[quote]<i>Originally posted by tciampa</i>
<br />I own it but am still learning. I find it difficult to learn but I am committed to doing so. I have a pbem going now...just jumped in as a baptism of fire. I forget who mentioned that it is good because it doesn't micro-manage you BUT I have to disagree. It is NOTHING if not extremely detailed. You can't just pick stacks and move them around. You have to build organizational units, rest them (wait for cohesion),pick and monitor leaders, money, supplies, replacements, reinf, build ships and track a number of various factor, pass legislation for expenditures, drafts, taxation, etc and and more...I find it one of tne most complex games I have ever played...tried to play that is and I have played hundreds of board, minatures and computer games. Despite that I see it as a challenge to learn and play. The bottom line here is that, to the contrary,<b> I think this is a game for folks who have a bent TOWARD Mirco-managing...</b>if AGEOD DID micro-management of some functions OR AT LEAST allow one to selectively chose the computer to manage some functions like so many other monster games; I personally think it would be both a better game and more appealing to more people...those who want to play and not have to decide when to free the slaves or not and how to appease the local population with lower taxes. For my taste it has a bit more mandatory political and economic factors than I like in a game...when it comes to such I would rather have the computer brain control that stuff. To me it is work enough to build five kinds of ships, locomotives, individual state's reinf. and replacements, budget money, build divisions, break down armies, re-assign generals, train men...et. al. on and on without having to worry about cotton supplies to England.
HOWEVER, MY BIGGEST BEEF WITH IT is that one can NOT see the whole map on one screen. This would seem to me, in a grand strategic level game, to be a deficiency. It does have a "jump map" like in HPS games where you see all the dots just showing "x marks the spot and jumpinig to it. This wouldn't be as frustratiing as it is IF like in the HPS games there was also 2d plan view showing a good portion of the whole map to get a good sense of the overall situation. You can zoom in and out but not far out, which helps some, but there are so many colors for regions and terrain, and the borders of states, regions and their labels are so faint (or perhaps rather inconspicuous blending often with the terrain) that it can be difficult to read for people with vision problems. And it is definitely hard to find a specific city sometimes even if you think you know where it is. AGEOD actually suggested in their forum to keep an atlas handy if you don't know your geography well! (It was actually worded like one should be ashamed to not know such). Like I shojld know where Hogshead Depot is in Mississippi. A simple list of place namees like in HPS in a location menu would be an immense improvement...strange that with the extensive list to click on sorting every arcane fact you would ever want, they couldn't add a place name list.
I invested heavily in this game...Paid $43.00 plus shipping and then learned it required 2 GIG of ram so I upgraded just to play it...it sounded that attractive....and believe it or not...a 2.54 Gig processor and 2 GIG of ram AND it still takes about four minutes to actually load to the opening menu...it is that graphic intensive. Fortunately the investment of the ram pays a bonus to overall performance of my machine and I thank Bill Peters for suggesting that.
Finally I DO AGREE with those who are looking forward to Gary Grisby's game on the same topic and scale...it is bound to be all the things that the AGEOD game is not. I should have waited for it to come out but being stubborn I am determined to learn this game. Hopefully I will find it to be the great game, afterall, that some of the proponents here have been claimiing.
One suggestion...be smart...unlike me...and download the free demo and try it BEFORE buying....unless money is no object to you, and do make sure you have at least a GIG more ram than is required...definitely check. Being out of touch except for HPS games...I never even considered that a GiG of ram would be required <b>to get this game to load so that it could actually be played.</b>
IMPORTANT: The AGEOD forums are VERY HELPFUL for everything from patches (they are up to about 15 now) and strategy info; and MOST CRITICALLY...explaining MANY THINGS THAT DIDN'T get into the manual. In fact where the manual at first glance makes it appear a rather straight-forward playing game, the forum and the detail it covers in any one of the many functions, shows its true colors as a very very detailed game afterall.
Just trying to be helpful..
Major General
Tom Ciampa
Commanding Officer
1st Cav Division
XIV Corps, AoC
Games: TS/BG: AN, BR, CH, GB, SH - HPS: AT, CTH, GB, OZK, SH, VK
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