Ultimate General: Civil War

The first game in the Ultimate General series slipped past us when it landed in the latter half of 2014, and it wasn't until months after launch that we discovered it. It's a clever little strategy title that depicts the various events surrounding Gettysburg, an infamous battle that stands as one of the most notable of the American Civil War of the 19th century.

Gettysburg was a focused game, concentrating on just one of the key battles from that pivotal conflict, and it tried to do something a little different with the real-time strategy genre, its innovative approach stretching across all areas, perhaps with the exception of the conflict itself (after all, the American Civil War is a pretty safe bet if you're making a strategy game as there are lots of enthusiasts who enjoy that period of history). This individualistic streak manifests itself in almost all areas, from the overall presentation, to the various AI difficulty settings, through to the way your troops respond to your orders on the battlefield.

We came to the original late, but we won't be making the same mistake with Civil War, the recently released (into Early Access on Steam) follow-up from Game-Labs, which expands its scope to include the whole war, as well as introducing a bunch of refinements to the overall game that look like improving it across the board.

Ultimate General's biggest strength is the accessible action that it offers, and it's easy to drag units around the battlefield and send them where you want (it even worked well enough when we played using the trackpad on a laptop). However, while it might be simple to survey the battlefield and direct your units here and there, these intuitive mechanics mask deceptively nuanced gameplay.

The influence of Total War is keenly felt at times, but Game-Labs has streamlined unit control to an extent that learning the basics here is a breeze, and where Creative Assembly's strategy franchise can be hard to penetrate thanks to the mixture of complex strategy layered on top of the large-scale tactical battles, Ultimate General does away with many of the trimmings to get to the meat of the action. It's simple to move your troops around to strategically important spots on the field of battle, taking hills for a longer sight lines or finding cover to protect you during a gun battle, and combat is straight forward and easy to read.

We jumped into the campaign for the most part, and in doing so discovered a system whereby the player assumes the role of a general, building up their forces using rewards earned in battle. Initially it seems more complicated than it actually is, and it didn't take long to work out the new setup. Basically you're recruiting new troops and dividing them up into different unit types, and assigning people to command them in battle. Using the money you've earned in previous encounters you can slowly upgrade your army's gear, hiring new guns or cannons that inflict more damage or that are much quicker to reload.

Once you've replenished your army and upgraded their equipment as best you can, you head off to contest some of the most important battles of the civil war. If you're knowledgeable about this period of history then you'll no doubt get more out of the campaign when compared to someone who isn't, but even our near complete ignorance didn't stop us from having a good time with it.

What we liked most about the campaign is how they've kept things focused, and didn't stray too far away from their original vision from Gettysburg. It would have been easy to go too far with the strategy layer and add features to further enhance the things that take place away from the battlefield, but instead they've kept it straightforward, and even if you're not familiar with the key figures or know the significance of a certain battle, you can still play and have fun while doing so.

If that's still too much and all you want to do is wage war without the planning, so far there's a decent selection of scenarios that you can tackle individually. What's more, there's even more to come, with new battles to be added over time, further fleshing out the offering as it draws closer to launch. The Early Access page says it'll be in public development for two to four months, but given the amount of content still to come online, we might have to wait a little while longer for full release. Still, it looks like it's going to be worth the wait, and Ultimate General: Civil War is shaping up to be an excellent game.