ACW 1 or ACW 2?

[Quirk]

Hey all,

As Civil War II is on a sale at the moment, I thought about maybe buying it, although I do not have the time to play right now (besides Pride of Nations is still waiting on my list as well). So I wondered how does it compare to part one? Is it worth the buy, if I also own ACW? What aspects have been improved over the good predecessor? As I only play the single player campaign, my biggest issue would be the AI. Maybe someone can give me a short overview? That would be much appreciated

[Merlin]

Definitely worth the buy right now. If the ACW interests you at all, CW2 is the best possible representation out there and probably will be for a long time to come.

AACW is still a great game, but CW2 adds quite a bit to the mix, especially if you choose to play the April campaign.

[Captain_Orso]

The first thing you will notice it the map . It's big and beautiful. If you remember in AACW always skirting along the far western edge of the map to sneak into Fort Smith or on to Tuscon, now the map includes ALL of Texas, Eastern the New Mexico and Colorado with Denver, and goes north to the Canadian boarder and includes most of the Saint Lawrence River in the East, including Montreal and Quebec, for those exciting occasions of Foreign intervention. If you ever get a chance to play that, it's a whole new game.

Nearly all the rules are the same, so if you've played AACW you can really just jump in and play Civil War II. One thing you will notice is that when you buy units you can now select where they will be built within the constraints of their home states and some restrictions for building artillery and ironclads, etc. Never again will you have fat brigades building in secluded locations in the middle of winter with not enough supplies to support them during their training so that they starve before completion and hardly have a chance of moving them away before spring thaws.

Regional Decision Cards (RGD's) are a completely new aspect of the game. They allow for doing some minor actions, such as building stockades (small forts historically found in the Far West), improving the civilization level of a region (allows easier movement through it) clearing trails and even building some roads; things that can have an impact on the Far Western campaigns. You can even deploy torpedoes and the CSS Hunley! or detonated explosives under a besieged fortification to cause a breach

Great improvements have been made in the retreat rules. You will hardly ever see stacks retreat away from your own lines again, but it will also behoove you to maintain a path of retreat, otherwise your stack may not be able to retreat after battle at all; far more realistic than ever before.

New leaders--especially naval (on both sides)--and a hand full of new historical units add more flavor to the game, but 95% of the mix has remained in its old tried-and-true form so that balance has not been impacted.

So if you're interested in playing the Civil War in a game again, CW2 is definitely the way to do, especially if you're getting a Lovers of the Civil War Saint Valentine's Day discount

[Prussia]

During the Matrix Xmas sale I bought Gary Grigsby's War between the States (his games are a blind buy for me; been playing; beta-testing; modding; developing his games for years... but out of wargaming mostly for the last 5 years or so) and honestly I wanted to love it, but the lack of production left me flat- definitely not the BTR of the ACW. So I then bought Forge of Freedom, and mostly liked it, but some of its rough and ready aspects left me wanting so I bought CWII- the intractability of the FoF map is what bothered me most. This one is a keeper!!! Hands down. I like it so much and developing an appreciation for the Ageod system to such a degree I now want to buy Alea Acta Est. Already bought RUS during the sale as well.

Shame I had to buy 3 Civil War games to find the true gem- but that just enhances the appreciation of CWII all the more so.

Buy it you wont be disappointed.

Cheers.

[WallysWorld]

Thanks to this thread, I think I'll be buying ACW2 too. I have ACW and didn't think it was really worth it to buy the new version, but you posters have convinced me. Thanks!

[Quirk]

Thanks a lot all! Especially Orso for the in-depth description
How would you compare the AI of 1 to 2?

[Captain_Orso]

Athena--how we've lovingly call the game's artificial opponent, in other words, the AI--has not only improved from AACW to CW2, but has improved since the initial release of CW2. I don't expect her continued development to end here either.

That being said, there is nothing like the challenge and excitement of a human adversary. Everybody had their own ideas and strategies and above all a human player can will often come up with ideas to surprise you. Sometimes even bad ideas can workout successfully if you don't expect them , and they will most certainly keep you on your toes

[Brucemcl]

I own the first one and am sorely tempted to buy the second one and expansion as the CW is of great interest to me - have two areas been improved in the civil war 2?

In the first I found the supply line situation when entering enemy territory difficult to follow and mostly ended up cut off and then stomped. Is it more transparent this time around?

As an experiment I fought the same battle 10 times in a row in one of the tutorials by reloading the scenario and redoing it - It came out about 7 different ways even though the criteria was the same - and I had no real clue as to what I had done right or wrong as the results were all over the place. I then gave up in disgust as it seemed to be just random chance or dice throws.

Can I expect any better results from CW2?

[Taillebois]

I own the first one and am sorely tempted to buy the second one and expansion as the CW is of great interest to me - have two areas been improved in the civil war 2?

In the first I found the supply line situation when entering enemy territory difficult to follow and mostly ended up cut off and then stomped. Is it more transparent this time around?

As an experiment I fought the same battle 10 times in a row in one of the tutorials by reloading the scenario and redoing it - It came out about 7 different ways even though the criteria was the same - and I had no real clue as to what I had done right or wrong as the results were all over the place. I then gave up in disgust as it seemed to be just random chance or dice throws.

Can I expect any better results from CW2?

Probably not.

I've got just about all the AGEOD games, I love the look, think I should enjoy them, but can never make sense of the battle results.

[Gray Fox]

CW2 has a supply filter that you can apply to the map. This will display which regions have depots, gives a graphic display of the amount of GS/Ammo and a menu report of supplies going into and out of that region. Supplies don't move through enemy regions unless you have enough MC (IIRC 25% or more) and no enemy units are present.

Each time a battle is resolved, a number of rounds are fought. A random chance for each firing unit is worked out against each defending unit. Then the next round is fought and so on. Each round a unit may withdraw or rout. So, one dice roll does not determine the battle, and each time you replay the battle most likely different outcomes will evolve. You can check the battlelogs to see what is going on each replay.

[Brucemcl]

Aah Thank You Gray Fox - at least by looking at the supply filter I will have some idea of what my supply should be.

Still not too thrilled at the battle outcomes situation though.

Taillebois - don't mean to be presumptious but why did you buy all the Ageod games if you don't like the battle method either? As in why continue to buy them? Are there other redeeming features I am not aware of? I'm in the same boat as I also could not figure out forge of freedom satisfactorily.

Like you I love the period maps, and the concept and want to love the game but I am having trouble understanding the mechanics. And I don't need another expensive bookend.

[Gray Fox]

You're most welcome and welcome to the forum!

Forgive me for asking, but what kind of combat resolution system do you want? In CW2 you can just put any units together and give it a go or train units with discipline and experience that are well led and see the difference. AGEOD has a primer on how the combat is resolved.

http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Combat_Explained#Hitchances_in_the_Fire_Phase

[Brucemcl]

That is actually a very good question Gray Fox.

Well I found Sid Mieirs Gettysburg to be too much just throw everyone together and see what happens

I like the way Civil War Generals 2 did things because there I could understand what was happening.

And I do like Total War Rome and the way those battles are done

And I like the way Panzer General or now Panzer Corp does things

So by my own analysis of that I suppose I am crying that it is too complicated for my little mind and I want more cartoons rather than grand strategy.

As an objective and unbiased observer would that be something like your take too Gray Fox? I may actually have to man up and try reading the instruction manual.

[Gray Fox]

Well I never read instruction manuals, so I can't advise that. In Total War, I like that the cavalry will turn the enemy's flank in the nick of time because I control the cavalry. I understand the mechanics of Panzer General enough to get my boys to Moscow, then London and finally up to D.C. This game requires a deeper understanding of the finer details. After you fight an interesting battle, if you go to the CW2 folder and fish around you'll find a battlelog file that you can copy to your desktop. Then you can crop it and read over the important stuff. If you bang a closed box on your head and perceive a hollow sound, it may not mean that the box is empty.

So I try to find out what can be found out and share this with others who ask. Good luck with your decision about the game.

[Taillebois]

Aah Thank You Gray Fox - at least by looking at the supply filter I will have some idea of what my supply should be.

Still not too thrilled at the battle outcomes situation though.

Taillebois - don't mean to be presumptious but why did you buy all the Ageod games if you don't like the battle method either? As in why continue to buy them? Are there other redeeming features I am not aware of? I'm in the same boat as I also could not figure out forge of freedom satisfactorily.

Like you I love the period maps, and the concept and want to love the game but I am having trouble understanding the mechanics. And I don't need another expensive bookend.

Probably the same character flaws that makes me buy cameras and lenses thinking I will take better photos. But then at school I collected pens thinking my writing would improve, and slide rules so I could do fancy calculations.

On the other hand, aged about 16, I had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of tanks and armour penetration tables and hit probabilities from a (for the time) complicated tabletop wargame system devised by a Polish wargamer called Bish Iwaszko from the London Wargames club.


I actually like Sid Meier's Gettysburg but Forge of Freedom I didn't like (if only you could do just battles).

My attention span is like that of a butterfly now. In the last couple of hours I've fired up four different games, clicked around, and just accepted an invite to join some friends for a beer at the pub in a couple of hours so there's nothing more going to be achieved today.

[Brucemcl]

Yes I too have the buying disease and having complete collections is practically a fetish

In any case I bought the game and DLC and both appear to have installed and updated properly.

Now will come the hard part - and I suppose I will have to play the yankees to avoid even more challenges.

[charlesonmission]

I like the detailed map out west... really brings just how big the land is to light.

[Taillebois]

Do you recall that game where you had to remember where cards were to match pairs, if you didn't get a pair you placed them back face down but tried to remember where each one was?

Well I realise that is like trying to remember where my forces are in AGEOD games. I've just fired up ROP and trying to hunt down where my Austrian forces are is driving me potty. A "show all forces" button would be good. In fact what I would like is a show all forces; with number of troops on the face of the card (rather than the PWR figure) and a traffic light from green to red to roughly show their state. The music in ROP is quite nice though so I've left it playing that whilst I write this.

[Captain_Orso]

You can always pull up the strategic map with .... <F9> I think. It's much larger than the mini-map and much smaller than the smallest zoom-out view of the main-map. On the strategic map very large stacks have somewhat larger blips than small stacks. It's not exactly what you are looking for, but that doesn't actually exist.

I could list off a dozen thing I'd like to have--org-charts per theater, status lists (how many hits/elements missing from units in a theater), statistics about how much supply is being used were and how much is being moved there, an organization too which helps put divisions and corps together (even something like having tiles for each brigade that you can drag to a division box to plan what a division will look like and then list the units you can build to create that division - with the build time factored in to the longest building units are on top of the build-list,....

I could go on and on, but there's a snowball's chance in hell of getting such tools, unless somebody here is an absolute ace at JAVA™ programming and interested in working such a project...... .......a guy can dream I guess

[Taillebois]

Thanks Captain_Orso, F7 seems to bring it up on my system with CW2.

[DrPostman]

On the other hand, aged about 16, I had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of tanks and armour penetration tables and hit probabilities from a (for the time) complicated tabletop wargame system devised by a Polish wargamer called Bish Iwaszko from the London Wargames club.

Ah, all that trivia and those tidbits we learn as teenagers that end up so much
help 20, 30 or 40 years later as adults!

I feel ya!

BTW, I look at ACW as almost a simplified version of CW2. It's not THAT simple,
but by comparison it is. I've never had the urge to fire up ACW since I got involved
in CW2. CW2 became a passion and even after beta testing EAW I've come back to
this game with the same passion.