(Hat tip to Eddy Sterckx at the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical usenet group for the following.)
A new 2by3Games developer’s journal entry was posted on March 31, 2008. On pages 2 and 3, Joel Billings discusses the new Civil War wargame entitled War Between The States (or WBTS for short) and a possible release date of some time between May and July. The game will be distributed by Matrix Games when it is released. Check out the game’s dedicated forum over at Matrix Games now to see how this one is going to play. I’ve included the relevant portion of the developer’s diary below:
We’re almost done, really!
Our big news is that work on WBTS is finally nearing completion. The delay has been due to Keith’s lack of time to work on WBTS. On several occasions he had to put some time into RF and EDBTR in order to keep those projects moving along and that’s taken away from WBTS. Keith is now down to just a few items remaining, and he’s trying hard to finish his list by early April. If this happens, the game may be out as soon as late May/early June. Of course there’s no guarantee, and production scheduling could also delay things further, but we’ll all be very disappointed if the game hasn’t been released by the end of July at the latest. The extra time in development has allowed us to continue to refine the game and improve the AI. The game has been very playable for over a year, so we’ve been able to spend a lot of time tweaking the game and AI and adding features (like adding a fog of war system to the total forces list, and information and feedback on supply requirements and consumption). You can find several AAR’s underway at the Matrix WBTS forum.I’m currently playing a PBEM game with Jon Pyle, our strongest tester, and that AAR can be found by clicking here . Although Jon’s Union troops have been pushing me hard, I recently enjoyed watching a Cavalry raid led by Nathan Bedford Forrest wreck havoc on Union supply lines north of Jackson, Mississippi. This raid showed why Grant elected to come at Vicksburg from the south and east, and it shows the importance of cavalry in WBTS. If you have an interest in the American Civil War, I strongly suggest you check out these AARs as they’ll give you a good sense of how the game plays. One thing that we were never happy with in World at War was the way combat was shown. The combat animations were cheesy and weren’t worth watching. In AWD we eliminated these entirely. In WBTS we think we’ve come up with the right solution. We show a quick running battle that adds some of the drama and excitement missing in WaW and AWD. In WBTS there aren’t many battles per turn (month), but when I have an important battle, I find myself cursing the screen every time one of my leaders is hit or the “tug-of-war” indicator shifts against me, indicating I’m losing the battle. Sean Drummy and I had a basic idea of what we wanted to do, and Erik Rutins really helped us flush out the idea and we’re very happy with the results.
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