SGS Taipings Reviews

Taipings is basically late 1990s/early 2000s wargame design. There are event cards. They have impacts, but they are very about 90% generic events "blockade lifted" sort of things -- even though the war itself was an extremely politically nuanced and complex. The combat system is buckets of (virtual dice). The Taipings at least improve over time -- sort of a 3 stage upgrade that feels a bit like the classic GDW War Game, A House Divided. Units from various regions and insurgencies are confined to their region (the Taipings are free to roam). On the Imperial side, the strictures are even more severe but loosen as the Imperial Court becomes more cognizant and concerned about the Taipings. The Diplomacy system is clunky Pro Taiping/Anti Taiping. Diplomacy is purchased in the same way that you buy reinforcements -- sort of a fun shopping spree every quarter. Units have steps -- you can buy them back as reinforcement pips. The main charm of this game is that it covers in real detail a war that is both fascinating and otherwise ignored by Western audiences. This game would benefit from updating and the adoption of a more modern style of dealing with the inevitable political turmoil of multiple simultaneous rebellions/civil wars that also implicate foreign powers and the internal intrigues of the Qing Court. Still I have very much enjoyed exploring this game.

Compared to scg finland that I also have, I find scg taiping more interesting. There is a larger map, more options and a lot of unit difference. And also a game in another era (there a enough about WW2). Hopefully the AI ​​is also better than scg finland. In that game the AI is worse, Now in turn 20 and get the message that Hong is dead, that's very fast and bad luck for the taipengs with morale drop. In reality, this was not until 1864

This game has covered the very detail of Taiping War. After played a few hours I read the History of Taiping War published by Nanjing University and found it has successfully reproduce the course of war. In history, Taiping launch a north expedition try to exploit the chaos situation of empire and been totally destructed by yellow river flooding and subsequent severed winter. I always imagined what would happened if Taiping can setup their base in GuanZhou instead of Nanjing or consolidate their gripes in southeast. Have try these strategy in game while met other challenges. one problem: what dose "default email app" means? I am using windows10 email on PC, in a pbem game when I click the in game sending mail button, nothing happened and my opponent received none, I can only send the zip file manually

Terrible interface and bad tutorial. I tried for 2 hours and gave up.

One of the best games of SGS titles I think. Music and portraits of units and leaders AGEOD game standard. Design is solid with mechanics if it had a better AI it would be all time classic on the topic. Still later start dates AI is sufficient, Very seldom freeze in turn can happen but it is easy to overcome with autosave function between turn phases.

This is going to take some time to understand, much less to master! Overall, very interesting - has made me do outside research into a period I knew very little about.

I have to learn my lesson regarding SGS games. They generally are hard to understand as the interface is not always clear. The games have the feeling that they are board games made for the computer. But the AI is playing a different game than we are. For example, my Taiping armies attack the Qing army defending Guangzhou month after month. The Qing army routs but I'm defeated during the pursuit phase every time. This is absurd and I answered my own question: how can I play such a game. I stopped wasting time with it. 25/100

Good gaming concept based on a well established system but once again AI seems to be able to make unrealistic moves and ignore supply constraints. Might be a bug so if issues solved would recommend. The combat system also seems to come up with some weird results sometime ie sides that seem to be winning on morale are suddenly declared losers even if they have higher morale and have inflicted more hits. What effects the game more is when cities seem to randomly switch back to the AI side without any indication why, and its not through combat. Not to mention the AI side suddenly going from zero VP to 27 for no obvious reason.

An interesting (and unknown to me) historical setting and its nice presentation led me to purchase Taipings. Unfortunately, its AI was so bad that I have to give it a negative review. Taipings is what I would call Ageod-lite. It plays very similarly to that older game series except not as complex. (Apparently, one of SGS's developers was also an Ageod developer. it certainly shows.) As an Ageod veteran, I was able to jump into this game easily. It was all very familiar except for its inscrutable "diplomacy" system. I did enjoy the presentation: the beautiful map/counters/cards and it plays smoothly and relatively quickly despite its scope and size. However, as a single-player, a competent AI is a must, and this game doesn't have one. I started as the Qing in the Grand Campaign and ended-up quitting on Turn 31. After the first few turns, the Taiping AI did NOTHING. It just sat in Guagdong/Guanxsi provinces. It occasionally moved around penny-packet armies of 2-3 units while having one massive stack just sitting in an empty province for over a dozen of turns. It was definitely shades of Ageod's AI at its worst. Like with Ageod's "grand campaign" scenarios. the AI seemed overwhelmed by the scope and size of the map, the forces arrayed and all the varied options available. So, it fell into strategic passivity/meandering and offered no challenge. Maybe the AI handles the Qing better due to it being the more reactive side. However, it was still very disappointing to see how poorly the AI handled the Taipings which does not inspire much confidence it will handle the Qing much better. In sum: a game that appears to be best played PBEM. If you're looking for even a decent single-player experience than pass on Taipings.

I’m from Omaha, Nebraska, and knew nothing about the topic of this game nor anything about the history of this civil war. I’ve played TAIPINGS over 11 hours and have now captured Nanchang before the first winter arrived (playing as the RED TEAM). I think that’s a good thing. I’ve also purchased the books, GOD’S CHINESE SON and AUTUMN IN THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM, and am reading them as quickly as possible. It’s a really great game. All the SGS games are beautiful, designed with great attention to detail, easy to play,; I play with the AI set to ADVANCED, and I think the AI is great. One big problem with the game currently, however, is that they have a DIPLOMACY mode that is described as a "mini game within the game." But so far they have provided no instructions or video on how play this mini game or what to do when the DIPLOMACY mini game phase comes up. Highly recommended.