Every Battle is Determined Before It's Ever Fought


Ultimate General: Gettysburg

Last week, Awkward Mixture examined Ultimate General: Civil War's paradoxical relationship with freedom and restriction as relating to crafting the player's army and campaigning. This week's article examines how an unrealistic lack of information and vague goals impede the player's ability to make meaningful decisions in battle.

As already mentioned, the Timer included in Civil War is a devolution from the one included in Gettysburg. Its imprecise implications render its purpose pointless, since one doesn't know if its final toll indicates conclusion, reinforcement, or relocation.

Let's take a look at the whole map.

Before battle begins in Civil War, the player should reequip and reinforce their army at the Army Camp screen. Then they'll arrive at the Battle Map, which offers one Major battle and up to three Minor battles to choose from. Clicking on a battlefield induces Civil War to display a cache of information: the enemy army strength, their level of training, their weapon quality, a few irrelevant intercepted messages between enemy commanders, flavor text about how the two armies came to fight at the particular location, and the rewards for the three outcomes: Victory, Draw, and Defeat.
Each battle, regardless of resolution, provides the player an increase in two of the Civil War's currencies: Manpower and Money. Money (referred to as gold) is used to purchase weapons, commanders, and train soldiers. Manpower is spent to replace casualties or hire new soldiers. The third currency of Civil War is reputation, which measures the player's success and is the sole determinant of victory or defeat. If the player's reputation is reduced to zero then the army is disbanded and the player loses. At the same time, Reputation can never exceed a value of one-hundred. If the player has a comfortable cushion of extra Reputation, they can spend it at the Army Camp to purchase additional Money, Manpower, Commanders, or weaponry. While at first this mechanic seems sensible, further reflection reveals that a player who is doing well enough to spend Reputation, doesn't need the rewards it offers, while a player in a desperate situation won't have any to waste.

In relation to battles, Victory always increases the Commander's reputation, and Defeat always reduces it, while the reward from a Draw differs depending on the historical expectations of the battlefield. Some Draws reward the player with Reputation, while others reduce it.

Once a battle is chosen, the player access the deployment screen, which includes a map of the battlefield framed by historical flavor text on the left side and the player's corps on the right. The map is surprisingly lacking in information, with a few arrows (blue for Union, red for Confederate) indicating the presumed path of movement. The only interaction the map allows, is with a limited number of predetermined boxes for deployment. These boxes provide a vague description of the corps' deployment, such as “Vanguard” or “Tomorrow's Reinforcements”. The deployment screen offers no opportunity for the player to devise their own strategy. Instead it requires the player to mirror historical deployment exactly. Not only must the player deploy to paint a historical portrait, but the the map does not include any indication of goals rendering the deployment pointless. The player can't even choose which corps to deploy over any other, because the screen is devoid of relevant information about the enemy army. Finally, one can't even trust to one's own reinforcements, because the time and manner of their arrival is enigmatic, failing to display the manner or time of their arrival.
Even when the player chooses a corps to deploy, only part of it will be allowed on the field at setup. A reinforcing corps may be deployed in pieces over the course of an hour or two in game time, and the player has no choice as to whether the corps deploys its artillery, cavalry, or infantry first.

Once the player sets up their limited options as best as they can, the battle finally begins.

Immediately, anyone who has played Gettysburg notices one irritating difference and one major mistake. The irritating infraction: the topographic map overlay has been replaced with a barely perceptible 3D deep visualization. This makes it difficult for the player to properly position their artillery and infantry.

Of more significance is the change to the victory locations. In Civil War: Gettysburg, these were highlighted by a point value (with points awarded to the holder at the end of the section), while Civil War marks them with a flag indicating the location's current occupier. Since Gettysburg was a single battle, the game recorded the player's score over the course of multiple scenes to evaluate the outcome, while Civil War doesn't particularly care to develop a nuanced understanding of any particular battle: only Victory, Draw or Defeat. In contrast, Gettysburg even cares about casualties. In at least one of many play-throughs I've achieved the dubious achievement of a Pyrrhic Victory. This is defined as capturing a significant majority of victory points, but suffering too many casualties in achieving the objectives (more on this next week).

In short, the Victory Conditions for Civil War are unclear. A little box in the top right describes the conditions for victory or draw, but why, in the Battle of Chickamunga, does it include two different victory conditions? A further, minor complaint. Though described by name in the victory screen, flags on the map include no text indicating which is which.
Worse then the lack of distinction, or information, about the victory locations, is the lack of impact they have on any particular battle. Upon completing a section in Gettysburg, the player is offered two tactical choices depending on their success or failure at securing the victory locations. Normally, these two options are as simple as “aggressively continue the assault”, or “defend the held position/withdraw to a more defensive location”. Civil War never offers the player a choice on the battlefield, even at its Battle of Gettysburg. Victory locations offer no effect on the flow of the battle, they only its obscure outcome. And because the battles are not as rooted around these conditions, the sections of the battle feel less connected, like a poorly knit quilt.

The sections, without the grounding of victory locations, leave the player bemused about maneuvering, where to defend and where to assault. Often, I sent soldiers to attack a fortified position across open terrain without understanding how it featured in the larger battle, and as a result I felt as if the computer was outwitting me strategically. The truth is that the computer is already positioned where it needs to be when the battle expands. When a section expands or are united into a whole, the problem is compounded. Without a sense of the entire map, one doesn't know what victory points or terrain features to focus on. Some victory locations even disappear when a section expands. The direction the map expands is uncertain as well. Then there's this experience of mine. At the battle of Shiloh, the battle is initially fought in two sections, the left flank, followed by the right flank. During the fight for the right flank, I voluntarily retreated an infantry brigade to the edge because it had exhausted its ammunition (and the awkward deployment system gave two supply wagons and two generals to the right flank, but zero to the left) and it disappeared. My intention was for it to reenter the fight once the flanks were combined on the next map, but only a few minute later when the map expanded, the unit failed to reappear.

It quickly became clear, that Ultimate General: Civil War isn't interested in allowing the player the freedom of a campaign, but instead offers a very staged and disparate collection of set pieces where even battles are micromanaged with scenes and actors. To prove this point, I point to Shiloh and Fredericksburg (we'll save Gettysburg for later). As mentioned, the two flanks of Shiloh are combined for the renewed Confederate assault, but the battle still has one more set piece to enact. Historically, Grant and the Union was forced back to a collection of fortifications at Pittsburg Landing. The next day, with reinforcements they launched a counterattack which drove the Rebel army from the field. But in my variation, I ended the first day with my line still intact from Shiloh Church to the Hornet's Nest. My Union army still fielded 37,000 men, but the Confederates only had 1,700 available! Yet, Civil War still mandated a second day. More atrociously, my army automatically withdrew to its historic position at the Landing. I sat through an incredibly boring wait, while soldiers reclaimed the victory locations unopposed. Over at least fifteen minutes, I didn't witness a single Confederate Brigade.

Fredericksburg illustrates a different difficulty. The battle was split into four sections, like Shiloh. In the first scene, a minor Union force invades across a river into the town of Fredericksburg, located in what will eventually be the northern most of three sections. The second sections occurs in the southern most region, as the Union assaults Prospect Hill. Regardless of the outcome, the player is returned to the first section with reinforcements. And in conclusion, the final map includes the northern region and a new middle section, where the assault includes only a part of the corps previously deployed to the southern section. The remainder of the southern conflict and the missing corps are left unexplained, unexamined, and unresolved.

These examples show how Civil War paradoxically wants to allow the player to create their own campaign from scratch, but refuses to allow for ahistorical results.  It compels the player to enact all the major scenes of each battles, regardless of how absurd they are, even forcing the player to retreat or advance when a proper reading of the situation requires the opposite action.

Next week Awkward Mixture will conclude this extended series on Ultimate General by directly comparing the two variations of the Battle of Gettysburg, while considering a few further absurdities and a final conclusion.

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