Game Review - Ultimate General: Civil War

Ultimate General: Civil War
Platform: Steam
My Game Time: 155 hours
Released: July 2017
Summary: An incredible journey through the historical battles of the American Civil War (1861-1865) delivered in a tabletop RTS format. One of my favourite strategy games ever made!

Ultimate General: Civil War is the follow up to Ultimate General: Gettysburg (2014) and the spiritual successor to Sid Meier's Gettysburg (1997). Both of these were excellent titles that I really enjoyed, but their narrow focus on one battle was somewhat limited and you could more or less learn what the AI would do at any given stage of the battle after repeated attempts. To solve this the developer expanded the scope to the entire Civil War including 16 major battles and over 48 minor engagements. This alone was a huge undertaking and the massive scope of this game deserves some serious praise and appreciation. For any fan of historical war games this time period alone is a huge draw, the execution I am glad to report is also excellent. There is the huge campaign mode, historical battle mode (can play from either side) and also a custom battle mode. There is no multiplayer unlike the 2014 release, however I have to praise the developer for focusing solely on making the single player experience great above all else. In the era of online sensations this is a welcome bit of quality for the single player orientated gamer.

The campaign is a series of interlinked historical conflicts that are supported by the minor engagements. Your success in these engagements changes the outcome and starting resources of each major battle. For instance if you do poorly in the engagements leading up to a major battle the enemy will be stronger while your forces may suffer. To supplement this as you progress you can equip your regiments with new weaponry and even experiment with some technology and tactics that would of been innovative for the time. For example I equipped certain regiments with better muskets/rifles and this made them very effective in combat. Naming the brigade also gave it a personnel touch and you end up getting rather attached to these "Elite" brigades in your army. This gives the game another layer of attachment and opportunity cost, do you risk your elite rifleman to potentially push for an objective?

Most of the big campaign battles are extremely well done, the is the same for the minor engagements though difficulty spikes can be an issue. Some of them seem downright unwinnable with the time limit given. This is a minor issue and they are generally varied and keep the dynamic nature of the campaign alive. The scale of the minor engagements can be pretty large, with over 100,000 soldiers represented in some of the large main battles. This can be overwhelming but fortunately units are easy to command and generally do as they are told! The AI is competent and can put up quite a fight when cornered, this adds to the immersive nature of the game. There has often been times that with seconds to spare my men have captured an objective with one last charge into enemy lines, such epic moments happen often in this game.

The graphics are great for what they attempt to achieve, not as fancy as a lot of modern titles but for me they do the game justice. Representing over 200,000 soldiers on one map is a difficult task and the engine does a good job of this. The sounds of the era are great, accompanied by a rousing soundtrack from the Civil War era. I also enjoy the arrows that emerge from your brigades when they are moving, this reflects many of the historical war maps of the time.

I love that between battles in the campaign I can customise my army and even increase the size of my brigades (something the enemy does on a regular basis so you need to keep up). Equipping new items and weapons and experimenting with your brigades and army set up is all massive fun. This part of the game I found to be extremely addictive, and the anticipation of the next battle was always there in the background. Once on the field the battles are intense, pressure slowly mounts as more and more brigades engage each other. You are always on the look out for the next flanking manoeuvre that will deal the final blow and rout the enemy units. Unit causalities are presented at the end of the battle,this means there is always a challenge to try more and fight each battle more successfully.

Ultimate General: Civil War is a joy of a game and I plan already to take another play through this time as the Union, one last charge into enemy lines awaits my troops! But don't take just my word for it, Kotaku stated “Ultimate General: Civil War is basically an overblown sequel to the first game, using its success (and everything developers Game-Labs learned) as a foundation to go and build something much bigger and, so far at least, much better.”

Review Score 5/5** with the Masterclass stamp of approval!

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Lrev