It could be a matter of whichever period interests you the most but I would say that Crown of Glory was the prototype Forge of Freedom the finished article maybe this is a little harsh on Crown but I have both and Forge is a much finer tuned machine. Another to look at would be Aegods ACW this looks like it will also be a formidable game and a labour of love if ever there was one and that's just playing through the tutorials. All the above mentioned games though I would point out have what I would consider steep learning curves though I think the learning well worth the effort.
Many thanks for the info on the Ageod ACW game, it looks very nice indeed.....now i have a real dilemma on my hands as to which game to buy. At least ACW has a demo to try.
I got it, but it's one of those "too many games, not enough time" problems for me. I installed it and looked it over. Very nice, BUT - it is just TOO involved. I probably didn't give it a chance but seemed to be too many things to keep track of between state and federal governments, economy, fortifications, armies, etc etc. And I didn't feel confident that these things would take care of themselves.
I've got them both. Initially FOF had some real problems, and while Matrixgames was taking care of them Ageod came out with AACW. Recently, the FOF revision was released and I tried it. But frankly, after playing so much PBEM AACW in the meantime, I just can't go back to FOF (and I tried to get back into it one evening).
If you have no interest in PBEM, FOF is probably the better choice because you get to play against the AI with tactical battles in a variety of settings. But for replaying the actual war given the real imbalance of forces, or if you are primarily interested in PBEM, then I would give Ageod's AACW my highest recommendation.