The Freedoms and Restrictions of Organizing an Army


Ultimate General: Gettysburg

Last Monday, I declared my intention to compose a dispatch cataloging the perspective of a Confederate commander rising through the ranks. I may still do this, but on reflection I realize there's too much to say about Ultimate General: Civil War, and I don't want to waste time on the irrelevant. The fiction may happen, but it will be at the end, if at all.

In the first two articles, Awkward Mixture examined the broad mechanics of the Ultimate General series, and the failures of Civil War in implementing Artificial Intelligence, Cover, and the Timer.

These criticisms focused on alterations of mechanics in Gettysburg, but the evaluation today relates directly to Civil War's promised expansion. Beginning Gettysburg, the player is promised a historical experience. The brigades, commanders, and cavalry existed in 1863, and they arrive armed and as expected. Every Corps entrance upon the battlefield, their time, direction, and strength, can be predicted, for their features are dictated by historical fact.
But the story of Civil War begins in the first days of the great schism. Instead of fighting with historical forces, the player commands an introductory Corps, 2 Divisions, and 4 Brigades of 1,500 men each. By the end of 1865, this minor force expands to 5 Corps, each containing 4 Divisions, and composed of 6 Brigades(which each include 2,500 men). At the opening battle the player controls 7 commanders and a maximum of 6,000 men, but at the campaign's conclusion includes 5 Corps commanders, 20 Division Commanders, and 120 Brigades with a maximum of 300,000 soldiers, led by 145 Generals, Majors, Colonels, and Captains. It's an amazing increase which offers an astonishing lack of ability to customize the army. The player assigns each Brigade from one of four options: Infantry, Artillery, Cavalry, and Skirmishers, but is limited by the weapons available in the Armory. Even by the campaigns conclusion, there are not enough proficient skirmisher armaments for 5 Brigades, and for some varieties of cannon there are not enough guns to form a single, 12 gun battery. This problem extends to cavalry as well, with a variety of inferior weaponry. There's an abundance of weapons sufficient for 120 Brigades, but by the conclusion of thirty-eight battles the Army of the Potomac is overwhelmed by the amount of Springfield M1842s and 6-pounder field guns, and yet unable to locate 12, 14-pounder James or 250 Lemat revolvers (the minimum number necessary to form a Cavalry Brigade).

Still, the variety of weaponry is impressive, and allows the player to alter the function of a Brigade by arming it with one rifle or another. For example, a skirmisher division can be equipped with the best sniper rifles for a long distance duel, or carbines for rapid fire at close range.

Civil War tries to personal the Brigades, Divisions, and Corps the player commands. It attaches a brief historical record to each Brigade. The date of formation, total losses and kills, are included, along with the name of each battle the Brigade participated in, and its losses and kills in the conflict. Each Brigade and Corps can be renamed, but Divisions can't. The first Union Infantry Brigade to achieve the rank of elite (three stars) is automatically named as the Iron Brigade, and its past history, total kills and all, is erased. While these records are nice, it seems they should have also included either a separate history for each Commander, or an indication on the Brigade history when there was a change of command.
But the real problem with commanders is the lack of differentiation. While Civil War includes a random generator capable of producing over 140 unique portraits, in combat, each commander is indistinguishable for another. Civil War uses a simple RPG system to allow commanders to earn promotions and skills. Higher rank is required to command Divisions and Corps, while skills provide a minor boost to a specific feature of combat. Unfortunately, there are only a few perks to choose from. Each commander can only earn a skill three times, and the Infantry track contains two perks at first level, three at the second, and two more to choose from at the final tier. This means there are only twelve variations of Infantry commander. Rank and skill are the only defining features, and leaders have no predetermined bonus to encourage the player to choose one over another. In the end, shuffling through commanders felt dull, as if one were searching through an endless series of pointless portraits, a hundred distinct faces, but no distinguishing features.

Unlike Gettysburg, Civil War allows the player to raise their own armies, choosing the composition of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and skirmishers, purchasing and equipping the appropriate weapons from the armory. In spite of the Army Camp's limits, the system enables the player to employ a variety of combinations and tactics. But organizing in the Army Camp screen is tiresome. One commander is no different from another, and the need after each battle to reinforce and resupply brigades detracts from the battles. Even with Civil War's variety of weapons, their availability and expense limit the player to a similar format for most of their Brigades. The system includes no method to resupply the 120 Brigades with a single button, instead requiring specific attention to each unit, even though they all need the same thing. Yet, the army the player creates is uniquely their own.

But this means that when the player finally brings their army to battle, Civil War is an ahistoric, historical wargame. In early battles, because the player's army is only composed of a few brigades, they are a small fraction of the necessary forces, and historical brigades are supplied. But by the end of the campaign, all forces must be supplied by the player's organization, which could lead to unique battles, if only the developer would let it.
As soon as Civil War abandons a key historical grounding point (in this case, army composition),it allows the player to question the realistic, historical nature of other aspects of the game. For instance: Why does the campaign follow each historical battle one after the other, without altering them based on the consequences of the past battle? Victory has only a minimal effect on the enemy's army and no effect on their strategic position in the next battle. Victory and defeat are more relevant to the player's army, because every casualty incurred must be replaced and retrained. A Pyrrhic victory (which could ruin an entire campaign) is possible if the player exhausts their manpower in crushing the enemy, and then must use their depleted forces fight a unrealistically restored enemy. Even a player controlling the Union Army crushes the Confederacy at 1st Mananas, Shiloh, and Gaines Mill, Civil War dictates that they must follow a preordained path through Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Chickamunga to Richmond.

This is expected. One can't make a historical campaign which branches into a thousand paths, and the cost of even a few variations would be immense. Could the developer have enabled the player to win the game early, if they destroyed the computer in a few early battles? I think it would have been a good idea (It's certainly possible to loose Gettysburg early if one plays poorly enough). In contrast, Civil War General 2 (1997), for all its faults, created a campaign which branched depending on the outcome of each battle, but it did so by providing a historical army, instead of a player created one. Ultimate General: Civil War's campaign is a paradox of freedom constricted by restrictions.

Unfortunately, it's not just the campaign which is restricts the player, but the battles themselves. That's next week.

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