Line of Muskets is fought in turns that take place simultaneously. The turns represent 30 minutes of real battle time.

The above menu shows that the game is on turn 8 out of 8 turns, that the time depicted in the battle is 8pm on the 9th of August, 1862, the North has 8 Victory points and the South has 1, and the player has yet to submit his orders for this turn.

There are 2 basic steps in a turn of Line of Muskets;

1. Players give orders to their brigades, artillery batteries and commanders.

2. Players send their orders in. When all players have sent in their orders, the system resolves all the orders at the same time, sending back the results to the players.

You then see the results on your screen. The animation tells you which brigades and batteries fought with which enemy brigades or batteries, which brigades ran away and which ones were victorious.

This process is repeated until the end of the battle, when a winning side is announced. That is really all there is to it.

This is the message that will pop up at the end of the battle

That is the short version of the game. Once you have played a few games, giving orders to your units and sending them will become second nature.