American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Hey y'all,

Found this today and thought I'd pass it on as an option to be investigated perhaps as a new game for the club to support.

I don't know how many of you have played (or enjoy) the Total War series. But with the latest Total War release - Empire: Total War - someone has now developed a mod that will play it out for the American Civil War. Ok, the regions aren't exact states, and you do still have to contend in the campaign with Mexico, France, and the Netherlands. But where I could potentially seeing the club use this is in the individual battles. Each side gets a certain # of funds for putting together their army. You can either allow each side to individually select their units, or it could be pre-agreed upon that both armies would use a particular setup. Graphics are pretty decent. I don't know whether the battlefields are accurate, but there are (supposedly) battlefields for Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, and a few others (plus some battlefields that are simply included from the original game, that have nothing to do with the war - Finland, Siberia, etc.). You can have either 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 battles.

Anyway, if anyone might be interested in checking this out to see if the club would be interested in supporting it, let me know via PM and I will point you to the page where the mod can be downloaded. Of course, it would require you to buy Empire Total War, but the mods are free - they're beta testing v. 3.5 currently.

Lt. Col. David McWaters
CSA

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BG David McWaters
ANV
7/2/II Corps
18th Alabama Infantry
Sharpshooters

David, sounds like it might be worth at least a look!

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General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC
Union Army Chief of Staff
Commander, Army of the Shenandoah
Commander, Army of the Tennessee
(2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)

Here's the link to the mod, if anyone wants to check it out. As I mentioned, they're still making revisions and updates, so I have no doubt things will improve. Just thought it might be interesting. What I'm not sure about is whether the MP games must be played in real-time - something tells me they would have to be, which I know would probably pose a significant problem for us (unless a server can be set up to allow players to connect and play RT battles?). I haven't ever tried a MP game with Total War, so I admittedly have no idea about the feasibility of it wrt the battles themselves. I'm hoping the campaign option improves as future mods come out.

I personally have the 3.4 version with the patch - not planning to get 3.5 until they exit Beta testing and decide it's relatively bug-free.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/american-civi ... d-the-grey

Regards,
Lt. Col. David McWaters
CSA

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BG David McWaters
ANV
7/2/II Corps
18th Alabama Infantry
Sharpshooters

We had a discussion on this mod a while back :http://wargame.ch/board/acwgc/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17685&hilit=empire

I installed it and played it for a bit - it looked great but the maps and atmosphere was too dark and gloomy for me, artillery was murderous and the campaign didn't make much historical sense. Maybe it's changed for the better since then, but I play Scourge of War now which fills my tactical niche very well. The SOW maps are really nicely done and there is even a sense of familiarity as you play if you have toured the battlefields as well.

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Brigadier General Richard Simonitch
SIXTH BRIGADE (Artillery)
1st. Div. / V Corps
Army of the Potomac

Thanks for pointing me to the previous discussion. I don't know about the maps and atmosphere, but I can fully agree that the artillery (and to at least some degree the infantry fire) is murderous...but I think the guys who developed it were going for the "high casualty count" that they infer from the battle figures we have from that time period.

I definitely think the campaign is kinda quirky - if I were going to play anything at this point anyway, it would be the random tactical battles.

But yeah, if it's not something that can gain enough support, so be it.

Regards,

Lt. Col. David McWaters
CSA

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BG David McWaters
ANV
7/2/II Corps
18th Alabama Infantry
Sharpshooters

Being a napoleonic total war 3 (lordz mod) player for almost 4 years i can say steam is not very reliable and players drop in 3v3 and 4v4 battles. Also lag does not help for these battles if you dont have a powerful configuration ...

Your first issue wouldn't be a problem at this point, unless the same problem exists for 2 on 2 and 1 on 1 - nothing exists for a higher MP game than those for the ACW mod.

I can see the point on the lag issue, though. Hey, THERE's an idea...we could require the Yanks to play using their slowest PCs, and give the Rebs can play with their fastest ones... *snicker* *wink*

Another problem could be that apparently there is also an ACW mod out for the Napoleonic Total War release...have to have enough with each version to make it worth it, I guess....

Regards,
Lt. Col. David McWaters
CSA

(Yes, my signature is out of date - I need to update it now that the ANV has undergone a restructuring....

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BG David McWaters
ANV
7/2/II Corps
18th Alabama Infantry
Sharpshooters