Civil War Bull Run AAR at Wargamer

[em2nought]

Lava's got a good After Action Report for Civil War Bull Run going over at Wargamer http://www.wargamer.com/forums/tm.asp?m=109342&go=last

Game should hit store shelves in the next few days or so.

[Clanwolfer]

Man, that looks interesting. I'm definitely WWII'd out, so a little Civil War wargaming action could be fun.

[dbt1949]

What's the difference between this and the two civil war games Sid Meier put out a while back?

[raydude]

A major difference I can see off the bat is the layers of command. You can play at the Army commander level, at which you send couriers to give commands to your divisions, who give commands to their regiments. Or you can play at division or lower levels, in which you get orders from your higher up and follow those orders as you see fit.

I think (because I don't have the game and I'm going by the AAR) that the distribution of orders via courier also leads to command lag, a finite amount of time between giving an order and seeing it carried out. In mentioning that couriers can be intercepted and killed this also means that orders may not even get delivered.

A big difference between this and the Sid Civil War games, where I just used my army commanders as scouts or rally points.

[jonsauce]

I plan on playing about 5 more hours of Sid's Gettysburg before I shelve it. I'm looking forward to picking this one up after that.

[Clanwolfer]

That's a great AAR link, by the way; does anyone have links to some AARs for other Civil War games?

[dbt1949]

I went ahead and ordered it from EBgames.They seem to be the only one carrying it at the moment.

[raydude]

I went ahead and ordered it from EBgames.They seem to be the only one carrying it at the moment.

Ditto. I wanted to support my local EBgames because it was run by nice people. But got tired of waiting and ordered it online instead.

[em2nought]

That's a great AAR link, by the way; does anyone have links to some AARs for other Civil War games?

Here's a review of the "other" newer Civil War game out recently http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/campaign_gettysburg/

Here's a link to mods, playing guides, etc for Sid's Gettysburg and Antietam http://www.strategyplanet.com/waterloo/ ... load.shtml

Here's a link to Frank Hunter's ACW http://www.thurb.com/games/acw/intro.htm

I'm sort of hoping to pick Civil War Bull Run up at EB since I've got a box of old stuff I'd like to unload easily.

[dbt1949]

Just recieved my copy today. I haven't learned to play it yet but I did mess around with it. All I can say is "wow!"This is only superficially like Sid Civil War games. You can get right down to eye level as one of the troops in line almost and see what it's like to see a cavalry charge headed your way.
You control the whole battle and it seems every soldier who was there.Man,this thing is massive. 3D battlefield with forests and sunken streams. This is quite impressive visually.I'll have to wait and see about the game play. Looks like you can be either(or all maybe) a brigade commander,a division commander,or an army commander.

[RickinMich]

I just picked this one up from Gamestop today. I"ve had a chance to fiddle with the first tutorial and all I can also say it "wow"! This game reminds me (not the game itself, but the circumstances; small developer, not much hype, fairly limited market) of Combat Mission when it first came out. It has that kind of depth, yet is incredibly playable and fun. At least from the short period of time I've spent with it, I felt really drawn into the battle with a whole lot going on. While only commanding one brigade in the first tutorial, I still very much felt like a piece of a much bigger battle.

Btw. The Wargamer had an excellent (and VERY positive) First Impression out today. It's what sent me to the store to pick it up. You can find it at: http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/civilwa ... efault.asp I'm anxious to spend more time with this title. I think it could be a Combat Missionesque sleeper hit. Rick