Civil War Computer Games

I would enjoy playing them. About five years ago when I was recuperating from an injury, I got addicted to some WWII game. What a blast.

But I'd prefer to play strategy games involving the civil war against real people.
Are any of you involved in such a thing?

I am curious as to some opinions. Is it a childish thing? I would think that strategy games are in a different class than my shoot 'em wwii game.

Imagine commanding Pope's army at Second Bull Run; could I save the day? Or to be JEB Stuart, controlling my egomania, and performing as Lee's eyes and ears. Would we have fought at Gettysburg?

I could go on, but if anyone has knowledge of these things. or better yet belongs to a strategy civil war game site, by all means let me know. Thanks.

I don't think it's a childish thing but personally I am not into gaming - so not civil war gaming either. I think if one likes gaming generally this would be a very interesting and exciting game

I am going to leave this alone other than to say that perhaps gaming has no place in a forum site.
AAhhh, can't leave it alone: because the game's battle can change depending on many circumstances, not least the player, it can stray far from accepted fact and history.
While it may be fun to devise aome strategy in a game that would enable Peter Heron, in the role of McDowell, to overcome both Johnston and Jackson, it would have no bearing on history.
So...there...gaming...is...for...kids!!!
An' I wanna try it, wanna, wanna...maybe in a few months I'll report back on a game.

***BUT***
I still feel that the HistoryAnimated.com site offers a fair view(not remotely resembling gaming at all) of many of the Civil War's Battles without contradicting fact with fiction.

It's always nice to have a "niche" in where to escape from the facts and reality

It is nice to have a niche to fall back to when seeking relaxation.

I started thinking about what games they had in the civil war, and, well, the world in general. Take it back further and the list of games dwindles and dwindles.

If there were games available, I would imagine they would be to a particular location that had the means to manufacture the various implements needed for the game.

I guess I am talking about games that are like ours today. I am sure there were lots of 'simple' games like tag, catch, king of the mountain, etc. But these games relied only on players, mostly kids, and needed no equipment.

Frankly, at least to my limited knowledge, I don't think adults had many games available to them, unless of local origin whereby the pieces were on hand and instructions handed down. These most have been treasured icons.

We all hear of the greatest game passed down and down, that being Chess. Perhaps Checkers falls in there, and other variations, Chinese Checkers, from other nations. Again, these games required a fairly simple board and playing pieces.

The only way that games could have reached across the world and still maintained uniformity would come from uniformity. Or in other words Manufacturing.

We know to a degree that wasn't the case. And now we enter the Civil War. In the beginning we had muskets and cannon that, while of similar caliber, required only the jamming of bullet or shot down a barrel.

Only when manufacturing reared its head did arms makers begin to put out sophisticated weapons exactly like the one before it and before that, etc; and after that, etc.

Once we knew how to make exact pieces, specific dimensions, we now had references to study and build upon. Not just us. Putting a new design into a packet,with instructions, and mailed overseas, allowed foreign powers to study our advances, and vica versa.

This leads us back to games. Ultimately, to the concept we call gaming today. Manufacturers after the war needed markets, and what better market than children...and children playing with parents. Or a market where child from Indiana traveled to Maine or South Carolina and played the same game he had at home.

This is what manufacturing accomplished, for games and for weapons, for burgers and for clothing, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

I believe that manufacturing is the greatest innovation devised by mankind. Of course it needed help, like from engineers who designed whatever machines needed to create the same product over and over, but the concept, of making an exact item in batch one as in batch one million belongs to manufacturing.

We see about midway through the Civil War how the Northern manufacturers came into their own; once their power was understood, accepted, and unleashed, the South was doomed.

So powerful was this flood of industry and manufacturing, that America dominated nearly every world wide conflict for a hundred more years. Lendlease to England, supplies to Russia, all the while fighting Germany and Japan.

Be it games or rifles, identical baseballs or handgrenades, once the USA grasped the concept of manufacturing and industrial might, it would prove unbeatable in the 1860's until this very moment. I'm not arguing if we won or lost certain wars; I am arguing that had we decided to win any of those wars, and turned our manufacturing onto high, we would have.

It was of great comfort to me as I traveled this land to see a fast food restaurant of one chain or another at many highway exits. The same could be said of the Chevies,Fords, Chryslers,and so forth.

Today, though, our games come from overseas;msny of our cars do; let us hope our Army can indeed fight on its stomach.

Pete, times change These days armies obtain what is most suitable for their objectives and ... yes, that can involve foreign products. However, as long as those products help those armies win wars - that's exactly what is right for them

I wonder: we have not had this environment before. Yes, I am sure smaller powers in history have purchased from bigger ones, usually ones that had a vested interest in keeping the little power around.
But the civil war ushered in an entirely new era, to my way of thinking.
The United States was fortunate in that it was experiencing its emergence as the world's new manufacturing base-surpassing England-just as our civil was erupted.
The factories, the supplies, the men, the transportation, and the market were primed literarly from day one. The war's beginning is ripe with stories of Yanks running away and leaving vast amounts of supplies. Had the South down this, they'd soon be doomed. But always the Yanks returned, loaded with the best again; sometimes they repeated their routs, sometimes they held. Over time, they gained experience and leadership-while always keeping supplied. When this reached its apex, of men, material, management, and martial spirit it spelled doom for the Confederacy-now the ragged rebs.

The USA maintained their infrastructure. America didn't buy from Europe, Asia, and Russia...we sold or gave them immense military equipment. We continued nearly to the end of this century.

Now our infrastructure lays abandoned. Our great plants capable of putting out tractors, cars, or tanks are rusting and dormant. Our textile industry-vital in a world where war is fought in different climes-has withered away. Ask Germany about lack of winter uniforms.
The list goes on. We have hyped the glory of the grunt, the pilot, and the tank commander over the supply clerks. Look at our humvees to understand how we are not the UNION army by any means. WE have to bid, and even after years its incomplete.

I would not want to purchase my supplies from Asian and European powers if I also was fighting China and Russia. How could they supply us?

For one time in our young history we had developed the exact right formula for waging wAR: We had plants, supplies, inner transport, and men already on hand in a smooth running civilian mode. It flipped to war mode that would put today's nation to shame.

This mode lasted a hundred years. It should have been written in the constitution to maintain it in perpetuity.
Why we gave away our power to build a free market world is a question our unfree kids may one day ask. It is not a question Civil war kids and their descendents ever needed asking.

Gaming is hardly for kids alone, particularly strategy gaming.

As for a good title, Sid Meiers is always popular, but I have not myself played a civ war sim in so many years as to have no useful opinion. Anything I played is out of print and wont run on your PC, or even be able to be loaded since it was probably on a floppy of some kind, likely a 5.25 incher.

That't a long time ago, Yello

Well I've never played CW games but I can tell you that the History Channel's The Civil War: A Nation Divided is a good game. I like it but it's not as good as let's say Call of Duty or Medal of Honor. But what I've seen of it, it's very authentic weopons-wise.

I've played the Sid Meiers game, and it was ok for a Win98, and also another called Civil War Generals was alright, too. But nothing lately has poked its head out for Vista. I also own a PlayStation version of the History Channel game, but it's one of those once you "win" it you put it away games. I'd suggest miniatures if you have friends who like to game. And there's always the Big RPG...Reenacting! We get to play ALL the time ! !

Try the American Civil War Game Club, they play John Tiller games against real human opponents.

I think gaming would be fun, but most games are not (in my experience) novice-friendly. Unless you have a solid background in gaming (I do not), it's nigh on impossible to pick up any CW game -- shooter or strategy -- and use it to effect. Too bad. One of the great joys of studying history is debating the great "what ifs". Games might afford the chance to look at alternate courses of CW history, seeing what might have changed if B happened instead of A.

John Tiller recently re-released his popular Battleground series. They were redone to work on the new operating systems including Vista. I recently bought the Battleground: Civil War package which includes: Antietam, Gettysburg, 1st & 2nd Manassas, Chickamauga(which also includes the 3 day battle of Murfreesboro. I am finishing this one up and so far I'm beating those Yankees around 30,000 to around 10,000 ), and Shiloh. They are very good, hex-based strategy games that let you command from either side. The research they did was extensive, down to the fighting strengths and weapon types of every battery and regiment present for each army. (Oh did I mention I captured Thomas and Rosecrans??)

As for playing these against other humans, I don't know of any site that organizes these. I mainly just play hot-seat if I want to play another human. Anyhow, I would highly recommend this pack of Civil War games.

In looking back over the posts, I saw Pete's suggestion about HistoryAnimated.com. I wasn't familiar with the site, but now that I checked it out...very, very good site! It's everything he said it would be. Thanks Pete!