Civil War Generals 2: Grant, Lee, Sherman

Download Civil War Generals 2 and immerse yourself in the brutal battles of the American Civil War! Command your troops, plan your strategy, and face off against the enemy in this turn-based strategy game. Can you lead your side to victory? Play now!
a game by Sierra
Platform: PC
Editor Rating: 7/10, based on 1 review, 2 reviews are shown
User Rating: 8.0/10 - 12 votes
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Civil War Generals 2: Grant, Lee, Sherman
Civil War Generals 2: Grant, Lee, Sherman
Civil War Generals 2: Grant, Lee, Sherman

On The Face Of It, Civil War Generals II has everything going for it. Somebody somewhere has had a year to iron out the creases and version two now sports a good multimedia guide to the American Civil War, a complete scenario editor that allows you to create battles from the ground up, and plenty of extra units and terrain features.

Instead of playing that boring old rebel Robert E Lee, you can play either side and any general you like from the North or South. There are more than 40 different battles to play and 17 campaigns, covering both eastern and western theatres. For the solo player, there are around 200 different scenarios to get your teeth into.

You get Mississippi gunboats, engineers, mortars and horse artillery to play with and extra terrain types such as forts, swamps and coastlines. And there's head-to-head play over the Internet, modem-to-modem, network or e-mail.

At first glance, CWGII looks a bit like other pseudominiature wargames with realistic 3D terrain, colourful unit graphics and a neat player interface. But that's at first glance. You soon realise that a unit composed of three soldiers can represent anywhere between 500 and 1000 men - and that the only way they can shoot each other is to move adjacent to the target unit. Each unit represents a brigade or regiment, which is fine if you want to recreate complete battles such as Gettysburg, but as far as realism goes it's a no-no.

The closest game to CWGIHs probably good old Fantasy General. You move a unit up, attack, move up another, attack again and so on. Yes, you've got long-range artillery bombardments and specialist sharpshooters, but the overall appearance is wickedly unrealistic when compared to the definitive ACW games of Talonsoft's Battleground series. This is a real crying shame, because most of the game mechanics are superb. Leaders and other units have several factors such as morale, health, experience, that affect both combat results and behaviour under fire. You can rally units, rest them, swap leaders and generally take a lot of time getting the command and control right. But why bother when the battlefield is such a comic-book affair?

The point of victory

The most innovative feature is the 'dynamic' victory point allocation. Fight over a hex and it becomes even more valuable to each side, so the battle really hots up where the fighting takes place rather than on obscure victory point locations that nobody cares about. The more you fight over an insignificant hillock, the more victory points you get for holding it. The campaign is superbly thought out too - you need to conserve troops and yet win your battles, so there are endless decisions and strategies to try.

But even when you chuck in some spectacularly clear videos, good sound effects, atmospheric music and really detailed weapons data, the end result is a giant waste of time because the corny graphics spoil everything. The units don't even face the right way; more often than not, the units on opposing sides will have their backs to each other as they fight, thanks to the limited number of bitmaps representing each one.

In short, CWGII is a huge disappointment. There's a hell of a good game engine in there somewhere, but overall the game is full of holes, not to mention countless bugs. To put it more succinctly, it's just not very good.

Download Civil War Generals 2: Grant, Lee, Sherman

PC

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP

Game Reviews

Overview

Civil War Generals 2: Grant, Lee, Sherman rides into the fray of Civil War gaming on the heels of Sid Meier's Gettysburg and the success of its predecessor Robert E. Lee, Civil War General. Returning to the bloodiest battlefields in United States' history, CWG2 builds upon the easy to learn, turn-based system of the first version, and adds comprehensiveness and depth. Players can now assume command of the Confederacy or the Union, replay battles in both the Eastern and Western theaters, and rewrite the outcome of the war while playing "the big one" campaign, which utilizes all the battle scenarios. If that is not enough to keep you gaming into the wee hours of the morning, you can develop your own battles with the Scenario Editor.

Gameplay, Controls, Interface

Regardless of scope, the deciding factor for all historical strategy games is the game's ability to strike a balance between realistic detail and playability; too much of one can kill the other. CWG2 succeeds in this area by utilizing simple point-and-click mechanics and a straightforward turned-based structure (in contrast to the shift towards real-time action in strategy games). Both of these allow the beginning player to enjoy the game without having to understand all the complexities of strategy and the unit types -- you can "smell the gunpowder" without having to know how to load a rifle. Despite its simplicity, the game still has a lot of detail and nuance, which you discover as you play more and more.

The movement and controlling of troops consists of right and left mouse clicking for moving and attacking, with a toolbar at the ready for more specific tasks, such as changing formations. The view controls and maps are a bit cumbersome, and take some getting used to. An Overview Map provides a good macro view of the battle and terrain, but its larger size means it would get in the way of moving troops sometimes. They also added a zoom feature in CWG2 which I found useless, as it reduced the display to board game-style graphics. Overall, some useful tools and some annoying ones; the more familiar you become with the game, the more you'll know which ones to use.

AI

The game has three basic levels of skill: basic, intermediate and advanced, which determine the AI of the computer. The AI in general has improved since Civil War General, with better response and variation within the same scenario. However, your best bet is still to force the computer into attacking you.

In addition to AI, I really like the visibility option settings of Full, Line of Sight, and Line of Fire, which made battles even more interesting when vast numbers of enemy troops suddenly started appearing out the woods.

Graphics and Audio

Although CWG2 functions as an upgrade to the first version, there are no major changes. Everything pretty much keeps the same basic feel of the original. The troops and the terrain details still look good, and the cries of sergeants, whoops of attack, and the whinnies of horses, all help set the mood of the battlefield without being distracting. An animated explosion of smoke and dust accompanies each battle skirmish. However, the period music gets old fast and the battle videos, which look good, slow the action down way too much. Luckily, you can turn both off.

Documentation

The game includes the standard issue manual that covers the mechanics and gives you some good tips about Civil War tactics. It also has an updated multimedia historical supplement, which gives an overview of the military and economic strategies of the war, so you'll understand why and where you're fighting.

Multiplayer

The game supports Hotseat, modem, null modem, IPX and Sierra's Internet Gaming System (SIGS). SIGS is supposed to be installed by default, but I had to download the updated files and manually copy them to my Windows directory to get it to work.

System Requirements

Minimum: Win95 or Win3.1, 486/66, 16 MB RAM, 2X CD-ROM drive, SoundBlaster compatible sound card, SVGA, 50 MB free hard drive space.

Preferred: Pentium, 16 MB RAM, 4X CD-ROM drive, 90 MB free hard drive space.

Reviewed On: Pentium II-266, 64 MB RAM, 20X CD-ROM drive, Matrox Millennium (4 MB), Integrated Yamaha soundcard

Patches

Windows 95: ftp://ftp.sierra.com/pub/patches/pc/CWG29511.exe

Windows 3.1: ftp://ftp.sierra.com/pub/patches/pc/CWG23111.exe

Bottom Line

CWG2 is a solid turn-based strategy game that effectively balances historical realism with playability. It is a definite must for fans of the first game and Civil War aficionados, especially considering the amount of multimedia information included with the game. CWG2 is not a breakthrough game for the genre, relying on the tried-and-true turn system, but I would recommend it to those who are looking for an easy-to-learn strategy game with lots of playtime potential.

Snapshots and Media

PC Screenshots

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