Matrix Games Forums

To reply to your original question - if you want an American Civil War game, why are you looking at "Advanced Tactics WW2", rather than Forge of Freedom or AGEODS ACW[&:]

I've played a few turns of the AT ACW mod and it appears passable, although nowhere near as deep as AGEODS Civil War, as you'd expect, really. I can promise you, though, that Advanced Tactics does a much better job at modelling the ACW, than AGEOD or Forge of Freedom do at modelling WW2[;)]

AT's civil war certainly plays a LOT faster than AGEOD's game, AI turns take less than a minute for me, whereas for AGEOD it was 4 - 5 minutes.

I actually like AT's graphics, they make it very clear what is actually going on and the clean interface helps make the game flow quickly. I find AGEODS graphics to be artistically OK, but difficult to see what is actually happening. All those dark browns and greens are like looking into a muddy puddle. The region boundaries are very hard to see and I'd much rather have bright coloured counters with a big number and a unit symbol on than a dodgy picture of some man with a beard[X(] Maybe it's not just me as I notice they've really brightened the map for their new Napoleonic game.

One other thing I like about AT's interface: the heirarchical units screen. All your units clearly laid out in a 'family tree' view. Makes managing a large force much easier than in comparable games that don't have this.

I have FOF and it's pretty good, I think they tried to do too many things and the detail battle is really slow and boring, though graphics were decent. Too much micromanagement of the economy, when really all we need is what the original Blue and the Gray (by IMpressions) did... which was a simple economy of available recruitable men and rifle production... anyway, FOF seems to drag, and there's no auto recruitment, so if you forget to draft some divisions each unit you're going to suffer as a result.

D/l the AGEODS ACW demo... agree with you, the graphics are too busy. I know they went for the old boardgame look, but it's really hard to see what you really need (sort of the extreme opposite of AT's graphics IMO). Gameplay seemed a bit awkward...

Which led me to AT actually, as I'd like to see what a system like this could do with a decent ACW game. If the "cards" can model events, production, etc, and the rest models the military aspects pretty decently then it could be a great alternative.

I still wish someone would make a great ACW game...[8|]

ORIGINAL: geozero
I still wish someone would make a great ACW game...[8|]

Actually, Victory Games did make a great ACW game. You just need to have some table space and a friend to play it with though...[;)]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: geozero
I still wish someone would make a great ACW game...[8|]

Actually, Victory Games did make a great ACW game. You just need to have some table space and a friend to play it with though...[;)]

Naw... that's what ADC2 is for. [;)]

ORIGINAL: geozero

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: geozero
I still wish someone would make a great ACW game...[8|]

Actually, Victory Games did make a great ACW game. You just need to have some table space and a friend to play it with though...[;)]

Naw... that's what ADC2 is for. [;)]

Good point, but you still need a friend...[;)]

LOL...[:D]

Playing by yourself has some advantages...you can cheat and no one will whine. [:D]

Highly recommend: http://www.vassalengine.org/community/i ... dule_id=80

and http://www.confraria-ludica.org/portal/ ... tit&lid=15 (see: ZunTzu).

The trade-off - game looks better but there's no AI, but you can beat a weak AI any day any how.

I've played a few turns of the AT ACW mod and it appears passable, although nowhere near as deep as AGEODS Civil War, as you'd expect, really. I can promise you, though, that Advanced Tactics does a much better job at modelling the ACW, than AGEOD or Forge of Freedom do at modelling WW2

Appreciate any specific feedback on this. I spent most of my time developing the WWII scenarios and welcome any ideas to make ACW better.

ORIGINAL: tweber
Appreciate any specific feedback on this. I spent most of my time developing the WWII scenarios and welcome any ideas to make ACW better.

I've played through to October 1862 now. Still early days, the important thing to me is that so far I'm enjoying this scenario. It's taken a few turns to begin to get the 'feel' for it. I've played mostly random games and this game is working to a quite different set of rules.

To start with a disclaimer, I know very little about the ACW, just about everything I do know is from playing AGEODS Civil War game. Historical inaccuracies that would be unacceptable to an expert probably wouldn't even be noticed by me - I'm playing this strictly as a strategy game, not a historical simulation.

Having said that, here's some observations on what I've seen so far. The standard formations are Corps containing Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery. This makes them all a bit 'homogenous', different to the WW2 scenarios where formations can be specialised for different situations. I've just started to separate out separate cavalry corps for scouting, as I think their strengths may be getting wasted by being attached to large infantry formations. At this 'global' scale, the differences between the three don't amount to much. It would be interesting to see a scenario that covers a smaller part of the war in greater detail.

All formations are produced by event cards. I have no issues with this so far, it certainly cuts out a lot of recruitment micro-management. This may be a negative if you like to manage the details of rifles, artillery types and horseshoe styles yourself[;)]

I'm getting lots of "Rebellion: Defender Stood Firm" messages every turn. This is happening in virtually every town the Union own. There are rarely any Union casualties, usually 2 Confederate infantry get destroyed. Looks like the probability of this event is too high.

Shore bombardment is very powerful. After a few turns, I realised this is the best way of whittling down the Confedarates. I have several river patrols going up and down the Mississippi bombarding everything near the river. Also doing the same on the Eastern seaboard. The majority of Confed casualties are now being inflicted by shore bombardment. I'll have to pass to the historians for an opinion on how realistic this is. Either way, in game terms, the AI doesn't seem aware of the danger of shore bombardment and just keeps it's units sitting there, which is surely not right[&:] In my campaign at least, this is reflected in the fact that the Union have the edge wherever there is river or sea. Where there's no bombardment capability (Washington, Harpers Ferry), the Union are not doing anywhere near so well.

The AI is handling the land campaign well enough - it's close to surrounding me in Washington. So the rules the AI knows for cutting supply in the WW2 game are also working well here - mind you, I'm a truly bad general so that's not saying much[:(]

I'm only just getting a handle on the leadership aspect. Some may be put off by the lack of historical names, the absence of Lee, Grant, Jackson etc. isn't good for the immersion factor. However you could easily rename a leader formation to the historical leader of your choice. Fine for your own side, but would still leave the AI side 'generic', though. Leaders are represented by subformations of various standards. eg political, proven, good, brilliant. I'm guessing this equates to the "Staff" level in the regular game. The Union are now getting better leaders and I'm about to start some re-organising to see if these can have any impact. As the Union, I have seen one or two heavy defeats despite numeric superiority, maybe the leadership difference is behind this.

One thing I do know about the ACW is that there were a huge amount of casualties caused by disease. I haven't seen any reflection of this yet, I assume this could easily be covered by Event's, as could desertion.

Well, time for another turn..or two...or twenty. When this one finishes, I'm looking forward to playing again as the other side, to me this is the ultimate sign of a good scenario: one that you're keen to start again once finished!