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 scenarios in all. Not only
can you fight such battles as Gettysburg and Antietam, but also those too-often-ignored
but major Western battles like Vicksburg and Chattanooga. And, joy of joys for the
hardcore Civil War gamer, you can even find scenarios for such battles as Stone's River,
Front Royal, Champion Hill and Resaca - even Resaca!
If that's not enough
for you, CWG2 includes an easy-to-use map editor for those do-it-yourself
scenarios. And for real fun, play a campaign. You can refight the entire war in the East
or West, or several smaller campaigns. But beware. The campaign is dynamic, and will
proceed according to the results of your games. You can lose Bull Run and Washington in
the first month of the war.
The game runs at
640x480 res in SVGA and it looks good, but not great. The terrain is lush, well-defined
and has a nice feel to it; no complaints there. Troops, on the other hand, are a bit of a
disappointment. All Confederate infantry - in fact all units of the same type in the game
- look alike, and the units are surprisingly static. And yeah, while I know that animation
isn't a must in games like this, it's hard not to expect it after SMG, which has
raised the ACW graphics bar to a new level. And of course I have some quibbles about the
dated and unsightly dialogue box interface. The sound is OK, even good, but not
spectacular.  But gameplay is the bottom line, and playing CWG2
is a fast-paced and engrossing experience. Game mechanics will be familiar to grognards
and are easy to master for beginners, since they're modeled on the venerable turn-based I
go/you go system with hex movement. While at first I was a bit disappointed by the dated
feel of the system, by the end of the first game I was thoroughly enjoying it - mostly, I
think, because under the simple mechanics lies a very complex but manageable combat
system.
In this game, you
can't just throw your regiments or brigades into combat again and again, you must keep a
careful eye on your troops' condition - and this includes not just the number of
casualties they've taken, but also the state of their morale, organization, health and
leadership. To win a battle, you'll have to pull hard-pressed units out of line for rest
and resupply before they rout, and every time you do this your limited army supplies will
dwindle. This makes for lots of tough tactical decisions and exciting, nail-biting
gameplay. I give Impressions very high marks for not only making supply as important in
the game as it was historically, but also for implementing supply rules that -
unbelievable as this sounds - are actually fun. And while tactical combat is not nearly as
detailed as in the Talonsoft ACW series (for example, there's no distinction between melee
and fire combat in the game) I didn't feel it was really an issue at this scale. As far as bugs and glitches go, the game does tend to crash during campaign play. Fortunately, Sierra has a  patch out which corrects this and other less serious bugs. Get it at
www.sierra.com. The box includes a couple of game
tutorials, but more impressive is the very substantial game manual - over 150 pages. The
standard multiplay options are available, and there are lots of bells and whistles. The
game includes a multimedia history of the Civil War (very introductory, but nice),
original paintings by Mort Kunstler, and film clips of reenactors.
Overall, Civil War
Generals 2 is very good game. I'd recommend it to any war or strategy gamer, and
for the Civil War gamer it's a must-have. And hey, this game has a very high fun factor;
who knows, even non-strategy gamers might enjoy this one. Bottom line: even though
everything about the game seems just a little dated - graphics, interface, mechanics - it
manages to pull these all together with such skill that the sum is much more than the
total of the parts. And where else can you play the Battle of Resaca?
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