Overview
Ultimate general is an amazing gaming platform (I say that because I imagine this game could be an amazing starting point for new games from gamelabs, like a Napoleonic era UG or WW1 era UG). I wrote a review on the game if you wanna hear my opinions.In this guide, I will speak directly to new players, because I realize that it is a bit daunting to learn how to play this game, and I worry that some players will give up on this amazing game because they don’t know how to play it correctly.Anyway guys, this guide is ONLY about the units in UG. I will write another couple of guides about other things that people should know more about, later, when I have time. Thanks for the read.
Line Infantry
Line soldiers, high rate of fire for quick damage, moderate in melee, decent morale. Can usually take a beating. Infantry is used to hold the line. No other unit can deal as much ranged damage at short ranges, simply because line soldiers have so many men. In addition, line infantry can take more damage than any other unit (again mostly because of their numbers).
To use line infantry, point them towards the enemy, maximize available cover, and dont get flanked. Sometimes you will actually want to move some low tier line infantry into the open to be targetted by the enemy artillery, simply because you dont want that artillery shooting at your other units.
Do not declare charges with this unit for now. Literally only shoot people, and when you get charged, hope you throw them off.
Line infantry is slow however, and running your troops manually is almost never worth it. Do not be lazy and run your line troops into battle. Later on I will talk about the “stats” of this game and what they mean (like “condition”, which goes down from running).
In conclusion, Line infantry is the most important unit type in the game. These are your “real” soldiers, who hold the line and tank volleys of fire or barrages from artillery. They deal the most damage to the enemy, and take the most losses (at least in my games). However, they are also kind of the easiest unit to use. Simply get them to decent positions and let them shoot at the enemy. It is more in the “grand strategy” of the battle where the ways you use these units gets complicated (as opposed to the other unit types, which need complex guidelines to use correctly).
My recommendation: In an army of 20 brigades, I would take between 10 – 12 line infantry brigades.
Enjoy a random picture, note the casualties on each side. This is after the battle of Shiloh.
Skirmishers
(this section applies to both detachment skirmishers, who come from line infantry units, and regular skirmisher units)
Spread out, crouched, automatically falls back when enemies advance. Skirmishers are an extremely important unit to know how to use well. Skirmishers by default suffer less damage from missile fire than line soldiers. They also automatically run everywhere, making them quick to redeploy. They also seem to lose condition at a slower rate than line infantry. However, they have less men, are less effective in melee (practically useless), and have lower morale. Skirmishers should probably be earning 2x kills for every man they lose, when use correctly.
Here are the basic ways which you shouldn’t use skirmishers:
– to charge enemy units, ever. Just don’t. You can shoot into melee, so just sit back and shoot at a melee with them.
– to engage enemy cavalry all alone. Cavalry will eat your skirmishers alive if they are sitting all alone. Note the AI uses cavalry extremely well in this game. Later i will tell you more about the AI, but for now, just know that if you see enemy cavalry, get some support for you skirmishers.
– to try to capture objectives from the enemy directly. No, use your line troops as “real” battle line that assaults the enemy and captures objectives.
Here are the basic ways you can use skirmishers (besides the special cases described for each type, that I go through later):
– to slow down enemy advancing forces that you aren’t ready to deal with yet. Send skirmishers into cover, waiting for the enemy to advance (you will likely be hidden so you’ll get the first volley off), then fire into them and let your men fall back. This will slow and weaken even a large enemy advance. When enemy forces (non cavalry) are flanking you, but you are fully engaged in the frontline, send skirmishers to hold them down (until you get line infantry ready to engage the new enemies).
– to flank engaged enemies quickly (line infantry will take a long time to march around into a flanking position, skirmishers can get there quickly)
– to tank damage from enemy artillery and light infantry fire (If you are in good cover). Skirmishers make better use of cover than line infantry, so in a pinch, a skirmisher unit can be ordered to “hold position” (prevents automatically falling back), and will actually engage enemy infantry head on, and maybe even take artillery fire. This isn’t as bad as you might think, because even though you don’t have a lot of skirmishers, and they are expensive, they actually can take more fire than line troops. So stick them in cover and slowly grind the enemy down. (This tactic is most cost effective when using the detachment skirmishers, since they “cost” the same as line infantry, and even if they all get killed, you don’t lose a “real” unit, just a couple hundred casualties from a line infantry brigade).
The armament of a skirmisher unit is extremely important. There are 3 key types. I will go through what they are here:
1. Detachment skirmishers use the infantry rifles, which usually have medium range. They don’t gain any bonuses to their damage or range, so you will have to be within infantry rifle range to fire on the enemy. These skirmishers are sort of “basic”. They should be used with basic tactics from this section of the guide, as they dont have the special range or rate of fire qualities of the other two types. My favorite use of this unit is to detach them from line infantry when i need a small unit to hold of enemies who I dont have enough men to effectively engage at the moment. I will get more into that later when i talk about the army-wide tactics.
2. Sniper skirmishers use special rifles which have ranges that far exceed infantry rifle range. They have long reload times however. This means you can effectively use them to fire upon enemy line troops who cannot fire back. However, if line infantry does come within range, and goes head to head against you, it will be devestating to your sniper skirmishers. Make sure to manaully fall back and try to stay out of range. A good use for these guys is to stay behind your line infantry soldiers, supporting fire at enemies who are busy shooting your line infantry.
3. Assault skirmishers use repeating rifles which actually have shorter range than infantry rifles, but with MUCH higher rate of fire. I call these guys assault skirmishers because they are best used offensively. Holding the line with these guys is hard to do because the AI will stand out of your range and shoot you with their line infantry. You do not want to have to move forwards into a hail of fire to get within range. These guys are best used to carry out close range ambushes, deter assaults from enemy line infantry (by running up and delivering high volume of fire to charging enemies), or to flank engaged enemy units. I will get into “flanking” later (because it doesn’t really matter who does the flanking, simply doing it is good).
In conclusion, skirmishers are NOT the easiest unit to use correctly, in fact, often times there aren’t a great number of opportunities to use skirmishers to maximum effectiveness. However, skirmishers can be extremely valuable and profitable in campaign, as they can give you several possible tactical actions that line infantry can’t do as effectively.
My recommendation: In an army of 20 brigades, I would take between 1 – 3 skirmisher brigades. (not counting detachment units. In the grand strategy guide, I will cover when its a good idea to use skirmisher detachments).
Enjoy a random picture:
Cavalry
This is a tough unit to use correctly, but like skirmishers, can be extremely valuable in the right circumstances. Cavalry is the fastest unit in the game, has the potential to be the most effective melee unit in the game, or a decently effective missile unit. Cavalry automatically runs, at a rate maybe 3 or 4 times faster than line infantry, and it doesn’t lose condition from it that quickly. This makes them the single best unit in the game for quickly responding to threats far away. Cavalry also has excellent sight ranges and decent spotting chances, which makes them absolutely marvelous at scouting (which might sound boring, but I cannot stress enough how important it is. I will describe why later on). However, Cavalry is also the most vulnerable unit to missile fire, while mounted, as they are low in number and can take a lot of damage from missile fire in an extremely small amount of time.
Here is a quick list of ways you SHOULD NOT use cavalry (any of these would make you think cavalry is a waste):
– Charging pretty much any unengaged enemy unit from the front. What I mean by this is even skirmishers and artillery should not be charged with cavalry from the front. The casualties you will take (if you even make it before you break and flee) are not worth it, you are fast enough to flank them! However, if an enemy unit is engaged/distracted, then you can charge them, even if it’s mostly from the front, because they can’t switch targets to shoot you all that quickly.
– Fighting pretty much any head to head missile engagement with any enemy unit. Don’t do it. I will describe later how you use your cavalry’s missile weapons.
– Charging enemy artillery. Yes, I know, if you have played Total war or other strategy games, you are probably thinking: “Oh I see so cavalry runs up and kills enemy artillery”. No. Don’t do that, the artillery will switch to cannister shot, and in seconds obliterate your cavalry unit and make them break and flee, so you should never charge enemy artillery even if it’s completely unguarded. Besides, half the time I have tried it, the artillery actually was guarded by an enemy unit that was hidden, which also fired on me and wiped out half my unit in seconds.
Ok so at this point you might be wondering: “Wait so what do I even use cavalry for?” Cavalry are a glass cannon unit. As fragile as they are, they are even more destructive in the right circumstance.
Really quick I want to describe the two different kinds of cavalry.
– “Saber + Carbine” cavalry is what I call the first kind. The default loadout for cavalry is a sword (while mounted) and a short ranged carbine (while on foot). So far, it seems to me that this kind of armament means the cavalry actually doesn’t use their guns while mounted at all. You have to dismount to fire. This kind of cavalry is much better at melee however, so if you want to have a shock melee unit, go with this kind.
– “Skirmisher” cavalry is what I call the second kind. These units use a rifle only, mostly they use the same kind of rifles that skirmishers use, so they are practically the same as skirmishers except they start mounted (and can dismount). These units can definitely shoot from horseback, but you don’t usually want to do that because they don’t have long range weapons and return fire can be deadly. The ideal way to use this unit is to keep it behind your lines or near a flank, then, when a skirmisher unit is needed somewhere, run your cavalry to that position and dismount, engaging the enemy on foot. Later on, re-mount your horses and fall back so you can re-deploy quickly for the next crisis. If you like skirmishers, then use these cavalry units like faster psuedo-skirmishers.
Here is a quick list of how to use cavalry (in the generic sense, for either kind):
– Scouting missions. Might sound boring or tedious, but it’s actually extremely important to know where the enemy is and what they are doing. In fact you can even spot enemy units for your artillery to engage from long range.
– Mobile skirmishers. Move the cavalry close to the line, ideally in cover, then dismount and use them exactly as skirmishers. This works best when the cavalry have skirmisher rifles (not the default cavalry saber/carbine combo), but the other kind of cavalry can dismount and skirmish as well.
– Shock melee unit. When used extremely carefully, a cavalry charge can almost instantly break an enemy unit, dealing massive damage, while taking minimal losses. Using this tactic repeatedly has earned some of my cavalry units 1800+ kills, with less than 200 losses (with a starting unit size of 600 men), not to mention the tactical significance of driving off so many enemy units. Obviously this tactic works better with the “Saber + Carbine” brand of cavalry, as the melee stats of Skirmisher cavalry are significantly worse.
How to use cavalry in melee (explained in detail):
First, know your unit. The more experienced the unit, the better it will be at melee combat while mounted. Also, melee combat for cavalry is definitely best if you are using the “saber + carbine” variant of cavalry (which is the default loadout when you buy a new unit).
Second, never charge from the front (yes I repeat myself but it’s important) if the target is not engaged elsewhere.
Third, don’t charge a unit unless if you know that there aren’t many unengaged enemy units nearby/behind it. One huge mistake you can make is to charge a unit and break it, only seconds later to be obliterated by 3+ enemy unit’s volleys who were sitting right behind the unit.
Fourth, Charge from very close range. Don’t click the charge button when you are 300 meters away. Ideally, what you want to do is distract the unit with another of yours, then creep up beside or behind the target (in cover or hidden would be nice), then get within 100 meters of the target and, when you confirm its safe, click charge.
This kind of charge (against a mid tier line infantry unit) will likely cost you a lot of condition, maybe 50 something losses, but you will gain 200+ kills and break the enemy unit. Against skirmishers, you will take hardly any losses but might find it harder to kill many. Skirmishers often surrender or Rout (where they don’t die, but flee with no chance of coming back). Note that any unit can fire into melee combat without risk of friendly fire, even artillery can do it. So you don’t have to tell your nearby units to ceasefire or whatever (but also be weary of being shot at while being in melee, nothing drains your morale faster than being shot while in melee).
Finally: Don’t worry if your cavalry flee from melee after executing the charge. Often times noob cavalry will flee after winning the fight. They will quickly recover and won’t have lost many men. The only irritating thing about this tactic is that it takes a while to set up, and isn’t always available due to terrain or enemy forces. Also, sometimes the unit breaks without losing many men, and you can continue to run them down with your cav, but it takes quite a long time to do (often times the enemy unit reaches the edge of the map before you finish them off) and exhausts your cav. In my opinion, it’s usually better to smash the unit and force it to flee, then withdraw your cavalry (don’t chase them) and prepare the next smash charge. If that unit comes back, you can always hit it again (and it will be exhausted from fleeing from you, whereas your infantry in this region will have had time to rest and regain morale).
My recommendation: In an army of 20 brigades, I would take between 2 – 4 cavalry brigades. If you are light on skirmishers, I would take more cavalry (some being skirmisher cavalry).
Enjoy a random picture (note my melee cavalry behind my lines, waiting in support):
Artillery
Long ranged, slow, and somewhat difficult to appreciate. Artillery in UG will not annihilate entire armies from afar. If you have played Napoleon total war, this artillery is NOT the same. What artillery does first and foremost is damage the morale of enemy units and help fend off charges. Now that’s not to say that artillery can’t earn tons of kills, because artillery batteries can do that, but being under artillery fire is not so deadly that you must hunt down every artillery battery and take them out before your army is destroyed. In fact in many cases, I have had units under enemy long range artillery for over an hour without losing many men.
How NOT to use artillery:
– Melee fighters. Look this is obvious, don’t push your slow lumbering battery into melee combat with enemies on purpose.
– Bombard enemies who are in cover, from maximum range, and expect to score hundreds of kills. I know, this one is hard to fathom, but artillery actually has to fight enemies at pretty close range to score a good amount of kills. In fact artillery sucks up ammo extremely quickly, so firing at targets over 1000 meters away is often a complete waste of time.
– Units to hold the line with. Put simply, short range artillery fire is extremely helpful, however even cannister shot will not save you from a basic enemy infantry unit charging headlong into your artillery and butchering them. Even close range infantry fire can seriously damage (and break) artillery units.
– Constantly select your own target units for artillery to shoot at. Wheeling around and aiming at specific units takes time. Also, Artillery units automatically select the best target to shoot at (the one they would do the most damage to).
How to use artillery the right way:
– Deploy on high ground, near (but behind) your lines. The closer it is to the enemy, the more damage you will do, but the easier it will be for the enemy to deal damage to your artillery (hint: we don’t want that to happen, basically ever).
– When assaulting an enemy position, you can perform a risky operation of rolling up an artillery to close range and cannistering the defenders. Be careful though, return fire from elite line troops or skirmishers can seriously wreck the battery and it won’t be worth it. This works best against low tier line troops who can’t deal much damage from returning fire.
– Wheel up artillery almost to the front line (when defending), if there are a large number of enemies constantly assaulting that part of the battle line. Close range cannister shot will seriously harm assaulting units, but it also deals large morale damage which is critical, because if you break an enemy unit, it flees from you, becoming tired while also not dealing any damage to you and suffering even more missile damage as they are shot in the rear.
– Allow your artillery to pick their own targets 95% of the time. They target the unit they will deal the most damage to, or even pick units that are currently pressing the attack or charging your men. It is even OK for artillery to fire into melee, because there is no friendly fire.
– Understand that artillery are support units, not “hammer” units that rack up lots of kills. Primarily they help protect your lines by being able to provide fire support for a large section of the battle line, damaging enemy morale, and helping to drive off charging units or large melee brawls. It is even OK if your line troops get assaulted, and flee, because often times the artillery that pounds the enemy charging units will make them flee as well, preventing the foe from capitalizing on a breach in the lines.
In conclusion, people are often disappointed in artillery’s ability to deal consistent long ranged damage to enemy units in cover. In battles where the enemy is entrenched on a hill, even several artillery batteries firing for over an hour (surely using up all of their ammo) will not make much of a dent. Perhaps 100 – 200 kills for each battery isn’t a big deal when the enemy has 6 infantry brigades of 2000 men each. What is more important is to shell the enemy units while you are attacking or charging these units, because that morale damage will help you in taking their positions. Remember: you can win your missions without killing the enemy. Every mission in the game is fixated on territorial occupation, not upon killing the enemy. So if artillery helps you convince the enemy units to flee from their well-prepared defenses, allowing you to swarm the objective, then they helped you win the battle in a grander sense than if they just dealt damage to enemy units. But miraculously, artillery is also awesome at aiding you in defense. Many times in the campaign you are tasked with holding a position against waves of enemy assaults. Artillery is a worthy tool in supporting your line of troops by dealing damage, driving off assaults, or in crucial situations, rolling right up to the enemy and cannistering them senseless.
A special note: As I said before, when enemy artillery is shelling you, it often doesn’t do enough damage to make it worth sending units to attack those artillery batteries. The AI doesn’t often roll artillery units to point blank range to break your defenses, even though I think they actually should (it would be hard to deal with). They instead find good positions and shell you from far away. Its somewhat annoying, but not as dangerous to your army’s well-being as trying to sneak behind enemy lines to take them out.
* Remember, artillery switches to cannister shot automatically! There isn’t even a button to tell it to switch *
My recommendation: In an army of 20 brigades, I would take between 2 – 5 artillery brigades.
Enjoy a random picture. Notice where I have my artillery placed, its not super far back from the line. In fact 1 unit is right on the frontlines.
—- Cavalry section hit max length so here is the rest of what I was gonna say there:
Special note: Cavalry vs Cavalry melee is OK but not great. Usually its just a grinding match. Its always better to find a way to shoot enemy cavalry if possible. Cavalry vs artillery is very tricky. In most games, I would recommend not attacking enemy artillery. The damage they do to you is not worth risking an attempt to take them out. However, when you defeat enemy artillery, you can capture their guns and use them in your own brigades later, so that is nice. Just approach artillery from behind, and ensure that they are firing at somebody else. Then ensure that they don’t have support. Then, don’t even charge them, actually just move your cavalry into them manually and melee will ensue. Do this, because then you can hit 2 artillery units at once. The WORST day you will ever have is when you flank enemy artillery, charge one battery, only to see the other one next to it turn, and cannister you from point blank range. With skirmisher cavalry, it might even be a better idea to get behind them, dismount, and hide in cover, shooting the enemy artillery. It doesn’t take many casualties to make them flee. Skirmisher units in cover won’t take much damage even from cannister shot.