As in the real war, you don't necessarily have to annihilate the enemy to win a battle. You just have to shake them up enough that they flee in disarray. This is modeled in the game by tracking unit fatigue, ammunition levels, and disruption, and it is vital to keep an eye on these stats so you know when a unit is about to break. Since routing is so common it also is important to keep a reserve in place whenever possible, and to put the best commanders in places where they will do the most good, since they can push their troops to fight harder and inspire disrupted units to rally. Players who can juggle all this while reading the terrain to find the best avenues of attack and the best perches for artillery will find that the game's turn-based combat system is very rewarding.
The graphical interface powering this game was used in several previous releases from HPS and is showing its age. Graphics for the strategic layer are crisp and legible, but amount to only still images and text. The tactical engine has colorful but plain maps, rudimentary 2D unit graphics, and blocky fixed-perspective 3D unit graphics that are not very appealing. Sound effects are limited to gunfire, and in fact everything is utilitarian, which is fine, considering the game's turn-based nature and accurate combat model.
The sheer scope of some of the battles included in this package demands that the graphics be clean and crisp instead of flashy, or players would soon lose track of everything. The monster 205-turn hypothetical Collision in Maryland scenario, for example, uses a map that is 242 hexes high by 436 hexes wide. It takes forever to scroll around this huge environment, and scrollbars on the side and bottom of the screen would be invaluable but unfortunately are not included. A jump map providing an overview of the entire battle is available, but it must be manually activated each time a user wants to quickly view another area of the map.
This sounds like heaven for Civil War buffs, but Campaign Gettysburg has an unfortunate Achilles' heel in an AI that simply doesn't know what to do with all the freedom this game affords. The computer puts up a decent fight in the smaller scenarios but falls flat on its face in the larger battles that play out over dozens or hundreds of turns. This isn't necessarily the fault of the designer, as no turn-based AI we've ever seen has been able to handle battles this massive--so if you want to enjoy the larger battles in this package, then finding a friend who wants to take you on is practically a requirement. Direct play, play-by-e-mail, and hotseat multiplayer modes are supported, so if you're a fan of the period and can find a willing foe, Campaign Gettysburg gives you everything you need to reenact one of the most epic campaigns of all time.
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