Impression of the game, suggestions

[BernardBlack]

Hello Everyone i wanted to give some feedback on the game as i played it until now.

I got the game after seeing it on Izolates Stream and remembering that i got the UG:G on a Sale, but never really got into it. I have still only 26min in UG:G but i now have 34 hours in UG:CW, finished the Union Campaign on Normal now, after restarting a couple of times to get a feel for the mechanics.

I enjoy the core gameplay of finding the best terrain and positioning for my brigades to gain an advantage to beat the enemy. I also enjoy building up my army and individualising my brigades to create a versatile and effective force. So both these aspects together made the game very enjoyable for me. My overall impression is very solid and i like the game so far. It has however some flaws as i see them.

The Career progression skills seem to need some work. Training, Economy and Politics are straightforward but seem a bit uninteresting. It would be nice if they offered some unique boons at certain levels to differentiate the playstyle For example: 

With increasing politics skill, you could get more and more diverse things from the politics tab where you spend your influence

With increasing economy skill you not only get cheaper weapons but a wider range and a more ample stock in the store.

WIth increasing training skill you gain access to some unique Skill Choices for you brigades or increase combat effectiveness overall.

I very much enjoy the Medicine skill because its payoff is not really linear, well it is but it scales with your losses which are dependent on your performance and not on flat numbers like politics, economy or training. Medicine seem to be much better to have at big battles, where you get lots of troops and a lot of losses. I haven't run the numbers but i found myself constantly wondering if this skill is worth it other the others and i think thats good design. Having clear choices is not a good design which brings me to my next point

Reconaissance: Seems to me not worth it at all. I just dont see the actual advantage i get in the field by taking this skill. Yea knowing how much the enemy has is nice but it doesnt really help me where as all other skills do. This skill should either effect my brigades in some way, like increasing their spotting or it should get me informations about the enemy position and strength during the battle which i could actually use against him. I havent ever skilled this above 3 so feel free to correct me if there is an advantage at higher levels that is worth it, right now i dont see it.

Army Org: Is a must have for at least lvl 5 which is a problem because you need to have bigger troops to perform at the fights. It increases the amount of brigades as well as the size of the brigades which i think doesnt make it an interesting choice. It would be nice if i have to make choice if i want to field lots of smaller brigades and win by outmanouvering or fewer bigger brigades and try to win by overwhelming power or any mixture of the 2. So splitting it up into 2 skills could be nice to make the game more interesting and allow for different ways to build your army in multiple campaign playthroughs.

Right now due to the limitations on how much brigades i can field in a battle i always want bigger core brigades which allow me to bring more men into the fight.

Logistics is also something that seems to be made obsolete by buying as much a supply as possible and getting used to letting your supply wagon circulate.

Another problem is that the bigger parts of the army are only used in the bigger battles. I play 2 or 3 battles with 3 to 9 core brigades which i develop until i get to a bigger battle. During this time i dump my excess manpower and money into a 2nd and 3 corps which i hardly play with at all and have no connection to. In a great battle i suddenly have these 2 dozens fresh brigades with no distinction which i throw at the enemy with not regard to their performance to spare my core brigades. It takes away from the enjoyment of army building that i dump my resources in throw-away-brigades. I should care about them and how well they do, they also dont get any chance to develop to a decent level because of how little action they see.

The Customization of Brigades is great and i would like to see it extended. It would be nice to specialize brigades a bit more for Charges maybe, but without having to give the the worst weapons in the game. In general allow me to define a role for a brigade and use the skills and equipment to build strength and weaknesses according to that. Yes the game allows it but it feel not clearly and consistently enough.

Another reason for this is the scarcity and price of special equipment. I wanted to try out a certain type of cannon (the long range, expensive ones, starting with W, cant quite recall) and there were only 3 of them in store the whole time. But the game requires 4 of them to start a brigade, so i never could use them. Maybe i am missing something but when you offer choices in the game they should be viable and attainable.

On the Battle part i mainly have to criticise the fiddly controls. Sometimes i couldnt get my brigades to do what i wanted them to do, either not shooting but going into melee or the other way around. (Skirmishers going into melee is infuriating, especially as i couldnt stop them) So allowing me a tighter control of my brigades would be nice.

Thats it from me for now. Please dont mistake my criticism as a trashing of the game, i enjoy it very much and i put effort into my feedback because i hope for it to become better. It will rest for now till the next update which seems to be soon 

Regards

[Lincolns Mullet]

Great feedback and some novel suggestions with the skill tree. Very constructive!

[Sandermatt]

I like it in general, but I think it would be bad to make training unlock unique skills. SInce by this time you would probably already have skilled your initial units in a suboptimal way, which would be a shame.

[Koro]

Yes, nice feedback here.

I tend to avoid the medicine skill since it requires you to lose men in order for it to have a purpose and my goal is to avoid that :). I suppose it's like buying an insurance though, which I don't have IRL either except for accidents.

I would also like some adjustments to be made so bigger isn't always better but to allow different types of armies to exist, some made of smaller brigades but currently bigger is better and since the AI brigades tend to be large, you must fight fire with fire.

Something to note on the availability of guns and cannons in the armory, is that they will be reset after each grand battle. So if you want a specific type of cannon, you might have to buy it in advance and save up for it for the next campaign stage. Your choice if it's worth the investment then :).

In the side missions I think it would make for more interesting fights too if you had to lock down your divisions perhaps in advance and then fight the battles instead of moving around 6-12 corps brigades that always fights each battle and then makes it to the frontlines of the grand battle too. It's a little immersive breaking too and it leaves your other troops out of the thick of everything.

I have previously suggested a system where those troops you use in the side missions are the ones coming in as reinforcements to the grand battles, giving some sort of relationship besides grinding for men - in the future you'll also affect the grand battles here but with this mechanic in place, it would be more interesting and actually force the player to make some strategic decisions with his army. Which troops go in first etc. and which do I want at the grand battle.

[BernardBlack]

Thx for all the nice words,

 

3 hours ago, Sandermatt said:

I like it in general, but I think it would be bad to make training unlock unique skills. SInce by this time you would probably already have skilled your initial units in a suboptimal way, which would be a shame.

I can see that, its just something i thought of the top of my head, not necessarily the holy grail. The main idea is that the skills do something different than flat bonusses.

 

3 hours ago, Koro said:

I tend to avoid the medicine skill since it requires you to lose men in order for it to have a purpose and my goal is to avoid that :). I suppose it's like buying an insurance though, which I don't have IRL either except for accidents.

I understand what you mean but medicine saves men, weapons and training, basicly giving you benefits of politics, economy and training skill. I dont want to argue that it is better, since i dont know and its heavily dependent on the battle and your losses. Its just that not being clear which skill is better is a good thing and i would like to see more tough choices in the skill progression.

 

3 hours ago, Koro said:

Something to note on the availability of guns and cannons in the armory, is that they will be reset after each grand battle. So if you want a specific type of cannon, you might have to buy it in advance and save up for it for the next campaign stage. Your choice if it's worth the investment then

That is interesting, i did not know that. Seems like a peculiar design choice since my first impulse is to use my money for something that will actually help me in the next battle. It should certainly be clearer that you have to stockpile the more rare equipment if you want to use it in meaningful quantities. Not so sure about it for now.

 

But thanks for the kind words to all of you, i will be back with more feedback, when i get around to play with the new patch i guess

Regards

[Hitorishizuka]

2 hours ago, BernardBlack said:

I understand what you mean but medicine saves men, weapons and training, basicly giving you benefits of politics, economy and training skill. I dont want to argue that it is better, since i dont know and its heavily dependent on the battle and your losses. Its just that not being clear which skill is better is a good thing and i would like to see more tough choices in the skill progression.

Medicine is underrated. You have to equate its value against both the cost of the Veterans to keep the unit at a certain strength at the cost of the guns you would have needed to buy. The best way to use it is to buy brigades one time as max size bulletcatchers and as they gain experience convert them to regulars and iron brigades as appropriate. This way you only spending Veteran money to keep your Iron brigades around at minimum strength.

2 hours ago, BernardBlack said:

That is interesting, i did not know that. Seems like a peculiar design choice since my first impulse is to use my money for something that will actually help me in the next battle. It should certainly be clearer that you have to stockpile the more rare equipment if you want to use it in meaningful quantities. Not so sure about it for now.

Agreed, it's nonintuitive. Would seem to make more sense that the shop stock is increased from previous values, not reset.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Hitorishizuka

[Koro]

A developer told me that "rats and competitors take their toll on the stock". Take that as you will but that's how I've viewed it since then