The last official patch for Ageod’s American Civil War, v1.15, has been released and is available at Ageod’s web site.  The patch fixes any remaining major bugs and comes in at a hefty 120 MB for the download.  Please note that this patch is NOT comprehensive.  You must update to v1.14 first prior to applying this patch.

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

Last Official Patch For Ageod’s American Civil War Released

Related posts:

1. Latest Patch – AGEod’s American Civil War
2. Patch Is Out For Take Command Second Manassas
3. Latest Patch – Forge of Freedom

Hello. My name is Matthew Young, and I’m a Civil War junkie. That’s why this blog appealed to me so much to begin with. I found it totally by accident while browsing in the AGEOD ACW Forums. The more I read, the more I enjoyed it. I wrote to Brett asking if I could contribute, and after a qucik few e-mails back and forth, here I am writing my first post.

Perhaps I should give you some background about me so you can get a flavor for the kind of topics I feel that I can write on. So here is a short bio for you.

Name: Matthew Young

Age: 30

Location: Georgia & Alabama

Education: BA in History, working on Masters in History Education

Professional Experience: Education Director for the National Civil War Naval Museum for seven years (and will be moving to the new National Infantry Museum in a month or so to direct their new Education program), Part Time History Instructor at Vincennes University at Fort Benning for two years, featured in interviews on Georgia Public Broadcasting, the Military Channel, the History Channel, and the Travel Channel, author of two articles for the online Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Hobbies: Captain of Co. K, 17th Geo. Vol. Infantry for five years, Civil War Reenactor for twelve+ years, avid Computer war gamer since I received my first computer when I was 5 (a Commodore 64), and reader of all civil war books I can get my hands on.

I recently attended the 145th Battle of Gettysburg, and I am in the process of loading up pictures from the event. We also stopped at Lexington, Virginia, Harpers Ferry, and the Sharpsburg battlefield in addition to the real Gettysburg battlefield.

This is a picture of me and my soon to be wife at the event. We had a great time. More to come in the next post. I am very happy to be able to contribute!

- MY

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

Hey y’all

No related posts.

I’m pleased to present a short interview with the lead programmer for Birth of America and AGEod’s American Civil War Philippe Malacher, well known as Pocus on the AGEod forums. Pocus was gracious enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions about the game and the company. I greatly appreciate it.

Question #1: As many readers know, AGEod is based in France. Despite a European setting, the first two AGEod game cover American wars, including Birth of America (about the Revolutionary War/French and Indian War) and of course AGEod’s American Civil War. Why did you choose to portray these two conflicts first, and how do you decide what game topics you are going to cover next?

There are a number of reasons actually. The two main ones are that when we designed and developed Birth of America or American Civil War, there was no recent operational-level PC game on the subject especially true for BOA), so naturally, we wondered if something of interest to players (and to us, we are players also!) could be done! Also, from a pragmatic perspective, we needed, within the frame of our incremental engine development philosophy a binary, mainly continental conflict without too much need for an economic system. BOA, and to a lesser extent AACW, fitted the bill perfectly. And so the plan for the games was conceived.

Question #2: AGEod has won numerous awards for the game engine used in Birth of America and AGEod’s American Civil War. In searching the web, the response to your games is almost entirely positive. You’ve even impressed the notoriously hard to please grognards over at the Wargames-Historical newsgroup! In your view, what makes your games so popular with wargamers?

I think it has to do (partly at least) with how we design the mechanics of our games. Too often, game developers don’t go back to the reality behind game concepts they implement. By force of habit, they will reuse something which is already a well established mechanism in others games and adapt it to their own game. On the contrary, we start with a blank slate to do each feature, in an historical yet fun way. A typical example is how conscription recruitment was done in the ACW. People were called en masse and not continuously every week. So basically, you have to think of a system where you get rare but massive amount of conscripts points. And thus we created the options to call for volunteers. Where the fun begins is that you can ‘pay’ these volunteers, as it was done historically. This rethinking of some of the basics of wargames is perhaps one of the things which has pleased people, because they feel things fall into place naturally.

Question #3: AGEod has greatly impressed me with your willingness to incorporate mods into new patches for AGEod’s American Civil War and al of your other wargames. Gray-Lensman’s Railroad Mod, in which he has done an amazing amount of research trying to recreate the railroad network across America circa 1861, is one example. Some game companies would not only fail to recognize his hard work, they would frown on it. Why did you make your game engine so moddable, and why do you view mods and modders with such a favorable eye?

In my opinion, it’s important to understand that releasing a game is only the beginning of the adventure. Once this is done, beyond the usual bug fixing, caring about the players’ feedback is instrumental in the quality of the evolving game. You can’t possibly think about everything and it’s a question of humility somehow to understand that hundreds of people who will spend their evenings reenacting the maneuvers of G. Washington or the offensives of Lee can see things that you missed. This doesn’t mean that the developers don’t have a clear vision of their game from the start, though!

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

Interview With AGEod’s American Civil War Game Developer Pocus

Related posts:

1. Gamezone Interview with Forge of Freedom Game Developer
2. Last Official Patch For Ageod’s American Civil War Released
3. AGEod’s American Civil War Wiki by Rafiki

Most readers are familiar with the Wiki format made famous by Wikipedia. AGEod’s American Civil War fan “Rafiki” from the AACW Forums has created a Wiki for the game called AACWWIki. Users can join up and create and/or edit articles in the wiki. This is a really GREAT idea that could and should be used for some of the other Civil War wargames out there. What’s all available at the AACWWiki you ask? Tons of great material, including the official game manual with user input added in, a Frequently Asked Questions section for the game, a strategy guide, a categorized index, and a modding guide. I’ve included the contents of the About AACWWiki page below:

AACWWiki:About

From AACWWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Contents [hide] 1 About AACWWiki as a wiki 2 Policies and guidelines 3 For those who want to contribute 4 What AACWWiki is not

About AACWWiki as a wiki

AACWWiki makes use of a Wiki to make exchanges and updates as easy as possible. More specifically, it uses the Mediawiki-implementation; same as is used e.g. at Wikipedia. For those unfamiliar with the concept of Wikis, take a look at Wikipedia:Wiki for an introduction to it.

Policies and guidelines

Please make sure to familiarize yourself with the Policies and guidelines of AACWWiki.

For those who want to contribute

Point your broser to the AACWWiki:Community Portal, where you find info on how to do that.

What AACWWiki is not

To clarify the wiki’s purpose and what we’d like to see here, it can be handy to say what the wiki isn’t meant for:

• It is not a discussion forum. The AGEod forums are much better suited for this.
• It is not a place for people to brag about their l33t skills at playing AACW. If it’s not informative and helpful for others, you’re probably better off writing an AAR of some kind.
• It is not a place for commercial activites. Advertisments are best placed elsewhere, especially if they have little to no relevance to the game
• It is not better than what the users make it. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, don’t complain. Instead, do something about it! Start putting together articles about the subject you’re interested in, and hopefully others will come along and help you out.

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

AGEod’s American Civil War Wiki by Rafiki

Related posts:

1. Last Official Patch For Ageod’s American Civil War Released
2. The Springfield Armory – An AGEod’s American Civil War Fan Site
3. First Impressions of AGEOD’s American Civil War

I just wanted to let fellow American Civil War wargamers know about two new modding sites I’ve rolled into TOCWOC’s pages.

The NEW Harpers Ferry Arsenal hosts mods for Mad Minute Games’ Take Command Series, including Take Command 2nd Manassas (TC2M), a “real time battle simulator”. Modders have created many other battles, including Fredericksburg, Antietam, Chickamauga, and Champion Hill.

AGEod’s American Civil War Fan Site hosts mods for, obviously, AGEod’s American Civil War, a strategic level Civil War computer game. I’m just starting this site, but it should hopefully grow steadily as I read through the AGEod forums and add mods.

These sites tie nicely into what I’m trying to do with my posts on TOCWOC. You should see blog entries for any interesting new mods for these Civil War computer games. I also hope to highlight after action reports found in the AGEod forums and the Mad Minute Games forums. You might even see an interview or two from some wargaming personalities in the coming weeks. If you play either Take Command 2nd Manassas or AGEod’s American Civil War, come check out the sites and let me know what you think. There are dedicated comments pages for literally all new mods coming out. You can also use the contact forms specially designed for the sites at the bottom of the two main pages linked to earlier in this blog entry.

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

Two New Civil War Modding Sites

Related posts:

1. The Macon Armory: A Gary Grigsby’s War Between the States Modding Site
2. After Action Reports – AGEod’s American Civil War
3. AGEOD’s ACW Patched to v1.07

As promised, TOCWOC will be holding an After Action Report Contest for Civil War wargamers. The winner will receive a FREE copy of HPS Simulations’ Campaign Chickamauga. Details are on the dedicated contest web page!

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

TOCWOC’s After Action Report Contest for Civil War War Games, March-April 2008

Related posts:

1. Reminder: TOCWOC After Action Report Gaming Contest
2. The Winner of the March 2008 After Action Report Contest Is…
3. March 24, 2008: After Action Reports Contest

Note: This blog entry is based solely on the tutorials. My continuing thoughts on the game will be sure to follow in the weeks ahead.

After reading Bill Trotter’s lengthy and profusely positive review at The Wargamer, I finally caved and bought AGEOD’s recent Civil War grand strategy game AGEOD’s American Civil War: The Blue and the Gray. The game is available in the United States as a direct download and/or a physical copy from Matrix Games. I downloaded the game on several Sunday nights ago and the entire download weighed in at about 460 MB or so in all. This post is not intended to be a lengthy review of the game or an After Action Report (AAR). Instead, I hope to give my initial thoughts in a somewhat cohesive manner and include some screenshots of the game as well.

The tutorial starts off with the basics, showing a prospective player how to look over units, map regions, and cities. The very first thing I noticed that impressed me greatly was the absolute abundance of tooltips. This game has tooltips for almost every button and area of the screen, and these are often very detailed. I’ve included screenshots of a region tooltip and unit tooltip below:

The tutorial next gets into the (what looks to be, but turns out not to be) incredibly complicated subject of merging and disbanding the various brigades, divisions, corps, and armies you will inevitably need to form to win the game. I made the mistake of accidentally combining two units early on…and the tutorial warned me of this on the next screen! For me, anyway, it was just a little too late. In any event, using what I now see as a pretty intuitive “drag and drop” method, I was able to become fairly comfortable with combining smaller units into larger organizations such as divisions and corps. The game uses what will undoubtedly be a very interesting “Seniority” score when you combine like organizations such as two corps. The general with the higher seniority, in this case McClernand over Crittenden, commands the newly combined unit. Interestingly enough, the first thought that jumps to my mind is my current reading material, Russel Beatie’s Volume 3 of his Army of the Potomac series. I am currently reading about McClellan’s efforts to get the men he wants commanding certain divisions based on seniority. In any case, the end result can be seen in the screenshot below.

The tutorial finishes off the first turn by showing the player how to move units using alternative methods such as railroads and rivers. As in most strategic Civil War games and as it should, AGEOD’s ACW sets a limit on the amount of units you can move in any one turn by rail based on your current railroad infrastructure. You can improve on the number of troops you can transport in any one turn by working on this infrastructure.

The last thing I wanted to mention in this brief look at the game is the amount of detail for every unit and leader. As you can see in the screenshots below, each individual “playing piece” on the board contains a large amount of information unique to that unit. If you are unsure about what a certain characteristic or ranking means, the tooltips again come into play to explain this in detail.

I had originally intended to cover the entire basic tutorial, but it has become obvious early on that this is not going to be feasible in terms of only one blog entry. Look for more posts on this game in the near future.

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

First Impressions of AGEOD’s American Civil War

Related posts:

1. AGEod’s American Civil War Wiki by Rafiki
2. Totem Games Releases Demo for Ironclads: American Civil War
3. Last Official Patch For Ageod’s American Civil War Released

AGEOD’s American Civil War has been patched to version 1.07 according to a news release at the Wargamer web site. This thread at the AGEOD Forums discusses all the changes.

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

AGEOD’s ACW Patched to v1.07

Related posts:

1. Gray_Lensman’s Railroad Accuracy Mod for 1.10d
2. Gary Grigsby’s War Between the States Patched to Version 1.01
3. Two New Civil War Modding Sites

Just a quick note.

From September 2005-February 2007, I ran the now defunct American Civil War Gaming & Reading blog. I figured out how to get the old blog entries imported into this blog, and I have done so for entries from September 2o05-June 2006. I unfortunately cannot find an archived importable file for posts from July 2006-February 2007, so I may add those entries slowly over the next several months.

From December 2006-February 2007, I ran the now defunct web site called the Tredegar Iron Works. I was able to retrieve my posts from this blog and they now appear on the original dates they were posted. If anyone is interested in AGEOD’s American Civil War, Forge of Freedom, Frank Hunter’s Civil War game, or WAW: Civil War by Gary Grigsby, feel free to check out the posts from that time frame.

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

Old Blog Posts From Brett Schulte’s Blog Added

Related posts:

1. Progress on American Civil War Gaming & Reading Posts
2. Issues with Old American Civil War Gaming & Reading Posts
3. Civil War Blogs Added to Blogroll

For the past decade, Civil War Strategy games have been pretty much non-existent.
This all changed in November 2006 with the release of Forge
of Freedom by Matrix Games and
Western Civilization.
At the same time, AGEOD, a French company
created by Philippe Thibaut (inventor of historical videogames Europa Universalis™,
Pax Romana™ and Great Invasions™), announced it was creating an
American Civil War game based on the widely acclaimed Birth
of America engine. Two other Civil War strategy games, one by Frank
Hunter of From Sumter to
Appomattox fame and the other by 2by3
games (creators of the World at War engine), are rumored to be in the works
as well.

With this influx of new Civil War strategy games, it makes sense to create
a fan site for all of them which contains patches, mods, After Action Reports,
and tutorials. This fan site is called the “Tredegar Iron Works”
(TIR for short), and it will eventually contain all of the extras and support
for all of the games described above. If you would like to help or you
have suggestions on how to make this site better, do not hesitate to contact
us at ( ).

Post from: TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

Welcome to the Tredegar Iron Works

Related posts:

1. The Tredegar Iron Works – Forge of Freedom Mods
2. Welcome to the Tredegar Iron Works!
3. Matrix Games Planning Four Civil War Titles