Ultimate General: Civil War – General Skills (How to Distribute Career Points)

by Falagar / Articles, Misc. Guides / 16 Jul 2017

Politics: Hands down the most important skill in a general’s arsenal. I max this skill out first, with some to army organization when possible. When maxed out early, politics allows a player to build a larger army fast. While they might not be able to equip them all or train them with the best weapons, politics’ greatest value gives flexibility. It gives money and manpower, allowing one to recover losses, and the reputation points can be spent on manpower, money, generals, or weapons. It’s important to note that a general with maxed out politics probably acquires more men than one with maxed medicine, mainly because it isn’t reliant on the number of men lost.

Economy: Important. It’s one of those skills necessary for the maintenance of veteran brigades with high-cost weapons, but at the same time, a lot of those weapons you can get by capturing them. Please have a few points here to spare them, but it isn’t a priority stat to increase. A good way to get some is to pick the “Artillery” option for your general’s initial skill set.

Medicine: Important, particularly in late-game, but not so much in the early game. Why? Well, medicine allows a brigade that has lost men to recover a percentage of those men (they don’t go into manpower, they go directly back into said brigade automatically) and the equipment they hold, as well as their veterancy. It isn’t good for growing a large army early on in a player’s career because it’s reliant on the number of losses their army takes.

It is vital to max medicine out later in the game (I suggest by Stones River) to preserve the veterancy of your elite units and all-important manpower after minor and Grand Battles. Since training and new weapons cost money, medicine is a powerful passive ability of sorts that mitigates the manpower and money losses a player’s armies will take, especially in Grand Battles.

Army Organization: This is also important as it allows a general to field more men on the battle, enabling more tactics flexibility. It is important to note that it doesn’t affect how many men you get to put into your army. For that, you need politics. That being said, an expanding army requires increased army organization, so level up only when required/possible. However, it’s possible to survive the battles on level 6 organization up to even Stones River, so players should ensure enough organization to fulfill the minimum “required corps” slots for the Grand Battles (1 for Bull Run, Shiloh, 2 for Gaines Mill, Malvern Hill, and 2nd Manassus, 3 for Antietam, Fredericksburg, Stones River, and Chancelloresville). Having more organization early can be useful as a larger 1st Corps or 1st Division can be useful for minor battles or certain Grand Battles (Cold Harbour).

Training: Cheapens the recruitment of veterans for elite brigades. Useful to have some early and a necessary general stat to have in later campaigns. A player should start increasing the state gradually (max it out by Chancelloresville I think) as it allows the player/you to grow some majorly dangerous units and maintain the dangerous nature of your elite units. This is particularly important in late-game when your recruitment rewards reduce… because you need to fall back onto maintaining 2 Star veteran units to ensure you have a way to combat the AI’s elites.

Logistics: Sort of useful and sort of not. It means you can rely less on supply wagons, but at the same time can be mitigated by the traits of corps generals and artillery brigade traits. Take 2 (with the Artillery trait) early on, but don’t feel the need to max this. It IS more useful than Reconnaissance at the moment.

Reconnaissance: The developers will probably be reworked later because it’s not a particularly vital skill for a large army’s rapid growth.

More precisely, Reconnaissance is an intrinsic skill. A general with good Reconnaissance is useful as it allows them to know the numbers of the enemy army, get a power bar on the size of the enemy army as the battle goes on, and even their weapon load-outs at higher Reconnaissance levels. However, most people look at the Reconnaissance skill, see that it doesn’t help them build a larger army or maintain it on the battlefield, and ignore it.

Take this if you want to have a different experience, a more tactical way to play. I have done all the way decently to Chancelloresville without a single point in it. I still don’t have any points in it.

On an important note, reconnaissance skill buffs occur after every 2 points invested.

Falagar

He is the founder and editor of Magic Game World. He loved gaming from the moment he got a PlayStation 1 with Gran Turismo on his 7th birthday.
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