American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Gentleman and fellow officers:

I just read a review of this game posted at the Armchair General website. The reviewer rates it a 95% and states that it is the best simulation of the Battle of Gettysburg yet especially for Civil War history buffs like us.

It's the first gaming title from a new independent developer. Does anyone have this game yet? If so how does it compare to our old faithful Tiller games? From the review it sounds like an awesome game.

In fact I hear the Rebel yell coming from Old Pete's vets now....

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Maj Gen Mark van der Hagen
CO/Deuce Fourteen/Army of the Cumberland

I know my good buddy Hampus Drott of the AotM has the game and mentioned that it was worth playing and quite amusing. I have been hoping to pick it up someday.

I downloaded the demo awhile back. It isn't my cup of tea, but if you are considering buying it, I suggest you try out the demo first.

http://www.brettschulte.net/CWBlog/2010 ... emo-today/

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

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No PBEM? UGH! RTS? UGHIER!

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General Ernie Sands
President ACWGC -Sept 2015- Dec 2020
7th Brigade, 1st Division, XVI Corps, AoT
ACWGC Records Site Admin

"If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there."

After I looked up the game I agree with Ernie. For PBEM I will stick with my Tiller games. I'm also not a real fan of RTS.

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Maj Gen Mark van der Hagen
CO/Deuce Fourteen/Army of the Cumberland

I think the review tells you a lot more about where Armchair General comes from concerning simulation games, fwiw.

In the interests of full disclosure, I used to be a moderator on their forums.

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~Retired~

It and games like it are very much oriented toward simulation of a limited part of the battlefield. They work best at brigade size engagements. Larger ones can be done but are very hard to manage since you are in real time and have to keep jumping all over the map. The AI is good but not good enough to be left to itself for very long.

PBEM is their weakness. None including Scourge support it. It does however support internet live play but it is very difficult to set up. I consider myself pretty computer savy and set up one of the first networks at Texaco long before we had LAN standards and easy to use plug in network boards. I never got the game to work as a host to a internet game. There are just to many things that can block its openning a port to the outside world and its software gives you to little feedback on what is stopping it. However, the game does have a website that will act as a host for a multiplayer game and it might work as a reasonable go between to get a real time game going but it still requires some computer savy to get the links up.

But even if you get a real time game across the internet running this method of playing has significant drawbacks over PBEM. First is coordination with who you want to play. Both have to be available and ready at the time you want to play. For anything but very short scenaios you have to have a significant block of time set asside to play. There is no save game and come back to it if dinner is ready. And, of course there is the loss of the game if either side loses the connection.

I have heard that some people have been able to get the game running multiplayer which is suppose to be a blast but I know little about how well or even how it works. I can see how multiplayer would solve many of the problems of playing the full battle if it works the way I think it should. "Should" is the question. Maybe someone in the community has done this and can tell us details about that form of play.

Things that need answers are how easy is it to set up a true multiplay where all the players are say briagde or division level. What happens if one of the players has to drop out or gets disconnected?

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)

I have the game. The battlefield rendering is amazing...and while it's fun to actually see the lines marching across the fields of Gettysburg, it is maddening watching some of the evolutions that the units make. It's also next to impossible to keep a unit together, as they drift hither and thither. If at some point that could be corrected it wouldn't be a bad game at all. To me the best part of the actual gameplay is the order system. Orders are given to subordinates, and then they respond either the way that you want, or the way that they want.

It also has the ability to play online, with headsets or a mic, to talk with your teammates. I have yet to be able to get into an online game.

If you were wanting to try out a realtime Civil War battle, it is definately worth looking into. But for me, I rather like the turn based games like we have here.

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I tell you, I'm ready to go out tomorrow and go to smashing things.
- General Phil Sheridan

General Rusty Hodgkiss
3rd Brigade Second Division VIII Corps AotS

I downloaded the demo. Confusing, confusing, confusing. The tutorial is NOT. You are a brigade commander and to find yourself you click on the "ME" button. By luck, you might find your command or parts of it. There are a generous number of formations that you may place your regiments in.

The battle map shows ONLY where you are and doesn't seem to show where you should go, so you take a regiment and go marching around .

I will look at it all, again, but it sure does look like a game with a STEEP learning curve.

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General Ernie Sands
President ACWGC -Sept 2015- Dec 2020
7th Brigade, 1st Division, XVI Corps, AoT
ACWGC Records Site Admin

"If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there."

I really like the game. If you are new to it then start with playing the scenarios where you only command a brigade, because the higher command the more to control if you don't want the AI to handle most things.

In fact, you can play army-scenarios where you are the army commander, and still only focus on commanding one brigade - but you still need to send out orders to divisions etc. that are far away to get them moving. Once near the fight you can basicly let the AI take over.

There is a "take command" button which allows you to either have the AI control the unit or that you control the unit. If you have the AI control the unit it will act according to command-style and if you have given it any orders. Usually I play with full control of the brigades but AI on the regiments in the brigades. That way the brigade commander will do as I want and also order the regiments - but if the regiment wants to retreat or change formation (for an example if it is column and gets attacked I want it to form line automaticly without me having to discover it first) they can do so since they are AI controlled.

Once you get a hang of it is easy and fun.

An important thing to take into consideration when playing the brigade size scenarios (meaning you will only be able to command a brigade, not more) is that the camera will only allow you to view near your brigade commander. This simulates that you are the actual brigade commander. In division size scenarios the view is larger, and the higher you go the more you can see and move around. Basicly in division size and above you can see a lot, but in brigade size it feels somewhat limited.

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Yours Respectfully
Major General Kling
5th Brigade
1st Division, Vth Corps
AotP, Union Army

I played SOW and there's a "multiplayers club named GCM_Platte where you can fight with other guys using Teamspeak during the game.In Teamspeak you can find other guys and after,using multiplayers mode you can fight a battle in real time also up to 12 players(I did).More info in GCM.Usually you can manage one division, sometime as CS or as USA(random).

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Brig.Gen. Giovanni Boffi ANV

I bought the game when it first came out......payed the original full price for it, like $60.

Played for a bit, graphics are cool....I can describe it using two analogies:

1. playing the game is kind of like herding cats.

2. It is kind of like the old football game I had as a kid, you know the one where the field vibrates and your guys go every which way.

Just my 2 cents.

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1st Lt. Mark Gaff
Pennsylvania
Army of the Potomac
First Brigade/Second Division/I Corps


Webmaster of the Official Civil War Talk Radio website, Impediments of War; A Compendium of Civil War Talk Radio at http://www.impedimentsofwar.org/

That pretty much described my impression too. It was hard to keep the AI from taking your troops and wandering off with them. Especially as the scenarios got more complicated. I need to give it another try sometime though. It may be I just didn't learn enough about how to control them to make them work more reasonably.

Things that really bothered me were the difficulty in placing the regiments. You start missing those nice little hexes after a few attempts to get a brigade into a wood line where they get some protection but still can fire. Also, really disliked the games tendancy to put the regiments into column to march a few feet then redeploy them to line. I got better at setting my orders so it wouldn't happen but it shouldn't have been so difficult.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)