Strategic Command: American Civil War

I've played several of the Strategic Command games, but this one is the first that takes place during the 19th century. Knowing what the SC series is like, I was cautious about this one, and for good reason. The SC series is better fitted towards moving large units as 'fronts' such as in the world wars. The American civil war was about campaigns with army divisions and corps battling each other over terrain and flanking maneuvers. This is not modeled well in the SC engine. Yes, you can build units and move to capture enemy objectives, but the campaign doesn't play out as it would in any sort of historical way. The AI also seems to be confused as to strategy, so its units tend to move during turns only with the intent of maddening the player, and forcing the human opponent to chase down endless straggler units and guerillas that pop up rather than conducting a large campaign with focus and logical objectives. My biggest gripe about this game (and all SC games) is how manpower and losses are computed. By the end of my first campaign I had lost 64 units and the enemy had lost 145. That also includes naval. Ok, what does this mean in terms of manpower? The engine is ruthlessly simplistic towards this, as well as the more abstract elements of supply and reinforcement. On the plus side, the game does manage UI fairly well. The mini map shows areas controlled (most other civil war games seem to forget this simple feature). The choices for the played during event decisions is also fun. Do you clamp down on bootleggers selling gold and cotton to the enemy? And what about conscription? All these offer choices that will affect the game, and these can offer semi- and alternative history events unfolding. Overall it's a very 'MEH' game. If you're looking to grab a civil war game, there's Ultimate General, AGEOD's Civil War series, and of course Grand Tactician. All are better civil war games than this one, IMO.

Pros: - Approachable. Simple enough but not too much - Massive map alloving freedom of maneuver (eastern front is cramped tho) - Manageable scale and quick turns - Forces you to think many turns in the future when you make decisions - Not that many civil war games that focus on grand strategy - Addictive - Free campaigns outside civil war Cons: - One unit per hex makes some situations unrealistic due to scale, mainly eastern front and naval war - Simple combat. Not that big of a con as it's not the focus of this game - Basically only to nations (UK, France, Spain and Mexico can join in some cases). In other SC games I enjoy putting my allies under AI command and then living with their decisions This game is an absolute gem. It forces you to think many turns in the future when making decisions on what to research and how much, what to build, what to deploy where. Everything takes time, unit you bought arrives several turns later, moving from deploy hex to front takes turns, research is slow and units don't receive upgrades automatically. This tickles my brain just the right way. Combat is simple and reminiscent of Panzer General, although with added supply, morale, readiness and HQ bonus. Simplicity is not that bad though as this is strategy, not tactics game. Biggest downside of this game, and whole Strategic Command series, is that you can only have one unit per hex. This simplifies matters but creates unrealistic situations like eastern front resembling WWI trench warfare. Naval combat suffers the most from this, though not as much here as in SC:WWI where one naval combat could have ships in line stretching from UK to Norway. These problems with stacking prevention is my main reason of 4/5 instead of 5/5. If thinking where to attack, when and with what is more to your liking than the actual battles, then pick this up.

The game is detailed, but very playable. I've enjoyed playing it very much!

i have played this many times and what i want to say is that this game has a much beter balance between sides, than the ww2 version, where the axis generally lose and that you 'don't feel like you're rushing from point a to b, blindly followin history. civil war seems to possess an element of freedom,whichever side you play.