List of current issues, bugs and problems

[Lumpy]

Congratulations to the devs for the 1.0 release. This is a solid game and fills out a much neglected genre niche. Lets hope for many sales so we get further stuff in the future! Nonetheless, there are several major issues remaining. The purpose of this thread is to collect and describe issues, so the devs can be made aware of them to fix them at their convenience.

Edit: I've added other issues that have been pointed out by other players as well. Feel free to add further issues you noticed. I will add them to the list, hoping that it will attract some kind of reply by the devs. If any of thesee issues are regarded WAD, a confirmation would be neat so the list can be adjusted accordingly.

• 1) Confusing and unrealistic melee damage
  
  Melee damage is seemingly calculated on the basis of how many brigades are fighting against each other, while the total number of men seems to be mostly irrelevant. Two 200-man brigades can easily rout a 1000-man brigade of the same XP and weapon loadout. Also, melee casaulties are incredibly one sided.
  
  
• 2) Emplacements are counter-intuitive and a pitfall for new players
  
  Most of them, especially bulidngs, provide more cover if you just stand on them rather than actually manning them. Also, they diminish the fire rate of brigades that are manning them, while they can be shot at from all directions, effectively making them death traps. Thus, emplacements are debuffs for both your damage output as well as your actual survivability. Almost always, the best way to use earthworks and emplacements is to not use them at all.
  
  I know you can game them by quickly manning them when a charge is imminent, but this is not the purpose of emplacements in reality. Their purpose is to provide cover against enemy fire, not to magically boost melee abilities. Also, the main reason for manning emplacement when getting charged is to prevent the next issue, which is...
  
  
• 3) Magnetic melee
  
  This ancient issue, combined with the practical absence of friendly fire and the ability to shoot IFF minie balls into melee bulks, creates a really weird dynamic when it comes to the ebb and flow of battles. Units that are getting charged follow the enemy well into their own lines when they retreat. This chase over vast distances cannot be halted. Similarly, if you charge the enemy to secure a specific position, your units will pursue the enemy until total exhaustion.
  
  I agree that it should take quite a while for units to reorganize after melee, but seeing your entire line being "dragged" into the enemy line only to get shot to pieces seems a bit off. (As mentioned, this doesn't happen to units which are manning emplacements, and this is the only reason to ever actually use them).
  
  Connected to that, as soon as a unit enters melee, it can be shot at by everybody and their mothers, completely disregarding blocking of sight or the fact that they are locked into a chaotic melee fight with friendly units. This enables us to lure the AI into melee, only for the unrealistic purpose of being able to melt them in mere seconds by concentrating fire on them from all directions.
  
  
• 4) Units stop firing
  
  Skirmishers and dismounted cav that are put on 'hold' regularly stop shooting at the enemy and have to be constantly microed to return fire. This happens if a brigade they fire at retreats. They will not shift to another target, even if there are enemies in their firing arc. A skirmish on-off toggle would easily fix this.
  
  ->This got way better in the 1.0 release, but sometimes still is an issue. Also, skirmishers do not behave like skirmishers when given a target. They do not follow the target, which is especially problematic when they are ordered to harass routing units like artillery brigades. You have to micro them if you want them to actually follow the enemy.
  
  
• 5) AI always fights to the very last man
  
  The AI is unable to retreat when they are without any chance to win. Not only do they not retreat, they actually keep charging at you most of the time, enabling you to kill every last one of them and thus inflating your own units stats. To counter this, the AI has to be provided with an unrealistically high numbers of troops to compensate.
  
  
• 6)The larger a brigade, the less damage it does
  
  Apparently, 12 gun batteries are doing more damage than 24 gun batteries. While I agree that a 24 gun battery shouldn't do double the damage of a 12 gun battery, the fact that at some point more guns actually lessen your damage output is another counter intuitive trap for new players. You need to have diminished returns to prevent snowballing, but the way it works now is just unrealistic and hard to grasp. You kind of just have to know at which point more men or guns actually give you a net loss in terms of damage output. Same goes for skirmisher divisions. My 300-men dismounted cav brigade does considerably more damage than a 500-men brigades of the same XP level and weapons load out, and with a better CO. Another questionable design choice.
  
  
• 7) Strange movement logic
  
  When drawing battle lines, brigades cross their paths and make silly maneuvers, often getting flanked in the process. They really should just move to the position which is nearest to them. From my experience, this got way better in 1.0. Can anyone comfirm?
  
  
• 8) Detaching skirmishers halts enemy charges
  
  This is another "trick" to circumvent the problem pointed out in 3). You want, at all costs, prevent getting into melee most of the time, because your brigade will be shot to pieces due to absent sight blocking as soon as you enter melee. To do that, you can simply detach skirmishers. The enemy charge will be halted instantly.
  
  
• 9) Glitchy AI routing
  
  The AI often routs into your own lines, or bugs out and retreats into a river bed, halts there, and gets shot to pieces until the brigade disbands. Also, retreating units that catch other units into melee still do considerable damage. Thus, retreating units are almost as dangerous as any other, and you often find yourself "dodging" them. While this issue admittedly got better during the last releases, it is still a major issue.
  
  
• 10) Unflexible unit management
  
  As is now, we cannot decrease the size of brigades, only increase it. This sometimes makes it impossible to upgrade to weapons that are only available in lower quantities than you have men in your brigades. If you are at your brigade limit, the only possibility is to completely disband a brigade to create a new, smaller one, wasting valueable XP in the process.
  
  Also, it is impossible to switch COs without having a spare 'dummy' CO in reserve. An 'Unassign' button would come in handy. On a side note, more random names are needed, so we do not have half a dozen COs with the same name.
  
  
• 11) AI minor battle scaling issues
  
  AI forces seem to scale according to the total player army rather than the number of deployed troops in minor battles. This obviously causes balance issues.
  
  
• 12) Units phasing through each other
  
  Sometimes, especially cavalry brigades bug out and "phase" through other units. They cannot be attacked during this, as well.
  
  
• 13) AI brigades recover way too quickly
  
  Battered and bruised AI brigades often get routed, sustaining heavy casualties in the process, only to emerge charging out of the fog of war a few minutes later. Also, the AI frequently charges over vast distances, which raises the question why their brigades' condition isn't constantly super low (if this was the case, they wouldn't be able to charge in the first place, similar to your own brigades).

[Marcomies]

Those are all good points. All of these issues could really use some work before 1.0 release.

I especially agree with the melee mechanics being really odd. Being able to shoot through friendly troops into melee is really weird, unrealistic and often defeats the whole point and purpose of charging. Defeating a charging enemy by shooting two brigades worth of ball and canister shot through the backs of your defenders is the single most ridicilous and unrealistic thing in the otherwise very believable game.

[Big Bear Bardiche]

Also artillery doing more damage with 12 guns than with 24 guns.

[Lumpy]

Yeah, almost forgot about that one!

[mikec_81]

It is kind of disturbing that are preparing to go live. It is not at all in a finished state. So many things just don't make sense as you pointed out.

It was absurd when I first realized that melee units can just get shot at from everyone. The funniest thing is to raise garbage rookie brigades with whatever weapon you have at hand, put cannon and elite brigades with your best rifles and use them as meat shields.

So many things seem to be downgrades from UG - Gettysburg. Its a shame really

[Lumpy]

I really wonder why these issues are not commented on. I brought up all of these things (except the battery issue, which I only recently learned about) numrous times, but there was not a single reply.

[Kardoc Ragefury]

There's a couple things I mentioned in the feedback topic that I'm surprised didn't at least get acknowledged.

-Unit pathing sometimes behaving oddly, like units crossing over each other when drawing up a defensive line instead of moving to the closest position.

-Strange gamey exploit where detaching skirmishers halts a charge.

-Routed brigades getting stuck in rivers.

Etc.

Something comes to mind with your number 5. If the AI were allowed to retreat from lost battles, they could readjust the low prisoner exchange and captures weapons mechanic to something more worthwhile and believable. Since it isn't a given that the player could massacre the entire enemy army. Usually by the time you start steamrolling, the enemy would still have an escape window.

[The King of Spades]

All of these issues have merit and truth to them. I too hope they are worked on. Not being able to max out arty units bc of damage output is one of my biggest issues. That and the damn criss crossing of brigades when your just walking 100 hundred yards to get in range.

[Burning Bridges]

Very good points, and all are correct. This is a great game, but still needs a ton of work to iron out the many problems.

I scratched my head many times at the magic firing into meleeing units. Or the absence of a clear indication what emplacement does. (there should a "take cover" button and the AI should use it automatically when over an emplacement and in defense)

I never use hold for the reasons above.

[Kardoc Ragefury]

Not sure of you want to add it, but:

"Enemy forces still scale from the player's max army size. Enemy needs to scale based on the number of brigades the player is bringing instead.

This becomes troublesome when you built up several new corps for a previous major battle, then have a small scale minor battle right after."

[Marcomies]

Just giving a +1 for the issue #9.

I'm currently playing the second phase of battle of Chickamauga and while I'm otherwise doing just fine against the enemy, a randomly routing enemy skirmishers have now almost destroyed a fresh brigade of dragoons, a large battery of artillery and one bunch of routing infantry is about to capture Kelly's field...

edit. I mean seriously for fecks sake... The only thing I have had to worry about in this battle is enemy units running with ♥♥♥♥ in their britches towards my victory points. Now I have a full division of enemy infantry reatreating away from my front line towards my VPs.

[Rochefort]

Melee is such an odd issue in this game. It's obvious why the AI favors it so much, since at normal difficulty and above their army will often outclass the player so much in numbers and experience that charging the entire line makes sense. Abuse of that behavior and the associated quirky mechanics is often how the player is able to deal with such a superior force at all in many cases. I can definitely see how it was difficult to balance it around all the other mechanics.

The unitnutive quirks of cover also become very relevant especially on higher difficulties. There are several maps where the fortifications are just objectively inferior to the wooded area the enemy will be assaulting them from. Rapidly inflicting casualties on the enemy is another way to even odds stacked by the campaign, so in many battles it matters much less that your units have good cover than that the enemy *does not* have cover. On battles like Gaine's Mill my Union army did better defending uphill with their backs against the river (probably the opposite of what any historical strategist would reccomend) just because it denied the enemy that thin stretch of woods in front of my useless trenches.

[Black Hammer]

The obtuse mechanics are what get me. Smaller units performing more effectively is one example. "Sweet spot" ranges should also be communicated better. Also, things firing beyond maximum range confuse me as well. Skirmishers with scoped rifles ought not absorb return fire from muskets, but mine seem to on a semi-regular basis. Their habit of backing off from flank positions to sit useless outside max range is also annoying.

[Kwintal_z_Hektara]

Defenitely all good points. I'd add only a idea to tone down a bit enemy's morale. It's ridiculus when a brigade lost 3/4 of it's soldiers and theres like 200 men being shot by 1000 man and they still stand there like it's nothing. And for the love of God please fix enemy brigades routing behind your lines. I've just lost a Shiloh battle only because one frikkin 400 men unit captured landing while rest of my army was halting the rebels at church and hornet's nest :( Now i'll have to redo all of it...:/ Also melee consumes to much stamina in my opinion. My brigade is exhausted after having 100% stamina after just one charge form enemy...

[Caramirdan]

Originally posted by Kwintal_z_Hektara:

. . . Also melee consumes to much stamina in my opinion. My brigade is exhausted after having 100% stamina after just one charge form enemy...

Try fighting hand-to-hand somertime. In-game, it's portrayed around 1 minute or so, but remember that normal "game time" is 10x faster than Real time. Those short melees in-game last about 10 minutes of real life, and even mano a mano for 2-3 real minutes is exhausting and stressful, if one survives.

[Avenger93]

Add another one:

Why can't I downsize my brigades? No seriously why? I can increase their numbers, but not decrease them? What if I have captured a bunch of new napoleons, let's say 8 and I have a brigade of 16 already, why can't I tell 4 of my guns from that brigade to join the newly created 12 gun brigade to make 2 12 gun brigades for better distribution of firepower?

Oh and perhaps the most crucial one I almost nevet see commented: Fix the bloody timer of Shiloh(confederacy). It says up in the corner I have at least 1 hour and 20 minuts left in the phase so I think I can take my time, plan, aproach and flank the union ... 2 minutes later NOPE! phase magicaly advances. What hour? Oh your soldiers just sat there doing nothing.

And speaking of Shiloh ... can the union stop cheating? They are supposed to RETREAT to the Hornet's Nest. Not magicly teleport there. Retreat. As in I can chase after them. Not magicaly find they teleported a bunch of brigades into position with arty support. The AI already cheats massively with it's stats and numbers and retreating behind your lines for no reason, can it also not cheat with stoping time and teleportation? Taking the Hornet's Nest is a practical impossibility without insane casualties due to this mechanic, I've only managed it ONCE in about 10 battles and that was because the AI for some reason decided to come out of the Nest charging at me.

Talking about the AI cheating: if all of the above is not enough, they also have maphacks. As in they magicaly know when that unit of skirmishers behind fog of war and 2 pieces of dense woods was right clicked on their supply wagon. It's infuriating. They should not magicaly shove their supply wagon deep inside their infantry lines because they magicaly know that skirmisher unt was ordered to capture it. And no, the skimishers were not spoted. I checked. And sniper skirmishers should not skirmish anyway, they should sit and fire, they have snipers and extreme range.

The skirmisher units in general actualy need a giant rework. Their automatic skirmishing is just the worst thing in existance. How about this: they only retreat as far as their maximum range allows. Because at this point, it would be less micro to have them not skirmish and just sit there shooting until you manualy order them to run. Which is what they should be doing. Instead right now they sit there fire once then run so far away they are no longer in range and for some reason they do not try to aproach to fire again. It's such a chore to use them and it's not fun in the slightest way. Just give us a skirmish toggle.

And fix the damned target aquisition scripts. When I order a unit to attack a routing enemy it does not mean "fire once and then sit there and reload while the enemy runs away, rallies, has a picnic and nice relaxing snack, maybe a nap, then comes back and rapes you". It means fire and keep running after those ♥♥♥♥♥ reloading as you go. The sad thing is, even if they reload quickly, if the enemy has left their range, they will not chase after them to fire again after the reload. It's frustrating.