Quote Originally Posted by econ21 View Post
The trailer is interesting - less hilarious than the earlier "samurai swordmaking vs gatling gun specs" trailer, but more informative.

It did make me wonder again about the possibility of an "American Civil War: Total War" as the next game. In someways it would be like making Napoleon after Empire: similar tech (rifles, gatling guns, gunboats etc), but a more focussed, military-oriented and historical campaign. I think it could work but would be best if CA put a lot of resources into it to capture the period detail and flavour rather than made it generic.

When STW first came out, there was a rather similar game called "Civil War" that was rather similar to TW in having a strategic layer and real time battles. Sadly, the game was broken (as was the successor Napoleon 1813 by the same designer) but it convinced me that the conflict did lend itself to the TW model. The "economic" side of the game was present in the war (small initial forces gradually built up into world-leading mass mobilisations); there's a lively if asymmetric naval aspect (sea blockade and riverine ops); there's a large map with distinct theatres (east, west, trans-missippi) and also quite a lot of technological development (from muskets to gatlings).
While some of that would be cool, it seems only having two sides would limit it a lot. I suppose solutions for that might have each state as an independent faction which could align or not align with the Union, Confederacy, or be neutral. Another solution might include Britain, France, Mexico, Russia, and maybe some Amerindian tribes. I remember reading about France and Britain thinking of getting involved on the side of the Confederacy. Also, I saw something about the Russians actually sending ships to New York harbor in hopes of showing support for the Union. And then, in the later years of the war, France invaded Mexico so that could get them involved.