Ultimate General: American Revolution

[Sir Slash]

Thirty Five years and ten months for the State of Florida. Public Service employment is not for the faint of heart nor for those determined to be rich when they get old.   

[CaptainKoloth]

Thirty Five years and ten months for the State of Florida. Public Service employment is not for the faint of heart nor for those determined to be rich when they get old.   

My mother worked for the NJ state government for many years and said that most of her colleagues either were too stupid to get a real job or they entered it because they had other family members in state government who taught them how easy it was to steal public funds. Fun times.

[Tripoli]

I worked as a prosecutor in Alachua county for a short time, but not long enough to get any retirement. I was unimpressed by many of my managers.  I had a much better experience working in Oklahoma, (where I did get a small retirement.)  The leadership was much better and the employees were pretty good.  The federal government?  Mostly incompetent and/or immoral leadership, and a mixed bag among the workers.

[Gusington]

I am now in my 13th year of employment with state government. I will just leave that there.

[Sir Slash]

I enjoyed my job a lot, but not always. There was a huge amount of waste and Beaurocracy to deal with. The, 'Chain of Command' was often just a way to bury problems so they never got far enough to have to be dealt with by the top level managers. Probably lots of people have to deal with this.

[FarAway Sooner]

I agree. Belts and umbrellas should be out of bounds. 

Are suspenders included in the "belts" category?

[Sir Slash]

Only if we are allowed to snap them on those wearing them.

[Jarhead0331]

The full British campaign recently released and I have been stumbling my way through it. There is a fairly complex strategic game here, but it is very much held back by its use of some unconventional mechanics and a lack of walk-through tutorial. For instance, upon starting the British campaign, your character is aboard a ship at sea and while you can control the fleet, there is very little else the player can do. Nowhere does it inform the player that you have to wait a few days until the King appoints you Governor of the colonies before you can start controlling growth, infrastructure, economy, etc. This is pretty pointless in my view. Why not start the game with the player already having been appointed governor? That way, from the moment you sail into port, you can actually start playing the game. Even after the player is appointed, you must still research and establish various offices before core elements of the game are revealed. In principle, I like this concept because it slowly unlocks some of the deeper mechanics and theoretically should make the learning curve more gentle, but I think it needs to be implemented better.

The in-game tutorial videos are ok, but they move quickly and can be a little confusing. Relying on youtube videos is almost a must, but current ones that a brief and concise are hard to come by. There is one guy who puts out playthrough videos, but they tend to be between 2-4 hours and he doesn't really explain what he is doing a lot of the time.

In any event, I think a fully featured walk-through tutorial should be a priority in this game. If one existed, I suspect the reviews would shift from mixed over to positive. There is a lot of game here and a lot of concepts to like, and I'm not even talking about the realtime battles. I find the detail and systems of the strategic level game very impressive on their own.

I'm going to try to stick with it for the time being. Hopefully, it will continue to hold my interest.

[Destraex]

The full British campaign recently released and I have been stumbling my way through it. There is a fairly complex strategic game here, but it is very much held back by its use of some unconventional mechanics and a lack of walk-through tutorial. For instance, upon starting the British campaign, your character is aboard a ship at sea and while you can control the fleet, there is very little else the player can do. Nowhere does it inform the player that you have to wait a few days until the King appoints you Governor of the colonies before you can start controlling growth, infrastructure, economy, etc. This is pretty pointless in my view. Why not start the game with the player already having been appointed governor? That way, from the moment you sail into port, you can actually start playing the game. Even after the player is appointed, you must still research and establish various offices before core elements of the game are revealed. In principle, I like this concept because it slowly unlocks some of the deeper mechanics and theoretically should make the learning curve more gentle, but I think it needs to be implemented better.

The in-game tutorial videos are ok, but they move quickly and can be a little confusing. Relying on youtube videos is almost a must, but current ones that a brief and concise are hard to come by. There is one guy who puts out playthrough videos, but they tend to be between 2-4 hours and he doesn't really explain what he is doing a lot of the time.

In any event, I think a fully featured walk-through tutorial should be a priority in this game. If one existed, I suspect the reviews would shift from mixed over to positive. There is a lot of game here and a lot of concepts to like, and I'm not even talking about the realtime battles. I find the detail and systems of the strategic level game very impressive on their own.

I'm going to try to stick with it for the time being. Hopefully, it will continue to hold my interest.

I agree that this game has some really good mechanics. I do think their still needs to be some work on the implimentation. I want larger spheres of influence for joining troops, or perhaps scaled down, smaller map representation of men so that distances are more nuanced. Movement along roads is a mess or I have not figured it out yet as well.

I started the British campaign and got stuck in the wind because I thought I could land just anywhere I wanted. I was governor by the time I got to where I was supposed to land.

I am though not really into the whole rebellion thing and would prefer a theatre with two conventional combatants that was like the traditional race to the top with decisions along the way. The whole theatre reminds me of Gaza or something. A no win situation that's going to go on forever and never be resolved in the Brit's favour. At what point do I win convincingly without some game mechanic forcing more rebellions? No doubt their are not many solutions and they are gamified.

I'd like better terrain and many more men in formations as well. Battles move too fast and are missing the more detailed terrain, like forest paths or thick impassible stuff.

Give me the seven years war and some oblique prussian lines from Frederick the great.

I have a feeling the game is going to be rigged to ensure I don't get enough men to the new world in time and I will always be putting out small outbreaks like whack a mole while never reaching critical mass. In real life I doubt it would be as hard if as the British I just dediced to ignore another theatre and send more troops to the Americas.

Perhaps I should just man up and look really closely at what is on offer. It cannot be anything more than a simple stats game can it? Place enough men with the right doctrine in the right places?

How would I handle it? I'd put the loyalists in charge first of all and raise a tonne of irregulars while making hearts and minds a priority. That means giving Americans a place in parliment and a say. The regulars should only fight other regulars. Otherwise it's Napoleon and spain all over again. Does this game allow that avenue? I don't think so. Instead I am stuck defending a silly position with only a blunt instrument to use.

What might help for me is some asymetrical battles that I can play to really feel like I have control of that rebellion side of things and make a difference. Shoguns spy/assassination sort of video scenes come to mind.

Oh and where is Mel Gibson?

[Destraex]

From the UG:AR discord:

"pandakraut — Today at 5:31 AM
@everyone Hello everyone,
I wanted to let you know that my contract with game labs has ended.

Thank you to Sterner and game labs for creating games that inspired me to get into modding and for the opportunity to get involved directly in development.

Thank you also to the other members of the team for your patience and insight and I wish you all the best finding new opportunities going forward.

Unfortunately there are many aspects of the game the team was hoping to improve, but it now seems unlikely that these will be addressed. Perhaps modders will be able to improve it more in the future. I haven't decided yet if that is something I will participate in. For now I will be working on getting out at least one more patch for the UGCW J&P Rebalance mod.

Finally, thank you to the community for your passion and support.
Pandakraut"