My observations - accidentally winning

[Practical Lobster]

After being led here by the total war mods, I bought this game and have played perhaps about ten battles, and while that's not an amazing statistical sample, the five of those that have been Confederate have all had a similar outcome.

 

While my Union games have been relatively varied, and seen a challenging Confederate AI which actively frustrates, harasses, and makes life very difficult for me, the AI in all of my Confederate experiences (I mixed up between Dynamic, Determined, and Defensive) has been intelligent but has ensured that it loses the game each time.

 

The Union AI when I attack as the Confederates seems to do two things, with the same bad results. Either it holds a position far more forwards of what it can logically hold once my reinforcements begin streaming in during the second round of July 1st fighting, or it falls really far back (through the decision), and either way, when pressed it simply falls back more, establishing a defensive line far behind where it did historically - and then proceeding to get all bunched up in the corner of the map.

 

Eventually, it is prompted (I suppose) to retake Cemetary Ridge, Culp's Hill, etc. from the Confederacy, but it universally fails to do so because I simply hold excellent positions and the dynamics of the map don't allow it to. If the Union had simply held a few more hours at Culp's (or along the entire line) I would almost assuredly not have been able to dislodge me.

 

In the AI's defense, it routinely is costing me brutally in lives (in my last battle, 16,000 Confederates died, more than half of them in the final Union counter-attack before the game declared me winner) compared to my far more negliable Union casualties. And this is a bit strange to me, because 16,000 dead Confederates could, in a grand strategy scheme of things, never be considered a victory unless the Union lost far more (which it didn't). Yes, I hold the field, but give it a day or two. The Army of the Potomac, contrary to what the game's battle summary tells me, is fresh, not demoralized, and should be more than willing to sweep my left flank. Even if an off-map Longstreet is taking the Union left, had I been playing the Union I would have felt cheated that I didn't get more time to at least try to fight.

 

I guess I was just curious how many people have shared this experience. I understand that as a game, the larger consequences of player actions can't always be modeled, but I wish in some way the game could show me how badly I screwed up when I consigned thousands of men to a meaningless death for a marginally better position. Tactically I might have taken all the Victory Points, but I shouldn't have been considered to have won the battle. My day-long advance deserved a Union opportunity to check it that lasts longer than just the morning - it's not like I did any meaningful fighting the first day, so nobody's worn out.

 

I get that modeling these things are difficult, but I just felt that I should contribute my two sense. I think it's a testamony to how realistic the game is that I keep comparing in my head to a real life battle - something I don't think ever happened when playing Total War.

[Husserl]

Hi Practical Lobster and thanks for feed back. AI is constantly revised and improved after player's valuable feed back. Also there are still a couple of things we are not happy with. For example the first day that US are vastly outnumbered, the Union AI is very difficult to be adjusted perfectly because we do not use cheat bonuses. This is one of the reasons that you've noticed a similar outcome when you play as CS. However, we shall finally make it the way it has to be.

 

About the battle outcome, the calculation formulas are still in an early version and we have already planned to revision them during the Early Access period.    

[Practical Lobster]

Thanks!

 

This is great to hear, and I'm very excited to keep playing with each successive patch.