Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865)

This game has good concepts but has a horrible execution. Battles are janky, commanders hardly ever follow orders, when they do your soldiers respond 3 days later, half the features on the campaign map don't even work, and overall a super unenjoyable experience. 1/10.

STILL riddled with bugs, poor performance on high end system. Only buy if it's on sale.

I am plagued by Yankees.

I absolutely love this game, honestly I cannot recommend it enough and I love how it focuses and gives you total control over whichever side you choose. I heard some other reviews talk about bugs, but honestly I have never experienced any, so I'm not certain what they're on about. One of the things I like the most is the actual build up to the battles and then the battle itself, the careful movements and maneuvering here and there. Also, a big thing I like is being able to outfit my troops in different uniforms for each unit and giving them more "specialized equipment". All in all, I'd give this game a solid 9/10 if not a 10/10, far superior to any of the total war games I've play thus far.

cool game and they do everything well...EXCEPT the battles...which is like...the whole point of the game. the AI is god awful and just launch disorganized piecemeal attacks at fortified positions so the defender almost always wins and your units dont listen to your commands half the time. FIX THE AI. Edit: 41 hours and several years later, it still hasnt got any better. In fact if anything it is worse because now i have to reload the game every 15-20 minutes or my units/armies will freeze and not move anymore regardless of orders

I like the style and concept and I really wanted to like this but it is kinda trash, very counter-intuitive controls (and I'm not referring to the deliberately delayed commanding of units). I've found it to be very buggy too to the point where I see little point playing it. The most recent of which was "winning" a naval battle 13 times in a row, but after each "victory" my fleet would retreat to port and the enemy blockade would stay up. The last 3 times they had 0 ships left against my 12... I really wish I could refund but I spent too many hours trying to force myself to like it.

Possible great game here, just can't recommend in it's current state. Still needs polish.

On the face of it, the game is decent. It's got a rudimentary economy system, the usual unit management, and the AI isn't run by a block of cheese. But..... I've been playing strategy games (like Total War etc) for a three decades and I can't beat this game. Even on the easiest setting. Okay, so I've not got hundreds of hours invested in Grand Tactician, and I have only read brief guides, but if you want to play as Confederate in this game you are screwed. Whatever you do, the Union simply creates a gazillion soldiers. You can't do anything about it. Within six months, the game is finished. I've tried focusing on different tech tree routes, invading, not invading, creating one huge army, creating lots of armies, defending areas, attacking areas, blockading, not blockading, none of it matters. You just get steamrollered. Battle-wise, I'm fairly astute and can win from poor positions, it's just that when you are facing considerable Union odds (because....well.....that's how the game is set up) you hardly ever get to field an army that is anywhere near the size of the Union one you will face. And if you do, which does sometimes happen, they'll simply lie down and wait for you to expend your ammo. It's a game I wanted to like, and some YouTubers do make it look easy (although, I noticed, not many playing the Confederates) but even following their guides and play style brings obvious defeat within the first year. Example: Latest run through saw me with decent sized armies fairly quickly in Virginia. And no units were using mixed muskets. While those armies were being raised (as quickly as the game would allow - and following the tech tree which gives access to recruits), the Union simply walked in to Richmond and built a fort. I've been unable to ever build a fort in the game since day one. Anywhere. They then created two armies in Richmond totalling 50,000 men before my already mobilising armies nearby had reached their recruitment. I had more men over four armies though, totalling 60,000 men. Sent them to attack Richmond. One week later they lose. And the AI simply brings in another 30,000 army and then sends two more 30,000 armies into the west - where, because I was using my recruitment in the East, meant instant death. You can't beat an AI that easily fields twice or more manpower every single time.