Sinews of War: The American Revolution

The campaign

Play the Continental Congress or Great Britain across the seasons of 1775 to 1783. Armies march a road-and-waypoint network over real geography, drawn as an 18th-century engraved map. Towns grow, forts hold the passes and river crossings, fleets contest the coast, and the map is fogged beyond what your armies, agents and friends can see.

Winning is a matter of treasury, magazines and supply lines, the loyalty of each province, and the patience of Congress or Parliament. Envoys, spies, pamphleteers and merchants work the map beside your generals, and every foreign court has a temper and a memory.

The battles

When armies meet, fight it out in real-time 3D. Form line, column, skirmish order or square; fire by volley, by platoon or at will; hold the first volley until it counts, then go in with the bayonet. Morale, fatigue, ammunition and the ground all matter — hedgerows blunt a charge, woods hide a regiment, and guns can batter a breach in a wall.

Every soldier is simulated. Each ball is aimed at a man and lands where it lands, so the front rank takes the worst of a volley and nothing behind a house is hit.

Play it your way

Any battle can be auto-resolved, and the tactical layer can be switched off for the strategic game alone — optionally locked with a PIN for a child's or a classroom's play. Historical events can be on, or off for a pure sandbox. Win by conquest or by exhausting the enemy's will to fight, at three difficulty levels.

Platforms, and what comes next

Sinews of War runs on macOS, Windows and Linux. The game is data-driven, so later eras can follow the Revolution as new campaigns: the French and Indian War, 1812, the Mexican-American War and the Civil War.