W.R. Hutsell’s VGA Strategy Game is a classic strategic-level wargame simulation of the American Civil War. It is currently available for free download with the blessings of Mr. W.R. Hutsell. This game was written for MS-DOS, a predecessor to Microsoft Windows, as such, it takes a few moments of time to configure the application to run correctly.
Features:
- Intuitive to play, fairly short game duration (e.g. a couple hours), but with significant replayability. A great casual wargame.
- 1 or 2 Player – includes artificial intelligence opponent.
- Play as either the Union or the Confederacy.
- Includes random events which effect the course of the war.
- Extremely customizable, data files allow for almost endless customizations – add/remove commanders, change locations and values of cities, changing starting variables, and so on.
- Keeps a history of battles if so desired to allow you to review the course of your alternative history.
- Armies:
- You can recruit from different cities, each cities gives a recruitment based on relative historical ability.
- You can move, direct to combat, move via railroad, join, supply, divide, and so on armies.
- You can appoint and relieve commanders over armies, ensuring the best commander is assigned in the most critical theaters.
- Navies:
- As time progresses you receive the ability to build not only wooden but also ironclad ships.
- You can raid enemy commerce, disrupting their income.
- Attack cities – destroying fortifications.
- If a city is neutralized you can perform an amphibious invasion establishing a toehold on enemy soil.