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PostPosted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:59 am 
Gentlemen,

What are your opinions on which title is the best Strategic/Theater ACW title out there today. I'm looking for something akin to the old Victory Games The Civil War.

I Gratefully Remain,

<center>Image</center>
<font color="limegreen"></font id="limegreen">
<center><font size="3"><b>Captain Patrick Q. Mullen</b></font id="size3">
<font size="2"><font color="maroon">Officer Commanding:</font id="maroon">
<font color="limegreen"><b>Mullen's Fenian Cavalry </b>(4th Bde)</font id="limegreen">
<font color="yellow">1st Division/II Corps
Army of Mississippi
Western Theater
CSA</font id="yellow">
<font color="red">ACWGC</font id="red"></font id="size2"></center>


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PostPosted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:50 am 
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I am not sure when it comes to computer games, but I have the old VG The Civil War, I have always liked SPI's The War Between the States which I also have. It was larger by far and more detailed I thought.

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".


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PostPosted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 12:31 pm 
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Computer game wise probably the best is still American Civil War: Sumter to Appomattox. It a bit old and has bugs in it but it still does the best job simulating the war on the Strategic level. It's also free now.

New releases are:

Forge of Freedom
I found this one a bit wanting. It doesn't support PBEM very well, only one side see movement, and the AI fights very pecularly on the strategic level. It does allow you to play battles on a tactical map but this isn't that useful if you plan to play one year or more on the strategic level. You will never finish.

AGEod's American Civil War
I only have the demo version and haven't gotten far with it. It has some nice features. You can download a demo version of this and try it on some short scenarios and tutorial.

There have been rumors that ACW was going to be updated and re-released but I haven't seen anything on it in a long time.


LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)


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PostPosted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 1:16 pm 
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Here is a link to an old ACW game being reissued. Never played it
so I can't comment.

http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?nid=4375

House Divided is a fun and challenging boardgame but probably not
what you are looking for because it is too abstract.

Ageod's Civil War game got good reviews. I have the game, but haven't been able to get on top of it. You would figure they could make a game with an intuitive interface, but I haven't seen it.

Gary Grigsby is supposed to be making an ACW strategic game but I
have seen nothing on it except a call for playtesters several months
ago. I got his World at War, the engine on which it is supposed to be based, and was disappointed in it. But the most frustrating part for me was sea logistics, so maybe a land game will work better.

Many years ago Avalon Hill put out a computerized version of its VG game which despite pre-stone age graphics put all the modern games to shame, IMHO. Unfortunately, it was riddled with bugs.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA


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PostPosted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 5:03 am 
Is Ageod's Game decent? Aside from the counter-intuitive interface?


<center>Image</center>
<font color="limegreen"></font id="limegreen">
<center><font size="3"><b>Captain Patrick Q. Mullen</b></font id="size3">
<font size="2"><font color="maroon">Officer Commanding:</font id="maroon">
<font color="limegreen"><b>Mullen's Fenian Cavalry </b>(4th Bde)</font id="limegreen">
<font color="yellow">1st Division/II Corps
Army of Mississippi
Western Theater
CSA</font id="yellow">
<font color="red">ACWGC</font id="red"></font id="size2"></center>


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PostPosted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 6:59 am 
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Hi, Captain,

That is hard to say. You can go over to Ageod and check the forums. The concept is good; preplotted simultaneous moves, a decent map, no tactical combat. But I have not figured out how to intercept and build supply lines, and forming brigades, divisions and corps takes a little getting used to. Could just be I lack patience in my old age.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA


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PostPosted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 10:55 am 
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AGEod appears to be a good game. It is the only one that allows you to form combat groups as low as the Brigade and have true logistics which is critical to a good Strategic simulation. My main concerns with what I have seen so far is very little feed back on combat and to much activity.

Combat feedback I am referring to is it occurs on the map but so quickly that it give you little feel of having fought and why you lost or won. Here FoF does better even with their Quick Combat. They do report battle statistic it isn't obvious how to interpret them. Even the old ACW (Sumnter to Appomattox) gave you better results display showing fatigue and leadership affects.

Activity - here both AGE and FoF have problems. They are suppose to take command iniitiative into consideration but troops movements and battles happen almost continuously. ACW seemed to handle this better.

My overal impression is FoF emphasises building factories, farms, mints, etc. to ramp up the countries production. AGE emphasises logistics maintaining your armies in the field while handling production through how many cities you control. I think I would favor the AGE approach over ACW's they just need to fix their combat presentation and put a damper on initiative.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)


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PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 8:52 pm 
Gentlemen,

Many Thanks. I think I will try AGEod and see how it goes.

I Respectfully Remain,

<center>Image</center>
<font color="limegreen"></font id="limegreen">
<center><font size="3"><b>Captain Patrick Q. Mullen</b></font id="size3">
<font size="2"><font color="maroon">Officer Commanding:</font id="maroon">
<font color="limegreen"><b>Mullen's Fenian Cavalry </b>(4th Bde)</font id="limegreen">
<font color="yellow">1st Division/II Corps
Army of Mississippi
Western Theater
CSA</font id="yellow">
<font color="red">ACWGC</font id="red"></font id="size2"></center>


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:41 am 
So, just out of curiosity what stops someone from making it? Is it just a market issue, small size, little sales, or is it a programming issue, more work than its worth? A combination?

Maj.Gen. Mike Smith
3rd Bde, 1st Div
II Corps
Army of Georgia
[url="http://convolutedmuse.com"]ConvolutedMuse[/url]


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:47 am 
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Michael Smith</i>
<br />So, just out of curiosity what stops someone from making it? Is it just a market issue, small size, little sales, or is it a programming issue, more work than its worth? A combination?

Maj.Gen. Mike Smith
3rd Bde, 1st Div
II Corps
Army of Georgia
[url="http://convolutedmuse.com"]ConvolutedMuse[/url]

If you are referring to ACW it is probably all the above. The game was issued a very long time ago and I don't know who even owns rights to it. If the original developer isn't around they probably only planned to update it from running on Win95 anyway.





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

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:25 pm 
(Somehow, I missed this thread earlier. Might as well respond now.)

Regarding the comments about "Forge of Freedom," I get the sense that they might be based on the game as it was before the major patch released in late May, as well as the rather significant patch currently under public beta testing. The game has evolved greatly since its release, both in terms of the AI being strengthened and a large number of features being added at players' request (including PBEM replay), plus several UI improvements.

As for the issue of FOF emphasizing economic development (in an abstract way), that's one of the game options that can be toggled off. People who don't like this "Civ-like" (as it's been called) feature can minimize its importance in the game, which allows them to focus more on the military side. That said, anyone who wants a purely military simulation probably won't like the game, because it does bring in economic, political and diplomatic aspects of the conflict. (Though, again, these can be toggled off, for the most part.)

I realize that this post is rather self-promotional -- I'm one of the developers, after all -- but I get the sense that there are many people who played FOF when it came out last November/December but then moved on to other games, so that their impressions are based on the release version rather than the current incarnation.

Incidentally, we're soon likely to start work on an expansion pack for FOF, and one of the centerpieces of it is likely to be a map editor for tactical battles along with the inclusion of historical battlefields. The idea is that if a battle occurs in, say, the Fredericksburg area you might get to choose between Spotsylvania, the Wilderness, Chancellorsville, or Fredericksburg itself, or just go with a randomized map. If we do add this feature -- and I can make no promises just yet -- I'll let you all know in advance, since I have a hunch that some of you might enjoy being part of the project and producing some of these maps (or else critiquing them, which would likewise be a great help).


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:18 pm 
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Well i played Forge of Freedom and this game sucks a big time...[:D] Im a big For the People II Fan and this game is great if you play as CSA your main problem is the West and keeping Union from capturing the Forts blocking entrence to blockade runner ports and if you play the Union you need to be carefoul as Reb's in the East may easly go for Washington[:D]

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3rd Division
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 3:35 am 
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Well, there is also AGEOD's "American Civil War"... modified engine that's used in Birth of America. Still getting a feel for it, but it seems quite good.

Major General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:27 pm 
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I have both the ageod game and FOF and for me it is ageod hands down. The biggest thing for me is area movement. Both games are area movement games but the ageod game has at least 4 times as many areas. So, in ageod there are multiple avenues of attack to Richmond, nashville, memphis, atlanta, etc, whereas there is very little guessing in FOF.

In fof, Grants overland campaign would be two areas. In ageod, it will be 6-10 (I have not played either game in a few months). So, ageod give you the feel of an operational/strategic game and fof is tactical/strategic, with little manouver before battle. In ageod, you have to cover multiple lines of advance and in fof this is really not a consideration.

to each their own. Fof is a good game with great support but, imho the ageod game is a great game with great support. I got my mopneys worth out of both games but will now only play ageod.


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:51 am 
Jim,
It might surprise you to know that I agree with what you write (to some extent). It was only too late in the development stage that we realized that in some areas (Virginia in particular) we should have had more movement areas. Reworking the map's boundaries is a massive undertaking, so we couldn't simply make a few map changes for a patch, but when we do the expansion pack sometime early next year I think it is very likely that we'll make some changes.

Of course, our game is a very different one from AGEOD's, and there is no need to have the number of regions they do for our game to function well. (In fact, the game was not designed for so many, and it would really mess things up to, say, quadruple the number of them.) But some map changes are indeed desirable, and under consideration for the future.

That said, one good thing about having fewer regions to maneuver in is that there is a greater chance of battles taking place. Remember, FOF has a whole game-within-a-game in the form of detailed battles, so using fewer regions ensures that players will get to fight quite a bit more. I think most players would find it unsatisfying if turn after turn the ANV or AOP doesn't get to fight a real battle because the enemy is nowhere to be seen.


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