War can be devastating and horrible.  In the case of Ageod’s American Civil War (ACW) it’s down right exhausting.  ACW is a turn based strategy game that allows the player to manage every last detail of the civil war fought between the neophyte American states in the mid-nineteenth century.  ACW is diverse in its offering with scenarios based on specific battles, a year long campaign, or in “minister” mode you can be the leader of the country pulling the strings of millions of people.  With that kind of political power you will need plenty tools and this game does not disappoint.  The rest is up to you.  You will need patience, a cool head, and the dispassion to order the death of your countrymen.

Graphics:  80%
Being a turn based strategy game you do not need a high powered graphics card to play this game.  The base display consists of a map of the eastern US that reflects the 1860s political map.  The game shows a period style map which is divided into regions that your armies need to control.

As you move from coastal regions to the Appalachians to the plains states the shading of the map changes and there are subtle etchings in the topography to denote trees, foothills, mountains, roads and railroad tracks.  Rivers and estuaries are prominently featured and are key components in the game.  These features are mostly background, however they must not be ignored since a player must factor in terrain and all its foibles in the decisions he makes concerning his next moves.

In addition to the topographical shading, you can select other views of the map that overlays who controls what regions, political control, areas of loyalty.  Forts, harbors, and depots are raised features and appear well rendered.  For instance: A fort will show an area with a fence, flag, possibly a building, cannon balls, and flour sacks.  The absence or presence of any of that shows how much that fort has to support a passing army.  Cities will be displayed similarily as forts except the stocks will be stacked outside a factory-like building.

The game pieces are much like ones you would find on a board game.  The battle units are represented with upright pieces with a picture of a typical soldier in an infantry, cavalry, artillery, or naval unit.  Generals will have their own pieces with a very similar likeness to their actual appearance.  Other game pieces include, ships and gunboats, for bombardment and blockading.  While the game does a good job of being a backdrop for a stage set they could have put in more movement and animations to improve on the inherent static nature of the game.

Sound:  75%
There are not many sounds to note in this particular game since it’s not action-based.  I did enjoy the period music that plays from time to time.  There are several different tunes that play which feature both southern and northern sensibilities.  The music seemed to be on a timer and was not triggered by any particular action in the game.  One can spend so much time in quiet solitude planning their next move that the music seems to serve to boost your spirits or at least jolt you awake.  It was odd that the music would play every once in a while and for no apparent reason.  There seemed to be long dead spaces in between.  On the other hand having music run the entire time would be annoying. I was able to play the game for long stretches with the sound off and my own music in the background.

Gameplay:   80%
On the battlefield rapid decisions need to be made.  In ACW one must keep in mind that you are a strategist and to leave most of the tactical decisions to the computer simulation that crunches the moves at the end of the turn.  If you are looking for tactical fighting see my review of The History Channel’s Civil War: A Nation Divided.
There are basically two phases to this game:  The planning stage where all of your moves are made and the resolution phase where the computer runs a two week scenario based on moves made by the United States of America (USA) or the Confederate States of America (CSA).

The planning phase is the most important part of the game.  This is where the player must decide what his armies will do in the next two weeks.  Many factors go into this such as:  Results of previous battles, size of the forces involved, terrain, political will of the populace, abilities of the generals, weather, supply lines and a myriad of other factors.

I chose the campaign scenario beginning in late March 1864.  The CSA is on the ropes and is cornered in the south.  The Union Army of the Potomac is preparing to lay siege to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Union armies are in the mountains of Tennessee led by General Sherman who is preparing to make his march across Georgia.  Depending on which side you control you are either trying to strike the final blow to the Confederacy or fight a delaying action that depletes the North of resources which may affect politics in the Union and force a peace settlement.

And therein lies the goal of the game: score the most victory points while lowering the morale of your enemy.  Victory points are scored through battle and capture of resources and territory.  Morale points are won or lost in much the same way.  I found in the battles that even though I won several victories in key areas that in most people’s eyes would have raised morale amongst the populace, I received no morale points.  Yet at the same time I lose a minor skirmish between to measly brigades and I suffer mightily.  I’m not sure whether to blame that on the game design or the nature of war.

The key to this game is to have patience and plan carefully.  Every decision has consequences and every aspect of your military campaign cannot be ignored for too long.  It’s important to use the right force for the right battle.  Keep track of who is leading your armies and how capable they are.  Transportation systems in the 19th century are not as reliable as today and that should be kept in mind when coordinating the movement of your troops.

Don’t go too deep into enemy territory without building supply depots to help your supply chains keep your forces supplied.  If you don’t remember to raise  forces for reinforcements you won’t have any troops down the line.  Plus, you have to replace your equipment too.  There is also the coast to think about as you may have to blockade or evade blockades to keep your armies supplied.

Game Manual/Multiplayer:  55%
ACW has a few glaring weak points that make getting started difficult.  I found the game manual long but un-informative.  It did well to explain all the features of the game but left out some crucial step-by-step instructions to accomplish basic and crucial functions like creating and combining forces.  I spent way too much time learning by trial and error how to build forces.  Even then I was not operating at full efficiency as I had no idea how to promote officers, re-combine forces, and bring in reinforcements.  Many of these functions are automatic in the game but that aspect is not explained in the manual.

ACW includes a tutorial which is mostly helpful but also falls short in some crucial instructions.  In programming this feature they forgot to make sure the scenario generator produced the results that the tutorial promised.  Each time I followed the instructions I got a different result which falsely led me to believe I was doing something wrong.  In addition I noticed several glaring grammar mistakes in the tutorial text.

To play against someone else, think chess-by-mail.  By email exchanging specific files generated in the program you can play against another person.  SuperGuido and I tried this but the directions were too confusing and we abandoned the “Gettysburg” battle scenario after only one turn.  Updates to the program should include simple in-game buttons to facilitate multi-player options instead of asking the player to create folders on their own outside the program.

Controls/Interface:  75%
Controlling the game is easy.  All portions of the game can be controlled with a mouse.  Scrolling the map is accomplished by holding the mouse pointer at the side of the screen.  Map zooming is most easily accomplished with a mouse wheel.  At the bottom is a “unit box” which displays the make-up of your armies and also displays the messages from the last turn.  While this box is not a direct control like a mouse, it is the place where you manipulate the make-up of your forces.

The main menu is simple, however it lacks visual cues when you click on the various choices to show that the game accepted your input.  Loading a previously saved game is easy, however the type-size of the listing is too small and each game has two entries that bear the same time stamp which makes picking the correct file difficult.

The game screen is chock full of controls, almost too many since I found myself forgetting about half of them while playing the scenario.  The pop-up boxes are helpful in giving much detail about strength of battle elements.  The tool-tips are helpful but can get annoying after a while since they are constantly popping up during normal mouse movement with large boxes of information.

The only problem I found the most difficult was the controls to combine armies.  The developers made it easy to drag and drop elements anywhere on the map which I liked.  However, if you mistakenly did this there was no apparent way to undo the action.  The only way to undo was to load a previous version of your game.  More than once I spent 15 minutes making multiple intricate moves across an entire map and made one simple drag-and drop mistake.  With no way to accomplish an immediate undo the prospect of starting the planning stage all over again was frustrating.

Summary:  75%
I enjoyed playing ACW however I have a certain bias.  I am a history nerd and I enjoy the details.  This game had more details than I could ever want.  This game while visually pleasing and fun seems tailored to the few who would enjoy immersing themselves in every aspect of conducting a war.   In the campaign scenario that I played which was 41 turns long I invested 20 hours.  I will subtract 2 hours for learning curve but that still is quite an investment of time.

While there is no shooting, action gamers can still enjoy this game.  Choose the shorter battle scenarios where such details as managing morale among the populace, raising replacement forces and maintaining blockades off the coast are not a priority.  Fighting a war can be a tedious affair due to the myriad of factors required to manage a conflict.  ACW will allow you to manage every factor involved if you dare.  This could induce war fatigue which could be instructive should you ever achieve a position that requires sending troops off to war.

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