From: M Mills <M.J.Mills@ITD.MAFF.GOV.UK>
Subject:      Re: ACW on the Computer

>
>Other people like Road From Sumter to Appomattox.  See below.
>
>ROAD FROM SUMTER TO APPOMATTOX II is a really nice game. This is a really
>in depth game with alot of playability. It reminds me of Civililzation.
>(Oh, is it 2am, I need to go to work.) I have literally have lost hours
>playing RFSTA. To be honest, outside of the first bug, I have never seen
>the other bugs listed.
>

I must second the recommendation for RFSTA II; while I haven't played
any other ACW computer games, this is one of my overall favourites and
I was spending a lot of time with it earlier in the year until my PC
started playing up.

As Bill says, the manual is not too good, and indeed I was unable to
work out some features of the interface until I spoke to the designer - the
level of support from him does seem to be very good.

Although the exact details are a bit hazy now, several months after I
last had a chance to play it, some of the things I liked about it were :

Although you can give orders to each of your units, you can't rely
on them being carried out exactly as intended - generals may decide
to stay put, move only a portion of the route ordered, or in some
circumstances move somewhere completely different.
Which links to another nice feature, that when battle is joined, there
is a chance that any units within a certain distance will march towards
sound of guns and join in.  What I can't remember in both cases is
whether, and if so to what extent, this is influenced by the leaders'
ratings.
Leaders are rated and given a rank the size of the unit they can command
depends on their rank.  They can be promoted and demoted, but this
can cause problems (my memory faulty again on the nature of such
problems) if a change in rank isn't justified by the officer's record.

I found the AI to be acceptable (but no more) at the strategic level.
As Bill said, battle resolution can be carried out in any of 3 ways.
I don't do miniatures, so never tried that.  The detailed tactical
system was the most fun, but for large battles could take quite
a while and the AI here was not so good - once I'd worked out
the system was able to win far more often than was reasonable.
The quick resolution system was quick, and seemed generally
OK, though this was where I came across the only bug I found (a
very minor one).

Definitely worth looking into, if you're thinking of an ACW purchase.
And I'd be interested in any more comments on the new
Battlegound:Gettysburg game.

Thanks
Martin

*********************************
Martin Mills
m.j.mills@itd.maff.gov.uk
*********************************