25-Feb-2006 No divided opinion here over this one - it's an RTS expansion snooze-a-thon Now let's face it - the American civil war was not the most interesting of conflicts for a game. In fact, we've seen drunken scuffles outside The Pig Fancier's Arms of a Friday night that would make a more compelling backdrops for an RTS game. Nevertheless, GSC Game World has decided to drag us by the knees through a standalone expansion for its 19th century war game American Conquest.
We can certainly see the appeal of Divided Nation: all of the historical battles are there, the uniforms and generals are authentic-looking, and even the maps are topographically correct. The problem is that if you have as much interest in America's war-torn heritage as, say, a Canadian, the game quickly degenerates into a mindless click-fest around fields, searching for foreigners to bayonet.
It certainly has a historically accurate and original approach to the genre, although this is often at the expense of gameplay. Armies are allocated to you at the start of each campaign (numbering in the thousands), and it takes a certain level of tactical prowess and organisational skill to manipulate such huge forces well.
While American Conquest: Divided Nation is sure to have civil war buffs drooling over its adherence to historical accuracy, from a strategic gameplay point of view, it's not exactly going to give the more established and, let's be honest, more technologically advanced RTS games like Rome: Total War or Cossacks II a run for their money.
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