Comments after several hours 1861 Campaign

[comsolut]

First, I have played AACW1. That helps, although I did do the tutorials just to brush up. The tutorials are excellent and should help anyone new to the game. That and playing the smaller scenarios first. I, however, decided to jump into the April 61 Campaign.

Almost everything has been improved regarding the game. The artwork is fantastic. But mainly I play for fun, and so far the April 61 campaign delivers. The theater of operations feel larger and there are more "sideshows" that engage the player. In the East I actually am waging a pretty good campaign for West Virginia, which the Union seems intent on capturing (yes I am playing the Confederacy). In Texas I have raised a brigade to try and recapture Dallas. In the Midwest I managed to quickly capture Springfield and while besieged currently, hope to hold the city. This makes a welcome change from two large armies on each side slugging it out in the East and Down the mighty Miss. These "sideshow" really add to the game and come to life on the larger map. Still waiting for my far West units to unlock so I can do some campaigning with the Indians on my side. The few battles in the east have often ended in stalemates, which also seems to be a good reflection of Civil War battles. War supplies seem to be a real crunch for the South. Already thinking of an alternative scenario where, maybe, the South had stockpiled some goods anticipating the war. The battle result screen looks a lot better and I seem to be getting more information from it, but need some more research here. A page in the manual outlining what everything means would be great (or maybe I did not see it).

Some requests on my part are:
When scrolling through the strategic book, or recruitment of units, there is a ratcheting sound which is annoying. An option to turn that sound off would be good.
Turning of the tooltip when the turn is processing would be nice too. Distracts me from the movement of units and battles.

Aggressiveness of the AI is being patched which is good, because in my first game a Union General travelled all the way to Richmond, besieged the city, caused 10 hits on the besieged and then left next turn (there were no units attached to the General). I don't want to run into him in a fight.

Not sure what to do with the Cotton Bales option other than drag to London, but supposedly there can be a possible 50K outcome ILO of 15K. Not sure about the decisions, they add flavor to the game, but right now I have not found them worth the costs. Time, and experience may change that. And yes, buying rough seas is just absurd.

Also, units on the map have three vertical bars, and I know the third is cohesion, and I think the second is strength, but not sure what the red one represents? Did not see it in the manual or tutorial.

Possible bugs:

In the first Tutorial, I had trouble assigning the corps to Grant, kept defaulting to Army of Tenn. in Nashville.
Obviously, the lone General inflicting ten hits on the besieged troops in Richmond.
A few scripts were incomplete.

Overall a great game depicting the Civil War, fun to play, and AGEOD has a great track record supporting and improving their products.

By the way, did I mention the artwork is fantastic. [&o]

[Boomer78]

I've noticed that the siege artillery art is missing. The unit icon for mortars is just an empty blue/gray box.

There's a few bugs here and there but overall it's been fun and I think a decent improvement over the first game.

[Jim D Burns]

Pretty sure the three bars are from left to right, Strength, Cohesion and supply. Don't have the game open at the moment, so I'm just going off memory and could be wrong.

Jim

[Emmeric]

Speaking of "things to fix:"

Outside of Norfolk, the "Cape henry" coastal waters reads exactly like that. Henry should be capitalized.
Also "Swamp bay" outside of Georgetown Carolina. Bay should be capped.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Boomer78

I've noticed that the siege artillery art is missing. The unit icon for mortars is just an empty blue/gray box.

RC4 fixed that.