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Another Installment

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Another great installment in John Tiller's American Civil War series. Covers a little known campaign extremely well. Takes what could have been a very one-sided game and makes it interesting.

Another Great HPS Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: October 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game like all HPS games. In terms of detailed, historically accurate wargames, HPS stands at the head of the class. I have been a long time fan of the Civil War Battles series. The Order of Battles are always precise and accurate. The maps are wonderful. The scenarios plentiful. I unhesitatingly recommend any HPS Civil War Battle game. That said, these games are designed for hard core grognards (dedicated wargamers). People who are interested in the topic but have little wargaming experience should probably look elsewhere before attempting an HPS game.

In terms of Campaign Vicksburg: This is a complete rendering of the series of battles in the 1863 Vicksburg campaign. Scenarios include battles of maneuver, assaults on fortified lines, and probes. The scenarios range in lengths from several turns to over 200. Before I purchased the game I was somewhat worried about the relatively low number of scenarios (57 compared to say HPS Gettysburg with 100's), but they cover a wide variety of situations and each one has a very different feel. This is unlike Peninsula which, while fun, all the scenarios take place in the same general location and seem like minor variations on the same theme. The maps are wonderful - better than average, and that's saying a lot because the HPS maps are uniformly superb. You can't get a better game than this.

Grant's great victory

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 20
Date: June 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The HPS Civil War Campaign Windows games are the best games available for both the gamer and historian. Each game covers one campaign or area, providing a series of historical and hypothetical battles. The battles are played as single games or linked into a campaign with losses and advantages carried forward. In campaign mode, players have to consider "tomorrow" and cannot just attack everything in sight. In campaign mode, decision points determine the direction the campaign takes, while battles determine the decision points. This provides for almost unlimited replay ability as no one campaign will ever match the last one.

Game scale is set to the pace and command abilities of the 19th Century. Each turns is twenty minutes during the day and one hour at night, about 120 yards per hex. Units are regiments, very large regiments can be two counters, artillery units are two gun sections, leaders and supply wagons.

Formations are critical and leaders exist starting at brigade level. Brigade leaders benefit by being in the command range of their division leader, who benefit by being in the command range of their corps commander. These rules, force command cohesion by penalizing players that break up commands. Line, column, limbered, unlimbered, mounted or dismounted enhance movement or combat and require planning and preparation. Having a regiment in the wrong formation will mean you cannot fire, take more casualties or move slowly.

Movement starts at about two miles an hour for an infantry regiment. Terrain, roads and formation increase or decrease this rate.

Combat results in losses and fatigue. Fatigue makes units susceptible to disorganization or route. Disorganized units are less effective and more likely to route. Routed units run from battle and will not fight until rallied. Leaders can rally units and have the best chance of doing so within their command.

While this may sound complicated, it isn't and one set of rules is used in all the games. This is not to say that the games are the same and one approach works in every game. The experienced armies of the Gettysburg and Atlanta games are very different from the green armies at Shiloh. The more open area in Vicksburg presents cavalry opportunities that do not exist in Atlanta.

Campaign Vicksburg has 57 battles, including the historical battles of
Chickasaw Bayou
Port Gibson
Raymond
Jackson
Champion Hill
Big Black Bridge
Milliken's Bend and the
Vicksburg Assaults of 19 and 22 May 19

What-if" battles include Grant Assaults on Snyder's Bluffs
Redbone Church
Grindstone Ford
Ingraham Heights
July 6 Final Assault on Vicksburg

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