Empire's The Civil War

Empires' The Civil War was one of the first games brought out. It was really a valient attempt to potray the Civil War accuratly, but, it failed in many aspects. It is in the format of a large map, which you have to scroll over with your mouse. All your units are in units of a division or larger, that are represented as boxes.

One of the things it failed at was movement. Most of the time, you can't get your guys to move, or they will move a little bit, then stop, or go right back to where you started off. It is really frustrating when your enemy is walking all over the place, and you are just hoping you can get even a single unit of yours moving.

Second is how easily you can win the war. All you have to do is walk into the enemy capitol and you win. I did so, and I won within a turn.

Third is your navy. Technically, they won't do anything on thier own. You have to order them to do everything. You tell them to patrol a certain place, they won't return unless you order them to. If you are the South, your cotton runs pretty much end when they land. They won't return with the cotton until you order them to.

Fourth is your population. You cannot make large armies by recruiting. Your states provide little in way of actual population. As such, you have to combine your units you already have, and hopefully you will have a large enough army to win.

It has several things right though. Such as combat. It did a very good job at describing battles involving two opponents based upon the leaders ability to fight, based upon leadership and terrain. In most aspects, few of your northern officers can win unless they have large numbers because they fight softly. There are few officers in the North to compare with the South in this game.

My rateing of this game: 3 out of 10.