UGCW Feedback v0.80

[resq350]

Wow - yeah. That cutting off the bottom of the maps so you can't even see or control your units - that is NOT good. Please go back to what was in place before this last patch for this feature.

[Admrose]

Aside from the previously mentioned lack of scenario text for Fort Stevens (shows up blank in the battle history and battle outcome screen) I've noticed that some of the officer's photos don't show up in the scenario.

[quicksabre]

I would love to see a reason to try to turn a victory into a decisive victory - if I have the enemy surrounded but the objectives fulfilled, right now the best thing to do is to, well, stop. I think I saw someone suggest getting extra reputation points for inflicting excessive casualties on the enemy, which I think would be a decent balance between giving an incentive to keep the pressure on but not wrecking the game's balance.

[The Soldier]

5 hours ago, Admrose said:

Aside from the previously mentioned lack of scenario text for Fort Stevens (shows up blank in the battle history and battle outcome screen) I've noticed that some of the officer's photos don't show up in the scenario.

That's a bug related to your save file from before this patch.  If you start a new campaign it should be fine.

[Bigjku]

5 hours ago, quicksabre said:

I would love to see a reason to try to turn a victory into a decisive victory - if I have the enemy surrounded but the objectives fulfilled, right now the best thing to do is to, well, stop. I think I saw someone suggest getting extra reputation points for inflicting excessive casualties on the enemy, which I think would be a decent balance between giving an incentive to keep the pressure on but not wrecking the game's balance.

I think this makes some sense.  Something is needed to give that incentive.  It will bring a final balance to the game.  The only catch I would add is that these bonus points should be able to be spent if they push you above the 100 cap.  I would just suggest that in general.  The player is forced to spend immediately to below that cap but doesn't just lose them.  It would make things simpler.

My preference on balancing this would be for you to get a next battle against an enemy who is noticeably inexperienced and shoddily equipped but very large as if they did a mass call up of militia to stem the tide.  But that may or may not work out.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

You are already incentivized to wipe out a damaged enemy: looting the weapons they drop as they fall on the field. 

Just like you are incentivized to wipe out every non-OOB unit on the field. If you're not taking them back to Camp with you, if they don't die, those troopers will carry their weapons back wherever they came from. And when they are carrying Spencers, or their equivalent; really, you don't want those? I"ll take 'em. 

 

 

[Bigjku]

With the caps on the weapons drops it doesn't (at least in the previous patch) make that huge of a difference in total weapons gotten.  Did that get changed?

[BerretBonden]

Make an option to rename my division commander. If the first division commander dies, the next one will carry the first commanders name on the battlefield when i combine my brigades.

[Wright29]

7 hours ago, Bigjku said:

With the caps on the weapons drops it doesn't (at least in the previous patch) make that huge of a difference in total weapons gotten.  Did that get changed?

Caps on weapons drop? 

Never experienced that. Legendary and Hard drop levels are very low but not capped. 

[Bigjku]

48 minutes ago, Wright29 said:

Caps on weapons drop? 

Never experienced that. Legendary and Hard drop levels are very low but not capped. 

I don't know that they are capped.  They just don't seem to scale.  I overran another 10-15k at Gettysburg and it didn't do much to move needle on captured compared to if I just stopped after day 3.

[Slaithium]

On 5/23/2017 at 10:37 AM, Nick Thomadis said:

The game's finalization is now playable with the latest patch!

Read the notes!

What else can we improve? Please let us know.

Things that must be improved on in my opinion:

I) The new smaller battles and the Washington Campaign need some serious adjustments in numbers and how fortifications work.

I-A) Fortifications need a massive re-think, because the absurdity, namely when you have 10-24 gun artillery pieces shooting ONE brigade behind a emplacement and does not move for 2.15 game minutes is beyond balance.

I-B) Continuing with the emplacements, to charge one unit with five of your own brigades that equate to 10x of that number is a issue. And push 10,000 men with 2,000... sense makes none.

II) It is pain-stakingly brutal and creates a auto-lose scenario once you reach Washington what it cost to win the other battles, which is a must to have enough manpower to go to Washington in the first place. So they can not be by-passed because 22k manpower each and 200k money each is hard to pass by for a final assault on the Union Capital. 

III) The battle of Washington itself is great in theory but if the south has punished them ( Like winning every battle, getting the "reduce" army size and equipment) they should not have that there. Because in my campaign alone they have already lost 750,000 (rounding up), which stands to reason they should not have access to that many men regardless of the theoretical population that is concluded in the game. What we have here is this, a) a debuff system that does not really matter because they will pump out what ever it wants, which feels like a cheat almost. b ) The AI is not really punished for losing and gets the last laugh at Washington because it still has 1863+ weapons and 2-3 stars if not all star vetted troops. c) To go to Washington with 5 Corps with 22k-30-k troops each summing up to about 135,000 men total just to get ground down is beyond frustrating to have 250 hours into a single game.

IV) Lastly, there is a major lag issue in the patch compared to the rest of the campaign. Everything has been good and challenging to this point, which leads to a ultimate disappointment for the conclusion of the game. 

[quicksabre]

18 hours ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

You are already incentivized to wipe out a damaged enemy: looting the weapons they drop as they fall on the field. 

Just like you are incentivized to wipe out every non-OOB unit on the field. If you're not taking them back to Camp with you, if they don't die, those troopers will carry their weapons back wherever they came from. And when they are carrying Spencers, or their equivalent; really, you don't want those? I"ll take 'em. 

The ratio of captured to recovered to lost weapons isn't clear enough for this to be a meaningful incentive for players who aren't familiar with the game, though. If it's going to cost me another 5k men to cut off and destroy 20k, is it worth it even without taking manpower into account? What if I do take manpower into account? How does that scale at different difficulty levels? Capturing prisoners has a clear and obvious bonus: It tells you that because you captured them you get bonus manpower. Equipment drops are a black box without additional research.

In addition to a reputation boost for inflicting casualties, I also wouldn't mind seeing a reputation hit for losing too many troops that aren't yours...

[Wright29]

9 hours ago, Slaithium said:

Things that must be improved on in my opinion:

I) The new smaller battles and the Washington Campaign need some serious adjustments in numbers and how fortifications work.

I-A) Fortifications need a massive re-think, because the absurdity, namely when you have 10-24 gun artillery pieces shooting ONE brigade behind a emplacement and does not move for 2.15 game minutes is beyond balance.

I-B) Continuing with the emplacements, to charge one unit with five of your own brigades that equate to 10x of that number is a issue. And push 10,000 men with 2,000... sense makes none.

II) It is pain-stakingly brutal and creates a auto-lose scenario once you reach Washington what it cost to win the other battles, which is a must to have enough manpower to go to Washington in the first place. So they can not be by-passed because 22k manpower each and 200k money each is hard to pass by for a final assault on the Union Capital. 

III) The battle of Washington itself is great in theory but if the south has punished them ( Like winning every battle, getting the "reduce" army size and equipment) they should not have that there. Because in my campaign alone they have already lost 750,000 (rounding up), which stands to reason they should not have access to that many men regardless of the theoretical population that is concluded in the game. What we have here is this, a) a debuff system that does not really matter because they will pump out what ever it wants, which feels like a cheat almost. b ) The AI is not really punished for losing and gets the last laugh at Washington because it still has 1863+ weapons and 2-3 stars if not all star vetted troops. c) To go to Washington with 5 Corps with 22k-30-k troops each summing up to about 135,000 men total just to get ground down is beyond frustrating to have 250 hours into a single game.

IV) Lastly, there is a major lag issue in the patch compared to the rest of the campaign. Everything has been good and challenging to this point, which leads to a ultimate disappointment for the conclusion of the game. 

The fortifications are intentionally very difficult to reflect the historical improvement in trenches that occurred in 1864-1865. 

Washington is definitely on the hard side, but in general this game is all about hammering home the realism that the Confederates were not meant to ever assault Washington with the Army of Northern Virginia. It's pretty brutal, but it should be difficult after an easy first two-thirds of the campaign (except malvern hill and antietam), much better recruits, and superior officers. 

In contrast, the Union campaign is incredibly difficult in the first half, but much easier after Stones River. 

[Col_Kelly]

2 hours ago, quicksabre said:

The ratio of captured to recovered to lost weapons isn't clear enough for this to be a meaningful incentive for players who aren't familiar with the game, though. If it's going to cost me another 5k men to cut off and destroy 20k, is it worth it even without taking manpower into account? What if I do take manpower into account? How does that scale at different difficulty levels? Capturing prisoners has a clear and obvious bonus: It tells you that because you captured them you get bonus manpower. Equipment drops are a black box without additional research.

In addition to a reputation boost for inflicting casualties, I also wouldn't mind seeing a reputation hit for losing too many troops that aren't yours...

It's a pretty clear ratio : 10 kills = 1 captured weapon on Hard. Couldn't say what these are on normal and easy but they are fixed numbers as well. You can compare the AI's casualties with the numbers of captured weapons to figure it out. Not obvious I agree but with a bit of math it's at everyone's reach.

[Wandering1]

BG is a 25% ratio. MG/Legendary is around 10% for kills to captured weapons (I'd have to check again, but I tend to think it's actually 12.5%, half of the BG drop rate).

Similarly, rescues are 50% on BG, while 25% on MG/Legendary if I were to recall.

Which should inform the user as to whether it is worth trading 4 Farmers Muskets to get 1 1855/1861/1863s, as 4:1 kill ratios are not exactly easy to pull off on every single map on MG/Legendary, if you're going for victories on every map.

[quicksabre]

2 hours ago, Col_Kelly said:

It's a pretty clear ratio : 10 kills = 1 captured weapon on Hard. Couldn't say what these are on normal and easy but they are fixed numbers as well. You can compare the AI's casualties with the numbers of captured weapons to figure it out. Not obvious I agree but with a bit of math it's at everyone's reach.

I didn't mean to imply it wasn't a defined ratio - I only meant it isn't clear to the player who isn't specifically looking for it, with which you seem to agree. The original purpose of this conversation was to point out that there isn't an incentive to destroy the enemy army if you've already won the battle. Andre Bolkonsky's argument that the incentive is the weapons loot doesn't work if the player doesn't know to look for it.

[The Soldier]

@quicksabre

It's pretty clear that killing more enemies rewards more loot. Anyone who looks through the casualty lists and notices that "huh, enemy casualties to my captured loot has a very suspicious ratio of four dead enemies to one weapon."  That's how I found out mid way though my first campaign.  Turned out I was right.

[quicksabre]

1 minute ago, The Soldier said:

@quicksabre

It's pretty clear that killing more enemies rewards more loot. Anyone who looks through the casualty lists and notices that "huh, enemy casualties to my captured loot has a very suspicious ratio of four dead enemies to one weapon."  That's how I found out mid way though my first campaign.  Turned out I was right.

I noticed as well, although not until after I'd let the ANV walk out of my trap at Antietam. Honestly, I probably would have anyway because my bottleneck was manpower not money, but it bugs me that it seemed like such an obvious choice to let Lee escape.

So in sum I'm not convinced there is enough incentive, or that the incentive there is has been made clear enough. But since everyone else seems to disagree with me I'll concede the point. Thanks for the discussion everyone.

[Fred Sanford]

What's weird too me about the 'drop' ratios is that you end up with armies that are ahistorically equipped with the other sides' service rifles.  It seems bass ackwards to have a Union Army armed with Fayettevilles/Enfields and the CSA with Springfield 1855/61s.

[Wandering1]

5 minutes ago, Fred Sanford said:

What's weird too me about the 'drop' ratios is that you end up with armies that are ahistorically equipped with the other sides' service rifles.  It seems bass ackwards to have a Union Army armed with Fayettevilles/Enfields and the CSA with Springfield 1855/61s.

So long as money and availability of guns is a constraint in the economy of the game, captured weapons are in general going to be much more valuable than buying your own equal-strength replacements. Not to mention that weapon scaling makes getting equal-strength replacements counter-productive; trading Farmers for 1855s and 1861s is, money-wise, better than trading Enfields for 1861s/1863s, simply total price sunk to get those weapons. (8 at Economy 10 to 32 versus 20ish to 38, in this particular instance)

If only because you can spend money on veterans, 24 pdrs, and cavalry Spencers than having to equip thousands of Fayettevilles/1861s.

[DethOKay]

1)I don't like the new map along the bottom.  Makes it very hard to see and control units.  Is that new?  I don't remember it being a problem before.

2) As others have mentioned I would like a way to combine veteran brigades without having to disband them completely.

3) I would like to see Chattanooga added as a major battle - between Chickamauga and the overland campaign.  There are several skirmishes to open a supply line to feed the trapped Union army including cavalry battles and a rare night battle.  I'd love to see Lookout Mountain modeled in game.

4) I would like to see more skirmish-level battles in general

[vren55]

So... I've finished the Union Campaign. I've since given up on my Confederate one b/c defending Washington with my army as it stands = impossible.

My thoughts...

B/c I finished my Union campaign across various different patches, my thoughts and feelings reflect this.

1. I had fun. I think the rewards might have needed to be tweaked here and there, but union had decent rewards and the difficulty always got better, but never in an unmanageable manner.

2. I liked how every Grand Battle I found difficult, though in different ways. It made me struggle and made me experiment with my army.

3. I did like the arms... but I think the price ought to be tweaked. I was forced to use a lot of 1855 Springfields when the majority of the Union army at the end of the war should be using 1863 springfields. 

4. Reconaissance is STILL very useless. I've gone the entire campaign except for the Richmond part with no skillpoints in reconaissance and I have had no difficulty in fighting my battles

5. The normal trench fortifications I had to face in Richmond and other battles such as Fredericksburg were alright. What I didn't like was Richmond itself.

6. Don't get me wrong. I liked Richmond and it's a fitting end to the battle, but the star forts... they're kinda weird especially when I get right behind a fort and start shooting at it... but nothing routs. That I find annoying. Moreover, the entire Richmond Assault is very much one gigantic slog... reflective of wartime conditions mind you, but I wish it could be a little more inventive. I basically found myself rinse and repeating assault columns a lot. 

Then again, it's a hypothetical battle. 

So all in all, i liked the Union campaign... certain minor battles like the Parker's field/farm one do need to be tweaked due to ridiculous confederate advantage, but overall the grand battles work. I liked building my army.

I would have liked to see on the Grand Campaign ending screen which brigades got the most kills/performed the best out of the entire campaign, or lost the most men.

But yeah, this game was definitely worth my money, will be revisiting it eventually... when I have more time lol

 

Edited May 27, 2017 by vren55

[Bigjku]

With all the assaulting we have to do it would be massively helpful to have the ability to automatically organize divisions into columns automatically.  I spend gobs of time organizing my divisions for assaults in the fortification heavy battles.  The controls are so intuitive thru Chattanooga where most actions are in line.  Things get very clunky on the offensive in the last few battles.

[Col_Kelly]

13 hours ago, vren55 said:

3. I did like the arms... but I think the price ought to be tweaked. I was forced to use a lot of 1955 Springfields when the majority of the Union army at the end of the war should be using 1963 springfields. 

Springfield rifles were still a thing after WW2 ? Interesting

[A. P. Hill]

Yep, Springfield was definitely still in the arms industry during WW2.