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I have been waiting since I purchased my first computer in 1987 for an accurate and playable strategic level game on the American Civil War. Having played through the tutorials and a few of the shorter scenarios I believe my wait has ended. First rate job to all concerned!

DON wrote:I have been waiting since I purchased my first computer in 1987 for an accurate and playable strategic level game on the American Civil War. Having played through the tutorials and a few of the shorter scenarios I believe my wait has ended. First rate job to all concerned!

I must concur... this is an excellant piece of work... played the tutorial twice now im ready I think for the campaign....

Drew

On behalf of all the team, thanks!

To do things in order of difficulty, you can read this post:
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=3077

no obligations, you can jump with the CSA in 1864 if you prefer

Very impressive! A true work of art...the map is superb and the scrolling/interface is very elegant and sophisticated!
You guys have really outdone yourselves surpassing what was a near perfect release with BoA...look and learn you OTHER guys ...this is how it's done!

The attention to detail in the artwork is truely amazing.
There is not one inch (2.5 cm) of the screen that is boring or bland.
I don't think there is any other game that even comes close to the sheer beauty of the GUI for AACW.

I agree, excellent! Great job on the music and atmosphere in general. The game appears to have simple mechanics but deep inner workings (as expected from BOA). I need to go over the tutorial a few more times and the manual on the various levels of command - army, corps, individual units, etc. and how to create them and their bonuses.

I also have to agree: outstanding game!!
Regards
-JB

Congratulations to all involved in the project. I did the 2 tutorials and started a few turns of a campaign in preparation of a new one this week end. Simply outstanding !!

After two tutorials and a few turns of the Full Campaign Game, I agree that this has to be the best ACW Strategic level game around. It will take quite a time to get fully familiar with all the different features of this game. But that's all the better

Didn't do too well as the Confederacy. But the South Shall Rise Again!

Congratulations to all concerned. Hope you sell a million!

Ditto everything already said in this thread and a big thank you to all,
creators, programmers, artists, testers, and anyone else involved in the making of AACW. Just finished the first tutorial (yes, I have been working all day) and I can say it has exceeded all my expectations. Thanks AGEOD, you guys rock. Hope you sold 5000 today!

Huge vote of thanks to all involved in giving us this great game. I am so impressed by the history that is its lifeblood - even in the first two turns of the 1861 campaign, I'm learning stuff. Riots, martial law, etc - brilliant work.

AGEOD is simply the best!

I often said this in beta forum but I want to postr here too.
AGEOD boys did an outstanding job; on everything! Graphics, music, AI...
Very important part, I belive, was getting together a good beta team. I think there was about 20 of us (not sure) but we had few people that were experts on different fields.
We had guys that know ACW history to details. And I mean details . Some of us did do research on regiments, some on OOB's, some did help with seting up the right OOB for campaings and scenarios...
All of us did search and report bugs.
Best part was that AGEOD boys did fix whatever we reported in matter of one or two days maximum.
I am sure they will countinue to do this with release version.

As they said, just post bugs and whatever you don't like or would like to see and AGEOD boys and beta testers will do everything to reply, fix or add your wishes.


Godspeed and enjoy the game

Our interest in the ACW traces back from 25 years (perhaps a bit more for PhilThib, he is slightly older than me, one of his other nickname being Herodote the Ancient ) of playing and reading.

We both own Victory Game's Civil War, a great wargame published in 1983, among many others games. Simply put, it is always a good thing to goes back to the roots and see what the good games have done on the ACW, even if you should never copy the ideas, it can be an helper in doing the things right, or simply to not forget an important aspect of a war. Also, we like to rethink from scratch the features, starting with historical reading and discussions and then trying to match that in a good game design, both fun and simple. For example, how you get conscripts is done in such manner that you get an historical feel of the period. Doing another way would be too much generic. Each idea is debated and challenged by the other, the end result being something historical, but which can be handled simply and efficiently by the game engine, and by the AI. We always have 'her' in mind...

Now that AACW is published, perhaps we can at last do a good PBEM him against me, that would be rather fun

Lets not forget all the important people which did their share too, and more of it many time. Without them, AACW would not exists, simply!

You have friends, players and associates, like (in no particular order): François Claustres, Ludovic Grousset, Pascal di Folco, Philippe Sacré, Samuel Anzalone, Stéphane Slowik

Artists, of great talent, they are incredible: Sandra and Robin. They count as friends too!

You have people which provided to be invaluable either in helping us make the map or the manual: Kenneth Brown and Pierre Miranda.

And last but not least, the volunteers!

Tim Barnett (Barney), Frank Coppa (Frank7350), Greg Cyrier (Reyric), Rick DeNicolo (RickD79), Frank Egerter (FrankE), Douglas Gold (Dgold), Jeff Hatfield (Jhdeerslayer), Gerry Hicks (Seminole), Norbert Hofmann (Primasprit), Marko Kovacic (Marecone), Mark Kratzer (MarkShot), Allan Kraus (vonKraus), Sébastian Lebourcq (Vlad), Lee Arnold (flintlock), Olivier Malacher (Adlertag), Rick Meeken (Le Ricain), Christopher Miller (Chris0827), Chris Ratcliffe (Hobbes), Henri-Pierre Schmidt (HP Schmidt), Travis Shaw (IronBrigadeYankee), and Lee Sphar (Spharv2)

I've lost weight, can't sleep,Sex and food are peripheral to the war,my wife is leaving and the Mortgage hasn,t been paid!
Congratulations Ageod on potentialy the best wargame in my 40 years of buying.

Victory Games' Civil War was a very good boardgame. I have a copy too. (Also War Between The States, also very good if rather BIG).

AACW is very special: it combines fun, challenge, history, excitement, the best UI ever, first class game mechanics, great graphics and so much more.

If every future game designer plays AACW first, then our hobby should skyrocket!

And the best thing is.... the game will only get better as it continues to evolve and incorporate some of the many suggestions that you are putting forward. It's not called the Adaptive Game Engine (AGE) for nothing!

I had rather limited playing time over the weekend, but already I'm hooked. TBH, I don't even have an interest in civil war games, or the civil war, but BOA was so good I'd play the follow-up in any era.

I love the problems of leadership which the game introduced on top of the already excellent game system, I can't think of any other game which captures the problems and produces results so well. In a snap you've managed to capture corps-level maneuver and operations.

Now please, for the love of god, take the engine one more step and create a Napoleonic game. As Frenchmen it should be your sacred duty to model the era and finally do it justice ouet:

GREAT JOB. Absolutely one of the top three games of all time in my book. Fantastic job. The few hours I've had to play (between bailing out my flooded basement and working) have been simply amazing. Hearty thank you's to all involved.

I wholeheartedly agree about the Napoleonic route.

dinsdale wrote:Now please, for the love of god, take the engine one more step and create a Napoleonic game. As Frenchmen it should be your sacred duty to model the era and finally do it justice ouet:

What would be, in your mind, the 'one more step' you mention ? Do you mean some extra feature would be required for a Napoleonic game...and if so, which one ?

I would imagine the toughest part would be the multitude of nations - rather than 1 Vs 1 (as in AACW and BoA), you would have France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, England, Spain, Portugal, Poland, the other German states, Italian states, Belgium, Netherlands, etc.

How could you give these nations independent AIs yet stop Prussia attacking Austria, etc. While it could be fun for Russia to ally with France and conquer Prussia, I would prefer something a little (read 'a lot') more historical!

DennyWright wrote:I would imagine the toughest part would be the multitude of nations - rather than 1 Vs 1 (as in AACW and BoA), you would have France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, England, Spain, Portugal, Poland, the other German states, Italian states, Belgium, Netherlands, etc.

How could you give these nations independent AIs yet stop Prussia attacking Austria, etc. While it could be fun for Russia to ally with France and conquer Prussia, I would prefer something a little (read 'a lot') more historical!

Not to mention the fact of all the different countries shifting loyalties over the period whether forced or not. How many different coalitions actually formed to fight France and her allies? How many different countries were Frances allies at one time or another and her enemy at another?

Yikes what a nightmare. But I sure do hope they can pull it off someday and a Napoleonic campaign will run gloriously on my PC with all the intrigues and complexities of that era intact.

Jim

You're right, this would ask for an additionnal Diplomacy module and to teach Athena the AI how to use it.

However, as you may know, we are working on a Victorian game that will last till WW1 (included). So actually, Philippe Thibault and Philippe Malacher are already working on such a module! And I think you'll be pleased by the result of their work In Vainglory of Nations...

PhilThib wrote:What would be, in your mind, the 'one more step' you mention ? Do you mean some extra feature would be required for a Napoleonic game...and if so, which one ?

Well it's sort of a step backwards Leadership is somewhere between BOA and AACW where Corps are a fairly new invention.

Where it could evolve a little would be the strategic layer to make a game play longer periods of the wars. A long timeframe such as that, combined with multiple countries could add in more rules for the political side. Rules for dealing with surrender/rebuilding of nations after their defeat, and some way to siphon off troops to the tangenital conflicts (GB has1812, Russia has Turkish wars, Spain with their colonial revolts etc.)

IMHO, it's still a two-side game, not one where each country is truly free to act diplomatically, but similar to how England/France are treated in ACW. The difference is that countries come and go as they are defeated, rebuild and re-enter the war. So I suppose the major change would be the handling of peace conditions, eg: what France can ask for from Austria, what affect that peace has on Austria's future re-entry, and how does Austria rebuild her army during the intervening years.

So who do I have to beg to see this in a year or so

Downloaded today and tried my hand at the tutorials and a couple of battles, and it does indeed feel sweet so far; looking forward to getting swamped by everything when I move on to the larger scenarios

OK....just to add my 2 cents. The game is terrific. Fabulous. Magnificent. Can't say enough good things about it.

Did I mention it is fun to play???

Talk about swamped!
I did the tutorials, then started the second 1861 campaign scenario. Second turn, I manoeuvred the forces around Washington to attack Manassas en masse (thinking "Now to do it properly".) All else looked quiet.
By the time turn 3 started, I had lost very heavily at Manassas and at three other battles on the map (where 'all else looked quiet').
Ouch. I shall be starting again tonight with even greater respect for the Ai - she's much better at this than I!

Yeah, Denny, but aint it fun....this kinda torture?

Pocus and PhilTib,

I am a retired veteran/amatuer military historian/avid wargamer who has been waiting for many moons for someone to come along with a computer product that could compete with what I felt a strategic wargame should be.

Being something of a dinosaur( still have a dog-eared copy of AH's Tactics), I had all but given up hope. I am pleased to say that you have renewed my love for this simple pastime in the digital age. I feel like a newbie again.

BoA has brought many many hours of pleasure and my first fews days with ACW gaurantees that my pleasure will continue. Your products are first-rate and perhaps even more importantly, your commitment to excellence through your unfaltering customer suppport is second to none and these words of praise only begin to do your team justice.

I wish all of you much success, and hope that you will continue to set the standard for what a strategy game should be.

P.S. And yes, VG's TCW is the greatest boardgame ever!

wow, I'm moved, seriously and without irony! I'm sure the others teams member will be too. We know that it is a great chance for us all to work on something which is our passion, daily, but to get such thanks and praises is the best things that can happen to us! Thanks again all for your support ,and kind words! I have strong hopes that we will continue the all of us, the players and AGEOD, to form this little community bound by the same interest in history* and good gaming, for quite a long time...

*: (and perhaps sci-fi one day? ).