Last updated on January 30th, 2026 at 10:20 pm
Civil War: 1862 – Entertainment Game Review
Civil War: 1862 is a Entertainment/Strategy/Simulation game from Hunted Cow Studios Ltd., first launched in 14th November 2013.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 29+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Civil War: 1862 Stand Out
Civil War: 1862 is the prequel to the highly acclaimed Civil War: 1863, incorporating the detailed strategic gameplay of the original while adding major new features and improvements such as flank attacks and strategic movement. Melee combat has also been given greater emphasis and the range of troop quality has been expanded to include elite units.
The game gives a unique wargaming experience on iPhone and iPad and includes 14 historical battles from the American Civil War in 1862, thirteen of which can be played as either side. Five additional campaigns featuring many more historical battles are also available via in-app purchase.
Key Game Features:
● High Definition Civil War Era Graphics.
● 8 Mission 'Tutorial' campaign.
● 5 Mission 'Fix Bayonets' campaign.
● 8 Mission 'Steel and Thunder' campaign.
● All missions can be played as both sides (except the tutorial).
● 8 Unique Civil War Units:
- Infantry with Muskets.
- Infantry with Rifled Muskets.
- Artillery.
- Generals.
- Wagons.
- Naval Gunboats.
- Dismounted and Mounted Cavalry.
● Four classes of infantry – Raw, Average, Veteran and Elite.
● Different infantry formations: unformed, line for shooting and column for charging!
● Detailed Combat Analysis.
● Flank Attacks .
● Strategic Movement.
● Hours of Gameplay.
● Universal App (Works on iPhone & iPad).
Purchasable Extra Content:
● 8 Mission 'Colossus' campaign.
● 8 Mission 'Fresh Troops' campaign.
● 8 Mission 'Death and Glory' campaign.
● 8 Mission 'Broken Line' campaign.
● 8 Mission 'Shot and Shell' campaign comprising a series on non-historical game challenges.
● 8 Mission 'The Great Struggle.' campaign.
Thank you for supporting our games!
© 2013 Hunted Cow Studios Ltd. © 2013 HexWar Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
This Entertainment game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Civil War: 1862 is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 10th September 2025
Recent improvements include:
Improvement: New in‑game page explains how Bronze/Silver/Gold medals are awarded.
Fixed: Weapon markers on unit labels now consistently match equipment (muskets, rifled muskets, carbines, artillery).
Fixed: Back, Tick, and Cross buttons only respond once visibly on screen, preventing accidental actions.
Download & Availability
Civil War: 1862 is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Civil War: 1862 on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Had this game for a couple of years, and enjoyed playing it on our iPad. After several months, and a new iPad Pro 11 in, and iPadOS 18.4, we came back to the game. Frustration! After some time, and a scenario or two, we will touch a union infantry unit to select it and the game automatically shifts to the unit description page and locks up. No way off that screen and back to the game. Quit and relaunch, game deletion and a new download, nothing fixes this problem. Will delete if we cant find a fix. If you use similar hardware, we recommend skipping this game.
Ill be honest, we gave up on continuing the final campaign, and the reason for it being the rather unreasonable conditions of some of the mission objectives. Sure, they may seem reasonable at first, but then you blindsided by enemy troops that spawn in right next to the objectives youve just captured, thereby losing you the mission because you werent given any warning until it was too late. But it isnt just the last campaign that is rife with unreasonably difficult missions; in just about every campaign past the ones you get in the base game, theres at least one or two missions that cannot be done feasibly on normal difficulty without having to take several hours in between attempts trying to process what you need to do. Manassas station is among the worst offender in this aspect, as we refuse to play that mission anymore after finally completing it, simply because of how borderline unwinnable it is for the CSA. Ill give it this much, the game is bearable compared to Peninsular War, but shoving in missions that arent even remotely balanced isnt going to make the game fun, its just going to turn away customers. We personally wouldnt recommend this game, but you can try it at your own risk. Stick to 1863 or 1864. Side note: Really disappointed that Antietam wasnt covered; thats like, one of the most important battles of THAT year.
All battles are pre determined no matter the strategy used by confederates. The Union out number and and are given twice or more the strength of of the confederates.
Literally 80% of this game is behind another pay wall after u pay the initial $3 Im not kidding dude when u pay for the game you only get 20% of the whole game dont buy its a basic game anyway and sit shows the developers are greedy.
We have all of the civil war games that haunted cow and hexwar has to offer. Love that you guys are updating the games, but this one has some bugs that irritates us. When we are trying to find a battle as the confederacy, after looking at only two battles they all change to the union side. We paid $1.99 for 8 more battles that are full of bugs and some of the battles have the same map as older battles. So you dont get 8 new battles, So fix bugs please! We love these games but now we dont want anymore! The last update for 1864 made it crash as soon as it is opened, please fix.
Great game just a lot of money if you wanna play the game. After the first couple levels you gotta pay for the rest after buying the game to begin with.
After losing virtually every game, we found it is just an exercise in frustration. The AI has massive advantage in that it doesn't need to follow organization rules. They should have provided an easier level that would make the game pleasurable for new learners. Every so often we return to the hoping we'd find a way for success, but instead have 60-80% of our forces easily destroyed Why the programers would think gamers like to play losing games is beyond us.
No longer have all scenarios? What a rip off…why.
Love playing these games we have all of them 62-65. Only problem we have is that there is no way to reset your progress to zero. It's kinda nice that you can go back and play any level you want. But If you want to replay the game from the start you still have all your progress saved. Makes it hard to keep up with where you are on the play through. Even if you delete the app and reinstall it still keeps your progress. If there is a way to delete the progress we can't find it!! Very annoying but then we keep playing, so.
We really enjoy both 1861 and 1862 , but you purchase them and only get a few extra battles . We spend $15+ tax to add levels on a game we already purchased after testing the lite version. We beat few wars and had to pay again for more wars scenarios in the game we already paid for . Love the game play and set-up but we are not going to blow our credit card to keep purchasing new war scenarios.
Enjoyable and fun to play from both ends.
Nothing particularly extraordinary here. Your basic 20th century hex-based tactical US civil war game with an adequate AI for what is required of it. Kinda flavorless, in terms of sound effects, special rules and music, and it could have used a good UI pass. But still enjoyable. It's fun to charge the enemy's guns and to drive his army before you. We consider our 2 bucks well spent. If you like the free version, buy it.
- In campaign mode, you could progress to the next battle even if you lose the current one. It would be cool to see more realistic campaign results based on battles won AND lost. Having to win every battle is pretty artificial. 2. Movement is unnecessarily cumbersome, as units cannot move through each other. This gums up the battlefield as well as game play, and is not particularly realistic. 3. Would love to see a strategic map for a campaign overview.
The game won't advance past the "Collection" mission on "Shot and Shell" campaign.
We enjoy the game but for some reason it is stuck on "shot and shell" level 5 (collection). We have completed all the objectives several times but it will not let us move on. It says hold the control point till turn 11 and destroy enemy wagon which we have done but that is it. We have hit the refresh button till turn 50 and still it won't let us win or continue to next level.
Game can be fun but some of its battle algorithms are junk. How is it that an army of fresh reinforcements all "miss" a weak enemy target? Yeah we want it to be challenging but not ridiculously stupid. Definitely not wasting any more money on this.
Great game for the modest price challenging and interesting very well done.
We play these type of games all the time. We like the strategy of defending your position and knowing when and way to attack. We're very interested in the civil war. Learning about the battles and their outcome.
This game is not only crap it's misleading and if you buy this you gave your money for crap crap crap. This is thievery plain and simple.
Excellent content and gameplay.
Superb turn-based strategy game.
We own ALL 24 games (+ Add-ons) 'HexWar' is a MUST HAVE series, for history buffs & war nutz alike… The Civil War series starts off slow, but improves greatly w/ each release. "Gettysburg" is the best of the series …BY FAR!!! P.S. Worth every $, but the add-on missions could cost half that.
Simple yet brilliant. Men and arms, movement, zones of control and battle odds. Infantry, cannons, cavalry in coordination amid terrain advantages and disadvantages. Tricky AI at higher levels and lots of battle scenarios. Good graphics. Good map views. Ok SFX. Charge!!! Highly recommend.
If you enjoy military strategy, then you should love this game.
The game met all our expectations for a simple strategy game like the ones we had played for years, but could no longer purchase for our computer. Love it and enjoy the three different levels of difficulty. Graphic were excellent in the game with multiple scenarios set in an historic setting.
You spend five bucks on the app, get two campaigns per side then have to pay two dollars A PIECE for the other 4 campaigns? What a bloody rip off. We're so tired of paying for DLC.
We like this game a lot. Good strategy and graphics are simple and efficient.
Adds automated battle calculations, great motion, and sounds to what were Avalon Hill games we played many years ago.
So simple, yet so addictive..very good design. Buy it.
This is a great game! IPhone graphics are good and troop movement and etc. Are an improvement over previous games and those games were very good. We haven't been disappointed in a Hunted Cow game yet.
What a great game!!!! Fun to play.
Our favorite game by far!! Send out more please.
Worth the money. Turn based strategy fans must buy.
Excellent war game. Smart AI, good graphics and very addictive.
That simple. Cant wait for part 3! Awesome gameplay.
This is for true military strategy gamers, just like the old tabletop board games. Realistic military action using your own strategies.
Good, good game with many improvements from the first one. We still long for the notion of lines and flanking, which this game has begun to have. We would also love the ability to generate random scenarios, especially a la SMG with the ability to specify scale.
Fun game that allows you to play at being a Civil War general in semi-historical situations. Keep up the good work, Hunted Cow.
We enjoy playing this a lot but only 2 out of seven campaigns to start plus an extra five dollars to spend.
This game has the potential to be a great game, but there is a glaring case of unbalanced ness. For example when our army was defending a point, 8/10 shots missed the soldiers or didn't do damage, yet every time the enemy fired damage was done. If you could fix this game would be 4.5/5.
Not enough missions and buggy when we play the confederate side. It won't let us "resume game". We always have to start over with the first mission. A disappointment since we own all the ww2 tank games and really like them. So awful we deleted it even though we payed for the full version.
After playing Ancient Rome by Hunted Cow, we imagined how great the Civil War would be. WRONG! This game is too easy, even with the most difficult setting. The AI really needs an upgrade. If you want a challenging game, skip this one.
In no way should you miss 50 percent of time and then only do a single point of damage if you hit. Yet the computer regularly does 2 or even 3 points and never misses. It becomes more a game of random hope then any sort of tactics.
We love it. We wish it had online multiplayer and that they didn't keep making you but more more levels though. But very fun.
This game is one of the best strategic games we have ever played. Great graphics and good overall gameplay. Good Job guys.
Another great game from one of the best developers on this platform. We can't wait to see your 2014 lineup.
We love all the Hunted Cow hex games. Keep them coming! Outstanding as usual. This game has not crashed on us. In fact, we own all of the Hunted Cow hex games and we have never experienced a crash. Long live Hunted Cow LOL.
If you enjoyed the first Civil War game by these same publishers, you will enjoyed this one.
We really enjoy turn-based strategy games. This is one of the better ones we have played. Great graphics and sound, adequate AI and a good balance between simple and complex. We have encountered a strange bug where the App Store won't let us purchase the in-game additions. Very frustrating, as our problem has yet to be solved. However, the developer had been prompt to reply and courteous to our emails. We would recommend this game to people who enjoy turn-based strategy games.
Another bit of good work from this publisher ~ crashing appears to be due to the device more than the app ~ we had the same issue until we needed to clear ours for another reason, and now with plenty of space it hasn't happened once ~ yes, more content for the price would with anything, but come on it's really good for only $1 and we wouldn't want to sacrifice the quality for quantity anyway.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 5.4.0
- Size: 316.52 MB
- iOS: 16.6 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence
- Developer: Hunted Cow Studios Ltd.
Last updated: 10th September 2025 | Genre: Entertainment, Strategy | Developer: Hunted Cow Studios Ltd.