the center to the Union's 80 but spent their whole supply during that two hour artillery barrage. While they were charging on the 3rd day, the Union artillery is mowing the rebels down before they even hit the fence while the Confederate guns are silent. In essence, I'm saying that if you're going to make the Confederate soldiers so much better than the Union then you need to make the Union's artillery advantage equally better than the Confederate. As the game stands, the Union has a small advantage in this department but not enough. In this game the CSA wins the 3rd day with too much ease. The Union artillery doesn't do enough to break their ranks up and the Union soldiers crack. When I'm doing Pickett's Charge as the CSA, I can put the troops on autopilot. I told every brigade to charge towards the center and won with ease. Main reason: the Unions primary advantage on this day is highly mitigated. Note: I know the 3rd day is hard to replicate because no Gettysburg game has gotten it right. Sid Meier's....same thing. The artillery of the Union, as programmed, can't do enough damage and their soldiers can be easy overwhelmed. 3) Seminary Ridge Needs To Be Further From Cemetery Hill They are way too close. They need to be distanced. One of the reasons why the 3rd day is so unrealistic is because they CSA seems to only have to charge a couple feet to get to the center line. This make the 2nd con I just mentioned more pronounced because the the Union gets a 1-3 good shoots before the Confederates are upon them. 4) Stuart's Cavalry Has Too Big A Footprint It seems awfully easy for Stuart's cavalry to to flank me from behind on the 3rd day. Custer's men don't put up much of a fight (even though they win a battle one day later) and the southern cavalry easily charges through massed volleys. I find myself having to divert an insane number of men and artillery to keep him at bay. No matter what his casualties are when I do this, he regroups after a couple minutes and charges at me again. Unrealistic! Harass. Maybe. Attack supply lines. Yes. Disrupt. Yes. Maybe I'm wrong but I never remember horse cavalry attacking the main army in massed formation like that. Bufford could be used to counter my argument but he was doing more a delaying action that anything and they were dismounted. 5) Defense + Entrenched + Hill Advantage Seems Weak In This Game The Union's good ground is not emphasized enough. You get a slight advantage but its not enough. It's not that hard to overpower an enemy entrenched on high or entrenched ground. High ground is one of the main reasons why the Union won the battle. It is insanely difficult to attract an enemy that is entrenched on the high ground. He is stationary with usually some sort of cover and you are walking at an incline with less cover. Malvern Hill=Union Win, Gettysburg=Union Win These were the only times the Union had the high ground. The Confederates had this advantage in all the other battles and won or the outcome was deemed a "tactical draw." The hills need to be bigger and harder to penetrate without some extreme flanking maneuver. The stone walls need to give the Union Army in the center more of an advantage. Plan of Action Make the Union army not so weak Make the artillery shells a finite resource that needs to be replenished (won't mind overly weak Union soldiers at present state if this is implemented) Fix map to make the distance between Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Hill further apart. Make calvery more susceptive to mass artillery fire. Make the defensive advantage an army gets more pronounced. The offensive player during the Civil War had the harder mission and should be reflected in this game.