<font color="beige"><b>The battle occurred today;
<font color="blue">(HPS Shiloh #078jk A Divisional Clash 18 turns)</font id="blue">
It was slow to start, both generals jockeying for an advantage, about midway though as the union advanced the battle began in earnest, the rebels gaining a minor victory for several turns but as the sun began to set the union regained the impetus, the battle ending in a draw.
A direct play game, which for any of you that have not tried it, is a fast and fun way to play a game over the internet. We did the 18 turns in a little under 3 hours, that's about 5 minutes per player turn and that was with a good bit of banter via msn messenger (the game provides a message interface) but we had started talking on msn before starting up the game so we just continued to use it during the game and all while we sat facing each other from clear across the Atlantic Ocean.
Direct play is a whole different experience from play by mail...as you move your troops across the field your opponent sees yours movements and fire as they happen, there is no replay. We played in phases with manual defense fire so there was plenty of back and forth action during each turn. I normally play by e-mail in "turn" mode but doing phases with manual defense fire went really quickly with direct play.
Games can be saved and started up at a later date so even large scenarios can be played without having to dedicate a large block of time at one sitting and games can also be played with multiple players. The game interface allows players to be assigned troops which can then only be moved by that player. The message interface also allows messages to be sent to your opponents or only to friendly players.
I highly recommend trying a direct play game...it's the closest thing out there to actually playing a face to face board or tabletop game. More information about how to start one can be found here
http://www.hist-sdc.com/help/mp.html </b></font id="beige">
<font color="blue"><b>Brig.Gen. R.A.Weir</b></font id="blue">
<font color="yellow">-- CALVERT LINE --</font id="yellow">
<b>First--III--AoA CSA</b>