marketed under Avalon Hill's "Tournament" line of wargames, Civil War was grouped with the "Family/Social" game line. The game failed to find an audience, possibly because it was too simple for wargamers but too complex for social gamers, and it was dropped from the Avalon Hill line in 1963. A 1980 company history noted that the game was "A very abstract strategic game using a hex grid and plastic pawns. It is remembered primarily for its value to the collector due to its relative scarcity." Reception Writing in the inaugural issue of The General, Carl Knabe admitted that he disliked Civil War because it was unbalanced, saying, "If he plays his cards right, the North can always win." In a retrospective review in Issue 12 of Simulacrum, Joe Scoleri commented on the relatively quick failure of this game, saying, "I wouldn't be surprised if that was because it was too complex for social gamers yet too simple and abstracted for the Tournament gamers." Computer version In 1988, Avalon Hill released a computer version of Civil War. It was not well-received. In a 1993 survey of pre 20th-century strategy games Computer Gaming World gave the game zero-plus stars out of five, stating that it "shows how one can take a highly playable boardgame and turn it into an unplayable computer 'product' [with] incomplete rules, incomplete graphics and incomplete programming". The magazine noted that Avalon Hill did not ship a promised update. References External links American Civil War board wargames Avalon Hill games Board games introduced in 1961 Charles S. Roberts games