Battleplan: American Civil War Review (PC)

good
key review info
  • Game: Battleplan: American Civil War
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: No
  • Reviewed on:
Battle time

One of the video games that I loved when I was young was Sid Meier’s Gettysburg, the military strategy title that sought to simulate what was probably the most important battle of the Civil War, but back then, my computer was utterly unable to run it without crashes, so I almost never managed to win as either of the two involved armies.

After a few years, I re-discovered the strategy series with Antietam, the game that aimed to create a virtual version of the bloodiest battle of the conflict, and with an upgraded machine, I played it for tens of hours.

I used the historical strategies, I developed new ones, I read and thought about the two engagements, and today I still fire up the game from time to time and marvel at its enduring quality.

Battleplan: American Civil War is a video game that uses strategy mechanics and also tackles the Civil War, developed by The Mustard Corporation with help from Osprey Publishing, and I quickly returned to the battlefields of the XIX century United States in order to test my skills at warfare once more.

Story

Battleplan: American Civil War is, as the name implies, focused on the conflict which pitted the United States of America, mostly referred to as the Union, and the Confederate States of America, made up of the slave holders of the South.

Gamers can choose which side they want to play as and can take part in 10 battles, most of them with names clearly recognizable to those who know a bit about the history of the period, but also some more obscure ones.

There are three difficulty levels for the campaign, and the player also has the option to engage in a classic quick battle where some rules can be tweaked, and there’s an option to eliminate the pause setting from the game for a harder challenge.

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Results
Battle lines

The development team at The Mustard Corporation does a solid job of offering a lot of details about the engagements and about the way the real-world commanders approached them from a tactical point of view.

But I often felt that more context was needed in order to get players, especially those who know little about the Civil War, interested in the subject, and in order to give them hints about how to actually approach the battles that Battleplan: American Civil War simulates.

Even so, this is a great game for those who want to start to explore the period, and the interactivity it includes makes it more attractive than a classic lecture or book.

Gameplay

Battleplan: American Civil War is a real-time strategy title with a pause option which gives the player full control over the units that took part in the major battles of the conflict between the Union and the Confederacy.

The gamers can issue orders to help them decide the placement on the battlefield, and they can also select targets for the artillery, although other forces will engage the enemy as soon as they come close enough to be detected.

A Commander in Chief acts as the nerve center of the entire army, and he has a radius of influence in which he boosts troops and a Rally ability which allows him to improve their skills for a short time, while a resupply column is required to deliver fresh shells to the cannon after a while.

The ultimate goal is to secure a number of locations and hold them before the allocated time expires.

The main innovation of Battleplan: American Civil War is that, in order for an unit to actually move, it needs to get an order via courier from the general in charge, and there’s a chance, based on the personality of its commander, that he might delay or even actively refuse it.

At the same time, a unit that has accepted an order cannot get another one until it is executed.

This basically creates a delay between the tactical plan gamers envision for their armies and the reality on the field, which makes it more difficult to execute complex maneuvers and simulates some of the chaos that was actual warfare in the XIX century.

I tend to create a rather complex plan before a battle actually starts, with sweeping moves from some of my armies, and then tweak it as the battle progresses.

This can be a problem when the enemy springs a surprise and some of my brigades get slaughtered in ambushes, and sometimes it’s a much better idea to issue shorter movement orders in order to react quickly to the developing situation.

As combat progresses, the complexity level also increases, and even with the ability to pause the game, I sometimes felt overwhelmed and the combat transformed into a number of skirmishes focused on the victory points.

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Artilerry strike
Historical info

In the real Civil War, combat was focused on lines and on contiguous fronts, and the old Antietam managed to simulate that and the way brigades needed to carefully position themselves in order to deliver a lot of firepower on their enemies.

These elements are eliminated in Battleplan: American Civil War, and that means that the game starts off as a simulation but does not fully capture the realities of the period it is focusing on.

The Artificial Intelligence is another problem, especially when it comes to moving across rivers, and there are also moments when the enemy drives directly into ambushes despite having info on how my own troops are positioned.

Graphics and audio

Battleplan: American Civil War does not even try to simulate soldiers, horses or artillery pieces and uses a lot of abstract symbols in order to allow the player to see the entire simulated battlefield at the same time.

This is important because gamers need to get a grasp on the tactical situation in order to then issue the best possible orders to their brigades, but it might also be a problem for those who want to see period-appropriate uniforms and lines of men marching towards victory or defeat.

The bigger problem is that the maps often fail to give clear info about the terrain, especially the elevations, which can pose a problem to the commander looking to implement a complex plan.

The sound design for Battleplan: American Civil War is period appropriate and somewhat heroic at times, but it can prove to be a distraction when pondering the best way to crush the enemy and secure those all important victory points.


The Good

  • Courier mechanic
  • Historical scenarios

The Bad

  • Limited battle options
  • Needs more context

Conclusion

Battleplan: American Civil War can be highly enjoyable for those who already have a solid knowledge of that section of the history of the United States and want to play some of the battles that ultimately decided its fate.

The title holds a similar appeal to gamers who have the time and energy to try and learn more about it by reading the in-game descriptions and then trying to find more material in books and movies.

But the basic strategy element of Battleplan: American Civil War relies on one core mechanic, that of runners who influence how orders are delivered to units, and it fails to accurate represent many other elements that determined the outcome of an engagement.

I plan to spend more time with the game in the coming days, but it does not come close to offering the same variety and challenge as Sid Meier’s Antietam or Gettysburg.

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story 7
gameplay 7
concept 8
graphics 6
audio 7
multiplayer 0
final rating 7
Editor's review
good
 
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