[Elias Nordling]

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Dave Kershaw have designed a number of small, simple solitaire games on various topics, of which The American Civil War is the latest (though as it is copyright 2007, it isn't exactly new). Other games cover Vietnam, Imperial Rome and the East Front in World War II. They could all be had for a song from www.wargamedownloads.com. ACW Solitaire is a print and play download, you have to print out the components and assemble the game yourself.

The strategic decisions are plain to see for the player. He wins by reducing the Confederate production rate to zero. The Confederates receive one union for controlling either Richmond or Atlanta, one for controlling a Mississippi crossing, one if they roll higher than the number of Union-controlled confederate ports, and one for rolling higher than the number of Union ships on blockade duty. So, the task is to build a fleet to blockade the Confederates and to land troops along the coast, and conquer the Mississippi, Atlanta and Richmond. The player can lose if he takes too long in getting it done, or if the Confederates control a certain number of union spaces.

The system here is fairly traditional. The Union builds units, moves and fights combats, the Confederates build units, move and fight combats, and you roll a die to see what happens in Indian country. As the Union player, you can move one area into enemy territory, or two in friendly territory, unless you move by gunboat or naval invasion. You can only build new units in friendly territory, so armies tend to pause to allow reinforcements to catch up frequently. Combat is resolved on a table with modifiers for odds, generals, forts and Indians. It is usually bloody with losses for both sides.

The classical problem of the quality of Union generals is handled quite simply. The union can build new generals, drawn at random, and can sack one general per turn. Unless unlucky, the good ones will come up faster than historical, but spending build points to get better generals is probably not a priority right from the start.

The Confederate artificial intelligence is run by a few simple tables and die-rolls. For each production point, you roll to see if an army is built and if it goes to the field armies or to regional defense, or perhaps a fort or gunboat is built. Only troops under Generals move, and a die-roll is made comparing to their rating to see if they try to attack the nearest Union controlled space. If there are several possible spaces, you always determine by die-roll where the army goes, so there are no discretionary choices for the player to make.

There is no limited intelligence in the game. It is entirely possible to play the game as a two-player game, but be prepared for a tougher fight. The AI actually does a pretty good job at showing how the Confederates diluted their resources by trying to defend everything at once. I do find the Confederate generals a bit over-aggressive, though, especially in the west.

The indian front is pretty random and can mostly be ignored, as can the Trans-Mississippi theater for that matter, the war isn't going to be settled there unless you start losing union territories in the region. Still, it is in the game, works fairly well and doesn't slow down the game much. Optional rules allow you to abstract the Indians out.

The designer's notes state that you will probably win this game most of the time. As a high score mechanism, you check your level of victory by comparing with the number of turns it took you. In my experience you will probably score better than historical most of the time. This is not so much because of any faults in the simulation as because, unlike the historical Union player that had to fumble around for a couple of years, you know exactly what it takes to win. The game does nothing to compensate for this hindsight.

The game doesn't exactly play quick-fix-fast, but it moves along nicely, and both the events on the board and the player decisions feel about right. There are a few rough edges in the rules, especially for how exactly the Mississippi gunboat fighting works, but let's face it, you're not going to argue rules interpretations with your opponent.

I definitely liked the game, but I didn't get the "just one more try"-feel after finishing it, so it will probably come back to my table less frequently. There is no ground-breaking cleverness in the game mechanics, but I do think it does an admirable job at showing what the American Civil War was about at the strategic scale with surprisingly simple means. I would recommend it both to people that are into the ACW and those who knows next to nothing about it and want to learn a little.

Betyg: En svag fyra av fem.

[Fredrik H]

En mycket bra recension, som alltid.
 Jag har emellertid lite svårt att förstå hur man som designer väljer att använda sig av en så oerhört trist grafik. Jag, som verkligen inte är något IT-geni, klarar av att göra roligare brickor och karta än det här.  Är det inte ett märkligt val?

 

[Elias Nordling]

Jag hade inte klarat bättre. Designern skriver att han använt public domain-grafik.