Empire's The Civil War is a package that takes a comprehensive look at one of the PC gaming market's most neglected wars. I say "package" rather than "game" because the game, while being a featured portion of the program, is by no means THE program. The Civil War actually has two different types of games included with it: the campaign scenario, which allows the player to fight the entire war, and a battle game in which the player fights a single historical battle. Beyond gaming, however, there is enough information included about the people, places and events of the Civil War to please anyone who has a real interest in the Civil War.
Individual battle is the most graphically interesting of the two types of games in this package. The player is presented with a view of the battlefield. On the widest view, all of the divisions are marked on the field with flags which designate where in the chain of command they reside. As you zoom in on the units, you can watch the individual soldiers, horses and cannon as they march across the landscape into battle. It's not unlike playing with toy soldiers in a sandbox. The player gives orders through a very simple interface. It's easier here than in the campaign game, but we'll cover that in a bit. Choosing a group of soldiers is accomplished through clicking on their flag, then choosing their orders from a menu on the right side of the screen. The destination for the soldiers is then chosen by simply clicking on a point in the battlefield.
The soldiers and horses are animated, albeit not very well (they look stiff and march in place a lot of the time), and the cannon can be seen firing. When battles occur, the devastation is represented by horse carcasses and human bodies strewn across the field, as well as destroyed cannons littering the area. All of the graphics in this playing mode are nice, but not extraordinary. The battles become very confusing when everyone gets intermingled with everyone else, but I suppose that's what would actually happen in a real battle. However, once I got into it, I was using real military tactics to defeat my opponent. It's reminiscent of Warcraft - not quite as well-done, but fun nonetheless. A serious drawback is that there are only four historical scenarios included.
The campaign game will no doubt be where the serious Civil War buff spends most of their time. Play occurs on a map of the eastern half of the US, where most of the fighting took place. The game begins the night before the first shot is fired, April 12, 1861, and continues until November 8, 1864, unless one side defeats the other before that time. There is a type of "score" kept throughout the game, based on the number of cities owned by each side, which is represented by a bar at the top of the screen. As more cities are captured the bar increases for the winning side, and when the bar reaches a certain point, that side automatically wins.
Two information modes, the city mode and the soldier mode, are used while playing the campaign scenario, and the modes accomplish exactly what they are named for. While in city mode, the player can see what resources each city has, as well as give orders to build structures like a recruitment office, or to train troops and make cannons. The soldier mode gives information on the status of troops as well as allowing the player to issue orders like attack, travel by rail, etc. All commands are handled through an easy-to-use icon/menu driven interface. The only real problem is the amount of clicking required in city mode. It took five clicks just to find out what type of cannon is available to build in an individual city and get back to the playing map. When you want to check out all of your cities, this takes up quite a bit of time.
Soldier locations are marked with either a Union or Confederate flag, with all unit information available through clicking on that flag. There was some trouble when multiple units got in the same area of the map, making it difficult to choose an individual unit. Empire made an attempt to solve this through bringing up a menu of all the units in the same area, which works fine with just a few units. However, when I started an all-out brawl with tens of thousands of soldiers fighting in the same area, it got maddening. There were many different stacks of units, and when I clicked on a flag it did bring up the list of units there. When I tried to click on that same flag again, the computer would sometimes place a different flag for a different set of units in almost the exact same place so it looked like the same flag, but of course there were different units. It's hard to explain in words, but it was very confusing and difficult to use.
One way to get around the problem of choosing different units is the CAL, or the Current Army List. This is an interface which shows the chain of command of your entire army and the units under each command. The tree-branching structure is easy to read and understand while giving the player the option to issue orders to any level of command. Clicking on a commander will bring up a menu enabling the player to issue marching orders, replace a commander, or do wholesale restructuring of the chain of command. The CAL function can be used in both the campaign and individual battle modes, but I found it of most use in the campaign mode, where I was dealing with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and a ton of different units.
The gaming in The Civil War is fine, but this package extends far beyond just playing around. There is a wealth of information available on everything, including the people, places and weapons of the war. There's even a listing of popular songs of the time, along with a MIDI rendition and a list of lyrics and composers. All of the information is broken down into different categories, like news articles from the war, biographies of important figures, information of important battles, pictures of the war, and more. It's all very beautifully done, not to mention informative. I only wish that the songs had been done as a CD quality soundtrack rather than MIDI files.
For anyone interested in the Civil War, this package is virtually a must-have. Folks who are after a good strategy game can probably pass on getting this for its gaming qualities. The games aren't bad, they just aren't great. However, history buffs will enjoy the heck out of this product. It's beautifully rendered, very interesting, and does this important historical event justice. It comes packaged with a nicely done manual, a map of the southwest US showing battle sites and troop movement routes, and a book which discusses the methods of Civil War fighting. It's a superb package for any Civil War enthusiast. But if you're just looking for a strategy game to play, get something else. Empire's The Civil War is something to be played and enjoyed by someone who can appreciate the subject.
