Nick Thomadis is the heroic designer responsible for DarthMod, the excellent, some would even say essential, series of unofficial mods for the Total War games.
His first independent project is civil war RTS Ultimate General: Gettysburg, which has just moved out of Early Access and into a full release on Steam.
Gettsyburg covers the titular battle between Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. Rather than flashy graphics (though don’t get me wrong, it still looks lovely) and a grand scale, Thomadis has chosen to focus on what he does best - creating the smartest battle AI around. In an exhaustive blog post accompanying the release announcement, the designer explains the intention behind Ultimate General’s key features.
Far, far too in-depth an analysis to summarise easily here, but the standout point is this: “The biggest design effort was concentrated on making the AI a worthy opponent. It was the most difficult task, because we did not want to provide the usual statistical bonuses of other games. We strongly believe that these kinds of AI boosts actually spoil gameplay, especially in strategy games where the challenge must be based on skill and not on cheats.”
That’s right, we’ve got complex AI commanders who make understandable and intelligent decisions based on the situation at hand, rather than a bunch of morons who’ve had their soldiers boosted up to the max to compensate for poor decision-making.
You can grab Ultimate General: Gettysburg for £10.99 on Steam. For more on the game, check out our preview from earlier this year.
