This is not only a tactically sound feature it also starts becoming aesthetically pleasing, too.
American conquest: divided nation download full#
Similar to Dawn of War (admittedly my favorite RTS and the gauge to which I hold all other titles within this genre), Divided Nation treats full squads as a single unit and lets you assign different formations with a single mouse click. That's not to say there isn't a smug satisfaction that occurs while you watch your riflemen get up close and begin to bayonet the hapless enemies, but the precise assignment of units is incredibly absorbing.
After a few unstable forays into the thick of things, something clicked: The strategic deployment of troop formations before the fight is really where the challenge and fun is, not in the battle itself. Initially, it took me awhile to "get it," to understand where the fun factor was in Divided Nation. Without that support, expect your morale to wither even more quickly, and take your victory with it. Effective placement of heavy weapons is important as well, in that it takes very little effort for infantry to destroy cannons or Gatling guns. The redcoats had a better officer class though, and it didn't take long before all of my formations were broken up and scattered like sticks in the wind. In my first time through the Battle of New Orleans, I was positive I would come out victorious simply due to overwhelming numbers. For example, officers can influence the morale of your units as well as that of the enemy's, and trust me when I say that plays a huge role in the end result of a battle. Various officer class units have different special effects that greatly alter the outcome of skirmishes. This game is so much more than just amassing the biggest possible force and plowing like a juggernaught through all enemies. Once all of these elements have been cleared away, it's time for epic battle. Like any true RTS, this game involves gathering resources, building up a base of operations, researching better abilities for your units, and producing an ever-expanding army of soldiers. This is all contained within a package that includes three different single-player modes, robust multiplayer functionality over LAN or online, and a level editor for custom scenarios.ĭivided Nation is massively complex, and there is simply no way I can cover every aspect of its mechanics in less than 1,500 words, but I will try to touch on the basics.
Along the way, you'll command forces from the Union, the Confederacy, the armies of Texas and Mexico, and finally, the American Militia at New Orleans. It provides five playable factions over a lengthy campaign that illustrates all of the major conflicts and commanders of that time, from Ulysses S. In a nutshell, Divided Nation is a two-dimensional, top-down isometric point of view real-time strategy game set in the turbulent Civil War era of the United States.
The South shall rise again, virtually.Īs is my personal custom, it is time to break from the poetic in order to deliver the clinical breakdown of what this game is. Through their efforts, you may now revisit this crucible of patriotism. Using this history as a backdrop, a development team known as Revolution Strategy has crafted a game called American Conquest: Divided Nation. North and South, Grey and Blue, brother against brother – when the smoke cleared, there were 970,000 casualties scarring the landscape, and the collective psyche would never be the same again. For reasons entirely too complicated to go into here, the land mass that would one day become the United States of America split into many factions, most notably the Union and the Confederacy. The smell of acrid smoke and horses breathġ861 to 1865 was a bloody and painful time to live in continental North America.