UGCW Feedack v0.74

[Nox165]

Bug report: histrocal battle of shiloh generals dont have names.

[waldopbarnstormer]

I have noticed in a few battles like Iuka and antietam in my current union campaign that if you attack from an unexpected direction the ai doesn't adjust position to defend itself properly. For example I have just finished playing the Iuka battle and I sent 4 brigades around the csa left flank and apart from two cavalry brigades that were easily defeated the ai let me move all 4 brigades behind their defences and come down on the VP. They were firing at me but they stayed in their fortifications. I managed to rout two brigades but once they had recovered morale they just tried to come back to their old positions. I will try to play it again and take a screenshot.

A similar thing happened at antietam. I routed Stuart's cavalry on nicodemus hill and sent a few brigades around the csa left. They encountered some opposition when trying to move on dunker church but I had one brigade and some cavalry make it all the way to the sharpburg VP without any resistance and they held it for the rest of the battle. Once I had clear visibility I could see the ai had stacks of reserves behind the sunken lane and was making a real fight for it but made no attempt to try and retake sharpsburg and left only one brigade to defend Burnside bridge so it was easy to get across. I will play again to try to reproduce the result.

It has happened to me also at Shiloh were I captured all 3 VPs on the second day by moving along the river side of the map and surrounding the ai and it didn't try to retake them.

I think the ai should work harder to prevent itself from being surrounded as it can be used by the player to get easy kills and captures boosting xp and weapons.

Edited January 19, 2017 by waldopbarnstormer

[Hitorishizuka]

Only one side being allowed to man fortifications is still pretty frustrating, especially given certain kinds that really would have provided cover from both sides. It's also really gamey to rush a unit forward to man the fortifications, even if an enemy unit is sitting on top, and get the melee and cover bonus from doing so.

Pushed forward hard on Day 1 of Chancellorsville as Union and dug in around the western VP. Was mostly okay in terms of losses, even if not ideal given the numbers involved, except for one time when a unit got pushed back because the AI did the above in that forest clump and I had to charge in cavalry to push them back out and reclaim that section of forest.

(Managed to inflict 10k casualties and wipe two batteries and removed 6k more troops as shattered in exchange for 6k casualties and some minor battery damage on Day 1. Sheesh, CSA really brought the house on that one. Not my best ratio but given the force disparity involved I'll take it. My combined 3rd Division of supervets inflicted something like 5k casualties on their own while taking about 1k in trade.)

[Mr. Mercanto]

On the subject of fortifications, I think they are still far to weak, and that forests have an anachronistically limited effect on the firing capacity of men occupying them. I generally find that I eschew historically accurate defensive positions in order to take cover behind trees. Since the dense forest doesn't seem to negatively impact my men's return fire, provide far better cover then the fortifications, it seems ridiculous not to use them. 

Furthermore, fortifications spread brigades to thin, and make it inevitable that they have to fight two or even three enemy brigades, rather then one. this makes fortifications practically a death trap rather then the formidable advantage they actually were. 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

10 hours ago, RobWheat61 said:

Did you expect anything less from the Stonewall Brigade? Sadly, Paxton died at Chancellorsville.

Fair enough. 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

3 hours ago, Mr. Mercanto said:

On the subject of fortifications, I think they are still far to weak, and that forests have an anachronistically limited effect on the firing capacity of men occupying them. I generally find that I eschew historically accurate defensive positions in order to take cover behind trees. Since the dense forest doesn't seem to negatively impact my men's return fire, provide far better cover then the fortifications, it seems ridiculous not to use them. 

Furthermore, fortifications spread brigades to thin, and make it inevitable that they have to fight two or even three enemy brigades, rather then one. this makes fortifications practically a death trap rather then the formidable advantage they actually were. 

Yes. Some of the more massive pre-built forts require two brigades to man effectively, and I hvan't figured out how to buld a 5,000 man brigade yet. But I keep hoping!

[P*Funk]

Having just come from playing UGG the controls in UGC are rather disappointing. Clicking to select and move units is far twitchier than in UGG and I find myself pausing the game just to give orders to large groups of units so that I don't inadvertently tell a unit that's engaged on a line to start marching when I meant the unit next to it to do that and so forth. I also find the twitchy controls have lead me to not use the feature of drawing the path for unit advances most of the time. I just right click instead because its far easier.

In a multiplayer game this would be really frustrating when you can't just pause.

[Hitorishizuka]

I'm not saying that allowing spending between days on Chancellorsville was a mistake, but I am maybe saying that post Day 2 I think I've spent something like $400k putting my army back in shape. Cavalry is way too goddamn expensive but it's the only thing killing those incredibly dumb 3 star 100 in all stat skirmisher brigades so I can't really skimp.

[CaptainKanundrum]

9 hours ago, P*Funk said:

Having just come from playing UGG the controls in UGC are rather disappointing. Clicking to select and move units is far twitchier than in UGG and I find myself pausing the game just to give orders to large groups of units so that I don't inadvertently tell a unit that's engaged on a line to start marching when I meant the unit next to it to do that and so forth. I also find the twitchy controls have lead me to not use the feature of drawing the path for unit advances most of the time. I just right click instead because its far easier.

In a multiplayer game this would be really frustrating when you can't just pause.

I think that the "hit box" for selecting units is too small or I just can't find it accurately enough in this game. Often I will right-click to attack an enemy unit but I actually just ordered my brigade to move really really close to the enemy instead. The other annoying behavior is that instead of moving my unit I accident use the drag and select tool.

[Wandering1]

9 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

I'm not saying that allowing spending between days on Chancellorsville was a mistake, but I am maybe saying that post Day 2 I think I've spent something like $400k putting my army back in shape. Cavalry is way too goddamn expensive but it's the only thing killing those incredibly dumb 3 star 100 in all stat skirmisher brigades so I can't really skimp.

The price of being able to wipe out an entire army, and not get rewarded for it (on hard or legendary) can get pretty steep.

[Hitorishizuka]

17 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

The price of being able to wipe out an entire army, and not get rewarded for it (on hard or legendary) can get pretty steep.

I'm not even sure I'm about to get rewarded for it on normal unless I capture a boatload of 1861s. I would've been far better off just turtling probably.

What's interesting, at least, is that it's starting to get harder to raise up new Union units because their morale is garbo and the enemy artillery is finally good enough that trees at close range aren't safe any more. They take a couple volleys and just break.

[Wandering1]

 

35 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

I'm not even sure I'm about to get rewarded for it on normal unless I capture a boatload of 1861s. I would've been far better off just turtling probably.

What's interesting, at least, is that it's starting to get harder to raise up new Union units because their morale is garbo and the enemy artillery is finally good enough that trees at close range aren't safe any more. They take a couple volleys and just break.

My max-size run of Chancellorsville, they didn't have 1861s. Just gave me a boatload of 1855s. 

I sunk about $400k reinforcing cavalry squads between days. Didn't bother reinforcing my infantry, because I had plenty of spare brigades to throw at the problem that needed experience anyways.

[ross42899]

23 hours ago, Nox165 said:

Bug report: histrocal battle of shiloh generals dont have names.

Yes I can confirm this. also in battle of Antietam the commander of the IX Corps is called "IX Corps" instead of "Burnside" and the Commander of XII Corps is called "Burnside" instead of "Mansfield".

[DummyCharacter]

Skirmishers don't work with hold button most time and they not holding when this damn button work.

They also not shoot at closest enemy in range. Only shoot after manual selection target

[Slaithium]

Couple of things while doing playing the game.

A) There is a lighting issue with the new battles that were not there during the others. It is very dark and makes the visual field not very crisp compared to the others. I have tried adjusting my monitor and in game options to compensate for this. It has not faired well at all, so I am assume it is a in game thing.

B: There seems to be either B1) Not enough time B2) a balance issue across all difficulties for the new battles. It is extremely awkward, for example, to push the union line and turn in on Stones River and Chancellorsville and achieve the objectives on the first day and even the second. Attacking 3 to 1 as confederates is steep. I am not sure what the intent was or the simulation intent was, makes the battles not worth fighting because how much the losses are. Now that makes sense for Stone Rivers but for Chancellorsville was a heavy one sided victory for the confederates. So I dont know.  The battles are unwinnable on the new legendary difficulty as a side note.

C: I look at other posts and do no see how it is possible for some of these numbers unless they are the lowest difficulty. Playing on Hard mode my army averages about 35k-50k men on legendary about 27K-37K which is to be expected, so seeing I have about 80k troops on those difficulties is hard to conceive unless they have mastered a way to keep those numbers high with some tactic of trick.

Thanks.

 

[waldopbarnstormer]

I have noticed problems when drawing out a selection box over units that even though the unit is wholly within the box its icon is not highlighted. This is really frustrating when trying to give orders to a group of units. I have also encountered problems when trying to draw a path for a unit. For example I will select a unit of artillery and then hold down the mouse to draw a path, but instead I just get a selection box. It seems the detection box for some units is very small.

[Hitorishizuka]

Bug reported it, but posting anyway. As I've described in previous posts, I took the opportunity to replenish units mid-battle between days on the Camp screen. This screws up the game's tracking of casualties accurately (as well as not reflecting the proper # of men I really ended up bringing).

Obviously(?) I did not lose only 4500 men to inflict that many casualties, that is silly. I probably lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 13k + 1500 cavalry + 4 guns.

As a related bug, combining divisions screws up accounting for kills on individual units as well (I finally managed to figure out how to combine 3+ brigades derp, but it's still a bit finicky sometimes). The kills are tracked on the division level and not evenly split to the brigades, so at the end you'll have a bunch of 0 kill/X loss troops.

Oh, and since it came up, for the record min-size I captured a bunch of CS Richmonds post battle, not 1861s.

 

 

[waldopbarnstormer]

I think there should be a feature added to allow artillery to bombard ground so that you can attack units that are hidden by FOG of war but are in range/los. I just came from playing Fredericksburg and my union artillery was demolished in an artillery duel by the csa guns on maryes heights. I think I lost 3-4 whole brigades of artillery. One major problem was that they could see me  but I couldn't see them and I had to keep sending forward skirmishers to remove the fog to allow me to target the guns, but after a while the skirmishers would retreat and my guns would stop firing. I would then have to keep repeating the process. Having an attack ground option would at least reduce the micro management.

On Fredericksburg I have read the earlier posts about how buffed the fortifications are but I just didn't believe it until I experienced it for myself. 5  brigades all suffered 5-600 casualties attacking the infantry brigade in the southernmost trench on marye's heights before I gave up and tried the northern flank. Even then it took multiple assaults and 5-6 brigades to dislodge the defenders. It is a not funny joke when 400 rebels fight off a veteran 2000 man brigade in melee. I managed to drive them out and establish a foothold and took out another 3 brigades by the end but I suffered +3000 casualties, and it is so frustrating to see the defenders survive even when you are behind their fortifications and shooting them in the back. I won in the end but lost 27000 to 21000.

I know historically Fredericksburg was a slaughter for the union but that was partly down to poor coordination between the attack waves and the failure to support breakthrough, and a reluctance to follow Burnside's orders by subordinates. The artificial super buff of the stone wall makes the defenders almost invulnerable even to well planned attacks that would work on any other battle. Please make the defence buffs more realistic.

Edited January 21, 2017 by waldopbarnstormer
Spelling

[waldopbarnstormer]

On a separate topic can we have the ability to disband divisions please. After my heavy losses at Fredericksburg I disbanded or merged a lot of brigades to fill up my 1st corps and I am now left with 4 empty divisions in my 3rd and 4th corps with no brigades but still with a division commander. I swapped out my generals for colonels but it is still frustrating to have 4 colonels tied up.

[Aetius]

The Union Distress Call scenario on Legendary Difficulty is too difficult - it's beyond legendarily hard, and into absurd territory. It's the second scenario in the campaign, and the scenario-provided units are a couple skirmishers, a weak skirmisher cavalry unit, and two under-strength infantry brigades. Even if you were able to bring every possible man, you're heavily outnumbered ... and the Confederates receive not one but two overstrength shock cavalry units (850 men), which just destroy your brigades one by one in charges that you can't stop. There's no other scenario that I've seen so far where their cavalry gets such huge buffs. Those units need to be dialed down to perhaps 500 men.

[Aetius]

Also, can we please have more control - or at least warning - about how and where units get deployed. I received an unpleasant surprise during my Legendary Union run at Shiloh when my artillery division was deployed to the Union left all by themselves. The game appears to be making an assumption about how divisions are constituted sometimes, and doesn't tell you that half or more of your brigades won't be initially deployed.

[Hitorishizuka]

46 minutes ago, Aetius said:

Also, can we please have more control - or at least warning - about how and where units get deployed. I received an unpleasant surprise during my Legendary Union run at Shiloh when my artillery division was deployed to the Union left all by themselves. The game appears to be making an assumption about how divisions are constituted sometimes, and doesn't tell you that half or more of your brigades won't be initially deployed.

Unfortunately, this is why people have recommended to use mixed composition for divisions, not pure ones. Mind, it's a problem all over, and one you should see at lower difficulties first before playing Legendary. ;X

[Wandering1]

2 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Unfortunately, this is why people have recommended to use mixed composition for divisions, not pure ones. Mind, it's a problem all over, and one you should see at lower difficulties first before playing Legendary. ;X

And alas, because it's actually a bit predictable after you see it the first time for a particular map, it just means you have to do tedious brigade jenga in the camp to get the optimal deployment that you want.

[Hitorishizuka]

5 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

And alas, because it's actually a bit predictable after you see it the first time for a particular map, it just means you have to do tedious brigade jenga in the camp to get the optimal deployment that you want.

Also important to know when you're given a full Corps worth of deployment but in practicality you should win before they ever hit the field. CSA on Gaines Mill, for example, don't deploy more than one Division on the right and 2.5 Divisions on the left.

[Wandering1]

1 minute ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Also important to know when you're given a full Corps worth of deployment but in practicality you should win before they ever hit the field. CSA on Gaines Mill, for example, don't deploy more than one Division on the right and 2.5 Divisions on the left.

Always kinda bugged me that it claims you're granted four full divisions for the right, but in reality, you only have time to fight with the two that come out.