Wargame developers love the American Civil War, with its romantic notions of 'brother against brother' and the development of warfare from line battles to quasi-trench warfare slugfests. It probably also helps that a lot of war game designers are American. There are plenty to choose from over the years, so here’s some of Wargamer’s favorite American Civil War digital strategy games to make your choice easier.

What are the best American Civil War Games?

91 rows  Feb 01, 2020  Unsurprisingly, it already is one of the best games for Mac of 2018 so far. Dec 14, 2019  Total War: Arena is the upcoming free-to-play Team-based real time strategy game from The Creative Assembly. The game is in closed alpha and closed beta stage now, and will be released soon. Total War: Arena mixes genres such as multiplayer online battle arena and real-time strategy together and features 10vs10 (PvP) battles.

• Ultimate General: Civil War
• Gettysburg: The Tide Turns
• Civil War: 1863
• Civil War II
• Scourge of War: Chancellorsville
• Brother against Brother
• The Operational Art of War 4 (Specific Scenarios)
• War of Rights (Early Access)

Ultimate General: Civil War

Developer: Game-Labs LLC
Tags: Real-Time, Tactical, Brigade/Division/Corps/Army, American Civil War, 3D
Available from:Steam

Ultimate General: Civil War is a wonderful follow-up to Game-Labs LLC’s already wonderful Ultimate General: Gettysburg. Civil War puts the player in command of either Confederate or Union armies throughout the entirety of the war, allowing the player to build their army composition, from unit size to weaponry of individual units. The title brings Total War-style tactics (the lead on this game did make several mods for Total War games) to the well-known battlefields of Antietam and Gettysburg, as well as battles with less coverage in games, such as Gaines’ Mill and Chickamauga.

The ability to follow individual brigades and their officers throughout the war is one I learned to miss after playing this game. Seeing a unit you created during the first year of the war get utterly dissolved by enemy canister rounds is heartbreaking, but following an officer’s career path from lowly Captain to Major General brings pride I rarely get from playing games. It’s easy to connect with your army on a personal level, as you can name each unit in addition to being able to manage their training and outfitting.

Gettysburg: The Tide Turns

Developer: Shenandoah
Tags: Turn-Based, Tactical, Strategy, 2D, IGOUGO, Brigade/Division
Available from:Direct, Steam

Speaking of Gettysburg, it’s impossible to list off the best American Civil War games without mentioning a game about Gettysburg at least once. Gettysburg marked the high-water mark of the Confederacy during the war, and The Tide Turns is a beautiful display of… well, how the tide turned. The map is wonderful, drawing inspiration from old Engineer Corps maps, with unit markers distinctly popping out against the backdrop.

What makes The Tide Turns such an interesting game is the turn system. Units have their turn order decided by the random drawing of “lots” from the total amount of units on the field. This leads to an uncertainty of combat that is not present in IGOUGO or WEGO type games, but is certainly more representative of the chaos of Gettysburg.

Civil War: 1863

Developer: HexWar
Tags: Turn-based, Tactical, Hex, Brigade/Division/Corps, American Civil War, IGOUGO
Available from:Steam, Direct

HexWar’s charming Civil War: 186x series made the jump to PC from Android and iOS, bringing what our reviewer Jeff Renaud called a “quick hit” wargame. It’s easy to jump into a scenario pulled from the many different battles of 1863 (or any of the other years of the war, there are companion games featuring all of them!), with combat frequently beginning on the first turn. A single scenario can take less than an hour, but the brevity of the games can’t be mistaken for easiness. The AI can be downright painful to play against on the higher difficulties, which is a refreshing change of pace from other “quick hit” wargames. Read our review for more.

Civil War II

Developer: AGEOD
Tags: Turn-based, Operational, Strategy, Division/Corps/Army, American Civil War, WEGO
Available from:Steam, Direct

Ageod’s Civil War II (note: not about an upcoming second civil war) pulls back from the close, action-oriented look of many other American Civil War titles. The player is instead put into the boots of president / commander-in-chief of the operational aspects of the war. The WEGO style of play makes running into the enemy challenging and frequently surprising, forcing you to plan well in advance for future offensives.

The chain-of-command in armies can be customized by the player, allowing obsessive micromanagers to truly fine-tune their army. Decisions don’t stop with merely military matters; determining how much money should be printed or placing embargos also fall into the rhythm of gameplay. Wargamers with a taste for grand strategy could comfortably find themselves at home with Civil War II.

Scourge of War: Chancellorsville

Developer: NorbSoftDev
Tags: Real-Time, Tactical, American Civil War, Brigade/Division/Corps, Strategy
Available from:Direct

The Scourge of War series feature some of the most realistic depictions of generalship of the 19^th century, and Chancellorsville is no exception. The player can take command of different units within either the Union or Confederate forces; from commanding a lone Brigade to commanding the entire army. Orders given and received are a nice touch, as virtual couriers will arrive with and send out letters you can pen yourself. Units can be directed to form into specific formations and have several different movement options, including instructions to travel via road and to form into a certain formation type upon arrival. These options are necessary to success, as the AI may have read ahead in the history book, and will prove to be a fierce opponent.

Chancellorsville was an important prelude to Gettysburg, but is not as frequently covered as the latter. However, if you are looking to get your fix of Chamberlains and Picketts, you may also be interested in Scourge of War: Gettysburg.

Brother against Brother

Developer: Western Civilization Software
Tags: Turn-Based, Tactical, Hex, Company/Brigade, IGOUGO
Available from:Direct

Brother against Brother has a great nostalgic feel to it. The sprites and the maps are reminiscent of wargames a generation or two ago, but the game packs several unique features that make it worth mentioning. The first is the inclusion of Wilson’s Creek, a battle in the Western Theatre of the war. Any battle not on the east coast is normally glossed over, so kudos to Western Civilization Software for broadening our collective horizons.

The title also packs an “active ability” feature that generals can use on their units to encourage them to fight harder, à la the more recent Total War offerings. This coupled with a novel movement system, where units can sometimes refuse to move in a representation of orders being jumbled and lost, brings a refreshing yet familiar take on some less covered battles of the war.

The Operational Art of War 4

Developer: Talonsoft
Tags: Turn-Based, Operational, Strategy, IGOUGO, Hex, American Civil War
Available from:Steam, Direct

Before you all storm to the comments to yell at us for TOAW4 not being an American Civil War game, we know the whole game is not about the American Civil War. However, there are several great scenarios to choose from that take place during the war, using TOAW4’s excellent systems to simulate battles such as Antietam, as well as whole campaigning seasons, particularly highlighting the Chancellorsville/ Gettysburg campaign.

Should you not be in the mood for the several scenarios TOAW4 has to offer, there are community scenarios available for download, as well as a scenario editor, so you can finally simulate a brawl at Appomattox Court House. Read our review of TOAW4 for an idea of how the game as whole plays.

Reinforcements! Promising Games in Development:

Grand Tactician: The Civil War 1861 - 1865

Developer: Oliver Keppelmüller
Tags: RTS, Strategic layer, Tactical Battles, Logistics
Available from:Steam

This game gets more of a token mention because it's not available to play or buy like, unlike War of Rights below which is at least in Early Access. Grand Tactician is a real-time strategy game that primarily focuses on the strategic side of the war, but allows for tactical control over engagements due to the nature of how you move your units around the map. We're reminded of one of our favourite ancients war games, Hegemony III, if you're looking for a quick comparison. Current release date is simply listed as 'Late 2019'.

War of Rights

Developer: Campfire Games
Tags: First-Person Shooter, American Civil War
Available from:Steam

War of Rights is an Early Access FPS that looks quite impressive so far. 150 players can duke it out on the battlefield, which so far includes Antietam and Harper’s Ferry. The gameplay looks and feels solid, like a cross of Mount & Blade and Holdfast’s combat style, while bringing a more realistic visual fidelity to the fight. A chain-of-command system is currently under development, so far with higher ranking officers passing down orders to their subordinates, who can in turn order their men to follow their lead. The game is primarily multiplayer, so the experience does depend on other players, but players do tend to actually work together. War of Rights has a development roadmap laid out, and it looks to have a promising future ahead.

More American Civil War Game Reccomendations

John Tiller Software did a series called Civil War Battles, which cover specific battles and campaigns during the American Civil War. They're old-school hex-and-counter affairs, but they're currently being remastered by Wargame Design Studio with new graphics and engines updates. We're looking into these now and as we evaluate them, we'll add them to the main list. We've put this here though so that you're aware they also exist, and are considered pretty good ACW war games for what they are.

As was pointed out below, we'd also be remiss not to mention Sid Meier'sGettysburg! & Antietam! games from the late 90's. Gettysburg! especially was considered one of the best strategy/war games of the time, and is a bench mark for many ACW and Gettysburg-themed games that have come out in the decades since. We haven't listed it below, mainly because they are fairly old now and there's no official support for them although you can find a digital copy via Abandonware websites. If you're interested in exploring one of the gold standards of digital ACW wargames, you'll want to check it out.

What are your favourite ACW games? Let us know in the comments!

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“War, huh, what is it good for?” – Edwin Star, War from the album War and Peace

Well… apparently, it’s good for good times. War games are all over the map. So, to honor our ever-present source of joy and soul-crushing doom, Mac Gamer HQ presents you with a four-star general overview of the best war games for Mac.

As always, we’re going for different styles and genres, as well as different price points and system requirements. We aim to help you discover great new games and perhaps one of these will be perfect for you:

Want even more good games for Mac? These are the 100 Top Mac games you can play today.

No round-up of the best Mac war games for Mac would be complete without touching on the big franchises that have left their mark on Mac gaming, so I’ll start with two of the major ones. These are perfect for those of you who enjoy crushing your enemies under the heel of your polished and well-kept boots.

The condition of man… is a condition of war of everyone against everyone – Thomas Hobbes

War is all-encompassing and to give you the taste of blood you crave, the Total War series relies on a dual-engine approach. First, there’s a real-time war theater which allows you to command your troops’ every move on the battlefield. It lets you deploy your soldiers, define your engagement strategy, groupings, pace, and more. In between battles, there’s a turn-based strategy interface (think a very stripped down version of Sid Meier’s Civilization series) that lets you construct the whole of your war machine. Different games in the Total War franchise take you from before the birth of Christ to the end of the Napoleonic period and all over the globe.

MacGamer HQ’s head-honcho Ric is a fan of the franchise’s take on feudal japan, Total War: Shogun 2, but I’m definitely fond of the most recent release, Total War: Attila. Attila takes you to the end of the western Roman empire and puts you in control of one of the Mediterranean or Germanic tribes that carved up former Roman territory, and their enemy’s hides in the process. The game features a skirmish mode, historical battles mode (which lets you relive some epic battlefield confrontations of the period) and a campaign mode. Campaign mode features a dynasty interface that allows you to play the court game of intrigue if you’re the type that likes your war in intimate settings. You can purchase additional campaigns and culture packs if your favorite war-mongering pack of blood-thirsty maniacs isn’t in the base game.

Best Online War Games For Mac Download

The Wargame series, from Eugen Systems, is a real-time strategy (RTS) wargame that gives you control of Cold War Era militaries across the globe. One of the biggest selling points is Eugen’s effort to bring you as close to the real battlefield as possible, accurately reproducing hundreds of military vehicles, troops, and weapons. The campaign modes have grown with each release and the multiplayer modes are worth hundreds of hours of replay value. A unique aspect of the game is the satellite camera mode which, on its own, is little more than a cool video effect but, in reality, demonstrates the scale of the game’s battlefields.

Wargame: European Escalation, gives the player the chance to control one of the Cold War militaries in Thatcher-era Europe. The game’s sequel, Wargame: Airland Battle, takes you right back to the battlefield in a conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces. But if you had to buy just one, the series’ latest, Wargame: Red Dragon, brings you near the end of the Cold War and adds a variety of the Asian communist states, expanding the theater of war to a truly global scale.

Best Online War Games For Mac Free Download

The RTS genre is dominated by war games, but the variety of styles still leaves Mac players with plenty of options for demolishing their foes.

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time – Leo Tolstoy

Another Mac Gamer HQ favorite, Company of Heroes 2 is the sequel to the original Company of Heroes, released over a decade ago. The sequel takes you directly onto the Eastern Front of WWII for a close-up look at the vagaries of the war you’re waging. The Essence 3.0 engine provides a beautifully rendered war theater that utilizes a variety of in-game systems to enhance the realism of the battlefield and encourage victory by skill rather than firepower. The destructible environments never cease to amaze me and the many ways the enemy can be countered with the right units is equally impressive.

The three released DLC packs introduce more armies for single and multiplayer modes (including action on the Western Front), each of which carries their own strengths and flaws. You can pick up the CoH2: Master Collection for a tidy $39.99 and choose how you want to win and on which map to reign supreme.

Paradox Interactive is well known for its grand-strategy simulations. Each of their titles features an adjustable real-time clock allowing you to watch your decisions play out in a matter of minutes or extending the results of your strategic decisions to hours and days. Their games can bring you from the start of the crusades through the end of the WWII; the company’s most recent offering, Stellaris, will even take you hundreds of years into the future for galaxy-wide statecraft. Each game has it’s own idiosyncrasies and loyalists, but they’ll all give you your fix if grand strategy is your thing.

Hearts of Iron 4 is the company’s most war-oriented, giving you god-like command over pretty much any country that existed in the WWII period. An almost ridiculously complex technology system lets you guide your country’s development as you like, while diplomacy systems let you conduct trade, form and break alliances and treaties, and appoint advisors to help you turn the world from a divided battleground into one of your making. The military system provides you with the chance to specialize your battalions. Pause the game, set your plans, bump up the game-clock speed, and unpause and you can watch your grand vision bring the war to a close on your terms, or bring your country to ruin.

It would be hard to find a gamer in the world that isn’t at least aware of Blizzard’s Starcraft 2. The game extends a nearly decade and a half’s long campaign of real-time space war with an RTS system that serves as a cross between the resource acquisition of traditional 4x turn-based strategy games such as the Civilization series and the RTS battlefield play of the Total War series.

Starcraft 2 gives you control over one of three races, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, to craft a mobile war machine from, almost literally, the ground up. Nearly every aspect of your fighting force, from securing resources to front-line battle commands, is under your control and while the battlefield is yours for the taking, it’s also everyone else’s.
While Blizzard controversially released each race’s story as its own game, as opposed to the original which had all three in one package, Wings of Liberty, Legacy of the Void and Heart of the Swarm can now all be bought and played separately. With a variety of playable races, Starcraft 2 can easily satisfy any urge to dominate your fellow man … or alien.

War games in the turn-based tactical strategy genre have been relatively dry as of late, but there are some definite gems if you keep your eyes open. The two below are some of the better known.

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt. – Sun Tzu, The Art of War

XCOM 2 follows the events of the first XCOM release of the new era, placing you in command of an XCOM team living on the run in a world controlled by the alien forces. The open-ended campaign mode lets you pick and choose what to do, and where and when to do it as you regain control of Earth.

The tactical combat system provides turn-by-turn control over 5 classes of warriors that you can tailor to your own strategy. The technology system of the previous game remains, in expanded form, giving you control over how you’ll exterminate your alien overlords. A greater cast of friends, foes, NPC’s, and increased diversity in weapons and gear complete the game’s customization options, giving you total control over your forces in both the campaign and multiplayer mode. With XCOM 2, you are humanity’s last stand, again, after the first last stand against alien invasion forces failed.

Easily one of the most highly regarded series’ on Mac, The Banner Saga takes you into a fantasy Viking world for an RPG epic story. A turn-based tactical battle system gives you control of 25 customizable characters, each of 2 different races and 7 different classes, in both the campaign story mode and multiplayer skirmish modes. The narrative is an important aspect of this series and each of your choices over the course of the game affects the rest of your experience in an open-ended story-mode that requires strategic decisions on the battlefield but also outside.

The 2-D graphics call to mind the old-school style of Dragon’s Lair with beautifully animated battlefields and story animations. The campaign mode is currently 2 games deep, with a third episode in development, and since decisions made in the first game carry over to the second, I recommend you start with part one and play through the second.

No look at the top war games would be complete without a look at the First Person Shooters (FPS) that put you right onto the front lines in the muck and the mire of warfare. The three discussed here are just a sample of the FPS war games available for Mac gamers.

I’m better when it’s breathing. – Chris, American Sniper

In truth, it’s hard to find anything to say about the Call of Duty series. After all, who isn’t familiar with Call of Duty’s trademark fast gameplay and shoot everything that moves style. But of all the versions available for Mac gamers, Modern Warfare 3 is the one Mac Gamer HQ head honcho Ric recommends. MW3 is on Steam, features cross-platform multiplayer, a spec ops co-op mode and survival modes. Call of Duty games all have fun campaigns with production values worthy of a Michael Bay film. Yet Multiplayer is where they all shine and MW 3’s cross-platform multiplayer makes it the best Mac alternative.

The entire MW series (CoD4MW+MW2+MW3) is also available on Steam in one bundle that puts all of Modern Warfare in your hands, along with DLC, for a reasonably tidy sum. There’s really not a lot to say about it. It’s Call of Duty, but on Mac hardware. Just aim, run, and shoot people in the face.

Arma 3 puts you in control of a variety of battlefield soldiers and mechanical vehicles of destruction. The single-player story mode puts you in the boots of Ben Kerry for a 3 episode campaign. Single player training and scenarios help you beef up your battle-chops before you enter the sandbox multiplayer mode featuring both official and unofficial community-made maps and scenarios. Unique to the Arma 3 multiplayer mode is the Zeus mode, which gives players god-like influence over other players and the contingencies of the battlefield. A content editor also gives you the chance to design your own maps and scenarios for both the community and yourself. The Mac version of the game is currently in

The Mac version of the game is currently in experimental beta mode so you might want to hold off on buying the game until it receives official support. Then again, if you really can’t wait, you can buy the Windows version and then hype your friends on the Mac beta to help the process along.

A personal favorite of Ric’s and mine, this 3rd-person shooter from Yager Development studios takes you into the darker psychological recesses of war. Taking control of Special Operations Force’s Captain Martin Walker, you lead his three-person team through a single-player campaign in post-apocalyptic Dubai in search of mysterious Colonel John Konrad. I won’t spoil the story for you, but let me just say that it’s different and unique. Call of Duty and Battlefield should both take notice.

The gameplay is good too, featuring some exploration but mostly taking cover and shooting (similar to Gears of Wars games). You’ll find yourself short of ammo, time, and patience often enough that you might end up needing a new controller in this game that, for myself, calls to mind the 1999 film Fight Club, but instead of not being about war, it’s about war. Post-script spoiler alert.

This final entry comes from 11-bit studios and is easily one of the most intriguingly heartfelt approaches to the war genre in gaming history.

Our nation exists because of the people! We exist because of them. – Cidolfas Orlandu, Final Fantasy Tactics

Another personal favorite of Ric’s and mine, this scavenger-hunt game is about choices when choices are too few. Putting you in control of three civilians trapped in a building in a war-torn town, your goal is to keep these people alive amidst sniper fire that keeps you inside during the day, and among thieves and other civilians just trying to survive at night.

Only the dead have seen the end of war – attribution questionable

Resource management, scavenging missions, and housekeeping are central to the survival of your group. Decisions on how your players behave toward remaining survivors affect the morale and health of your characters in the randomly generated world brought to life in a beautifully animated tale of survival and loss in a devastated world.

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This is far from an all-encompassing list, but any of these games should provide hours of good times. MacOS war games come in all shades, styles, and sizes and there’s no end in sight to the destruction you’ll reap upon your adversaries. That being said, keep count of your ammo, your eyes on your scopes, and your wits about you and don’t forget to be at least reasonably respectful to your fellow gamers. As Einstein was fond of saying: Say what you want about me and how I play the game, you’ve at least gotta admit that I’m the guy with the rocket launcher.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. – Albert Einstein

Disclaimer: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission (this is how we pay the bills). This commission comes at no additional cost to you.

Please understand that I only mention games because I believe they’re interesting, good, and/or fun. Never because I received a free copy or to earn a small commission.

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This article comes from Thomas Trono.