A fan capsule for the highly enjoyable tactical war sandbox-simulator by W. R. Hutsell.
If virtue there be to binary distribution on the smolnet of our era, surely it must include the editorial highlighting of underappreciated works from days of yore. And certainly one must say W. R. Hutsell’s Civil War Battle Set (CWBS) is not as well known today as it ought to be. This elegant DOS war game still easily holds it’s own, fighting above its class for enjoyability.
CWBS concerns itself with the American Civil War (the War Between the States) during the mid-19th century. So much is common for tactical war games. If you’re interested in that historic struggle between Union and Confederacy, arguably the first truly modern war, CWBS is as enriching an aid as any. What truly sets apart this game are two dimensions:
Primo, CWBS comes with a rich map editor, a feature well ahead of its time. One can modify or create topography and initial unit placement. At least half the fun in Civil War Battle Set is the pure sandbox pleasure of creating these board maps.
Secundo, the gameplay is especially lucid, both in UX presentation and balance of play design. With relatively simple elements, and an AI simple for our era, Civil War Battle Set provides a more ready appreciation for the field of battle. This, where other simulators often bog down in menus and options. Even a novice game is challenging and engaging from the start.
I hope I have intrigued the DOS shareware game afficionados on smolnet to give Civil War Battle Set a go. Whether you maintain fond memories of the game from BBS’s 3 decades ago or are new to such fare, I hazard the reader will appreciate this classic gem.
A few years ago I scoured the web for surviving copies of Civil War Battle Set. I located two lurking on now long forgotten pastebin web boards. Frankly, the obscurity of this game today came as a shock. Let’s change that.
Version one’s vintage is about 1991. I seem to recall a pre-1.0 copy floating about circa 1989 or so. This version deploys pellucid ASCII escape colour graphics in VGA mode. One of the battle maps in this copy holds some error I haven’t traced, but the game is quite playable.
EgaCivilWarBattleSetV2.3sw1993W.R.Hutsellstrategy.zip
Version 2.3 of CWBS from several years later holds much the same quality of gameplay, but deploys raster images in lovely bright EGA. This version also provides more verbose information on strength & morale, which affect unit performance.
CWBS should be rough and ready as binaries straight from the zip files.
Unzip in a folder using 7zip or such software
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As most of us don’t have a working version of MS-DOS (PC-DOS) today, an emulator is recommended. The go-to option for this is DOSBox.
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I’d like to here introduce the Tennessean dev of Civil War Battle Set, with gratitude for hours of interest. If possible, I shall include in this section updated information on how one can now register this excellent shareware. Perhaps this might spur further development: a smolnet multiplayer version with procedurally generated maps?
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