This is the place where gameplayers send reviews and if they meet our criteria (intelligent and objective) we publish them!
published by Sierra /Reviewed by Jim Potts
SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
Pentium 200MMX, 32MB SDRAM, 4 MB Diamond Stealth, Creative Labs AWE64
GAME OVERVIEW
I never played Civil War, Robert E. Lee, the forerunner to Civil War Generals 2 (CWG2). Apparently that's not a bad thing, according to some I have spoken with. Regardless, CWG2 is a brand new game, not requiring ownership or experience of its "predecessor". It casts the player in the role of leader of either the Union or Confederate army, and consists of numerous stand-alone scenarios, as well as an overwhelming abundance of campaigns. Game scale ranges from regimental to brigade level combat, with your subordinate leaders being either divisional or corp level commands respectively. Each leader is rated for various attributes such as organization, loyalty... Day turns are 1/2 hour; dusk and dawn turns are an hour, and a couple of 3 hour turns between dusk and dawn. No combat can occur at night, and movement at night, while possible, is extremely fatiguing for units so involved. Hexes are approximately 200 yards, and the hexside outlines can be toggled off, if you wish. Campaigns vary in length, from a relatively short "Bull Run" campaign, right up to the monstrous full "Civil War", which is described within the game as "the big one". The system requirements are not onerous: If you have a 486/66 with 16 mb RAM, a 2 spin CDROM and a mouse, you're off to the front !
Fairly standard 640 x 480 stuff, but the color palette is pleasing and the maps, while not totally accurate in a historical sense, are well laid out. Relative terrain elevation is a bit tough to make out sometimes, especially when "zoomed in". However, a hotkey allows toggling of the numeric values for elevation, which helps immensely. The cinematic sequences are quite good and add to the game. On my system, they run in a decently sized window, and run smoothly. The cinematic sequences which occur after combat are good, and in my estimation quite essential to the flow of the game, as they sequences actually impart information about what happened during the combat, and in what order things happened.
Sound is very good. The booming of heavy cannons, and the higher pitched "crack" of light, horse-drawn artillery along with a myriad of other sounds really enhanced my enjoyment of the game. There is an excellent selection of civil war music, both Union and Confederate, and while music is not something I ordinarily leave on for long in a game, the mix here is not bad at all.
Very credible game play can be obtained from the AI. While it hasn't (at least so far) done anything absolutely brilliant, neither has it done anything even marginally stupid. I find that the AI retreats battered units at about the point that a competent human player would, integrates artillery action with infantry action quite well, and prioritizes targets and objectives very well. I have been playing wargames for a very long time, and have attained a reasonable level of competence at same. The first time I played the "Blackburn Ford" scenario (me as the Union), the AI handed me my head ! Of course historically this battle did result in a Union rout, but I had hoped that my hindsight of the errors made by the Federal forces during this very small engagement would be of some help. Hah ! The AI handles defense very well, utilizing terrain and LOS/LOF wherever possible, to good advantage. Keeping subordinate units close to their leaders is important in this game, and the AI doesn't overlook this. Almost invariably, the AI does an excellent job of sighting its artillery, placing its batteries on high ground, back from the forward defensive line. On the offense, the AI is not quite as strong, but still does a reasonably good job (flashback to reviewer receiving his head from the AI). If to be faulted at all, the AI occasionally carried on attacking a bit longer than I would consider prudent, sometimes running its units' morale ratings dangerously low---however, in most instances where this occurred, my own units were equally demoralized and incapable of taking advantage of the situation. All in all, one of the best examples of AI programming which I've yet to experience!
GAMEPLAY CWG2 is a turn-based, operational level wargame. You head either the Union or Confederate army, and depending upon the scenario, may find yourself pushing around regiments or brigades. Each turn represents a half hour of realtime, with evening turns being longer spans of real time, as previously mentioned. In a stand-alone scenario, your objectives will be to (a) inflict losses upon the enemy, (b) inhibit the enemy's ability to do the same to you, and (c) capture very easily identifiable victory hexes---all of which combine to give you victory points. In a campaign game, you will have the same objectives, but also between each scenario of a campaign you will, if affordable, want to upgrade your better units' weaponry. Leaders can be relieved of their command, re-assigned, etc. One nice touch is when you relieve, say, a corps commander, you don't know, until the next battle, how good the new guy will be. Certain terrain, such as forest inhibits movement, and also may enhance your defense. Streams can be crossed at any point, rivers only at bridges or fjords. Fjords are usually known in advance, but in some scenarios there will also be hidden ones, which you will hopefully find before the enemy does. Terrain also affects your line of sight and line of fire, unless you toggle those options off. In a typical game turn, you will send your cavalry units out to scout for the enemy (they have the range and superior sighting range), while moving your infantry, artillery and HQ units cautiously towards your objective (or, in some scenarios, digging them in while waiting for the enemy onslaught). Playing with the hidden units (fog of war) toggled off ruins the game, in my opinion. Half of the fun of this game is stumbling around blindly until you either find the enemy, or he finds you. I recently played a hot seat game with a friend, and we spent half the night searching for each other---not as boring as it sounds, because our scouting units kept bumping into each other, and that in itself led to some small battles. Finally, we got to the point where the main bodies of each army connected, and the battle lines were formed. Great fun !
If you want a challenging, enjoyable, and dare I say it: educational game, this is it. Not only is there a great game here, but the supplementary "history" which comes with the game is almost worth the price on its own. The research put into this games development is obvious, and the purchaser reaps the rewards. In my corner of Canada, I paid $59.00 for the game, which is about, what?----a buck and half in US dollars? Actually, I don't know the US price, but would guess it to be about $40 or $50. I can assure you that I have paid far more than that for games which turned out to be utter garbage (no names mentioned, Great Naval Battles---oops !) With CWG2, I believe that I have a game which will still be on my hardrive next year, and that's all too rare these days.
FINAL SCORE: 10
(I know, the graphics score would suggest otherwise, but this game is, to me, perfect !)
Send comments to gamers@gamepad.org