North vs. South (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 5.9 (2.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Alan Dunkin
• Reviewed on: 03/29/1999
• Updated on: 05/02/2000
• Released on: 02/28/1999
• Originally published on GameSpot: North vs. South (PC) Review

Quite often a game company comes across or develops a game engine that can be used for a great many things equally well, requires little real maintenance, and can be expanded. You see it all the time with first-person shooters like Quake and Unreal and to a lesser extent in strategy and war games. Interactive Magic had one such engine, which was designed by Erudite and originally used in the Great Battles series. After producing three Great Battles games, Interactive Magic ended its collaboration with Erudite, and I-Magic could do anything it wanted with the versatile engine. Originally, rumors indicated that the next game to use the engine would involve Attila the Hun, or Genghis Khan, or even Napoleon, but that was not to be. Instead, we got the eastern theater of the American Civil War in North vs. South.

To put things in perspective, I-Magic adapted a game engine suited to the rigors of ancients-era warfare to a time period roughly two thousand years later and hoped all the game mechanics would turn out right. Of course some changes were made, but in all fairness, the engine simulates Civil War warfare about as well as a round peg fits into a square hole.

The engine provides a bird's-eye view of the battlefield, which is divided up into hexes to facilitate movement and combat. The map shows terrain differences by height; terrain features like forests, bridges, and rivers; and has three different zoom levels. Battles are fought in hourly turns, where a commanding general can "activate" a specific number of officers under his command. (How many times this can be done depends on the general's statistics.) These officers can then give commands to their troops within a certain command radius. The idea is that the game's phases help create momentum shifts and concentrations on certain intense areas of battle, since a general can be activated any number of times (but can leave other troops just sitting around), and you won't know which side will get to go next.

Another facet of the game engine is the concept of morale (converted from unit cohesion from the ancients period of warfare) - units take damage and deal it out in the form of shifting morale for that unit. When the unit's morale reaches a certain level, it routs, and unless rallied in time by a general, it permanently routs and is considered destroyed in the context of the game. Generals can also restore morale if the conditions are right. Battles are typically won by the side that can rout the designated allotment of opposing troops. This allotment is buoyed somewhat by certain geographical victory locations.

Graphically, North vs. South has its good and bad sides. The maps look decent, but because of the way the terrain is shaded, it is rather difficult to tell some of the height differences - and worse, the highlights used to indicate command radii are barely visible. The unit size is typically an individual brigade, which can take up to two hexes in length. Units can march in column formation and then form a line; artillery can limber and unlimber; and cavalry can attack either way, depending on how you want to use them. Units can engage in ranged fire (as a bit of a holdover from the ancients period, it is still referred to as "missile fire") or go straight into melee.

North vs. South comes with ten battles from the eastern theater, some of which have rarely, if ever, been simulated on the PC, which is a good thing. The battles included are Antietam, Brandy Station, First Bull Run, Second Bull Run, Cedar Creek, Cedar Mountain, Five Forks, Gaines' Mill, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness. At least one variant is given for each battle, providing some extra variety.

You also have the option of engaging in the campaign, which lets you choose a side and start at the First Bull Run battle and work your way on from there. The campaign progresses as you win or lose; the order in which the battles are fought completely depends on how you do. For instance, if the Confederates win at First Bull Run, they go on to Gaines' Mill; another win moves them on to Cedar Mountain. A loss would bring the Confederates to Five Forks, where a Union win would capture Richmond and hence lose the war for the Confederates. The campaign also lets you refight the same battles over the same territory - theoretically, if you were unlucky enough, you could fight an endless loop of battles in the same three areas over and over again. The idea behind this is understandable - the eastern theater narrowed the choices of battle locations and areas of maneuver for armies, thereby providing the opportunity of fighting battles in roughly the same locations. In North vs. South, however, the implementation of this concept is fundamentally flawed.

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