Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865)

Lots of Civil War games out there that do battles better. A few do campaigns better. But few tackle as much (and so well) as Grand Tactician. I've been playing since early access, and it's only gotten better since release. It's a great jack-of-all trades strategy game. The game allows the player to control the North or South during the war, and there's several starting dates to choose from (early '61 to early '64). The player can control the economy, navy, build and arm armies and garrisons, build forts, and assign and promote officers. There's policies to choose from to improve recruitment and finances, or to increase prestige with foreign powers. Both sides can also import or produce its own cannons, ships, and rifles. The player has to contend with morale issues as well, and the game even models feuds and readiness, both of which can seriously alter strategy for moving and commanding armies. And of course when battle commences, the player has the choice to take command on a total war-style tactical map. Overall, there's just been few games that have done so much to allow a player to control virtually every aspect of a conflict. But there's also numerous problems that players have still had to contend with that keep it from being 10/10 level greatness. The AI needs work. Pathfinding during movements and retreats make little sense. The game moves sluggish at times, and even players with beast machines have complained of lags and FPS drops. The AI also makes questionable decisions, like building giant navies then doing nothing with them. Fort battles can sometimes create lopsided results, and the readiness system seems to affect only the player, leaving the AI on a sort of god mode. The dev team is constantly working on the problems however, and new patches seem to be improving the game little by little.

For me this is the best game on the market covering the american civil war. The intricate economic simulation which feeds into army supply and logistics are great game features. Regarding the battles it is no total war. The battles remind me of Sid Meier's Gettysburg!, which I like!

This is an unfinished game. They had to patch in an ability to move your army's commanding officer on the battlefield without his entire corps redeploying to new positions. They STILL haven't patched a "back" button into the tutorial. Ahhh... The tutorial. Long, badly written, badly organized, unclear, and INCOMPLETE with a UI designed by a disgruntled mail room clerk. Did I mention... NO BACK BUTTON? Don't make mistakes or leave a tutorial unfinished. Memorize every word on each page or will need to restart the ENTIRE 132-page campaign tutorial each time. There are also bugs that can also force you to restart. It is UNFORGIVABLE for a game with this kind of strategic and tactical depth to have such an incompetently executed tutorial. I see real potential in this game, but it's almost entirely unrealized. The ultimate civil war sim will look something like this, but this just isn't it. It could have been, but they pushed it out the door too soon. This is not a "diamond in the rough." This is a rough draft. For example, one of the things this game does really well is add command and control delays between orders and execution, but Naval units magically receive and execute orders instantly. It's not a game breaker, but it is a broken game. If you'd rather not have to spend your first 10 hours of gameplay deciphering the tutorials and studying a field guide, or you're unwilling to ignore some bizarre inconsistencies like the Palantir-equipped navies, you might want to find another title.