The U.S. Civil War by GMT

I am recently enamored with GMT's 'The U.S. Civil War'. I had heard a number of positive reviews of the game and was able to find a copy at my local game store. (Shout out to J&J Cards and Collectibles. If you are ever in the Kitchener-Waterloo area in Southern Ontario, check them out). I vaguely remember playing a game like this back in the 70's or 80's and had a positive experience with it. It reminds me a little of Avalon Hill's 'War & Peace' in its strategic level and the importance of the use of leaders. I am now on my fourth playing of the game after 3 false starts due to major strategic errors. I have been trying to see if a Southern victory is possible against such challenging odds. Not that I would have wished it in real life, I have always been a fan of playing out possible alternative historical narratives. So far I have been unable to break the code albeit I am still quite new at the game. In the East, the Union is always going to have more reinforcements arrive each and every turn and it will only be time before they are going to push south towards Richmond. As well, there is always going to be the threat of invasion that the Confederates need to wary of and there are a great number of possible invasion sites to defend. The Shenandoah Valley is another key invasion route that the Union can use to threaten the South. In the West I usually have the Confederates invade Kentucky in the last turn of 1861 since it will revert to Union control automatically in 1862 so I try to gobble up as many victory hexes as possible before the inevitable Union reinforcements start to arrive. In the Trans-Mississippi there is a lot of back and forth fighting in Southern Missouri with neither side able to get the upper hand. I am still early in this session of the game but it seems like the Union already has the upper hand. To me the Confederate player has a much tougher task to achieve victory in this game but at least that does mean it is historically accurate. I highly recommend this game to any fan of the Civil War or games at the grand strategic level. The rules are no that onerous so it is easy to learn but I believe it will be difficult to master. 

This is probably my favourite Civil War game. I played a few times when it first came out. (I wonder if the one you played back in the 80s was Civil War by Eric Lee Smith from Victory Games? You'd probably remember if it was as they are very similar.)

Part of the tension in TUSCW is balancing where the hammer is. It's very hard to be forceful in the east and west at the same time. Early on, the invasion sites in the east look more vulnerable than they are due to the Union not being able carry many units by sea in the early game (if memory serves- I seem to remember landing a small force in Florida and then feeling like I was in over my head as I couldn't afford to reinforce it. Might have just been poor planning.) Terrific game in any case.