Question of the Week: What’s your favorite Civil War game?
Have you played a Civil War video game, board game, or tabletop game? If so, which game (or style of game) is your favorite and why?
Have you played a Civil War video game, board game, or tabletop game? If so, which game (or style of game) is your favorite and why?
15mm ACW miniatures, Johnny Reb rules. Been playing them for over half a century.
I don’t recall the name, but some 30 years ago there was a computer game with Mort Kunstler background art that allowed you to choose specific battles to fight. Units of varying strengths would appear on the battlefield to correspond with history. Terrain features allowed enhancing defenses. There were other features that allowed for quite a fun game experience. I wasted (?) many an hour refighting various battles.
Civil War Generals! (I’m fairly certain).
CW Generals 2 was my favorite. As for board games, Battle Cry was great for a simple battle between friends without complex rules. I have a ton of painted ACW minis, but never found anyone interested in playing. Rule sets are hard to find.
Battle Cry was a classic in our house growing up.
And far too much of my life was (still is) spend on Civil War Generals 2!
Victory Games’ The Civil War was an excellent strategic-level game on the war. For tactical games, there was none better than the Battleground series for PC.
I still play with my metal soldiers
Do you still play with your Privates?
Back in 1995 or96 I received Civil War Generals 3, I played it a lot in Windows 95 but apparently the game was never upgraded to be compatible with later Windows editions. I also own AH’s “Gettysburg” (1977 edition?) with three levels of play. Never could get anyone to play the advanced level with me.
Gettysburg 1977 is my favorite as well. I prefer the second level. (brigade size, unlike the first AH Gettysburg which was division size Also like Sid Meyers Gettysburg; however, it can only be played on Windows 98. Sid’s Antietam was too big.
The original Gettysburg by Avalon Hill 1964. Played Chancellorsville by Avalon Hill many times but could never get a Union win.
Last year I started a retro acw project to build two opposing armies. I bought 1/72 plastics – still the cheapest “optimal” tabletop scale. The project stalled as I have so many others like operation torch Vichy French v USA. Anyway preferred theatre is in the west – I have been to the Gettysburg of the west near Santa Fe while Wilson’s creek has its wargaming attractions not least when the armies were uniformed by any means. I don’t do accuracy- no button counting. Rules wise I have maybe a dozen sets, field of battle and fire and fury are my preferred but very quick games can be had with Neil Thomas rulesets or skirmish rules by others. There are also free rulesets online.
I never bothered with computer simulation games or board games.
I loved the Avalon Hill games as a teenager. Now, Ultimate General
Scourge of War Gettysburg and associated DLCs. The game is over 10 years old and is no longer available in a physical format (no one has CD/DVD drives these days anyway) but a visually enhanced version is now available on Steam.
When I was young, VERY YOUNG, I ‘inherited’ a Civil War-based game produced by Parker Brothers, the same Parker Brothers who made the iconic “Monopoly” game. In fact, it was officially called “Civil War Game by Parker Brothers”, and was put out in the very early 1960s.
That was a great time for such games. “Broadside” was a good one for ‘naval encounters’. Those games were ALMOST as cool as the “Johnny Seven One Man Army” I got at Christmas 1965. I eliminated a lot of Viet Cong with that baby! A LOT of Viet Cong! Ahh, good times…
I loved my Johnny Seven One Man Army too, for whatever backyard war my friends and I were fighting. As a board gamer, starting in college, Terrible Swift Sword and its many successors were my favorites.
Tangential question – what properties would be on a Civil War Monopoly set? Passing go would be like not learning history and having to repeat the war.
I love this question. Andersonville or Elmira for jail? Maybe Richmond and D.C. in place of Park Place and Broadway? And it turns out the B&O Railroad can just stay as-is!
Civil War Monopoly… What a GREAT idea!
Andersonville is the most famous POW camp. And in addition to the B & O Railroad, the others could be Memphis & Charleston (Backbone of the Confederacy), Virginia Central R.R. (connected Richmond to the produce coming out of the Shenandoah Valley) and Atlanta & West Point R.R.
S&T edition 129 Harvest of Death: The Second day at Gettysburg
Avalon Hill Gettysburg 88 i think is another good board game.
Sid Meier’s Gettysburg! was the first video game that got me hooked on the Civil War. Civil War Generals 2 had an excellent scenario creator that I spent hours upon hours on – really got me thinking about orders or battle for the first time. In college I played some Ironclads tabletop with my own paper markers just printed on my own. I recently got my hands on an original 1980’s box set of Ironclads to potentially rekindle that interest.
I spent an absurd amount of time playing Sid Meier’s Gettysburg. And if I could get an old PC up and running, I’d play it right now. In addition to the great gameplay, it really helped in learning the Order of Battle and prominent locations on the battlefield.
I developed a Civil War game with my students, then divided the class into opposing sides. I’ve tried different variations: one year they could only communicate by written notes, the “generals” being actually out of the room.
Some years go better than others. A few years ago, I thought the boys would kill each other for real. The players get an advantage if they spend a turn “entrenching” their forces. When we watched “Glory” afterwards, one of the students yelled at the screen, “don’t attack! They’re entrenched!”
I have two: Euchre, a card game popular with Union troops during the Civil War; and Baseball.
I enjoy a good game of euchre too.
Hard to pick a favorite one. It is also hard to find opponents to join in. Prefer board games yet will play minatures and computer ames when iven the chance to do so.
I have always been a fan of Richard Berg’s Terrible Swift Sword and all of its descendants through several companies.
Series Games by Publisher
SPI (Simulations Publications, Inc.)
Terrible Swift Sword (Gettysburg), 1976
Stonewall (Kernstown), 1978
Bloody April (Shiloh), 1979
Pea Ridge, 1980
Drive on Washington (Monocacy Junction), 1980
Wilson’s Creek (Wilson’s Creek: The West’s First Fight, August 10, 1861), 1980
Cedar Mountain, 1981
Jackson at the Crossroads (Cross Keys and Port Republic), 1981
Corinth, 1981
Tactical Studies Rules (TSR)
Gleam of Bayonets (Antietam), 1983
Rebel Sabers (Kelly’s Ford, Brandy’s Station, Trevillians Station, Gettysburg expansion), 1986
Pleasant Hill, 1986
3W (World Wide Wargames)
Horse Soldiers (Brice’s Crossroads and Tupelo), 1988
Baton Rouge, 1990
SDC (Simulations Design Corporation)
Guns of Cedar Creek, 1989
Simulation Design, Inc.
First Blood (First and Second Bull Run/Manassas), 1989
Dead of Winter (Murfreesboro/Stones River), 1989
GMT Games
Three Days of Gettysburg (1st edition), 1995
River of Death (Chickamauga), 1999
Red Badge of Courage (First and Second Bull Run/Manassas), 2001
Three Days of Gettysburg (2nd edition), 2000
Gringo! (Mexican War, 1846-1848), 2004
Three Days of Gettysburg (3rd edition), 2004
Battle of Churubusco (Gringo! minigame), 2005
Battles With the Gringos (Gringo! expansion), 2008
Dead of Winter (II) (Murfreesboro/Stones River), 2009
Twin Peaks (Cedar Mountain/South Mountain), 2014
Death Valley (Shenandoah), 2019
Into the Woods (Shiloh), 2022
Death Valley Expansion (Shenandoah), 2022
By Swords and Bayonets (Big Bethel, Rappahannock Station, New Bern, Mill Springs), 2025
‘Fugitive Slave Hunt’ by Parker Brothers
If you’re going to make up games, I have one. It’s called “cite your sources”. Should be pretty easy for a fella with two masters degrees, and six books on the way.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned North & South, released in 1990 on the original Nintendo. That game was an absolute Civil War “starter drug” for a 10 year old. It combined silly tactical battles and a neat strategic map that fired the imagination.
Greatest of all time though: Sid Meier’s Gettysburg!, with Sid Meier’s Antietam (1997/1999) a close second. The order of battle and terrain representation have stuck with me my whole life. A kid from Los Angeles couldn’t just go to see these battlefields. Sid Meier’s Games were a great way to learn the battlefield topography.
Honorable mention to Ultimate General: Civil War (2016, Game-Labs) and Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) (2021, Grand Engineer Corps). The way terrain is represented in UG: CW is incredibly useful in understanding battlefields. The orders of battle in GT: TCW are very well-researched. Ironically both of these developers are foreign: Ukraine for UG and Denmark for GT.
This will be pretty obscure, but I have a fondness for three small brigade-level boardgames from Ivy Street Games that are long out of print: “Stonewall at Cedar Mountain,” “Williamsburg 1862,” and “Chantilly” — even though they appeared near the start of desktop publishing and look somewhat crude by the standards of Century 21. Two design features in particular are memorable. First, activation of divisions occurs by a chit-pull mechanism, so the players never know what formation will get into action next. Second, the divisions are constrained by a simple orders system which encourages anticipation of changing situations on the battlefield. Those curious about these games can find “after action reports” for “Stonewall” and “Williamsburg” at boardgamegeek.com .