Choose your side in the American Civil War: Real-time campaign, spanning from Secession to the end of the war, with historical objectives for both sides.
Posted on: January 7, 2023
Emob78
Verified ownerGames: 193 Reviews: 8
Greater than the sum of its many parts
Lots of Civil War games out there that do battles better. A few do campaigns better. But few tackle as much (and so well) as Grand Tactician. I've been playing since early access, and it's only gotten better since release. It's a great jack-of-all trades strategy game. The game allows the player to control the North or South during the war, and there's several starting dates to choose from (early '61 to early '64). The player can control the economy, navy, build and arm armies and garrisons, build forts, and assign and promote officers. There's policies to choose from to improve recruitment and finances, or to increase prestige with foreign powers. Both sides can also import or produce its own cannons, ships, and rifles. The player has to contend with morale issues as well, and the game even models feuds and readiness, both of which can seriously alter strategy for moving and commanding armies. And of course when battle commences, the player has the choice to take command on a total war-style tactical map. Overall, there's just been few games that have done so much to allow a player to control virtually every aspect of a conflict. But there's also numerous problems that players have still had to contend with that keep it from being 10/10 level greatness. The AI needs work. Pathfinding during movements and retreats make little sense. The game moves sluggish at times, and even players with beast machines have complained of lags and FPS drops. The AI also makes questionable decisions, like building giant navies then doing nothing with them. Fort battles can sometimes create lopsided results, and the readiness system seems to affect only the player, leaving the AI on a sort of god mode. The dev team is constantly working on the problems however, and new patches seem to be improving the game little by little.
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