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The Linear and Scripted Campaign Hurts the Immersion


Butch

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I played Ultimate General: Gettysburg for hundreds of hours and loved that game to bits. I'm really impressed so far with what I'm seeing from Civil War and the game looks very, very promising. One of the main reasons UG: Gettysburg was such a memorable and extremely fun game to play was its dynamic battle system. You felt like a real general when you were given multiple options at each critical point during the battle. Did you want to withdraw to Cemetery Hill as the Union at the end of the first day or did you want to hold ground at Mcpherson's Ridge? The decisions mattered and they allowed the battle to play out differently each time you played. While I can see how it would be far too difficult and time consuming to add a similar system to each and every battle in UG: Civil War (due to the scope of the game) I would love to see some sort of mechanic that reinforces the feeling that every small decision you make is changing the current battle and campaign you are fighting.

 The campaign is very scripted and linear. At the moment this is my biggest issue with the game. When you fight a battle, whether you win or lose, you will always proceed in the same way. Your victories don't feel like real victories in the sense that their effects are not noticeable on the enemy. I can nearly destroy the enemy army in every single battle but they will keep showing up with an army that is just as strong as mine. I feel like this makes the whole Army Camp redundant because it doesn't matter how well or poorly you do. It doesn't really affect the outcome of the campaign. You will still fight the same battles in the same order against an AI army that is scaled to be the same size as yours.

I love playing the historical battles in an authentic timeline but unfortunately this takes away from the immersion. I feel like there needs to be more of a balance between the linear historical campaign we have now and a more dynamic campaign that changes depending on the first major battles. The dynamic "anything can happen" system of the first game is the true identity and soul of this game; I would hate to see the devs moving away from this model as it made UG: Gettysburg very exciting and unpredictable.  A series of major victories early on should end the campaign early. If the Union had destroyed the Confederate army at the First Bullrun their path to Richmond would've been wide open and the war would've ended. This is the kind of thing I would love to see. Not only does it add infinite replayability, it makes each battle feel important and every decision you make in a campaign matters. I would love to see a campaign  where each victory or defeat gives you multiple options on how you want to proceed with your army depending on its condition - very similar to UG: Gettysburg. 

To conclude, I absolutely love the gameplay but the campaign feels very lacking and takes away from the army management which is one of the best parts of the game. I'd love to see a campaign mechanic where you can plan invasions and grand maneuvers depending on your army status. The historical battles could be mixed with fictional randomized battles depending on the outcomes of your decisions.  All in all this game is amazing and I really look forward to seeing how it evolves and improves from now until release!

 

 

 

Edited by Butch
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I agree, the main thing that bothers me is the linear campaign. Historical battles are nice and all but thats why they have a historical battles section. The campaign should be dynamic and not linear, this way we can experience and try to win the war in our own way and not necessarily stick to history.

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32 minutes ago, A. P. Hill said:

The thing I think that needs to be remembered at this stage is, this is still early release.  That tells me that there may still be modifications yet to come and quite possibly your linear issues may be pursued at that point.

Ofcourse we cannot assume that this is going to be the state of the final game. Having said that, there's nothing wrong with voicing concerns about the current build so that the devs know what we think!

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6 minutes ago, Grognard_JC said:

Good points Butch.

To say it simply : we'd like more Gettysburg spirit both in Civil War campaign and battles. Bring back the sandbox thing! It was great.

 

And don't forget to make it a multiplayer game 4v4.

 

 

 

Agree on the campaign sucession of battles ,  but really like the simulation feeling of the historical battles as they are  , the flux between stages of  the same battle is much superior in UG:CW than it was on UG:Gett  as is frozen part of the battles to start from same exact posiution As an example Shilloh and Antietam battle progresions (played as separate battles not in a campaign)  is simply indredible.

Edited by JJPettigrew
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