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This is an independent game. I don't expect it to be the game for everyone, but anyone who likes the civil war or musket age tactics in general or who enjoy history and realism will like it.

For anyone who loves the American Civil War history, this is the best tactical simulator there has been so far. The game is focused on combat and tactics, as well as strategic battlefield maneuvering. There is no abstract campaign level, though he plans to do that eventually I'd say it's a long eventually, and I bet the community will come up with their own campaign game before then.. Plenty more can be done with this game before that.

As a ACW tactical simulator it is excellent. Multiplayer is where it's at. I've been involved in a bunch of 10 player MP games. There isn't a limit to how many players can be in a given game, though there is a vague practical limit because of the chance of one of the many players having problems.

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Looks nice, what's wrong with the sound effects?

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Ar those cell shaded graphics? And how come it's so small? The file size I mean....

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Didn't realise this was out yet! Brilliant news! TC2M goes down as one of my favourite games of all time and given that several of the Devs of that came together on this, this is bound to be promising.

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I don't think the volumes are syncronized right yet, and some of them sound like you're in a cave. But again that's not an issue in the long run.

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How does this compare to Side Meier's Gettysburg? That's the only ACW game I've ever played, but it was great.

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First thing you would notice is the scale. Instead of each figure representing, was it 50? in SMG, this game has each figure representing 4. So in a 400 man regiment you have 100 figures in line. This is simply because SMG was made a long time ago when computers couldn't do the same things as they can now. ;)

Obviously the graphics are much better in every respect.

There are lot of interesting formations and maneuvers. When a column deploys into line of battle, they break into sections and the sections run up to the line. You can order your battle line to move on the right or left flank, or do an oblique march, which is very useful when shuffling lines into place to keep a solid front. The maneuvers are historically accurate and realistic.

The AI is certainly better than SMG, at least from what I can recall. The creator of this game (and its prequels) went to great lengths to make an interesting, unpredictable AI.

The multiplayer is larger scale. It allows up to 32 players in multiplayer, each player has a commander and controls everything under that commander. The private or team chat in the game is restricted to courier messages, there is an elaborate system for putting together courier messages and sending them out, they are actually delivered by horsemen and can be intercepted. The historical flavour of the courier aspect is great.

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From the screens, seems some Union units got their regimental flags in there *wish ETW had that* but it appears the Confederates didn't get the same treatment. I might d/l and give it whirl later.

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Played the demo and the game seemed promising. You could command a brigade in the demo and it involved quite much micromanaging as the brigade in whole took orders quite poorly. So i had to line the regiments by hand constantly. Overall it looks great and there are quite many commanding options and the game takes many things in consideration. I might have to buy this one.

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I'm presuming that when playing, it's a lot more fluid and the graphics are a lot better than they appear in the screenshots. Is this true?

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That was certainly the case with TC2M. Haven't had a chance to play through this yet, but I suspect it is the case here as well. That said this game was never meant to be as pretty as something like ETW, it is for a true Armchair General.

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Is true. But like CA says its not really focused on eye candy. I think you guys should try the demo.

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Screenshots can't be "fluid" because they are still images. :p
The screenshots are jpg so they're not perfect quality, but other than the compression that's how it looks.

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I played the same battle twice. The first time I scored a big victory, the second time the battle changed completely, I was out flanked, fell back, then clawed my way back to where I was thanks to some support by AI units. I lost by -28 points.

I was expecting a repeat of my first battle, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the game took a totally different course.

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Ive played several already and the AI seems promising. in my last battle Confederate Davis brigade marched between mine and rest of our division, before i could join up it. I thought to strike at the back of the Davis brigade, but once i lined for attack. Archers brigade emerged from the forest left from me and rolled my line. In the end i was able to withdraw to the stony hill and managed to fend off Archer, but still it was very hard fought battle.

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I purchased the whole game registration code online and i have to say that im happy doing so. I still have some problems using artillery directly as the battery and direct gun control seem bit unresponsive, but i love commanding on Division and Corps level. When i give an written order to Brigade to attack for example. The brigade commander actually attacks. Ofcourse not necessarily the way i would have done it.But still this game is getting lot more close to reality, with written orders that come in with delay.There is still also option to give direct orders to regiments, but when for example commanding a Corps, with different divisions fighting on different parts of the battlefield, micromanaging becomes futile. Hopefully in future updates there will be many new scenarios for the game.I approve this game.

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I must tip my hat to you guys, I performed very poorly. I found the tutorial to be very vague. In my situation it provided no information. Took me forever to just learn how to move my troops around. The first engagement went well, then I got reinforcements and the enemy set up but I couldn't figure out how to get messages to the artillary behind the confederate lines to get them to fire. Though I do agree the game was fun and has oodles of potential. Does the full game come with more detailed instructions or is it still a trial and error affair?

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In the full game there are more tutorials.Starting from regiment command and ending to Corps command. Sending messages isnt that tricky. There are just so many command options that it might escape the eye. In the bottom right you have three kinds of different set of orders.Orders for moving,orders for fighting and last general orders. From there you can find an option send message and then you can send information to any commander on the battlefield.

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Interesting...this game seems like a worthwhile investment...must save pennies!

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If anyone got this and is interested in multiplayer, let me know and I will get you involved. We play big ~10 player games regularly and it's a lot of fun.

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