Recent reviews by LCpl. Schultz

It's a fun game, for a while, but it gets old pretty quick. Only reason anyone still plays it is bc DLC culture, which single-handedly keeps food on the table of the devs.

As a reenactor and amateur historian, I was very dubious when I saw the early version of this game, which would have been around mid-2014, I think. That Christmas, it was on sale, and it had been overhauled so successfully that I didn't even realize that I was looking at the same game. If you are into American Civil War (ACW) RTSs, this is a good game for you. There are, IMO, a few small kinks to be worked out, but I was very pleasently surprised by how much I enjoyed the game. Once again, Darth Vader (aka Nick Thomadis) impresses. Keep up the great work!

- Tangentially, I hope that versions of this game (DLC?) come out for other battles of the ACW. There are so many good ones! You could go in the direction I've been urging NorbSoftDev to go with Scourge of War; there's Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, the Manassases, Shiloh, Chickamauga, the list goes on. These battles would all make great games. Fluid battles should be the ones concentrated on, certainly not assaults on fortified positions (e.g. Cold Harbor), as fluid battles would be more engaging for the players. Aside from the Civil War, this engine would be great for moddeling battles of the Revolution, War of 1812, the Napoleonic Wars, the Mexican-American War, and the various wars contributing to the rise of the German Empire.

- Constructive Criticism and Suggestions (c. Jan 2015):
1) "Hold ground". It seems that units holding their ground either lose range on their weapons or are unresponsive to enemy threats; I have to manually tell units to attack a target, taking them out of Hold Gound stance (does it even do anything?). Corollarily, Sid Meier's Gettysburg/Antietam had a similar feature that, when used, units would actually use nearby resources to build fences and makeshift breastworks, but could not change their facing.
2) Altitude perception. The topo map is an invaluable feature in this game. However, if it were not for that, and my own knowledge of the ground at Gettysburg, I would have a very hard time judging the battlefield's topography. Perhaps something can be done to make altitude more easily distinguishable?
3) Unit formations and relative space. While the current formations are acceptable, it would be better if each unit took up a relative amount of space based on it's numbers and, possibly, a formation which the player tells it to assume (see 4). Additionally, it would be great if the soldiers in the brigade were split into smaller formations representing the actual number of battalions present in that brigade at the battle. It would not even be necesary to divide the number of soldiers in the brigade proportionally into battalions; even division would be fine. This effect could be purely aesthetic yet add more realism to the game. As it is, each brigade is portrayed, effectively, as a single battalion.
4) Formations. It would be really cool if the player could choose from more than one formation for their brigades to assume. Column could allow faster movement at the expense of lacking firepower; Single Line would take up more space and be vulnerable to melee engagement, but allow an individual brigade to bring all of its guns to bear; Double Line would take up less space and allow the player an easy way to make a defense in depth, at the expense of the firepower of the rear-line battalions; and Assult Column could limit a brigade's firepower to the front regiment and be extremely vulnerable to rifle and artillery fire, but allow it to act as a battering ram of bayonets. These are just some basic formations that probably wouldn't be too difficult to work in and would add a new tactical element to the game.
5) Uniform variation. It would be great if there was more than just a generic blue/grey unit model for each side. For instance, some Zouave uniforms would be nice, green uniforms for the US sharpshooters, and more butternut for the Confederates.
6) Hording (?) There is a term for what I mean when I say that; when units stack on top of one another and fire over/though one another. A pretty classic RTS problem from which UGG does not appear to be exempt.
7) Weapons and unit characteristics. To simply say that Confederate troops have better morale and officers, but Union troops have better equipment and training, is extremely generic and over generalized. I did not even see how these factors contributed to the game except in that it seems, when playing Union, most brigades will retreat at the first Confederate volley. Those kinds of factors should really be considered on a per-unit basis, not national. But now we're talking about an excrutiating level of detail which may be outside of the scope of this game. Still, it never hurts to hope.

One of my favs. Great concept, good implementation. I can play this one again and again.