A highlighted review from the http://www.gtw64.co.uk archives
1987 Games Designers Workshop
Chickamauga was going to be a stragetic war game, of which there are many on the C64. Its scheduled release was for 1987, by Games Designers Workshop (GDW), an American company who already had a fine pedigree in board games and RPGs by the 1980s, having formed in 1973.The game was based around the Battle of Chickamauga during the American Civil War. You controlled either the Confederate or Union army of over 50,000 men plus artillery. The only references to the game is from a full-page advert by GDW that primarily promoted their other planned game and Games That Werent 64 entry, Rommel Battles for Torbruk and a similar full-page advert also promoting the one released game by GDW, Road to Moscow.
Nothing else is known about Chickamauga, though the planned price tag was $35; about average for a full budget release though $5 less than Rommel, which came with extensive historical notes. It was also the Family Computing Magazine Critics Choice Award Winner, suggesting the game was finished before being pulled.
As GDW planned to release both games at the same time we can assume the reason for one game not being released was the same as the other and that would point us in the direction of internal goings on at GDW itself. As Road to Moscow was released and promoted on the same pages as Chickamauga it seems like GDW planned on releasing all three games either simultaneously or as close together as possible. As to what happened we can only speculate, possibly they were put off from releasing more games if Road to Moscow performed worse than expected, or perhaps they were unable to release more games due to a poor performance and resultant lack of funds.
Unless someone comes forward from GDW who worked there at the time it is unlikely well find out any more about these two computer game efforts from a company whose expertise lay primarily in board games and RPGs.
For extra information on the history of GDW read the entry on Rommel Battles for Torbruk.
Alex,
I have both Chickamauga and Rommel – Battles for Tobruk, they were released in the late 1980’s mine are for the Atari 8 bit. In fact, I have 2 copies of Chickamauga, one opened and one still in shrink wrap.
Roger Batchelder