Creating Basic Scenarios for
Civil War: The Battle of  Bull Run

By
Jim (6^th Vermont) Weaver, Adam (adam) Bryant, and Norb (norb) Timpko

The game Civil War – Bull Run (CWBR) is designed from the ground up to be modified by users to create new scenarios on either of the Bull Run or fantasy  battlefields included with the game.

To demonstrate the process of building a new scenario, we will alter an existing scenario to develop a new custom scenario that will be a hypothetical historical version.

What you need: Aside from the game, which you already own, the tools needed to make new scenarios are minimal. It can be done with a minimal text editor such as Notepad, but is much easier with a spreadsheet program such as Excel or Quattro. All of the files used to define a scenario are either plain text files or ‘comma separated value’ (csv) files.

Planning: One of the most important aspects of scenario design is planning. If you are creating a new historical or historical variant scenario, a good knowledge of the actual course of the battle is needed.  Even with a fantasy scenario, some knowledge of the units involved is needed. In addition, a good study of the map your battle will be on is needed. You do not need to have your units starting at opposite sides of the map unless you really enjoy watching units march. A helpful tip is to print out the Mini Map graphic file. The file is c:\program files\Activision Value\Civil War Bull Run\maps\1st_BULL_RUN_HIST_MM.tga.

Scenario Files: Before we begin with the mod, we need to examine the basic structure of the scenario files.  To take a look at the basic structure look at the directory on your CDROM SDK\Scenarios\08 - Hunter (U_Div)   In the root of the scenario files is one required file, level.ini, which holds some basic information about the scenario and will be discussed in more detail below. In addition to that file are two required directories, Data Files and Text, and optional directories. During the loading of a scenario, the game engine checks the scenario files and uses any game file found there in preference to the equivalent file in the main game. This gives the scenario designer wide latitude in altering the game, a potential that has barely been touched.   Any of the five main directories can exist in the scenarios folder and can override the main files of the game (maps, text, data files, sounds, graphics).  So you can experiment by creating a scenario and copying the files that you want to modify into your scenario folder without every messing up the game.

File choice is defined at follows:

1) Scenario loaded from MMG or Folder, and files in here will override files from the main game.
2)Next the main directories, the top level folders in the same folder as the exe, files in here will be used next
3)Next the main cwbr.mmg file.  If the file does not exist in the previous 2 choices, the file will then be loaded from here.

The data files directory must contain three files, events.csv, objectives.csv, and units.csv. Other files can be added as needed.  The text directory must contain a file screen.txt and a file intro.txt. The first contains the text of various messages used in the scenario and intro.txt has the text used in the bottom section of the ‘Choose a Scenario’ window on the ‘Custom Scenarios’ selection screen.

Details of the contents of the  *.txt files are covered in the Appendix. The details of the *.csv files are in the Excel file: Scenario files.xls that is also in the same location where this file was downloaded from.

New Scenario Example: For our new scenario, we are going to start with the Burnside brigade level scenario.  Go into the ?? directory on the CD and copy the directory:  03 - Burnside (U_Brig) into the c:\program files\Activision Value\Civil War Bull Run\scenarios directory. Next rename the directory to: Burnside Left (U_Brig) . In this scenario, we are going to have Burnside turn left off of the Sudley Road just past the Newman farm. In the historical battle, Evans had moved up this road and set up his line of battle near the Carter farm. This is the alternate that we are going to set up.

First steps: MMG has built in some very useful tools for the scenario designer which we will take advantage of.  Using your text editor open up the game .ini file: c:\program files\Activision Value\Civil War Bull Run\CWBR.ini.

Add the following text at the beginning of the file:

[Initialization]
DbgLvl=2
NoAI=1

Save the file and exit the editor. These commands do two useful things. The first turns on the display that shows the location of the selected unit or officer in the game XZ coordinate system. This system is use by numerous files to specify the location of units on the battlefield. The numbering starts at the lower left with coordinates 1,1 and ends at the top right near Centreville at coordinates 131071, 131071. The second command totally disables all AI functions so that units will not fight at all. This allows units to be marched all over the map without starting odd battles.  For scale, the engine uses 32 units per yard.  This makes the map 4096 yards by 4096 yards or 2.33 miles square.

Next shift to the scenario directory (c:\program files\Activision Value\Civil War Bull Run\scenarios\Burnside Left and open up the file level.ini with your text editor.  The ‘;’ character at the beginning of a line in any *.ini file tells the program that this line is a comment and to ignore all content after the semi-colon. Put a semi-colon at the beginning of these lines:

CommandHeight=40
CommandRadius=500
FailGrade=-25

 So that they look like this:

; CommandHeight=40
; CommandRadius=500
; FailGrade=-25

These changes disable the movement limitations so that you can freely move  your point of view (POV) around the battlefield.

Next edit the [Rank] section so it ends up looking like this:

[Rank]
Army=0
Corps=0
Division=0
Brigade=0
Regiment=0

Finally, change the start time to 9:00:00 AM, then save the file and close the editor.

Next change to the Data files directory and open events.csv . While setting NoAI=1 in the CWBR.ini file prevents conflict, it does not stop unit movement that is dictated in the events.csv file. Change all of the entries in the time column to 23:00:00 then save the file and exit.

Moving US Units: Now having done that start the game, go into Custom Scenarios and select the new Burnside Left scenario. Select Col Hunter as your character and load the game.  After the game loads, nothing will happen until you specifically order it. Find Burnside and select him. March him and the entire brigade back up Sudley Road and position the head of the column just above the turn for the Carter farm road. Move the lead column onto the side road so that the tail is just a the intersection with Sudley Rd. Move the other three brigades of Burnside along Sudley Road to be in march column.  Next select Reynolds battery and move them up to behind Burnsides column.  Then select Owen’s Battery and move them up behind Reynolds. You will have to move the individual guns for both batteries into road column.  Next and most importantly hit the ‘l’ key. This writes a file named unitlocs.csv in the root game directory (c:\program files\Activision Value\Civil War Bull Run). This file contains the XZ location of each unit on the map, as well as the direction that they are facing, at the time the key was hit.  When you are all done, it should look like this:

Exit the game. Next open up unitlocs.csv in the game directory and also open up units.csv in the scenario directory. In unitlocs.csv select all of the first four colums (A-D) and copy. Then open units.csv and paste the information into columns J-M. Save units.csv and then exit from both files. The Union units are now in the desired starting position. You should restart the game, selecting Col Hunter and make sure that the units are in the correct position.

Moving CSA Units: The process is quite similar for CSA units. Start the game, this time selecting General Beauregard. When the game opens, hit the down arrow key two times to change to Col. Evans. Now march his unit to their left and set his 5 units up as shown in the picture below. Also move the artillery sections of Lt Leftwich and Lt Davidson to their indicated positions.  Davidson is on the left and Leftwich is on the right. Note that the ‘t’ key has been used to remove the trees from the display so that the location of all units can be seen clearly. Also note that Gen. Burnside and his lead regiment are just in view of Col. Bee at the top of the screen. Again hit the l key to write all of the unit locations to unitlocs.csv. Exit the game and copy all unit positions into units.csv as you did above. Save all files, and reopen the game to check that all units are in position.

Finding XZ locations: Next we need to find map locations for objectives and for destinations for movement. On the display the lower line of white text on a black background shows the selected units current location. The first number is the X coordinate and the last number is the Z coordinate. For this picture:

The X coordinate is 67841 and the Z coordinate is 109581. The decimal fractions can be ignored for scenario design.

Restart the game and select Col Evans as your character. Move him to the intersection of the River road and the road leading to Poplar Ford. Write down the X and Z coordinates. Next, move Col Owens down the river road to the intersection with the Warrenton Turnpike, near the stone bridge and write down the X and Z numbers.  Next we need to find locations to deploy the Union artillery. Exit the scenario and restart, selecting Col. Hunter as your character. Move Reynolds battery into a good position to the left of the finger of woods, and record the coordinates. Select a good position for Owens 2 gun battery and record those numbers as well. Exit the game.

Creating Objectives: Now open the objectives.csv file in the Data files directory. For this scenario we will have three objectives, the first will be a trigger for the second and the third will be activated by winning the second. The reason for using triggers to activate objectives is that these are ones that can be won by either side.  In this scenario, the attacking Union forces must displace waiting CSA units. If the objectives were there from the start, the CSA forces would win them without effort. Using triggers is better than timed activation as this accommodates different player styles.  The first objective will be the intersection of the River Rd and Poplar ford Rd. In the Objective Name column in row 16, enter Poplar Ford Rd and in the Objective ID column enter Poplar_Ford_Rd. Enter 0 in the AI column since we want this on to be winnable only by the player. Next in the loc x and loc z columns enter the values that you recorded earlier. Scroll right and change the start time to 9:00, leave the end time at 23:00 which means that it will stay up for the duration of the game or until won. Next change the radius value (col H) to 100 which is the distance in yards that must be clear of CSA forces for the objective to be won. Finally, set the interval for 0:01, which is the time the objective must be occupied for a win. We want the second objective, Lewis_Farm to be winnable by either side so enter a value of 100 in the AI column, enter 200 in the radius column, and enter 22:00 in start time and 23:00 in end time.   The reason for having an objective start time of 11:00 PM is to have this objective be activated by a line in the events.csv file. For the third objective, make the name Warrenton Turnpike, ID Warrenton_Turnpike, enter the XZ coordindates, leave the start and end times alone and set the win time for 0:10.  Since we want to have winning the Warrenton_Turnpike objective to end the scenario, the type must be set to Major.  Adjust the other values as shown in the table below. Here is how the revised events.csv file should look, because it is too wide for the page, it is shown in two parts.

Left side:

Poplar Ford Rd	Poplar_Ford_Rd	minor	waypoint	0	88216	100969	100	5
Lewis Farm	Lewis_Farm	minor	waypoint	100	91862	99198	200	50
Warrenton Turnpike	Warrenton_Turnpike	Major	waypoint	100	97709	89118	250	100

Right side:

5	0	0	0	1	9:00	23:00	0:01	Obj_Minor	Obj_UMinor	Obj_RMinor
5	0	0	0	1	22:00	23:00	0:10	Obj_Minor	Obj_UMinor	Obj_RMinor
50	0	0	0	1	22:00	23:00	0:10	Obj_Major	Obj_UMajor	Obj_RMajor

 Save the file and exit. Restart the game and scenario to be sure that changes in this file have not caused problems.

Well the game CTD didn’t it. Sometimes you can get a clue as to the crash by looking at the game log file, in the game main directory open the file: CWBR.log and scroll all the way to the end. The last few lines in my version are:

18:01:32 - Adding tree shadows...
18:01:33 - Creating chain of command...
18:01:33 - Loading Events...

The last thing the program tried to do was to load the file events.csv so it is probable, but not certain, that the problem is in that file. So open the events.csv file in our scenario and let’s take a look.  The problem is that there are a number of references to the objectives in the original Burnside scenario. Since we have changed the objective IDs for our new scenario, the game terminated since the objectives do not exist in the current objectives.csv file.  The simple solution is to go in and delete line: 39 which is:

evtcont

objactivate:Matthew_House

Line 45:

evtcont

objactivate:Buck_Hill

Line 65:

evtobjdone

Buck_Hill

Line 66:

evtcont

objactivate:Robinson_House

Line 116:

evtobjdone

Robinson_House

loadscreen:End_U_Objs

There are some other changes that are needed in the events.csv file, but let’s leave those until we get to that section. Let’s see if these changes are enough to let the game run. Save the file, exit and try to load the scenario again. If you deleted all of those lines, the game should load into the scenario. If so, exit and lets move onto the core of the scenario, the events.csv file.

Managing Events: This is the core of the scenario. In this file, you dictate the specific movement of units, courier messages, and leader stances with the goal of setting up the battle the way you would like it to come out. There is significant complexity in these files and they amount to a miniature programming language. In spite of that, it can be learned and some interesting and challenging scenarios can be devised. In this case, we will not be making one from scratch but modifying the existing one. First, let’s put the original event times back into the file. Navigate to the original 03 Burnside scenario folder and open up the events.csv file there, copy all of the times and close that file. Paste those into the events.csv file of the new Burnside goes left scenario.  Since we are moving up the start time by 15 minutes, all of the event times should be adjusted by 15 minutes as well.

Next, move down to the end of the timed events section, there are several changes that need to be made here as well. First, the orders to Owens and Reynolds need to be altered so that they will go to the new locations. Change the XZ coordinates in columns D and E to the new spots you selected and wrote down above.  These will be in line 39 for Owens and line 45 for Reynolds. Also note that the XZ coordinates in line 56 must be changed to match those in the new line 45 for that event to trigger properly. There are some other things that could be changed, but it is a good idea not to make too many changes without testing. So save, exit and see if the scenario will load.

Testing: If the edits were made correctly, the scenario will load. It is not done yet but it is time for the first test of the new battle. Edit the level.ini file in the root scenario directory so that the rank section looks like this:

[Rank]
Army=1
Corps=1
Division=2
Brigade=2
Regiment=0

This will put you back in charge of Burnsides brigade only and let the AI handle all of the other units. In addition, edit the CWBR.ini file and comment out the lines:

; DbgLvl=2
; NoAI=1

To turn off the location display and to re-activate the AI. Save the files and load the game and let’s see a new battle in action. It’s probably a good idea to take notes of things that need to be changed during the course of this first test. 

Messages: One issue that must be fixed is that the messages from the courier are not relevant and not arriving at the correct times. We will need to edit two files, events.csv and screen.txt. Open both files and let’s see what is there.

In the   file here are the lines that send courier messages:

9:00:08

Hunter

courier:Burnside:loadscreen:Courier:Burnside

And

evtseetarg	Burnside
evtcont	Hunter	courier:Burnside:loadscreen:Courier:Burnside2

And

evtcont

Hunter

courier:Burnside:loadscreen:Courier:Burnside3

Here are the corresponding messages:

$Burnside <FONT=Georgia12,R,20,20,20>HDQRS. 2nd Division,

UNITED STATES FORCES,

July 21st, 1861.

<FONT=Georgia14,L,20,20,20>Colonel Burnside,

Move your brigade down the Sudley Road to the high ground around the Matthew House.  From this position, you can capture the crossroads at the Warrenton Turnpike and cut off the Rebel's supply line. General Tyler's cannons will soon begin their shelling to create a diversion.

<FONT=Georgia14,R,20,20,20>Your most obedient servant,

Colonel Hunter, Commanding.

//

$Burnside2 <FONT=Georgia12,R,20,20,20>HDQRS. 2nd Division,

UNITED STATES FORCES,

July 21st, 1861.

<FONT=Georgia14,L,20,20,20>Colonel Burnside,

Owens' and Reynold's batteries are being hurried up to cover your advance. I'm bringing Porter's brigade up to reinforce your right flank. You must push hard to capture Buck Hill.

<FONT=Georgia14,R,20,20,20>Your most obedient servant,

Colonel Hunter, Commanding.

//

$Burnside3 <FONT=Georgia12,R,20,20,20>HDQRS. 2nd Division,

UNITED STATES FORCES,

July 21st, 1861.

<FONT=Georgia14,L,20,20,20>Colonel Burnside,

If your troops are in good order and you are able to advance, move your men down across the creek of Young's Branch and up the hill towards the Henry House.  We must not let the enemy reinforce their position on that plateau. If they get artillery up there, they could control this whole valley.  Push forward, if you can!

<FONT=Georgia14,R,20,20,20>Your most obedient servant,

Colonel Hunter, Commanding.

The first line is a timed event and is used to send Burnside the initial orders. In the original scenario,  no enemy units are in sight at the start of the scenario and Burnside must march down the road a ways to sight Evans. That sighting triggers the second message via the ‘evtseetarg’ conditional command. In the new scenario, Burnside is already in sight of the enemy at the start of the scenario so both messages are triggered. The simple solution is to combine the information in the first two messages and eliminate the second message. Simply remove the footer of the first message and header of the second message to make one  message. Now, the first paragraph needs to be rewritten to fit the new scenario and the second needs an adjustment. Here is text that can be used for the new version, or you can write your own.

<FONT=Georgia14,L,20,20,20>Colonel Burnside,

Move your brigade down this farm road and past the road on your left that leads to Poplar Ford. Drive off any  rebel forces you encounter and push on down the road to the Warrenton Turnpike.

Owens' and Reynold's batteries are being hurried up to cover your advance. I'm bringing Porter's brigade up to reinforce your right flank. You must push hard to reach the Warrenton Turnpike and open up the Stone bridge to allow Tylers Division to cross and reinforce our attack.

<FONT=Georgia14,R,20,20,20>Your most obedient servant,

Colonel Hunter, Commanding.

Make the needed edits to screen.txt and save the revised file. Eliminating the second message will also require altering the events.csv file to remove all mentions of the second message. There are two lines that need to be removed, lines 44, and 63 shown below.

evtcont

Hunter

courier:Burnside:loadscreen:Courier:Burnside2

evtcourier

Burnside

logmsg:Courier:Burnside2

The second message writes the text of the message Burnside2 into the courier log. Delete both lines from the events.csv file and save and exit. Now run the scenario again to see how the new version plays. Take notes on anything else that might need changing.

More testing: When I ran this version, the third Burnside message came to me a few minutes into the game. Open up the events.csv file and let’s take a look and see what is happening. Here is the relevant section of the file:

evtarrived	Terry		77867	86837
evtcont	TX_Rangers	form:Cav_Skirmish
evtcont	TX_Rangers	switchcmn
evtcont	Hunter	courier:Burnside:loadscreen:Courier:Burnside3
evtcont	Jackson	moveto	82759	76984
evtcont	Jackson	Aform:Brig_Line
evtcont	Jackson	Auseroad
evtcourier	Burnside	logmsg:Courier:Burnside3

As it ended up after the previous edit, the trigger to send the Burnside3 message is the arrival of ‘Terry’. Let’s change that to have the message sent only when the Lewis Farm Objective has been won. The command is ‘evtobjdone’. Rearrange this section to the following:

evtarrived	Terry		77867	86837
evtcont	TX_Rangers	form:Cav_Skirmish
evtcont	TX_Rangers	switchcmn
evtcont	Jackson	moveto	82759	76984
evtcont	Jackson	Aform:Brig_Line
evtcont	Jackson	Auseroad
evtobjdone	Poplar_Ford_Rd
evtcont		objactivate:Lewis_Farm
evtobjdone	Lewis_Farm
evtcont	Hunter	courier:Burnside:loadscreen:Courier:Burnside3
evtcont		objactivate:Warrenton_Turnpike
evtcourier	Burnside	logmsg:Courier:Burnside3

Here all of the CSA actions are grouped. The new section is a two stage action, the Poplar_Ford_Rd objective is present at the start. It’s function is only to trigger the Lewis_Farm objective, which can be won by either side. This trigger allows an objective that is winnable by both sides to be activated only when the Union forces arrive. Finally after the Lewis_Farm objective has been won, the Burnside3 message is sent by Hunter and the Warrenton Turnpike objective is activated.  Here is the text that I used for this new Burnside3 message:

….

<FONT=Georgia14,L,20,20,20>Colonel Burnside,

Continue to move your brigade towards the Warrenton turnpike, it is most important that we clear the stone  bridge for Tyler's Division to cross. Push forward!

<FONT=Georgia14,R,20,20,20>Your most obedient servant,

Colonel Hunter, Commanding.

Save all files and try the scenario again. If you manage to get to a win, you will find that the scenario does not end after you win the Warrenton_Turnpike objective. We need to add a couple of additional lines to events.csv to bring things to a conclusion. Here are the lines to change or add:

10:30:00

loadscreen:End_U_NoObjs

This line is changed to load the screen for No Objectives when the time limit of 10:30 AM is reached.

evtobjdone

Warrenton_Turnpike

loadscreen:End_U_Objs

This line loads the end screen for achieving Union Objectives when the Warrenton_Turnpike objective is won.

At this point, the scenario should be both playable and interesting. I should give you fair warning that a number of iterations of testing and error finding were omitted as they did not contribute to teaching you about making scenarios. However, if you choose to build new scenarios or modify existing one, you should expect many rounds of debugging before you are finally happy with the scenario.

Creating and .mmg file for distribution: The final step needed to distribute a scenario is relatively simple. From your CD, copy the file SDK\arpack.exe into the root game directory. Run this program, it will look in the scenarios directory and show you all of the subdirectories present. Click on the Burnside goes left directory and the lower panel will show all of the scenario files. Simply click on the Create MMG File button and the program will make a file named Burnside Goes Left (U_Brig).mmg in the scenarios directory. This compressed file (14 KB) can be easily shared among other players as an email attachment.

Last Thoughts: This has hopefully given you a basic introduction into the rather complex world of creating or modifying scenarios for CWBR.  This game is in much the same state that the two armies at Bull Run were. They looked like armies and could perform the basic functions of armies. However, they needed a lot of additional training and experience to become the much more sophisticated instruments that wrote history as the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. CWBR has the potential to improve as much as the armies at Bull Run did. People developing mods for this game will help to improve and guide the development of the franchise and produce new battles that will bring much fun to a larger community of users.

This section shows the items needed in the specific scenario files. Items in bold text are required, items in italic text are optional.

The level.ini file contains basic setup information for the scenario.

level.ini

File entry	Explanation
[Init]	Section header for initial part of the file
map=1st_BULL_RUN_HIST.lsl	Name of the map file in the /maps directory
Weather=7	Sets the visibility of the game, 0=very low visibility, 8=as clear as it gets; see levels.csv for details.
StrategicAI=0	Do not change, if you set this to 1 the scenario will run like open play with the AI commanders implementing a strategy to take over the objectives.
StartTime=09:15:00	Specifies the time of day that the scenario starts, use military time: 1 PM = 13:00
CommandHeight=40	Limit of camera height above the ground in yards. If no entry the game limit is very high off the ground.
CommandRadius=500	Limit the camera can move away from the players character, distance in yards
FailGrade=-25	Score at which the game will terminate with a failing grade for the scenario
CantKillMe=1	For tutorials only, prevents players character from being killed
IsHistorical=0	No longer used
[Rank]	This section sets the players character. The numbers refer to the numbering system used in the file ‘units.csv’.
Army=1
Corps=1
Division=2
Brigade=2
Regiment=0
[Camera]	No longer used
locx=14000	No longer used
locz=14890	No longer used

The file screen.txt contains the text and formatting of courier messages specified in the scenario. The appearance of messages is dictated by the contents of the events.csv file.

$Burnside <FONT=Georgia12,R,20,20,20> HDQRS. 2nd Division, UNITED STATES FORCES, July 21st, 1861.	The text following the ‘$’ is the message name, used in events.csv. The <FONT=Georgia12,R,20,20,20> specifies the font name/size, Georgia12 is Georgia in 12 point font; and justification (R=right, L=left). The font must be in the /graphics/fonts directory and defined in the fonts.csv file. The fonts are in *.pft file formats. Any valid font file in this format can be added to the /graphics/fonts directory and used. The three 20s set the font color in RGB format. The text follows the closing ‘>’ is the first line of text of the message. Note that the line breaks in the file carry over to the message as it appears on the screen.  The text will be formatted to fit the window, so do not used line breaks in paragraphs unless intended.
<FONT=Georgia14,L,20,20,20>Colonel Burnside,	Salutation of the message, left justified this time.
Move your brigade down the Sudley Road  . . .	Body of the message.
<FONT=Georgia14,R,20,20,20> Your most . . .	Closing of the message, right justified.
// //	Comments to described and/or separate messages.
$Burnside2…	Beginning of the next scenario message.
These are messages that are printed on the news section of the ‘newspaper’ that appears at the end of the scenario	Note: to avoid messing up the format, change only the body of the text, not the headline.  These are not required unless you want to override the default messages.
$EndFail	Message printed if failure criteria are met.
$EndMajFail	Message printed if major failure criteria are met.
$EndObjs	Message printed if scenario objective is achieved
$EndNoObjs	Message printed if ending time set in events.csv is reached with no objective having been won.
$EndKilled	Message printed if players character is killed.

The intro.txt file uses the same formatting as screen.txt. There is always only one section to this file.  Here are the contents of the intro.txt from the standard Burnside (U_Brig)  scenario in the main game:

$Intro <FONT=Georgia16,L,255,255,255>General Burnside

<FONT=Georgia14,L,255,255,255>Author: Adam Bryant

<FONT=Georgia14,L,255,255,255>(Historical)

Location: Sudley Road  near Matthew's House

Time: 9:15 a.m.

Colonel Burnside's brigade has been marching since 2:00 AM with nary a rebel to be found. His command, an element of Hunter's division, has been ordered to "pass the Bull Run stream above the lower ford at Sudley Springs, and then,turning down to the left, descend the stream and clear away the enemy who may be guarding the lower ford and bridge."

Ambrose Everett Burnside is a West Point graduate, class of '47. After being wounded by Apaches in the New Mexico territory, he resigns his commission in 1853. Later he settles into civilian life in Rhode Island where he designs and patents a revolutionary, breech-loading rifle. The Army, though, fearful that it's troopers will waste too much ammunition, turns down the new weapon, and Burnside is forced into bankruptcy. With the coming of war, he's recommissioned a colonel and finds himself commanding a brigade of Hunter's division.

You are Colonel Burnside, leading your troops in the opening attack of the war in Virginia. The first segment of your maneuver has been completed, and now those rebels must be confronted.

Good luck and may God preserve the Union!