Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865)

If you're a Civil War buff, I can't recommend this game enough. It's very well made and the Whisky and Lemons DLC I think is a must. I kind of wish that functionality was in the base game without it being a separate DLC though. That minor gripe aside, this game is incredible and I can't recommend it enough.

Good Game.

Very ambitious, has SOVL

Ich hatte mich lange gesträubt das Spiel zu kaufen, weil es nicht auf deutsch erhältlich ist. Die bedenken waren aber unbegründet. Die wichtigsten Meldungen wiederholen sich stets und das gröbste hat man recht bald verstanden. Das Spiel selbst ist schön gestaltet. Durch das Rekrutierungssystem, die Wirtschaft und die Forschung muß man als "gestählter" Strategiefan am Anfang doch etwas umdenken. Alles vertraut und doch auf eine interessante Art anders. Am besten lernt man das Spiel durchs spielen. Die erste Runde auf ganz einfach mußte ich abbrechen, weil ich mich komplett verrannt hatte. Nach etwas ausprobieren konnte ich meine erste Kampagne dann recht schnell gewinnen. Wer Lust auf was etwas anderes hat sollte hier zugreifen und sich von der englischen Version nicht abschrecken lassen. Einen kleinen Bug hatte ich - eine feindliche Einheit ist während der Schlacht eingefroren und meine Regimenter haben sich dann im Nahkampf daran aufgerieben. Das ist aber nur in einer von 40 Schlachten geschehen.

You need to spend several hours just learning to play but the game has bugs so you'll never know why somethign doesn't work. The Tutorial itself takes a cvouple hours, but it has bugs too! so there'll be parts of the gaem you just have to figure out! The game is suppose to be complex but complexe games need to be fine tuned, this is the opposite of that. its a mess.

Battles are a more complex version of Empire Total War (think more formations, unit commands, more complex army organization, and terrain to deal with), although it can be quite buggy and counter-intuitive at time. Army manage is complex but in a fun way for those who like to micromanage. Each unit has a commander with stats that impact their performance. They also have a readiness and supply value that determines how much ammo they have and combat performance. Each unit also takes a different type of equipment you can unlock via research/investment. There are quite a few different weapons in the game each with their own stats that provide them with different specializations. However, ultimately, there are weapons that are just outright better than others but are more difficult to produce, making place holders equally important. The economy mainly revolves fueling the army in this game. Your army runs on food, ammo, and "supply". Without it, your armies will face attrition, movement penalties on the world map, and severe combat penalties. Additionally, your armies will not march into enemy territories unless they have sufficient readiness, which relies on supply. There is also a large quantity buildings that the game's economy revolves around. While you can invest in additional industries/buildings, the bulk of your economy will revolve around existing buildings. It is essential to protect them for yourself take from your enemies. These buildings produce resources for three purposes. The first are raw materials used by production building to make complex goods. From there, complex goods can either go to supply your armies or trade for money to stimulate your credit rating. Credit rating is important because you cannot recruit troops without a high enough score. Your credit rating is essentially based on your debt, revenue vs expenses, and research bonuses. Thus, while the game revolves ultimately around supplying armies and winning battles, maintaining your economy is essential to do that. Letting your enemy build up their economy or tank yours will result in them snowballing militarily. The final and most interesting aspect of the game is the "research". "Research" is actually done through three entirely separate mechanics. The first is subsidizing, which you do by investing a capped amount of money into one of six investment pools (policy, economy, industry, agriculture, military, and diplomacy) every year. The amount you can invest is dependent on the second mechanic, policies. Policies is a straight up research tab that lets you research/ pass different acts/laws. The more basic of these are Economy/Industry/Agriculture/Military/Diplomacy level 1-5, with each level allowing you subsidize the previously discuss investment pools more each year. However, policies can also enact draft laws, banking acts, and other things that are essential for various aspects of the game. The last and most important mechanic is projects. Projects let your spend your investment pools on projects of the six types. These projects can unlock new types of weapons you can import/produce, simply provide bonuses to income/credit rating/ industries, or provide organization improvements to units/armies. I kinda wished there was more to the economy and maybe there is that I haven't been paying attention to. However, the grand strategy mode is very fun, and the career mode is pretty neat although infuriating working with the dumbass AI (historically accurate I'm sure). The game is both fun and monotonous at times. Making me want to step away after a big battle or two even though I want to manage my economy or projects more. Despite that, I find the game extremely fun even with some of the more tedious flaws. Stepping away only to jump right back in a couple hours later.

fix the bloody brackets when CO's are auto selected.. its driving me nuts! youve had long enough! thanks