A Half-Baked Experience - Not Worth the Price

As a fan of the Ultimate General series, I had high hopes for Ultimate General: American Revolution, but unfortunately, it feels like a major letdown. This game feels unfinished in almost every way, and the price tag is frankly ridiculous for what you get.

First, let's talk about the sheer lack of polish. There are glaring bugs and performance issues that make it hard to get fully immersed in the experience. Units don’t respond the way they should, and I encountered several crashes during long battles. The AI is erratic and, at times, seems downright broken, making it frustrating rather than fun to play. It's clear that this game was rushed out the door without sufficient testing or refinement.

Then there’s the price. For what you get, this game is far too expensive. It feels more like an early access title than a fully realized product, yet it’s priced like a finished AAA title. The campaign is shallow, and the battles, while sometimes fun, quickly become repetitive. There’s very little in terms of strategic depth compared to previous entries in the series.

Speaking of which, Ultimate General: American Revolution doesn't hold a candle to the developer's earlier games, like Ultimate General: Civil War. The historical context feels underdeveloped, and the tactical options are nowhere near as rich or rewarding. The lack of features that made their other games shine, such as dynamic events or impactful choices, is a huge disappointment.

In short, Ultimate General: American Revolution feels unfinished, overpriced, and simply not as good as the developer's previous titles. I can't recommend it in its current state. Hopefully, the developers will improve it in future updates, but as it stands, this is a major letdown. Save your money.

This game is not bad at all. Most of the negative reviews i see are people expecting this to be Total War, where you are constantly attacking your enemy, moving forward and attacking again, until the whole map belongs to you. That is not how war works, nor is it how this game works.

You have to have patience and plan far ahead. This is how I assume most negative reviewers campaigns went:

You are a fresh new general in the American Revolution, your first battle at Concord to secure ammo went very well! You destroyed the British troops attacking you, and sent them back to Providence. What's that? Providence is now only defended by a weakened British army that you just pounded into retreat? Forward we go! Onto Providence!

You attack Providence and secure another key victory for the Americans. Now you have a warehouse full of supplies at your disposal. Nothing can stop you...right?

This is where most make a mistake. The Total War mentality kicks in and instead of hunkering down in Providence, resupplying your ammo, reinforcing your lost troops, and waiting for additional regiments to arrive from Hartford, you just press on and attempt to sack the town of Middleborough. You see, Middleborough (and Salem up North) are very close to Boston, where 90% of the British army is stationed. Once you attack either of these, the British come at you in full force to defend them. You get annihalated and sent back to Hartford at best, or even killed and ending your game at worst.

This game is designed to be played slowly over a long period of time. You will win territory, then you will lose territory. Play offense, but dont forget to play defense, and that is why I love it.

The tactical battles still give me the feeling i had back in UGCW, where tactics matter tremendously. You cannot expect to send your regiments of local militia into the formed lines of the greatest army in the world at the time, and expect them not to route. "But theres 400 men still alive why are they running???" Because they are blacksmiths, bankers and candlemakers buddy. Not trained professional soldiers.

In my opinion, this game is definitely worth it. Took me a while to buy it because of the price point compared to other games, but it was on sale so I bit, and boy am I glad that I did. Just remember that it is a strategy game first, and tactical battle game second.

Secure supply lines between cities to keep your army provisioned, Research and build critical buildings, produce weapons and ammo in your large cities, and just take your time. I am sure you will not regret your purchase.

After several years of early access for fairly absurd price tag (full 50$ for basic version) this game simply turned into abandonware.
Don't let discounted "steam release" fool you - game is still very much in an early alpha stage and not worth any price.

I am a huge fan of Civil war and Age of sail
Those are pure gems and I've lost count of playthroughs completed

Got this one on Early access, but decided to refund it for now

1. Very bad optimization. My GPU is 100% ALL the time, regardless of the settings and game stage, like if the game is mining bitcoin or something. (my PC pretty much idle for 60 FPS in Civil war and Age of Sail)
2. Both Civil war and Age of Sail had pretty good sound design. This title - not really. If existing audio is not a place holder, but final - that's really bad.
Battle sounds - almost exclusive musket fire, no voices or other sounds.
Menu soundtrack - little music and A LOT of women crying...
Strategic map soundtrack - I though it glitched out at first, but no, that IS a soundtrack Ai generated may be? Very monotonous, noise from 80's videogames...
Not even close to the quality of Civil war and Age of sail.
3. The price is, indeed, very high. All of the previous titles are around 30 dollars each.
UG Revolution is a bigger game, perhaps, but 50 dollars is just too much, especially considering that UK faction will be, (apparently), a separate paid DLC... Imagine playing UG Civil War for 30 bucks, but only as a Union, while Confederacy would be a DLC...
Also, the introduction of a "Premium edition" with some extra ingame items is even more weird. This is a wargame for nerds, no a free to play Sh**it for drunk gaming... Why not selling 20pd Parrot or a Whitworth rifles as a paid DLC for Civil war?
Are you guys Ubisoft?
4. The developer has mixed reputation. Some very good games like UG Civil war, and UA Age of sail, but also a really bad and abandoned ones, like "A twisted path to renown", "This land is my land", to some extend "UA Dreadnoughts", and the Naval Action, that is a drama of its own...
I know that there are different teams working on different games, but, considering the state of this game and its monetization, I am not sure if its a "good" or a "bad" team that is responsible for this one.

So what shall it be?
A new masterpiece, where Civil war and Age of sail merge together to create a new, even bigger and deeper wargame, that we will play for years to come?
Or another "Unfinished early access, (but released), abandon-ware"?

Casino 50 dollar gamble is not for me
I'll wait for the full release, and check this game out again then.
I'll pay the increased price if necessary, but only if the game is good and done
But this is not the best way to initiate an early access in steam for sure.
Especially after some Hype created by "paid actors", sorry, youtube game reviewers.

PS
The "multiplayer DLC" just got released for the UA Dreadnoughts
Its very limited and buggy, but it's still 15 bucks!
These guys are getting really greedy now.
Home the guys who work on American revolution are not "those guys" who work on Dreadnoughts...

2025 Update:
The company is no more, apparently.
The game is promising, but is stuck in a forever early access/Beta state.
Another Cash grab from a predatory developer.
So sad.....

The game concept and execution is pretty cool and a massive upgrade from the railroaded story of the Civil War game, however this game has an exceptional amount of AI cheating. Summoning enough units so that you're always at a immense disadvantage no matter what you do. It is still possible to win but it takes the fun out of it when you can see the ai actively materializing men to blunt your genius maneuvers. Still could be interesting to try though.

NOTEFUL EDIT: Game has been abandoned and no longer functions with AMD gpu's. Crashes when attempting to load the campaign. Very disappointing game.

DO NOT BUY

I want to love this game, but this game needs a lot of balancing before it is worth more of my time.

The AI is on a seemingly endless budget of reinforcements, supplies, stamina, etc. compared to your localized forces which struggle to research critical game advancing weapons, skills, production buildings, and buffs. Enemy AI immediately seize any area your generals are not actively sitting on, and when in the rare situation you do route or defeat an enemy, they retreat with the speed of an Olympic sprinter. You can't catch them, even with light skirmishers, and should you have to retreat, they will harass you the entire way dwindling your beaten force to a catastrophic strategic loss. Not to mention there is no real benefit to having your troops hidden in trees as the enemy AI will *always* know where your troops are, regardless of concealment, and flank accordingly. I've done very well at capturing many companies of British infantry, but somehow only gain a handful of rifles as a result. Why can't I negotiate these units back to the enemy for a price or for territories? Why are British units cut off from supplies, whether in forts or towns, but they seem to always draw new provisions and have high stamina when attacked months later? Why can't I build defenses in towns, or at the very least set up ambushes along roadways to disrupt advancing enemy forces?
There is no tutorial system, and you will immediately pay the price for not knowing production, research, naval, infrastructure or trade skills as time wasted early on impacts heavily in the mid game.

My entire playthrough I shelled out resources at every opportunity to maintain the highest possible relations with every faction but was still somehow sabotaged with higher consequences than my efforts could rectify. With these different nations/ allies there is no benefit. They do not offer you troops, safe havens, settlements, but they will instead demand you provide resources and if you choose not to, you slowly become their enemy. I don't see how that is fun or realistic.

This game was a struggle to enjoy from the first hour of play because you are always 5 steps behind where you need to be. I told myself it was just a steep learning curve and I would get the hang of it. After my first week of play I am now sure that any further time spent trying to patch my hemorrhaging colonial revolution will only be met with more automatic deliveries of 1,000+ British infantry, critical officer defectors, sabotage in cities of 100% satisfaction and assaults on areas you cannot spread forces in which to defend.

Abandoned and rushed out, a huge step backwards from the previous Ultimate General titles. Bugs, poor performance, half-baked mechanics, "normal" difficulty is impossible while easy is too easy, difficulty is largely based on just giving the AI cheats...everything you expected from maybe a dev's first game, but not their third in a series otherwise known for its polish.
Apparently the studio felt apart and was bought out due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Individual devs have been leaving with increasing rapidity, at least one of whom in shame of the "finished" product's state.

Currently, I'm giving this game a big thumbs down, and here are a few reasons why:

* Price: The game is overpriced compared to titles like Paradox or Total War games. It falls far short of their quality.
* US Campaign: The campaign is linear with very little replay value. Since the map unlocks in parts, you're forced to play in a very similar way each time. It feels more like a tutorial than an actual campaign.
* Battles: I can describe the battles in one word: boring. There are no formations, units are difficult to manage, and there's no depth. If you're wondering if it’s anything like Total War games, it's miles away.
* Tutorial and Features: The game lacks a proper tutorial and other features, making it hard to understand how things are supposed to work. Sometimes it feels like certain elements just don’t work.
* Game Mechanics: The game mechanics are, at best, in an alpha stage.
* Future Plans: If they only plan to release a Great Britain campaign and call it done, I wouldn't recommend buying this game, even at a 50% discount.

Sure, it’s an early access game, but it’s priced like an AA game, so that’s how I’m judging it. For now, I’d rate it a solid 5/10.

How would I best describe this game? Annoying.

Update: The devs have made a ton of changes...and the headline still stands. Most of the game play I described below hasn't changed. You can now make money which is great...but there is no food to be found anywhere so your rich army starves even during the summer months. Everything else previously mentioned still applies. I still don't understand how you can create a game where the player controls the entire map and loses. For the love of god, why not make EASY mode...I don't know...EASY???

---------------- Original review ----------------

British reinforcements constantly showing up just as you are about to attack a fort/town, coming out of thin air. You put out one fire and oops, the British just sent another fleet of 4000 troops. Dealing with that? Oh another 4000 are coming to the other end of the map. You are always out of money. Constant deserters lowering your reputation score so that even if you control every settlement on the entire map you can still be dismissed as a poor leader. British skirmishers are almost impossible to kill off as they keep coming back even with 20 troops left and can rout regiments 3x their size. Are you paying the max amount to your intelligence department? Too bad because you were sabotaged again and that town you had garrisoned with 100% loyalty has now gone over to the British. Apparently, your spies couldn't detect 3 raccoons in a trench coat trying to break into Washington's tent.

Oh, and this is on "EASY" mode with the limited British reinforcements box checked. Apparently that check box does absolutely nothing.

Look, if you want to make a hard game, fine. But don't offer an "EASY" difficulty setting and not make it so. I get that the real leaders of the revolution had to contend with these problems but I'm not trying to re-live the revolution. I chose the EASY setting for a reason. I'm looking for a fun, relaxing gaming experience and this game is not it.

First, I love this game! It’s an amazing experience with incredible depth. However, I’ve gathered some ideas for improvements that could make it even better for players and developers alike.
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Weapon Balancing
• Howitzers vs. Field Guns: The 5.5" Howitzers are very similar to the 6" field guns. Traditionally, Howitzers should have a greater arc, allowing them to shoot over obstacles more effectively. Grape shot shouldn’t have the same range as other field guns—it should be a tech tree upgrade. This would enhance its role as a defining feature of cannons.
• Grape Shot Range: Why is the range nearly equal to musket range? I should be able to choose to use grape shot at any range, understanding it becomes less effective at longer distances. Grape shot could even be its own ammo type for more flexibility.
• Musket to musket comparison has balance issues too. The newer style muskets should definitely have a bump in stats. I currently only see a difference in stats at the maximum ranges for each weapon type. If this is where the effectiveness really matters, then this musket to musket comparison is fine. It doesn't change the discussion for artillery though. Note that every battle I have fought end up with the infantry locked in at maximum effective ranges. This causes me to always put my artillery in line with infantry to enable graph shot. The previous discussion on user selecting of grape shot at any range could fix the way I apply this tactic. Of course, I should be able to select round shot at close ranges too if I still want to shot over other units. This would also allow me to use grape shot more effectively when attacking a fort.
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Mortars
• Accuracy Issues: Mortars frequently miss targets, hitting along the entire angle of fire. This makes them ineffective outside of sieges and even worse against moving targets.
• Psychological Impact: Mortars should scare enemy troops more and impose a morale penalty to reflect their psychological effects.
• Limited Use: As they stand, mortars are only useful for attacking forts. This limitation undermines their potential value on open fields.
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Reload Times
• Better Clarity: Display reload times in seconds rather than as percentages. This makes it easier to compare units’ firing speeds and understand how long they can sustain fire before exhausting their ammo.
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Naval Customization
• Ship Upgrades: Reintroduce ship upgrades from Ultimate Admiral. Allow players to improve ships with extra sails, better rudders, lighter hulls, or increased firepower.
• Crew Management: Enable micro-managing ship crews to improve specific ships or assign them to reserves. What if I want a smaller crew for a ship because I plan for it just to be a faster gun ship. How can I do that like I could in Ultimate Admiral?
• What is the use of transport and merchant ships? Can this be exampled better in a tutorial.
• The "Apply" bottom when editing the ship units sometimes has money associated with it. What is that money for? Where is that explained?
• I wish you could position ships prior to ship battles. I wish that ship battles followed the same format as the Ultimate Admiral game. For example loading the ships with the equipment they need.
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Post-Campaign Statistics
• Detailed Stats: Add post-battle stats, such as kills, units lost, resources expended, weapons produced or stolen, and total unit efficiency. A graph of army/navy size and strength over time would add depth to campaigns.
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Prisoner Management
• Moving Prisoners: Let players transfer prisoners between localities to capitalize on production bonuses. To balance this, the movement of prisoners could require a larger garrison or impose a locality penalty and maybe should be escorted or transported similar to supplies.
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Infantry and Unit Mechanics
• Firing from Two Lines: This tactic should be an early tech tree upgrade and should also be utilized more by the AI.
• Line Thickness Adjustments: Allow players to modify the thickness of infantry lines for better cover utilization or gap coverage.
• Shooting Over Obstacles: Infantry units stationed on hills or ridges should be able to shoot over other units.
• Unit Retreat Cancellation: Add the ability to cancel accidental retreat commands from the tactical map.
• Army formation: Enable players to form armies directly from the garrison view without needing to remove units first.
• Melee scores for Grandiers did not correspond to the higher/highest melee scores for the officer influenced stats. What? This doesn't make sense.
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Tactical Map Features
• Expanded Field of View: Broaden the tactical map view to enhance situational awareness.
• Pre-Battle Ship Positioning: Allow players to position ships before naval battles.
• Flag Mechanics: Explain the effects of capturing flags during tactical battles in the tutorials (e.g., morale boosts or penalties).
• Hill Fighting: Their should be a bigger distinction of infantry units being able to shot over one another if on a rig or hill.
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Resource Management
• Supply Prioritization: Let players deprioritize supplies for certain units while in towns, focusing resources on training priority units.
• Resource Dependencies: Why can’t a lumber mill on one side of the map support a dockyard at the port? This connection needs clarification.
• Settlement Supply Priority: Implement a three-ranked priority system for resupplying settlements, similar to what exists for individual units.
• For trading, I would like to be able to also auto buy/sell muskets/cannons/ships if I want to.
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Construction and Population
• Highlighted Territories: When selecting settlements in construction or loyalty tabs, highlight them on the map for easier navigation.
• Population Growth: Add a tutorial explaining how population growth influences settlement upgrades and how players can impact this (e.g., infrastructure investments).
• Tax Adjustments: Allow players to exempt low-loyalty settlements from taxes to stabilize morale, with or without a tax office.
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Tech Tree Suggestions
• Defensive Structures: Let players build temporary defensive bases or fortifications near cities for more complex defense/attack strategies. This could be a tech tree upgrade.
• Infantry Tactics: Introduce "Fire and Advance" or "Volley Fire" as military tactic upgrades to reduce micromanagement during tactical battles. This will reduce my micro management of this tactic during a tactical battle and still obtain the same effect.
• We should also be able to scatter troops when they are getting hit by artillery. Just like how the skirmishers usually are.
• Another technology could be "cannon barrage," less accuracy but faster reload and limit by time due to the faster loss of the condition of the troops. What about rifled cannons to increase accuracy. How about explosive shells for howitzers and field guns too? Quicklime shots?
• Infantry firing from two different lines in guard mode should be an early tech tree upgrade. It should also be used more by the AI.
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More to follow...