Ultimate General: Civil War on Steam Early Access!
/Greetings Generals,
Today we are happy to inform you that our next game is finally available on Steam Early Access! Ultimate General: Civil War is a unique tactical war-game, offering an amazing campaign that allows you to relive the American Civil War 1861-1865 and experience the many challenges of a Civil War general.
The “silent” development years were worth it, because we were able to continuously improve the game and add features without the pressure of a release deadline. We believe that the result of this development effort will satisfy all strategy gamers, not only the hard-core players but also those who may have not played an advanced strategy game before.
In our web page you can read a lot of useful information about the game. Here is what you can expect from the Early Access version and the full game.
The campaign
When you launch the game, you can browse to play some historical or custom battles or start a new campaign.
The campaign system covers the whole American Civil War 1861-1865. You begin with your character creation that determines your initial abilities and affects your early career as a Union or Confederate General.
At the start of the Civil War you have a few units and fight small scale battles. You’ll continue to raise your army from battle to battle by using your available recruits and weapons.
As the campaign progresses, the challenge increases and you’ll have to win epic historical battles, such as the “Battle of Antietam” and the “Battle of Gettysburg” involving thousands of soldiers!
The goal of the campaign is total Victory, to capture Washington for the Confederates or Richmond for the Union.
In Early Access version of the game (16/11/2016), the campaign is not yet finished and includes the following:
• Battle of Aquia Creek
• Battle of Philippi
• 1st Battle of Bull Run
• Battle of Shiloh
• Battle of Gaines' Mill
• Battle of Malvern Hill
• 2nd Battle of Bull Run
• Battle of Antietam
• + 10 small battles, unique for each side, summing up to 20 different engagements
The below battles will be added when the game is fully ready in a couple of months:
• Battle of Fredericksburg
• Battle of Stones River
• Battle of Chancellorsville
• Battle of Gettysburg
• Battle of Chickamauga
• Battle of Cold Harbor
• Battle of Richmond
• Battle of Washington
• + 13 small battles unique for each side, summing up to 26 different engagements
Army progression
According to the battle results, you are rewarded with supply, recruits, rare weapons, legendary officers and units. The rewards help you to upgrade your army and continue fighting the war. Additionally, the army gains experience and progresses in skills.
There are 3 main layers of progression simulating a Civil war army organization:
1) Army General
2) Officer skills
3) Unit abilities
The Units have several abilities that level up as they do specific actions in battle, like shooting, marching, melee, inflicting casualties and so on.
Their officers earn experience by participating in battles and gain special skills that further boost units’ performance. As the officers gain rank they can be promoted to Division or Corps commanders and enhance many subordinate units.
Finally, you earn General Skill Points after winning critical battles that you use to improve on various categories. For example, decrease recruitment costs, enhance reconnaissance level, increase healed casualties etc. Therefore, your performance and decisions about your army greatly affect the campaign flow.
Historical & Custom battles
Probably the most exciting aspect for Civil War fans is Ultimate General: Civil War historical battle list. You can play independently all the historical battles included in the campaign and explore all their historical units and important events.
Battles can unfold far differently in each play, because they are semi-sandbox. The battle map expands dynamically, keeping track of casualties and units’ condition.
So, the outcomes and army positions will always differ, increasing the replay value. Each historical battle can be a full game of its own, since it can last for hours as it switches phases or days and involves hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
In Early Access release version 16/11/2016, the historical battle list is as shown in the above image. The list will be complete when the game is fully released in a few months and will include the following battles:
• 1st Battle of Bull Run
• Battle of Shiloh
• Battle of Gaines' Mill
• Battle of Malvern Hill
• 2nd Battle of Bull Run
• Battle of Antietam
• Battle of Fredericksburg
• Battle of Stones River
• Battle of Chancellorsville
• Battle of Gettysburg
• Battle of Chickamauga
• Battle of Cold Harbor
• Battle of Richmond (Speculative)
• Battle of Washington (Speculative)
Alternatively, in the final version of the game there will be multiple custom battles, ideal for a short play session. Currently only one custom battle is available but we will add at least 12 battles in this list.
Advanced tactics and strong AI opponent
We kept all the crucial tactical factors of the previous game (Ultimate General: Gettysburg) and added a lot more, based on demands of the community.
The importance of ground, flanking and Line of Sight are enriched with a lot of extra features including the following:
• Infantry brigades can detach skirmishers
• Cavalry can dismount to skirmish
• Fortifications and trench warfare are key aspects of the battlefield
• Ammo is not unlimited and is refilled with supply wagons
• Units surrender if they are overwhelmed
• Generals can get wounded or die affecting army performance during battle
So, Ultimate General: Civil War offers a unique battle experience due to the many tactical factors involved but also because of the extremely challenging AI that will ruthlessly try to achieve victory using smart tactics, aggression and ground fortifications, similarly as Generals of the American Civil War would do.
Short duration Early Access
The game has passed already a Two-Month Closed Beta period and is fully playable and stable. Early access campaign ends at the Battle of Antietam, because we want to receive your feedback on the AI and the campaign flow to make the bigger, more important battles even better. More custom and historical battles will be added as the game approaches completion. The full list of battles is provided on the steam page and on the blog.
We hope to finalize the game within 2-4 Months and will utilize Early Access phase to polish the game and perfect it for a full release. A “Bug Report” button is added to the main interface allowing you to inform us about anything not working correctly.
To learn more about the game or provide your feedback please contact us:
Official forum: Link
Steam forum: Link
Facebook: facebook.com/UltimateGeneralStrategyGames
Twitter: twitter.com/GeneralUltimate
YouTube: youtube.com/user/ultimategeneraltv
email: info@game-labs.net
We hope you will enjoy the game!
The Game-Labs Team