- Developer: Firaxis Games East, Inc.
- Genre: Strategy/Wargame
- Originally on: Windows (1997)
- Works on: PC, Windows
- Editor Rating:
- User Rating: 10.0/10 - 1 vote
- Rate this game:
My First Ever Interview With The great Sid Meier, the man behind the best-selling Civilization, lasted just a mere five minutes. Unfortunately, he kept saying the same thing over and over again, no matter what I asked him. Worse still, every ten seconds or so he'd panic and freeze solid. When he did start talking again, he seemed to have trouble with his lips which didn't quite match what he was saying..
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It's all my fault for not upgrading my CD-ROM drive, I suppose. QuickTime movies don't like has-been PCs and mine's a lot more has-been than most.
Anyway, there was only one question I rea really wanted to ask Sid. Why Gettysburg? I mean, when you've covered the whole history of humankind in Civilization, why pick on an itsy-bitsy little skirmish such as Gettysburg for your next money-spinner? I Fortunately, the answer comes just after he j freezes up for the third time. He's always I wanted to, ever since he was a boy.'We didn't set out-t-t-t-t-t-to create a real-time strategy-gy-gy game,' he said, pausing for a while to collect his thoughts ar generally jerk about a bit. 'We set out to write a game about the Civil War.'To most Americans, Gettysburg was the turning point in a war that shaped the present day United States in much the same way as Waterloo, the Battle of Britain or D-Day affected of Blighty. Sid himself describes it as 'the climactic moment of America's bloodiest war', so it must have been quite important.
In actual fact though, it wasn't a particularly decisive battle. Score-draw is the phrase that springs to mind, but it makes a hell of a good wargame so let's substitute Brian Reynolds for good old Sid and see if we get a bit further in the second half.
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- Where can I find my Sid Meier's Railroads save games? I am encountering performance issues; How do I hide obstacles (Cities/Clutter/Trees)? Does the game include Voice Over IP and how do I activate it? I cannot uninstall or reinstall the game; Patch and what does it change? Sid Meier's Railroads.
Brian is in charge of the programming team working on Gettysburg and he also worked on Civilization 2 and Colonization. What's more, he's real and doesn't do alarming things like change colour and freeze completely when you talk to him.
After pointing out that there are plenty of other American Civil War games around at the moment, I asked Brian what was different about Gettysburg.'Well, with all due respect, there's no comparison between Gettysburg and the others. What we've got is a real-time action game which provides the feel of 'really being there' much better than the turn-based attempts.'If you've ever read a civil war novel or history, 'Confederate Defensive Fire Phase' sort of ruins your suspension of disbelief,' he added, with a non-too-subtle dig at a certain rival game series.
'And this is no 'everybody-run-to-the-centre-of-the-screen-and-bash-on-each-other' kind of game either,' he went on, just in case I thought real-time games involvedeverybody running to the centre of the on each other. Which I do, actua'You'll find yourself using formations, like lines, columns and skirmish order as well as realistic tactics, flanking fire and echelon attacks, because they work best. Troops get bonuses for friendly support on the flanks and rear, and there's a drastic penalty for flanking fire, so proper formations follow quite naturally.'
And cavalry charges?'Mounted cavalry charges against infantry weren't a good idea in the age of rifled muskets and they won't work in Gettysburg either,' he replied. Well, that told me.
Asked if any other games had influenced the design of Gettysburg, he confessed: 'We've got a number of fanatical WarCraft 2 players on the team, so we were certainly influenced by some of its strengths and weaknesses. But with no disrespect to the earlier products, we think Gettysburg is the beginning of a whole new genre.'He's obviously never seen the classic MicroProse title Fields Of Glory, Impressions' rather less classic The Blue And The Gray or Empire's more recent Civil War, all of which are undoubtedly real-time wargames.
Order of Battle
Gettysburg covers all three days of the battle from 1-3 July 1863. The finished version should include 24 or 25 scenarios or engagements of varying sizes and a campaign game. In the campaign, engagements are linked and your performance in one engagement will have an effect on the next. There will also be some multi-player scenarios which allow you to run huge engagements as a single scenario for team play over a network or the Internet.
In Gettysburg, you'll have four straightforward zoom levels, an overhead view and even different types of display. For example, you can choose between a terrain view with high ground and gradients, or an 'analysis' view which allows you to check unit orders. One of the most thrilling features promises to be the ability to rotate the camera to view the action from different angles.
Naturally, with so much devoted to real-time action, there's going to be some abstraction of weapon types. Artillery is divided into two classes - smoothbores like Napoleons which are most effective at short range, and rifled guns for long range. Infantry will be armed with rifled muskets, while cavalry will be carrying carbines.Leaders are represented on the battlefield to provide morale boosts to attached units, but you'll find that they can,t be ki,led deliberately. However, they can be wounded or killed if the units under their direct command take a beating.
One of the biggest worries when recreating historical battles is play balance. I asked Brian if Gettysburg would turn into a it historically accurate slugging match.
'Surprisingly, we didn't have to do a lot of play balancing - we just set up the historical forces in the historical locations, historical manpower and it turned out to be really exciting. I'd say that between equally skilled players the Union wins the historical scenario three times out of four, but there are other ways for the Confederates to win in the campaign game. They can take Longstreet's disregarded advice to Lee, for instance, and swing around south flank.' Well, I don't know about you, but I'm totally sold. I'll definitely be upgrading my CD-ROM drive now..
Before We Start, There Are Only three things you need to know about Sid Meier's Gettysburg. Firstly, Sid 'Civilisation' Meier had a hand in it, so it must be pretty classy. Secondly, it's about the well-known American civil war battle of Gettysburg (yawn). And thirdly, it represents a pretty radical departure from turn-based computer war games -in other words it's real-time all the way.
Let's face it, the traditional approach to wargaming has always been turn-based: You move, he moves, you move, he moves, and so on. Sometimes it gets more complicated, with defensive fire phases and such-like, but moves are slow, deliberate and carefully planned. A bit like Sid's other masterpiece, Civilisation..
In a real-time game, however, things happen around you and the shit hits the fan faster than you can press the Pause button. You can spend ten minutes positioning a gun battery and forming up your best brigade for an assault, only to find that everywhere else is chaos. (How could they get there so ruddy quickly? I thought I left a regiment guarding that crossing? Oh there they are. That's funny, they're running away. And whose are all those troops? They're certainly not mine. Oh shit, now where's my reserve?).
Gettysburg (the battle) needs little introduction -especially after the rash of other war games, such as Battleground Gettysburg. It's a battle that's embedded deep in the American psyche; it was the turning point in a civil war that gave birth to the United States as it is today, and Americans are very proud of it. So just humour them, OK?
The wow factor!
Apart from the delicious artwork on the intro screen, the first thing you see in the game is the menu screen, where you can choose to play a scenario, the full battle, a multiplayer game, a tutorial, or load a saved game. A quick click on TUTORIAL leads you gently through the command interface bit by bit. It's confusing at first, and anything but intuitive, but you'll be too busy gawping at the graphics to take in the first lesson properly.
This is what will grab you by the balls and pull you in. The detail is just amazing. Units are made up of a dozen or so individual figures, each one beautifully animated at each of the six zoom levels available. To be frank, it's light years ahead of anything we've seen before. The soldiers move, load, fire, walk and run whenever ordered - and they don't do it in unison, but as individual figures.
You've suddenly got living, breathing units rather than wooden blocks of infantry in the same old boring firing positions. They stand, fire, re-load and W leg it, depending on their morale levels, although most of the time they'll try and carry out their orders. The atmosphere is superbly realistic too, with voiced commands floating at intervals over the din of battle. Every order you make is echoed by the sergeants and officers and punctuated by volleys of rifle fire, artillery and other sound effects. As a gaming experience it's not to be missed. The units (regiments or batteries) are controlled by brigade commanders who can move several units under their control at once, although each regiment can be quickly detached and placed on its own if things get bad. (You can always re-attach them with a single mouse click later).
The projected or actual positions of the units are indicated as rectangles pointing in the appropriate direction whenever you click on the brigade commander, so you can see at a glance the disposition of each brigade. It spoils the gorgeous 3D landscape, but so what? It's nice to know what the hell's going on occasionally.
Although the command interface is well thought out, it's all too easy to lose control at times and give up. Only moving your leader to a quiet location and rallying can get your brigade back into any resemblance of order - unless the troops are engaged with the enemy or busy hoofing it back home to the barracks. I'd be the last person to say this was unrealistic, although the word 'frustration' should be underlined and in capitals..
Shock horror!
First of all, the big shock. You can't play the full Gettysburg game from start to finish. Gettysburg was three days of bitter fighting, building up gradually from a small clash to the climactic Pickett's Charge. No gamer could hope to control all that in real I time, so it looks like Sid decided not I to give them the chance. The 'full | battle' is, instead, a step-by-step set of scenarios building up towards the later events. Some do get large but there's no way you can fight the whole thing at one sitting. It's not a campaigneither - you can lose almost an entire regiment in one scenario and find that it's increased in size the next.
Shock number two is that the cavalry won't stay on their horses under fire, which means that you can't charge the enemy on horseback. Now, I'd be the first to admit that cavalry very rarely charged unbroken infantry in the American civil war, unless they had some kind of death wish, but occasionally it would be nice to be able to pursue routing units. Their only real use is as a fast-moving reserve.
Another good feature is the 25 scenarios you can choose from, plus a random scenario generator that will w give you games ad infinitum (or ad nauseam, Mlb depending on your point of view). These can be skirmishes or big battles, it's up to you. One thing that sets the game aside from the rest is that you can view the battle from eight different points of the compass. Without a doubt this is the best-looking wargame since hexes and cardboard counters were invented, and one of the most challenging too. Ignore the disjointed campaign-style approach and the fact that you can't fight the entire battle. With its multi-player support across networks, serial links and the Internet, it'll almost certainly take the games charts by storm and it deserves every little bit of it.
I want to see more effective cavalry in version 1.01, and I want to have a shot at the big one all on my own, no matter how slow it is. But as I said earlier, there are only three things you need to know about Gettysburg. It's brilliant, it's realistic and I've got a copy..
Download Links
System Requirements
Processor: PC compatible,
OS: Windows 9x, Windows 2000 Windows XP, Vista, Win 7, Win 8, Win 10.
Game Features:Single game mode
Beta Patch v2.0 for Sid Meier's Antietam
This patch is required to be able to play user created battle packs.
Sid Meier's Antietam! Read Me
Version 2.0
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** BETA PATCH NOTICE
** PLEASE READ
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This patch (v9.84) is currently in 'beta' phase. This means that all the features and fixes are implemented, but to ensure the highest level of quality we want to root out any compatibility problems with 'real-world' machines. While we expect there will be few (if any) problems with this beta patch, we would love to address any hardware conflicts that we might have missed. Likewise, even small changes to the program can have far reaching, yet subtle, impact on completely unrelated aspects of the game.
We're looking for three types of bugs with regards to this patch:
1) A hardware compatibility problem introduced by the new version.
2) A feature that we 'claimed fixed' yet isn't (either partially or completely).
3) Any problems introduced by this patch that weren't present in the original retail version.
If you believe you have found a problem, we'd love to hear from you. Email as much detail about the problem as you can to [email protected]. Please include the basics about your system and what we need to do to duplicate the problem. With your help we can ensure that this patch will eliminate the remaining bugs and increase your enjoyment of Sid Meier's Antietam!
Thanks,
The Antietam Development Team
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** Features added to v9.84
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-- You can now reach the preferences menu from the main interface.
Hit F9 from the main menu to access this screen.
-- CTRL-B will now toggle the regiment art to blocks and back
again in-scenario.
-- You may now see the source(s) of incoming fire on all regiments of
a brigade when its commander is selected.
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** Fixes in v9.84
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-- Saved games in multiplayer now correctly restore reinforcement
settings.
-- Certain toolbar reconfigurations used to cause problems (Unlimber Plagiarism checker free.
for infantry for instance). It now checks commands and disallows.
-- Severe rally now removes the correct number of troops.
-- Map 'speckling' has been greatly reduced.
-- For player-created campaigns, the buildXX.txt file is now
correctly read.
-- A human playing what was an AI player in a saved multiplayer
game now works correctly.
-- Troop effectiveness in multiplayer now works as it should.
-- Troops now receive road benefits in town, and road grid has been reduced.
-- Installed desktop themes no longer cause the mouse to flicker
on the options screen.
-- A3D soundcards no longer cause sporadic fatals in-scenario.
-- The quotes prior to entering a scenario now display for the
correct amount of time.
-- The 'photo survey' of the Burnside's Bridge scenario now
contains the correct compass information.
-- Entrenchment now takes the correct amount of time in all
scenarios.
-- Some graphic artifacts from unit animations were removed.
-- Units no longer instantly route, rally, route, etc. under
certain conditions in certain scenarios.
-- Regiments in woods which are not moving or firing cannot be seen
unless within small-arms range of enemy units.
-- The game now correctly lists multiplayer options.
This file contains late-breaking news on Sid Meier's Antietam!..all
the things you need to know that didn't make it into the manual.
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** Known Bugs
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MULTIPLAYER
-- For Serial or Modem-to-Modem play [not internet play over a modem
but direct connections only], once a multiplayer game has been
completed, it is necessary to quit the game before you can play
another multiplayer game in this manner.
ORDER OF BATTLE vs CASUALTY REPORTING
-- Due to several factors (such as units starting some scenarios weakened,
the fact that the game continues slightly beyond the moment at which
Sid Meier 60s Railroads Patch 1.2 Download Pc
the score is calculated, and internet lag problems regarding melee
and unit capture), the score screen casualty numbers will occasion-
ally be higher or lower than the total casualties reported on the
OB screen at the end of the game. The score screen is correct.
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** Some Player Notes
Sid Meier's Railroads Patch 1.2
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-- Big Battles and Rally : If you decide to play one of the several
full-day battle scenarios, it would be wise to play with the
option 'Severe Rally'. After several hours, it would have been
very unlikely for previously routed troops to keep on rallying.
Severe rally will hinder the probabilty of this happening
for heavily damaged, or inexperienced troops.
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** Additional Changes from Gettysburg
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-- DOCUMENTATION
The help manual for the game is present not only in the game, but
also in a much more readable HTML format in the Documentation folder
on the CD. In addition, the entire History of Antietam is available
in HTML format in that same folder. This includes several chapters
of Ezra Carman's eye-witness history of the Battle of Antietam.
You may also review the license agreement in the Documentation folder.
-- MAP CHANGES
The information for constructing the map is no longer present in a
single data file [previously gmapc.pcx]. Instead, there are a few
text files which comprise the information required for building a map.
In addition, the dimensions of the map can be set via the antietam.ini
file. There are three important entries present in the ini file.
Campaign
For Antietam, this value is 1. Values below 20 are reserved for
further Firaxis games, however, values between 20 and 99 can be used
by external campaign creators.
GameMapX##, GameMapY##
Where ## refers to the Campaign value determine above. If you want
to setup values for campaign #32, the variables to be set in the ini
file are GameMapX32 and GameMapY32. These two variables determine the
dimensions of the campaign map. The min and max values for either of
the two variables is 32 and 100 respectively.
The files which comprise the map data for Sid Meier's Antietam are
Roads.txt, Build.txt, names.txt, elev.txt, and terrain.txt. For
externally defined maps, you should use roads##.txt, build##.txt,
names##.txt, elev##.txt, and terrain##.txt where ## refers to the
campaign number defined in the ini file. For example, for campaign
#32, the files names which will be used to determine the map are
Roads32.txt, Build32.txt, Names32.txt, Elev32.txt, and Terrain32.txt.
Roads##.txt>
This file determines all of the roads(r), Pikes (P), trails(t),
Fords(F), and sunken roads(s) that are present on the map. Bridges
will be automatically generated where roads and pikes cross streams or
rivers.
Build##.txt>
This file determines the various buildings present on the map
whether they are mills(M), cemeteries(G), churches(C), chapels(P),
farm houses(F), houses(H) or town buildings(T). In addition, you can
specify special buildings on the map by using lower case values from
'a' through 'z'. These buildings are present in the image files
Specials#.pcx. The first four buildings ('a' through 'd') are
depicted in each of the rows in Special1.pcx. The next four buildings
('e' through 'h') are present in each of the rows in Special2.pcx.
Sid Meier's Antietam! will attempt to read consectively as many of
these files as possible until a file is not present in the execution
directory.
Names##.txt>
For scenario use, either in generation or reference, the various
names present in the campaign are present in this file. You can
override the names present in his file via specification in the
scenario files.
Elev##.txt>
This file determines the relative heights of the campaign map.
Each value is a hexadecimal number representing the height of a
particular grid area. From lowest to highest, the valid values
for height are 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E, and F.
Terrain##.txt>
This file determines the actual terrain type present at a particular
grid square of the map. The current possible terrain types are
river(A), river with forest(B), orchard(O), forest(W), stream(a),
stream with forest(b), corn field(c), rocky(d), forest(e), rocky
forest(h), rocky forest with stream(i), rocky forest with river(j),
marsh with stream(k), marsh with river(l), marsh(m), rocky with
boulders and stream(n), wheat field(p), rocky with boulders(r), wheat
with stubble(z), wide impassible river(P). Any other values are
treated as clear terrain until a future patch or release from Firaxis
Games is available.
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-- CHANGING THE TOOLBAR
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The user currently has the ability to change the order of buttons
on the toolbar. In the Antietam.ini file, you need to include the following
five definitions.
bOverloadBarOrder=0
InfantryBarOrder=03050610000201040717080924-130
ArtilleryBarOrder=-1-10618111213141517080916-130
BdeCommanderBarOrder=030506192021222326250809242730
BigCommanderBarOrder=-1-1-1-129-1-1-12625-1-1162730
The first, bOverloadBarOrder, is a definition which determines whether
or not you wish to override the default toolbar button order. If this
value is set to 1, The executable will look for the other four
definitions in the Antietam.ini file and utilize their information for
the toolbar button order during the game.
The other four definitions determine the toolbar button order for the
four basic toolbar configurations during the game. For regiments of
cavalry as well as infantry, the InfantryBarOrder definition is used.
For artillery, the ArtilleryBarOrder definition is used. For Brigade
level commanders, the BdeCommanderBarOrder definition is used. For
Divisional or Corps Commanders, the BigCommanderBarOrder definition
is used.
The values of the definitions refer to the button type which is present
in the 15 locations of the toolbar. Each of the types are 2 digit
decimal numbers ranging from -1 through 29. Their meaning is the following:
-1 : Nothing - blank space on the toolbar
00 : Line - move into line formation (regimental)
01 : Column - move into column formation (regimental)
02 : Skirmish - move into skirmish formation (regimental)
03 : DoubleQuick - toggle double quick movement speed
04 : Charge - conduct a charge
05 : Advance - advance the unit or brigade
06 : Wheel - wheel the unit or brigade
07 : Hold - hold the position
08 : Fallback - fallback from your current position if taking fire
09 : Retreat - retreat from your position
10 : Volley - toggle volley status
11 : Unlimber - unlimber artillery
12 : Limber - limber artillery
13 : TargetInf - target infantry
14 : TargetArt - target artillery
15 : AutoTarget - target automatically
16 : LOS - view the Line of Sight of the unit
17 : Halt - halt the unit's movement
18 : Canister - toggle canister status
19 : BattleLine - move the brigade into a battle line formation
20 : DoubleLine - move the brigade into a double line formation
21 : SkirmishLine - move the brigade into a skirmish line formation
22 : ManeuverColumn - move the brigade into a manuever column formation
23 : RoadColumn - move the brigade into a road column formation
24 : Attach - attach unit or reattach entire brigade
25 : BrigadeHalt - halt the brigade
26 : Rally - toggle rally status
27 : Command - command the leader (multiplayer)
28 : -- not used --
29 : Gather - gather the artillery
The main caveat to reordering a toolbar is use only the values
which make sense to that toolbar. Just try to rearrange the
values which the four toolbar definitions have as defaults.
If you put 'Target Infantry' in the divisional commander's toolbar,
the application will probably not like that too much and treat
you with great disgust. To be more clear, use this option at your
own risk. =:-o
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--Firaxis Games & Breakaway Games