Last updated on January 15th, 2026 at 06:34 pm
Fort Sumter: Secession Crisis – Entertainment Game Review
Fort Sumter: Secession Crisis is a Entertainment/Strategy/Board game from Playdek, Inc., first launched in 22nd May 2019.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 34+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Fort Sumter: Secession Crisis Stand Out
Can you drive the Secessionist into the Fort Sumter trap that gave Lincoln his historic victory? Can you successfully use the issue of States Rights to divide Northern opinion? Fort Sumter let’s you explore this seminal moment in American history in a fast-playing, easy-to-learn game.
The country is on the verge of being torn apart so how will you act? Fort Sumter: The Secession Crisis is set during the events that led to the bombardment of Fort Sumter and the start of the American Civil War. The game takes the side of either a Unionist or Secessionist who must work to preserve the Union or follow the path to dissolve it.
Each player uses an area control mechanic to place, move, and remove political capital. The location of political capital determines who controls each of the four crisis dimensions – Political, Secession, Public Opinion, and Armaments. After three rounds of play, the game culminates in a Final Crisis confrontation.
Features
CDG (Card Driven Game) system designed by Mark Herman
Civil War Historical setting depicts the actual events of the crisis
Immersive voice over and audio that recreates the sound of that era
A.I. Opponent for Offline Play
Asynchronous or Real Time 2-player Online Game Play
Pass-and-Play Multiplayer
AN INTERNET CONNECTION AND PLAYDEK ACCOUNT ARE REQUIRED FOR ONLINE PLAY
Per our Terms of Service, you must be 13 years old or older to use the Playdek online games service.
This Entertainment game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Fort Sumter: Secession Crisis is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 5th December 2025
Recent improvements include:
Updated game performance.
Download & Availability
Fort Sumter: Secession Crisis is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Fort Sumter: Secession Crisis 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:
We REALLY wanted to like this game. And our initial review would have been four or five stars. But now Im giving this game just two stars. And we will delete it. Why? This game is way too dependent on luck. You might as well just roll two dice. High sum wins. Heres what we mean. If you are, say, the Union player and you are dealt a run of Confederate 1 cards, just quit and start over. You will lose. And why is the Union player being dealt Confederate cards anyway? The Union player should be dealt only Union cards. And the Confederate player should be dealt only Confederate cards. This flaw ruins the game for us. Developer, please consider fixing this! And heres one more thing. Each round, each player should pick his action card in secret. Just like with the Objective cards. This game could be so great. But as it is, no. On edit: Ive played maybe 10 more games since this review. And our two-star review still stands. Get a run of opponent 1 cards, and the game is over. It doesnt matter how clever you are. You lose. Thats ridiculous.
We REALLY wanted to like this game. And our initial review would have been four or five stars. But now Im giving this game just one star. And we will delete it. Why? This game is way too dependent on luck. You might as well just roll two dice. High sum wins. Heres what we mean. If you are, say, the Union player and you are dealt a run of Confederate 1 cards, just quit and start over. You will lose. And why is the Union player being dealt Confederate cards anyway? The Union player should be dealt only Union cards. And the Confederate player should be dealt only Confederate cards. This flaw ruins the game for us. Developer, please consider fixing this! And heres one more thing. Each round, each player should pick his action card in secret. Just like with the Objective cards. This game could be so great. But as it is, no. On edit: Ive played maybe 10 more games since this review. And our one-star review still stands. Get a run of opponent 1 cards, and the game is over. It doesnt matter how clever you are. You lose. Thats ridiculous.
We REALLY wanted to like this game. And our initial review would have been four or five stars. But now Im giving this game just one star. And we will delete it. Why? This game is way too dependent on luck. You might as well just roll two dice. High sum wins. Heres what we mean. If you are, say, the Union player and you are dealt a run of Confederate 1 cards, just quit and start over. You will lose. And why is the Union player being dealt Confederate cards anyway? The Union player should be dealt only Union cards. And the Confederate player should be dealt only Confederate cards. This flaw ruins the game for us. Developer, please consider fixing this! And heres one more thing. Each round, each player should pick his action card in secret. Just like with the Objective cards. This game could be so great. But as it is, no.
Love the strategy and interface. Easy to learn and understand. Purchased the actual board game after playing this app.
We wanted to like this game. And our initial review would have been four or five stars. But now Im giving it two stars. And we will probably delete it. Why? This game is way too dependent on luck. If you are, say, the Union player and you are dealt a run of Confederate 1 cards, you might as well quit and start over. And why is the Union player being dealt Confederate cards anyway? The Union player should be dealt only Union cards. This flaw ruins the game for us.
Update to review- thanks for the turn indicator. A new problem is the log stops at the final crisis (at least we've noticed it in our current game wherein the final crisis was triggered by cubes in 2nd turn.). There is, afaik, no way to tell what opponents previous cards were, nor what either of their or your cube moves were. It's really important to be able to see that. 5 star after that gets fixed. Good game but, afaik, there is no way to tell whose turn it is in a multiplayer game. When you play multiple games, it is extremely annoying to go through the games to find the one where is your turn. Also the AI is weaker than we'd have expected. A decent neural net should have been able to make a reasonable AI we'd think.
Great game. Keep up the good work. You hit one out of the park.
The AI can be slow, but it is an excellent challenge. No game is a guaranteed win. Well done. Price is a bit high we think.
This is a smooth implementation of the excellent GMT board game. It plays well and has a fairly intuitive interface. No complaints, Im enjoying it thoroughly.
Love the game and the implementation. Couple suggestions that would make it 5 stars: Clear status symbols or text that says whos turn it is for online play. Tough to decipher from the game lobby screen. Dragging a Card to play on an iPhone X and above is difficult due to the swipe up gesture that closes the app. Cards need to be placed so it is easier to select. Every time you accidentally swipe up, the game has to reload, seems like this should have been caught during play testing.
Good game, if a little abstract, but the AI is very weak.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.0.6 (76)
- Size: 384.78 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: [Playdek, Inc.]()
Last updated: 5th December 2025 | Genre: Entertainment, Strategy | Developer: Playdek, Inc.