First off, I was unable to complete a game last night after taking care of some other, more important things. I've gotten past the opening battle across the stream but have yet to move up the road to join Hall and Meredith. I should have screenshots tonight.
Congratulations! 2 things happened... 1) You fought a savage battle against heavy odds and mostly survived. That in and of itself is a Victory.
2) You've just graduated into the ranks of SOW Generals.
Isn't the point of that part of the battle to defend a point chosen by the game? That's what I was doing (or trying to do).
No offense intended, but it sounds like rather than accepting that the game makes the ostensible objective difficult or impossible, you're moving the goal posts so that "surviving" is in itself a victory. I could maybe understand that if this was an actual battle, but this is a video game with a very clear-cut scenario of defending a position against a pretty straightforward enemy attack. Again, I wouldn't mind if this game was simply difficult, but my complaint stems from the friendly AI cutting me off at the knees (something that seems to be happening with other people too).
Yes, you are annoyed about the support you didn't get. Suck it up, feed your men, water the horses, clean your sword, load your pistol, take a big drink of something strong, replenish the ammunition and get ready to go back in. (BTW, the Brigade Tutorial is a favorite of many of us. I'll play it just for fun, occasionally.)
I'm not really into role-playing and I will replay the scenario. I'll also give the division and corps tutorials a try since it sounds like the AI is only really terrible at the brigade level.
What exactly is "fun" about the brigade tutorial? I'm just curious, because whether or not people are defending the AI, even those defending it seem to be saying that the AI is unpredictable and frustrating. Add that on top of a forced double quick march to avoid getting cut off from your friendly units, I'm not exactly seeing the appeal.
Of course, different strokes for different folks.
It does get better, we promise. (How many copies of this has Norb/Team sold?) That'll tell you something right there.
I haven't played all the tutorials, much less the whole game, so I'm not qualified to judge the game yet. I do know that a lot of people have heaped praise on to the game for how it looks, for being a more realistic battle simulation than the arcade-y Total War games, and for the amount of historical detail involved. On all those counts, I agree, and it does invoke very favorable comparisons to Sid Meier's Gettysburg!, one of my favorite games of all time.
Of course, given that SOWGB is a very good game in a rare genre (U.S. Civil War real-time strategy/battle simulation), it really isn't that shocking that it has sold very well. I know of several studios that make much less graphically appealing games with much more bugs that sell well (and with higher prices than SOWGB) because they cater to Napoleonic wargaming fans who are into the whole hex-diagram battlefields thing. Honestly, if you want more historical and realistic alternatives to games like those in the Total War series, there aren't a huge ton of options available.
Again, I'm not trying to denigrate Norb/Team or SOWGB, and the plethora of good reviews for the game out there speak for themselves. (Which is why I find the problems I'm having with the AI so frustrating.) But I'd like to judge SOWGB subjectively, not purely on the number of copies sold, since one possible explanation is that gamers who want alternatives to games like Total War simply don't have many more games to go with -- and, when it comes to the Civil War specifically, even less.
In bigger battles playing hits, you're forced to let the ai control your brigade commanders, which to me is a big old drag. I guess having played several thousand MP games (literally) has caused in me a need to manage all of my regiments personally (if you let the ai control your brigades in the GCM, you will not have a division at the end of the battle). So I'm a little biased against the ai.
It's really like two different games. If you like watching the battle and giving orders from the division or corps level, hits is for you (MP or single player). If you prefer micromanaging your regiments and batteries, MP in the GCM is for you.
I'm not married to micro-management (although I have developed a tendency for it). I wouldn't mind letting the friendly AI control my units, but if I won't "have a division at the end of the battle," that is very worrying. But it seems you're saying that AI control is really only an issue in multiplayer games?
I'm also not crazy about HITS, although I haven't tried it yet. I like striking a balance between realism and reenactment. To me, the FOW is a big enough handicap (or should be); an overhead view is really only unfair if it's all-seeing, and if FOW is in effect, then you shouldn't be all-seeing, regardless of whether your camera has a bird's eye view or is the general's POV.
How many brigade-level scenarios are there in the SOWGB campaign? If there are only some division/corps/army scenarios, then I would feel like I wasn't getting the complete experience because the brigade-level scenarios would be unappealing.
I'm not opposed to multiplayer but I also like the idea of firing up a game after a long day and spending several hours playing a battle that I can save, leave and resume at my convenience. It is rare that I can ever sit still in one place long enough, much less on my laptop, to play out a multiplayer game in real time.
Are there any mods where you are not limited to only "taking command" of units that are under your control? This tutorial would be much easier if I could simply take control of Meredith and Hall (picking those units specifically, not necessarily taking over Wadsworth's whole command).
