Scourge of War: Gettysburg Demo

The American Civil War saw more than its fair share of bloody battles and vicious killings, especially in historical battles that got to be famous over the years. This happens to be the case with the battle of Gettysburg as well, which happened in July 1863 and lasted three days, with thousands of people dead and just as many wounded.

Scourge of War: Gettysburg is a hardcore strategy game that does not make any effort to appear inviting to newbie players, since it is dedicated to a special group of people who love tactics and historical accuracy. That doesn't mean new players cannot pick it up, but rather that the game makes no compromises when it comes to depth and tactical possibilities.

Hence, just like in the previous titles released by the developer in question, you can choose whether you want to control a single division and give orders to only one hundred men, or play the role of the general and have to deal with tens of thousands at once. Depending on your experience level, this choice becomes quite obvious once you start the game, since, regardless of how courageous you think you might be, the sheer number of units can quickly change your mind.

As far as the actual battles are concerned, the very same mechanics are used, which, although might be familiar to the fans of the series, are still rather different from the rest of the strategy games out there. Thus, you do not actually control the units themselves, but rather give out orders and wait for the soldiers to execute them, which is much closer to reality and much more rewarding in-game, at least when done right.

Once you make the leap and take command over larger armies, things get exponentially more complicated, especially when there's a battle going and you have to quickly decide how to handle the situation. A lot of emphasis was put on realism as well, which can be clearly noticed in the case of ballistics and the way your troops move and react on the battlefield.

In the end, after you are done with the official campaign of the game, you can simply start creating your own from scratch, using the built-in editor. Thus, Scourge of War: Gettysburg can theoretically last for as long as you want, depending on how many 19th century battles you are willing to go through.