JaM

It all depends what you want to do... large batteries are excellent at killing enemy from close range with canister, but they run out of ammo very fast and will eat your ammo trucks fast as well... So, i'd say you should keep some large batteries in your second or third corps, and only move them to first one for large defensive battles. If you are on attack, smaller batteries are fine, as they can be moved and deployed faster.. But of course, you need to have skilled arty commander, otherwise effectivity will go down, and you will be just wasting ammo...

There are others that are equally hard, like for example the one where you need to take a well defended hill, enemy has plenty of wood cover and there is practically no space for maneuver, so you end up attacking frontally..

Why not just give player option to alter the uniform of own men? after all, units are just sprites, it shouldn't be that hard to give player option to alter certain sprites for different color, while keeping the overall look.. a lot of old games had such option actually, for example old Jagged Alliance 2 had such simple option at the character creation, here, it could be just a simple option to let say chose secondary color for the brigade...

True, its early access for a reason

i think medicine is quite important for Confederates so you reduce amount of casualties taken..

i think Crimean war is way too short for full game.. personally, i kinda hope for Nappy some day with hundreds of battles and lot and lot of campaign possibilities.. and of course, slightly different tactics and units.

bigger challenge, bigger satisfaction once you master it

i would love to see some changed arty fire animations, different for solid shot and different for shells.. (solid shots didnt explode, they mowed down anything in their path, bouncing multiple times - after all, that was the main use of these projectiles, and gunners were trained to accommodate those grazes to deal most damage - also, solid shot hitting the flank could kill a lot men passing through ranks..), and of course a bit more obscuring smoke.. which should even make some units hard to detect..and greatly reduce accuracy.

btw, regarding weapons, whats your take? is it worth upgrading to rifles or keeping springfields all the way at least till Shilloh? I did try to equip some brigades with M1853 rifles, but didnt see much difference in casualty rates.. next time i will rather use Lorenz rifles which are cheaper...

small suggestion - when units are in melee, sometimes its impossible to see the casualty enemy is taking because own icon/flag obscures enemy icon/flag. I think it would be best if these flags were a bit farther from each other.

I think it would be probably best if there was some mechanics where any unit that was cut off, and routed, would just surrender instead of running around in enemy controlled area, rallying and renewing fight on its own.. It would also allow for some tactical maneuvers, where you could cut off multiple brigades in flanking maneuver, and force them to surrender by routing them while being surrounded.. because right now, they just tend to run through and you have to chase them around...

Actually had this happen to me several times.. i order unit to shoot and instead of shooting it just walks forward and enters melee.. and im pretty sure i didnt ordered it move, but to engage..

i think the main problem here is the firepower.. Big brigades have more men, therefore have higher firepower, while smaller ones less.. I think it would be better if only first three lines were actually considered as deployed for shooting, and everybody else would be in reserve. This way, even small brigade could have same firepower as big one, just not as many men to replace the losses..

yeah, stacking units on top of each other is a bit too much, i think if you do that, only one unit should be firing, not both.

cant agree about total war.. it was and still is a mess of a game.. battle behavior was completely scripted so after a while you knew exactly what will trigger AI response, which made the battles way too predictable and boring. I bought CW just two days ago, while i played Gettysburg some time ago, i think it is wast improvement over previous game. These strategical options you now have make the game a lot different, and quite interesting. Of course not everything is 100% perfect, but that is expected from early access game, game will improve over time.. One of my suggestions for improvement would be to make the deployment phase a bit more active, with more options, based on player army setup and tactics, so he could deploy some units (cavalry/skirmishers) ahead of his main force, which would make these units more desirable sometimes, especially for those missions where you need to occupy something fast (if you have a cavalry division in your army, it would be expected it would be on the spearhead of the advance, therefore would get to fight first) Another one would be probably to do something about units stacking on top of each other which is sometimes limiting to get a grasp whats going on.. Maybe it wouldnt hurt having an option to enable standard army icons for the map so player could see the battle situation from that perspective too. Anyway overall, i like the game, cant wait for further updates. (and kinda hope one day you make similar game with Napoleonic Era!) edit: one graphical suggestion,but maybe that was already discussed in the past - what about changing the firing animation for infantry brigades so only first three ranks would actually fire? i think it would look a bit more realistic than men from second line firing through men in the first line if brigade double line deployment.

What about this "little beauty"?? Most famous of all Frigates...

Also, maybe not something action gamers want, but i'd like to see a bit different combat flow, with ships actually surrendering instead of sinking.. in reality, naval battles were not about sinking opponnents but damaging them enough so they will be unable to continue fighting, or forcing them to surrender... surrender now, it very rare, and you usually need to almost wipe out entire crew...

i'd like to see upped sail damage for chain-shot.. after all, it is composed of two balls and a chain, therefore its damage potential should be significantly higher than a solid shot alone... also accuracy wise, chain-shot would be extremely innacurate due to the tension after balls leave the barrel and extend to the lenght of the chain, so this type of ammo should be only useable at short to medium distances..

typical observer on the ship would be on the mast, therefore at 10-25m above water.. so im guessing that should give horizon at 11-20km away?

actually thats not a bad idea - make map smaller (scale down) so visibility would still represent realistic range, then you could even give normal speed to ships in open world, but keep time compressed for faster pace... (it really looks strange sailing at 18-20knots...)

it would be great if actual visibility range was close to reality - usually, first thing spotted were sails on the horizon.. right now, ship just pops out.. would be cool to actually sometimes be unable to spot them due to sun or clouds.. but definitely, visibility range should be slightly longer than horizon distance.

mostly because there is already a 7 years war game (even though graphically not very appealing).. plus, i think Napoleonic tactics were a bit more advanced than middle 18.century linear tactics..

i'd like to see chat window integrated with the rest of the UI.. as im most of the time fighting to find a good possition for it, where it doesnt obscure anything important..

fully agree, ships should have their own names (give ability to players to name own ships if they want..), while you could also show the ship class. I see no problem showing all frigates as "Frigates" as identification should be another skill that needs to be learned by players.. it would also make some fights more interesting, because you wont be able to quickly acess enemy power by looking at what ships he has and decide what you do... instead,let say you will see he has several frigates, but wont know for sure if those are light 9pdr frigates or heavier 18pdr variants, or even 24pdr superfrigate... same with Ships of the Line.. you would measure the power of enemy by ship count, not by knowing exactly what force he has... this would give much more variability in battles making them more unpredictable and fun. Identification was one of the hugest things in age of sail period, traders often painted their ships with military colors, painting gun ports to confuse possible attacker.. i think it would be great if this aspect was also present in the game... so technically, it wouldnt be a bad idea instead of ship type, show its rate...

what i would like to see - compass present when you open the Map, ability to measure your possition every day at midday (a marker on the map) due to sextant.