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Will keep you occupied for a few days

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: October 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Shattered Union is a turn based wargame that is good for a few days diversion. You can play single battles or a full campaign. The campaign consists of a strategic map of 24 regions of the US. The basic premise is that the US split into six factions after a period of disputed elections and a nuclear attack on Washington DC. In addition to the six US factions, the European Union makes up the seventh after they sent peacekeepers to occupy the DC area.

The strategic portion of the campaign game I thought was the weakest part. It is massively simplified in that you have a maximum of 42 units and are allowed to make only one attack per turn. Whichever units are used in an attack are unavailable for defense. Instead of stationing units in the various territories you hold, you have a force pool from which you deploy units for attack and defence. Having a maximum of 42 units leads you to get stretched thin and being forced to give up territories sometimes since you don't have enough units to defend them. This in turn leads to repeated fighting over the same territory. Additionally it takes several mouse clicks to see which units you have in your force pool. There should be a way to see this in a glance.

On the plus side the tactical maps of each region, while not topographically realistic, are cool to look at. You can even learn some about US geography. For example I did not know that Seattle was that close to a mountain range etc (ok maybe I'm dumb, but I've never been there).

The tactical battles are where you spend most of your time. While again not realistic, they are fun if you liked games like panzer general, massive assault, and advance wars. Though after a few days, once you get to know the units and how the AI plays, you should be able to consistently beat the computer. However that is the case with most AI. Still it is fun. All in all, a good but not great game.

Advance Wars with a little more.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: October 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing strategy games since long before computers. While I found Shattered Union to have some flaws I found the game to be fun and pretty straight forward to play. I would have liked them to develop the story more in the campaign but overall I felt the game was a great value.

Graphically, for the type of game I really enjoyed the graphics. Much better than standards in war gaming. The Xbox version was kind of muddy but from the in-game distance I played I found them clear enough and still engaging.

Game play was solid. I would have like to seen some naval units but could see how this may have added more complexity which they may have already been over the top with considering what they were trying to create.

Documentation was the area that I think brought my score down the most. I would have liked much more detail on the game play mechanics and perhaps even some tips on combat. The in-game tutorial movies were not helpful enough to make up for this area.

Again, despite some flaws I found Shattered Union to be a good game (great if they had better documentation). If you liked games like Advanced Wars or Panzer General you should give Shattered Union a try. If you've ever been tempted to try a war game then I think this would be a good first game (great if the documentation was better!).

Good but not Great

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: January 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This can be a good introduction to computer wargames if you have not tried them before. The turn-based system lets you think things over, something Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games don't allow. Yes, the game is simplistic, and yes it has some flaws, but if you liked the Axis and Allies board game, you are probably going to enjoy it. That is about the level of complexity here: buy units, take territory to earn money, repair and by more units, repeat. The game is not super-demanding in terms of system specifications, a welcome change for a new game.

If you are just beginning, here are some tips:

You are given a pool of units to begin with, and some money.
Go to the "Buy Units" screen by clicking the tank icon with a dollar sign superimposed.
Use the Switch in the middle of the screen to select the Wrench icon. This is where they have hidden the option to sell units as well as repair them.
Go ahead, even before any battles, and sell your humvees, and all your light armor units. Sell the Super Cobra and Warrior helicopters, and replace them with an Apache. Purchase a couple of LAVs....these have great armor and long range, they make great scouts. If you've got any money left, buy an Avenger or Chapparalle anti-aircraft unit. Consider selling off the medium armour and just getting a couple more Abrams or LAVs.

During your turn, you may attack with any or all of the units in your army, but if you use them all, there will be nothing reserved to defend with during your opponent's turns. Generally, you can effectively defend a territory by using commandos and engineers, backed up by artillery and some air support. Lay mines like crazy around the cities, backing up as you go. Place the artillery where it can fire on the cities. Defend the artillery with jet patrols and/or with AA guns. Tanks won't be all that much use in defense, though a couple LAVs are useful, for range in recapturing territory. When the computer assigns you Partisans, you can put them out front to be an early-warning system, or you can hide them in the woods....the enemy may occupy a city, then leave it vacant to go conquer others. A Partisan can come in the back door and recapture it.

Send in LAVs to take out enemy AA units first. Then you can pick off enemies with your bombers and helicopters.

Paladin AA units are a lousy value. Weak armor. A Crusader is always better. Merls can make good defensive units if you protect them carefully.

Don't forget to set jet patrols over your units at the end or your turn, to defend against bombers and helicopters. Remember that jets have patrol zones, and you can set these to overlap, so jets will defend each other.

Heavy Infantry are fairly useless. Commandos inside cities are incredibly tough defenders. Keep your Engineers on the move, lay a mine and get outta there. The AI won't generally lay mines, so forget about using your engineers as mine sweepers, it isn't usually necessary.

Remember that you never have to attack during your turn. When you do attack, make it an enemy who has just attacked someone during their last turn...this means that they may not have many units reserved for defense of the territory you want to invade. Be cautious about the number of units you take into an attack, always leave a reserve for defense.

You can always resign and not fight, then come right back and re-take that territory, on the assumption that they won't leave much there in the way of defense. I prefer to always defend. Laying mines is inexpensive for you, and can chew up the enemy armor in a big hurry. Just be sure you have plenty of engineers.

If you are in the middle of a battle, and you want to get out, remember you can always click the "file folder" icon, and choose to resign the battle. Your units will retreat.

Plan to have a pen and some scratch paper. They designed the army selection page lousy. There is one generic icon to represent all the types in a class. For example, one icon on the page may represent an Abrams tank, or it may be a Ft. Bragg tank. You don't know until you click on the icon. Then, you'd have to memorize that fact, because to see the rest of your inventory, you have to click on each individual icon, one at at time. You can't see exactly what you have at any given time, and you can't rearrange the list. It is in order of purchase. This is a major flaw in the game, and gets to be a real drag quickly. I am hoping they will patch it, but I doubt that will happen. There isn't even a manufacturer-supported forum for this game online. So, use scratch paper to keep track of what you have. Cross of units the enemy destroys as it happens, it saves a lot of headache.

There isn't much effort at plot or story. I think a total of two times a TV announcer comes on screen to tell you things. There is a nice sort of surprise at the end of conquering the United States...I won't give it away, but I think you'll enjoy it.

Shattered Union

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a great turn-based game in the vein of Panzer General. But its simplified mechanics make it easy learn for somebody who never played this type of game before. Also, this game has really nice 3D graphics - a rarity for this genre. The entire USA is rendered in a really nice abstract way, with great camera controls, and you don't need a powerful CPU to see it really well, but you WILL need a 128 mg video card. Word of WARNING, though. This game could cause hard system lock-ups and it has other persistent BUGS. And the developer doesn't really support the product and there will never be a patch!
Honestly, I loved the game so much, I decided to replace my 4 year old computer in order to play Shattered Union. Wouldn't you know it, most of the bugs are still manifest with my new rig as well, although no more system locks, making the game playable in most modes. And remember, there is NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT. Buy at your own risk.

Fun tactical game, HORRIBLE strategic simulation.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Shattered Union begins with a good premise: A modern-day American civil war with warring factions that, in many ways, mirror the red state-blue state divide we see today. (Republic of Texas, Pacifica, the Confederacy)

As a tactical game, it reminded me a lot of Panzer General 2, only in Shattered Union you're not allowed to mechanize your infantry? I don't get why in a game 5 years old, you can buy transports to move your grunts faster, but in this game, where you actually *have* APCs like Bradleys, Strikers, and such, you can't have them transport your grunts, forcing them to march everywhere?

Other than that glaring omission, it plays like a modern and fun version of Panzer General. Infantry gets killed, but is strong on the defense in cities, AA guns can take the place of air cover, bombers savage anything in the open; if you've played Panzer General 2 or any hex-based strategy game of moderate to easy complexity, you'll know what to expect. So far, so good.

What I *hated* about this game was the campaign. First, there's no diplomacy. At all. For what would be a politically complicated situation like a multi-state American Civil war, that's a glaring omission. Also, the resource management, which can be like a whole other game as in the TOTAL WAR series, is oversimplified to just buying and fixing units. The only way to improve your infrastructure is to take other territories.

Units are also not placed in individual territories, they're in a "group" that can go anywhere you control via attacking or defending. You can only attack once a turn (!) and the units you use are locked into the province you attack for one turn. OK, fine. If you're attacked, the units you use are locked in as well in that province.

The problem is, what if 3 factions decide to gang up on you, as happened to me a few times? You run out of units and wind up loosing territories, even if you win battles and win big as I was with 4-1 kill ratios. Centrally placed factions like the Republic of Texas and the Great plains Federation that border 3 or more factions always get screwed while ones like Pacifica, that border 2, wind up winning because of bad game design.

I don't mind a challenge, having beaten many strategy games (Western Empire of Rome:Total War Barbarian Invasion was a killer), but when you win every battle decisively and get nowhere fast at the campaign through bad design and sheer, dumb luck as to who attacks who when, it's frustrating and just not fun.

shattered union is not what it could be

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: February 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

You know, I really like turn-based strategy (TBS) games. I really get into the tactics of holding territory, using lines of sight, and planning out my offensives in painstaking detail. Maybe that's why I hate this game so much. Shattered Union really does do an amazing job- of taking all the worst parts of the TBS genre (butt-ugly graphics [reminiscent of an early PSone game], rage-inducing menu-driven controls, and unnecessarily complex rule structures) and combining them into a giant pile of half-assed gameplay. What completely destroys any remaining worth that this title might hold for me, though, is the ridiculously large emphasis on scouting. (How am I supposed to annihilate enemy troops and conquer a nation when I can only see what's happening on about 20% of the area of a map?) In conclusion, gaming giant 2K Games has really given their fans something to scream in agony about this time.

I enjoy bombing Texas

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Given all thats happening in the world and in this country I would say that the stroyline of this game is not far fetched. Shattered Union opens with a wonderfully exciting cinimatic sequence that ultimately leads to the nuclear destruction of Washington D.C. and later the sessesion of California, Texas and neighboring states.

Ultimately the United States is balkanized into six different psedo-states. (Although scant information is provided as to how these states came into existance and why they're fighting each other.)

Once you select a faction it's time to try to reunify the country. Each faction is more or less the same, with the exception that they start with different amounts of money and each has one special Megatank that moves really slow but packs a huge punch.

The best part about the game is planning deployment of your troops and fighting the battles. I spent many a night laying waste to city after city. Dallas was especially fun to drop bombs on. (Yeah I messed with Texas, whatcha gonna do about it. JK)

But while the game play was fun there were so many other options that could have been explored. Like for example hiring another writer to complete the back story. A diplomacy option and resource management. You have to think that if something like this were to happen it would be very difficult for the Midwest states to get oil, or the Pacific Northwest or South to get food.

I didn't find the graphics to be particularly bad, but they weren't exceptional. And unless you have a home network with a few friends you can pretty much forget about playing this game online, because everytime Ive logged on there were no opposing human players to rumble against.

Personally I think this game was great, but it could have used just a few finishing touches to make it a fantastic game.

The Second Civil War

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I loved this game because it gave me the chance to do what I've always wanted to do. Go to war against oppression, reunite the Union and show the world that the Confederate soldiers aren't all bad men. I recommend this to everyone looking to add a chapter to America's tale. (Or to anyone who wishes to haul off and drop napalm on San Francisco!)

Shattered Union = Shattered Opportunity, but still alot of fun!!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I haven't purchased any computer game since Medieval Total War (even though I've been wanting to buy Total War Rome: Barbarian Invasion) because I only like strategy games and so few of those types of games are made despite the obvious popularity of this genre.

Shattered Union is a fun game that takes place in the near future time when the U.S. has disintegrated from external and internal pressures and it's your job as the player of one of the factions to reunite the nation by force of arms.

You have a strategic map and a tactical map that allow you to plan and undertake your conquests as well as defense from opposing factions led by the A.I. of your computer as well as available LAN play.

I enjoyed playing the game but was disappointed in the obvious lack of diplomatic abilities between factions and also between your faction and the spoiler nation, Russia. If the game allowed funds transfers between factions, I would love to be able to keep weak factions alive so that they could keep up pressure on stronger factions as I pushed across the map.

I was also disappointed in the fact that you can only build up to a certain amount of units no matter how much of the strategic map you control. Other obvious negatives are that your infantry can not hop on some mechanized unit for transport purposes. And the lack of naval units, which could be used for bombardment of ocean bordering territories was also sadly missing.

It would also have been nice if there were more news updates and additional animated sequences to add to the excitement. I remember a great global computer wargame called "Command HQ" which after everytime your troops entered a city, an animated sequence would have civilians standing on the sidewalks cheering as your troops entered to liberate the city. That game came out about 17 years ago and it's A.I. and added storyline is still superior to anything else out there.

That's not to say that "Shattered Union" wasn't fun and doesn't have its' pluses. It does, but the game could have been so much more and the opportunity was squandered.

Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the game and as for strategic and tactical plans, another reviewer covered some of that very well but here's my take on what I did that led me through a very successful game:

I spent my money on as many Abrams and FSC (advanced) tanks as I could afford. I would also add a couple of Vulcan Anti-Aircraft units to defend my tank colums. I also added 4 Apaches, 3 or 4 B-2 bombers, 2 Thunderbolt bombers, 2 or 3 Fighter Jets, 2 Engineer units, and 2 Defense Towers.

As I grew in territories, I eliminated my Defense Towers and Engineers and added more Battle Tanks. So, even when I was the defender, I would take the offense almost immediately. Nothing terrorizes an attacker more than when the defender takes the initiative and thunders columns of tanks and bombers into his deployment zone!! I would destroy my opponent's airpower as fast as possible. I would decimate entire groups of land units using bombers and Apache helicopters thus allowing my tanks to race to the rear of the front-lines and blast whatever remained!!

The sooner you take control of the skies, the sooner you can win the battle. If you can locate the enemy's airfield and destroy it, it eliminates his ability to use any bombers or fighters in that tactical battle.

Another great strategy was that I would slice up the opposing factions up on the Strategic map and isolate their territories from each other. By doing that, I found that this particular faction would give up isolated territories without a fight!

As others have noted, I didn't like the fact that if you used units to attack or defend in a turn, you couldn't use them again against another faction that same turn. That just made no sense and took away some of the fun. Also, there is no option that allows you to turn off the "fog of war" so that you can see where all the enemy units are located. Considering that in reality we have satellites that can see such things right now, it would have been nice to assume that ability in the game as well should the player decide to implement that feature. Even so, I would use my Apache units to scout out the territory because of their large line of sight and then use my fighter jets to protect them from enemy jets. Plus, my jet patrols would give me further line of sight so I could see far into the map and know pretty much where enemy units awaited me.

It would be great if the software developer would expand and improve the game but even as it stands, it's still a fun strategy game and I do highly recommend it to all us strategy game-starved fans out there.

Lastly, save your game constantly because the game has bugs which will occasionally crash the game. Sadly, no patches are available to fix these issues.

No No No No NO

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 23
Date: October 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

What a disappointment. A great premise, destroyed by terrible terrible graphics and poor game play. I love these sort of games but not this one. Now I understand why the price is below $30. New games should be closer to $50 if they are any good. Sorry; great idea but bad game. Looking forward to Civ 4.

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