On April 6, 1862, General Albert Sydney Johnston led his 45,000 confederate troops in a desperate attempt to save western Tennessee from invasion. Johnston's plan was to catch the army of U.S. Grant by surprise and capture their camp and supply points on the Tennessee River. It almost worked, but the outnumbered Northern forces wouldn't give up. They kept the Confederates from breaking through to the river on the first day, and that night 25,000 fresh Union troops ferried across. On April 7, Grant counter-attacked and drove the Southerners from the field.
THE BATTLE OF SHILOH by SSI allows you to fight this battle again in a few hours. You can play against a friend or play either side against the computer. You can even have the computer play both sides if you like speculating. The game is much like a board war-games. It is played on a map covered with hexagons, 11 high by 19 wide. When you start the game, you have two options which are very nice touches: you can omit the hexagons -- it's easy to play with out them and the map looks better -- and you can indicate whether you're using a B&W or colour monitor. In colour, the map looks very nice -- the white brigades (little men pointing rifles) stand out readily against the blue rivers and streams, green woods, and orange hills. The 16 Confederate brigades enter on the left side (South) and try to capture Pittsburgh Landing on the right edge.
Between them and their goal are 14 Union brigades who must slow down the attack, standing their ground when they can and retreating when they must. Each brigade has a combat strength based on its historical performance but this strength will change constantly with combat losses and reinforcements. A point system keeps track of losses and lets you know how you're doing compared to the actual battle. It is fairly easy for the Union forces to hold out until evening (when 11 fresh brigades arrive) but very hard to do so without losing the game due to heavy casualties. My major complaint about SHILOH is the manner in which the designer compensated for the weakness of the computer. It has trouble moving units efficiently, so to make up for this it gets to move them farther. Computer-controlled units get about double the movement allowance of the same forces under human control. This seems to be too much; it certainly produces drastic differences in strategy in what is primarily a game of manoeuvre. I think human vs. human is the best game for both balance and historical accuracy.
You can choose to play either the full 2-day battle or just the first day. In the 2-day affair, the South will always be ahead after the first day and must try to hold on to this lead. In the 1-day game, the North gets 75 extra points, about right for a game between 2 humans but not enough to hold off the computer. If you find the regular game too hard or too easy, you can increase or decrease the strength of each side independently. Unfortunately, you can't change their movement allowance. This is a very well designed product. Although it will take at least 2 hours to play the first day (and as much as 5 hours for both days), there are no periods of inactivity longer than 5 seconds or so. The game is absorbing; you are constantly making decisions and watching for weaknesses in the enemy. My rating for this game is a sunning 5 out of 5.
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