Customer Reviews

American Civil War

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If sheer addictability is any measure of a game, then AGEOD'S AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, 1861 - 1865 probably rates six stars. It's almost criminally addictive, and has prevented me from doing much else but play it since I bought the frakking thing. I am a fan of strategy games on all levels, and this has "instant classic" written all over it.

CIVIL WAR is a grand-strategy piece, meaning that you are given the choice of controlling either the USA or the CSA from April of '61 to January of '66 - not merely their armies, but their economic development and to a certain extent, the internal and external politics of each. One must fight not merely a military campaign, but have an eye as to the political consequences of certain actions - defeats on the battlefield, capture of enemies, naval blockades, trade embargos, emancipation of slaves, taxes, drafts, etc. As in real war, the aim is not merely to physcially destroy the enemy army but to break his will to fight.

CW has many fascinating and engrossing qualities that give you a real sense of what Lincoln and Davis must have gone through as wartime presidents. First, you must decide how you want to raise your armies - by asking for volunteers or enacting a draft. (Each has its pros and cons) Then it is necessary to choose how to build up your infrastructure -building factories, buying locomotives, constructing riverine ships, transports, etc. Finally, you have to decide how you are going to pay for all this - via bonds, taxes, public appeals for money, etc. Political decisions relating slave emancipation, foreign intervention, etc., etc. frequently come into play for both sides as well.

On a military level, the game works like this. You control both an Army and a Navy. Spending money and using up manpower and supplies, which you don't have in unlimited quantities, you create forces (for the Army) on a regimental or brigade level, choosing from infantry, cavalry, artillery, militia, irregulars, support units, etc. which are all historically accurate and represented by detailed icons (men, cannons, ships, etc.) These forces come from your component states, and are always historically real. If you order the creation of a brigade in say, New York or Georgia, it will be a real brigade from New York or Georgia. Once the forces are created they must be trained, which takes a bit of time. Once trained, they can operate independently or be formed into detachments, divisions, corps, or armies, each of which requires a certain rank of leader and has certain fighting and logistical characteristics.

This is one of the frankly cooler aspects of the game: the leaders are real historical figures, represented by historically accurate portrait icons. These leaders are programmed to correspond to the actual historical figures' known characteristics - Custer is a hothead but a good Indian fighter, McClelland is a good organizer but a slow mover, etc. Therefore, the body of troops benefits or suffers from who is in command, and you, the player benefit or suffer from how good your pool of available generals is. Because the game is historically true, this pool is dependent on what year it might be. You cannot, for example, give Lee command of a Confederate army in April, 1861 - first, because he's only a two-star general at that time and therefore isn't eligible to command one yet, and second, because you, as commander-in-chief, are more or less obligated to fill vacant commands by seniority and not competence, or you will suffer corresponding political penalties. Generals become eligible for promotion only after winning battles, so you can't just make a good one-star general into a three-star general overnight, either.

The game is won or lost by two rankings: "victory points", which you get mainly from occupying territory, and "national morale points", which you get by winning battles or by making decisions which are popular politically. If your national morale falls below a certain level you lose automatically, as your nation has lost its will to fight. This adds an interesting dynamic to the game, as what is popular is not always what is smart.

The game's AI is better than I've previously encountered, and can be adjusted to smarter, dumber or more aggressive as you choose. CW's map includes the United States from the Great Plains to the Atlantic Coast, showing the individual states in great detail, down to the individual counties. It uses a simultaneous turn-resolution system which I last saw back in the 80s playing SSI games like DECISION IN THE DESERT and CRUSADE IN EUROPE. Instead of moving, supplying and shooting and then letting the enemy do the same, you issue orders and then end the turn; both you and the computer execute simultaneously, which leaves you less a "commander" and more a "suggester" - a realistic if not necessarily satisfying way of depicting strategic war.

Which brings me to the game's flaws. Battle in CW happens during the turn, so you have no control over it - something very annoying to me personally. Outcome is determined by the commanders skills, troop strengths, terrain, and luck, and the computer has a strange way of determining whether you won or lost. (On one occasion I was informed I'd "lost" the Battle of Fredericksburg, despite the fact I took the town and inflicted 10,000 casualties against only 2,000 of my own. Hmmm.) Also, whether you are awarded morale points for victories or penalized for defeats seems to have no logic behind it. I've won major battles and been given zero morale points, lost minor skirmishes and been penalized heavily. I'm sure there is a logic to how these things are determined...but I don't understand what it is. Finally, the version I have -- which may be improved by the patches which are available on the Internet -- crashes enough to make constant saving a necessity.

Despite these and other flaws, I would highly recommend AMERICAN CIVIL WAR to anyone interested in either the States' War or strategy games in general. It's a highly addictive, very imaginative and visually pleasing game which really forces you to use your noggin against a very well-programmed opponent. Hopefully subsequent versions will iron out some of the more annoying aspects of play, but even as-is, it's a hell of an accomplishment. Any game you can play for a whole day without blinking is pretty good in my book.

UPDATE 6/13/08

I would like to add that while the tutorials for ACW are quite good, the manual for this game is not written very well at all. Too much information is left out. You really need to comb through both if you want a proper understanding of the game.

A NOTE ON THE PATCH - 11/30/08

I recently went to the AGEOD website to hunt patches for ACW, and downloaded the only one I could find. (The website, incidentally, is written in French, but by clicking the US/Union Jack flag in the corner it will read as badly-translated English). I'd like to review the patch because it does address some of the problems mentioned here by other reviewers. Like the game itself the patch is a double-edged sword. It addresses some of the flaws but brings new flaws along with it. In brief, the positives of the patch are: it adds five new game scenarios to the repertiore, greatly simplifies the "reinforcement" menu (previously it was simply a list of new units and their hometowns; now it's interactive, which saves some time, though not as much as it should), and it increases the number of orders you can give a unit from four to eight. This is the best update by far. On the "old" version, you could only order passive stance, defensive stance, "intelligent" attack and "reckless" attack (my terms). On the new one you keep these options, but each one has four suboptions - an attack can be anything from an all-out kill-or-be-killed charge to a feint. Defensively, you can order anything from "hold to the last man" to "fire a round and then run like hell." This allows for much more intelligent armchair generaling and cuts down on needless losses. Unfortunately, a lot of issues remain unaddressed: visual clutter, sluggishness of map-movement, slow loadup, and confusion in locating units. Last, on the original vers, the game crashed mainly when you spent too much time recombining stacks of forces; now it crashes much more frequently, including between turns. Some people may find the patch to be one step forward and a half-step back, but it's probably worth at least a test-try. Hey, it's free....

The game is one of grand strategy. Players take the role of the North or South and as a prior review stated, control everything from the military to the politics to the economy of their nation. I'll not delve into gameplay as much as some of the strengths and weaknesses of this near great game.

The learning curve is fairly steep. Dealing with the Army, Corps, Divisions and the abilty to split them up and reform them can be tedious. Add in the fact that commanders sometimes don't activate and follow your orders and you might find it hard to assemble your force where you want it. Realism? Perhaps so but this brings up the next issue.

The map and the units aren't easy to manage. So slow and disobediant leaders aside, its easy to misplace them! Stacks are hard to operate, the regions are small and can become cluttered and the lines of transit from the various units can create quite a spiderweb to blind the eye. Judging the overall value of your armies are not easy either. When you successfully scout out an enemy army a brief panel opens up revealing their strength. Not so for your own army, you need to piece some things together. Additionally accidental stacking of forces is easy to do if one isn't paying attention.

The map does have some neat features. The game is smart enough to know that if you try to attack across a river, there is a penalty. It allows you to build fortifications. Terrain matters! Though I do wish mountains were impassible to give the valleys a sense of one way in, one way out. The map features means clever manuevering is needed. Fight head on, and you'll be just like Burnsides! Weather changes are denoted on the map for easy reference. If the map turns white, that's snow! Don't march through it. Or if you do, it better be worth it.

Reinforcements are no fun. In the economy feature of the game you can raise troops from the various states under your control. These forces appear, then need time to amass and then you can send a batallion off to war. It is time consuming and requires you to frequently check on the status of raised units, and then comes the not so fun process of sending them to the front and integrating them. Additionally there are a horde of units one can try to raise. Perhaps too many. Realistic? Sure.

Naval combat at sea and on the rivers is also addressed and adds another layer to the game. Not too hard to manage excpet there is the ability to use river travel, the ability to use river transport ships, and there are river warships not to mention deep sea war and transport ships. The effect is just another layer to bog things down and clutter the map up. Realisitc? Yep!

Scouting is fantastic! Enemy forces can be hidden until you detect them. Cavalry comes in handy for this, and it is so nice to use cavalry as the eyes and ears of an army for a change! Sadly, when you create a cavalry screen it clutters the map up. Still, effective scouts! Realistic? You bet.

If you've not noticed, the game pushes for realism. This is not a bad thing, it makes it a different game than the more simple grand strategy products such as Axis and Allies, and I would normally embrace it as such. However, with the cluttered map and lack-luster interface the realism slows things down and gets in the way. Even with realism, players want to direct the war efficently, not spend an hour looking at a reinforcement table with a dozen units and then flitting through other tables, then back to the map only to have to peer about closely and wonder how best to split up a stack and ship over one new unit from a nearby town while three others are still gaining strength in three other towns. Even forgetting reinforcements, the game itself has too much information and no easy way to share it. I almost think it would have done better to simplify armies and leave the rest or simplify the other aspects of the game and keep the multi-layer Army, Corps, Division system. Having both is too much for the interface and map.

And that's how I'd sum up American Civil War, it has TOO MUCH good things to share and no easy way to express it. A much larger map and sleeker interface and an automatic way to set up a reinforcement pool would have turned this game into a real winner. As is, you need to be patient with it.

Price wise? $30 is fair given all the work that went into it, and if you get the hang of the game you will get hours of enjoyment. The play by email is a nice feature, but handled poorly. Too much work for the user when it should be click, send, done.

The manual is not that useful and the tutorial is better, but like many aspects of the game, tedious. The tutorial even closes out at times forcing you to re-open it.

I hope in the years to come the developers give some more polish to this game. I think it is on verge of a GREAT one! If you like the Civil War and want a game like Axis and Allies, this may be a bit too much for you. If you want a slow paced highly detail orientated game, this is the one.

Tip of advice. READ THE AGEOD FORUM ONLINE. The forum was more useful than the manual and tutorial. Hard core players are eager to help people as well.

I've had this game for a while now & it's a pretty darn good game. I'm still learning things about the game so it's learning curve is pretty steep. If you loke war games on the strategic level, this one's for you.

I operate this game on Windows Vista Home Premium. The instruction manual that comes with the game says it's NOT officially supported by Vista. It's been mentioned that the game crashes a lot, in my case, this was initially true. Since I've downloaded the most recent patch (1.12) I've had very little problem with this though it still happens occasionally. The newest patch includes all the earlier patches which has added some more unique aspects to the game.

The other reviewers have covered most of the ground very well so I'll limit my comments somewhat. The map covers a HUGE amount of area. I was running 1GB of RAM & it was really using it. I've upgraded to 4GB of RAM so I've eliminated some problems there. Also, in the game options, you have four settings that will limit how much RAM the game will use; that's a great feature but it will slow down the game if you don't have it set on maximum. I would suggest, if possible, that you get the best video card available. On my laptop (all I have) I get quite a bit of "lag" when skimming through the map.

This is a game where coordinating your forces is extremely important. It's easier said than done because, like any battle situation, things are extremely fluid. The game operates on a simultaneous move system so things don't always happen the way you plan them. I've played Union & Confederate & it's almost like a different game depending on which side you play. Another hint is watch your supply levels; they're critical to operations. The game has a supply filter setting that really helps in this, I keep it on during play because it shows the supply level in every fort, town & city. You have to be extremely thoughtful during the phases where you decide your budget & volunteer/draft situations. Inflation can get out of control in a hurry!

The game is fairly accurate, historically. Most of the generals have accompanying portraits now that makes it easier to identify who's who. The generals are rated in strategic (how active they are), offensive (ability to go on attack) & Defensive (how well they defend). You'll find early in the game, not in the very beginning, that you have too MANY generals & by the end of the game you'll wish you had more. Where the Union has most of the material advantage, the Confederate has the superior generals. The Union is crippled because of the 3 star generals they have because most of them are inactive boobs. But that's not the only problem because some of them are darn near impossible to replace. Just try replacing McClellan & see what consequences you suffer!

Like the others have said, the manual is weak, many things aren't clearly or sufficiently explained. There are some tutorials with the game that help but even they aren't perfect. You can go to the AGEOD forum & they are some very helpful things there. There's a lot of informational support in this community & that's a good thing. But there's nothing quite like jumping in the game & just learning. It can be frustrating at times but it keeps you on your toes & keeps your interest up. There are different starting points for the full 2 theater game as well as some battle scenarios. I've only played one of those, Gettysburg, & it was very disappointing. I haven't tried since I've downloaded the patch so I can't give any information on that.

Some of the sellers have really good prices on this game & it's well worth it if you pay less than $[...].

This game has a huge learning curve, so if you are not into strategy games and do not want to take the time to learn, I would not purchase this. But if your a fan of turn based strategy and willing to put the time in, this game is a precious gem!

One important thing to do is dive into the wicki and spend a lot of time on the AGEOD forums "[...]".. this is an outstanding community that is very helpful to people of all levels of skill. I see people post on the forums that they have been playing a year and they still learn new things.

I still have no clue what I'm doing, but I'm having a blast.

AACW has a steep learning curve, but don't let that stop you from enjoying the game - it may take 2-3 starts before you get the hang of it. Once you understand a few basic principles: forming divisions, corps, armies and get a handle on supply, the game is intuitive and easy to play/hard to master. In addition, there is an active forum of players on the AGEOD website that will gladly help new players with the game. Keep in mind this is not a fast paced game; turns are all about setting up your strategy and (trying) to get your generals to execute the plan. It generally takes me 1/2 hour to complete a turn.

The AI is excellent, the graphics are solid and if not for the steep learning curve, I'd give the game a 5/5.

I remember playing these types of games 20 years ago. In this game all you do for battles is move an icon over another icon and hope you win the battle. I like games that you can control your men in the battle.(if the enemy is in a strong position you could move your men to a diffrent position.) but in this game all you do is let the computer control the battle. you see no battle just the results. It does go into details of the war that are good, If this game kept everything the way it was but add the control of your men it would be an excelent game.

Great game, excellent graphics however not the simplest of learning curves. If you're a veteran gamer you should slip into this without a problem. One caveat, spend the extra $$ and get the game with the instruction manual. It is very difficult to get into the game reading the pdf file.

I don't understand the low reviews of this game.

If you love Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis, etc (games that are EPIC in over view) this is exactly what this game is for.

Yes, you have to take the time to manage units, assign commanders, and pay attention to the key components of the game. Having enjoyed similar games where you run an entire country (Try Supreme Ruler 2020 if you think this game is hard to manage) part of the fun is running everything from research, to economics, to military production.

Putting all that aside. The game mechanics work wonderfully. If you're impressed by the research Paradox does on HoI, and Europa (which are done very well) this game is equally impressive. From the time spent on maps, to weapons, to units, to commanders.

And battle mechanics work great. Dice rolls basically without being involved. As fun as it might be, it's very hard to incorporate RTS into TurnBased games, that's why winners usually steer clear of it (Think Civilization IV)

All of this aside. This is the only complete Civil War Game that is worth buying. There's no other comparison. No one else has ever done it well.

The best you can get are the well done Civilization Scenarios based on Sid Miers game engine. Which works well for guiding a country (the South or North).

But this beats that because of detail, detail, detail. Other civil war games are empty for replay-ability. Which is demanded by consumers today, we don't want games that repeat over and over. They need to be open ended.

It's simply better than any other game attempting to tackle the Civil War from a high level. And it's worth it. 5-star, as a huge, huge fan of the Turn Based Genre, this game rewards your efforts to learn the details by delivering a unique experience everytime you play it. Which is very hard to achieve in a limited subject such as this (only 2 major players).

I can see how many don't like this game. It isn't as easy as it
looks. You have to be aware of supply and manufacturing as well
as politics in order to play at anything higher than "EASY". I've
been looking for a game like this ever since Avalon Hill attempted
to put their Victory Games Civil War game on PC. That was back in
the late 80s and the result was awful. Now we have graphics that
are up to speed with game mechanics that are often faithful to
how history went, in spite of your best efforts. The AI isn't all
that bright unless you change the settings to give it better
advantages. I have yet to PBEM this game but I can only imagine
how challenging that would be!

There are lots of guides on the net so Google them, along with
a few that are included in the game. It takes a while to learn
how to form your armies, but that is the whole key. If you don't
learn how to master the command structure you won't ever get this
game. Serious gamers will like this.

This game is great if your goal in life is to be the supply and logistics officer of the Army. If its battles you want look elsewhere.