Ultimate General: Civil War

[jomni]

It feels like they have unlimited resources compared to yours. They have more men.
I guess it's fine as it is how it's done in Pike and Shot / Sengoku Jidai. As long as they play by the same rules.

[Hancock]

Boy this game is hard!

The AI in this game is up there with the best I have ever played against.

But it also cheats

I have been thinking about this one.  Some cheats I can live with and some I cannot. How does it cheat? Does it only cheat at certain difficulty levels?

"Cheating" in this game, from my experience, is the opponent has more troops, seems to slightly advance equipment improvements and may have initial bumps from other factors.  For example, while I struggle build and maintain brigade numbers at 2000 - 2500, the AI seems to always have 500 or so per brigade additional, sometimes more.  This advantage increases when you attempt the higher difficulty levels Major General/Legendary.  However, the game designers also built in historical factors.  In this case, I am playing confederate campaign.  The Yanks always had man power and equipment advantages, so not sure how much the "cheating" includes the reality of what the South faced in terms of resources.  On the other hand, during the first year or so of the campaign, the Southern troops have on average higher morale and stamina than the Yanks.  Have not played the Yanks yet, so will be interesting to compare.  One advantage the human has is the opponent is AI.  AI will automatically react to certain situations which the human would ignore.  You can use that to advantage, but this AI seems to take corrective action more quickly than others.

Bottom line, it makes for a challenging opponent, which is fine by me.  I managed to win Stone's River last night, but lost 40% of my forces doing so.  Back to recruitment.