In a post yesterday, I mentioned a new Civil War computer game from Matrix Games entitled Forge of Freedom. Today, with a little help from the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical message board, I found a message board thread at Matrix that discusses some features of the game in detail. It uses the Crown of Glory engine, a Napoleonic era strategic game that Matrix previously released. Here’s the first post from the thread in detail:
Visitors to the show will also be able to get first looks and hands-on time with some of our products that will be released later this year, including SSG’s Battlefront, Destroyer Studio’s sci-fi space combat game, Starshatter 2: The Gathering Storm, and ….
Western Civilization’s new Civil War game, Forge of Freedom.
Some improvements we’ve implemented so far:
1 Brigade level for units.
2 Allow for some control of setup at the start of detailed combat.
3 At the start of detailed combat, make an Initiative Check based on the stats of generals. Winner of the initiative check gets to pick terrain types he wants to fight in.
4 At the start of detailed combat, make a Scouting Check based on the types of units in the combat. Winner of the scouting check gets to try a “Scouting Action” against the other side: such things as Raid Supplies, Sneak Attack, Avoid the Battle, etc.
5 For military groups, keep track of a Logistical Staff and Command Staff rating that determines the movement, C&C, and supply capabilities of each military group.
6 For brigades, introduced a Strategic Supply rating, a Strategic-Level morale rating called “disposition”, renamed the old morale to “quality”, and added a weapon type stat for each unit. Also, brigades may have up to two different “attributes” and two different “special abilities” — which represent access to particular equipment, personnel, expertise, or training.
7 Promotion and demotion of generals.
8 Added a “Command” rating to generals. Generals also have an expanded role maintaining disposition and helping the training of units on the strategic level. On the detailed combat level, generals have a few new things to do, like prevent units from panicking and keeping units in-command.
9 Added “Green”, “Yellow”, and “Red” Zones to detailed combat. Green Zone is normal; yellow and red zones represent areas where enemy units makes C&C with brigades difficult.
10 Added about 30 game setup options so that players can customize the complexity level of the politics, military, supply, and economy.
11 Enhanced fog-of-war at the strategic level. Clicking on a stack of units brings up a “scouting report” that gives only an approximate tally of enemy units based on the scouting values of units in adjacent provinces versus the scouting value of enemy units in the vicinity.
12 Expanded the options for developing provinces economically.
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