Can anyone recommend a good Civil War game, other than Aegod's disaster (innocuous as it is abstract) or Forge of Freedom???

Originally Posted By Azzurri (20 MAR 2012 2:26pm)

Can anyone recommend a good Civil War game, other than Aegod's disaster (innocuous as it is abstract) or Forge of Freedom???

.. But on the same scale as those?? Hah!  Those two are probably the only ones made in the last decade in a grand strategy sense.  I guess there's that Grigsby one at Matrix that I didn't hear anything great about... uses that previous engine from GGWAW.

Do you have Scourge of War yet?

Nefaro mentioned GG's: War between the States from Matrix.  I have enjoyed that one over the past couple of years, but then I really liked Forge of Freedom too.  

I might have to go back to FoF....thanks, men.

Anyone else care to chime in?

I happen to really like Ageod's civil war game especially playing by email. I have no idea why it's considered a disaster.

But Frank Hunter's ACW game is excellent though a bit outdated now. It can be downloaded for free here: http://www.thurb.com/games/acw/intro.htm

Grigsby's War Between the States is a good game and I'd recommend it.  Not quite as complex as the AGEOD game or Forge of Freedom but I think you'd enjoy it.  AI will give you a good game.

Azz, not sure whether you're only looking for a strategic level game, but my favorite US Civil War game remains Civil War Generals 2. It's a turn based game covering a large number of battles, you can play individual scenarios or a full campaign. The graphics might be seriously underwhelming by the standards of today, but it's a nice game.

There's a short AAR that I started here somewhere.

Originally Posted By ComradeP (6 APR 2012 6:33am)

Azz, not sure whether you're only looking for a strategic level game, but my favorite US Civil War game remains Civil War Generals 2. It's a turn based game covering a large number of battles, you can play individual scenarios or a full campaign. The graphics might be seriously underwhelming by the standards of today, but it's a nice game.

 

There's a short AAR that I started here somewhere.

Great game, spent hours and hours playing it years ago. Any idea where to find a copy of it nowdays???

Ageod has two games on the american civil war. 

One is really a special scenario for Pride of Nations.  Though I own it I haven't played it yet, mostly because I strongly suspect it's not to my taste.  And the scale is such that it makes it a bit too abstract.  I hope this is the game that Azzurri was calling a disaster, though that is probably neither a fair nor an accurate assessment of the game.

Ageod's other civil war game is usually refered to as AACW, and it is anything but a disaster.  Patching, tinkering, and perfecting have been going on for years, and the game probably reached masterpiece status three or four years ago.  To call a game like that a disaster is simply a way of advertising that you're operating on half-remembered hearsay and don't know what you're talking about.

I would have preferred if they'd put a bit more politics into the game (sort of along the lines of No Greater Glory),  but I played a few months of one of the 1861 scenarios a few months back, and the experience was breathtaking -- it felt just like what I would have expected being in charge of the War Department would have felt like.  At first blush there seems to be a lot of detail that needs to be learned involving the combat system, but once you realize that most of that detail is simply an explicit exposition of what's going on under the hood, playing the game resolves itself into remembering four or five relatively simple (and highly realistic) concepts.

Once you understand what settings to use for the game configuration the AI can give you a pretty good game.  Apart from that, like most games of this sort the best result come from pbem.  And if you don't understand or aren't sure about exactly how something works, just go onto the Ageod Forum's AACW section and ask clearly and politely -- you'll get a relatively quick and clear answer, often from a native English speaker.  And if something about the game isn't to your taste, they'll go out of their way to explain what you have to do to mod it.

What settings do find work best against the AI?   I am just now getting back into this after having missed out on a couple of years of patching.

Originally Posted By Philippe (6 APR 2012 10:27am)

Once you understand what settings to use for the game configuration the AI can give you a pretty good game. 

Originally Posted By Philippe (6 APR 2012 10:27am)

 I hope this is the game that Azzurri was calling a disaster, though that is probably neither a fair nor an accurate assessment of the game.

 

At first blush there seems to be a lot of detail that needs to be learned involving the combat system, but once you realize that most of that detail is simply an explicit exposition of what's going on under the hood, playing the game resolves itself into remembering four or five relatively simple (and highly realistic) concepts.

 

Which is exactly why the game, to me, is a unmitigated disaster (see bold print), Smokey.

The same can be said for all of their 'implicit", abstract battle resolution engineered PC games...

Originally Posted By Azzurri (6 APR 2012 1:22pm)

Originally Posted By Philippe (6 APR 2012 10:27am)

 I hope this is the game that Azzurri was calling a disaster, though that is probably neither a fair nor an accurate assessment of the game.

 

At first blush there seems to be a lot of detail that needs to be learned involving the combat system, but once you realize that most of that detail is simply an explicit exposition of what's going on under the hood, playing the game resolves itself into remembering four or five relatively simple (and highly realistic) concepts.

 

 

Which is exactly why the game, to me, is a unmitigated disaster (see bold print), Smokey.

 

The same can be said for all of their 'implicit", abstract battle resolution engineered PC games...

 

Methinks someone blue may be feeling a tad trollish today.   

If I were designing one of these games I would have opted to merely present the final result of the abstract battle, rather than spell out exactly how the final results were arrived at.  So in that sense I agree that much of what gets presented in describing the battle resolution probably should never have been revealed.  The end result would have been enough.

I've never pinned anyone at Ageod down on this point, but I've always assumed that they revealed too much of what was under the hood to pacify those who labor under the illusion that abstract battle resolution is less realistic than shoving over-simplified generic units around an oversimplifed generic battle resolution map.  Implicit battle resolution is a far superior design choice. 

If you're going to quarrel with it, what you have to do is to address whether or not it produces ahistorical results.  If you've played the game enough to do that, fine.  If not, you'll need to trot out some specifics.  But if you disagree with the way they crunch the battle resolution numbers (and there's always room for disagreement on something like that), there are a lot of things in the game that can be modded, if you really think you know enough to quibble over something like that. 

I don't expect you to agree with me, mostly because what we're talking about is personal taste and lifestyle choice in game design.  But to characterize an excellent design with such strongly negative terms based on peculiar personal taste seems inappropriate.  Frankly, it casts more doubt on the quality of your knowledge and judgement than it does on the quality of the game.   If I didn't know better I'd say you were having a bad case of sour grapes over losing their free game contest.

Having said all that, you won't see me jumping to the defense of Napoleon's Campaigns (the scale is wrong and there are too many problems with the map).

Originally Posted By Azzurri (20 MAR 2012 3:22pm)

I might have to go back to FoF....thanks, men.

 

Anyone else care to chime in?

Nothing is better than Norbsofts or Mad Minutes Civil War "battles" as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather play these anytime I have a Civil War need than any other now. 2nd Manassas and Scourge of War:Gettysburg an Antietam...what more could you ask for? Why play all that grand campaign tedium when it's the battles that are the most fun anyways?

Originally Posted By Wolverine101 (6 APR 2012 3:37pm)

Originally Posted By Azzurri (20 MAR 2012 3:22pm)

I might have to go back to FoF....thanks, men.

 

Anyone else care to chime in?

 

Nothing is better than Norbsofts or Mad Minutes Civil War "battles" as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather play these anytime I have a Civil War need than any other now. 2nd Manassas and Scourge of War:Gettysburg an Antietam...what more could you ask for? Why play all that grand campaign tedium when it's the battles that are the most fun anyways?

 

In a way, this sort of gets to the heart of what I'm talking about.  If you want to have battles acted out in detail, do it right or don't do it at all.  That's why tactical abstraction in strategic games makes more sense.

Gettysburg and Manassas are magnificent tactical games, and if you want the tactical experience at the moment they can't be improved on.  If you want to fight at the operational level with some tactical flavor, you can play the HPS/Tiller ACW games (though I don't feel like characterizing the AI in those games).  But loading a half-baked bowdlerized tactical or operational routine onto a strategic game is not only a bastardization but a serious mistake.  We're talking about three different kinds of ACW experience here, and mixing them together is a bit like mixing tea and coffee.

I have a sneaking fondness for Napoleon in Italy, by the way, but when I play it I play with the tactical routine turned off --  it really spoils it for me to be able to reverse your strategic mistakes on the tactical battlefield so easily.

Did they ever figure out how to keep Stonewall Jackson from raiding all the way to upstate New York, getting cut off and destroyed in AGEOD's civil war game? 

As of this moment Philippe and I are no longer dating.

wether it's more accurate or not is missing the point. Leaving out tactical battles vs under the hood number crunching is a choice about leaving out what a lot of wargamers concider the best fun in grand strategic gaming--the battles! Overall strategic gaming ala city building, research, etc is icing on the cake. FOF is the better game here because you are given a choice.

Remove the tactical battles from the Total War series and replace it with under the hood number crunching and come back and tell me how much better the game is for it. I don't just want the beans or the corn crunch...I want the whole enchalada baby and nobody is going to convince me the missing battles make for a better and more fun experience. If i want historical accurracy I read a book. If i want to have fun I fire up a grand strategy game and it matters not if Napi's butcher block is accurate to the 9th digit--although i do believe the claim it can't be achieved is also a falsehood.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a program that could act as a port between AACW and Scourge of War?  I imagine AACW giving you the option of fighting the battle or not and when selected the information for that battle (and upcoming reinforcements) is handed over to SOW for resolution.  The results are then handed back to AACW and you go from there.  Problem solved.  Somebody get around to writing that up for us please.  Cheers,

I've gotten to the point that I much prefer (good) abstraction.  I love AACW and play my Total War campaigns on auto-resolution.  Not everybody just loves the battles.

I agree Pat-though I left that out in my post. As mentioned-it's personal taste and i can see why AACW -as well as their other line up's is enjoyed and admired. But for me it's a little 'too abstract'--as well as the overall interface no matter how i try I just can't click with the games.

However "more accurate" is hardly a convincing argument for those like me who find the abstraction too far across the line and would perfer some type of tactical combat.

Pretty much why i always thought the design of Emperor's of the Fading Suns was far more to my liking than say a game like Civilization. It's plays like Civ will maintaining unit to unit fighting far more strategic than the simple stacks of civ that stomped on one another---there was a hell of a lot of micro management as well. It's real only major fault was the A.I.--which couldn't keep it's Princes alive. And it could use a far better GUI. But for that matter so could the games in question.

Scourge of War is the shiz.

I can't imagine anyone else ever coming close to beating the quality of the tactical battles in it, in that period. 

Once someone can spend the time to make a whole campaign facet around it, then I'll die happy from surprise.

Great game, spent hours and hours playing it years ago. Any idea where to find a copy of it nowdays???

I think the game is a bit too vintage for digital download sites, but you never know what will be uploaded at some point. I also have no idea who owns the rights at this point.

I happen to like Grigsby's War Between the States, though PBEM exclusively in recent years.   Less complex, easier to learn than FOF and Aegeod's ACW, and quite enjoyable at least w/ human opponent.  AI's fairly lame. Was a big fan of Frank Hunter's ACW, but glitchy.

Of the big 3:  FOF / AACW / GG War between the States --

Anyone care to opine which is the least overwhelming / most accessible for the complete Civil War Newb (namely, myself) - ?

(Kind of struck by the disparity of prices on the Matrix site:  FOF = $49.99, AACW = $19.99, GGWbtS = $33.99 ... i'm leaning toward FOF, but it's more than 2x price of AACW, which gives me pause...)

Originally Posted By sandman2575 (7 APR 2012 7:32pm)

Of the big 3:  FOF / AACW / GG War between the States --

 

Anyone care to opine which is the least overwhelming / most accessible for the complete Civil War Newb (namely, myself) - ?

 

(Kind of struck by the disparity of prices on the Matrix site:  FOF = $49.99, AACW = $19.99, GGWbtS = $33.99 ... i'm leaning toward FOF, but it's more than 2x price of AACW, which gives me pause...)

I have all three....personally, I found GG's: War between the States the easiest to work with and the least complex.  But all in all, I enjoy FoF the most.