Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865)

While not a perfect game by any means, I DO have to say that this game and it's DLC brought me great joy and entertainment and I clock in well over 300 hours with about 3 campaigns I have finished. And while the game has been sometimes a bit janky and confusing at times and I encountered a few bugs here or there, it has vastly been a complete blast! One shouldnt forget that while the game isnt the only American Civil War Game out there, it's INCREDIBLY ambitious, it's scope, scale and detail UNMATCHED by most if not ALL the games that are out there so far. While I have played like Sid Meier's Gettysburg back in the day, or Ultimate General: The American Civil War in recent years (a game this one is often compared to), I have to say that Grand Tactician gets it right more often than not. It is a game not for everyone, but it is a game for American Civil War enthusiasts, Strategy Game connaisseurs and any ambitious Armchair Generals out there. While other Games provide you with campaigns where you fight battle for battle but no matter how good you perform you have no impact on the overall conduct of the war, this is vastly different with Grand Tactician. Want to lock down the War in the East as the Confederates and instead opt for a Grand Advance in the Mid-West, heading to Chicago and then drive east? Hard but doable! Want to take it slow and steady as the Union, build up your forces and then collapse in on the filthy Rebels from all sides, while Anacondaing their Commerce? Also completely doable! And then there are various policies, buildings, approaches, even the weaponry of the individual Units - not to mention that you can change and adjust various modifiers and aspects at the start of a Campaign that change the initial situation of the War and that have long-lasting effects! You can even add new Officers to the Game, I did that with a few friends and a couple of guys from my Gaming Community and my boys were happy when they read my AARs and read about their alter ego's exploits! Then there's the battles themselves, morale, line of sight, terrain and the other staples of the genre that are to be expected - However Grand Tactician brings something new to the table: Order delays! Think it makes sense that you always have 100% a clue what is going on at any given time on the battlefield and that you 'beam' your orders right to your commanders? Me neither! Instead Units have to be either close to your Generals in order to receive Orders swiftly, Bugles can convey basic orders, but more detailed ones need to be delivered with couriers - and they can only go as fast as a fast horse can ride under the best circumstances. So now you have to take into account the terrain, roads, forests, swamps and plan your battlelines accordingly. You WILL have situations where your enemy will make crucial mistakes, where you can SEE how you can win the battle in one fell swoop... but then you might also realize that it's risky and that your window of opportunity is closing fast! Act now and you MIGHT be able to decide the battle here and then - but if your men take too long to execute your orders, it might be too late. However if you DONT give the order the opportunity will pass for certain. There will also be battles where you KNOW you can win, if you stand and hold your ground a little longer, but you might be left without much of a fighting force afterwards. Some victories will be phyrric and mostly just to keep the Nation's Morale and Fighting Spirit high. Other times you are just trying to hold out long enough to retreat in good order under the cover of Night, well aware that anything else might spell disaster. EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention: The AI. The AI is both impressive (due to the sheer size, scope and scale of the game) and it's greatest achilles Heel. At times the AI will conduct vicious and agressive warfare against you, hounding you like a Dog and keeping you on your toes (more so if you play as the Confederates than as the Union due to the material and industrial superiority of the latter of course) and even in battle the enemy can be fairly competent and give you a hard time - although admittably I've rarely seen WELL coordinated, large scale, multi-pronged attacks. And sadly, more often than not the AI will sometimes range from negligent, mildly incompetent to borderline retarded. However I could never figure out wheter this was due to the stats and personalities of the respective generals in charge of those Armies and Corps or due to the AI in general. Often times the AI will be slow to respond to a changing situation, be sluggish at best, hesitant or almost unresponsive and at other times be rather blunt with a 'head through the wall' approach. And at other times do some SERIOUS blunders. However to anyone familiar with the History of the American Civil War, WILL KNOW that this is actually rather on point and there were plenty of blunders on both sides (though arguably way more early on done by the Union) and many high officers were not really cut out for leadership at all. In short: The game has a LOT of potential and when it works as intended it's damn Amazing! So while far from perfect and with a considerable price tag as it is right now (November 2024), I'd say the game is well worth is and most enjoyable! (my personal rating? 84%! Damn fine game!) I personally would say that if it was some 10-20 bucks cheaper I'd give it a glowing recommendation and would recommend it to all my friends. I certainly hope the developers will be encouraged and once they leave this project behind eventually they might embark on another great project or two - who knows? Maybe the Napoleonic Wars? Or the Franco Prussian War? There's definetly a lot of options and possibilities!

First off, the economy is TOTALLY broken. When you need the armies, you can't recruit, even if you have a million men. The credit rating from the second year of the war was CCC or CC+ at best. You need a B rating to recruit or build fleets. AI uses the rails, waterways and road networks to where one enemy army can continuously attack your multiple armies one after the other without loss. This is on very easy mode. Don't waste your money!!!

I REALLY wanted to like this game, but there are so many things wrong here: -For one major thing, the game feels...broken (for a lack of better term). Elite units get routed wayyy too easily, the battles are kinda lame because you have to go find the other army, and the perks don't seem to do anything. The battles are also glitchy and a little strange. -The game is fun to the extent of historical accuracy, but the game lags after an hour of play time. This is often a death sentence for me in games. -The game is mostly abandoned with little to no improvements to see thus far as I have played it the past 2 years. I really wanted to like this game, but as of right now, I just cannot give it a thumbs-up review.

Unplayable if you have somewhat bad eyesight. The fonts are too small to read anything, even with increased UI scaling. I wish it was different as this game seems fun.

It's a solid real-time tactics battle and campaign map strategy game but be willing to deal with some bugs and not the greatest AI. This might not appeal to you if you aren't already into the American Civil War. Buy it on sale if you are interested.

Could be great but the devs just don't want to fix anything and are on to a new game...

As much as I could (played 51 hours) I just could not get around the absolutely poor AI performance. I regularly had the northern armies loaded on rail move speedily around the map and then past my armies. The AI armies do not seem to be affected by all the limitations put on players especially readiness and recruiting. Massive armies (especially Union) armies pop up all over the place seemingly weeks after the war starts. The CS armies, meanwhile, are barely assembling and then crushed. Don't believe me . . . read the discussion boards. Unbelievably frustrating and (for me) ultimately not playable.