Reviews

• 

  fwmmog1

  Jun 26, 2022

  While not a complete re-creation of the War, UGCW is certainly a fair and fun rendition. It becomes so easy to immerse yourself in the battles that you almost feel as though the War was still going on and you are a part of it. The game play is strong, the stress is palpable and the details are spot on. Love the game.
• 

  EXTERMINATVS

  May 29, 2022

  I wish there was a neutral option because the game isn't really bad, per se; there's definitely groundwork for a great real time strategy battle simulator in here. Despite that, there's also just so many little things that either aren't there or don't really work. Hopefully the developer will make a sequel, because there's a really great foundation buried here.
• 

  Ginger

  Jul 18, 2022

  It's been said many times. There needs to be a neutral or a scoring system for Steam reviews. I have mixed feelings about this game. A couple of things it does well: The battles are meaty and feel great. Most of the American Civil War games out there do the scale of battles correctly, but without the oomph of musket fire and cannons. This game does that part very well. Battles feel visceral. You can almost feel the cannons shredding through lines of troops, you get a twinge in your stomach while feeding your men into the meat grinder on an assault. You can feel them get cut down by volleys of musket fire but you press them on because you must take that hill dammit. The AI is also fun to fight. They will try to flank, they will exploit weak spots in your line, and in general give you a run for your money. If you are like me you'll find yourself often beating the enemy by small margins. Every victory feels well earned, which in turn makes the few times I've dominated the enemy or pulled off an encirclement or heroic flank all the more rewarding. Civil War battles were a bloody, grinding mess. It was volunteer army against volunteer army, and everyone who paid attention in history class knows that the tactics had not yet caught up with the technology (for the most part). The game gets the feel of Civil War battles so, so right. My one gripe with the historical accuracy of the game is that it does not really simulate actual Civil War command structure. It would have been cool to have Sherman for instance as a Brigadier General commanding a division, with Colonels under him commanding brigades, and regiments under those brigades. It's a minor gripe, but I'm a Civil War nerd and I love those details. That being said I found myself easily overlooking that abstraction because the battles felt. so. good. Seriously I have played all the Civil War games and the way the battles feel in this one just can't be matched. Here's the bad. The campaign missions are highly scripted and make what should be more of a simulator game feel very gamey. The first campaign I ran as the Union I beat the Confederates pretty well at Bull Run, won the side mission battles, and was feeling good about myself. I ended up losing badly at Shiloh not because I did anything tactically wrong, but because I underestimated the size of the units the Confederates would have at that stage of the war. My men were just outnumbered. This didn't bother me. I love hard games. I love learning from my mistakes. So I took the lesson that you should build brigades deep and not wide and loaded up a second campaign. Everything was going great the second time around. I beefed up my units. We encircled the Confederates at Bull Run and I ended up capturing the entire Stonewall brigade. I went into the Battle of Shiloh with 1200 men to an Infantry unit at minimum. This time around Shiloh was a tough fight, but we held the Confederate advance so well that when the scenario suggested we fall back to the Hornet's Nest, I didn't feel the need. I was holding the line. My men were tired but the secesh were too, and they were taking many more casualties than me. I ignored the game telling me to pull back. After all I hadn't even lost the first few objectives. I was still holding them. Why would I pull my lines back? At the very end of the scenario ONE FREAKING CONFEDERATE CAVALRY UNIT managed to squeeze past my lines and capture Pittsburg Landing. This led to me to ultimately lose the battle, because in the game's eyes I didn't control the most important objective. On no planet whatsoever would one cavalry unit of 300 men completely cut off an army of that size. By every measurable metric I had one that battle. But because I didn't play the way the game wanted me to and take the carefully choreographed historical steps it wanted me to I lost. The game literally wanted me to make the same mistakes the Union made. Let me re-fight the Battle of Shiloh and win the damn thing. I realize that The Battle of Shiloh was a fighting retreat for the Union. I have no problem with games recreating actual historical battles and giving you historical situations to see how you would handle them. But there was no need for me to actually engage in a fighting retreat! I had won! I had mounted a successful defense! I'm sad to say it sort of ruined the rest of the game for me. I'm not sure why the developers decided to make the campaign missions quite as scripted as they are. They have a solid battle engine and really fantastic AI. They could have made the campaign battles much less scripted and more sandbox style and this game would have been a masterpiece. I give the game 6/10 stars. It does a lot of things right. But let me be an actual Civil War general. Not just a puppet going through the same historical dance moves that the real life generals did.
• 

  United_Gamers

  Aug 1, 2022

  4/10 not worth your time No true campaign, core mechanics suck, bugs galore, no unit variety, pointless equipment, Boring game play, no difficulty except AI has more units. Units don't break, just retreat then come back. This game has a ton of issues at its core The campaign is not a true campaign, just set piece battles that have two minor battles and one major one. units do not break, they just retreat a little ways and then return, so in a battle you can "rout" an enemy force, then they will suddenly show up behind you and rout your units. Units will ignore commands. The battles have a timer that the battle revolves around, if you run out of time you can continue but the battle will randomly end. The difficulty is done through the enemy having more units than you and the units not breaking. Some battles will have small sections of the map available, then zoom you to another separated section, then randomly go back even though the objective hasn't been secured. the map will then open up and you will have three minutes to organize both armies and attack a finale objective. Overall, the game has major core game play issues, bugs that allow objectives to glitch outside the map, the difficulty comes from fighting the bugs and bad game play.
• 

  Lovethelord

  Aug 1, 2022

  I love this game but the devs seemed to have sold out. So there's no support for this game or any sequel in progress. I think they got bought by some mobile gaming company. Too bad because if they had Ultimate General Napoleonic Wars, it would be the dream game for thousands of gamers. Imagine playing as Russia and hunting down French Eagles during the Russian winter.
• 

  NorthDownWest

  Aug 21, 2022

  It's the old Sid Meier's games reborn. Much like Ultimate General Gettysburg before this game captures the feel of the old Sid Meier's games from the 90's. This version takes you through many of the largest and most well known battles of the war. If you appreciate the Black Powder era of combat, or the American Civil War you will enjoy this game. Be careful of developing a loosing streak. You will be relieved of your command faster then any union general during the war.
• 

  Japoński Anon

  Aug 30, 2022

  While this game is incredibly entertaining at first, the heavily scripted battles take all agency away from the player and make not playing the objective and not engaging with the game a more viable option. I really love the army building mechanics of the game and I can really feel a difference in the quality of my troops but none of this matters when the objective says you have to storm a bridge and take tremendous casualties for something that is not pertinent to your victory. Especially when that cool army you built is battered to 50 percent combat effectiveness for a entirely worthless objective. I'm convinced that the developers think that I'm a moron and the "hand holding" in the mission briefings give you bad information much of the time. If you love emulating the Civil War this game is probably for you. If you want to strategize and beat the opponent with your own wit and cunning then this game is certainly not for you.
• 

  Onenuttedkilla

  Sep 11, 2022

  Best game ever!
• 

  [Chrk*Brvs] * RedFox

  Nov 21, 2022

  This game needs no introduction and has already become A CLASSIC, it is simply the best "War Between the States" themed game for MILITARY GRAND STRATEGY since Civil War Generals 2 (from Sierra On-Line) came out in 1997, and it almost feels like an updated sequel to that older one... You simply can't deny that UGCW got A LOT of inspiration from that first one. UGCW It's also a great game for trying out mods to make it more realistic. And the only 3 things that I personally find wrong with UGCW and that I truly regret are that: 1. All units keep on firing even when they run out ammo. 2. There is NO OPEN SOURCE CODE to further customize it, and there is NO MAP EDITOR. 3. Its LACK OF A MULTI-PLAYER version (a critical mistake). DEO VINDICE
• 

  Dial M for Monkey

  Dec 3, 2022

  Sid Meier would be proud
• 

  GentlemanSquid

  Jan 1, 2023

  Don't be ashamed to use one of the many guides from the Steam forum to beat that first mission. Underneath a hard shell of dried bullshit is one of the best rts games I have played in a long, long time.
• 

  Treehero

  Jan 8, 2023

  👍
• 

  I ♥ Phil Fish

  Mar 17, 2017

  I want to recommend this game because I have enjoyed the time I put into it but I can't, at least right now. 1) The scripting of the battles and the larger campaign leaves a lot to be desired. For instance, at Shiloh as the Union, I held the CSA at the first battle line. The game then said "fall back to this line" and I said "rather not, doing fine here." It keep telling me to fall back. I killed all but ~800 of the CSA army. Day 2 starts and I have an army of 25,000 facing their 800 - but I've bet set back to the edge of the map at Pittsburg Landing. Why? Also why did the AI engage on the second day? 2) The larger campaign has these same problems. I was playing the the series of battles in the Peninsula Campaign as the Union and won each one by huge margins. And the next battle would load - a holding action to cover our retreat. Why are we retreating? I've inflicted massive losses on the AI but am retreating because that is what historically happened? This leads to a cognitive dissonance. I have control over the units on the battle but what the units do doesn't matter because the next events are all pre-scripted and rigid. If we allow the player to deviate from history in the battles (e.g., by winning or inflicting massive losses in an ahistorical way), it doesn't make sense to have the next battles be bounded by history. A battle, like Gettysburg, happened because of what happened at Chancellorsville. Having Gettysburg occur in a reasonably historically accurate way after a union win at Chancellorsville just doesn't make sense. Without a branching or dynamic campaign, it feels pointless to win/lose/draw the battles. 3) The scaling. I understand the importance of the scaling to keep the game challenging but it needs some sanity bounds. If I inflict near-complete losses on the AIs army, they need to start the next battle with similarly low solider counts. The soliders could be better under the hood (harder to kill, better shots under the reasoning that some of those who survived did so for a reason) but to inflict 80% losses and then see the army with near 100% or more than 100% recovery at the next battle just doesn't work. 4) Broken mechanics, specifically the AI's ability to run everywhere and do endless melee. Also the endless melee. It seems to have gotten worse. I recently watched a battle as the AI charged my lines. The targeted unit had a 2 to 1 or more advantage over the AI in troops, was totally rested and had 100% morale. There was no attempt to soften the target with rifle or cannon fire - just a charge. The AI unit was routed and it retreated about 300 yards, regrouped and then came back and repeated the charging process. Elsewhere on the battlefield, an AI unit charged an approximately evenly matched unit, again totally rested and ready to fight. The AI did this charge up a river bluff and without any other prior engagement. They just saw my unit on the top of the hill and went for it. They had 2 batteries of arty that could have been deployed and another unit or two that they could used to provide some fire or attempted a flanking move. Nope. They just went for a headlong frontal assault. Which failed, lead to a rapid regroup, repeat and eventual sucess. Basically, once the AI sees a unit, it charges. There seems to be no regard for the unit's relative strengths or the tactical situation. This is a larger problem because the AI can charge over near-infinite distances and doesn't suffer issues with dropping condition in melee/movement/battle (at least as far as I can see). Melee itself is broken (sticky melee is the bane of my playtime). The AI also doesn't have the persistance that your army does - high losses are okay because they are reset as soon as the battle is over. So there is no reason for the AI to not meat-grinder its units into your lines. This just results in tactically uninteresting battles. "Oh, there is the Rebel corps I was looking for - they are running across 2 miles of open ground in a charge for my center. Despite being outnumbered 3 to 1 and me having a strong position." 5) "Magic hill syndrome." The game has this by the truck load. The reason the hills became important on a field was because of the actions taken by the armies on the field. Suppose for some reason that Meade had set his line far to the east of Gettysburg and Lee had choosen to attack him there. Would Little Round Top have mattered? No. The hills and strong points became important in the tactical context of the battle - otherwise they are just as unimportant as the hill down the road from your house. But that isn't how the game treats the hills. You absolutely must hold certain points on the battlefield because they were tactically important in the historical battle - regardless of their importance in your current battle. Kill and rout the AI but fail to capture the magic hill in time? Draw or defeat are your only options. The AI is aware of these magic hills. I was playing Antietam and pushed the CSA back to the limits of the town of Sharpsburg. Both of our armies were very beat up. The only points on the battle that mattered tactically were where we were fighting to the NE of Sharpsburg. I'm getting ready to do a slight flanking move with my cav and notice the AI is marching a unit towards the VP at Dunker Church. That point has no value - the AI is about to have several units encircled to the NE of town and the first few blocks of Sharpsburg. But the AI is like "hey, Dunker Church is undefended and historically important, so we should capture that. The actual tactical situtation on the ground is irrelevant." Eventually, every playthrough, I lose interest. Why spend this hour fighting this battle if the result doesn't matter when it comes to the battle I fight next? Or the army I face next? Or how well I fight doesn't matter as much as if I can send a unit on an end-run march to capture and hold some historically important (but not important in the context) point on the map? Hopefully some patch comes out that fixes the melee, fixes the endless charging and maybe someday a branching campaign mode. Because it certainly does not "fully depend on player actions and battle results" right now. It is almost fully independent of player actions and results. If that happens, I'll be excited to revise this review and put as many hours as I can spare into the battles.
• 

  Baron von Noodles

  Jun 8, 2017

  All of the negative reviews here about the AI's enemy army not being effected by your victories and tactics are obsolete with update v0.90. Enemy armies now have a pool of forces to draw from that is directly altered by your efforts during the dynamic campaign. Basically fixes every problem that everyone, myself included, had with being able to play the game. Unlike some early access developers, Game-Labs has been listening to and altering the game based on the player base's feedback. Necessary edit: Mind you, the game is still difficult as all hell. Don't go into any difficulty other than easy thinking you can spread your attribute points out across all traits and hope to come out ahead; you have to pick a strategy and stick with it otherwise you'll notice yourself dragging behind a bit as the war rages on. This is not a forgiving game and you will not be playing the superhuman savior of America. Aside from that small tidbid of information, all you need to know about the game is that it's a fantastic Civil War strategy simulation. Anyone who may be a fan of the time period, Total War games (specifically the combat aspect), or strategy and war games in general, will absolutely love Ultimate General: Civil War. Not only does this game fill a real niche market by providing the best Civil War based video game in decades, but the team of Game-Labs is headed up by the renowned modder that brought fans of Sega's Total War series DarthMod; a modification famed for its vast AI improvements, improvements that are evidently present in Ultimate General: Civil War. Ultimate General: Civil War is an underated game that I guarantee you'll enjoy playing at this stage; even when it had its issues, it was still hard to keep yourself from coming back frequently and now that the most pressing issue has been fixed, it's going to be hard to leave at all.
• 

  cHRISTOPHER

  Jun 27, 2017

  This game has come a long way from what it was during release, and even further from its predecessor, 'Ultimate General: Gettysburg'. For a time, the reinforcement pool that the opposition would draw on would be relatively static. This lead to a number of negative reviews due to the game being unfairly difficult. You'd destroy the enemy army in a battle, but the next one they would be even larger and well equipped despite the casualties inflicted. With the 0.90 update of a dynamic enemy army size, this is no longer a problem and I am enjoying my Legendary difficulty run right now. Let's start off with this. The game is grueling, with the lead game designer being the man behind the DarthMods of several Total War game. The AI is much more difficult to handle than any present in the Total War franchise, especially the entries with the closest in era, (Empire & Napoleon). The game also plays much more differently than the aforementioned games. Instead of infantry regiments, you'll be working with entire brigades as a singular unit. Battles will require you to manage multiple divisions at once. In more ways than one, the game is very macro-tactical. You're not so much worried about the formation of a single unit, than you are about your entire force as a whole. If this wasn't clear,

  do not

  play this as if it were Total War. You're going to have a bad time and be frustrated if you do. For those interested in getting attached to their units, much like XCOM, you'll be happy to know that brigade names are completely customizable. Considering how valuable veteran units and officers are, you will get attached to them as if your battles depended on them... because they do. It is rewarding to see scruffy units full of recruits turn into battle-hardened heroes throughout your campaign. It's a must-have for anyone interested in this period of conflict and strategy. Considering it is on sale, I would grab it. This is a promising game coming from an indie studio that surely will bring quality strategy games in the future. Edit

  : The game has finally released out of early access and there's a few things that I want to add to the consumer that wants some straightforward info that I left out in my original review - note that I still wholeheartedly recommend this game. Even at release, there are some frustrating things with the game and that comes down to the level design or at least flow design of certain campaigns. You'll find yourself managing different parts of a battle at different times. Sometimes when the part of the map switches, you won't have access to some trips that you were relying on, or the position they start in isn't optimal and you have no say on how they are placed. I found myself forgiving this in early battles, but in later battles I found it annoying since more was on the line. I found it especially annoying since many of the early battles still allowed you to place units in certain positions even when "taken by surprise". I found that sometimes the enemy reinforcement pool would not apply to certain battles, most noticeably the final battles of both campaigns, (Washington and Richmond). By that I mean, I would crush the enemy army to only have 50k troops, and yet there would be 105k+ waiting for me around Richmond. I only barely forgive this because it would be a dull and anti-climactic end to a campaign. It is rather depressing to get to the end of your campaign after many hard fought battles to attrit the enemy, only to find that it was useless just within arm's reach of the final goal. On a historical note, I noted that casualties for battles, especially on harder difficulties, would be extraordinarily high compared to history. Battles like the 2nd Bull Run would have 90k in casualties. To put that in perspective, Gettysburg had ~40k casualties for both sides total. This can be a turn off to some, but a more accurate representation would just result in units running away more - so for the sake of mechanics, this is fine in my eyes but it may not be for you. Again, I still recommend this game. The fact that a game with a relatively static campaign can allow for more in-depth tactical and strategic-level thinking than the open campaigns of the newer Total Wars can is fantastic.

• 

  El Grito

  Aug 16, 2017

  August the 15th, 2017 Dear Sarah, The indications are very strong that we shall leave for work soon-- perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines on this masterful strategic simulator that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more. You may find the complexities of control, slow pace, and lack of text over hard-to-identify unit icons difficult. You may find the lack of a topographical mapmode severely difficult when placing artillery. I know how strongly you reacted to this game's predecessor, UG: Gettysburg. We owe a great a debt to that title that came before this one now. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to accept that this title suffers from the same limitations of Gettysburg—simplistic flanking mechanics, a steamrolling Union campaign—to help support this game, and to pay that debt. But, my dear wife, when I know that you will experience the new depth that resource management, equipment management, and the political system brings, my own joys lay down nearly all of yours. You will encounter one of the most adapatable and intuititive AIs seen since the golden age of Close Combat games—even better than Gettysburg. You will enjoy the care and depth of each major battle—none repetitive, none ignored nor half-measured—and the pleasure of reading AI news dispatched begging for reinforcements against your victorious march. You will appreciate how the games resourcing forces you to choose between a retreat that preserves your army, or a last-stand to defend a capture point. Sarah, my love for the maps and unit graphics is deathless, it seems to bind me to each battle with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield for I cannot bear to play the Confederates yet. Forgive this game's few UI faults, and the many pains its drop-prone multiplayer have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish enemy brigades can sometimes be, standing still in open cover and taking 50-60% losses without retreat! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. To enjoy this game is to understand that while no perfect tactical simulation game exists, as far as the Civil War genre goes, Ultimate General: CiviI War is as close to one as exists on Steam. Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me, for we shall meet again. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children. Grito Major El Grito 2nd Rhode Island Infantry Manassas, Virginia
• 

  WriterJWA

  Sep 4, 2017

  I've been playing this game off-and-on since its release and generally I enjoy it! I think this an all-around great RTS. However, I have a bit of a concern about some of the historical battles. They seem to be FAR too scripted based on historical events, leaving little room for real player strategy. For example, in the Stones River battle, as the Union, I managed to to the CSA left flank and ball up his army against the river by the end of the second scenario of the battle (which extends to first scenario). However, by the third scenario, the game basically tossed away all my gains, balled my army up on the road, and left me with CSA troops on three sides (presumably per the history of the battle). It basically made all my efforts futile. In a second, more recent example, during the Chancellorsville scenario, I managed to secure both the Plank Road objectives with the Union Army on the second scenario (the Stonewall Jackson flank attack scenario). But, like Stones River, by the third scenario my army was balled into a haphazard perimeter around that farmhouse per history and all my gains were lost. What made it particularly worse was that after I won the third scenario, I had to RETAKE all that ground I had already earned. What's the point of fighting these battles if the player is simply locked into script that decides the outcome regardless of how well I do? It's very frustrating. . . .
• 

  limith

  Oct 28, 2017

  Edited: A new mod has been released which fixes many of these problems. Ultimate General: Civil War is a fun game when you first play it. I've even written a few guides for the game. It bills itself as an authentic historical game with good AI. At first glance, the game does all of this wonderfully. Deeper analysis of the game reveals fundamental design problems that only become visible with time. Many of these problems are known to the developers. However due to the mechanism the devs use to solicit feedback these issues remain unaddressed since early access. Other problems are more fundamental, such as a lack of true player agency (a la Mass Effect 3)

  Problems with the AI

  Once you get past being beaten by the AI in the beginning and get used to the quirks of the game then the advertised 'strong' AI vanishes. Each map basically devolves into one of two strategies depending on if you are on offense or defense. The challenge the AI provides against you is not in the AI being smart. Rather the challenge is in the sheer numbers the AI has versus you. The problem gets worse if you play on half speed. With careful micromanagement, it's possible to defeat armies with 5x the number of men you have as well as drive back the relentless AI charges (if you aren't playing offensively that is). You can even cancel AI charges if you do things right. The AI pretty much always reacts the same way to you and it is easy to learn how the AI reacts and do the same thing every game. This is a regression from UG:GB where the AI had different personalities and acted differently.

  Problems with Game Mechanics

  Some of these problems with AI involve various bugs. These include AI breaking charges if you reposition units, AI favoring charges even if the unit is exhausted (which you can halt the advance by micromanaging artillery). Others are more fundamental. For example, early on in early access the AI had problems defending their artillery. So the game devs, instead of making the AI better at defending their artillery, made artillery invincible to melee. Similar examples of game mechanic problems exist elsewhere. Melee mechanics were broken since early access. 2 brigades of 200 men in melee will perform 4x casualties as 1 brigade with 400 men in melee. Thus, some players (in a single player game mind you) liked to stack lots of tiny cavalry brigades and abuse the melee mechanic bug to beat battles. This bug was reported and these players complained the game was 'too easy'. Instead of fixing the broken melee system (or *gasp* asking the players to not use such strategies in a single player game), it was decided that 'cavalry was too powerful' (since this was the most commonly abused unit). Thus, cavalry got nerfed to the ground so much that the only way to use them is to abuse the melee bug. A 400 men cavalry brigade can't even chase down 90 skirmishers without getting routed.

  Problems with Realism

  These issues of game design, where bugs are not fixed but instead hidden, permeates to the entire game. It results in unrealistic situations that hurts realism of the game. Such as 750 cavalrymen who manage to surprise 200 artillerymen from the rear failing to beat the 200 artilleryman and instead being routed and losing half your men. BUT if those very same 750 cavalrymen were dismounted before engaging the artillery, then the results won't be as disastrous (AI will still not lose men though thanks to invincible AI artillery). It results in the best way of dealing with artillery being shooting them (and eating canisters to the face) rather than charging the cannons. It results in on harder difficulties having to play the game a certain way rather than having true agency.

  Problems with Player Agency

  On the topic of player agency, UG:Civil War does a poor job of this. On easier difficulties player agency is somewhat there as the AI is not gifted tons of men to produce artificial difficulty. Thus as the game goes on if you manage to defeat the AI (where the AI loses 3-5x your men) the AI won't be able to reinforce. This creates other problems such as the 2nd half of the campaign being too easy. Due to this complaint (and also due to complaints from players exploiting game bugs and AI weakness on higher difficulties) combined with the lack of difficulty levels, hard and legendary difficulties are not only incredibly broken but also unfun, a tedious chore, and lack player agency. The AI patently ignores the 'army intelligence' screen where you see how many men it should have and deploys much more men than the number shown. This means you can't play with a small, elite army that's lowered the AI army strength, no, you have to bring as much men as possible. Since the game ignores the army strength on higher difficulties there's no point to capturing or killing AI at all. Instead it's a matter of force preservation (since you only get limited recruits). As the AI is gifted a new army each time you destroy an army, the facade of player agency collapses completely. It simply does not matter what you do or how many men the AI loses. Fundamentally these problems are a result of a lack of dynamic campaign. This is compounded by game bugs exploited by players on hard/legendary that were never fixed which makes the game 'too easy' for them. Or the lack of a true dynamic campaign where you can choose to end the war early if you manage to defeat the enemy army. No, the solution chosen by the devs was to brush the bugs under the rug and just give the AI more men (or men invulnerable to their weakness such as invincible artillery). This doesn't result in a fun game. Rather it results in a game where battles become a CHORE to micromanage and abuse AI weaknesses (not to mention all the small bugs which still have not been fixed). It's not any more challenging or hard in a tactical level.

  Problems with Feedback

  One aggravating factor which lead to these decisions has to do with feedback. Due to the many different ways one can play a game, issues which may crop up for some players may not crop up for other players. Similarly, due to the vast difference between normal and hard in difficulty (different AI bouses), playstyles/bugs which may work on normal may not work on hard. Instead of soliciting feedback from the playerbase as a whole, the general impression I have from watching the game progress since early access is that a small privileged group of testers (who tend to be experts and or play using certain strategies) have their suggestions favored more by the devs. This isn't necessarily the fault of the devs, as these players are simply more active in providing feedback. This generally wouldn't be a matter if it wasn't for the fact that some of these more active players have a habit of discounting other player's problems (since it doesn't occur for them with how they play). This leads to issues where unless a problem is faced by a majority of players, problems which only affect some players are routinely ignored or outright dismissed. It also leads to poor balance changes and honestly a terrible experience for new players who are thrown into the game (eg the patches making the first intro/tutorial level harder and harder and harder to the point where new players have to go on the forum and ask for how to beat the FIRST LEVEL).

  Hostility to Modding

  Many of these fundamental issues would be solvable if there were modding support by the devs. One would think the modder DarthMod would have supported modding in his/her commercial games, having come from the modding community. Instead, impediments to modding were added on purpose to reduce the basic modding possible in UG:CW.

  Conclusion

  I would honestly prefer to play the first early game access version of the game rather than the current version of the game as it is now. I lack faith the devs will be able to fix fundamental problems based on experiences since early access.

• 

  vugak

  Dec 1, 2017

  A number of reviewers made the same points, so I will be brief. The good: -Looks nice. -Feels like a great game, especially during the first 5 hours. -Army customization, upgrades and different weaponry are nice touches. The bad: -The AI is broken in various ways. For instance, it often charges irrationally, and seemingly to make up for this the developers gave it some super powers. -Cavalry is useless, even against lone skirmishers or undefended artillery units. You are always better off investing the money and manpower in an infantry unit. -Battles are heavily scripted, to the point of having a broken logic. You are supposed to defend a position. You do it and thanks to the AI's suicidal charges, the enemy gets almost completely wiped out or routed. Then the game hits a point in the script and you are prompted "Our position is being overwhelmed! We must fall back to that place!" Then the script magically teleports your whole army to the hill behind the position where you were doing just fine. Then you watch the comedy of the enemy trying to charge your new position with 10% of its starting force because you had killed or routed the rest before your position was "overwhelmed." The ugly: -No matter how badly you beat the AI, it keeps making up its losses and more. This renders your actions completely inconsequential. After 50 or so hours, (or sooner if you are smarter than I am) you realize that you are not playing a strategy simulator. You are instead playing one of those clicker flash games in which the numbers keep increasing as you upgrade your skills but nothing else changes because as your income increases so do the cost of future upgrades. If that sounds too abstract, here is the same point made in concrete gameplay terms: I first played two campaigns with CSA. The first time when enemy kept making up their losses regardless, I thought "Well, I am a noob. So, I didn't beat them hard enough in the beginning. That's why they recovered." But then I played the same campaign again. Even in the easiest difficulty and right after I consistently mowed down 70% of the Union army battle after battle, the next battle they always had 10k more soldiers than they did before. Then, I said "Well, they are the Union after all. They had a larger population than the rebels" and I tried out the Union campaign. Who knew the South could replace 200k+ losses and keep pressing towards the DC? I didn't. They kept coming, their numbers kept swelling no matter how many I killed. The Verdict: I wanted to like this game. And to be honest, I enjoyed it for many hours. But the enjoyment was in part due to the illusion created by the game, the illusion that my actions and decisions mattered. Once the illusion was shattered by the realization that no matter how well I play, the AI will be able to match and raise my hand, the enjoyment was replaced with disappointment and frustration. Overall, I would have to say, the experience ended up being negative. PS: I aslo want to respond to a common objection to negative reviews with many hours: "You played it for 70 hours, how bad can it be? Grow up and get a life!" It is possible to enjoy something in the short term although the enjoyment is replaced by discomfort after a while. If you think that this is impossible, try telling that to a heroin addict who wishes that he had never done that first shot.
• 

  The_Alaskan

  Feb 4, 2018

  Good skin, bad bones

  Everyone who has ever read a history of the American Civil War will stop at one point or another and ask themselves how things could have gone differently.

  Ultimate General: Civil War

  does not answer that question. In its first few hours, the game is a sure winner. The scenery is gorgeous and well-modeled, the tactics fun, and it's easy to lose track of time as you figure out winning strategies on each battlefield. The longer you play, the more the game's flaws come out. Eventually, you realize the biggest flaw of all: What you do doesn't really matter.

  Ultimate General: Civil War

  runs into the walls that most historic games face. By hewing too closely to history, they deny the player his or her agency. Everything is fated. So what if the Confederates win on the first day of Gettysburg? The Union forces will rebound and the Confederate player finds themselves fighting battles farther and farther south. Pursue the Army of Northern Virginia to ultimate destruction as a Union player on the third day of Gettysburg? It doesn't matter. The Confederacy will miraculously find tens of thousands more soldiers to fill its ranks. This game, while beautiful, is a handful of tiny sandboxes with only a limited path between. The player does not get to choose where to fight his or her battles, and his or her successes rarely matter. A papier-mache fictional final series of battles for the Confederate campaign doesn't do much to fix this problem. By the time you reach that point, you'll have already become frustrated with the structure. It's enormously disappointing, because it only needs a good campaign layer to fix these problems, then the courage to be willing to end the campaign early. Win Bull Run overwelmingly? You could end the war in 1861. Win Antietam as the Confederacy? The war ends in 1862 after the French and British recognize the Confederacy. If you enjoy playing the historical battles, you'll likely enjoy this game, but you may be frustrated by a handful of bugs -- regiments that become stuck in rivers or on map borders are the worst of these. The game also fails to correctly model repeating weapons: A regiment armed with Henry or Spencer rifles fires no more quickly than one armed with a Springfield. If you find yourself satisfied by history, you may find something to enjoy here. If, however, you're looking for the answer to "what if," you won't find it here.