If you played World War One you should go on with Revolution Under Siege because many aspects are improved and you never got the chance to play the bolshevic revolution. In my opinion the interface is to complicated but the game´s rest is very good.

A turn-based wargame coming from ageod, the developers of games like American Civil War, Rise of Prussia or Pride of Nations. This time, bringing the old good things and several new ones.

First of all, the scenario is Russian Civil War, after the soviets have rised and taken control of the most important cities in Russia. This is both an original and interesting timeframe for a wargame using AGEOD's engine. As it's usual, you have a variety of scenarios, from a grand campaign during more than 100 turns, to smaller campaigns as well as a a-historical scenario (like Barbarossa in the 1920s).

As it's been said, the good stuff from ageod is here (historical Orders of Battle, logistics and supply, huge variety of units, production, events, hundreds of leaders, diplomacy related to foreign powerhouses getting involved, a realistic weather system, railways... all in 15-days turns). But there are also a lot of new features:

- Three playable factions (it was only two in other games like American Civil War): soviets, siberian and southern whites.

- Planes and tanks in your army for the very fist time in Ageod games.

- Regional decisions, giving an additional strategic layout in your game.

- Strategic map, making things easier to handle.

- Rehauled system for producing and reinforcing your forces.

- Etc

There's also good mods to improve your gameplay (one in special, called "Fatal Years"). Ah, multiplayer is not just possible but very, very easy, flexible and challenging.

So, if you have (and like) other ageod games, not much to say: you'll keep enjoying with a new scenario, and cool new features. If you don't know about them, it's a good starting point for playing seriouos wargames with not too much micromanaging. A game any wargamer will appreciate.

One of the best AGEOD games ever. I simply adore it and the in depth look at the RCW, an era not usually covered by video games.

Great game and a facinating period of history. This is a war game, not a social sim. It has a command and control structure with supply rules that will gut your forces if you are not aware of what you are doing. It is also a war game in the Old School mode where you have to left click-hold (pick up a unit) and move cursor to a new location (release click) instead of the left-button swoosh mouse around and right-click to move. The map and counters are 2-D, but very well drawn. No marchy marchy toy soldiers pokey-pokey shoot shoot graphical sprites to keep the children interested - you need to understand how forces are combined, apply proper leadership and pay attention to supplies. But don't let that keep you from engaging with the rich history behind and beneath this game. Also find the Fatal Years mod (look in the Matrix forums (currently) for links.

Highly detailed and complex strategic historical game. A very accurate simulation that needs a long time to get to grips with and enjoy successfully; but persistance does pay off. One of the best.

This game is a real gem - a detailed strategic/operational wargame about a period of history hitherto neglected by game developers. Playable factions (Reds, Siberian Whites and Southern Whites) have their strengths and weaknesses, but it is a fairly balanced contest, perfect for PBEM matches. If you like serious wargames have any interest in the Russian Revolution, this is a must buy - there is a bit of a learning curve but it is well worth the effort. PBEM is where these games really shine, as the AI is easy to beat (for me anyway), but there's a mod called Fatal Years that improves the AI among many other things.

RUS is in the line of precedents titles built on AGEOD engine : a good wargame with beautifull graphics for this type of game and a very strong historical flavour.

Special mention to soundtrack with old russians revolutionary songs.

This is a wargame, there is supplies to organize, and, especially, there is a chain of command ! Your Armies must be organized with Corps and Corps with Divisions. The battles will be lost without explanation if you are not comfortable with this.

New divisions can be build and reinforced, units have different strength and some leaders have special abilities (training/speed/tactical bonus etc..). Leader can be promoted to higher rank.

A big change in this game is the multiples opponents, it's not anymore the traditional 1 vs 1 as in the precedents games. Russian revolution was a mess with 2 White Army faction, Red Army, Anarchists, Polish Army and various foreign armies.

This is not a game you can start without reading at least once manual.

And for people who are hesitant : THERE IS A DEMO

This games deals with one of the most interesting, intense, and less known (and played) conflict of the 20th century : the Russian Civil War. It also deals with some peripherial less (Finnish Civil War) or more (Polish-Soviet War) important conflicts, and with an extremely interesting what-if scenario (Germany win WWI, and a war is started between Germany and Soviet Russia), but the main focus is really the Civil War.

The level of historical detail is outstanding : units, leaders (most of them with their "picture), events (e.g. kronstadt, Csar's gold, Czech Legion,...) and to a very lesser extent diplomacy (should the Soviet intervene against the Baltic States ? Finland ? Should they ally with Makhnovist Ukraine ?) is taken into account. This game is a formidable history lesson.

The games use the AGE engine. A very complex version of the AGE engine. In the AGE engine, you basically give your troops orders (move, what should they do if they meet an enemy force, what should they do in battle) for the X (here : 15) dollowing days, so do your opponents (there are several "players" in RUS) and all the orders are solved simultaneously. Battles are solved automatically, but without too much randomless : a well organised, well-fed and well-led force in defense will always throunce a poorly-led exhausted army... well except if that army is so much bigger and have tanks, while the smaller one has no guns...

As with most AGE-using games, the AI (called Athena) is outstanding. It WILL beat you with a smaller force until you really master the game.

The music - soviet battle march, hymn and other political related stuff - is great. It is just a pity we don't have any counter-revolutionnary (or at least traditionnal Russian ?) music when you play the White, or Finnish music when you play the Finnish whites.

Now the game is not exempt of defaults :

- The tutorial is EXTREMELY poorly done, being for a large part a copy/paste of the tutorial for Rise of Prussia. Only the "rules" of the game changed significantly since RoP

- The information you need (maintenance costs of unit / total maintenance cost per turn, amount of reserves, ...) are difficult to find.

- There is an host of limited bugs.

All these bugs are being resolved by patch, and I am confident that one month from now (say beginning of february 2011), most will be solved. The team is very committed to improving the game.

Which leads to two other problems which are structural to the game :

- 15 days turn, that is to say 15 days during which you cannot change your orders, is much too long. It was very good for the XVIIth century conflicts, good for the Napoleonic war, just good enough for the ACW, but for the very dynamic Russian Civil War it is much too long, and sometimes downright frustrating.

- The game is EXTREMELY complex. Complex in the good way (everything you have to take in charge has a significant impact on the game), but nonetheless complex. It takes the "basic AGE engine - difficult enough to master - and adds a lot of content. If you never played any AGE engine using game, you will feel overwhelmed. And you will not understand what happens in battle. And since the tutorial is extremely poor, esp. on telling you what REALLY happens DURING a battle (what makes units good or poor), good luck playing the game if it is your first AGE game...

The Finnish Civil War is a "simple scenario" for beginners, but once you have finished it there are unfortunately no "intermediate" scenario, more complex than the FCW but less than the other ones avalaible.

As a conclusion, I would recommand only recommand this game to people having played an AGE games (and then, even BoA might not be enough). If you want to play the Russian Civil War, or one of those wars no games are about (Finnish CW, Polish-Soviet war) but never play an AGE game before, well, go buy Birth of America or Rise of Prussia before to train on a "smaller" scale. You don't like the eras depicted in BoA and RoP ? Tough luck.

Bought it because of its fantastic and authentic setting - the rise of USSR... part of history with potential that game dev's have missed out a lot.

Graphics are nice, excellent music score.

it all goes downhill, when you want to start playing.

1) very unintuitive Interface, some options settings are buggy

2) Difficult to grasp how the forces are organized and how to arrange them properly, until you go through the tutorials

3) but even tutorials are confusing... Tutorials don't explain the mechanics of the game too well, just tell you how to organize an army and how to make movements. Besides, it is accomplished by.... painfully long texts (poor English) which explain little.

Its confusing and disorienting.

Spent several days trying to play it and figured out just part of the game. I had to exit the game every 30 minutes, went to play something else, but kept coming back. It feels like there must be something there.. setting, music.. something exciting. it should be fun.

I'll give it time, but so far I am disappointed!

It is also sad to see the fake customer review by firefox65... overly polished and cheesy PR text!

This game is one of those truly original games of the past years. It manages to hide a very detailed simulation of the Russia Civil War in a pretty package that is easy to learn but very hard to master. Combats, trains (even armored trains as special units), leaders, partisans, weather, supply lines, attrition, requisitions ... are all core parts of this great "grand strategy" game. Very realistic. There is even a "what if?" scenario called Drang nach Osten, a kind of Barbarossa after WWI. The interface is based on the now classic easy-to-use layout developed in previous AGEOD games that has a wonderful period feel. The AI is a decent sparring partner when compared to robot-generals in other strategic games like HoI. Even hardcore gamers will enjoy the ride - and you can adjust the AI somewhat BTW (to increase aggressiveness, give it more time to think, remove the fog of war etc). I've seen it wintering its troops instead of pushing them in winter, develop converging attacks from different fronts, stick to railroads as supply lines when advancing... And the game supports PBEM. This game really earns every one of those 5 stars. Really, really interesting game, given the (relative but undeserved) obscurity of that particular slice of modern history. It is a happy surprise to see a game reflect the real difficulty in fighting the Red Revolution from both sides (three sides actually, since southern whites and Siberians are allied but separated) and to present the player with a multitude of different strategies. A great and beautiful game, covering a period lacking much prior attention, a must for any gamer who enjoys a solid historical game which will really challenge him.