Garm

Does that mean we can delete the Launcher version now and rely on Steam completely or will there be differences between the versions?

Considering how the game works, I'd say the chances to explore (or explode) a Spanish ship would actually be larger in any campaign that isn't a Spanish one.

So...does that mean we can actually add names to that list? If so, can we get this for the UI and AI Mod as well?

Except for one confused guy who is manning the guns. "Okay guys, I'm ready to load the guns when you are...guys?"

According to recent patch notes they reduced the rewards from the British campaign. Obviously there is still a lot of balancing to be done and some thing strongly depend on how successful you are during your campaign that will probably lead to some form of snowballing in the end. For example capturing the Arrogant makes a couple of other missions down the line a lot easier, probably enabling you to capture even more SoLs that you otherwise might have to destroy if you don't have one SoL of your own. So now you might end up with two SoL in one playthrough and someone else might not have even one in his playthrough. Good luck balancing the game for both of them from this point on, even with scaling.

Yeah...those things are kinda hard to balance and atm it is relatively obvious, which skills are the best. It was (and still is) the same for Ultimate General Civil War though. Of course Politics and Medicine are better in that game than Economics and Training. On the other side: If those skills get balanced out it makes almost no point in giving the player a choice in the first place.

Another place would be under the tab "News" in the launcher the first entry about "Backer Build 4 patch notes". It seems to be from the 12/14/19 but it actually contains notes from the recent patches as well.

Be aware, you essentially are paying extra to play the alpha version now instead of waiting for the Early Access version on Steam in a couple of months. So be aware what "alpha version" means, it is buggy and unfinished and still right in the middle of development. They have you pay extra so you are very sure about what you get yourself into, so to speak. Also if you go for the Admiral Version please do us all the favor and chose a reasonably realistic "British" sounding name. I really don't need another "TheHistoryGuy" in my historic game. (Just for the record, I like and watch the guy's videos and all, I just don't like names like that for officers in-game)

I surly hope, this is just a placeholder mechanic for now, since these missions actually have a "duration" and as of now it is basically as you say. You do all the navy missions first and then send your ships on the PoI missions. Would be more interesting if you actually had to make decisions here.

Actually I would rather see more surrenders and shattering. Having units fight almost to the death like in a Total War game feels kinda weird and very unauthentic. In a real battle units that lost about half their men were often considered "shattered" or "virtually wiped out". Pickett lost around 50% of his men during the charge in killed and wounded and after that, his division was considered "wiped out" and the charge is called one the biggest military failures of the whole civil war. Also "deaths" in the game should clearly be called casualties, but that is something the Ultimate series is dragging along with it for years now. 😉

Is it just me or have they increased the condition decrease during running considerably?

Okay, today the defense of Savannah in the British campaign totally broke on my. Like the Icons of the units where just fixed on the screen while I scrolled the camera. The units stopped moving or shooting and when I just sat out the time pushing "Finish" on the battle end screen just closed the battle summery but didn't let me leave the actual battle. 😅

Nope, there path didn't cross the land. I didn't just click on the beach or something, i moved them in relatively straight lines but when there paths crossed, even if they had a lot of distance the AI would act up.

Is the pathfinding for the landing boats acting up for anyone else during this mission when you sent the boats down the small river? I feels like when boat A is SOMEWHERE on the path that boat B wants to take, even if it is ways down, Boat B starts to turn around as if it had to try to find another way around a massive obstacle.

The whole surrender mechanic needs a bit of tweaking (it is an alpha version after all). I had instances where a 100 men surrendered to like 30 and they weren't surrounded by any means and they weren't just settlers either. It felt very weird. On another note ships sometimes seem to be too sturdy. I cheesed the AI yesterday during the Treasure Fleet Mission with the Arrogant and I was pumping canisters into the last Spanish ship of the line and I had to take the crew down to like 50 or so from 500 until it finally surrendered. Overall I think the casualties on ships are too high and maybe crews should surrender a lot faster? I don't know...hard thing to balance I guess.