PDA

View Full Version : Mosby's Confederacy.......


Mizzou B-ball fan
10-07-2008, 02:32 PM
Interesting new turn-based Civil War strategy game........

Mosby's Confederacy (http://www.tiltedmill.com/mosbys_confederacy/)

As John Singleton Mosby, one of the Civil War's most interesting and dynamic leaders, you are charged not with leading vast armies into battle, but with commanding small bands of skirmishers, scouts and guerilla fighters on opportunistic missions to scout, ambush, steal supplies and harass a larger and better armed force of Union soldiers, in this game of turn based strategy and real time tactical combat for the PC.

Missions and their objectives are randomized, so you'll need to approach each game differently, carefully planning your strategy for success. You draw your soldiers from local towns, then through hard won battlefield experience transform them into fighting men – scouts, cavalry, rangers and riflemen. Between battles you'll invest in local towns, so they can serve as field hospitals, stables and munitions caches, helping to keep your forces fit and able to fight, and remain confident and supportive of your ongoing efforts, by willingly supplying men to fight for your cause - and as the war rages on this becomes increasingly challenging.

Throughout the campaign your progress is tracked, with a full report of your accomplishments provided at its completion. Can you build a name for yourself, just like Mosby?

Features:
-Turn-based Confederacy Level with unit and resource management
-Units live in towns that you can influence to support your goals
-Availability of units for specific missions is dependent on their town's support for you
-Your interactions with towns, as well as casualties you send home to them, changes the face of the region
-Real-time tactical combat missions
-Enemy unit concentrations and mission objectives are randomized for replayability
-Focus on reconnaissance and stealth tactics
-Units under your command vary in terms of base stats as well as "attributes" they earn as they level
-You choose who to take into combat and within a given mission you must work with those units to complete the mission (there are no unit spawning buildings that give you replacements in battle)
-Randomized units that gain specializations over time with experience
-Emphasis on each unit as a real soldier rather than traditional RTS expendable, nameless units
-Each campaign starts with a small group of veteran units mixed in with raw recruits whose homes are chosen at random
-Though most of the units come into the world as raw recruits, your ability as a leader to cultivate them into effective Rangers, Riflemen, Cavalrymen and Scouts (each of whichom has his own strengths and weaknesses) will be key to your success

Calis
10-07-2008, 02:43 PM
Read about that this morning. Tilted Mills makes some very good and unique games. They just released Hinterland a few days ago and I think it is getting mostly positive feedback.

This one looks really interesting though. I'll definitely keep an eye on it. Always need more ACW games, especially ones not on usual subjects.

JonInMiddleGA
10-07-2008, 02:49 PM
Interesting, but no release date or target date yet as far as I could see.

Calis
10-07-2008, 02:59 PM
They are working pretty quick. The last game they did was only announced maybe two months before it came out. Now I'm not sure how big the team is, so maybe they didn't have many people on this but the site does say Coming in 2008 so I don't think we have too long to wait.

DaddyTorgo
10-07-2008, 07:11 PM
interestingly cool

also reminds me i need to reinstall AEGOD's ACW game on this new HD

sachmo71
10-07-2008, 07:26 PM
very interesting. off the top of my head, i can't think of a guerrilla war TBS game. can anyone else?

bulletsponge
10-07-2008, 08:20 PM
sounds cool. post more if you hear more

Wolfpack
10-07-2008, 10:02 PM
Wonder how many ideas may have been borrowed from this old game?

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/1669

aran
12-31-2008, 04:55 PM
This game was released in November. You can get it on Steam for $20.

They let you download the manual in PDF form for free on their site: Mosby's Confederacy (http://www.tiltedmill.com/mosbys_confederacy/)

Chubby
12-31-2008, 05:03 PM
Asheville wouldn't be the same without him.

DaddyTorgo
12-31-2008, 08:18 PM
has anybody purchased? for $20 i'm more willing to take a flier on it, but if it's totally not worth it i'd like to know that as well

Deattribution
12-31-2008, 10:36 PM
Haven't tried it, but saw it's on sale for 14.99 til the 2nd on steam.

Radii
01-01-2009, 12:25 AM
I'm giving it a try. Based on a read of the manual(which is only 18 pages) it looks like a pretty light version of an RTS and/or turn based strategy game, definitely not a hard core wargame. I tend to get overwhelmed by hard core wargames, so maybe this is more up my alley :)

Radii
01-01-2009, 04:41 PM
I'm giving it a try.

First impression is very poor. The game is basically broken down into two separate sections, the turn based element where you "interact" with towns, and the mission element which is RTS.

There really just seems to be one strategy with the town interaction. You use your points as you can to upgrade stable/munitions size, upgrade weapons, upgrade hospitals(ie HP recovery) and build support. Building support is the key as it increases the radius that a town is willing to travel for a mission. there are 10-15 towns on the map, but by getting a town to 100% support you can work on 3-4 towns in the right positions and pretty much ignore all other towns on the map. The map may be randomized to "increase replayability" but so far I fail to see why any game would be anything but "find the right 3-4 towns to maximize map coverage and go nuts"


The RTS portion of the game is very basic and has some flaws that drive me crazy in RTS games. First, the mechanics:

You cannot rotate the camera 360 degrees. You can only move around the map at the same static angle, zoom in and zoom out. When viewing the map of the battlefield, you can only see the position of Mosby himself. If you take a scout and move him away from Mosby, even if you're on top fo the scout, when you go into map view, you can't see where you are on the map.


RTS Gameplay:

I've played through about 8 missions so far, despite varying objectives, they're all pretty much the same. So far in all of my missions "the enemy is complacent" which apparently means "spread out so far that its nearly impossible to draw the attention of more than 3 people at once"

There is a greater concentration of enemies around the objective(whether it be a munitions cart or officers tent or horse to steal), but shooting at one around the perimeter doesn't get the attention of everyone in the camp... usually just the adjacent soldiers.

Once I stole a few horses, it got even worse. Give a scout a horse, put the rest of your units hidden in a clump of trees. Have the scout ride ahead, fire at a soldier, run him back to your hidden clump of units. Its pretty much like a firing squad at that point.


I'll probably play through a game because I'm kinda in between games right now and have been a bit bored, but between the town interaction being too straigtfoward, the RTS mechanics being very poor, and the RTS AI/gameplay being extremely stupid so far, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

DaddyTorgo
01-01-2009, 04:48 PM
oh. drats.

aran
01-01-2009, 06:16 PM
I read some accounts that the individual missions are easy in the beginning but get a lot harder as the unionists become more aware of you and bring more troops to bare.

Radii
01-01-2009, 06:46 PM
I read some accounts that the individual missions are easy in the beginning but get a lot harder as the unionists become more aware of you and bring more troops to bare.

I do remember reading that in the instructions. I'll put in some more time with it tonight most likely, we'll see how it ramps up.