Grand Tactician: The Civil War | A New Series | Getting Started | Confederate Let's Play | Part 1

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A look at one of the newest game to cover the American Civil War, drawing inspirations from epics like Sid Meier’s Gettysburg, Scourge of War: Gettysburg, Civil War 2, Total War, and Ultimate General: Civil War, Grand Tactician: The Civil War looks like it wants to be a blend of the best of all the above, can it pull it off? Check out this series and you be the judge.
Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) is a real-time strategy game combining a strategic campaign with tactical battle (much like Total War) Gameplay. Run your nation, muster, manage, and support your Armies, and maneuver them to defeat the enemy. Once opposing armies meet, command your troops to victory in epic battles fought on historical battles, like Gettysburg, Antietam, Manassas, and many more. See if you have what it takes to crush the Rebellion and preserve the Union or establish the Confederate States of America as an independent country in this sprawling wargame.
#History #Wargame #StrategyGame

[@matthewt4991]

When you hit historic polices you lost southern pacific raileoad and got indian allies

[@NoobsofFredo]

Yeah, that hurt to see.

[@projectlessweforget]

I've been watching 3 different people play the game. In order to increase your unit size, you have to activate military reform projects (Infantry, Calvary, and Artillery) and you need the Army Reorganization project. The Reorganization project will allow you to have divisions and battalions which basically means it'll allow you to create proper Armies. You didn't read all of the Civil and Military Projects descriptions which you should've done before the war started, because the information would be able to help you understand the new mechanics. Also watch out for Union machine gun units because they will devastate your skirmishers/cavalry units depending on the machine gun they deploy like the Coffee Mill Gun, but it's rare to encounter enemy machine guns on the battlefield since I've only seen 1 of the other KZbin channels encounter enemy machine guns. The Confederates Williams Gun (machine gun) is more than a rapid firing 1pounder cannon but it's still considered a machine gun and it's proven to be effective when it's used properly.

[@clubardi]

technially speaking, any weapon that shoots, is designed to shoot and/or can be restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manually reloading, by one function of the trigger is considered to be a machinegun I haven't played this game yet but i wanna try it when able, so thanks for the tips for future me

[@Sir_punchwood]

To add, the only real difference between "Machine guns," wether they be standard calibers or cannons is the cyclical action used to automatically chamber another round from its magazine or feeding ramp. These are largely either gas operated or chain guns, with nearly all machine guns invented produced before the widespread use of smokeless powder being forms of chain guns operated on hand crank systems. Idk why I typed this out. Seems quite redundant now.

[@xHtown80x]

Man, gotta tell ya, this was a HUGE help! I held out on the game, let it sit in my wishlist until I was satisfied with the patch/price ratio. Played as the CSA after doing the tutorial and felt like I knew nothing lol. This is NOT The Blue vs The Gray from my youth lol. Thank you so much. Suscribed!

[@canadianeh4792]

Glad you're taking another look! This game beats the crap out of Total War now and they keep adding more features. My favourite new strategy game, I hope the developer expands. Adding the rest of the world as DLC would be amazing. I'd love to race to colonize Africa for the Crown or unite Germany under the Iron Chancellor.

[@oliverstransky4254]

Total war after shogun 2 is bad did you try that title or titles before that.?

[@europaprimum7050]

This is a civil war game they don't need the rest of the world. There's already other games for that. This is unique.

[@AsukaLangleyS02]

This game LITERALLY have Civil War in the name, why would they add the rest of the world?

[@VojislavMoranic]

@@AsukaLangleyS02 This game setting and game in general would be perfect for our uprisings against the Turks. With the entire micromanagement stuff and diplomacy.

[@favre4ever39]

2 things 1. The early Confederate armies were not terribly well organized and were more or less collections of brigades that were not organized into divisions. 2. I think they make Wade Hampton an Infantry commander since he was one at Bull Run.

[@thehistoricalgamer]

I don’t think generals branch depends at all on their wartime service, rather what their pre-war service was.

[@favre4ever39]

@@thehistoricalgamer oh my bad I thought you were wondering why he was commanding...did not notice his specialization was Infantry

[@jamesmaclennan4525]

@@favre4ever39 Hamptons Legion comprised six companies of infantry, two of cavalry, and one of light artillery. The Legion concept was never going to be a viable unit structure and by Early 1862 the elements had been assigned to units in their own arms.

[@favre4ever39]

@@jamesmaclennan4525 I know but that is represented by the corps commander by Magruder. Thel one at Bull Run was an Infantry unit and Hampton was in command of it. That is all I am trying to say

[@thorozar3662]

You can use the transfer feature to move PGT's "army" into the Army of the Potomac rather than make them march all the way up. They will vanish off the map for the few days it takes to transfer, so there is possible downsides to doing it this way, but it is far easier and then you dont need to babysit them and end up forgetting when they arrive.

[@pedro3131]

Bigtime Vicky2 vibes going through those menus. Looking forward to seeing how the games evolved since your last LP

[@thorozar3662]

Also FYI just got done watching the full stream on twitch. You just got confederate rifles policy, you have to actually order the production of the new weapons. In the military tab there are tabs at the top of that screen, the last of which is weapons. If you have turned off auto-manage (which you should unless you want another 75 24lb cannons) you will not get any of the new weapons, or any weapons really, until you order a batch of them. The more batches you make the quicker and cheaper they can be produced, and you can see the number under production go up from the starting value of 0 by 1 each order they deliver. You will have to consider a trade-off between larger orders which are cheaper and overall faster on a per/unit basis but you have to wait many more months for the order vs a more expensive and longer per/unit run for a small batch for which you can get delivery in a few weeks to perhaps 90 days. Either way you go, I like to always have orders running for weapons constantly.

[@philiphughes7481]

Hope to see the Native American Allies under Stand Watie & Tandy Walker in the game. Stand Watie had the distinction of being the senior most Native American commander on either side-raising to Brigadier General. Stand Watie was also the last Confederate general to surrender in 1865. People tend to overlook the contribution of the Native Americans on both sides. As for naval strategy-I think the best path for the Confederate player is to concentrate on the rivers. The Confederate player can challenge the Union here, but not on the open sea. A good DLC for this game would be The Mexican War or the Spanish American War. The game assigned William Barksdale-a great infantry brigade commander from Mississippi-to command a Florida artillery battery? Strange.

[@mikhailiagacesa3406]

Watie's troops were the only Confederate unit to capture a Union naval vessel (On the rivers, not at sea).

[@dsmonington]

"Hope to see the Native American Allies under Stand Watie & Tandy Walker in the game" They're both definitely in the game, at least if you choose native allies as a starting policy.

[@garethrichmond4388]

Thanks for this post very informative much post appreciated. I'm embarrassed to say but I am one of those overlooking the role of Native Americans in the Civil War. I am aware of the significant role that Native Americans and First Nations played in the 7 Years War the American Revolution and the War 1812 but not the U.S Civil War I'm looking forward to learning more about it. I'm Canadian but my dad's from the states and my great grandfather served in the 137th New York Volunteer regiment from its formation in August 1862 and its mustering out in June 1865.

[@centurionflorian4906]

@@garethrichmond4388 While not a nonfiction book, Rifles for Watie is a great Civil War book focusing on the western front. You do eventually see the Native Americans and their contributions in the war. Again, its not a nonfiction book but an entertaining read, and the book was written I believe in the 1950s so there is a little bit of difference in wording to today. Otherwise, highly recommended. If you want, there is an open source of the book for free online but it does have some spelling errors.

[@philiphughes7481]

Gaming back to watch the series again. Maybe it’s just me but the commanding officer of a battery, battalion or brigade should be from the same state as the men under his command. A BRIGADE OF A brigade of Virginians should be commands by a Virginian, etc. That was the standard practice in that period where possible and it would be nice if the AI took this into account when assigning default commanders. Players of course can do what they want. It only bothers the purist in me when the computer’s choice is an officer from a different state. Here Enders my rant. lol. I really love this game but some of the things the AI does are just annoying.

[@SSFhighcommandJOHN]

It is worth noting if you go with the Industrialization focus at the starting screen, you can enact the slavery restrictions act, and even emancipate the slaves, which actually give's you a bigger manpower pool then the north. It just take's a long time to get there.

[@dutovdevlich3781]

Using the auto recruit to recruit multiple units is handy

[@favre4ever39]

You can get Needle guns from the Prussians

[@scotty4427]

Thinking of getting this game.

[@philunnholm1696]

If you wanna save some money on pow camp. Then build them in the area between New Orleans and mobile, along the railroads. Instead of paying 2,9-4,5 million. You will pay 45 grand if you put them there. In my current game I have over 20 camps for 1,5 millon. Which is very cheap. Good luck on your march to victory ✌️

[@mourka01]

I built one camp it has space for 1000 men and we have around 9k stored in it atm

[@ccruner13]

@@mourka01 Is it called Andersonville?

[@markusmaximus629]

I also build cheap pow camps along the NC/ SC Border near the mountains for 45k $

[@RangerJahu]

The weapon ordering is very simple and I highly recommend that you do NOT let the AI manage it.

[@skylerslack12]

Is it similar to ultimate general civil war?

[@randomlyweirdjeff4638]

Research Stand Wati of the 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles. He was the last confederate leader to surrender.

[@my600_lblife]

Fort Pickens was never controlled by the confederacy it was Fort Barrancas and Mcree. Fort Barrancas is now on NAS Pensacola’s. It’s a really cool area and definitely worth a trip

[@mikhailiagacesa3406]

"I guess we'll see...whatever." Sounds like a valid Confederate policy to me, Sah.

[@texasfossilguy]

I played a similar game in the 90s that I just cant find anymore, and won by abandoning the East slowly, dragging it out, getting foreign treaties and building ironclads to challenge the Gulf and Mississippi river. The western states joined the cause over time and I won as the south. Im fairly certain I ended slavery before Lincoln and incorporated them into the army, but I cannot recall exactly. It was a similar game to this, but of course like 8 or 16bit graphics. Mightve been the game released in 1999 or 1998..

[@buddrinkerdrinks]

ed beavor the civil war maybe? old commodore, ataria game?

[@user-km6fs3tz2p]

Liked your vid mate.

[@andremesot5144]

Great video thank you so much !

[@williambrock3349]

Could you upload a video of all the fife and drum music tracks in this game?

[@Bmancan84]

Historically the difference, in the Civil war, between volunteers and regular army was that with the regular army you signed a longer contract and were supplied by the government and wore a uniform. The volunteers were largely responsible for their owm provisions and often didn't sign a government contract as they were loyal to their commander i.e. Cantrells raiders. Volunteers also mostly didn't wear a uniform since they were responsible for the majority of their equipment.

[@Spooky1862]

The volunteer regiments, who made up the lion’s share of the Civil War armies, were all supplied with weapons, uniforms, and equipment bt their respective governments, except for the very early period in 1861. In many cases, the states supplied uniforms on both sides, in addition to what the Union and Confederate central governments provided.

[@stevenahlberg1542]

There's a huge difference between regulars and militia. Militia units are barely trained if trained at all and usually bring in their own weapons and gear while regulars are supplied trained equipped everything by the government

[@peterc9568]

Just started watching this, really need to untick the Feuds box 😬

[@texasjoe557]

Very cool. Do you think there will be a mac version?

[@bigjess7406]

Meh dont like how important they make slavery in it. Historically inaccurate... unless you buy thr "its all over slavery" argument

[@thehistoricalgamer]

I mean all the confederate states said it was about slavery in their articles of secession... so the South said it was about slavery in 1861... but hey you think what you wanna think.

[@bigjess7406]

​@thehistoricalgamer I'll explain. Yes the upper 1% of the south indeed did want it over slavery no doubt about that. But for the common southerner the idea of meddling federal government was more their reason. I'm not an idiot I know that slavery was important to the wealthy plantation owners ect, but it was more about the aggressiveness of the federal govnt for the commoner who took up his gun to fight. Seeing as how the most of the fighting force in the beginning was militia I believe that has to be true. (This info comes from letters home and even a letter home from my family. So you know I'm not just bullshittin ya) but I get what you're saying yes slavery was the "example' used by the rich to drive further "they're after our rights."

[@ricknichol3688]

I've been playing the same game for 3 months and I'm up to Is the year 1874

[@WuCSquad]

7:26 you picked different ones from those you commented on.

[@ows6337]

Glad you are playing this game....but you really need to refresh yourself with the manual.

[@sqike001ton]

FYI if you don't take arms agents you don't get the Springfield rifles

[@markusmaximus629]

Just get the Fayetteville Rifles, and make tons of them, they are the best. Range, accuracy and 3 ROF.

[@Lone_GamerUK]

Great content and video, I tried 3 times to start a southern 61 start and get lost in what to do in the right order to get a good start I think I need to do far more research and learning to do it right. P.S. Yes they really needed to re do the voices for the video - totally lifeless

[@thehistoricalgamer]

Glad it helped

[@Lone_GamerUK]

@@thehistoricalgamer Always good to learn some of the right steps - the Rebs not lucky with Gen LG in charge poor sods. Lol 😂

[@king_of_sin]

you dont need old dominion Virginia always goes with the south

[@CharlieKellyEsq]

based. The South Will Rise Again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@burvellaustin2660]

hey dude, just watched your newest campaign start. this is a much different game than the beta you were used to. if you wanna get up to speed quicker watch Brambourough gaming. specifically his last campaign which dealt mainly with patches .06 and.07 it will help you understand all the new stuff and how its necessary to playing the current live version of the game.

[@relaxorancho8598]

yeah its a little bit more chalangeing when i played the confederacy i literaly throw my men at the union more specificaly at baltimore it was a cluster fuck there were literaly more than 3 or 4 million men on each side in i think 10 armies colided day and night there were so many they couldnt fech them self a point of time when they can duke it out becouse there were a queue for battle think i we lost 200 000 or even more men per day there were 2 000 batteries as well more or less each day becouse we passed it to the enemy and on the next day we get it back so never try to assault baltimore and i didnt mention there were enemy reinforcments maybe 2 armies per week it was madness becouse they were at full strenght a whole stack of blue coats in the end it was 20 union army versus 10 confederacy and i could recruit more men couse there wasnt any left in the states at the end of 1865

[@eldrrad659]

All this talk of importing guns from here or there. Does the game not include the yankee blockade if you select 'random' AI over 'historical'?

[@mourka01]

It does have blockades if they are doing them

[@brycesuderow3576]

If you ever become interested in playing a game about siege of Petersburg let me know. It’s my area of expertise. I’ve been writing about it for the last 20 years..

[@billrco]

Why when choosing Confederate generals, is Army of the Potomac in the heading?

[@thehistoricalgamer]

That was the original name of the confederate army which operated during the Manassas campaign during 1861. It didn’t become the Army of Northern Virginia until Lee took over in the spring of 1862.

[@billrco]

@@thehistoricalgamer Thank you! Now that is authenticity! You refreshed a vague memory for me.

[@jamesmaclennan4525]

@@billrco Ironically McDowalls Army was "The Army of North-eastern Virginia" strange how the names got almost directly swapped isn't it?

[@Nausal]

You messed up your polices :(

[@grimmwolf9690]

Do you take unit request?

[@thehistoricalgamer]

Could… haven’t thought of it yet

[@grimmwolf9690]

@@thehistoricalgamer i would just love to see James J. Archer's Tennessee brigade in the feild is all.

[@BerlinCardYard]

Hello, searching for CSA campains I foundyour chanel and subscribed looking for more information deciding to buy nor not to buy this game. Greetings from Berlin, Christian

[@videogenics86]

Sounds like they wanted to be Ken Burns.

[@thehistoricalgamer]

A bad Ken Burnes …

[@patttrick]

start building river boats

[@thehistoricalgamer]

But why would we ever need such ungentalmianly craft?

[@notsure188]

Am I the only one who doesn't give a rats booty on who is my general? Like, I'm aware there's benefits and all that wonderful stuff. I just don't need them to win my battles. Even in Total War, I never cared. Plus, why not change history? Edited: Ok, I lied... I care enough to remove the hero's/good ones from command so they don't get killed. Lmao their presence is not needed.

[@dutovdevlich3781]

ESC to skip the videos

[@OmegaTrooper]

God damn this game is amazing

[@ibnfuzzayd]

Getting pretty close to pulling the trigger on this one.

[@jetstreamsam8221]

Man this game improved so much, im glad people stopped disliking it just because the ai was bad back then

[@First-Last_name]

The game looks awesome but I just wish it was any war other then the civil war.

[@mourka01]

Don't enjoy mid 1800s warfare?

[@europaprimum7050]

Well we people who like this stuff have been waiting for a civil war game that isn't garbage for ages and finally we have one. Most other wars already got their strategy.

[@First-Last_name]

@@europaprimum7050 I've been waiting forever for a ww1 game that isn't garbage. I'd settle for 7 years war or Korea.

[@europaprimum7050]

@@First-Last_name There are WW1 games that aren't garbage, maybe not strategy but HOI4 has many good mods for that. Korea doesn't make any sense because it's literally on one tiny strip of land. 7 years war has already happened.

[@First-Last_name]

@@europaprimum7050 Well if you go by mods then I'm pretty sure there's plenty of clival war games. Victoria 2 has a DLC for it. Korea war was 3 years of solid fighting and logistics. Name a good 7 years war or ww1 strategy game like this from the last 6 years?

[@Hinkel84]

Is the AI still very basic?!

[@dutovdevlich3781]

It's better buy still has issues. They are still working on it

[@taccovert4]

I will give credit where it is due. On my 3rd playthrough and there's roughly been a major patch each time. The AI has gotten a LOT better than it used to be, which was pretty much a Zerg rush. I'd say that the AI behaves like a politically appointed commander at this point, it will make marginally intelligent decisions but will also do some pants-on-head things as well.

[@jetstreamsam8221]

This game is fixed. Buy it.

[@ForeverWithUs91]

Jesus. Is this a review of every aspect of the game or a series?

[@albion4044]

The Corwin Amendment, which guaranteed the rights of the slave states was in the process of being ratified when fort sumter was fired on. So I'm thinking the civil war was about a lot more than the right to own slaves.

[@nuttmc4803]

Yeah but owning slaves was one of the main ones it was the main thing keepin the southern economy functional

[@clubardi]

there's never a single reason for war, it's a collection of things, sometimes it just takes one more thing to trigger it, like ww1, tensions were already high, the assassination simply set it off

[@LTrotsky21stCentury]

"Any of the officers that are fighting at least early on already have a military education." Absolutely not true. The ones you read about - the Generals, most (but not all) have a military education. Of course, because it would be stupid to make someone a General who doesn't have a military education. But that's a tiny fraction of the officer corps. A huge proportion of officers on both sides, even up to the level of colonel, did NOT have a military education of any kind. Later on, especially in the Union Army, there were quite a number of even Generals who did not have a military education. As a "historical" gamer, I would refrain from making off the cuff statements without knowing your stuff.

[@hanssteiner4315]

Pfff he knows alot of stuff, just got a a fact wrong. Your statement is also general without proof. The historical gamer also did alot of video's with alot of statements where most of the statements are right. So as professional nerd commenter better know your "stuff" aswell.

[@chrishyde14]

In what universe is any “off-the-cuff” statement worth arguing about? 😂 Get out of Mom’s basement and off the Troll trail dude. 😂

[@clubardi]

even the best, most well regarded people in any field can be wrong, we are humans, not walking wikipedias

[@LTrotsky21stCentury]

@@clubardi Great. Tell me, am I permitted to correct mistakes, or not?

[@LTrotsky21stCentury]

@@chrishyde14 You're right of course. I should just let HG and people like you wallow in false notions and sentiment rather than assuming they are interested in historical fact.

[@jimmycrow5613]

Just to enlighten you regarding your blatant historical ignorance, Cuba ended slavery in 1886 (rejected the earlier Spanish ban on slavery) and Brazil even later than that. Look up Narcisco Lopez as well. You should take the "Historical" out of your name. I bet you think the Spanish really sank the Maine too?