Review Real and Simulated Wars reviews Scourge of War: Chancellorsville

[Trash]

Tags: Happy New Year; Real and S; Scourge of War: Chancellorsville

December was a bit slow on the news front but things are picking up again. We'll start with this review of Scourge of War: Chancellorsville. The latest stand-alone expansion a series of wargames focusing on the US Civil War with a rather unique command and control method. Seems the AI is quite evolved.

Chancellorsville can be played solo against a the computer or multiplayer against a human opponent. The computer opponent in the game is very capable and fond of ruining your most clever plans. It maneuvers towards your flanks with intimidating tenacity, it uses combined arms whenever the resources are available and most importantly, it appears to have a hierarchical tactical plan against you. Some moves of the computer opponent are scripted in the single player scenarios and these are intended to preserve the historical feeling of the scenario. But after those moves are executed, the computer opponent is fully unleashed to dynamically react against the player's actions. It is in those conditions where the player can see, for example, an enemy division suddenly forced into an area defense allocating different sectors to each brigade.

Nice.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Score: A. One of the finest computer war games ever published. Looks great, plays great and one of the few war games that succeeded to tackle command and control in a playable and scalable manner. Makes you wish the design talent used for this war game could be extended to other wars and warfare periods.