American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

First I like to see discussions of other games in this Forum. I know its off topic but I check this forum on a regular bases and probably wouldn't see it otherwise. The ACW era doesn't attract big name developers so it is difficult to learn about new games on the subject.

I also think most of these games aren't really in direct competition with the HPS games. The HPS games make excellent PBEM games. Most of the others usually don't.

As for Strategic games, I agree SPI's War Between the States set the bar for simulating the Civil War on a strategic scale. But I am not even sure I ever finished a game even solitare. Short of taking someone hostage and forcing them to play it may not be possible.[:D]

As to a strategic game including a tactical engine, see above about needing a hostage to play it.[:p] It is very difficult to do both with out making the game take to long to play. Also it forces the game designer to make two games in one. There is also a difficult trade off between having sufficient strategic detail and control to make the game work on that level and still have a place for a tactical level battle. That is, is the game going to really give you the feeling of being in control of the war if Gettysburg campaign is covered in a single two month strategic turn with some random tactical battle? Or should it have weekly strategic turns allowing the armies to maneuver into the north in a series of tactical battles like HPS's Campaign Gettysburg?

I personally think the key to any Strategic level game is having a superior AI because any game giving sufficient detail to be worth playing isn't going to be playable against a live opponent. "From Sumter to Appomattox" is so far the best I have played on the computer but has a number of weak points. I hope when they reissue it they can improve the AI a bit. The game is playable by mail but still quite long.

FoF looks interesting but I am reluctant to purchase without at least playing a demo. I did get a demo of their BoA game but I don't think its the same game engine but could be wrong. For now I read reviews and forums and try to decide. Since they are charging full price I expect a high quality game not a budget game, so they will be hold to a higher standard.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by KWhitehead</i>
<br />FoF looks interesting but I am reluctant to purchase without at least playing a demo. I did get a demo of their BoA game but I don't think its the same game engine but could be wrong. For now I read reviews and forums and try to decide. Since they are charging full price I expect a high quality game not a budget game, so they will be hold to a higher standard.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Kennon,

BoA is a different game engine. It was created by AGEOD. Crown of Glory is the earlier game from Western Civ, and FoF is based on that engine. AGEOD is going to have a Civil War game based on BoA out early in 2007. I've read elsewhere that "early" means February some time.



-Brett Schulte
HPS Playtester

ACW Campaign Games Design Center: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWCGDC/index.html

My Civil War Book Collection: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWBooks/

ACW Gaming & Reading Blog: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWBlog/

I realize that Gil R's post and some of his comments are directed at me.

One of the reasons I replied to Mike, who started the topic, was because I had purchased the game, and of course a lot of us in this club want to have an idea of what this new game is all about.

I had put in comments on the Matrix Board, and some of their answers were not very adequate. I will not get into those here. It would probably upset Gil only more and that is not my purpose. Any game like that no doubt took thousands of hours of development, and kudos to them for all the work. But that does not default the game to being correct.

The HPS crowd on this board I consider to be much more "History Grognards" than the people I see on the Matrix boards. This is not to detract from the Matrix products. I love "Crown of Glory", "For Liberty". "Forge of Freedom" is OK, but it is not the serious simulation of the American Civil War that I was waiting for.

If I may paraphrase from an Ancient source. "Is this the game the prophets said was coming or are we to wait for another?"

For my part, I think "Forge of Freedom" is a false prophet and it is not the strategic game on the Civil War that I had wanted. For the serious gamer on this board, I think if you purchase it, you will be disappointed. Is it an OK game? Sure! But it is NOT a serious simulation derived from the Board wargame world such as Victory Games "Civil War" or SPI's "War Between the States". I loved those games and this game is not anything like those. What I think we all want is something along those lines. That is all I am saying.

The area movement IS a problem, and I am sorry to say that I have never heard of the three forts that are in the Fredericksburg area and seem to detract from what I have read of the history of the campaigns in that area. I don't agree that Fortress Monroe is a few pixels off. It is way off and not correct at all. Maybe it was done for practical purposes, but I don't have to like it.

Anyway, my purpose is not to turn this into a flame war. I purchased the game. It is OK, but from what I can gather from the membership on this particular board, I think generally the membership will be disappointed. The HPS games offer a level of historical simulation that is lacking in the Matrix product. I think with some tweaking the "Forge of Freedom" could be made a lot better, but I don't believe the company is interested in seriously changing any aspect of the map board which I think it needs to do.

Gilbert Collins
BG. General
III/I/II Brigade
Army of Alabama

I’ve been busy working on the second patch for “Forge of Freedom,â€

I do have some suggestion for FoF.

One, I still haven't found the AAR's you are referring too. Found two tactical threads but still checking through the list to see if I see anything like you describe.

Second, give a detail description of your game on the main Matrix site page for it. You are asking people to pay the same price Microsoft or Blizzard charges for one of their games with no more published information than a budget rack game at Best Buy provides. I had to go to Wikipedia to figure out that the strategic turn length was. 1 Fortnight = 2 sennight which is commonly called two weeks. This kind of detail information is important in deciding whether a game is the kind you are interested in. Also avoids having players with nothing but bad comments about your game since they thought they were buying something else.

Don't quite no why they wouldn't let you do a demo since Matrix did release a demo for Birth of America.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)

KWhitehead,
Somewhere on that site there is the official Matrix press release that describes the game a bit, and the online store has information about the game as well. I'll check to make sure that info is clearly available -- thanks for the point.

As for the AAR's, my AAR, playing the CSA, is:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1293655

JChastain, my opponent, is posting his AAR at:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1293605

The other AAR's for "Forge of Freedom" are all in this sub-forum:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=400
(You'll see Hard Sarge's AAR III pinned to the top, as well as one of my own. Both of these show the tactical part of the game, whereas the PBEM game is strategic. The rest of this subforum is devoted to customers' AAR's.)

Kennon,

As for the BoA demo, are you sure that wasn't released by AGEOD only? BoA has been out since early this year. Matrix did not sign a publishing deal with AGEOD to distribute BoA in America until literally something like a week ago.

-Brett Schulte
HPS Playtester

ACW Campaign Games Design Center: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWCGDC/index.html

My Civil War Book Collection: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWBooks/

ACW Gaming & Reading Blog: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWBlog/

The new game from AGEOD is due out sometime in early 07, I read a post on their website about sometime in February.

Respectfully,

Col. Gery Bastiani
II Corp., 3rd Division AotM

"If there is a shell or bullet over there destined for us, it will find us" - General James Longstreet

Read the Confederate side of the replay and it sounds like a pretty good game, but one that needs a lot of tweaking. Of course, it is hard to evaluate a game just from a series replay, but when you see Sibley (the Confederate Sibley) with high ratings, you know somebody didn't do their homework. That said, there were a lot of intriguing innovations, and I think the folks designing this game got a lot of things right for the game they were trying to create. I recommend anyone interested to read the series replay. I intend to communicate a slew of observations to Gil when I get a chance, but that isn't today. Mostly, I wanted to give my initial impressions based on what I read and move this to the head of the queue so my friend Kelly can find the links to the replay.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

Mihalik,
What's happening with Sibley's inflated ratings is that we have 1000 generals in our database, and only the ones who are "100-percenters" or "25-percenters" (i.e., one has a 100% or 25% chance of seeing that general every time one plays) currently have historical ratings. The remaining 900 or so generals had to have their ratings randomly determined, since it would have been an overwhelming project to come up with historical ratings for them, and would have delayed release significantly. That said, as you may have seen we have an ongoing project to get short bios of each general written by volunteers for inclusion as in-game text (just the way we already have bios of governors and famous units like the Stonewall Brigade), and as these bios are written I am providing historical ratings based on what was unearthed about them. So, Sibley's ratings are currently randomly determined -- but, since there have been multiple complaints about Sibley in particular I think I'll make some changes for the upcoming patch...

I look forward to receiving your other comments.

Incidentally, I'm still looking for volunteers, and it should have occurred to me earlier to check on this forum to see if anyone is interested in participating. To find out more about the project, go to: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.as ... =1&smode=1

Hi Gil!

I would like to direct your attention to " Glory in Grey ", a series of 4 small books which give a 1-3 page Biography of 425 Confederate Generals.

They can be purchased here for $60 + $10 postage - for the entire set. http://www.bibleschool.edu/bibleBookstore/index.html

Entire extract regarding General H. H. Sibley, reads as follows:-

<font color="yellow"><i>Henry Hopkins Sibley - (1816-1886)

Henry Hopkins Sibley was born on May 25th, 1816 in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He graduated from West Point in 1838 and was stationed in the New Mexico Territory.

Sibley served in the Seminole War and in the Expedition against the Mormons of Utah, as well as the Mexican War.

In 1856 he patented the Sibley tent, which could comfortably accommodate 20 soldiers and their personal gear.

When the War of Northern aggression began, he resigned his commission in the United States Army and joined the Confederacy.

Confederate President Davis promoted him to Brigadier General on June 17th, 1861 and sent him to Texas to put together a Brigade to clear what is now New Mexico and Arizona of any Union presence.

Sibley believed that his Troops would be able to live off the land of New Mexico, and that the Union troops would not resist a Confederate invasion. On both counts, he was proved wrong. While he defeated Union forces at Val Verde and La Glorieta, he was unable to withstand the Union counter-attack. He and his 1,500 remaining troops withdrew to Fort Bliss, Texas and then to San Antonio to escape the Californian Column under Union General James Carleton

After failing to liberate New Mexico, Sibley was assigned to minor commands and struggled with chronic illness and drunkenness

His performance in the Teche River Campaign of 1863 was poor.

He was court-martialed and censured, but not convicted, after failures at Irish Bend and Fort Bisland in April 1863.

After the War, he became General of Artillery for the Khedive of Egypt.

After He returned to North America in 1874, he lectured.

General Sibley died in abject poverty, in Fredricksburg, Va., on August 23rd, 1886.
</i></font id="yellow">

I also have an e-mail address and postal address for the Author. This is a private publication and fairly difficult to find on Amaxon, ebay etc. but easy to get "privately".

I have the set and find it quite helpful in supplying info on some of the more obscure or less famous CSA Generals.

Contact me by email if Ye'd like the addresses.

A set of books that I'd recommend to anyone interested in this period of American history - and, helpful (I'd imagine) towards Your "Generals" project.

Pat.

Patrick G.M.Carroll,
Lieutenant General.
Carroll's Corps,(II)
"Spartan Southrons"
Army of Georgia.
C.S.A.Cabinet Secretary

" When My Country takes it's rightful place, amongst the Nations of the World, then and only then, let My Epitaph be written. "

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by bschulte</i>
<br />Kennon,

As for the BoA demo, are you sure that wasn't released by AGEOD only? BoA has been out since early this year. Matrix did not sign a publishing deal with AGEOD to distribute BoA in America until literally something like a week ago.

-Brett Schulte
HPS Playtester
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I probably did since I have had BoA for a few months.

I did break my piggy bank and buy FoF so I guess I will soon know whether it is worth it. All I have played so far is the Basic game. Main thing I learned from that is it's worth while paying extra, which I didn't, and getting a printed manual. You spend a lot of time looking up things. The game has a lot of detail which requires you to visit a lot of dialogs trying to get things done. And, it looks like I will be able to look at PBEM system since my brother also bought it which suprised me since he leans more toward Napoleonics.

Only thing I have noticed so far is the AI needs some twinking. A huge army is sitting in Washington while my smaller Reb army is running around in Maryland and Pennsylvania raising havoc. They probably need some better AI logic for handling the special situation of the capital. In the west the AI armies aren't nearly so passive.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)

Hi, Gil,
I saw that someone already mentioned Generals in Gray and Generals in Blue by Ezra Warner on the other thread. Bruce Allardice wrote More Generals in Gray. All told, the Confederate generals added up to 562. Generals in Blue has 583 generals. The problem is that the North used a lot of colonels to lead brigades while the South usually tried to fill the position with the appropriate rank. Since the base unit in FoF seems to be the brigade, you might concentrate on those officers who commanded at division level or higher, and let the brigades reflect their commanders' ratings. If they have the above volumes on disk, somebody could probably cut and paste the bios, but i don't know if the copyright has expired or if Mr Warner would have a problem with that if it hasn't. It might be easier though.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

Gentlemen! <salute>

I am kinda surprised that no one has mentioned the fine work done by Stewart Sifakis with his <font size="4"><b><font color="beige">'Who Was Who in the Civil War'!</font id="beige"></b></font id="size4"> I keep a copy right next to the olde computer and use it often when I see a name I don't recognize. I got my copy on Ebay a couple of years ago and saw a lot of them up for bid at that time.

Respectfully,



<font color="orange"><font size="4">Nick Kunz

General
Commandant
Cabinet Secretary
Confederate States of America</font id="orange"></font id="size4">

I happened to see the flashing "hot" topic and read along as I don't check into Matrix enough to keep up with everything that is being published (Although I did recently spring for War in the Pacific to the tune of $86.00 after shipping), and the post and responses looked interesting. What caught my eye was Mr. Collins' statement, and I quote: "For my part I would love to see a direct translation of Victory Games "Civil War" which in my opinion was still the best Strategic game on the American Civil War out there." And I noticed that he had extolled the virtue of the old SPI War Between the States earlier too.I have to agree with him. I have hoped for such a game myself for years. For that matter even a simple strategic-scale hex game on the order of SPI's early game "The American Civil War" (S&T No. 43) would make me happy though it might not be as challenging for two players(meaning PBEM - forget an A.I.) as would be VG's Civil War,SPI's War Between the States, or GMT's For the Union. I know nothing of programing so it may be entirely unrealistic to make a, more or less, direct conversation of such boardgames but it is a nice thought. Were it possible I don't think it would necessarily compromise the market for the Matrix grand strategic type versions especially if Matrix produced both (Unless John Tiller beat them to the hex-based strategic version). It seems to me as an old boardgamer that some players prefer area-movement games and others prefer a more detailed game that is hex-based. So though perhaps, incorrectly, I would suspect that the same choice might be made by computer gamers looking for a strategic simulation, some area, some hex-based.

A side note on HPS doing a strategic game. I recall from some discussion years ago when I playtested that the market target is for "solitaire games" and incredibly us guys who play games like these by email against human opponents are (or were then) a minority compared to all the people who just like to play against the computer. I think it was told to me regarding questions of why A.I.'s seem to favor one side or another, ostensively so that one could be assured to at least get a "good game" against the computer by playing AGAINST the stronger side. I may be all wet on that and I am sure I will hear about it if so. But that is OK because it would clear up a possible misunderstanding on my part or perhaps demonstrate an "advance" in the quality of A.I.'s

In any regard I did find all of this discussion on both sides of the issue very intersting. Thanks.



LtCol.Tom Ciampa
2nd Bgde,1st Cav
XIV Corps, AoC