I recently had the distinct pleasure of traveling out to San Francisco for CDV’s press tour which I knew would afford me a great opportunity to schmooze with developers and play games that weren’t yet available in retail. “Free food and videogames?” I thought. How could I refuse?

One of the highlights of my trip was the chance to sit down with Philippe Thibaut to discuss his up-and-coming development studio, AGEOD. These folks are the crew behind the soon to be year-old Birth of America and the more recent American Civil War: The Blue and the Gray, so I knew that they’d have something historical, meaty, and thoroughly addicting up their sleeve for a next release (they do) and if I was lucky I could get some exclusive morsels of details about that anticipated release (I did).

A few days later Philippe Thibaut (PHT) replied to my mail and offered to answer some more questions, along with Philippe Malacher (a.k.a. PHM or Pocus), the co-designer and lead programmer on the game.

So without further adieu…

Sean Drummy: Philippe, when you were demoing American Civil War: The Blue and the Gray for me, you mentioned that there were a large variety of little things you added to the game for “flavor” to make the player feel like they were actually in that time period. Can you elaborate on this? How did you achieve that sort of “time machine” feel?

PHT: Well this comes in two forms: look and content. […] The look can be seen by the artwork style deployed by our artist, Sandra (see below). As far as content is concerned, I could dwell on that for hours. […] Our dedicated team of beta testers has added thousands of data input from their own knowledge or data books, ranging from individual units names (and nicknames) to the small and not so small events that occurred here and there during the war. But also includes things such as weapons and ordnance improvement, training, new leaders (and their military careers), and finance and politics.
PHM: Also we make sure that the rules were designed with historicity in mind. For example during the Civil War, you would get conscripts after big drafting campaigns, and not weekly in trickle amount. And you would even pay the ‘volunteers’ to join service! This is how things were to be done in an ACW game, and we just did that.

SD: You mentioned that there were over one hundred unique events that can take place throughout the game. How much of an impact do these events have on the course of a campaign? Can they make or break your success to add that ubiquitous element of luck in war?

PHT: Exactly. We have over a hundred events that occurred here and there during the war as either part of the big picture (e.g. George McClellan career, the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, St Albans Raid or Andersonville Prison) or down to day-to-day facts (e.g. be it the foundation of the YMCA, food riots, or hurricanes on the Mississippi). Some of the events can influence the course of the game, especially when they add (or sometimes remove) important leaders. Others bring in new units (famous brigades and their commanders) or alter the course of the war on some theaters (Kentucky joining either side maybe, or British intervention in the conflict).

However, no event may make or break the game for either side. And the set of events is balanced so that each side gets her share of bad or good ones. In addition, from one game to the other, the probability that an event triggers is varying, making replayability enjoyable through its intrinsic uncertainty. But for sure this makes for fun and exciting games, with the sword of fate slicing one way or another at the most unexpected time, just to keep you humble and see how good you are at reacting… Suppose you play George McClellan and get to know about 3 cigars and an Order…what shall you do with that? Nothing, like historically? Or shall you move the Army of the Potomac to crush the Rebs because you know where they are going (NB: the event gives a one-turn fog of war lift to the Union in all of the Mid-Atlantic theater)