Suggestions for next game version

[NY Cavalry]

I'd like to see some improvements in the following areas. With these improvements a very good game can be made a truly great game for us historical and MP guys.


1) Give us counter battery fire. Artillery within 600 yards was rare as the guns would regulate each other and be driven off. Example Peach Orchard Gettysburg. Give artillery its own casualty model.

2) Proximity casualties. When troops or guns are grouped together in tight formation an increase in casualties for all units is in order. When firing into tight formations how could there be a miss and a hit could inflict damage to more than one target. This would keep troops spread out more. Against an AI this might be a problem, but at least give us the option with mods to adjust for this in MP play.

3) Tracking. Something needs to be done here. Maybe with improved computers and speeds game design can be expanded and allow for better tracking.

4) Infantry line of fire. This firing over business is unrealistic for infantry. It allows the bunching up of infantry and gets pretty ugly.

5) Artillery units to follow orders. In the civil war artillery commanders biggest complaint was where the battery was ordered to deploy by a infantry officer. At least they followed the order.

6) Skirmishers when fighting skirmishers should fight until losing. Skirmishers when fighting an infantry line should immediately fall back skirmishing along the way.

[conjotter]

All good suggestions, but especially #2.

Target density (the number of troops in a given area) has been a combat results factor modifier in many civil war games over the years.

I don't understand why this isn't part of the game now, especially when enfilade fire is.

It only makes sense that densely crowded formations should suffer more casualties from rifle and artillery fire than troops in line or open-order formations.

[Mayonaise]

Take all of the below with a grain of salt, at best they inspire a thought that becomes a reality some day.

1. Instead of having a small arrow as marker for where a regiment is, put a blue or red line reflecting the size of the regiment. Currently, it is impossible to select a commander and see where to deploy regiments or brigades in relation to each other because of the tiny little arrows which give no sense of the area occupied. (and are hard to see in the first place)

2. When issuing a move order, the first double click mark the destination, a directional arrow at that point is then created, and the next click determines facing. Issuing a move order and clicking wheel left, wheel left, wheel left until getting the desired facing is :sick: . Makes the game much more mouse friendly.

3. Implement an order queue, where I can issues commands as normal, but they are not carried out until I hit a magic go button. Would be very helpful in large scenarios where I want to send 3 brigades in at the same time. Perhaps the queued orders show teh above lines in a different color.

4. Toggle for displaying disposition and movements of all units under command. With all the above said, how many times have you tried to place to brigades in line side by side, but have to mentally mark where you placed teh first one, and try to place the next?

5. Please please please.. we need a tweak to Take Command. It should disable all AI that will move units but not commanders. Allow the units to wheel to face new threats, or the brigade commanders to ride to threatened points or away from harm. I want to place my units and have them stay there, but not micro their facing and commanders. I want to tell a battery to go to a hill and forget about them. Real pie in the sky would be to simply give your artillery a target and have them select the best ground to attack it, and go there. It's really difficult to judge elevation etc. Maybe i just don't like my artillery.

[Saddletank]

1. Instead of having a small arrow as marker for where a regiment is, put a blue or red line reflecting the size of the regiment. Currently, it is impossible to select a commander and see where to deploy regiments or brigades in relation to each other because of the tiny little arrows which give no sense of the area occupied. (and are hard to see in the first place)

This! Brilliant idea.

1) In addition to the suggestions for artillery NYC makes can they be completely redesigned from the ground up, with the whole battery as the smallest tactical unit, and not the gun and crew. Currently a single gun equates in the OOB heirarchy to an infantry regiment, whereas I'd like to see the whole battery equated at that level and so when there are morale effects and orders issued, the entire battery moves as one, whether its advance or retreat and not individuaal guns.

2) More of the csv tables unlocked for modding to allow MP play please.

3) A minor graphical point but please redraw the gun limbers and gun sprites so they actually appear to rest their wheels on the ground and not float a yard or so above it (the limbered up limber sprites are the worst in this regard. Also 4-hourse teams instead of 2 would improve the look greatly.

4) When a high level formation such as a division or corps marches along a road, can the AI place its brigades one behind the other and not cram several regts side by side onto the same piece of road.

[Queeg]

I mentioned this on the Matrix forum, but I think they need to tweak how the AI handles unit alignment in battle. The pathing is OK - not perfect, but units generally end up in reasonable positions. It's what happens after they get there that's the problem. Instead of minor readjustments, they too often do the wheel about the center routine. It's like the AI doesn't know how to use the / and \ pivot buttons.

A common situation: I'll have a brigade facing an enemy brigade - all good. But then an enemy appears and lines up next to the other brigade, overlapping my flank. What my unit should do is refuse that flank - step back a few paces on the overlapped flank. But instead they often go into the wheel about the center movement, laboriously pivoting on their center while getting blasted by two enemy brigades. And if another enemy unit appears, or if one of the original units goes into its own twitch act, the routine starts over again. That's why we so often end up with a battlefield full of units at right angles to each other.

It's a great game otherwise. But this one area is a step backward from the TC games.

[norb]

If you can get a saved game, with specifics of exactly what the issue is, and there's no mods enabled, then you can submit your saved game to us. We can then worked with exactly what you are seeing so that we can get to know what is happening. I know it's a lot of requirements, but this is the only way we can learn from what you see.

[Saddletank]

An improvement I think would be to have units wheel on the left or right flank, not on the flag in the centre. This change though would be a major one and would need a re-write of what defines a unit since at the moment everything is based on the position and facing of the flag-bearer.

With such a change could come more realistic formation changes too with lines being formed from columns on the left or right flank companies and forming column from line in the same way.

But a complete rewrite of big chunks of the games code unfortunately.

[con20or]

1. Instead of having a small arrow as marker for where a regiment is, put a blue or red line reflecting the size of the regiment. Currently, it is impossible to select a commander and see where to deploy regiments or brigades in relation to each other because of the tiny little arrows which give no sense of the area occupied. (and are hard to see in the first place)

This! Brilliant idea.

It is possible to change the ini file so a series of blocks are marked out on the ground after a move order that does just that.. it's the draw tiles command.


Debug]
DbgLvl=1
;NoAI=1
DrawTiles=0
;AlphaOmega=1
BenchMark=0
MPLog=1
;AutoGameDB=1

4. Toggle for displaying disposition and movements of all units under command. With all the above said, how many times have you tried to place to brigades in line side by side, but have to mentally mark where you placed teh first one, and try to place the next?

Kind of already there, use the form up to 'left flank of' command and specify the previous regiment, but I get your point.

[NY Cavalry]

It would also be nice when setting up the ammo wagons that artillery resupply could be better done. It is to easy to resupply with the current ammo wagons. It cost nearly nothing to resupply an artillery unit, but if you lower what a wagon carries then infantry will not be able to resupply.

Lets say to resupply one regiment would be equal to resupplying one battery. With the current ammo wagons artillery has infinity supply. We have played some great games by regulating the ammo wagons making the players really use tactics when using there guns, but the infantry at times would run out of ammo.

Lets allow wagons to be targeted and blown up.

[NY Cavalry]

Restricting artillery movement through dense woods unless they are on a road would be a realistic change.