The winner is the player who has destroys all enemy units or manages to occupy a certain number of "victory points" - hexes representing valuable cities. When the player has finished his or her moves, their opponent (human or A.I.) gets to go. When battles occur, the combat is resolved using attack and defense ratings in various categories. Play begins with each player placing up to 42 military units down on "deployment hexes." Once that's done, they can move their units a certain number of hexes each turn, occupying cities or attacking enemy units.
![shattered union gameplay shattered union gameplay](https://static.4players.de/premium/ContentImage/0a/9f/8646-bild.jpg)
The real meat and potatoes of the game are the tactical battles that take place on hex-based maps that represent regions of America. They're stocked with plastic-looking characters that bear a striking resemblance to Barbie dolls (or possibly, CNN anchors). These cutscenes, while adequately scripted and well voice acted, don't have particularly good production values. and the implication of a former Soviet hardliner in the bombing. During the game's campaign mode, which allows the player to take control of one of the seven factions, little cutscenes will pop up detailing the investigation into the destruction of Washington D.C. Liberals will get a cheap thrill from swipes at the Bush administration, and conservatives will grit their teeth for the same reason, but ultimately, the storyline doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on the actual gameplay. "to restore order" as a seventh faction, and the battle is on for which gets to rebuild the United States in its image. Eventually, six American regional factions emerge - including the California Commonwealth and the Republic of Texas - the European Union invades the area around Washington D.C. and wipes out the governmental line of succession causes regions of the country to begin breaking away into mutually hostile camps.
![shattered union gameplay shattered union gameplay](https://wallacegsmith.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/800px-panarin.jpg)
Incidents of domestic terrorism push an already strained United States to the breaking point, and a nuclear bomb that destroys Washington D.C. A disputed election installs the most unpopular president in American history into the White House. The game's premise could have been (and probably was) lifted straight from CNN. Following this tradition is Pop Top's Shattered Union, a pretty good "beer & pretzels" strategy game that unfortunately fails to live up to the example set by its illustrious predecessors. These are the simple but surprisingly deep strategy challenges typified by game games like Dai Senryaku, Advance Wars, and the Fire Emblem series. Recent years, however, have seen consoles coming on strong with a specific type of turn-based strategy game: the "beer & pretzels" wargame.
![shattered union gameplay shattered union gameplay](https://www.old-games.com/screenshot/9656-17-shattered-union.jpg)
Consoles were always the place to turn if you wanted to play a sports game, mow down hordes of aliens with a railgun, or run from the law in a Porsche, but a strategy game on console was practically a contradiction in terms.
#SHATTERED UNION GAMEPLAY PC#
If, like me, you're a hardcore armchair Eisenhower, the PC has always been your platform of choice.