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I must tip my hat to the creators of AACW.

I don’t think I have ever put so much effort into trying to learn and master a game ever in my life. I have read the manual from cover to cover. I have read darn near every strategy post in this forum. I have read the AAR’s and even STUDIED them. I have read one book of the Civil War, am reading another one and even broke out the three volume set by Shelby Foote.

I have played several of the scenarios and finally managed to win one. I have started the full war scenario about (seriously) 20 times. I have started many and failed each one. I would lose the war for various reasons: I wouldn’t plan ahead; I would make decisions that were either stupid or not thought out (I really understand “political decisions” and their “timing,” now); I would appoint whom I wanted, when I wanted and pay dearly. Most recently, I boldly reached for Richmond in mid-1863 with the Army of the Potomac, and lost Washington within a month.

I have usually been completely out of my depth. I have run the gamut of emotions, from frustration, anger, despair, denial and then acceptance. I have walked away from this game, regretting that I paid for it, and then returned, determined to win it. I have realized that Lincoln and his (successful) generals were mortal men of true superhuman ability. I have a newfound respect for Burnside and others who tried, but realized that they were not up to the task, as well as a newfound distain for McClellan, Fremont and men of their ilk who believed themselves to be greater than they were.

Because of all of this, I play this game with anticipation, thought and genuine fun. I enjoy the give and take. I like thinking out my moves and developing my strategy. I love the aspect of husbanding my generals, nurturing some and banishing others. I have become invested in playing this game and finishing it. I can honestly say that I have never, NEVER played a game with such depth and scale in my life (and I am 45 years old)!

I want to give my highest compliment to AGEOD for their game. Your game is absolutely PERFECT. I look forward to playing it for a very long time. Thank you.

Rob

Thank you

Mr. Thibaut,
I meant every word of it.
Rob

Deserved praise Phil. As I've mentioned time and time again...this is a not only a game...to me or to many others. It's an experience and a tool for helping fuel interest in the period again, among those who play it.

Just through playing this game....I've learned more about the Civil War (A conflict which I have studied since I was a little boy) than ever before.

I try other games...and I always come back to AACW. Like a really hot ex-girlfriend . Thanks guys.

deleted

husky1943 wrote:I must tip my hat to the creators of AACW.

I don’t think I have ever put so much effort into trying to learn and master a game ever in my life. I have read the manual from cover to cover. I have read darn near every strategy post in this forum. I have read the AAR’s and even STUDIED them. I have read one book of the Civil War, am reading another one and even broke out the three volume set by Shelby Foote.

I have played several of the scenarios and finally managed to win one. I have started the full war scenario about (seriously) 20 times. I have started many and failed each one. I would lose the war for various reasons: I wouldn’t plan ahead; I would make decisions that were either stupid or not thought out (I really understand “political decisions” and their “timing,” now); I would appoint whom I wanted, when I wanted and pay dearly. Most recently, I boldly reached for Richmond in mid-1863 with the Army of the Potomac, and lost Washington within a month.

I have usually been completely out of my depth. I have run the gamut of emotions, from frustration, anger, despair, denial and then acceptance. I have walked away from this game, regretting that I paid for it, and then returned, determined to win it. I have realized that Lincoln and his (successful) generals were mortal men of true superhuman ability. I have a newfound respect for Burnside and others who tried, but realized that they were not up to the task, as well as a newfound distain for McClellan, Fremont and men of their ilk who believed themselves to be greater than they were.

Because of all of this, I play this game with anticipation, thought and genuine fun. I enjoy the give and take. I like thinking out my moves and developing my strategy. I love the aspect of husbanding my generals, nurturing some and banishing others. I have become invested in playing this game and finishing it. I can honestly say that I have never, NEVER played a game with such depth and scale in my life (and I am 45 years old)!

I want to give my highest compliment to AGEOD for their game. Your game is absolutely PERFECT. I look forward to playing it for a very long time. Thank you.

Rob

It is nice to know there is someone else out there in the same boat I am. There are lots of things that keep me from being able to play this game well. Lots of information but not handled as well as I would like it. The map may be period but after about 2-3 hours I have to take a break and now after several months of being away from the the game the new patch makes it a whole new thing (SIGH) These things don't make it a bad game gut just hard for me to play but play I will!

Madgamer

Very nice game. You have done a precious work in the History of videogames :-)

Hi Huskey1943,enjoy the Shelby Foote 3 volumes.They compliment this game perfectly.

+++

husky1943 wrote:I must tip my hat to the creators of AACW.

I don’t think I have ever put so much effort into trying to learn and master a game ever in my life. I have read the manual from cover to cover. I have read darn near every strategy post in this forum. I have read the AAR’s and even STUDIED them. I have read one book of the Civil War, am reading another one and even broke out the three volume set by Shelby Foote.

I have played several of the scenarios and finally managed to win one. I have started the full war scenario about (seriously) 20 times. I have started many and failed each one. I would lose the war for various reasons: I wouldn’t plan ahead; I would make decisions that were either stupid or not thought out (I really understand “political decisions” and their “timing,” now); I would appoint whom I wanted, when I wanted and pay dearly. Most recently, I boldly reached for Richmond in mid-1863 with the Army of the Potomac, and lost Washington within a month.

I have usually been completely out of my depth. I have run the gamut of emotions, from frustration, anger, despair, denial and then acceptance. I have walked away from this game, regretting that I paid for it, and then returned, determined to win it. I have realized that Lincoln and his (successful) generals were mortal men of true superhuman ability. I have a newfound respect for Burnside and others who tried, but realized that they were not up to the task, as well as a newfound distain for McClellan, Fremont and men of their ilk who believed themselves to be greater than they were.

Because of all of this, I play this game with anticipation, thought and genuine fun. I enjoy the give and take. I like thinking out my moves and developing my strategy. I love the aspect of husbanding my generals, nurturing some and banishing others. I have become invested in playing this game and finishing it. I can honestly say that I have never, NEVER played a game with such depth and scale in my life (and I am 45 years old)!

I want to give my highest compliment to AGEOD for their game. Your game is absolutely PERFECT. I look forward to playing it for a very long time. Thank you.

Rob

I totally agree Husky. This will be one of those titles that I will be playing for some time to come, at least till AACW2 comes out. I give this game .

husky1943 wrote: I have run the gamut of emotions, from frustration, anger, despair, denial and then acceptance.

I recommend you make an appointment with your unit chaplain for counseling. He undoubtedly will advise you to double your playing time!

That would never fly past the Commander-in-Chief! She outranks me by quite a bit.

I also agree with Husky. I have been playing war games since the old "Blitzkrieg" fictious map from the mid 70's when I was in High School. After video computer games came out I could finally play someone (the AI usually....hahahaha) any time I wanted. I usually play WW2 games but have always like the Civil War period and used to play the games from approx 10 years ago (for the life of me I cannot remember the developer, but can still see the map and scenarios).

This game took me approx 2 months to even know what the hell I was doing. By reading the threads and AAR's, I developed a slight knowledge on being able to play without loosing in the first few turns. It is very fun, very time consuming, and very frustrating at time, but still I play to try and better my gaming experience.

I have played as the USA and lost Washington DC in 1862, taken Richmond in 1863, and lost an Army of over 100,000 on an amphibious invasion of Florida for lack of supply. I have been playing as the CSA in my current game and am up to 1864 summer. I have taken Washington DC and St Louis but the USA AI just landed a large army in Alabama, pushed my militia and two independent brigades aside, and seem to be doing their own version of "March from the Seat to Atlanta"....

Anyway, as Husy said this is a great game and very addictive, and I also want to give my thanks to the developers and to Gray for all of the updating / patches / fixes he does to keep the game great.

Kglorberau

Hey kglorberau,
Well said. Right when I think I have this game well inhand, I get my rear handed to me by the AI.

This is always a pleasure to know that. Even if the AI is mediocre compared to a veteran player, knowing that the thousands of hours put into it (since the debut of the AGE engine, not just for ACW) is always good to know.

Pocus wrote:This is always a pleasure to know that. Even if the AI is mediocre compared to a veteran player, knowing that the thousands of hours put into it (since the debut of the AGE engine, not just for ACW) is always good to know.

Pocus,

I wouldn't say it is mediocre. Maybe, yeah versus a human it is. But I myself am a singleplayer person (at least for right now). I mean I have played some games that no matter what you did, the AI did it the same way ever time. Whereas Athena, has yet to do the same thing in two seperate games. You guys did a great job on this title.

Now I can't wait to see what you do on AACW2.

DW

Ciao Phillippe,
I cannot speak for all here, but I can say that Athena is quite an opponent. In fact, I am doing great in the game, marching down the South's throat, when Bobby Lee starts taking ground in West Virginia. Talk about exploited a weakpoint! I'm learning, though. I feel like I'm playing HAL from
"2001: a space odyssey".
Great work!

I'd like to jump on the boat and add my bit about what a gem this game is.

I consider myelf a hardcore strategy gamer, meaning I play the big guns like CIV, EU, Heroes, GalCiv, Total War and the whole city-building series from Impressions, but also the not so big but incredibly fullfilling games like Panzer General (all versions) and of course Close Combat. To this day I still have Panzer General 3 on my computer and it doesn't show any sign of getting old. I've seen somewhere that a new version of Close Combat 4 is out, one that works on Windows XP, so that is probably going to be coming back to the hard drive also.

Now to AACW, well...as it was very well said by the OP, I don't remember when it was the last time I was so excited about learning the inner workings of a game engine. The last game I consacrated so much thought into a game was Pharaoh some 10 years ago already. Mind you, the Civil War isn't even close to being a period of major interest for me, though I'm crazy about history and I'll probably always bite any game with historical intents, the Civil War is something that I...well...never really knew anything about...I'm not american so I didn't even have the basics in school, well the jist of it yes, but that was it. Middle Ages, Revolution Era, WWI, WWII, Classic Period games get my attention just from being about something I love, history and a period I enjoy and know about. AACW didn't have that going for it, untill now anyway because history has this habit of making us addicted.

This game engine is a beauty, the attention to detail displayed by the developers is amazing and the whole thing just feels ...FUN!

I would like to thank the developers of AACW and all people involved in the making of this extraordinary game. Congratulations AACW you just earned a place right next to Panzer General on my hard drive, and you better feel at home because you aren't going to be going anywhere for a while.

Hey, guys! I've got an idea!

...When Athena does her normal sneaky, unexpected stuff that makes you feel kinda surprised... why not post a little AAR about it?

It doesn't have to be the full game... maybe just a few turns, showing how Athena surprised you, by doing something that you never would have expected an AI to do!

That way, we can offer "proof" to the world, of what we already know: Athena is among the world's best AIs!

kayapo wrote:I'd like to jump on the boat and add my bit about what a gem this game is.

I consider myelf a hardcore strategy gamer, meaning I play the big guns like CIV, EU, Heroes, GalCiv, Total War and the whole city-building series from Impressions, but also the not so big but incredibly fullfilling games like Panzer General (all versions) and of course Close Combat. To this day I still have Panzer General 3 on my computer and it doesn't show any sign of getting old. I've seen somewhere that a new version of Close Combat 4 is out, one that works on Windows XP, so that is probably going to be coming back to the hard drive also.

Panzer General II is my favourite game of ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aphrodite Mae wrote: Athena is among the world's best AIs!

I will admit she does bring some shifty moves every now and then...

Just a simple +1 from another newbie.

I learn more each day.

You have more medals than a Soviet Marshal!! LOL. t

GQ: (AM) Only one ribbon!~!! t