UG:CW’s real-time battles are largely the same as Gettysburg’s, with beautiful hand-drawn maps and the ability to draw precise manouvre commands for your troops. Everything’s just a little more refined, a little more fun; cover and elevation are more clearly defined here, and the ability to designate tasks (like defending a certain point) to whole sections of your army while you focus elsewhere is a welcome solution to the constant map-running these kind of games normally require during big battles.

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These battles have their problems, like some wonky AI and a camera that doesn’t get close enough to the action, but I still think they’re some of the most enjoyable in real-time strategy gaming. The free-form army control on offer and some elastic rout and withdrawal triggers make battles feel fast and most importantly fluid; battle lines often bend and move, but rarely break, which presents a continual tactical challenge.

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A small team working mostly out of Ukraine was never going to be able to compete with Total War in terms of scope and production value, but the decisions made on where to focus their energies have paid dividends here. Instead of feeling like half a Total War game, missing a vast strategic management and world map control, the flourishes and advances made on the tactical side of things are so good that it’s Creative Assembly who could learn a thing or two here.

Before we wind up, you should know that UG:CW is in Early Access at the moment; not all of the campaign is currently playable, and the roster of one-off historical battles isn’t fleshed out either. But in terms of features and stability this plays like a final release, which is why I’ve taken such a detailed look at it here (the full game will be out in early 2017).

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So long as nothing breaks in the final game, I’m going to be revisiting UG:CW the second its final release is out. I wasn’t even expecting the game’s announcement, let alone how polished it already is, and I definitely wasn’t expecting it to be keeping me from Civ VI in a time of year when I thought I’d be playing Civ VI until Christmas.