About This Game Ultimate General: Civil War is a tactical war-game. Experience the bloodiest period of U.S. history - the American Civil War of 1861-1865. MAIN FEATURESFull campaign: Fight in the American Civil War campaign and participate in 50+ battles from small engagements to massive battles that can last several days over hundreds of square miles of terrain. Campaign fully depends on player actions and battle results. Historical battles can also be played separately.The game includes the following battles in the campaign:Battle of Aquia CreekBattle of Philippi1st Battle of Bull RunBattle of ShilohBattle of Gaines' MillBattle of Malvern Hill2nd Battle of Bull RunBattle of AntietamBattle of FredericksburgBattle of Stones RiverBattle of ChancellorsvilleBattle of GettysburgBattle of ChickamaugaBattle of Cold HarborBattle of RichmondBattle of Washington+ 48 smaller scale battlesArmy management: You are the general. You have full control over the army composition. Based on your successes and reputation you might get access to more corps, divisions and brigades. Keep your soldiers alive and they will learn to fight better, turning from green rookies to crack veterans. Lose a lot of your soldiers and you might not have enough reinforcements to deliver victories. Your reputation will suffer, army morale will drop and you will be forced to resign.Innovative command system: You decide which level of control you want. Command every unit individually or just give them a main goal with one button click and watch if they can take that hill. Army divisions commanders can make decisions on their own and help you control the largest army. Draw a defensive line and allocated brigades will defend it like lions. Or design a deep flanking maneuver by just drawing an arrow and send the whole army to the enemy flank or the rear. Your generals will try to fulfill your orders, although "no plan survives contact with the enemy".Officer progression: Historical unit commanders progress and become better fighters together with the player. The Officers rank up based on their units’ performance, but it's war and they can be wounded or even get killed in action. New ranks open new possibilities and allow officers to lead bigger units without efficiency loss. Winning battles also opens new possibilities for you as a general, increasing skills such as reconnaissance or political influence.Historical weapons: There is huge variety of Civil War weaponry from mass produced Enfield pattern rifles to rare Whitworths. Historical availability has also been implemented. Certain weapons can only be captured by raiding supplies or taken from the enemy on the battlefield. Enhanced unit control: Detach skirmishers to send them to scout those hills ahead. Or merge several brigades into one bigger division if it’s needed. Dismount the cavalry to become less visible to the enemy or mount for fast flanking charges and supply raids. Supplies are extremely important and you have to plan and defend the provisions otherwise the battle might end for you early.Advanced Artificial Intelligence: You will face a strong enemy. AI will flank you, will hit your weak spots and undefended high ground, will chase and cut your supplies and will try to destroy unguarded artillery batteries. AI will use terrain and will take cover and retreat if overwhelmed. Terrain matters: Trenches, lines, fences, houses, fields – everything can help to achieve victory, if you know how to use it. Hills will allow you to see enemy units earlier. Rivers and bridges can become natural obstacles that will help you to defend. Forests can help you hide your movements and flank the enemy. Beautiful maps: We believe that modern technology allows hardcore war-games to finally stop being brown on green hexes. Hardcore, deep war games can be beautiful. In our game, every historical battle landscape is accurately hand-drawn, utilizing data from satellite and historical maps. The topography plays immense strategic role and helps to understand how battles were fought and to learn history. 7aa9394dea Title: Ultimate General: Civil WarGenre: Indie, Simulation, StrategyDeveloper:Game-LabsPublisher:Game-LabsRelease Date: 14 Jul, 2017 Ultimate General: Civil War Ativador Download [PC] This is a pretty good real-time tactical wargame set during the American Civil War. You can play individual historical battles or indulge in the game's campaign layer, allowing you to customize your army as you play through an 1861 - 1865 scenario. It is easiest to think of Ultimate General as the ACW Total War game that always should have happened, but never did. The dev behind this studio actually WAS a popular TW modder, which makes the comparison even stronger.TLDR: Check out John Tiller series (turn-based) or Scourge of War (real-time) if you crave the most realistic wargames currently on the market, however Ultimate General does offer a fun, fast-paced, slightly more straightforward "beer & pretzels" (casual) experience, and even boasts a best-in-class campaign component if that's your thing.Now, below I'm going to write about this game in much more detail, especially regarding some of the features I find most enjoyable in this genre and how it compares to other popular titles. I think you'll see that UG falls somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of balancing authenticity and accessibility:--------------------------------------------------* AI commanders: This is probably my biggest wargaming pet peeve. With large Corps or Army level engagements, it becomes overwhelming to micro-manage all my forces. This ruins the fun for me in games like Civil War Generals 2 and the Hexwar titles. There's a lot to like with these games, but almost every scenario is tedious and overlong. Unfortunately, UG:CW is also in this vein, as it doesn't have any option to assign certain formations over to an AI general.* Indirect orders: Despite the above, you do have the ability to issue "extended" orders to a unit, for example a long flanking maneuver where you trace the route of their march with your mouse. They will obey your orders instantly though, while you command with a "God's eye" view of the battlefield. One title very worth comparing here is Scourge of War (Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, Antietam), which allows a "headquarters in the saddle" option where you send couriers to deliver your orders, simulating the slowness of communications in the 1860's.* Leader units: Leaders with command bonuses can really enhance tactical gameplay, not to mention add a ton of interesting context for further historical research. UG only gives you control of Corps commanders or higher (Lee, Jackson, etc.), which unfortunately ties it with Total War as the most obfuscated command structure of any comparable game. :(* OOB: Maybe it's just the history nerd in me, but I like to browse the orders of battle, especially during combat. Unfortunately, UG only allows this before and after battle. Additionally, the "opposing forces" are presented in a confusing structure, at least for me, that represents Corps and Divisions for organizational purposes, even when it isn't historically accurate (1st Manassas, for example). There is another series of wargames called John Tiller Software's (JTS) Civil War Battles. They are turn-based and they aren't on Steam, but you can check out his website directly. The OOBs there are clean, historically accurate, and really easy to navigate.* Detailed mechanics (morale, ammo, supply): Having these kind of mechanics are not necessarily good or bad, but just depend on your preferences. UG has all 3 features, although routed (fleeing) units have a strange tendency to recover too quickly and rejoin the fight unexpectedly. Of the games I've mentioned, JTS has the most in-depth options (and optional rulesets to tweak), whereas Hexwar has none of it at all. So again, UG is a middle-of-the-road option.* Battles\/campaigns: The more the better, of course, and hopefully with historically accurate detail. UG is actually pretty good here, compared to typical wargames which focus on major releases of single battles (more like UG: Gettysburg). This title includes many famous engagments like 1st Manassas, Shiloh, Antietam, Chickamauga, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. Still, it doesn't get any better than JTS in this regard, with 13 releases covering almost the entire war, including some key items missing from this title such as Jackson\u2019s Valley campaign, Wilderness & Spotsylvania Courthouse (Overland campaign), and the Petersburg campaign. Not to mention John Tiller's scenario designers include painstakingly accurate historical detail in terms of the terrain, objectives, leaders, forces, etc.* Campaign layer: UG excels in this area. It adds a strategy\/campaign layer in which you gain money and skills as you fight your way through the ACW. You will be able to recruit your own officers, organize your brigades, and outfit your soldiers with the latest equipment. UG actually does it better than any other game I've listed so far (for most of the others this functionality is not available at all, although CWG2 does have shorter but comparable campaigns if that kind of gameplay interests you).--------------------------------------------------Hope this feedback helps. For my personal enjoyment, I really can't recommend the John Tiller series highly enough. The historical authenticity, flexible AI, numerous optional rulesets, detailed mechanics, and unparalleled number of engagements all combine to make JTS a near perfect option if you're looking for a tactical-level wargame covering the American Civil War.Ultimate General is a good option too, though, especially for newer players. It's also much more affordable at $30 for the whole thing vs. $40 for *each* John Tiller game! If you're patient, you can even pick up UG on sale for ~ $10 a couple times a year.Cheers and happy gaming!. Best single player game outside of Total War Series. The game is fun to its core but it has such bad AI for example if I would give them a order to attack they wouldn't do it instead going for the next unit away from who I chose which is true my units kept doing it multiple times meanwhile the enemy AI knew exactly what to do and did it. One of the worst parts is that my units didn't fire at all not blocked, enemy in the open but they didn't fire they just went "I don't feel like doing what i'm told." Whats worse is that even if you have the better numbers and your unit's morale is high they would still fall back for no reason. and get this even when my men had lowered my enemies troops down to 60 THEY STILL FELL BACK AND WANT TO KNOW MY UNIT'S TROOPS IT WAS 200 FING BULL. This game needs to rework the AI completely, add a tutorial (they don't have one for god knows why) have better game mechanics, and especially they need to rework the units and how they work,shoot, and act! I regret getting this game at it's state and I hope no one else gets it.. Troops refuse to fire even when high morale, route at the drop of a hat, etc. Many better war games out there.. kool game- glad i bought it. its help menu even has links to youtube uploads..real easy to learn..hard to play..great game. I enjoyed playing this game, but it does have significant issues. Multi-day battles, in particular, are frustrating--losing hard-fought positions from one day to the next is annoying and took me out of any sense of continuity in many campaign battles. The flip side of those experiences, also a negative, is that I was able to learn how to "game" the game and ignore certain victory objectives while placing my units in the most advantageous positions to win battles decisively on another day. If you are looking for historical accuracy in a Civil War game, you may want to look elsewhere, but I still give this a lukewarm recommendation, especially if it is on sale.
top of page
bottom of page
Comments