08/1997
Path: menudo.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!usenet
From: townsend@capitol.com (Dave Townsend)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: No Greater Glory
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games
Date: 2 Feb 1993 19:33:05 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
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Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
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Reply-To: townsend@capitol.com (Dave Townsend)
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Keywords: game, simulation, politics, history, war, commercial
PRODUCT NAME
No Greater Glory
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
No Greater Glory ("NGG") is a political/economic/war simulation of
the American Civil War. There are many, many interesting decisions to be
made, sometimes made difficult by a flawed user interface.
Shoot-em-uppers need read no farther.
AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION
Name: Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Address: 675 Almanor Ave, Suite 201
Sunnyvale CA94086-2901
Telephone: (408) 737-6850
LIST PRICE
$49.95 (US) ??
I got it from Creative Computers for $25 (US).
COPY PROTECTION
Look a word up in the manual. To make things easier, it's always
the first word on a page.
No on-disk protection.
Note: Once you pass through the copy protection, you don't begin the
game automatically; instead, you see an empty window with the game title.
You must choose "New Game" from the menu to actually start. (I didn't read
my Amiga rules addendum closely enough, and was extremely annoyed when my
game seemed broken.)
HARD DISK INSTALLATION
There's good news and bad news.
The bad news is that SSI advertises the game as "hard disk
installable (graphics only)." The instructions mention that you have to
boot on Disk 1 (it's a two-disk game). The installation program is just a
shell script, with all the limitations and inflexibility that scripts
usually imply. For example, the script prompts you to enter a `d' and then
your hard disk name, like "d dh0". Gross. And I really hate it when some
stupid game puts all its stuff in the root directory of my disk. Worse, it
actually MODIFIES Disk 1 (so use a copy!) to wire in your hard disk name.
The good news is that, if you have any AmigaDOS expertise at all,
you can easily install the game yourself. Make your own directory where YOU
want it, rename the CWPICS directory to go there, copy over "cw" and
"cw.info" (make sure you use the modified version), and add an assignment
like:
Assign NGG_v1.0_d2: dh0:games/NoGreaterGlory/CWPICS
I'm glad that the good news outweighs the bad news, but this
shouldn't be so clunky. Commodore, when ARE you going to release your
Installer program?
[MODERATOR'S NOTE: Commodore's Installer program
has been available to vendors for many months. - Dan]
MACHINE USED FOR TESTING
A2000 with A2630, 1 MB Chip RAM, 8 MB Fast RAM
A1950 Monitor
AmigaDOS 3.0
DESCRIPTION OF GAME PLAY
You take the role of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis. You must
deal with cabinet appointments, egotistical generals, troops and supplies,
foreign policy, regional sympathies, and law and order.
Sound like a lot? It is. Ever compared pictures of Lincoln in
1860 vs. 1865? You'll find out where all the grey hairs came from.
Each turn represents four months, and runs as follows:
First, make your cabinet appointments. Each side has twelve
politicians (Seward, Stanton, Cameron, etc.), each with differing loyalty,
ability, political stance, and home region. Cabinet appointments (Attorney
General, Defense, Navy, State, Treasury) affect the relevant area of the
game, so don't expect to shine financially if your Treasury Secretary is a
bumbler. But you can't just take the best people; you'll need a balance of
regions and political stances. If you don't, you alienate part of your
constituents.
Then, you choose a domestic policy in each area of the country. You
can declare martial law, allow all civil rights, or something in between.
The combination of the player's actions determines any changes of sympathy
in regions. Naturally, you want to maximize your support.
Next, you decide economic strategy. You control bond rates and
taxes to raise money. More money is better, but you don't want to cripple
your economy with inflation.
Then you decide on emancipation policy. You need to balance the
desires of the radicals and the border states.
Then you raise troops, build your fleet, and purchase supplies and
infrastructure. You can choose the numbers of troops to raise, but you have
to deal with Congress; another political decision that can raise or lower
support for your administration.
Next your troops will muster and suffer attrition.
Then you do strategic moves by river, sea, and railroad.
Then you direct land movement. For each force that you move, you
must assign one of thirteen generals. Each general is rated for initiative,
skill, and prestige. Naturally, some of the most prestigious generals have
the worst skill; but if you flout a prestigious general, your support in his
home region will drop. Sometimes losing a battle is better than winning, if
it makes a loser like Pope's prestige drop enough so that he can be ignored.
Then the computer resolves all movement attempts and subsequent
combat. I say "movement attempts" because often a general (especially one
with low initiative) will refuse to budge. It's frustrating (but realistic)
when McClellan sits on a army that outnumbers the rebels 3-1.
Finally, you choose foreign policy towards England, France, and your
opponent. If England or France fully intervenes, the South is as good as
freed. Or the war might end more happily if you can force your opponent to
accept your peace terms.
That's a lengthy description of things to do in a turn. Fortunately,
at 4 months/turn, there aren't that many turns in a game.
LIKES
o Tons of historical detail.
o The package includes Stephen Crane's novel "The Red Badge of
Courage", and historical/economic notes.
o Most war games pay only lip service to non-military matters. This
game is really more of a political game wrapped with a military
veneer than the other way around. Economics are important, too.
o Although there are several different avenues of play, the
consequences of your actions are plausible.
o Optional randomized abilities for the generals. Maybe this time you
get Bonehead Jackson instead of Stonewall Jackson.
DISLIKES
In increasing order of annoyance:
o Charles Sumner's name is misspelled as "Summer." (It's correct in
the IBM version.)
o Graphics. Each general and politician has his own portrait. I can
appreciate the effort that went into making these portraits, but
they are not very good likenesses and are annoyingly dithered.
o It's hard to win, even at the "Very Easy" level.
o User interface. It's awful. Oh sure, you can use the mouse, and
there's a full set of informational menus, but the interface is often
intrusive and clunky. Here are some of the most annoying examples:
1. The Choose Cabinet screen. The politician's portraits are
arranged alphabetically. Light bulbs show you their ability number,
a muddled icon shows where they're from, a letter shows whether
they're radical or moderate, and another letter shows if they hold a
cabinet position.
So the only way to see who is in your cabinet is to scan the list,
looking for the presence of the letters. This is annoying while
you're trying to balance locations, moderates/radicals, and
abilities. And there are no indications of which offices have been
filled, so on the first turn (when you make your cabinet) you have
to scan the list to see which letters/offices remain.
2. The Maps. There are both national maps and sectional maps. Two
minor nits: some of the sections seem oddly named (New York is part
of the "Mid Atlantic"?), and the menu of sectional maps gives the
names in south-to-north order. It's weird having "New England" at
the bottom of the list, and "Gulf Coast" at the top, when the
geography runs the other way.
But my major beef with the sectional maps is that they're literally
sectional -- although you can see what's on an adjacent map, you
can't access anything there.
For example, you're looking at the Northwest map, and you see that
you have some extra troops in Grafton (in West Virginia, on the East
Border map) that you could use in Missouri. You can see the troops,
but you can't pick them -- they're not on the current map. Instead,
you go to the East Border map, move them to Cincinnati, on the
Northwest map. Which means you can't get to them; so you choose
Northwest map again, and then you can continue their move.
This crowning example of this silliness is in the Northeast; you get
the EXACT same view for the New England and Mid Atlantic states,
but they are separate areas. So if you move from Connecticut to New
York, and want to continue moving, you have to switch maps, even
though when you do your screen doesn't change.
I think dividing the country up for political purposes is smart; but
why let it complicate the user interface? A larger scrolling bitmap
would have been much more pleasant.
3. Choosing generals. Each moving force has to be led by a general,
which you choose from a list of names. And the list of names is
precisely that, no more. You can't tell abilities, prestige, or
prior orders; in fact, in no place in the program can you get a
consolidated list of the general's prestige, initiative, ability, and
current orders. So you have to check the summary menu for prestige
and orders, look in the manual for initiative and ability, and then
remember who it was you were trying to assign. To make things worse,
the five most prestigious generals demand to lead your five largest
armies, but you are entirely responsible for figuring out where your
five largest armies are, and who the five most prestigious generals
are. These are mechanical decisions; why could the computer not
provide a little more guidance?
COMPARISONS
There have been many board games on the Civil War, none of them
concerned with the very real political problems of the times. For this
reason, NGG is a much better simulation of the war.
Civilization is the last big strategic economic/political/ military
computer game that I've played. Civilization is a great game but pretty
thin history, in spite of the extensive historical background. Aztecs vs.
Zulus vs. Germans vs. Americans is entertaining, but it ain't reasonable
history. Politics is given short shrift, too.
NGG is the reverse. There's a tremendous amount of realistic
historical detail, but it's harder just to jump in and start mixing it up.
It's harder both because the decisions you make tend to have larger
consequences, and because the user interface doesn't aid you in moving the
game along.
But since NGG's situation is less abstract, I found the sense of
accomplishment from doing well is higher.
CONCLUSION
The algorithms were designed by a Ph.D. in history, but so was the
user interface. Dilettantes will find it frustrating, but interested and/or
dedicated users will find it unique.
---
Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
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