American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

There is a new ACW game coming out at Matrix Games. Does anyone know anything about the Crowns of Glory system it is based on?

http://www.matrixgames.com/news.asp?nid=363

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

Hi, Bill,

Thanks for the info. The game looks intriguing but I have been burned so much in the past I've become gunshy. Whatever our quibbles, thank God for HPS and John Tiller.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

I purchased the digital download of the game and if I had known what I now know I would not have purchased it. In fact I'm thinking of selling my copy 'digital download' not withstanding.

I don't like the 'area' movement for a Civil War game. The game is extremely detailed but in areas that I don't really care about. I want to concentrated on military strategy with some economics and political factors. This one goes into way too much detail in areas that I am not interested in. You can set each of your states to produce various economic devices such as "horses", "minerals" etc..

It's almost like a Ceasar III meets SimCity meets HPS Civil War. The game has great potential but I think has missed the mark completely. The game engine does not suit all periods. It might have been fine for the Napoleonic period but seems out of place for the American Civil War.

Even their "FOR LIBERTY" game which coves the entire American Revolution seems a better game engine for the Civil War. That one was hex based and in my opinion far superior.

BG. General Collins
Army of Alabama

General Collins,

Thanks for your insightful review. It might have saved me mucho dinero. I think there is a crying need for a good strategic Civil War game, but like you I prefer to concentrate on the military and let the computer work out most of the economics.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

Now that I have had it for over a week now I am really beginning to see it's faults. For one thing, the geography even for an area movement game is just terrible. The all important "Richmond" point is not even named, instead it is called "James River" and yet "Petersburg" IS named in a prominent position to the south. Fortress Monroe is located North East of Richmond which of course is absurd since the fortress is South East.

There are all kinds of 'funny named places' that I have never heard of and are in absurd positions. "Fredericksburg" is an "area" that has several forts in it. "Fort Beauregard" for instance is in the "Fredericksburg" area but seems to be actually "Centreville" as near as I can make out.

The tactical part of the game is questionable since it seems to favour "the attacker". Doh! Isn't this contrary to everything we have learned about Civil War tactical combat. Didn't the Civil War pre-figure the Great War by showing that the initiative and the ability to inflict casualties had shifted to the defense. You would not learn that in this game.

It's a darn shame that a game that someone has put so much work into has missed the mark. I don't know who the developers and designers were but it has a whole "European" feel to it. Almost as if the developers "don't know" the geography and are winging it.

WHEN will we ever get that Grand Strategy Game on the American Civil War?? I agree that Adanac's "From Sumpter to Appomattox" came close but still missed the mark.

For my part I would love to see a direct translation of Victory Games "Civil War" which in my opinion was still the best Strategic game on the American Civil War out there.

BG. G. Collins
Army of Alabama
III/I/II Brigade

Hi, General,

Many years ago, before its demise, Avalon Hill actually put out a computer version of that game, and it was a pretty good conversion. In addition, it had simultaneous preplotted movement and combat. Unfortunately, it had more bugs than an anthill. It's a shame nobody ever cleaned it up. It was better than anything I've seen since.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

Frank Hunter is currently working on an updated version of From Sumter to Appomattox for MAtrix, but I'm not sure when it is due out. FWIW, I agree with a lot of your complaints about Forge of Freedom. I can't comment on the tactical game yet because I'm still playing at the intermediate level and I'm still choosing "Quick Battle", but from the AAR the developers did it doesn't seem to be something that is going to try to be very historically accurate. I didn't think I'd dislike the area movement as much as I do (I've played and liked other area movement games like EU and EU2 for instance), but it is slowly getting worse. On the bright side, I think I can learn to like this game despite its faults. I don't regret the purchase, but like you I'm still waiting for that strategic level Civil War game that gets it all right. That brings up a question. Do you guys think games of this level should even attempt a tactical model, or do you think the battles should be abstracted just as everything is? I think that, for now, battles should not be fought out in detail. What I think would be really cool is if there were an option available to wargame a battle using an outside source, and then allow the player to input the results. I think someone (maybe Frank Hunter?) did this on one of the Napoleonic games simulating a campaign.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by gcollins</i>
I agree that Adanac's "From Sumpter to Appomattox" came close but still missed the mark.

BG. G. Collins
Army of Alabama
III/I/II Brigade


<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

-Brett Schulte
HPS Playtester

ACW Campaign Games Design Center: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWCGDC/index.html

My Civil War Book Collection: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWBooks/

ACW Gaming & Reading Blog: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWBlog/

I agree with General Collins on Victory Games "Civil War". I learned a lot about the strategic war from this game. It really has the proper "feel' for the problems facing both sides. The North has command problems at the highest levels and it takes a while to get this solved. The South has excellant tactical commanders that get worse as they advance up throught the ranks. The South has troop and supply disadvantages. Individual states decide which way to lean based on the war situation. Heck even the Indian wars are included( but they are only perifial, more for fun than war affect)

Most importantly the effects of the Union Navy are essential!! Both inland and via blockade. I highly regard this game!![8D]

Colonel Tony Best
Army of Georgia

Actually Frank made me an editor which allowed me to edit the results of battles fought on a different tactical system into his ACW game.....I used it to run my first campaign type game....I believe it is still being used by the CWG2 crowd....or what is left of them....Hank

BG Hank Smith
Army of Georgia
Smith's Division CO
Carroll's Corp

My favourite strategic American Civil War game of all time was Victory Games "Civil War". Even when Avalon Hill released a primitive version of the game for the IBM PC I played it for hours - buggy as it was. Golly, I still remember the EGA graphics that were so bad they actually gave you a miniature of the map to play the game with! But, buggy as it was it was a good simulation of the war.

Bill's comment on "For the People" rings true. For the present IT is my favourite Strategic game on the entire war. It is an absolute gem! Oh...if we only had a computer translation of this masterpiece!!

I am now into my third week of fooling around with "Forge of Freedom" and although I can modify some of my harsh criticisms, somewhat it is still a 'flawed game'. I have been taking the south and it is actually boring. The Union AI seems completely dumb. I have units running all over Maryland, Pennsylvania, crossing the Ohio river, invading Kentucky and just looking "for things to do". It is boring!!! At least playing the AI as the south anyway. I'm going to switch over to the Union just to see if the AI in defense is any better. Maybe it is.

The tactical battles are boring only in one sense. Finding the enemy??? By the time you get to the "battle board" I figure the armies should have found each other by now and you should be able to just fight it out. That isn't the case at all. Half of the game is marching around all over the tactical battlefield just trying 'to find' the enemy. And believe me you have to search, because the enemy can set up anywhere with no regard to which way you may have entered the area. Remember IT IS an area movement game and subject to all of the abuses of the area movement system.

For what it's worth, I find the Tavern comments here a lot more interesting and "historical" than the 'fluff' and 'puffing' you read over on the Matrix Board. There, everybody just loves the game warts and all. You dare not criticize it because everybody is too much in love with it or the board master may edit comments I don't know.

Would love to hear from others what they think.

G. Collins
BG. General
III/I/II Brigade
Army of Alabama

The best board game on the grand play scale of the civil war in my opinion was by SPI, it was called War Between the States. It was very large, but had a very unusual but effective way of buy/building units. But the draw back was it's size. I still have a copy along with the VG version and many others.

GEN. Tony Malone
Commander Army of Mississippi
"Do your duty in all things, You can never do more, You should never wish to do less".

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by bschulte</i>
<br />That brings up a question. Do you guys think games of this level should even attempt a tactical model, or do you think the battles should be abstracted just as everything is?
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by gcollins</i>
I agree that Adanac's "From Sumpter to Appomattox" came close but still missed the mark.

BG. G. Collins
Army of Alabama
III/I/II Brigade


<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

-Brett Schulte
HPS Playtester

ACW Campaign Games Design Center: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWCGDC/index.html

My Civil War Book Collection: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWBooks/

ACW Gaming & Reading Blog: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWBlog/
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I think it could. I dislike Realtime Strategy games, but would like to see something like the Total War series, but with a turn based game play for the battles of a quality like HPS's games.

Lt Col. Paul Sharp
2nd Div - XIX Corps
Army of Shenandoah
"Defenders of the Right"

I am part of the development team for “Forge of Freedom.â€

Hi,

While this is a club forum, I personally appreciate you taking the time to state your views and I hope our forum moderator doesn't object, as I feel this type of feedback is very valuable. My concern is that I have spent hundreds of dollars over the years on games, both board and computer, that end up collecting dust; some because, while well-designed, didn't ultimately appeal to me and some that were just, IMHO, trash. My impression is that a lot of us in the club can't really afford to blow fifty bucks on a game we'll never really play. I had high hopes for your game after the Crown of Glory awards and reviews and admit I have been dissuaded by the feedback here. Another problem is that last I checked it could only be downloaded. My dialup connection makes that not feasible. Do you plan to sell the disk at some point? A last note is I appreciate you made it PBEM. That is a sine qua non for me, as I derive little pleasure from beating the computer, no matter how good or bad the AI.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

Gentlemen of the ACWGC and Gil.

Gil applied for Membership of this Forum, approximately 7 days ago and was permitted "Posting Privileges" as near as immediately possible. It is only fair to all - I feel to examine a few matters relating to this decision . . . for All concerned.

Admittance to post on the ACWGC Boards is dependent on an application to join and in the vast majority of cases, a recommendation from an existing Member. Generally speaking, the Commandant of one of the Training Colleges - West Point or VMI, fulfils the latter requirement. Gil is not a Cadet in Training nor is He a commissioned Officer of either Side. A combination of circumstances led to Gil's admittance to these Boards. <i><font color="red">{I should have mentioned - in the original editition of this post - that theses Boards are specifically "ACWGC Members Only".}</font id="red"></i>

Acting upon the recommendation of previous ACWGC posters to this particular Topic, <i><font color="red">{to visit FoF's Matrix Forum}</font id="red"></i> Gil's name was found to be quite prominent and active, on the Matrix Forum.

It was also patently obvious that He was one of the Developers working on Forge of Freedom.

Criticisms were made here of FoF, and the "Right of Reply" was denied to him due to his non-membership here.

Gil is believed to be an Historical Educator, although his work is based in an Era of History - shall we say - " more than a shade earlier in History" than the ACW. Being American and a historian - it runs to form that He would have some genuine interest in the ACW Era.

Finally, it is to be believed that He wishes to post here, for non-commercial purposes and will adhere to all our Conventions and Rules - regarding Private Contact with any of the Membership.

Resulting from all the Factors listed above, the decision was made to permit Him to post on the ACWGC Boards.

Quite a few recent posts have been made regarding "Strategic Level" Games and these Posts are not emanating solely from just a couple of Members. It is a reasonable consideration, that there may in Time - be a request made to Cabinet to augment our current formats - Talonsoft and HPS, with another Game - e.g. Forge of Freedom.

Gil (as stated), is one of the Developers of FoF. The ACWGC and/or individual members of the ACWGC have at times, been in direct contact with John Tiller regarding developments in His Games. It was felt that this is a good opportunity for interested Members to exchange ideas regarding FoF.

On the other side of the Coin - perhaps Gil owns or would be interested in owning copies of the TS and /or HPS Titles. Perhaps He might consider joining the Club, after joining the boards?

On behalf of the ACWGC - Welcome Gil.

Your contributions promise to be most interesting.