Its a funny old world.

[Ironclad]

After trying Ultimate General Gettysburg once again and its new and impressive sequel in early access, I have confirmed what I have always known since Total War days - real time games, especially tactical ones, no matter how good are not for me. BaB seemed to offer the ideal alternative - a innovative game system from a trusted team that was turn based and would cover all the great battles of the Civil War.

Given where we are with BaB and the improbability of it living up to that dream of coverage I have been searching around for alternatives - hence the recourse to trying out UGG, the new UGCW and SOW (where the controls defeat me everytime). After all these years of avoiding Tiller games for a variety of reasons, I have finally accepted that a decades old design with admittedly a large player base of committed wargamers is my best hope for some decent pbem tactical ACW games in the future. Accordingly I have now got the Battleground set in the Xmas sale and even shelled out for his Campaign Gettysburg. A funny old world indeed. [&:]

[zakblood]

i've always stayed or tried to away from RTS, never liked it, and maybe never will, don't either have the skills and speed needed, or the reaction times and brains, give me turn time every time, so i can play it at my own pace, but each to there own, i've tried a few of above, but like you don't like or couldn't get on with one thing or another so keep searching for the perfect answer, but like you as yet not seen one that does it all.

BAB does most i'd like from it, but without a map editor to easy mod my own, or alter stuff at will, it's not perfect either, and like others here i'd also like more battles, and yesterday or last year would have been nice, but like everything in life now days, we don't get want we want and sometimes have to wait longer than we hoped for, but as long as i one day get the perfect game, i'll play the others while i wait, and atm, until i find another, this one for me is still the closest and best one done as yet.

[kennonlightfoot]

I haven't tried Ultimate General, but have played a number of the games from the Scourge of War series. Unfortunately for these RTS games, they only work on the small scale level (Brigade, maybe Division) where you can click fast enough to keep your troops from degenerating into mobs. Once you get above that level the AI's handling of troops is so poor you are no longer playing a game, just watching the mobs. Without sufficient control over your formations to even keep them in lines and the lack of a human opponent (at least without considerable difficulty) these games are more diversions than Civil War simulations.

Total War series is a lot of fun but it doesn't really try to simulate tactical combat. It just has a fun in game combat system where your mob fights the AI's mob. Once you figure out the rock, paper scissors tactics of it, you should always win unless the force sizes are really bad.

BaB is the most innovative of the games to come out since HPS/JT games. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have enough customers to keep it going.

Which leaves us who like to play PBEM with just HPS/JT games but at least they cover almost every battle of the Civil War.

[bazjak]

Give us a decent tutorial and you might get the customers
But the devs won't say anything

[FroBodine]

Yep. This game seems like it could be good, but it is nearly incomprehensible to learn. It REALLY needs a good comprehensive, interactive tutorial.

Oh well.

[Yogi the Great]

This is the best Civil War game out there but the devs are disappointing. I had high hopes for the series that seems like it now may never be.

The game is learnable, but because of some significant differences it is probably confusing to most as it is unlike what we are use to. Just getting comfortable with the game deciding who you shoot at instead of you was hard to adapt to. The "refusal" of units to move when and/or where you told them to is frustrating and hard to adapt to. Learning the best formation for your units to be in for the situation at hand is not easy either. The quality of and tendency for units to rout is much bigger of a factor here than in most other similar games. The frustration factor of all this can result in giving up.

Take the time to learn it and you will find the most realistic civil war game of this type there is. No longer will all your troops do what you want. No longer will they follow your every command instantly. No longer will they perform the way you think they should. The confusion of battle will be higher than you are use to. You will find yourself wondering just where the enemy is and how strong to a higher degree than other games.

Gee, that sounds like an actual Civil War Battle.

I just wish we could get the developer to give the game more attention and most importantly to create the full series of battles representing the war as they said they were going to do.

[kennonlightfoot]

The game is the best simulation of Civil War combat on the market. But it does require you to commit time to learning the system since it isn't another move and fire game where you have total control of everything.

Unfortunately, it has only one interesting battle and I have played 1st Manassas to death.
And, it apparently has no one buying it so we may never see what it really needs, the battle of Gettysburg.

[zakblood]

well if we all wish hard enough, it may come true, as never say never[;)]

[bazjak]

How long have i been saying this
Its taken some time but it seems there are others out there like me
Lets hope the devs take notice and then hopefully i can blow the dust off and start plying

[berto]

They make 'em, I'll buy 'em.

[bobarossa]

I loved Forge of Freedom and would have bought this the first day if it had ANY battles I was interested in.

[zakblood]

the game as it is is full of interesting battles, but no i had no idear of most of them before i was on the beta even, then again it was only my second civil war game if i'm honest so had little to no interest in this direction until this came out, and have now looked elsewhere at others, but still keep coming back to this as many above has said, there isn't atm any better as yet[&o]

[berto]

I find all ACW battles to be interesting. I appreciate that the devs included these "obscure" battles (although I would have included in the initial offering Ft. Donelson and maybe also Seven Pines and/or Shiloh). Obviously, launching a new ACW series with obscure battles was not the best marketing move. Hence all the other Gettysburg, Gettysburg, Gettysburg games. To each his own.

[Yogi the Great]

Why Bull Run? Some of the original discussions when the "series" was to be created was to Start at the Beginning and continue along a time line like the actual war picking the selected titles as they came up chronologically. As time went on however and the general feedback asking for games like Gettysburg they began to consider jumping around a bit.

Jump all you want but please jump to something!

[Zap]

Jump? Where's the jumping activity? Remember, the jumping beans we used to buy as kids? There was always one that never jumped. That's how I view this series the jumping bean that never jumped.

[bobarossa]

I didn't say those battles weren't interesting, just that I wasn't interested in them. Back in the LP record days, there were always a couple singles that made you buy the record and then you discovered that many of the other songs were good too. First Bull Run is probably the only major battle of the Civil War that I have no interest in playing.

You can't introduce people to a game that doesn't give you detailed control by giving them a battle where the units were little more than mobs of armed men. You have to introduce them to the reality of war slower than that.

[kennonlightfoot]

ORIGINAL: bazjak

Give us a decent tutorial and you might get the customers
But the devs won't say anything

Coming up with interactive tutorials that lead you through a game is a lot more difficult than you would think. It can take as much time as writing a major new scenario like one for Gettysburg.

But if the only thing holding you back is a tutorial, I think the forum community could make their own. We just need players who are having problem start a message thread addressing the problem they are having and the players who have master this game can post screen shots demonstrating how to do it. I believe this forum allows pictures to be embed which makes this much easier. And we can probably do a better job than an in game tutorial which usually addresses only mechanics.

It might be possible to start some tutorial games with those having problems and "talk" them through their moves. Unfortunately, I think the in game message system doesn't show the embedded messages until after the turn which makes instructions more difficult.

It would also be helpful if the developers gave us some idea of their plans going forward. If this is a dead end game, there is no point to trying to tutor people.


So going forward the forum community needs:

First, confirmation from the developers that the game is still viable and at some point in the future there will be new releases.

If we can get the above, then the "forum" community can take on making tutorials but it is time consuming. I would go as far as creating scenarios for tutorial demonstrations if I thought the game was viable.

[bazjak]

Thanks for that kwhitehead
That sounds good but as regards the devs i dont think you will have much joy because if you look through this forum i have asked many a time and never once had a response from them
Maybe this game is dead and if so it seems they have shot themselves in the foot as i think it could have been a good game if i could have understood it
I gave up on it and will never ever buy one of there games ever again
Thanks again kwhitehead

[kennonlightfoot]

ORIGINAL: bazjak

Thanks for that kwhitehead
That sounds good but as regards the devs i dont think you will have much joy because if you look through this forum i have asked many a time and never once had a response from them
Maybe this game is dead and if so it seems they have shot themselves in the foot as i think it could have been a good game if i could have understood it
I gave up on it and will never ever buy one of there games ever again
Thanks again kwhitehead

Which is why I put the requirement for some kind of confirmation that the game is still viable.
If it isn't, no real point to a tutorial. So it's wait and see.

[zakblood]

my comments here as always are the same, knowing more than some, less than others i see something quite different than most, most war game developers don't all work full time on games, and need a second job to make ends meet, it's quite hard to make money making most or some games now days, but nobody ever going to get rich making war games full stop, this is where reality meets fiction, fiction as buyers, few in numbers, me being one makes more money at work in my normal job and making games as let's say a hobby just doesn't pay the bills, not saying this is the case either for all or even these developers, but reality is, numbers of sales for most or many war games aren't great, time to research and make tbh is nowhere enough to do it without extra funding from elsewhere, unless already rich to start off with and you have a passion for it and don't mind running at a lost...

i could write a tutorial for the game and do screen shots in a long week end or a week at most, but do i understand all what's in the game, even after testing it for 500+ hours and playing it for god knows how many more, even done a few own made battles and tweaks myself, but for me, not shared them, not good enough to do a map on my own and nowhere near clever enough to do a job of a order of battle, so just edited the ones provided.

i did also find it hard to start off with, but soon got the hang of the game, and by putting in the time, losing more often than winning, i found how the game played, and how to get around without still reading the whole manual either, something i like to do, while a good tutorial would teach many players better and most would enjoy it, i also feel like above that the time spent doing it wouldn't be worth the effort and the time could and was spent better elsewhere, looking back, maybe one of us should have helped more or done one, as most testing it at the time were more the good enough to do one, but like everything else, time on one project soon leads to less than what you had hoped for, and once released, i for one didn't spent nowhere near the amount i did once testing it,.

so left the project and moved on to the next one, then another and another, 50 odd beta's later time is still an issue, so for me, with no job, i don't have that much free time, so can see and fully understand why the developers don't have much either, some live on the forums, others don't, it's a choice, and either way you have to balance a home life with the real world pulling you in all directions, been there and also done that, something has to give, bills need paying, wife / girlfriends also need time spending time with, being the best game writer in the world, doesn't mean you're lonely or have to be, spending too long, or to often on forums and projects you forget the real life doesn't stop either.

so what i'm trying to say is, if a game comes out, or not, try putting yourself into someone else's shoes for once and see if you can juggle some many things and be as good or keep sane whiles others all around you want more or less of this and that with no real idea of what most have to deal with, one job and a home life is hard enough without trying 2 jobs and no home life, also been there and done that, and now aged 50 this year wonder is choices made early on where the right ones at a given point in time, but too late now to look back and wonder, choices were made, life goes on.

i'll be here when needed, same as always