American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Of the two games, which is easier to learn and play. Which has the better graphics.

Respectfully,
Lt. Gen. Gery Bastiani
III Corp
AotM CSA



"If there is a shell or bullet over there destined for us, it will find us" - General James Longstreet

I think WBTS is easier to learn but just as hard to master. I do think AACW has the better graphics though. AACW has more to manage but lets you play at a more detailed level. WBTS is easier to get started on and plays quicker. Just depends on what you are looking for.

General Mark Nelms
6/3/IX/AoO
"Blackhawk Brigade"
Union Military Academy Instructor
Union Cabinet Secretary

I can only talk to WBTS - really like it as a game...


General Jeff Laub
Union Chief of the Army
ACWGC Cabinet Member
http://www.geocities.com/laubster22/UnionHQ/

The complexity of the games going from Most to Least is:
ACW >> FoF >> WbtS

FoF (Forge of Freedom) I don't have currently loaded on my computer so I can't comment to much on it. If I remember correctly I would put it nearer WbtS on a complexity scale with ACW and WbtS on the two extremes. It handles the economy with a bit more detail than WbtS. The big plus for FoF is it allows you to resolve battles on a tactical map rather than just letting the computer roll dice. This also a big minus if you want to finish the Civil War in your life time.

ACW (AGEOD's American Civil War) is by far the most complex treatment of the Civil War at the strategic level. For comparison I will use Grisby's War Between the States.

ACW models the entire army structure from Army to Brigade. You could say it includes regiments but generally they are part of Brigades. Each element has a detail list of parameters measuring its current state in terms of manpower, morale, etc. WbtS uses leaders to represent the Army and Corps levels with units assigned to Corps leaders. Units themselves have just two steps, full strength or Damaged (and off map being repaired). A Unit represents a generic brigade of about 2,000 men.

A good comparison of the complexity can be seen in how the two games represent the same region of the map. Both are area type games rather than hex. If WbtS the area within the triangle with Memphis at the base and Cairo above the top with the Rivers making the sides consists of four regions (Memphis, Shiloh, Humbolt, and Paducah).

In comparison ACW uses 12 regions to cover this critical area. They include Paducah, Hickman, Graves, Lake, Henry, Dyer, Gibson, Decatur, Memphis, Hardeman, Madison, and McNairy.

WbtS is quite playable. I have finished a number of games covering the entire war. But it is a very simplified system.

ACW will give you much more control over your forces but at the price of a lot of micro management.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)

Kennon etal
two questions
Do both War Between the States or American Civil War portray the war with accuracy?

Which is more fun?[?]

Colonel Tony Best
Army of Georgia

Once both sides get the strategy down War between the States will follow the progress of the war relatively well. However it doesn't restrict the direction you take so you can easily go off in odd tangents. Against a good player these will usually fail but it doesn't prevent it.

For example, the Rebel can actually out build the Union in Ironclads. It's a bad choice if the Union is making a balanced navy but it can work against a player since they won't realized the CSA is building Ironclads at maximum rate at all ports. This can result in the Confederate navy actually breaking the blockades and dominating the sea lanes. You can do it because the simplified production used in WbtS has factory points that can be dedicated to building supply, repair of units, field artillery, heavy artillery, gunboats, transports, more factories or ironclads. The only difference between them is how long the factory point is tied up in the production. There are no material resource limits like in FoF where you have to first build up your horse, iron, etc. production before you can build more complex units. So at the risk of your armies not having supply or artillery you can dedicate every port capable of ship production to ironclads.

The last revision to the game tried to address some of the extremes by curtailing the number of cities and ports that could make advanced items like artillery and ironclads but it is still possible. However, a well planned strategy will have a more logical balance between these productions. WbtS approach is to keep things simple and let the game force a reasonable balance.

This simplicity approach also causes problems with leaders. If you use Historical you of course no who the best leaders are and make sure they are where they need to be. This leads to non-historic affects like Lee being out West (although last revision they increased the chance he will be a casualtiy if you send him west) and Grant and Sherman becoming army commanders very quickly. However, if you play with random leader settings both sides will have the problem of identifying who the good leaders are.

The game does have a psuedo Corps/Division leader option where the number of leaders available are increased substantially. You still have one leader with units assigned to him in a more or less equivalent to a Corps. The rule just adds the ability to assign lesser ranking leaders to that leader. This brings a bonus to the group but I haven't figured out how to determine how much it is. The rule is a problem if used with Historic leaders since it makes available high level leaders to early in the game and definitely favors the Union. With random this would less a problem.

AGOED's ACW I am still learning. When I tried the demo I kept seeing AI using impossible tactics against me like ignoring my army at Manassas and marching past it directly on Richmond without any response from mine. I suspect this is because I am not using the right settings and/or tactics for the game though. Hopefully one of these days I get past the basics and be able to comment better.

WbtS victory system is build completely around the November 64 election which is probably very realistic. I haven't ever had a game reach the end of 64 where Lincoln's election or non election didn't insure the outcome.

ACW allows some other factors to come in including foreign intervention. I don't know what the odds of this occuring are. From a historic point of view it was very unlikely that the CSA would get anything other than recognition and maybe some material help. Militiary units from foreign nations was very unlikely.

The big plus for WbtS's is one month turns on a relatively limited map and the game ending in 65 one way or another. Generally you can finish your part of a turn in one hour for emailing which makes fighting the Civil War doable in a reasonable time.

ACW I don't have enough feel for but I suspect completing a turn takes considerable more time just because of the numbers involved and it looks like there are at least twice as many turns to complete.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)

Great discussion guys. Upon reading Marks "heads up" regarding the EBay deals with ACW, I went ahead and pick it up for $8 (well ok, $11 with shipping). Thanks Mark.

Col. Steve Johnson, a club member whom I actually see face to face two or three time a year and talk to almost weekly, also picked up a copy. We talked about it today and are planning to spend the next few weeks looking at the tutorials before having a contest.

Love HPS of course but it'll be neat to try the strategic picture. I think my favorite board game EVER was VG's Civil War.

Gen. Doug Burke

Other hobby: Running 30-40 miles per week. Several races a year from 5K to marathon. Boston marathon 2007.

Both are very, very good games. lots of replay value, strategic and operational options, and variation to stay on my hard drive a long time. Because Grigsby is a simpler game, the AI is better but AACW has one of the better AI's around (and you can sneak in and help it keep its armies well organized).

But I think that AACW is tied with the HPS games as my favorite. It is fabulous PBEM and I like that there are more map regions to create more manouver. And I prefer the WEGO system although WbtS has a nice reaction phase.

One thing WbtS is superior on is the blockade. I may be alone on this but at time I find the leadership ssytem of WbtS to require almost as much micromanagement as AACW.

Anyhowm both great games, but I prefer the AGEOD.

Both FEEL like American Civil War games, as opposed to a strategic game played on a map of America....

The way WbtS handles the economy is through three factos of which you only have direct control of one. The partially controlled ones are population and resources. They depend on control of regions since each region has an assigned population and resource point value. Population determines how many militia units you can raise. Resource point are harder to quantify, meaning I haven't figured out how they affect things.[:D]

The one you work the most with are Factories. The game starts with various number of Factories assigned to each region. Some have none while places like Richmond and Atlanta have 3 or 4. You can assign a factory point toward producing supplies, artillery, ships, or making more factories. The game uses a simple technique to represent the cost of building thhings. The different units use more or less number of turns to be built. So an Ironclad or new Factory take about 9 turns while a field artillery brigade takes 3. And, indirectly this means they cost supply points because all unused factories (not assigned to produce units) produce supply each turn.

When you consider for the south a typeical good production region has only 2 factories you could put say Memphis to work building 2 Ironclads that might be launched before Grant stomps on it or 2 supply for nine turns which would give you some 18 supply over that time.

The South is always having to make that trade off between producing supply to keep its armies from starving and provide for raising militia (a supply must be available for every militia unit produced or it will not be). If they commit to much production to ships and artillery they may find their armies starving during the winter of 62 and 63. If they don't tie up some of their production, especially in Richmond and Atlanta, making new factories they will find their armies starving in 1864 as they lose the high population and resource areas of Tennessee and the Gulf coast.

The North rarely has a problem with either supply or unit production but even they can get themselves in trouble. Every turn the game checks to see how much supply is needed to maintain the various units. This cost depends on time of year and terrain. The Union can overbuild units and then find it can't produce enough supply because of the production tied up in building to maintain those armies and navies (I find times the error is due to building to many ships which have little to do in the end game).


Forge of Freedom has a more complex economy. You have to anticipate needs and plan for them. Things like if you want to raise a large number of cavalry units later you have to set asside production for horse farms to provide the mounts. It has been a while since I played this game but it probably has more focus on the economy and planning than either of the other two games.


AGEOD's ACW seems to be more focused on the military side than the economy. I am still learning this one (also got it through ebay[:)]) but it looks like the game models the economy for you and you just determine where to spend the money generated to buy your forces. It seems to have a much more detail focus on the military side of the simulation of the Civil War.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)

There is the option in AACW to manage your industry by spending money and war supplies to upgrade it. As the Union I've not messed with it much as you usually produce more then you need. I'm sure the CSA will need to manage theirs a little more though.

General Mark Nelms
6/3/IX/AoO
"Blackhawk Brigade"
Union Military Academy Instructor
Union Cabinet Secretary

I think that the economic model of WbtS is excellent, as Kennon lays out. It is all math driven so you can figure it out. Adn the south really does have to make hard decisions.

For AACW, you are faced with decisions on (a) how many troops to raise (you have several diffent options), with each option costing a varity of national moral and victory points, and only being available at certain times of the year;

(b) how much money to raise (costing national morale, victory points, and causing inflation which, naturally, makes things cost more)

(c) which combonations of troops to raise

(d) building rail and river transport capacity (for troops and supplies, witht he supply part abstracted)

(e) possible investment in industrialization, which can improve production of war supplies (need these, conscript points, and money to raise troops), food and ammunition.

(f) build transports and raiders to bring in overseas $$$ and war supplies.


The yanks really do not need to spend on industrialization, whereas the rebs have to make some choices. I tend to spend on blockade runners rather than industrialize as the south.

So you have a lot of choices to make and a lot of options....


And yes, it gets more complex than WbtS because you have to micromanage which troops to raise (by state) and then assemble them and organize them.

Thanks for all of the input. The Admiral has giving the OK to get WBTS by Gary Grigsby, so it's on order and hopefully will get it by the end of next week [:D]

Respectfully,
Lt. Gen. Gery Bastiani
III Corp
AotM CSA



"If there is a shell or bullet over there destined for us, it will find us" - General James Longstreet

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by nelmsm</i>
<br />There is the option in AACW to manage your industry by spending money and war supplies to upgrade it. As the Union I've not messed with it much as you usually produce more then you need. I'm sure the CSA will need to manage theirs a little more though.

General Mark Nelms
6/3/IX/AoO
"Blackhawk Brigade"
Union Military Academy Instructor
Union Cabinet Secretary

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

Actually I have had quite a bit of problem with the North's production but then I may not really understand it.

The bottleneck I have run into is its production of "War Supplies" which are very limited and are needed in large quantities for producing Supply Wagons (which for some reason also take a lot men) as well as high cost items like ships. Since Wagons are used to make Depots which in turn are critical to maintaining supply lines for offensives, I found them a major bottleneck for the Union.

I have been investing in industrialization hoping to get the "War Supplies" to increase so far unsuccessfully. Maybe it will go up automatically as the war progresses. "War Supplies" are also used up rather rapidly trying to rebuild and expand your rail and river tranport capacity.

The game manual which is rather short for such a complex game (56 pages versus the much simpler WbtS's 180 pages). Luckily the forums are very active for the game so once you figure out what you need to know you can ask but it requires that you realize there is something you need to know.[:D]

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<br />I just ordered AGEOD's ACW - B&G. Should have in a week or so. Will be looking for an opponent after I get a handle on how it plays.

Col. Bill Peters, The Boise Rifles, II Corps Artillery, AoA
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Let me know I should be ready for a real opponent by then.[:D]

Of course I want to play the Yankees. I figure they can make lots of mistakes without it destroying them.[xx(]

Maybe we can post an AAR here. The battle of the clueless.[:)]

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by KWhitehead</i>
I have been investing in industrialization hoping to get the "War Supplies" to increase so far unsuccessfully. Maybe it will go up automatically as the war progresses.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

In my experience this bottleneck goes away rather quickly. Once you're in late 1862 or so, you will constantly have way more war supplies than you'll ever be able to spend. Now I have invested marginally in some cheap states (MI or WI or so) for the first half year or so, but I am told most players don't even bother and still got enough.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
3/2/VIII AoS

West Point Class of '01