Ultimate General: The Opening Salvo

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I anticipated the joy of playing Ultimate General: Civil War to such a degree I broke my cardinal rule of Steam purchases, and acquired it a year earlier than my schedule allows. What reason could possibly compel such a rash act? The excellence of Ultimate General: Gettysburg, Civil War's predecessor. The sequel to Ultimate General: Gettysburg, both developed by Nick Thomadis and Game-Labs, Civil War is a massively more ambitious project, attempting to re-imagine the single battle of the original, and fill a complete campaign with thirty-eight variations.

Over the next few weeks Awkward Mixture will feature a series of articles to examine the strengths, weakness, and differences of the two Ultimate General games, with a bit of fiction for flavor. How to define this series? The Armchair General declares Gettysburg to be a slight inferiority of the acclaimed Sid Meier’s Gettysburg, which I haven't had the pleasure of playing. While UG:Gettysburg is rough around the edges, it's the best Civil War game available on Steam.

And it is with such enthusiasm I approached Ultimate General: Civil War.
The main aspect of both Civil War and Gettysburg is combat, which stylistically replicates those historical maps rendering the Yanks in blue, and the Rebs in red. The player commands brigades of infantry, batteries of artillery, corp commanders, and the occasional cavalry regiment. Brigades and batteries are composed of a number of soldiers, a rank of one (green) to three stars (elite), and percentage values of morale and condition. Maneuvering with the units available, the commander must capture the objectives displayed on the battlefield.

Gettysburg only included the single, three day battle, divided into portions, after each of which the player is offered two choices of how to build on their position depending on their recent failure or success.

Civil War sought to expand on its predecessor in a multitude of mechanics, most crucially by connecting a series of battles through the Army Camp Screen and Campaign Map. After each battle the player is returned to the Army Camp, where they spend money and manpower to hire brigades, divisions, and Corps, assign commanders, rifles (over fifteen different variations), cannons (same), and reminisce on past battles with fictional-historical data recorded for each brigade. The player can also review the Career Page, which includes a review of each battle and the opportunity to spend career points which improve the commanding general's skills in politics, economy, medicine, training, army organization, logistics, and reconnaissance. On the Campaign Map the player chooses which enemy force to engage next. Civil War includes thirteen Major battles, and twenty-five Minor battles. Major battles, like Antietam and Chancellorsville are mandatory, while Minor battles can be avoided, but each victory awards the player more money, manpower, and Career points to spend in improving the army. To beat Civil War one must advance through each Major battle, and any chosen Minor battles, without reducing their reputation below zero. Reputation is gained in victory, and drained by defeat, and is the singular metric for the conclusion.
Ultimate General: Civil War includes three choices of difficulty (Colonel, Brigadier General, and Major General), along with a Legendary mode for the heroic commander. Believing I would love UG:CW enough to complete it's campaign at least once as the Union and once as the Confederates, I chose the easiest difficulty for the first play-through. After a campaign and a half it is apparent that the largest and most disappointing difference between UG: Gettysburg and UG: Civil War is how the developer designed the difficulty.

In a blog post dated January 06, 2014 discussing UG: Gettysburg, Nick Thomadis describes the core idea of his game, the difficulty:

I always disliked the idea of giving statistical bonuses to the AI to make it more challenging, for example to give AI morale bonus to increase difficulty levels. Although this is a widely accepted practice to hide AI incompetency I think it provides fake experience and challenge to players. With this game project I had the opportunity as game designer to make an AI parametric system that simulates skills and aggressiveness.
Instead of providing a numerical bonus to the enemy for each tier of difficulty, Nick designed nine AI personalities which played differently, and very effectively. At the beginning of Gettysburg the player chooses one of the nine AIs or have one secretly assigned. The nine AI are ranked along three levels of difficulty, and three tiers of aggressiveness. Regardless of which character the player chooses, the number and strength of the enemy's forces remains consistent. But at higher difficulties, the AI probes for weakness, attempts to flank for better fire, and they don't always strike where one would expect. Even if one defends a position of strength, the AI will discover the correct approach to give them the best possible chance of victory.

For whatever reason, this design decision was abandoned for Civil War, and the unique difficulty of Gettysburg was replaced with a system of giving statistical bonuses to the AI to make it more challenging! To compound the ignominy, the AI is as dumb grunt on his first day and as dangerous as a supply wagon. They understand none of the critical actions listed above. They do not flank, but advance relentlessly. They do not advance as a line, but piecemeal, with brigades which recover from rout returning immediately to the fray. In defense they do not maneuver to protect their rear, in offense they don't flank. They move towards the closest objective or enemy and will halt exactly at the maximum firing distance. Always! An average player with this information can use their knowledge to decimate the computer. Place your forces so the enemy will stand in a river and fire at your men. Stand so your men are under the cover of the woods, and theirs outside it. As long as the enemy is coming to you, you can always position yourself to place them at a disadvantage.
They are predictable, ponderous, and pathetic. I won every battle except for one minor one, and you can too.

After an opening of such a ferocious fuselage, what else is there to relate the Colonel asks the General's messenger. As Picket is suppose to have said, "General, I have no division..."

But this is only the beginning of the review. A battle is not necessarily lost when the first ridge is abandoned in the face of relentless assault. Enough reinforcements could be arriving in time to hold the second hilltop until the next day.

So next week a further consideration of Ultimate General.

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