game play

[gpbball09]

Hey Game-lab guys,

Loving the game, i've played it probably 75 to 100 hours of battles.  So here goes with questions that I can't seem locate, or doesn't seem to work correctly (or maybe you can just educate me)

CONCERNS:

So, not sure there's a great benefit for some of the Career Points usage.  I agree that the size of the Corps and brigades helps a bunch, as well as politics, veteran cost reductions, weapon reductions.  I've not seen any real benefit of the Recon points.  

The fix for allowing troops to be reduced in the long term should be available for all the levels not just easy.  Here's why.  During the war there were several calls for DRAFTS and that had major positive or negative impacts to the politics, and supplies (manpower, etc) for the groups.  To fight a great battle and then have to go right back up against a group that is at a normal strength for a major battle...kind of ridiculous.

When we get a unit routing and/or they totally disband (but not when they become prisoners) there doesn't seem to be any big "spoils" when you get done with the battle, it would seem that if they just gave up and disbanded that there would be HUGE guns, supplies, etc.  however, at the end of the battle it only shows a few weapons that get captured, and only a decent amount 'rescued'...this should be a lot more.  In 2nd Bull Run as Rebels I had all the Union totally surrounded and had every enemy unit disband or get captured with the exception of like 10-12 units.  And did NOT get HUGE stashes of weapons due to those surrenders or disbanding.

During battles units seem to just disband, and while this is okay, it should just surrender a lot more often than just disband.  Also, at the end of the battle when you get the message about recruits for prisoners, seem very unrealistic.  I have had 3-5,000 prisoners and gotten a 1000 recruits...maybe a fix would be let you keep them and then trade at a later time.

Another thing is you've got to give SOME ability to determine distances.  Here's why...when the receptacle only shows some general number (also, I can't find ANYWHERE what this distance is), and it doesn't grow with the type of weapon the unit has, it's almost impossible to determine how far to have my units before attacking.  I've had units with scoped sniper guns, and they get destroyed because they get too close.  Maybe the FIX should be that when you target the enemy unit, maybe the distance should show up, not just the Red and yellow lines.  I can't tell you how many times i've had guys in the woods, waiting to attack, but when I check to see the distance it just wants move out into the open, and i have to halt them.  there needs to be something that tells you the distance to help judge.

Lastly, there's got to be a way to put 'labels' on the battlefields.  One of the great reasons I love your game is that it allows you to fight the Civil War over again.  However, since many of your fans probably know all about battles like Gettysburg, they may not on the other engagements.  Put some labels on the battle map, like Henry House, Peach Orchard, and other major parts of the battlefield.  This is especially true on ones like Chickamunga where it was a bunch of woods and bridges, and you're trying to understand where your units are.  Right now the only way is to know about the objective marker.  It would help you better understand the history, especially if users go and try and read up on the battles.

Multiple times I tried to use the F11 key to send files to you...but it constantly says feedback not able to be sent.  I'm doing something wrong?

NEED HELP/CAN'T MAKE WORK

In the UCW:Getty game you had 2 features that I can't seem to find at all or make work correctly.  

The M key allowed you to see the elevations that were around your troops.  It doesn't seem to work now.  there's no way to "turn it on".  Many posts on the blogs/guides indicate the you should put your troops on elevated areas.  I can't seem to see how I visually see any marks.

Additionally, you used to be allowed to create a box around a group of units, and then with a mouse click and a drag, you could move all those units as 1 movement group.  I also showed your units FACING direction as you drug them along to the end point/mouse button release.  NOW what happens is that when you have a group of units selected and you try and drag them, it just creates a 'white' line, and the units all change their facing...what am I doing wrong.

Thanks for making some Great games, and hope this feedback can make it even better.  Keep up the GREAT work, can't wait until you deliver more.  Please let me know what I'm doing wrong on the couple of things that used to work in the UG:Getty...thx. Greg

 

 

 

 

[Wright29]

3 hours ago, gpbball09 said:

The fix for allowing troops to be reduced in the long term should be available for all the levels not just easy.  Here's why.  During the war there were several calls for DRAFTS and that had major positive or negative impacts to the politics, and supplies (manpower, etc) for the groups.  To fight a great battle and then have to go right back up against a group that is at a normal strength for a major battle...kind of ridiculous.

You really have to think of this game like it's full of campaign missions, not an actual war. In 1st person shooter games and RTS games, the number of enemies in the next mission doesn't depend on how many kills you achieved in a previous mission. I know that can be frustrating- I had a campaign where I captured Barksdale four times. Stop doing prisoner exchange for him!

3 hours ago, gpbball09 said:

During battles units seem to just disband, and while this is okay, it should just surrender a lot more often than just disband.  Also, at the end of the battle when you get the message about recruits for prisoners, seem very unrealistic.  I have had 3-5,000 prisoners and gotten a 1000 recruits...maybe a fix would be let you keep them and then trade at a later time.

This is a game balancing problem. Players were farming surrendered troops and getting disproportionate rewards that threw off the whole economics of the game. Same deal with weapons. Players didn't need to buy many guns, reducing the importance of money. 

 

3 hours ago, gpbball09 said:

Another thing is you've got to give SOME ability to determine distances.  Here's why...when the receptacle only shows some general number (also, I can't find ANYWHERE what this distance is), and it doesn't grow with the type of weapon the unit has, it's almost impossible to determine how far to have my units before attacking.  I've had units with scoped sniper guns, and they get destroyed because they get too close.  Maybe the FIX should be that when you target the enemy unit, maybe the distance should show up, not just the Red and yellow lines.  I can't tell you how many times i've had guys in the woods, waiting to attack, but when I check to see the distance it just wants move out into the open, and i have to halt them.  there needs to be something that tells you the distance to help judge.

The "general" distance is marked by the arc. For line infantry, it's all the same arc. Guns with better accuracy and effective range will hit targets more often on the edge of the arc. Guns with short effective range will need to be closer to the targets in order to achieve the same effect. 
I'm not 100% sure the problem you've had with attacking. But if you right click an enemy, your unit will travel the shortest distance to get the enemy in your arc. 

3 hours ago, gpbball09 said:

Lastly, there's got to be a way to put 'labels' on the battlefields.  One of the great reasons I love your game is that it allows you to fight the Civil War over again.  However, since many of your fans probably know all about battles like Gettysburg, they may not on the other engagements.  Put some labels on the battle map, like Henry House, Peach Orchard, and other major parts of the battlefield.  This is especially true on ones like Chickamunga where it was a bunch of woods and bridges, and you're trying to understand where your units are.  Right now the only way is to know about the objective marker.  It would help you better understand the history, especially if users go and try and read up on the battles.

I'm not sure what the devs have to say about this. But my personal opinion is that they screen would be "busy" in the large battles. On those hills and landmarks there are already tons of soldiers, cannons, smoke, unit markers, etc. To have more words on there would make it confusing. It would also take a very long time for them to implement this on maps. For UGG, they had to do a single big map. This is a much bigger scale game and I'd rather have it out sooner than have some labels on the map. 

Concordantly, the hope is that you can tell where hills are merely by looking at the terrain. The "M" function in UGG made the game look like a 90's game. Useful as it was, it's not desirable. You can see diferent views by using the button by the mini-map. Hopefully you can see the hills from there. 

4 hours ago, gpbball09 said:

Additionally, you used to be allowed to create a box around a group of units, and then with a mouse click and a drag, you could move all those units as 1 movement group.  I also showed your units FACING direction as you drug them along to the end point/mouse button release.  NOW what happens is that when you have a group of units selected and you try and drag them, it just creates a 'white' line, and the units all change their facing...what am I doing wrong.

UGG had no simple right-click movement and drawing circles around units was much less efficient that dragging a box. The only thing missing is the ability to drag whole groups of units in order to due wide turning movements en masse (where going in a straight line might not be ideal/ possible). Drawing the line from left to right will have your units face a direction al together. It's useful because you can curve that line to fit the terrain. Alternatively just right-click to generally send your group towards a point and work out the fine details when they arrive. 

Hope some of these answers help! 

[Fred Sanford]

Re: map labels- maps are re-used for different battles, so the labels would be incorrect for some battles.

[gpbball09]

Thanks for the response, not following the "draw a line/facing of the units selected'...in the UGG game when you selected multiple units and drug them as one to a destination or clicked on a location you'd get all your red lines and the green facing of the brigades and so you could move a whole division some where pretty easily, so is there not a way to select units and pull them back.  Seems like an enhancement would be great, where you could feint an attack, then multi select the units, and all at once give them a fall back a command, right now you have to do it one at a time, and you've got to pause, as you can't do it quick enough not to get units mangled.  

[CaptainKanundrum]

As Wright29 said the capturing of weapons and prisoners is done for balancing, which i think was a good decision made by devs.

I do think that having labels on the maps is important, both for giving players the feeling of learning the famous battlefields as well as for gameplay, in that I too have not always been sure which objective point was which. This has been mostly true in Chickamauga, but also for Shiloh and a few others. Once I played the battle twice I didn't need the reminder, but I should have easily known the first time.

15 hours ago, Fred Sanford said:

Re: map labels- maps are re-used for different battles, so the labels would be incorrect for some battles.

Surely for at least the objectives they could use unique map sections. I don't know the battlefields well, so I don't know how many important places there are, but I think a balance could be reached where they put the time and effort into making some* of the labels by creating unique terrain.

 

On 3/10/2017 at 11:52 PM, gpbball09 said:

Another thing is you've got to give SOME ability to determine distances.  Here's why...when the receptacle only shows some general number (also, I can't find ANYWHERE what this distance is), and it doesn't grow with the type of weapon the unit has, it's almost impossible to determine how far to have my units before attacking.  I've had units with scoped sniper guns, and they get destroyed because they get too close.  Maybe the FIX should be that when you target the enemy unit, maybe the distance should show up, not just the Red and yellow lines.  I can't tell you how many times i've had guys in the woods, waiting to attack, but when I check to see the distance it just wants move out into the open, and i have to halt them.  there needs to be something that tells you the distance to help judge.

I have also found that sometimes the unit is able to shoot further than the drawn arc, or that they need to be closer. I am not sure how the height of the units or fortifications affects range, but the cones don't always show the accurate distance that a unit can fire. I often micro manage my units or give them hold commands to ensure that they don't leave cover to attack. It has also been suggested by others before to make these cones more visible.