Mike Boeck - 09:19am Nov 26, 2001 PST (#3874 of 3885) "Rules? In a knife fight?" - Harvey Edited by me from a review (positive, surprise surprise...;-)) on Glenn's website. I'm not sure if this describes the simple or advanced game: The object of the game is to control major cities in opposing territory. The rebels need only occupy six northern cities to claim victory, while the Union must occupy every one of the southern cities. The game is played via monthly turns. Once per quarter, reinforcements are purchased using economic points. Economic points are based on cities controlled at the start of the game, and can be reduced if those cities are under enemy occupation. The cost of units reflects the various strengths of the opposing armies: it is less costly for the North to purchase naval and artillery units, while the South fares better at conscripting infantry and cavalry. There is a small chance each quarter that the European powers will intervene on the South's behalf. Major victories (battles with more than six units per side) will modify the odds one way or the other; major rebel victories increase the chance the Europeans will back the winning side. The map is divided into a series of regions. Regions regulate movement of armies. Infantry and artillery may move one region per month; leaders and cavalry two. Additionally, each city counts as a separate region for movement purposes, therefore an army must enter Eastern Virginia, for example, before it may enter Richmond. Some cities border on several regions (like Cincinnati) and offer multiple avenues of retreat if attacked. Other cities, like Washington, DC, are wholly within a region and troops within it have no place to retreat if necessary. The combat model is elegant and effective. Two kinds of battles may be fought: minor skirmishes where one or both sides contain less than six units, and major battles where both sides have at least six units. In a major battle, each side secretly deploys forces among four boxes: left flank, center, right flank and reserve. The object is not to completely annihilate the opposing army, but to break one of the flanks or the center. A middle ground (also considered left flank, center, and right flank) exists between the front lines of the two armies. Cavalry moves first, and may take two actions, for example, moving into the middle ground and firing at the adjacent enemy. Next up is artillery. Artillery may fire two spaces, but is devastating at close range. Artillery cannot fire over friendly units. Finally, infantry moves. It can only take one action (move or fire), and is the most vulnerable of the three units. Combat continues until either both sides pass on consecutive turns (refusing battle) or one of the three flanks is broken-all enemy units eliminated or routed. Minor battles dispense with the three-flank concept. Units may also charge the opposition, gaining an advantage when a leader is present. This can be an effective tactic when facing units that otherwise have more difficult to-hit numbers. The American Civil War does a fine job modeling the strategic issues of the war. Large armies provide the hammer with which to strike deep into enemy territory, the accumulation, support and maintenance of these armies are needed to combat similar tactics by the enemy. Cities, especially in the north, must be garrisoned to guard against quick raids by enemy cavalry (Washington D.C. counts as two victory points, so a quick seizure of five cities could win the game for the Confederacy). The frequency of major battles in our playtest game seemed about right; averaging once per quarter. As a serious gamer, I was captivated by the strategic challenges in The American Civil War. I also marveled at how quickly we (my opponent likewise had never played the game) were able to get a handle on the game with minimal instruction. Not only will The American Civil War be well-suited for Sunday afternoon sessions at the local gaming club, but it will make a great introduction to the wonderful world of wargaming for new and younger players alike. Michael Hayes wrote in message <9tvgct$ikn$1@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au>... >I was just wondering whether anybody has any info on the Eagle games range >of games. I was looking at their website (www.eaglegames.net) and the >games looked pretty good, in particular War! Age of Imperialism. I was >particulalry take with thier being three different strata of rules: basic, >standard and advanced. OK, since everybody keeps asking about these games, I went out and bought them. I will not play either until tomorrow at the earliest, but I can make a couple of comments about ACW: The map is ENORMOUS. It will barely fit on my table despite the fact that I've got two leaves in. It's very beautiful, but because of the decorative border, it's at least 6" X 6" bigger than it really needs to be for functionality. This is an area-movement game, but strangely enough the areas are based on political borders. (It might be argued that political borders arise from geographical ones, so maybe it's not so strange). The pieces are also huge: I'd say the cannons takes up at least 1.5 sq in of space. For this reason, it seems that the map is actually NOT BIG ENOUGH!!. Anything more than a couple pieces will spill over the borders. Included are some "army" markers so forces can be kept off map. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to tell which army is which except by remembering. I actually suspect that these "problems" will not be borne out during play. Players may tend to make just one or two major armies. My other complaint is that it seems it will be nearly impossible to tell the "Leader" pieces from the "Elite Cavalry" without close inspection. I may apply some paint. Overall, I'd say these are the nicest wargame pieces I've ever seen. The rulebook is well done, and the rules are pretty standard and straightforward. It's basically Civil War Axis and Allies. It might also be compared to the FFG Hexplay games in complexity. The difference is the battle resolution system. Instead of the standard "bucket of dice" method, there is a cool-looking system that almost seems like a microcosm of Battle Cry. It's pretty intriguing. There are also some interesting political options. There are advanced rules that can be added and a "basic game" for people who think Risk is complicated. I can't really comment on gameplay until I playgame. "BoulderG" wrote in message news: <20011128075507.04401.00003558@mb-fc.aol.com>... More than 1/3 of the map is wasted. almost all the action takes place on the left 1/3 of one mapboard and the right half of the adjoining mapboard. (there are three 15x36 mapboards). Unless you invade mexico by land there is no reason to move into texas which takes up a big hunk of board along with indian territory and plains that you can't enter. The only things used on the western most mapboard are european intervention and rail stock tables which could have been located in the atlantic with the naval rating table. So you get a huge mounted map that is nicely decorated but then have to crowd most of the plastic pieces into a very small part of that map. States are divided into sections like countries in "Axis & Allies" with the addition that major cities in those sections are also sections but since they are circles only about twice as big as holes in notebook paper it is hard to put two infantry in those sections let alone artillery and cavalry. You get four colorbearers that can represent the units in crowded sections but you need eight or ten and they need some kind of marker for the flag (corresponding to a matching army display on the board) and some of that wasted space on the map should have been used for army displays. Also, making some of the decoration smaller and putting the three tables mentioned above in the gulf and/or in the great lakes would have left plenty of room in the atlantic for a battle resolution board (the army displays could be at the top or bottom of the map near the players.) When i saw the "Rivers are decorative and serve no funtion in the game." in the basic rules i thought, "okay this is some simplistic crap" so i'll skip them all together and go on to the standard and advanced rules, but, unfortunately, that sentence is repeated there. One of the unique things about the america civil war was the importance of rivers, not just the mississippi where a major part of the war was fought (ever hear of vicksburg, new orleans!) but the tenn and the potomac and the james, played major parts in the acw. While there is nothing wrong with strategic movement being simple, the movement here is simplistic. Without going into detail let me just say, compare strategic movement in this game with the elegantly simple strategic movement in house divided. The combat resolution game is interesting and i think having a middle ground is very good. Units in each battle section (left, right, center) have to move into the middle ground and take fire in order to attack the enemy. The whole combat resolution system is clever and works well but can become tedious. While most of us like plastic infantry cavalry and artillery (and these are all very well done) the brown horses should have been tan so you can tell them from the black horses and unless eagle got a deal on red plastic that was a poor choice of color. Would i buy this game if i wasn't a game seller? Sure. I love strategic acw games and they are far and few between. I'm tickled pink about two big ones coming out at almost the same time (House Divided out next month). Also, even the suggested retail for this game is very reasonable for what you get and the fun part would be fixing it, making a mediocre game a great game. jim Boulder Games