Grand Tactician: The Civil War – an early look
I think my interested in the US civil war was started by the movie Gettysburg. There was just something about the thousands of men marching, firing muskets and charging on that seemed sort of epic.
The first time I got to play out these battles was with Sid Meier’s Gettysburg, followed by Sid Meiers Antietam, and the ton of mods (back then just scenarios) that changed the game completely. Later on, Ultimate General: Gettysburg and Ultimate General: Civil War allowed the same. There are a ton of other games too that have you manoeuvring brigades and regiments, and a handful that allow you to fight out the war in the grand scale (Blue and Gray being a classic, as is North & South)…but none of them quite combine the two in a satisfactory way.
Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) is something that is rumoured to finally do this.
A definitive American Civil War game
The game seeks to combine grand-strategy with tactical battles, whilst also giving you access to the political and economical aspects of the conflict. You get to both raise your armies and fight battles with them.
Obviously, this is not something that is easily done, but so far things look quite promising. The title is in early-access, with development going forwards fast.
What is it that they are promising you then? Here are a few highlights:
- Side as either the Federals or the Rebels from start to end of war.
- Run the political game, and risk European intervention.
- Both land and sea action, from battle to blockades.
- Manage morale and fatigue, funds and purchases.
- Keep the supply lines running, build and destroy railroads.
- Fight multi-day battles on historical battlegrounds as part of the grand campaign.
- Command the massive armies raised during the war.
- Appoint hundreds of historical commanders to their posts.
- Enjoy a bit of live-reenactment footage to up the mood.
Those massive civil war battles
Not gonna lie, this is what most piqued our interest. There’s plenty of grand strategy to go around, but very few games that allow the big picture to be merged with the smaller one.
So far, what we can tell from the videos and screenshots, this game allows you to arrange your order of battle as you see fit. You can then enter the battlefield, and command your batteries and brigades on vast battlefields.
The developers haven’t gone with artificial attack and defence values. Instead, the forces present come with a count of men, different guns, ammunition, cohesion and training taken into count.
It’s up to you how and where you position your units, to charge or to hold, to pursue victory or to secure ground. It’s all quite promising…but we can’t tell you how it all really works out until we get our hands on the game for a full-on Grand Tactician early access review!
