Ultimate General: Civil War

[Zulu1966]

Mmmm ...  this is really good. Much bigger battles and very high production values.

[Hofstadter]

Is it the same gameplay as gettysburg?

[Jarhead0331]

I like where they are going with the RPG elements and the campaign where your troops and officers gain experience and skill.

[IronX]

I've only played the one stand-alone battle, but so far I'm really enjoying it. I wish you could rotate the map, but it works as it is. And I'm not sure whether supply is working yet as the units continue to fire even when they apparently don't have any supply.



The above is from the First Bull Run scenario. I thought I had it all wrapped up as the Union at this point, until the Confederate reinforcements arrived. It was touch and go right up until the end.

[GJK]

Played the Gettysburg game maybe 10 times and it's not tough to beat but it's enjoyable as an arcade game; there's no realism in it at all- not when you can zip and zoom direction arrows for a unit and it instantly start on its quest to go where you tell it no matter where it is and marching all over the battlefield without even raising the heart-rate of the troops.  There's no "command radius" or C&C either.  But maybe they've added some of that stuff in this new release.

[IronX]

Unit fatigue and command radius are both features of the new game.

[GJK]

Unit fatigue and command radius are both features of the new game.

That's good stuff- it's definitely on my "likely to buy" list after I hear some feedback (this is still essentially a beta though, correct?).  Again, I'm still very curious to see how it handles Antietam and Chancellorsville.

[IronX]

It's in Early Access for another month or two so there's likely to be some minor changes and bug crushing (there are definitely a few of those) made along the way. Whether it'll be any more of a challenge to play than Gettysburg is hard to say. Admittedly, I was surprised I won the First Bull Run scenario as the Union on my first go. It'll be interesting to see how some of the others play out.

[Grim.Reaper]

Good to see released.....will eventually pick up, but have a couple of other games I want to get first.

[Queeg]

This is a surprise!  I hope the campaign is worthwhile. 

[panzerde]

Played the Gettysburg game maybe 10 times and it's not tough to beat but it's enjoyable as an arcade game; there's no realism in it at all- not when you can zip and zoom direction arrows for a unit and it instantly start on its quest to go where you tell it no matter where it is and marching all over the battlefield without even raising the heart-rate of the troops.  There's no "command radius" or C&C either.  But maybe they've added some of that stuff in this new release.

There's command and supply radius, though command radius is more for bonuses and rally, and doesn't have any impact on order delay that I can see. There's definitely a fatigue factor now to marching and a major fatigue impact for melee. All in all this felt more realistic that Gettysburg did in the battle I played, though it's no CWBS. It's pretty nice for what it is though - high production values and the maps are pretty. Nice smoke effects, though no persistence on the battlefield, and of course time runs a lot faster than real time.

It's enjoyable, and something I can see myself playing when I want a light, quick game. In terms of realistic black powder warfare with a 3D battlefield, I think Seven Years War is more realistic, and looks almost as good. But I  like this enough that I'd enjoy seeing some Napoleonics or Age of Reason stuff done with the engine. Still Early Access, too, so there may be a number of improvements yet.

[glen55]

Funny.  There are loads of people in this board who never cared for multiplayer.   Is it because the AI is lacking after some time?  Multiplayer in Ultimate General was a blast?

You may be sure that I, for one, care not one portion of a fig for multiplayer, but this game was a total must-have no-brainer for me. I played UGG down to the nub. Eventually the one-battle-ness of it got to me, but it took quite a while. The idea of UGG with a bunch of battles and a campaign mode? I woke up in a puddle.

As for the AI, it could be exploited and had trouble mounting a unified assault, but every game has trouble mounting a unified AI assault, and as game AI goes, it wasn't bad at all. They're saying they've done a lot of work on it for this game.

First battle in the campaign (as the Rebs) and I am doing a fort assault, which obviously does not appear in the Gettysburg game. I'm starting over because my stuff was getting worn out by the AI in my 1st try! This time I'm going to tighten my lines a bunch and only hit one side of the fort with all my everything, and see what happens.

So my initial quicky-quick impression is very good. I'm excited about this game - but I just would be. I loved UGG too much to be trusted.

[PanzerFaust]

I tried it briefly yesterday (half a hour roughly) but I'm extremely impressed.

I tried the Confederates campaign, in the first mission you have to conquer a fort on the Potomac, and then defend it from the Union counter-attack (they have Ironclads!).

There is a really neat "RPG" system in which you can customize your commander's background and have him have different skills, and there is an army management feature between each battle - I haven't tried it yet, but that's where logistics and army organization and training come into play.

That said I'll likely wait for the game to come out of EA before commiting more time to it. It should just take a couple of months, and I dislike playing games before they are finished. But I'm sure I'll love this one so I bought it before the price rises.

[sandman2575]

Is it certain that the price of the full-release will be higher?

[Queeg]

I tried it briefly yesterday (half a hour roughly) but I'm extremely impressed.

I tried the Confederates campaign, in the first mission you have to conquer a fort on the Potomac, and then defend it from the Union counter-attack (they have Ironclads!).

There is a really neat "RPG" system in which you can customize your commander's background and have him have different skills, and there is an army management feature between each battle - I haven't tried it yet, but that's where logistics and army organization and training come into play.

That said I'll likely wait for the game to come out of EA before commiting more time to it. It should just take a couple of months, and I dislike playing games before they are finished. But I'm sure I'll love this one so I bought it before the price rises.

Did the same here.  It looks like a very polished game, and the campaign appears to have some nice RPG-like elements.  The limitations of the Gettysburg engine are there -- mainly the tendency of the units to blob a bit during combat -- but the campaign overlay looks very interesting.

I also plan to set it aside until it goes final, but I'm sure I'll dig into once it's released.  Worthwhile purchase.