AGEOD Forums

Having played some of Strategic Command: Civil War, I'm yearning for more. I'm on the fence on this one:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6548 ... _18611865/

Who can vouch for it -- or not? I'm not too much into tactical battles though.

I love the concept. I enjoy recruiting armies. I enjoy the fact that you don't have access to the best weapons early. Policy decisions, the economy (though it needs a lot of balancing), etc. I like all of that very much.

But my favorite Civil War game is the original AACW with the Struggle for a Vast Future 2.0 mod. It's quite good, and though the AI could use some work, it's very playable. Especially if you play against yourself!

I guess what turns many on to Grant Tactician is the fact that it has a campaign mode and a battle mode. It's the opposite for me. If I'm the President, I can't very well show up in Tennessee AND Virginia in the same week to command two battles. That's unrealistic, so I always use the "autoresolve" feature which I don't think it's fully functioning properly yet. I don't have any comments on the tactical engines because I've never played it.

The campaign AI needs a LOT of work as you might imagine. They made the leader system more complicated than it should be, and without going into too much detail, you seem to continually get stuck with no-names commanding AI armies while guys like Halleck and Lee are commanding brigades and artillery batteries.

Recently as the Union I fought what was basically the battle of Manassas first and second, in the span of a couple of weeks. I won the first, and then the South attacked again with another army. The AI will build a large number of smaller armies and keep hammering you with them. I eventually lost one of the autoresolved battles, and instead of my army retreating to DC, it retreated south to Fredericksburg! There are no regions or hexes in the game, so no zones of control, so armies kind of retreat anywhere they want.

They've done a great job with the game, especially considering it's a one-man crew. Their old game, the Seven Years War, was also a great concept, but it was abandoned a bit early as he decided to focus on the Civil War game. But it needs a TON of balancing and AI improvements.

My take is that the more "stuff" you add to the game, the more features you add, the more types of units, the more leaders, the more options, etc., the harder it is on the AI. This game has a lot of stuff like that, and personally I don't see them ever getting the campaign AI up to snuff to satisfy me. I say that as a long-time player of AGEOD games.

That said, I like the concept of it so much that I keep going back and trying a new game with each patch...only to get frustrated by the end of the summer of 1861 each and every time and ending the save. I hope they can eventually get the AI good enough, because if they do it will be an epic game. But right now it needs a lot of work, and considering there is so much "stuff" that the AI has to do in the game, it will be difficult. Hopefully some skilled modders start working with that part of it.

Ok, so in a nutshell, the AI is still 'not where we want it to be'? Perhaps I should wait...
Thanks for the detailed reports in any case.

Pocus wrote:Ok, so in a nutshell, the AI is still 'not where we want it to be'? Perhaps I should wait...
Thanks for the detailed reports in any case.

Yeah, I'd say that's accurate. It's gotten better I think with the new patch, but still not where it needs to be IMO.

I played it some. The AI isn’t perfect. CivilWar2 never had great AI so…….The tactical battles can be engaging. An experienced player will start to see shortcomings but they are still developing it. The economy aspect is pretty in depth. It still has some bugs. I think its worth buying and playing. The tactical maps are very detailed and any Civil War buff will enjoy it for many hours.

ok thanks!

StatboyVT wrote: Hopefully some skilled modders start working with that part of it.

As an update to this, a pretty major overhaul mod has been released that I feel improves the game quite a bit. It's called the AOM mod, I believe, and it's available in the Steam forum for Grand Tactician. It's getting regular updates, too, sometimes more than one per day.

Right now it has added leaders, portraits, changed up the range of weapons (for the better, IMO), and addressed some balance issues. Hopefully at some point they can perhaps do some things for the campaign AI. Some improvements have been made. For example, in the latest patch the Confederate AI raids deep into Northern territory (even all the way to Wisconsin) have been toned down quite a bit. In fact, I haven't seen any on the game I started last night. That was a major issue before the latest patch. However, the AI still has a tendency to take the army in Manassas and immediately rail it to Grafton to fight McClellan and his 7,000 troops. Meanwhile, the army in the valley (13k troops) moves to Manassas to replace them, and they are easily routed by McDowell and his 30,000+ troops.

Things like that need to be improved upon, but overall the 1.08 patch and the new mod have made the game a lot more playable than it was a month ago, IMO.

It is intresting, but I think it tries to do too much. It could be a great strategic level game, or a great tactical level game...but it seems to be struggling to be both at once. There is a reason that I keep coming back to ACWII.

I bought it and have been somehow disappointed in the end. It's as you say Pgr, both parts (strategic and tactical) deserve more attention, more polish. The AI in the strategic part is also very abusable.

Pocus wrote:I bought it and have been somehow disappointed in the end. It's as you say Pgr, both parts (strategic and tactical) deserve more attention, more polish. The AI in the strategic part is also very abusable.

It certainly doesn't solve all the issues, but the AOM mod (on the mod forum on Steam) makes the game a ton better, especially the tactical battles. Just a much better overall experience. And it's being updated regularly.

ok, I might try it. Thanks!