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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