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Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail

First off, keep in mind the game development remains in Alpha status. I've seen a lot of his You Tubes and he's run across many small bugs. This game is clearly is not anywhere close to release, but Beta may not be far behind. If you must have it it is available in the pre-release, unfinished condition, from the game website. I have no doubt all the issues will be resolved as there is a constant flow of patches and additions. Since this opening effort just deals with the American Revolution, and only has two campaign games, the developers ability to add DLC is almost unlimited. If they do they will need large trucks to carry the money to their bank.
Anyway, glad to see THG has recognized the game currently set for <easy> in naval actions was showing too easy and he'll be adjusting that. Even though his land battles are set for <medium> they don't look to be a serious challenge so far either, although the AI seems decent.
Take my money. I've seen enough to accept the fact I'll be getting this at some point, but will follow development until I'm sure the game is ready. I feel very comfortable with the player UI just having watched the vids, as well as seeing a lot of carryover from the game Ultimate General: Civil War/Gettysburg. Even though it is RTS if has 5 play speed levels. Something for everyone. I really like the RPG aspect and getting your forces ready for the next battle looks fun as well.
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UA Age of Sail released into early access today. Their Steam promo vid's push the land combat, not the sea combat. Strange.
 
There is a lot of land combat. It's a nice break from watching a bunch of ships trying to maneuver into the wind.
I think that ship to ship combat would be highlighted, but maybe they are emphasizing the land combat as a “value added” feature.
 
OK, DL'd UA:AoS!
Wish me luck as I start my British Campaign.
If my info is correct this is still kinda a early-access game. "What do you mean, mTk? It was released back on March 04!"
Well, yeah, but the game is incomplete, sorta. The game in its current form, and I quote: "... The early access edition will feature two campaigns: for Britain or the United States; each with 30 sea and land battles across 3 chapters. During Early Access we plan to expand both campaigns with two additional chapters that will each include about 15 new battles.
No info as to when that may be, but for now I have at least 60 battles to keep me occupied, so there's that. Price on Steam is currently $40.
I about wore out Ultimate General: ACW & Gettysburg so I expect this to be a lot of fun as well. Watched many a YT so feel like the learning curve should be short.
Now I can quit yelling at the screen "Watch the wind! Add sail! Change to chain shot! Look....!"
 
Anyone else have this? I have two issues, both involve land unit commands.
1. I can't seem to figure out how to draw a path from the unit to where/how I want it to travel. I read that holding down the left mouse button and drawing the path should do it. Easy right? Doesn't seem to work for me. Errr.
2. How do I combine units?
Oh, are there difficulty level settings? Don't see the option.
Once I get those two things figured out I should be ready to go. I already accidentally hit the <dismiss> button which I thought would remove a unit from a ship. Of course it did...and it deleted it from the game. Why doesn't the game ask me "Are you sure?" before allowing me to proceed. Did they get this from PzC2? :cry:
Then, there are side missions for each chapter. All you do is take some ships from your fleet, assign them to the mission, and some time later you get the results announced. These are pretty important as they can earn you extra cash and stuff. So. I read about the mission, assigned two ships, one a troop transport and sent them off. Then I read about the main mission at hand. It calls for an amphib landing and a large ground battle. I am pretty sure I now do not have enough troops to succeed at this. Don't let this happen to you. :unsure:
 
Oh, my. Sometimes I have to wonder...
Figured out what I was doing wrong trying to set a path for land units. I was starting the path a little too far away from the unit itself. Just that little distance was screwing things up.
And, I realized the setting of the difficulty level was part of the intro to the campaign start up. Merely forgot. {sigh}
Still can't make the merge function work. It looks like it should be the <Y>. Should be.
Starting new campaign with all my recently gained knowledge. :p
 
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Yeah, I am a bit of a clown act as I go through the usual comedic process of trying to learn a new game.
In my defense this time I never did find a manual. I did find a spot where it looked like there should have been one, but it was blank. However, I've spent enough time with this now that I think I've got everything pretty much figured out. Well, except that merge units command. I think I may have been trying to merge units with different weapons, but there is no warning or other indicator suggesting the error of my ways.
I was doing just fine until recently I went on a land mission (Santa Cruz). I got stomped (playing on medium difficulty). WTF? That gave me pause and required I take a hard look at things before I tried again. And a little more caution was clearly called for.
I decided that, primarily, I was outnumbered and too casual with my tactics. Brute force only works if you have enough brute force. Someone famous said something like that once. So, how to get more troops? I had to spend a lot of "reputation" on getting a 2nd troop ship. Then there went a lot of money on arming and filling it with the needed troops. For tactics I was much more careful with maintaining contiguous lines to bring max fire power to bear while minimizing friendly fire casualties. Then there was making sure to keep previously routed enemy units from showing up behind me and inflicting flanking fire, and having to break my line to send units chasing after them. Took advantage of focus fire whenever possible. There, that's better. An easy win. Enemy suffered approx 2350 casualties. I had 217.
Now, a new problem. A friendly 40 gun ship was surprised and damaged by a Spanish sqd. It lost a mast and is dead in the water. I've been ordered to assist. "Oh, and by the way, would you mind destroying the enemy sqd while you're there?" It consists of four ships of similar size to my four ship fleet. I could probably do this, but there is another problem. There is a fifth enemy ship trailing behind the forward group. It has 70 guns. My biggest ship is a 30 gun frigate.
I have not come up with a plan yet. HQ suggested a fire ship, but I don't have one and can't get one atm. They also suggested play the wind and put plenty of raking fire on him. "OK, and what about the rest of the enemy squadron?" <crickets>
p.s. Finally looked around a bit and confirmed there is no manual of any kind. I'd really like to ask the developers their thinking behind this! Yeah, I know. Follow the money, but still...
 
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Well, that was exciting.
As usual I was slow on the details and didn't realize that Admiralty provided me with 2 fire ships until I bought one and entered the battle! They burn gud.
Nail biting battle. RTS keeps me hopping.
Captured 4 and destroyed the 68 gun behemoth by fire. One capture was a 40 gun, but lost a 26 gun in the process.
Lots of work to do at the harbor.
 
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{Sigh}
"mTk, do you not learn from your mistakes? Is that it?" Apparently so.
Just finished the Snatch mission last night. What an unmitigated disaster. :cry:
I did exactly what I did re the post above about losing. This time it was in the naval part of the landing assignment.
Complete and total negligence with a topping of arrogance as to my ability.
I am told to clear out a beat up Spanish naval squadron at the mouth of the river. After that, go up river to the town, take down the defenders and loot all the gold. Good idea.
Naval forces look about equal, but the Spanish have a ship with a 500 man crew! I have no fire ships. I figure I'll manage.
I spend the whole fight dodging the big MF while I try to take down the support cast. I do, but take terrible crew losses and even have to transfer some marines from a troop transport to make up the difference. So, now it is down to that one, big warship and the crew down to about half strength.
"So, mTk, what's the problem?"
It is at that point that I realize that the ship is not a warship at all, just a big, slow, lumbering troop transport. Basically, completely harmless unless it was to get close enough to try a boarding action.
I took all that time, and all those unnecessary crew losses, for absolutely no reason other than inattention.
Played the rest of the landing out, but in the end I ran out of troops and failed.
I may have to post a note on my monitor to slow down and look around before I start every mission.
 
Did you know that if you sail a ship out of the map boundaries it is permanently deleted from your fleet. I do now.
Took all that Spanish gold, and it was something like 49,000! Still, my naval performance was poor. Not gonna try again.
My troops performed very well and this time I was able to stand my ground to defend the river crossing, our escape route. Shot the enemy charges across the river to ribbons.
I've not been able to complete many of the peripheral missions because I didn't have the ships to spare as they have all been needed for the primary battle(s). Was able to manipulate some trophy ships and now my active warship fleet is 5. This is now letting me do a side quest atm. I'd have had six now, but you know...
The primary mission is all navy and it looks like I start out fighting the French with every expectation the American will show up as well.
My naval tactics are going to have to be waay better then last time. At least I do now have a 40 gun frigate...so there's that.
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Had some problems, again, this time with the "Ontario" mission. Seemed easy enough. I have four ships and all I need to do is escort two merchants due north with the coast to the east. I am told the French are approaching from the west and American ships are expected as well, at some time and some place.
Turns out there are two big problems. First, all of the French (3) ships are bigger than mine, one notably so. The other is the wind coming in straight from the west. That means my transports can only make about 3.5 kts at best so catching up with them is no problem for the enemy. This also causes serious maneuver restrictions.
Yes, problems. Soon after the mission starts the American ships show up. IIRC they only have about 16 guns, but are very fast little buggers and reach my transports from...BEHIND! The one direction I was not paying attention to.
Restart. Enemy seemingly just has too many ships and too many guns.
Restart. Rinse & repeat.
Restart. Bad seamanship leads to one of my ships sunk and another captured.
Restart. I'm getting a hint. I use what meager resources I have left and obtain, and equip, a fire ship. It works well, but other French ships board me.
Restart. Fire ship is successful. One of my frigates holds off the Americans and I flee for the <safe> zone. A transport runs aground and because of the wind I can't get him off.
Restart. Fire ship is successful and I timely disengage (that means I run like Hell) and head for the <safe> zone again. Did you know that if you send a ship to the <safe> zone and it reaches it and goes past to the edge of the map it is lost for good? Yep. Deja Vu. Almost lost a transport again to grounding, but caught it just in time. Shallow water stretches quite a way out from the coast line and I'm on a course to try to get as much speed as possible. American ship caught up just at the end, but I turned and shot him to pieces wiith a bow rake. Watched it sink. Very satisfying. While I lost that one ship to the <safe> zone attack I did manage to capture two others so it's a win and a net ship gain. I'll take it.
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I learned that the UI uses "scaling", in lieu of some other kind of cheat, to maintain its competitiveness. That means that when you get a nice, new, shiny ship with a lot of guns to add to your fleet so does the AI. Except his ship(s) will usually be bigger. This means you will likely never have a ship/gun advantage in your battles. And this, at first, upset me. And then I realized I was getting upset with the idea the AI would remain competitive. Hmm.
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On the good news front, some time back I captured a Spanish merchant. It's enormous! It has a 1000 pt carry capacity! I had two transports atm, 350 and 500 pts, and hungrily eyed it, but the Admiralty wanted 25 reputation points before it would release it to me. 25! That's a lot. However, it is now in my fleet renamed the Dragon, and was desperately needed for troop space for my attack on the City of Savannah. I don't think I could have had sufficient force without it.
Kind of playing on the edge here.
 
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Of course as I am all happy about getting a bigger transport, my next mission has me rescuing a British transport that the Americans had captured. It was also 1000 pts! And then? I captured a transport that has a 1200 pt capacity. Hmm.
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I also captured two 5th rates, 54 gun warships that I had to cough up 30 rep points to get the Admiralty to release just one to me! I've got a couple of 46 gun ships and a 40 as well. I'm in great shape.
"Uh, Captain? Could we have a moment please? There is a French fleet coming our way. We want you to intercept them in open water and destroy them. Our intelligence indicates they will likely have SOL's. Unfortunately, we have none to spare to give to you, but we are confident you will do your duty. Good luck."
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I keep getting good mention in the British press. However, it does seem as if someone on the Admiralty Board wants me dead.
 
Well, I admit defeat. At least at this difficulty level for naval operations.
This last mission was just too much to deal with. French had TWO SOL that I just could not handle.
Perhaps if I'd had resources left to create a fire ship to defeat one of them, but...
This will also give me the opportunity to use my resources and upgrades a bit more effectively. First thing is to build my fleet, even with small ships, as I need them for side missions. I was only getting to about 1/2 of them before, and losing out on a lot of resource opportunities.
So, restart with a drop in difficulty for ship combat. Even at normal speed/pause it is very tricky to handle six or more ships effectively.
Maintain difficulty level for land combat as it is much easier to control (for me).
FYI, the most recent patch added the missing missions for the American campaign, so that is complete now.
I've already done a couple of missions, but it is easy at the start so my success to date was expected.
 
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