Compared to Sid Meier's Gettysburg

[asp11001]

This game is kind of bad.

 

I'm not judging this game on the standard of how close it is to SMG. I was fully open to the fact that it could be different from SMG and still as good, or even better. But from playing through the game two times on either side, I find:

 

1: This game is not dynamic. It's more like SimGettysburg than the battle of Gettysburg - it feels more like a city builder game than a strategy game.

2: Flanking and maneuvering -- the critical parts of a game like this are clunky and impractical in UGG. If you've played SMG, you miss unit formations, flanks, control of column/line, fallback, and more. Really, you brand this game on the complexity of maneuvering in the promotion video, but there's almost no complexity when it comes down to it.

3: Elevations and line of sight are non-intuitive -- pressing 'M' feels more like an arbitrary map overlay than genuine elevations. Line of sight is often hard to determine by looking at the map.

4: Fleeing units, auto movement, and artillery moving about is confusing and often does more harm than good. Also, artillery needs to pivot, even while set to hold.

 

Seriously, Sid Meier's Gettysburg is from 1997. I'm a little dissapointed that UGG isn't better. I'm not saying you need to make an updated version of that game, but well, the dynamics of UGG as it stands are *not* very deep and the strategic elements involved are limited.

[No Pasaran]

You poor soul! 

 

Long live *not* very deep games that entertain!

 

Don't like then move on and let us *shallow* sodjers battle on.

[asp11001]

have you tried SMG?

[No Pasaran]

No have not played SMG would love to try, followed many interesting comments regarding SMG sounds like the pattern/template for many ACW games.

Once came across the game back in '85 in store could not buy cause i only had a Commodore'64 very ancient.

 

It may sound daft but would playing SMG be retro with games now currently on market, am i coming across as a snob?! hope not i just think once ur pasted through one door and opened another u move on! no disrespect to SMG.

[MikeK]

Played ample SMG - setting aside the advantaged of modern tech, this game is cleaner and better and in part by not having (and in the final release ideally not needing to have) unrealistically minute control over the internal evolutions of brigades.  

1: This game is not dynamic. It's more like SimGettysburg than the battle of Gettysburg - it feels more like a city builder game than a strategy game.

 

 

 

City builder?  I would understand your meaning better if you said this was a "third person shooter" - I am curious what you mean. 

 

2: Flanking and maneuvering -- the critical parts of a game like this are clunky and impractical in UGG. If you've played SMG, you miss unit formations, flanks, control of column/line, fallback, and more. Really, you brand this game on the complexity of maneuvering in the promotion video, but there's almost no complexity when it comes down to it.

 

3: Elevations and line of sight are non-intuitive -- pressing 'M' feels more like an arbitrary map over lay than genuine elevations. Line of sight is often hard to determine by looking at the map.

 

 

Contour lines need clarity but are functional. In a game where one side has time to lay out works for a defensive position, the player should be able to evaluate LOS in great detail in setting up defensive positions. I am, however, swayed in this care by the point that Gettysburg was unfamiliar terrain to the protagonists, who had only a few civilian maps of the day to work with and not topographical surveys. Thus they must judge by observation and inference, which in uneven terrain we all know means a ridge or an undetected swale could hide a division or a corps from sight, and a position could be taken on a false military crest because of terrain of which the disposing officer was unaware. A position like Little Round Top might sound good in theory but be found to have serious deficiencies as a gun platform, and unexpected nasty terrain like Devil's Den could provide an unpleasant surprise.

 

Playing the game, we are so far ahead of the actual protagonists in information on the field that I feel obliged not to complain, other than that whether one unit can at the current time see and shoot at another should be clear to the troops on the ground and therefore to me. 

 

4: Fleeing units, auto movement, and artillery moving about is confusing and often does more harm than good. Also, artillery needs to pivot, even while set to hold.

 

 

I'm not clear about "more harm than good" - my concern is if it effectively represents what is going on.  

[asp11001]

MikeK: UGG is cleaner since so much is automated and because there is no regiment control. Clean is good, but in this case, it comes at the cost of complexity and depth.

 

Also, a lot of UGG's cleanness comes by the absence of formation settings, which is really the wrong place to clean up. E.g. you can hold TAB to wheel a brigade, but only once it is in place, and only one at a time. This is very impractical and clunky. 

 

By city builder, I mean that UGG plays more like a city builder because the regiments are basically these chunks that are only minimally mobile. In SMG, as soon as battle is locked, there is a constant flow of adjustments that each play can make to throw the other play off guard. In UGG, everything is much more static and stale.

[R.E.B.Blunt]

You must be new because this argument has been brought up extensively mainly by myself. You can check old threads on this forum. Yes this game does not offer as much variety as SMG. You do not see as much control and micro managing as you would of seen in SMG. No control of Battle lines. No detach Regiments. No surrender. No injury of Generals. The map could rotate. In many ways SMG is superior it was the true American Civil War Simulation game.

 

But this game is not that. It is more of a Arcade, grab and go quick play. The graphics are crisper, battle movement and flow is faster. But I have grown to love this game. It is the reason many SMG veterans are turned off because they expect this game being decade older than the previous should have all the things that one made it great. In time I do believe it will once and if the developers allow the game to be modded. You could very easily add Regiments to Script instead of Brigades. Add independent brigade leaders and Divisional and Corps Commanders. But for now the developers are still in the creation stages and it is in its infancy. Let them work out the existing bugs. Help them by finding issues in the current game. Let them bring this game to fruition and then we can begin to mold it and shape it to better suit a true American Civil War Simulation game.

 

The major problem with SMG now is that you cannot play it with modern Graphics Cards and Operating Systems. You have to remember it was created for Windows '97. That might as well be the Bronze age of Computers compared to today. My operating system will not even play SMG anymore. I have tried. Even downloading the XP and Compatibility patches still wont work. Because of that reason we have to take what we can get. This game is a great game but you have to look past what made SMG great and accept this game for what it is. Not for what it is not.

 

Do not distress asp11001. I too was in your shoes when I first discovered this game. But give it time you will grow to love it as much as I have. Trust me from one SMG vet to another.

[asp11001]

FYI I play SMG on Windows 8.

[ariete]

maybe this page can help

http://smx.iblogger.org/SMG.htm

unfortunally not all contents showed are downloadable, but patch and istructions to run the game in new super scndalous operative systems still exist in this blog

[admin]

This game is kind of bad.

 

I'm not judging this game on the standard of how close it is to SMG. I was fully open to the fact that it could be different from SMG and still as good, or even better. But from playing through the game two times on either side, I find:

 

 

Seriously, Sid Meier's Gettysburg is from 1997. I'm a little dissapointed that UGG isn't better. I'm not saying you need to make an updated version of that game, but well, the dynamics of UGG as it stands are *not* very deep and the strategic elements involved are limited.

 

 

One of the famous board game designers have said. 

No board game have yet recreated the mess of the battlefield from the perspective of the general. When units have their own mind and sometimes don't do things you want them to do and vice versa. 

 

We tried and i think came close to that in UGG

that is why UGG was named Wargame of the year in 2014 by PCGamesN

and was indicted in the top 20 war-games of all time by PC Gamer

 

We have never thought of recreating Sid Meier's classic. It is another painting and copying other paintings is not what good artists do.

UGG was and is supposed to depict this. 

 

With all its flaws you can only get this feeling in our game. it is one of the best depictions of the ACW combat (to our opinion of course)

[ariete]

yes admin, it was already enough clear, i was just sharing infos about.

it would be to say, any reference about SMG is purely random, but through the years, i'm talking about ACW games, it seems the most similar, even if totally different, this is an indisputable certainty. maybe because no one until UGG tried to make something on that wave (= maybe a much accommodating term).

Edited October 17, 2016 by ariete

[Æthlstan]

I kinda agree with the OP.

 

Sid Meier's Gettysburg is probably still to this day the video game  I have spent the most hours playing. I've played it off and on for almost 20 years now.

 

I played UG once for each side and havent really touched it since.