Quote
For the first time, developer NorbSoftDev studio is leaving their beloved American Civil War for a brand new setting and is heading across the Atlantic Ocean with, Scourge of War: Waterloo! Excitement is mounting for the highly-praised Scourge of War series – "One of the finest computer war games ever published" (Real and Simulated Wars), "I recommend this game in the possible highest terms" (Armchair General), "A real must-buy for strategy and tactic fans" (7idgaming)
A new chapter in the Scourge of War series will be written on the battlefield of Waterloo. In Scourge of War: Waterloo, Napoleon and his Grande Armée are facing their ultimate challenge in this final encounter against the troops of the Seventh Coalition. You will be able to prove that the Emperor's return in March 1815 was not in vain, or join the armies led by the Duke of Wellington and von Blücher to eliminate the French threat forever.
In order to celebrate this announcement, the award winning Scourge of War: Gettysburg goes half price for the entire week. This is a great opportunity for fans of the series to complete their collection and for the newcomers to join the ranks of the Scourge of War battalions!
Get the discounted Scourge of War: Gettysburg here (http://www.matrixgames.com/products/441/details/Scourge.of.War:.Gettysburg) for just $ 14,99.
Click here (http://norbsoftdev.com/) for the latest news on the development of Sourge of War: Waterloo.
http://www.matrixgames.com/news/1381/Scourge.of.War:.new.game.signed.and.Deal.of.the.Week
...deleted the "and Gettysburg on sale for $15" from thread title.
Sweet! Love the shot of the Highlanders...
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 24, 2014, 10:25:42 AM
Sweet! Love the shot of the Highlanders...
+1
that looks great.......... did i miss the ETA?
Excellent....! SoW Gettysburg is an excellent game, looking forward to Waterloo. One thing I noticed while playing HPS ACW and Napoleonic games is the difference in tactics, i.e. use of cavalry and effectiveness of artillery between the two eras. Looking forward to seeing how they handle this.
Quote from: undercovergeek on March 24, 2014, 12:45:10 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 24, 2014, 10:25:42 AM
Sweet! Love the shot of the Highlanders...
+1
that looks great.......... did i miss the ETA?
weren't they originally saying June 2015 or something like that based on the anniversary?
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on March 24, 2014, 05:23:58 PM
Quote from: undercovergeek on March 24, 2014, 12:45:10 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 24, 2014, 10:25:42 AM
Sweet! Love the shot of the Highlanders...
+1
that looks great.......... did i miss the ETA?
weren't they originally saying June 2015 or something like that based on the anniversary?
Yes, it will come out before the anniversary, a specific date hasn't been set but sometime before the 200th.
I haven't got SoW Gettysburg. Should I get it in the sale?
Quote from: Boggit on March 26, 2014, 06:30:40 PM
I haven't got SoW Gettysburg. Should I get it in the sale?
Absolutely. Very immersive wargame. Makes you feel as if you
are in some Brigade or Division commander's boots with a massive battle going on around you, just one essential piece in the wider part commanding your section of the line. This is one game series that will always be on my hard drive.
I even found the Tutorials to be a blast.
Quote from: Nefaro on March 26, 2014, 06:34:30 PM
Quote from: Boggit on March 26, 2014, 06:30:40 PM
I haven't got SoW Gettysburg. Should I get it in the sale?
Absolutely. Very immersive wargame. Makes you feel as if you are in some Brigade or Division commander's boots with a massive battle going on around you, just one essential piece in the wider part commanding your section of the line. This is one game series that will always be on my hard drive.
I even found the Tutorials to be a blast.
+1
Although don't expect straight and ordered lines of battle. It's not so much a tactical battle game as it is a command simulator. Delays, generals that won't do what you ordered, etc
Still cheaper (by $5) to get the whole series through the collection; but as a gateway drug to the series the opening title makes good sense. :)
The release date for Scourge of War: Waterloo has been announced as June 11.
http://www.matrixgames.com/news/1676/Scourge.of.War:.Waterloo.is.coming.on.June.11th
Article referencing post made above.
My plans for that weekend are set. I could cry...it's like going home...
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
I wonder if infantry can form squares?
Oh, yes...
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FvOBHwOz.jpg&hash=3cbfce8f298ec428e3ce4920e72f11fc0b2cc018)
Good!
Now bring up the 12 pounders ;)
I love, love, love the sprites in that picture; really enjoy the fact that they went with some with rain covers for the shakos and some not; and I thought EXACTLY the same thing re: the Emperor's Daughters...
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
I hear the un-mistakable sounds of loin-moistening.
Nigh-aqueous below the waist...
Should be great, looks like it's on schedule for it's original date of release.
We are living in an era of wargaming goodness...not enough time (or for me...money) to enjoy them all.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any trains in the screenshots.
No ABBA either...
Well I don't know crap about Napoleanic warfare, including how to spell it, but I've become a huge fan of the SoW games so I see me giving this a shot.
Originally I was against the move to Napoleonic warfare, but given the overflowing cornucopia of ACW mods available for SoW, now I can kind of see the logic behind the move.
I'm on the other side. I love the SOW engine but not ACW. So Napoleonic may just entice me to play more of this engine.
Plus these Europeans dress better than the boring Blue and Grey's.
https://twitter.com/MatrixGamesLtd/status/595886993642520576/photo/1
twitch play thing - who the hell knows but youll get to see game stuff
Quote from: jomni on May 05, 2015, 10:42:43 PM
Plus these Europeans dress better than the boring Blue and Grey's.
Ahem, our finely attired, brightly pantalooned Zouaves would like to have a word with you 8)
I'm in the same boat though. For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, Am. Civil War has never really clicked with me. Can't say I know a whole lot about the Napoleonic Wars, but the theater is more enticing. I'll definitely pick SoW Waterloo up. (Despite my Civil War ambivalence, I actually *really* regret not picking up SoW Anniversary Edition when it was on sale a year ago...)
I'm more mood / trend in war gaming themes. As a teen, I was fanatical about all things civil war, then that grew into Vietnam, then to eastern front WWII. Now as a more mature war gamer, I still follow the same theme cycle but they only last a few months, then something will release that sparks a new theme for war gaming.
Once SOW Waterloo is released, is see a good napoleanics fixation coming.
Like jomini, the napoleanic period seems more fascinating and dynamic. I think that because the civil war is such an important event, the history is drilled into to me to point of been there,done that. At this point in my wargaming life, napoleanics seem far more refreshing.
Napoleon was the guy that lee and grant studied leading up to the civil war, only seems fitting that SOW tackles this era.
I was a Naps nut from the beginning and remain so.
I'm fascinated by just about every period of warfare, but bringing this engine -- particularly the delayed orders and command in the saddle systems -- "back" to the era where they really belonged, is special for me. My British friends who are Kriegsspielers are actually willing to put their wee lead blocks down long enough to play SoW MP, so I imagine they'll be especially pleased.
A day one buy and almost certainly day one MP with Jim for me :)
I'm very interested to see how well it handles battles of the scale of a lot of the Napoleonic clashes.
Is it moddable? I'll do a Meiji restoration mod. ;D
Quote from: jomni on May 07, 2015, 01:10:27 AM
Is it moddable? I'll do a Meiji restoration mod. ;D
Somebody had been doing a Napoleonic mod of SOW before the official one had begun. From what I understand, they couldn't create new formations (like the square) and such but modding the graphics and such was obviously doable.
I would think that modding
SOW:Gettysburg would be closest to the Meiji Restoration period's military doctrine and armaments. Not so much the earlier Napoleonic stuff. But who knows... maybe
Waterloo will be easier to mod?
Quote from: Nefaro on May 07, 2015, 12:27:04 PM
Quote from: jomni on May 07, 2015, 01:10:27 AM
Is it moddable? I'll do a Meiji restoration mod. ;D
Somebody had been doing a Napoleonic mod of SOW before the official one had begun. From what I understand, they couldn't create new formations (like the square) and such but modding the graphics and such was obviously doable.
I would think that modding SOW:Gettysburg would be closest to the Meiji Restoration period's military doctrine and armaments. Not so much the earlier Napoleonic stuff. But who knows... maybe Waterloo will be easier to mod?
Yes ACW has the same time frame and weaponry of Meiji Restoration. But of course I'm sticking to modding pike and shot for now.
Hi gents,
The Scourge of War Waterloo Twitch video is finally unmuted and can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7Lm3NsaQE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7Lm3NsaQE)
Quote from: Surtur on May 22, 2015, 05:11:06 AM
Hi gents,
The Scourge of War Waterloo Twitch video is finally unmuted and can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7Lm3NsaQE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7Lm3NsaQE)
only 360p :2funny: :idiot2:
But still appreciated :) - the inclusion of a Sandbox campaign pretty makes this a first weekend buy for me.
Quote from: fabius on May 22, 2015, 11:15:04 AM
Quote from: Surtur on May 22, 2015, 05:11:06 AM
Hi gents,
The Scourge of War Waterloo Twitch video is finally unmuted and can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7Lm3NsaQE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7Lm3NsaQE)
only 360p :2funny: :idiot2:
But still appreciated :) - the inclusion of a Sandbox campaign pretty makes this a first weekend buy for me.
its in 720HD for me
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 22, 2015, 11:19:49 AM
Quote from: fabius on May 22, 2015, 11:15:04 AM
Quote from: Surtur on May 22, 2015, 05:11:06 AM
Hi gents,
The Scourge of War Waterloo Twitch video is finally unmuted and can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7Lm3NsaQE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7Lm3NsaQE)
only 360p :2funny: :idiot2:
But still appreciated :) - the inclusion of a Sandbox campaign pretty makes this a first weekend buy for me.
its in 720HD for me
New YouTube uploads, or changes to them, take awhile before the higher resolution versions are available. YT does their own formatting for the various sizes but it only initially posts a low-res one until they're all done.
That's been my observation after uploading some.
Quote from: fabius on May 22, 2015, 11:15:04 AM
- the inclusion of a Sandbox campaign pretty makes this a first weekend buy for me.
!!!
this is exciting news (news to me anyway). +1 on insta-buy.
Quote from: Nefaro on May 22, 2015, 11:27:27 AM
Quote from: undercovergeek on May 22, 2015, 11:19:49 AM
Quote from: fabius on May 22, 2015, 11:15:04 AM
Quote from: Surtur on May 22, 2015, 05:11:06 AM
Hi gents,
The Scourge of War Waterloo Twitch video is finally unmuted and can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7Lm3NsaQE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7Lm3NsaQE)
only 360p :2funny: :idiot2:
But still appreciated :) - the inclusion of a Sandbox campaign pretty makes this a first weekend buy for me.
its in 720HD for me
New YouTube uploads, or changes to them, take awhile before the higher resolution versions are available. YT does their own formatting for the various sizes but it only initially posts a low-res one until they're all done.
That's been my observation after uploading some.
That explains it. Just checked and now glorious 720HD for me too. Give me an excuse to watch it all again :)
Quote from: sandman2575 on May 22, 2015, 11:40:02 AM
Quote from: fabius on May 22, 2015, 11:15:04 AM
- the inclusion of a Sandbox campaign pretty makes this a first weekend buy for me.
!!!
this is exciting news (news to me anyway). +1 on insta-buy.
Indeed !! The balance for me is
Sandbox campaign (including MP) combined with Napoleonic's = any effort needed to learn UI and game mechanics.
edited: no make that Sandbox campaign (including MP) combined with Napoleonic's > than any effort needed to learn UI and game mechanics.
They barely showed the sandbox campaign, but it was enough for me to declare this a day one purchase. The fact that there is a map to maneuver on is huge, you can actually do March to the sound of the guns with your corps. Will be great controlling an army but only fighting in several corps size engagements.
Now if we can just get battlefront to do something like this for combat mission, it would be a game changer. Hard to get them to stray away from the garanteed money with the cookie cutter module system and take risks with new bold features.
Quote from: Skoop on May 22, 2015, 12:39:57 PM
Now if we can just get battlefront to do something like this for combat mission, it would be a game changer. Hard to get them to stray away from the garanteed money with the cookie cutter module system and take risks with new bold features.
You read my mind, man. CM with a dynamic campaign (a la Graviteam Tactics, or something like what Norbsoft is now introducing with Waterloo) would essentially be my dream game.
Watching that TwitchTV segment has moved SoW Waterloo from "looking forward to it" to "giddily anticipating and man this can't come out soon enough for my liking" status.
What are the mechanics of the sandbox campaign?
Quote from: sandman2575 on May 22, 2015, 01:05:58 PM
Quote from: Skoop on May 22, 2015, 12:39:57 PM
Now if we can just get battlefront to do something like this for combat mission, it would be a game changer. Hard to get them to stray away from the garanteed money with the cookie cutter module system and take risks with new bold features.
You read my mind, man. CM with a dynamic campaign (a la Graviteam Tactics, or something like what Norbsoft is now introducing with Waterloo) would essentially be my dream game.
Watching that TwitchTV segment has moved SoW Waterloo from "looking forward to it" to "giddily anticipating and man this can't come out soon enough for my liking" status.
Yep, can't wait...luckily not too far away now.
Quote from: jomni on May 22, 2015, 05:50:51 PM
What are the mechanics of the sandbox campaign?
They didn't elaborate at all, so I'm guessing it's really simple.
Which is good, sometimes too much can over complicate and never get off the ground.
From the vid, it looked like a map of Belgium with towns, I assume each town is linked to a tactical map. Maneuver elements move on the map and make contact with the enemy, thus setting up a tactical battle.
The strategic layer of the campaign does not have the same depth as the tactical battles do, but we wanted to focus on having good core gameplay for it, without all the bells and whistles. Focussing on one thing and doing it right. The main part of the development was still very much on the tactical level. The campaign is there for people who like to give more meaning to their skirmishes and it does that very well. Tactical battles is where Scourge of War still shines though.
I should also note that I used the default sprite ratio during the stream, if you want, you can have a lot more sprites appear there :)
Quote from: Surtur on May 27, 2015, 06:05:53 AM
The strategic layer of the campaign does not have the same depth as the tactical battles do, but we wanted to focus on having good core gameplay for it, without all the bells and whistles. Focussing on one thing and doing it right. The main part of the development was still very much on the tactical level. The campaign is there for people who like to give more meaning to their skirmishes and it does that very well. Tactical battles is where Scourge of War still shines though.
I should also note that I used the default sprite ratio during the stream, if you want, you can have a lot more sprites appear there :)
Not really descriptive of the actual mechanics. Is it just a mechanism to link skirmishes with persistent casualties and VPs?
Let me try and explain it a bit more.
In the strategic layer, you can manage your army and move them from town to town in real time. If two opposing armies meet, a battle is generated based on the troops that were meeting.
In a typical campaign game, you will be splitting your forces to cover more ground and leave garrisons in "objective cities" and therefore you are constantly balancing between covering as much ground as possible (thereby potentially isolating enemy groups) and having a strong local superiority to break through the enemy lines.
Quote from: Surtur on May 27, 2015, 08:32:10 AM
Let me try and explain it a bit more.
In the strategic layer, you can manage your army and move them from town to town in real time. If two opposing armies meet, a battle is generated based on the troops that were meeting.
In a typical campaign game, you will be splitting your forces to cover more ground and leave garrisons in "objective cities" and therefore you are constantly balancing between covering as much ground as possible (thereby potentially isolating enemy groups) and having a strong local superiority to break through the enemy lines.
Sounds ok to me. I just like having some wider context to tactical battles. :)
How does the game engine treat column formation?
I haven't scoured the screenshots in detail, but I did come across a disturbing image of a group of what may have been Dutch battalions lined up in what looked like march order behind their flags.
Column formation was the default formation for continental armies.
A Napoleonic column is not a synonym for march order.
A 600-man battalion of six companies in line would stand three men deep and two hundred men wide. The same unit in column formation would stand eighteen men deep and thirty-three men wide, with the companies in line one behind the other. The same unit in march order would probably be about four men wide but one hundred and fifty men or more deep, and wouldn't really be in any kind of functional combat formation.
These three arrangements have very different footprints, combat and maneuver characteristics.
What this boils down to is that a battalion in column was essentially a battalion in a short and thick line formation. It is not a bunch of men drawn up in two long thin columns behind a flag.
This has important implications for how you move your units around on the battlefield, and is probably the most significant characteristic of infantry in Napoleonic warfare (the other is how they used the clouds of skirmishers).
Quote from: fabius on May 27, 2015, 08:35:34 AM
Quote from: Surtur on May 27, 2015, 08:32:10 AM
Let me try and explain it a bit more.
In the strategic layer, you can manage your army and move them from town to town in real time. If two opposing armies meet, a battle is generated based on the troops that were meeting.
In a typical campaign game, you will be splitting your forces to cover more ground and leave garrisons in "objective cities" and therefore you are constantly balancing between covering as much ground as possible (thereby potentially isolating enemy groups) and having a strong local superiority to break through the enemy lines.
Sounds ok to me. I just like having some wider context to tactical battles. :)
Yeah, sounds good enough. Doesn't need to be fancy at the moment. I'm just happy there's
something to tie non-historical battles together. O0
Quote from: Surtur on May 27, 2015, 08:32:10 AM
Let me try and explain it a bit more.
In the strategic layer, you can manage your army and move them from town to town in real time. If two opposing armies meet, a battle is generated based on the troops that were meeting.
In a typical campaign game, you will be splitting your forces to cover more ground and leave garrisons in "objective cities" and therefore you are constantly balancing between covering as much ground as possible (thereby potentially isolating enemy groups) and having a strong local superiority to break through the enemy lines.
That's great to hear.
Quote from: Philippe on May 27, 2015, 11:57:09 AM
How does the game engine treat column formation?
I haven't scoured the screenshots in detail, but I did come across a disturbing image of a group of what may have been Dutch battalions lined up in what looked like march order behind their flags.
Column formation was the default formation for continental armies.
A Napoleonic column is not a synonym for march order.
A 600-man battalion of six companies in line would stand three men deep and two hundred men wide. The same unit in column formation would stand eighteen men deep and thirty-three men wide, with the companies in line one behind the other. The same unit in march order would probably be about four men wide but one hundred and fifty men or more deep, and wouldn't really be in any kind of functional combat formation.
These three arrangements have very different footprints, combat and maneuver characteristics.
What this boils down to is that a battalion in column was essentially a battalion in a short and thick line formation. It is not a bunch of men drawn up in two long thin columns behind a flag.
This has important implications for how you move your units around on the battlefield, and is probably the most significant characteristic of infantry in Napoleonic warfare (the other is how they used the clouds of skirmishers).
Wait, what's the verdict on Histwar2: Napoleon? I just have experience on Histwar1: Les Grognards which is quite "love it, hate it".
I've said it numerous times, but I don't think it always catches:
The men displayed in SOW's units are at a 1-to-5 ratio on default settings.
Yes, it is scaled by default. As you can see in the preview vid, there is a huge amount of units and battlefield to be displayed, so it makes sense from a performance standpoint. Especially since every unit is being managed by it's own AI of varying personality types.
I have absolutely no issue with scaling in wargames. Nearly all of them have it, so it's not unusual. *shrug*
Scourge of War - The Waterloo Diaries Part 1 Published on 22 May 2015
In this first chapter of the "Waterloo Diaries", the producer of Scourge of War: Waterloo shares some key elements about the game (scope, main features). Footage comes from the game directly, without any post-editing.
Scourge of War - The Waterloo Diaries Part 2 Published on 28 May 2015
In this second chapter of the "Waterloo Diaries", the producer of Scourge of War: Waterloo talks about the formation system and the way to maintain coherency within an army. Delivering orders and make them executed could be more complicated than what you expect!
Nice short videos Asid, thanks for posting...I'm looking forward to this one. I hope they don't repeat what they did in the original Gettysburg release with the scenarios locked, forcing you to play them in a specific order to unlock them. This was fixed by a mod, I would hope they would just do away with it in this release.
Some scenarios are unlocked from the start, some are not (because of carry over requirements). There are quite a couple you can just jump in though.
What the heck is the point of locking scenarios? I have a few games do this and it does nothing but cause an uproar and forces the dev to backtrack or let a mod fix it. Why can't we play the games we buy the way we want?
Quote from: RyanE on May 28, 2015, 01:53:53 PM
What the heck is the point of locking scenarios? I have a few games do this and it does nothing but cause an uproar and forces the dev to backtrack or let a mod fix it. Why can't we play the games we buy the way we want?
Amen brother....! Or just offer both options.....locked and unlocked as an option.
This is going to be cool....
I am looking forward to this....and will buy. But from the videos, it looks like the biggest "suspension of disbelief" killer for me is still in the system: when two lines of friendly troops create a "cross" because they can't coordinate where to stand. Here is hoping they fix this someday....
Quote from: ArizonaTank on May 29, 2015, 06:20:25 AM
I am looking forward to this....and will buy. But from the videos, it looks like the biggest "suspension of disbelief" killer for me is still in the system: when two lines of friendly troops create a "cross" because they can't coordinate where to stand. Here is hoping they fix this someday....
Sad to say, Histwar2 still looks more impressive. Rely on the French to do the French well. But I bet the game-play of SOW is better.
Quote from: ArizonaTank on May 29, 2015, 06:20:25 AM
I am looking forward to this....and will buy. But from the videos, it looks like the biggest "suspension of disbelief" killer for me is still in the system: when two lines of friendly troops create a "cross" because they can't coordinate where to stand. Here is hoping they fix this someday....
This is the biggest issue for me. Watching a regiment stand in between two other regiments who are shooting at each other while it spins in circles.
I dare you to try and get your divisions to attack without ending up with something that looks likes a handful of dropped matchsticks
I love the game but that is always what get me. Fix it
Histwar has its own set of issues that you would need an entire thread to cover. I am still not sure what version I own.
Quote from: Surtur on May 27, 2015, 08:32:10 AM
.....
In a typical campaign game, you will be splitting your forces to cover more ground and leave garrisons in "objective cities" and therefore you are constantly balancing between covering as much ground as possible (thereby potentially isolating enemy groups) and having a strong local superiority to break through the enemy lines.
This is reassuring that it will not merely be biggest stacks running round until meeting.
Quote from: Surtur on May 27, 2015, 08:32:10 AM
In the strategic layer, you can manage your army and move them from town to town in real time. If two opposing armies meet, a battle is generated based on the troops that were meeting.
In a typical campaign game, you will be splitting your forces to cover more ground and leave garrisons in "objective cities" and therefore you are constantly balancing between covering as much ground as possible (thereby potentially isolating enemy groups) and having a strong local superiority to break through the enemy lines.
Not sure the garrison part makes sense for the Waterloo campaign. It doesn't even work too well for the campaign for France in 1814. Worrying about garrisons sounds a bit too much like you're modeling a computer game rather than a Napoleonic campaign.
For all of their faults, one nice thing about the Tiller games is that they can give you a very good feel for what was going on at the campaign level. Tiller's Waterloo game has several campaign options (and huge maps) that cover the entire Waterloo campaign from the moment the French crossed the border into what is now Belgium. That kind of treatment would not be possible in the Norbsoft version and the current generation of computers.
The Waterloo campaign was very short, so most of the issues you would need to address in a serious treatment of a campaign don't need to apply. You probably don't need to worry too much about modeling food consumption in a campaign that lasts less than a week, but you should include ammunition dumps and wagons.
Are the columns used by the French at Waterloo going to be available to form into? From what I've been reading, unlike a typical American Civil War column, the French used a column formation that resembled a brick. It was this type of column that d'Erlon's corps used during his attack.
Scourge of War - The Waterloo Diaries Part 3 Published on 4 Jun 2015
Today the producer of Scourge of War: Waterloo is presenting the different infantry formations available in the game. So if you're not already familiar with skirmish or square formations, it's high time to learn these tactics that may change the tide of a battle in the game !
I'm not sure about this, but what I don't see is the ability to form a battalion into line or column and put one of its companies into skirmish order in front of it.
In other words, the formation mechanic seems to be a carry-over from the Civil War games.
I really hope that is not the case.
French infantry was classified as light, line, or grenadier, and a battalion would have companies of all three types with slightly different uniforms in its oob. The light infantry company would get into skirmish order and screen the line companies and the grenadier company.
You couldn't do this in the Civil War game, but you didn't need to because skirmishers were not as prevalent or important by the middle of the 19th century as they had been in Napoleonic times.
Quote from: Slick Wilhelm on May 29, 2015, 03:36:51 PM
Are the columns used by the French at Waterloo going to be available to form into? From what I've been reading, unlike a typical American Civil War column, the French used a column formation that resembled a brick. It was this type of column that d'Erlon's corps used during his attack.
I thought D'Erlon screwed up his deployments at Waterloo and ended up with a mess?
Complex formations that are larger than battalions are just a matter of what formation the individual battalions are in and where you put those battalion formations relative to each other.
Three battalions can be formed into a nice ordre mixte very easily just by putting a battalion in line formation between two battalions in column formation.
I don't think any game really needs special rules to simulate what D'Erlon did at Waterloo or Macdonald did at Wagram, as long as things are being portrayed correctly at battalion level.
The battalion formations are the building blocks of the larger ones.
Well formations or no....I'm looking for a realtime accurately scaled napoleonic game and since Histwar Napoeon is ...incomplete...options are limited. First day buy
Quote from: mikeck on June 04, 2015, 04:16:55 PM
Well formations or no....I'm looking for a realtime accurately scaled napoleonic game and since Histwar Napoeon is ...incomplete...options are limited. First day buy
+1....can't wait until next week. I have the most limited knowledge on Napoleonic warfare so I likely wouldn't notice anyway:)
Quote from: Philippe on June 04, 2015, 02:10:56 PM
Complex formations that are larger than battalions are just a matter of what formation the individual battalions are in and where you put those battalion formations relative to each other.
Three battalions can be formed into a nice ordre mixte very easily just by putting a battalion in line formation between two battalions in column formation.
I don't think any game really needs special rules to simulate what D'Erlon did at Waterloo or Macdonald did at Wagram, as long as things are being portrayed correctly at battalion level.
The battalion formations are the building blocks of the larger ones.
You're saying it's up to the player to combine. But does the AI also do it as well. Is there actually any benefit for doing it the way they did it during the Napoleonic wars?
Anyway enough if thrle ranting. Here's a nice writeup of tactics and formations. http://vintagewargaming.blogspot.sg/2011/02/by-request-1-napoleonic-fighting.html?m=1
I'm definitely buying this game when it gets out.
Quote from: mikeck on June 04, 2015, 04:16:55 PM
Well formations or no....I'm looking for a realtime accurately scaled napoleonic game and since Histwar Napoeon is ...incomplete...options are limited. First day buy
It is a shame about Histwar. Because the formations were spot on. Not just that, but the special troops (grenadiers, voltigeurs, drummer, officers, and sappers) were all in their proper places. And wearing proper uniforms.
The videos of this game make it seem like it is not as accurate....but that won't stop me from buying; and I hope my impressions are wrong. I will be a little tweaked however if it turns out the game is just the Civil War with squares....
AT, are you talking about HW les Grognards or HW Napoleon (or maybe what you're saying applies to both)? I was interested in HWLG for a long time but always held off buying because of its many well documented shortcomings, UI, etc. And had hopes for HWN, but it sounds like the game is in a "will probably never be completed" limbo, as has been the case for a few years now...
I'll almost certainly be picking up SOW Waterloo... but I still wonder about HW Napoleon (...kind of the same way that I wonder about the mysterious fate of Graviteam Tactics Mius Front, but that's a different story...)
HWN currently looks like HWLG on steroids. It's pretty but underneath it is the same game which is a continuous work in progress. The devs has not abandoned the project even HWLG but things keep changing.
It is actually playable at the current state but things just keep changing even the UI. They just can't find the best UI for the game that pleases everyone.
The game is quite simple actually. U can give commands at Corps level or division level. Point to a spot or change formations. Assign % reserves. Their doctrines will take care of the details. But there still this quirky unpolished feel in the game overall. Again, they do the formations really well.
Quote from: sandman2575 on June 04, 2015, 09:53:56 PM
AT, are you talking about HW les Grognards or HW Napoleon (or maybe what you're saying applies to both)? I was interested in HWLG for a long time but always held off buying because of its many well documented shortcomings, UI, etc. And had hopes for HWN, but it sounds like the game is in a "will probably never be completed" limbo, as has been the case for a few years now...
I'll almost certainly be picking up SOW Waterloo... but I still wonder about HW Napoleon (...kind of the same way that I wonder about the mysterious fate of Graviteam Tactics Mius Front, but that's a different story...)
My only experience was with HWLG. The final version even had 1/1 soldier representation; you never see that anywhere else.... I actually liked the UI. For me, the UI was actually very efficient once I learned it. But I think folks didn't like the UI because it did not follow conventions, and that is understandable. My biggest issue with HWLG was that it never had a dynamic grand tactical AI. Once the battle plan was set, the computer stuck to it, no matter what. It does not sound like this was fixed in HWN.
Interestingly...IMHO SSI's Battles of Napoleon, in terms of features (not graphics or UI of course), still holds it's own in the Nappy arena, even after 25+ years.... The AI was pretty simple...but it was certainly dynamic. Here's hoping we see it on GOG someday...
Thanks both for the feedback on HWLG/HWN. Glad to hear it hasn't been abandoned, but whenever I check the forums there seems a sense of hopelessness about its future. Lack of a dynamic tactical AI is a pretty humongous handicap, and at worst seems simply game-breaking.
The lack of 1:1 representation in SOW still bugs me. I understand the reasons, "it's a necessary concession" etc. etc. -- but there's something about seeing a 200-sprite "regiment" that makes for cognitive dissonance -- the game is clearly meant to portray a historically realistic battlefield, but the 1:4 or even 1:2 sprite to soldier ratio constantly reminds you that the realism is compromised by a layer of abstraction.
I'd feel a lot differently (a lot less positively) about games like Combat Mission if they didn't have 1:1 representation. But I understand scale is the problem. In the biggest engagements in CMRT, you might have 2 German battalions taking on roughly equivalent Soviet formations, and the result is huge -- awe inspiring, but also unwieldy and immensely time consuming to play. I'm *still* working my way through the German campaign -- it has taken me many months. So, yeah, imagine trying to manage tens of thousands of soldiers on a Napoleonic battlefield.
Mostly I just want to have my cake and eat it too. I want to see what 100,000 men at Waterloo really looks like. It would be incredible. And likely unplayable. But still...
With all of this talk about 1:1 representation, just remember that Waterloo was by no means one of Napoleon's larger battles. And in spite of all the media hype, it was really just a footnote to history.
If you want to see a big, important battle that really could have changed the course of history, take a look at Leipzig. The armies there were huge because everybody who was anybody in Europe showed up (including a small contingent of Brits armed with Whinyate rockets) with well over half a million men on the field.
On the developer's site, norb indicating he thinks release moved up to June 9th.....that would be great, if turns out to be true.
http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/96-discussion/67086-waterloo-game
Quote from: Philippe on June 05, 2015, 11:11:26 AM
With all of this talk about 1:1 representation, just remember that Waterloo was by no means one of Napoleon's larger battles. And in spite of all the media hype, it was really just a footnote to history.
I think Napoleon, sitting on St. Helena, would have not agreed about Waterloo being a "footnote" in history. :)
The hype, though, is part of the story. Waterloo, whatever may be said of its military significance, has and had immense cultural importance. There's a reason you can go to the Waterloo museum and see all of the cities, towns, and villages around the world that have been named after this little Belgian community. I'd certain welcome counter-argument, but I think it's the first battle in history to have this effect. The British Empire doesn't take the shape it does without this win...and, of course, Trafalgar. Wellington is probably not PM without it. The British army would likely have been reformed much sooner had not those who defended the old way had the shadow of the great victory on their side.
Now, is it typical of Napoleon and his armies? Lots of good debate there on both sides. Is it the biggest Napoleonic battle? Not by a long shot. Is it the "best" Napoleonic battle? Oooh, another good question that's really not answerable in any dispositive way. Calling it a footnote, though, is a bit much.
And here's hoping the success of this game leads to lots of OTHER battles and armies being offered!
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
Looks like release confirmed for tomorrow some time after 2pm gmt
http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/96-discussion/67384-check-the-store-june-9th-after-2pm-gmt
There's a free online course on Wellington at Waterloo that is being offered by the University of Southampton via Futurelearn.
It's starting today (Jun 8th) and runs for 3 weeks.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/wellington-and-waterloo/ (https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/wellington-and-waterloo/)
It has been released!!! :) Now I have to go find $50....:(
Releaassed!!! :D
Quote from: ArizonaTank on June 09, 2015, 06:19:33 AM
It has been released!!! :) Now I have to go find $50....:(
"Find" $50 for me, too, while you're there.
Quote from: Nefaro on June 09, 2015, 07:37:40 AM
Quote from: ArizonaTank on June 09, 2015, 06:19:33 AM
It has been released!!! :) Now I have to go find $50....:(
"Find" $50 for me, too, while you're there.
LOL...with Father's Day coming up...the plan is to shake down the kids....;)
Bought, downloaded and installed, but no time to fire it up until after work. >:(
I imagine the big difference from the ACW games would be the cavalry combat? So I hope this is done well. The size of the armies I've seen on the few videos available look unmanageable. Looking forward to some thoughts and opinions on this one.
Bought, downloaded, installed. The resolve to wait and see routed like a battalion of raw recruits flanked by two squadrons of heavy cavalry.
NO SPOILERS!!
I'm stuck at work and want to find out who wins for myself!!
You bastages- I want to resists until the weekend.. but it's so hard :smiley6600:
Historical gamer does an intro brigade battle:
Just a friendly warning. My gpu makes a lot of noise when in the game menu, running 4000-6000 fps 8)
No problem in game, running around 30 fps.
Of course purchased and played around a little bit with the tutorial...not enough to fully comment yet, but finding the new control scheme (right-click and orders menu) a little difficult to use at this point. Sometimes seems to have a mind of its own, but likely something I am doing incorrectly. I haven't played the original SOW in awhile, but things seem a little laggy so far but I haven't really played with setting options yet. Also had something kind of weird happen.....assigned a unit to move to a spot, but instead of going to that spot, seemed to be caught in a loop of moving from one spot to another spot, over and over on its own.
If you own Windows 8 or above, make sure to set the .EXE to be compatible with Windows 7, otherwise you'll see blacked out text and blacked out graphics. Same issue happened with the older version. I know this is basically the same engine, but kind of surprised they didn't at least correct that...hopefully Windows 10 still has compatibility options when it comes out:)
I do think it will be refreshing to play this era of a war game so looking forward to diving in much deeper...
Not as pretty as N:TW. Cavalry movement in particular is oddly stilted.
The new control scheme is definitely taking some getting used to.
The MP lobby was fussing with me and we've not yet found peace.
This said, I watched the chateau burn tonight as my skirmishers pushed through the orchard.
It will serve to remind all my mini-gaming brothers (and the occasional sister) that we get scale horribly wrong most of the time. Scrolling around the full battle scenario is a thing to behold.
The work done on the units and their uniforms is to be highly commended.
The map is an evident labor of love.
So far, very, very happy.
Quote from: Cyrano on June 09, 2015, 10:30:00 PM
The new control scheme is definitely taking some getting used to.
Go into Modifications and turn on the Grog Toolbar. You'll be happy.
The right click thinggy actually reminds me of the Histwar Les Grognards interface.
How does volley fire work? It seems that my guys rarely shoot when I press volley fire command.
And it's really quite difficult catching the enemy with a charge. Too many micromanagement required.
Did anyone watch the gameplay video? It did the reverse of what I thought and put me off somewhat. I don't know whether its just an easy introductory scenario, a buggy beta version or something else, but there didn't look to be any kind of significant gameplay and the player won a victory by routing a few Dutch battalions and without taking the farmhouse.
Quote from: dinsdale on June 10, 2015, 09:21:00 AM
Did anyone watch the gameplay video? It did the reverse of what I thought and put me off somewhat. I don't know whether its just an easy introductory scenario, a buggy beta version or something else, but there didn't look to be any kind of significant gameplay and the player won a victory by routing a few Dutch battalions and without taking the farmhouse.
This was mentioned over on the matrix site. Several points were put forward 1. intro scenario designed to ease players in. 2. They took significant casualties from the AI. 3. the AI has played differently each time for on of the posters.
Quote from: jomni on June 10, 2015, 07:37:16 AM
How does volley fire work? It seems that my guys rarely shoot when I press volley fire command.
And it's really quite difficult catching the enemy with a charge. Too many micromanagement required.
The way I understand it, you have to press the Volley Fire button twice: once to get them ready, and then when all of your little dudes quit loading, again to fire.
I caught an enemy battalion last night with volleys from three of my battalions, one right after the other, and the enemy broke and ran on the third. That was pretty much my only well-coordinated attack last night...
Quote from: Cyrano on June 09, 2015, 10:30:00 PM
Cavalry movement in particular is oddly stilted.
Those are just Lipizzaner Stallions, that's how they move. ;D
Quote from: Hentzau on June 10, 2015, 10:48:08 AM
Those are just Lipizzaner Stallions, that's how they move. ;D
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ejumpcut.org%2Farchive%2Fjc50.2008%2FDominoKnapp%2FKnappPix%2F26.jpeg&hash=b8134408da82a260b9fde33f46d98e989e83c68e)
Nowhere near enough play to speak re: the competence of the A.I. Far too busy crawling around the battlefield with a topo map on my lap.
I've had no problem catching infantry in charges if I don't come at them frontally. One of my projects for the weekend is setting up squaring situations and seeking how readily they do it, how rapidly they do it, and the varying effects of catching them while forming. I'm also very curious if infantry can get off a final volley if they're steady enough. The battalion and brigade level A.I. will certainly bear watching.
The intro scenario is normative of little in the game. It's there to set up a situation well in favor of the Allies, let them learn the UI, and kill things. Oh, and fool about with the Camerons (why the Black Watch I'll never know) and the 1st of the 95th.
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
Quote from: panzerde on June 10, 2015, 10:41:43 AM
Quote from: jomni on June 10, 2015, 07:37:16 AM
How does volley fire work? It seems that my guys rarely shoot when I press volley fire command.
And it's really quite difficult catching the enemy with a charge. Too many micromanagement required.
The way I understand it, you have to press the Volley Fire button twice: once to get them ready, and then when all of your little dudes quit loading, again to fire.
I caught an enemy battalion last night with volleys from three of my battalions, one right after the other, and the enemy broke and ran on the third. That was pretty much my only well-coordinated attack last night...
Well that's bad because that's a lot of micromanagement. They should preferably do volley indefinitely right? Or was that not the tactic during those times.
Come to think of it, that command acts sort of like "hold fire" instead with the benefit of unleashing a volley at the first shot.
Quote from: jomni on June 10, 2015, 06:03:46 PM
Well that's bad because that's a lot of micromanagement. They should preferably do volley indefinitely right? Or was that not the tactic during those times.
No, you'd get a volley or two at the beginning of an engagement and then men would fire at will. Formations generally wouldn't stand there and just trade volleys until one broke.
^+1
Doug beat me to it.
That's why so many rules make such a big deal out of first volley.
Quote from: jomni on June 10, 2015, 07:43:08 PM
Come to think of it, that command acts sort of like "hold fire" instead with the benefit of unleashing a volley at the first shot.
Exactly. That's specifically the tactic it's supposed to simulate. Done right, you could get an entire line to volley fire by battalion, which could be pretty rough on an opponent.
Seems like you press volley fire once to order the regiment to perform a volley fire. However, this may take some time depending on the discipline and experience level of the troops and they will not fire the volley until all troops in the regiment are ready. However, if you press the button a second time, it will order the regiment to fire a volley immediately, but you will lose some of the firepower because not all guns will be firing.
The game definitely needs some optimization...I'm getting a really annoying stutter every few seconds.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on June 10, 2015, 08:32:56 PM
Seems like you press volley fire once to order the regiment to perform a volley fire. However, this may take some time depending on the discipline and experience level of the troops and they will not fire the volley until all troops in the regiment are ready. However, if you press the button a second time, it will order the regiment to fire a volley immediately, but you will lose some of the firepower because not all guns will be firing.
The game definitely needs some optimization...I'm getting a really annoying stutter every few seconds.
Well my guys stand there and do nothing when ordered volley fire. :( And they lose volley status eventu ally (AI commander taking initiative?). But the discussion above makes sense.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on June 10, 2015, 08:32:56 PM
The game definitely needs some optimization...I'm getting a really annoying stutter every few seconds.
I'm seeing that too, as are several others on the Norbsoftdev forums. Norbdevsoft doesn't seem to have any idea yet what's causing it, or any idea that it might be widespread. They seem to still be in the mode of addressing individual PC configurations and not seeing it as a general issue. I tried to post on their forums but despite getting an account never could manage to log in.
Great game so far, but that lag has got to be addressed or I've going to shelve this for awhile.
Weird...I'm seeing none of that...how is it occurring for you all?
I seem to have eliminated it by pausing my backup software. So, it may be that the game is particularly sensitive to anything that's causing disk activity, like backups or AV scans.
Jim, what happens (at least for me) is that the game just stops and becomes non-responsive for anywhere from a second to maybe five or six seconds, depending on how bad it is. Can't issue orders, move the camera, nothing. All the animations pause. It's really annoying.
On a positive note, I just scored a victory in French scenario #2, the first divisional scenario. I can probably score a major victory if I can manage to get my second brigade extricated from the fight at Hougoumont. I'm finding that the brigade commanders to a good job of fighting their battle once you have them in the right position.
I'll most probably jump into a campaign and blog / do AAR on the progress. Stay tuned.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on June 10, 2015, 08:32:56 PM
The game definitely needs some optimization...I'm getting a really annoying stutter every few seconds.
It's left over from the SOW engine, I'm sure.
I hadn't noticed it much in the past, when playing single-player on my desktop PCs. However, there were a couple large multi-player scenarios where it started that exact same hitching every couple seconds. Didn't stop once it had begun.
Not sure what caused it, because it didn't happen every time despite using the exact same computer to run it. The single-player would sometimes do it to a much less noticeable degree, when there were a huge amount of units fighting, so at first I thought it was a single core processor limitation with all those individual units' AI running at once. Not so sure after occasionally seeing it in other situations and newer machines. It was always an unknown mystery from what I gathered, but there are numerous people who experienced it in SOW too.
Seems like people are reporting the pausing issue was fixed for them by disabling webroot or changing webroot to ignore specifically the game. If you have webroot or maybe even other type of av, that might be a place to start.
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on June 11, 2015, 04:04:21 AM
Seems like people are reporting the pausing issue was fixed for them by disabling webroot or changing webroot to ignore specifically the game. If you have webroot or maybe even other type of av, that might be a place to start.
I do indeed have webroot. Disable it for this game? Hell no. I'll see if I can figure out how to get the AV software to ignore the game. No idea how to go about doing that though.
I would agree....I never turn off my security software for any game, usually able to configure it to ignore very specific games or processes as needed. Luckily I don't think I have had to do this for many things.
The engine is showing its age.
Quote from: jomni on June 11, 2015, 06:44:15 AM
The engine is showing its age.
Personally, I thought the engine was showing its age from the first moment it was released.
Twitch feed today
Two days after its release the latest title in the Scourge of War series is back on the battlefield on Twitch! http://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup
Stand in the ranks with us as we stream the game today at 20:00 CEST / 18:00 UTC / 2:00 PM EDT on our official Twitch Channel!
Will the Seventh Coalition once again be victorious or will Fate be on the Emperor's side this time? Stay tuned to find out!
Get more information about the game from its official product page
It's not over!
In order to celebrate the bicentenary of Waterloo we will stream a historical reconstruction of the entire Battle on our official Twitch Channel on June 18th!
Be ready for further information!
I can't help but notice a little antipathy with respect to this latest iteration of SOW. Anyone who isn't somewhat familiar with SOW (games system, etc.) has himself to blame as Take Command Second Manassas was published years and years ago, and there have been several new games and/or expansions. Aside from dealing with Napoleonics, SOW Waterloo is in the same mode.
As to having to disable an antivirus program to play a game, I've been making such accommodations since I've been playing computer games.
I love the era and I think I am going to love the game.
Does this have to do with people having a problem with Norbsoft?
Quote from: Johnnie on June 11, 2015, 12:42:28 PM
I can't help but notice a little antipathy with respect to this latest iteration of SOW. Anyone who isn't somewhat familiar with SOW (games system, etc.) has himself to blame as Take Command Second Manassas was published years and years ago, and there have been several new games and/or expansions. Aside from dealing with Napoleonics, SOW Waterloo is in the same mode.
As to having to disable an antivirus program to play a game, I've been making such accommodations since I've been playing computer games.
I love the era and I think I am going to love the game.
Does this have to do with people having a problem with Norbsoft?
Well that is insulting. If you want to jeopardize the safety of your personal computer and private data, that is your business, but don't accuse those who do not feel like taking such a drastic step just to play a game of having a nefarious ulterior motive. Although it is unclear from your post, it seems that maybe you haven't even bought the game. I have paid my $49.99 and in this day and age, I shouldn't have to disable anything in order to run it properly. Is your hesitation in buying possibly due to a problem with Norbsoft? huh? well, is it?
I don't think there's any antipathy. It is an older engine, and the NorbSoftDev team say as much in their forum postings. They'd love to be able to get it updated, too. Like many game engines for wargames we all love, small part-time development teams and tight profit margins can make this tough.
It isn't good practice to disable anti-virus/anti-malware software for any reason. It might occasionally be necessary to do so for troubleshooting but I'd want the system disconnected from the network while doing so. Most AV software will allow you to create exclusions and not scan certain folders, which is certainly a better approach than just turning it off. The "fix" of disabling AV protection isn't a fix at all, it's working around a game engine performance issue that is due to how the architecture of Windows worked 10 years ago but no longer works that way today. It can create a security vulnerability on a user's machine and should be addressed ASAP.
Likewise, I'm less than crazy about games that still need to be run on Windows with administrative rights, and/or require being installed outside the Program Files folders. Again, it's not good practice and something left over from the legacy days of Windows development when the Windows security model was essentially non-existent. If you're a long-time Unix guy like me, that sort of thing is an appalling security violation. This too is a suggested "fix" for issues some people are experiencing with the game, particularly on Windows 8.
Neither of these two issues is unique to NorbSoftDev. A lot of games have one or both of these issues, and the older the engine the worse the issue. A lot of us here have played SOW and TC and love those games. It's legitimate to point out, however, that as much as we may like them and as much as we may like Waterloo (and I most certainly do) there are technical issues with the game that people need to be aware of. I think that's one of the many reasons we all get together on these forums, so we can have rational and transparent discussions about the good and the bad about our favorite games, right?
How dare you bring fair discussion and balance into a thread. We should be allowed to overreact and scream in shrill voices without the likes of people like you bringing rational discourse into the discussion. This is the internet, after all.
What computer game needs you to turn off your antivirus software?
I have literally hundreds of games and I've never run into that.
I also have all of the Take command and SOW all the way up until Waterloo and never had a problem.
I have run into where you had to allow a certain exec. or update to run in your antivirus, but I've never had to shut it off.
I've really tried to like all the games, but the insane " devil dance " that my forces seem to do , gets me every time. It ruins my immersion.
I assume that Waterloo has the same problem with the forces mingling through each other or not?
I forgot to add that up until several weeks ago I was running Webroot and had no problems with the above.
Anivirus is for pussies. Going commando is the best !!!!
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.pastemagazine.com%2Fwww%2Fblogs%2Flists%2FCommando.jpg&hash=c7b8ae176be164a86cc25e09643d21a3ae5236b5)
Quote from: RyanE on June 11, 2015, 04:04:52 PM
How dare you bring fair discussion and balance into a thread. We should be allowed to overreact and scream in shrill voices without the likes of people like you bringing rational discourse into the discussion. This is the internet, after all.
I know, what the hell was I thinking? Obviously I need more whisky.
Quote from: panzerde on June 11, 2015, 03:44:41 PM
I don't think there's any antipathy. It is an older engine, and the NorbSoftDev team say as much in their forum postings. They'd love to be able to get it updated, too. Like many game engines for wargames we all love, small part-time development teams and tight profit margins can make this tough.
It isn't good practice to disable anti-virus/anti-malware software for any reason. It might occasionally be necessary to do so for troubleshooting but I'd want the system disconnected from the network while doing so. Most AV software will allow you to create exclusions and not scan certain folders, which is certainly a better approach than just turning it off. The "fix" of disabling AV protection isn't a fix at all, it's working around a game engine performance issue that is due to how the architecture of Windows worked 10 years ago but no longer works that way today. It can create a security vulnerability on a user's machine and should be addressed ASAP.
Likewise, I'm less than crazy about games that still need to be run on Windows with administrative rights, and/or require being installed outside the Program Files folders. Again, it's not good practice and something left over from the legacy days of Windows development when the Windows security model was essentially non-existent. If you're a long-time Unix guy like me, that sort of thing is an appalling security violation. This too is a suggested "fix" for issues some people are experiencing with the game, particularly on Windows 8.
Neither of these two issues is unique to NorbSoftDev. A lot of games have one or both of these issues, and the older the engine the worse the issue. A lot of us here have played SOW and TC and love those games. It's legitimate to point out, however, that as much as we may like them and as much as we may like Waterloo (and I most certainly do) there are technical issues with the game that people need to be aware of. I think that's one of the many reasons we all get together on these forums, so we can have rational and transparent discussions about the good and the bad about our favorite games, right?
And don't forget... you need to turn on Compatibility Mode if you're using Windows 8. Would have at least catered to more current OS and machines. Win 10 is just around the corner.
Appreciate the new content and work on the UI but they seem to not have time to fix the basics.
Did the UI really need work, seems better to leave the UI and fix the basics.
I thought the Gettysburg game WAS a new engine? That's not that old. Am I wrong?
I haven't bought Waterloo but based on what I hear...I may hold off.
I want to buy badly but the game is complex enough without having to guess if it's operator error or WAD.
Wish I could play histwar:Napoleon without throwing my monitor into the wall
Quote from: mikeck on June 11, 2015, 05:18:19 PM
I thought the Gettysburg game WAS a new engine? That's not that old. Am I wrong?
I haven't bought Waterloo but based on what I hear...I may hold off.
I want to buy badly but the game is complex enough without having to guess if it's operator error or WAD.
Wish I could play histwar:Napoleon without throwing my monitor into the wall
If you like Gettysburg and Napoleonics, you'll like this.
More whiskey is always a grand idea.
Scourge of War is a new engine over against TC in its various iterations, but both use sprites for soldiers.
PC gaming is always such a weird target for developers to hit because you're aiming at a hell brew of PC configurations, OS, on-board software, &c., that don't challenge developers for consoles. Therefore, there's a whole lot of emptors that should be caveating madly. Information of the sort provided, then, becomes very valuable indeed.
I've not had to turn off my anti-virus for this one and once Doug showed me the toolbar mod, I was pretty well set to go although, probably because I'm used to it, I would have been just as fine with 100% old UI with a few Napoleonic doo-dads.
As for anything past Window 7, I will be dragged kicking and screaming. As I said at Origins, I'll likely need a new PC well before then...
Quote from: magnus on June 11, 2015, 04:20:44 PM
What computer game needs you to turn off your antivirus software?
I have literally hundreds of games and I've never run into that.
When something goes awry between game and anti-virus, it's usually a specific to both the AV and the game.
I practically never have issues with my chosen AV, but there has been at least one game I own which had issues with it (luckily patched before I purchased it). It happens sometimes, no matter which you use.
Bah, talk, talk, talk! Where is the video of limey squares coming under mass cavalry attack? Bah! ^-^
Quote from: Hentzau on June 11, 2015, 08:23:43 PM
Bah, talk, talk, talk! Where is the video of limey squares coming under mass cavalry attack? Bah! ^-^
It doesn't happen in the game since the units are not 1:1 representation... You can't have a nice massed cavalry attack.
Bought it. Looks good and runs well. I like the new interface. I like right clicking on an areas and having the menu Pop up...juts me.
Anyway to download a PDF manual? I have it on my computer but it's a pain to email it to myself so I can download it onto my kindle
You can, however, organize your attack by squadron which is assuredly the historical thing to do...
Dear Jarhead:
Would not want you to jeopardize your electronics by taking such a drastic measure as turning off an antivirus. Nor, did I mean to insult anyone. I did not realize Jarheads were so sensitive with respect to such matters. Oh, I did purchase the game on the day it was released; but that is kind of beside the point.
I got it on day 1. Only dabbled with it. It seems to run ok for me so far. Windows 8.1 + Avast anti virus switched to "gaming mode". I may see problems when i spend more time with it though.
Regards
Didn't get to play long tonight, but it was no problem this evening. I think I figured out a fix on my game/rig.
Quote from: Asid on June 11, 2015, 09:28:19 PM
I got it on day 1. Only dabbled with it. It seems to run ok for me so far. Windows 8.1 + Avast anti virus switched to "gaming mode". I may see problems when i spend more time with it though.
Regards
Maybe we should do some Co-op eventually, after I scare up the scratch and get it.
Just to show that SOW isn't the only game with the AV issue. It hits CM games hard sometimes too.
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/119876-help-reinstalling-please/
Not saying it is good product management, but SOW isn't alone.
So....is this the American Civil War with Napoleonic uniforms and maps or does this new game incorporated Napoleonic tactics that differ from the ACW? With the old HPS games I quickly learned that using ACW tactics in their Napoleonic games didn't work(i.e assaulting in column rather than line and use of skirmishers). Is this true with this game too?
Quote from: RyanE on June 12, 2015, 05:19:46 AM
Just to show that SOW isn't the only game with the AV issue. It hits CM games hard sometimes too.
Correct. I have AVG Internet Suite (paid version) and it flags most CM exe files as malware. It is the behaviour of the DRM part of the software that causes these problems.
It doesn't force me close my AV but i have to add these files to the exceptions list. If i don't do this there is no way of installing and my backup files end up quarantained.
However i never had any issues with a Matrix game (but i don't have SOW).
I'm really disturbed with this guy.
What is he doing in the battlefield?
Quote from: jomni on June 12, 2015, 08:26:09 AM
I'm really disturbed with this guy.
What is he doing in the battlefield?
That is obviously Starfury. Nothing to worry about.
Quote from: Nefaro on June 12, 2015, 12:28:44 AM
Quote from: Asid on June 11, 2015, 09:28:19 PM
I got it on day 1. Only dabbled with it. It seems to run ok for me so far. Windows 8.1 + Avast anti virus switched to "gaming mode". I may see problems when i spend more time with it though.
Regards
Maybe we should do some Co-op eventually, after I scare up the scratch and get it.
That would be great :)
Had my first repeatable crash.
Press Show High Scores.
Edit: Restarted the game and it's ok now.
Matthew from NorbSoftDev is showing one of the most requested feature of the game: the sandbox campaign (and a fight!)
Please tell me what the sprite ratio does and how to show more men for each unit? I used 0 and 19(?) but don't notice any difference.
I am generally enjoying the game, and glad I made the plunge to purchase. There are a lot of great features in the game. And overall, the playability and immersion is wonderful.
The one area where I think SoW: Waterloo gets just a "C" is in uniforms and formations. Hopefully as the game engine matures, they can start to move towards getting these right.
HWLG has many issues...including playability and a slew of other things. But it did get the uniforms and formations almost spot on. In the screen shot below, you can see the Fr 72nd Regiment of Reille's Corps at Waterloo (the uniformologists out there would argue about the white plumes, and bearskins). Marching in column by division the way it should look. The Grenadiers are there with bearskins and red plumes at the back of the 2nd Battalion. Voltiguers with yellow braiding on their shakos, and you can even see the sappers and green jacketed drummer in correct position between the two battalions. Would love to see SoW get to this same spot on the uniform / formation spectrum.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi29.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fc255%2Flarizona55%2FHistwara_zpsazubwkkg.jpg&hash=af14037c4e06e0348732908f84e327105d907551) (http://s29.photobucket.com/user/larizona55/media/Histwara_zpsazubwkkg.jpg.html)
Here is a pretty good site describing column formations:
http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/infantry_tactics_4.htm
I was wondering about that same thing...I have spent far too much time just marching men around and enjoying the process and trying experiments in attack and the like.
I wonder if it's a function of the scale not being 1:1? Sort of like the argument in Shako about who gets to be the grenadiers and where do you put them when a battalion is only 12 or 15 figures in size?
One thing I'd have never thought to fault these guys for was not caring about this sort of thing so, perhaps granting them undeserved credit, I'm seeking an explanation...
And people curse the interface of Histwar. SOW just implemented a similar right click pop up menu and veteran SOW users are complaining about it. But the developers are swearing by it. ;D
And it is actually easier to give orders at the corps and division level in Histwar because you can actually adjust the formation, frontage and even % reserves. I ordered my division to form a line and they formed by attack columns one unit after another. SOW just have too much micromanagement. Flipping through the OOB in SOW seems to be easier. I prefer it to the up-down-left-right-arrow of SOW because you have a mini oob tree on the screen itself. The tactical map is also more readable.
Anyway enough with the ranting. SOW also has good points especially the gameplay and was an excellent ACW game but it does fail to impress with regards to the Napoleonic era. Yes. The French had mixed companies in a battalion and this wasn't depicted in SOW.
As for the sounds, I do not seem to hear the soldiers shout out commands in native language like Histwar. Just trumpet calls.
Dev's reply regarding the controversial L'ordre mixte.
QuoteWe built the formation but it became rather complex trying to figure out when the AI should and should not use the formation. A bit surprised Reb did not include it in the Grog toolbar at the division level. It would be for the player only though.
-Jim
Also some apologists state that it wasn't implemented in Warterloo.
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3878334
One need not be an apologist for SoW:W to think so. I'm unaware of any evidence for mixed order at Waterloo. While, in some respects, this was a far better army than Boney had had for years, the argument of recent research is that the AdN was built too quickly and was simply to green to manage these convolutions. In fact, it is argued, that the fire poured into the famous advance of the Guard ultimately forced these battalions into something of weird moving square.
Given the distortions between topography and terrain that was used by the folks at Norbsoft, this offering is being more and more described as an iteration of TTG on the PC. I'm quite all right with that.
Also, while few are making it hereabouts, as a long-time player (and one time tester) for HW...well, courses for horses, and I've long been a defender of JMM, but his game will be finished shortly after Gilliam finishes Don Quixote. SoW:W is, for me, the better game.
I actually attended Michael Leggiere's Waterloo talk tonight at the Soldiers and Sailors Club on Lexington Avenue with my artist girlfriend. She managed to stay awake through most of it, and was quite interested, partly because she didn't know much about the Waterloo campaign and it was all new to her. The only thing she didn't quite get was the use of the word 'mask' as a verb, but by the end of the talk she had figured out what it meant. NYMAS is hosting a couple more Waterloo lectures at a public library downtown in my neck of the woods next week. Detailswill probably be on their website. If not my girlfriend picked up a flier and I can post the details as needed (I think it's the branch at 66 Leroy Street).
I think Leggiere would agree with me that Waterloo is really a footnote to history. The important event was the defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig: everything else was a more or less inevitable consequence. It would have been fun to ask him but someone was delivering a narcissistic monologue rant about how Wellington's flawless tactics won the battle of Waterloo (they weren't and they didn't), and it seemed more sensible to leave early and beat the crowd to the rickety stairs.
The notion that Leipzig made the conclusion of the Hundred Days foregone is simply untenable.
Heck, if Berthier hadn't been defenestrated and Davout given a field command instead of being left back at home, well, who knows...it's why alt-history is so much fun. Give Leipzig its place, of course, but there's no need to denigrate Waterloo in the process.
Quote from: Cyrano on June 12, 2015, 09:48:07 PM
Also, while few are making it hereabouts, as a long-time player (and one time tester) for HW...well, courses for horses, and I've long been a defender of JMM, but his game will be finished shortly after Gilliam finishes Don Quixote. SoW:W is, for me, the better game.
Agree. I think HW has the purest heart...but JMM is just too inconsistent as a developer to see his vision finished. SoW doesn't really pass the grognard test...but it is still a good game and that is good enough for me.
Quote from: Cyrano on June 12, 2015, 09:48:07 PM
his game will be finished shortly after Gilliam finishes Don Quixote.
Considering Amazon just gave Gilliam a big content contract, I think you're incorrect. It will likely be finished after.
I would love for Histwar Napoleon to be playable. I despair of it ever being so. SoW has evolved to be pretty groggy for the ACW games. It's clear that Waterloo was pushed out for the anniversary of the battle and development time was focused on making sure it didn't crash when played. I suspect we're going to see a lot of improvements over the coming months and years.
I do hope for a wider selection of battles. I get that Waterloo is the battle most known to lay people, but there any number of Napoleonic battles I'd rather play. Heck, just getting good scenarios for the rest of the battles in the 100 Days would be great.
My biggest frustration at the moment is that even though I'm playing at difficulties above normal, I'm not getting couriers. Now that I have the basics of the game down, I'm over having my troops move instantly when ordered. I'm off to see if I can sort that out...
Quote from: panzerdeIt's clear that Waterloo was pushed out for the anniversary of the battle and development time was focused on making sure it didn't crash when played. I suspect we're going to see a lot of improvements over the coming months and years.
Confirmed:
Quote from: Jim_NSDThe conversion to the new GUI system led to a number of issues. One was the map in the courier screen. We were not able to get it working to our satisfaction in time to make the release for the 200th Anniversary. It will return to the game.
Quote from: panzerde on June 13, 2015, 08:51:22 PM
My biggest frustration at the moment is that even though I'm playing at difficulties above normal, I'm not getting couriers. Now that I have the basics of the game down, I'm over having my troops move instantly when ordered. I'm off to see if I can sort that out...
Notice that too. I'm now playing Veteran. But not much orders delay for me because I tend to put eveyone in TC mode because of the very poor and non-existent divison and corps formation options.
Courier by difficulty setting:
Sesoned = Army
Veteran = Corps+
Historical = Division+
Grognard = Brigade+
To get the best feel is to go Historical or Grognard but I don't want to do HITS. There is no way to mix and match options?
Quote from: jomni on June 13, 2015, 08:57:55 PM
Notice that too. I'm now playing Veteran. But not much orders delay for me because I tend to put eveyone in TC mode because of the very poor and non-existent divison and corps formation options.
Courier by difficulty setting:
Sesoned = Army
Veteran = Corps+
Historical = Division+
Grognard = Brigade+
To get the best feel is to go Historical or Grognard but I don't want to do HITS. There is no way to mix and match options?
Yes. turn on "Custom" level and on that same options screen, in the upper right, you can set what level you want couriers. Just played a game like that and it was quite nice.
I'm tending to TC brigade commanders to get them into the general area I want, then set their stance and take them off TC. I might occasionally need to TC a battalion to plug a hole or something, but generally the AI commanders are doing a good job of putting their troops where they need to be. You just have to given them enough time to do it.
And where's the HITS option? Nevermind, it's the view distance setting.
Quote from: jomni on June 13, 2015, 10:09:13 PM
And where's the HITS option? Nevermind, it's the view distance setting.
You can leave the camera distance view as is so you can survey the entire battlefield if you want...but still play HITS by hitting the "F" key once to lock on your general and follow him around. Hit it again to be able to spin your view and raise it a bit. I do this so that occasionally I can pop up and get a gods eye view for fun.
I get that it's non-groggy because formations are off and maybe uniforms aren't right...but as a command simulation...a simulation of what it's like to command a large force in a battle, can you get more groggy than this game in HITS mode?
Quote from: mikeck on June 13, 2015, 10:29:29 PM
I get that it's non-groggy because formations are off and maybe uniforms aren't right...but as a command simulation...a simulation of what it's like to command a large force in a battle, can you get more groggy than this game in HITS mode?
All Napoleonic games ever made have the uniforms wrong according to someone. I firmly believe that even (especially?) grogs that paint their own Napoleonic minis go sit in front of the mirror with their soldiers spread out and berate themselves for uniforms being incorrect. ;)
Yep, there are a few uniforms off, mostly due to memory limits. I expect we'll see uniform mods once the SDK is out.
You are spot on about this as a command simulation. Even without being in HITS, playing by limiting yourself to giving orders to subordinates rather than micromanaging everything is a very groggy experience.
Quote from: mikeck on June 13, 2015, 10:29:29 PM
Quote from: jomni on June 13, 2015, 10:09:13 PM
And where's the HITS option? Nevermind, it's the view distance setting.
You can leave the camera distance view as is so you can survey the entire battlefield if you want...but still play HITS by hitting the "F" key once to lock on your general and follow him around. Hit it again to be able to spin your view and raise it a bit. I do this so that occasionally I can pop up and get a gods eye view for fun.
I get that it's non-groggy because formations are off and maybe uniforms aren't right...but as a command simulation...a simulation of what it's like to command a large force in a battle, can you get more groggy than this game in HITS mode?
You don't even need to watch the action when playing like this so uniforms are irrelevant.
Quote from: panzerde on June 13, 2015, 10:42:41 PM
Quote from: mikeck on June 13, 2015, 10:29:29 PM
I get that it's non-groggy because formations are off and maybe uniforms aren't right...but as a command simulation...a simulation of what it's like to command a large force in a battle, can you get more groggy than this game in HITS mode?
All Napoleonic games ever made have the uniforms wrong according to someone. I firmly believe that even (especially?) grogs that paint their own Napoleonic minis go sit in front of the mirror with their soldiers spread out and berate themselves for uniforms being incorrect. ;)
LOL. O0
Absolutely loving the Sandbox campaign.
Especially like how the fatigue, morale and ammo carry over.
Ok the sandbox campaign is pretty basic, but there's enough there to give context to battles that really adds the immersion and fun for me.
Picked this up yesterday having never got past the Civil War demos. Got the hang of it enough to manage 2 divisions. It's a bit rough around the edges that I hop patches and maybe later expansions smooth (one of them is sensitivity of formations wheeling in fire fights).
Quote from: fabius on June 14, 2015, 08:56:39 AM
Picked this up yesterday having never got past the Civil War demos. Got the hang of it enough to manage 2 divisions. It's a bit rough around the edges that I hop patches and maybe later expansions smooth (one of them is sensitivity of formations wheeling in fire fights).
This, along with the "my general insists on riding into the middle of the enemy" thing are issues that have been around in the SOW engine from the start. I've kind of learned to work around them over the years, but they really, really do need to be fixed.
I tell ya...after reading the matrix forums I have one of two paths for a conclusion...
SOWW is a broken mess that is a compete misrepresentation of Napoleonic combat...or...Nappy combat fans are whiney bitches that will never be happy unless they can pain their own army's uniforms and roll dice. They will be the demise of their own passions.
I am heavily leaning towards the latter and buying SOWW to spite them.
Quote from: RyanE on June 14, 2015, 09:41:27 AM
I tell ya...after reading the matrix forums I have one of two paths for a conclusion...
SOWW is a broken mess that is a compete misrepresentation of Napoleonic combat...or...Nappy combat fans are whiney bitches that will never be happy unless they can pain their own army's uniforms and roll dice. They will be the demise of their own passions.
I am heavily leaning towards the latter and buying SOWW to spite them.
I've made a conscious decision not to visit those forums. Lots of people seem to get very agitated about the smallest things in games (especially "groggy" games)and you can come away from the forums with the impression that said game is unplayable mess.
I've now had a chance to have a couple of goes at SoW:W and I like it. Once I get used to the new orders system (from habit I keep right-clicking to pan my view) I can see myself really getting into it.
Quote from: Father Ted on June 14, 2015, 09:57:53 AM
Once I get used to the new orders system (from habit I keep right-clicking to pan my view) I can see myself really getting into it.
Not sure if you knew, but you can do the right-click pan view thing by right-clicking over the bottom brown information panel and moving the mouse to pan the view....not as good as being able to do right on the map itself, but works OK when you get used to it.
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on June 14, 2015, 10:19:43 AM
Quote from: Father Ted on June 14, 2015, 09:57:53 AM
Once I get used to the new orders system (from habit I keep right-clicking to pan my view) I can see myself really getting into it.
Not sure if you knew, but you can do the right-click pan view thing by right-clicking over the bottom brown information panel and moving the mouse to pan the view....not as good as being able to do right on the map itself, but works OK when you get used to it.
just in case= Ctrl right click too.
Thanks guys
Quote from: fabius on June 14, 2015, 08:56:39 AM
It's a bit rough around the edges that I hop patches and maybe later expansions smooth (one of them is sensitivity of formations wheeling in fire fights).
I don't think the regular AI "wheeling" is ever going to be adjusted.
Only a small part of the center of an individual line unit is really modelled for LOS, location, etc. A portion of the line directly underneath it's flag. Think of it like a miniatures game where all measurements are made to & from a specific point of a mini's base, in the middle.
The kicker is that the extra troops on the ends of the line are just there for visual appeal. So large brigades with many troops will have this spill-over that is there to keep the 5-to-1 troop to pixel soldier ratio, for retaining scale and look, but the area on the ends where these extras are located don't actually collide with anything. When the center (where the LOS originates) needs to pivot in order to target a new threat, these ghost ends of the line will whip around (and through), following the center at all times.
So when these lines wheel through other units as if they're not present, that is the reason. I'm not saying it's ideal.. just how it's always been AFAIK. I tend to overlook the lines whipping back & forth through others these days, now that I know it's really only a center section of the line that matters and the rest is just to help represent relative troops numbers. Doesn't really bother me anymore.
Quote from: Nefaro on June 15, 2015, 09:34:18 AM
Quote from: fabius on June 14, 2015, 08:56:39 AM
It's a bit rough around the edges that I hop patches and maybe later expansions smooth (one of them is sensitivity of formations wheeling in fire fights).
I don't think the regular AI "wheeling" is ever going to be adjusted.
Only a small part of the center of an individual line unit is really modelled for LOS, location, etc. A portion of the line directly underneath it's flag. Think of it like a miniatures game where all measurements are made to & from a specific point of a mini's base, in the middle.
The kicker is that the extra troops on the ends of the line are just there for visual appeal. So large brigades with many troops will have this spill-over that is there to keep the 5-to-1 troop to pixel soldier ratio, for retaining scale and look, but the area on the ends where these extras are located don't actually collide with anything. When the center (where the LOS originates) needs to pivot in order to target a new threat, these ghost ends of the line will whip around (and through), following the center at all times.
So when these lines wheel through other units as if they're not present, that is the reason. I'm not saying it's ideal.. just how it's always been AFAIK. I tend to overlook the lines whipping back & forth through others these days, now that I know it's really only a center section of the line that matters and the rest is just to help represent relative troops numbers. Doesn't really bother me anymore.
Very interesting- do you think that includes outgoing and incoming fire calculations then. As in it won't make any difference on the volume of outgoing and incoming hits even if lined up correctly but overlapping at the ends?
Quote from: fabius on June 15, 2015, 10:19:35 AM
Quote from: Nefaro on June 15, 2015, 09:34:18 AM
Quote from: fabius on June 14, 2015, 08:56:39 AM
It's a bit rough around the edges that I hop patches and maybe later expansions smooth (one of them is sensitivity of formations wheeling in fire fights).
I don't think the regular AI "wheeling" is ever going to be adjusted.
Only a small part of the center of an individual line unit is really modelled for LOS, location, etc. A portion of the line directly underneath it's flag. Think of it like a miniatures game where all measurements are made to & from a specific point of a mini's base, in the middle.
The kicker is that the extra troops on the ends of the line are just there for visual appeal. So large brigades with many troops will have this spill-over that is there to keep the 5-to-1 troop to pixel soldier ratio, for retaining scale and look, but the area on the ends where these extras are located don't actually collide with anything. When the center (where the LOS originates) needs to pivot in order to target a new threat, these ghost ends of the line will whip around (and through), following the center at all times.
So when these lines wheel through other units as if they're not present, that is the reason. I'm not saying it's ideal.. just how it's always been AFAIK. I tend to overlook the lines whipping back & forth through others these days, now that I know it's really only a center section of the line that matters and the rest is just to help represent relative troops numbers. Doesn't really bother me anymore.
Very interesting- do you think that includes outgoing and incoming fire calculations then. As in it won't make any difference on the volume of outgoing and incoming hits even if lined up correctly but overlapping at the ends?
Only as far as the small section in the center is concerned. It doesn't make a difference if you have wide line and the troops on the end are behind some others.
You can double check those cases when they are overlapping on the ends (at least in SOW:G) by the absence of the fire obscurement penalty icon.
I've definitely had ends of my line behind other LOS-blocking units and had no penalty. So, yes, that can be the case.
Remember...always remember...compared to this man, who despite his representations to the contrary, is both obsessive and compulsive, we are all triflers:
Napoleonic and American Civil War fanatics are the worst for anal retentive attention to detail, which if not meeting their specific expectations ruins everything for them. Jackassery.
Bison: Voice of hard experience? ;)
All I know for sure is Napoleon fucking lost in the end. His army got it's ass kicked and nothing will every change that. Same for Robert E. Lee. /rant off/ :P
Quote from: Bison on June 15, 2015, 12:03:35 PM
All I know for sure is Napoleon fucking lost in the end. His army got it's ass kicked and nothing will every change that. Same for Robert E. Lee. /rant off/ :P
LOL....well put!!
Quote from: Cyrano on June 15, 2015, 11:31:59 AM
Remember...always remember...compared to this man, who despite his representations to the contrary, is both obsessive and compulsive, we are all triflers:
Pshaw! Look at that, he has the uniforms wrong on those dragoons! ;)
Quote from: Nefaro on June 15, 2015, 10:43:14 AM
Only as far as the small section in the center is concerned. It doesn't make a difference if you have wide line and the troops on the end are behind some others.
You can double check those cases when they are overlapping on the ends (at least in SOW:G) by the absence of the fire obscurement penalty icon.
I've definitely had ends of my line behind other LOS-blocking units and had no penalty. So, yes, that can be the case.
Thanks, that's what I figured. I may end up going back to 6 for a while as the whirly ends of formations irked a little in the last battle.
In that video...wonder what the scale is...that will completely freak out the haters on the Matrix boards.
This reminds me a lot of the old ASL fans really getting their hate on for Combat Mission when it came out. They just couldn't believe that ASL wasn't the most realistic game ever. You have guys on the Matrix boards threatening to go back to tabletop miniatures because scale...un-f'ing-believable.
I know this mule is well on it's way to dead, but on that question of scale:
Paddy Griffiths famously wrote that wargaming took a sharp, wrong turn when it made a fetish of little, metal men. All the other bizarre evils of TTG pedantry, in my own mind, flow from the false sense of verisimilitude that the minifigs -- which I love -- can bring. Shako II, Volley and Bayonet, Empire in its iterations, Carnage and Glory, Blucher, &c., all contain abstractions of one sort or another; heck, Shako II keeps its ground scale a bit of a secret and admits that both its artillery and musketry ranges are distorted to make "sense" one with another. All that remains is for the game makers to tell us of their concessions and leave us to make decisions as to whether or not those concessions make a bit of difference.
I long ago accepted the limitations of the Tiller games in the Napoleonic era. I long ago threw N:TW over the side as rubbish. For the nonce, I've placed SOW:W in the former camp and am optimistic that matters will only improve.
CHARGE!!
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
^ Ok, I've been wanting to know the backstory on your avatar for a couple of years now. What's the beef with jeeps? ???
Two years ago at one of the Origins Command Post wargames (see, Brant, I used the NEW name) using Operation: Flashpoint, I was assigned responsibility for a group of both observation and attack helicopters. The intent, as I look back on it, from Dr. S. was to insert a little bit of good old command friction between myself and the main "Fires" commander because my mission -- as somewhat distinct from his -- was to get my platforms back in one piece.
With that in mind, I parked my recce choppers in some trees with my Apaches behind them on the opposite side of a ridge line. When the Soviets finally came in their hundreds, I spotted them no small distance away and the Apaches, naturally enough, started lighting up the approaching columns. Problem was, they were lighting light vehicles -- jeeps for all intents and purposes. Lots of them. So many so that Jim Snyder (Cap'n Darwin hereabouts) the game operator just started laughing every time I re-cycled another one.
Jeep Killer Actual ever since...the logo is a gift from Brant, if memory serves...
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
LOL. Good story.
Someone needs to create a "No Bridges" one for JD. >:D
Well, after having a fairly easy time of it in the first three French scenarios, I'm stopped cold with the fourth one. This is the first Corps sized scenario and I'm having a devil of a time pushing D'Erlon's boys up the far ridge without them getting shot to little tiny pieces. I can capture La Haye Sainte pretty quickly (though it doesn't seem to count for French VPs and won't let me garrison the building), but after that I'm done.
Historically D'Erlon's I Corps pushed through the Allied infantry but were cleaned off the ridge top primarily by a cavalry charge as I understand it No Allied cavalry here, just a whole lot more infantry and guns than I was expecting.
Anyone else give this a try yet?
Heh, very cool Cyrano. Ok, I can die fulfilled now.
To answer my own question (and for anyone else that looks at this in the future) "Give 'em the cold steel!" seems to work wonders at clearing the Dutch militia units out of the way. That let my gain the ridge top and briefly hold the objective, just in time for the Union Brigade cavalry to fulfill it's historic role.
Mental note: remember to form square...
Quote from: panzerde on June 15, 2015, 07:16:24 PM
Well, after having a fairly easy time of it in the first three French scenarios, I'm stopped cold with the fourth one. This is the first Corps sized scenario and I'm having a devil of a time pushing D'Erlon's boys up the far ridge without them getting shot to little tiny pieces. I can capture La Haye Sainte pretty quickly (though it doesn't seem to count for French VPs and won't let me garrison the building), but after that I'm done.
Historically D'Erlon's I Corps pushed through the Allied infantry but were cleaned off the ridge top primarily by a cavalry charge as I understand it No Allied cavalry here, just a whole lot more infantry and guns than I was expecting.
Anyone else give this a try yet?
I think that I just tried that in reverse playing the Allied brigade holding the sunken lane.
Watching so many French troops approach was a sight, and had to rotate units to re-org fatigue, ammo, and sometime morale.
This scenario had 2 great climaxes of the French twice getting into the lane with bayonet charges; and be twice evicting them with counter bayonet charge with my reserve battalion.
Waterloo is proving to be the most immersive I've played in some time.
"Paddy Griffiths famously wrote that wargaming took a sharp, wrong turn when it made a fetish of little, metal men. All the other bizarre evils of TTG pedantry, in my own mind, flow from the false sense of verisimilitude that the minifigs -- which I love -- can bring. Shako II, Volley and Bayonet, Empire in its iterations, Carnage and Glory, Blucher, &c., all contain abstractions of one sort or another; heck, Shako II keeps its ground scale a bit of a secret and admits that both its artillery and musketry ranges are distorted to make "sense" one with another. All that remains is for the game makers to tell us of their concessions and leave us to make decisions as to whether or not those concessions make a bit of difference."
In terms of being historically exact, versus "feel", don't forget the original Squad Leader by John Hill.
There was a huge firestorm that erupted in boardgaming over what a hex represented. The game was so damn playable and gave the right feel for small unti tactics, that people let it go.
I think that loose definitions of distance are endemic in all aspects of gaming. The grognards grumble, but the pragmatic gamers outnumber them.
Beta Patch 1 We are working on updating the readme then should be good to go for beta patch one. We see no risk at all in installing this. I will fix the crashes that people have reported. We've fixed all of them that we know of, so it's a good patch. There is a fix to the grog toolbar mod. I'll post the readme once it's done. We're doing this tonight, just got the last bugs worked out. It's only a crash fix, nothing new.
We are working with Matrix on the game install to fix the issue with the black boxes, as this can be set by the installer, and we're providing them a new starting resolution for those that have this issue. Once we have the bugs worked out we're going to work on getting out the SDK. Right now the team is hitting pakfront's tools hard. We'll get them to you soon.
SOWWL Beta Patch 1 (5.1MB) : http://www.norbsoftdev.net/NSDTeam/Downloads/SOWWLBetaPatch1.exe
QuoteNow the patch should have removed some files from the grog mod. Please check the grog mod folder and see if it worked.
Layout/Media/Language/LanguageEnglish.xml
Layout/Media/SOWWL_Media/ToolbarButtons.xml
There are other files in there now, but the two above should be gone now. It worked in our testing. It was the file that was causing the crash.
Posted by Norb
Concerning the Beta patch 1
When I applied the patch. The files were still there so I manually removed them!
File locations:
Scourge of War Waterloo\Mods\Toolbar Expanded - Grog\Layout\Media\Language\LanguageEnglish.xml
Scourge of War Waterloo\Mods\Toolbar Expanded - Grog\Layout\Media\SOWWL_Media\ToolbarButtons.xml
Quote from: Asid on June 16, 2015, 01:29:58 PM
Concerning the Beta patch 1
When I applied the patch. The files were still there so I manually removed them!
File locations:
\Scourge of War Waterloo\Base\Layout\Media\Language\LanguageEnglish.xml
\Scourge of War Waterloo\Base\Layout\Media\SOWWL_Media\ToolbarButtons.xml
Thanks for posting the patch information, Asid!
Be careful which files you remove - the files to be removed are actually located in the Toolbar folder in the Modifications folder. There are also files with the same name in the main SOWWL folder with the paths above. I believe those files probably need to be there, and are overridden by the ones in the Modifications folder when the toolbar mod is enabled.
To be safe, I would suggest disabling the Toolbar mod before running the beta patch, and then checking the Modifications folder to see if the files were removed. If not (and they weren't for me) remove them only from the Modifications folder and not from the base SOWWL folder.
If all of that sounds daunting and dangerous or confusing, it's probably best to wait for an official patch! :)
Also, I think I've identified an issue with the Grog toolbar and the D'Erlon's Attack scenario. It seems like if you have the toolbar enabled, it isn't possible for the French player to occupy La Hay Sainte or gain VPs from it. Without the toolbar, it is possible. I've reported this on the SOW forums (along with others) and the devs are investigating.
In short, while I love the Grog Toolbar, it seems to me like there are some issues with it right now.
FYI. They couldn't do the rockets because of the memory limitations again. For a game using 2d sprites, you would think it would run smoother than 3d games.
They really need to work on a new engine.
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3881512
Hi panzerde
I accidently posted the wrong first section of the links.
My files were still there also. They did not delete.
Thank you
Quote from: Asid on June 16, 2015, 05:39:02 PM
Hi panzerde
I accidently posted the wrong first section of the links.
My files were still there also. They did not delete.
Thank you
Hey Asid - I didn't mean to direct those cautions at you, but rather in general to anyone else that might be looking at the beta patch. I know you are well-versed in handling things like this! Poor wording on my part!
Thanks again for pointing out the patch availability.
Quote from: panzerde on June 16, 2015, 06:17:36 PM
Hey Asid - I didn't mean to direct those cautions at you, but rather in general to anyone else that might be looking at the beta patch. I know you are well-versed in handling things like this! Poor wording on my part!
Thanks again for pointing out the patch availability.
Hi panzerde
It's fine :)
Regards
Re: rockets, it should be clear that they're thete, but abstracted graphically.
Besides, as the forum posts notes, they were largely a curiosity that Nosey distrusted greatly and, despite the number fired, did not have a dramatic effect on the battle.
Quote from: Cyrano on June 16, 2015, 09:25:33 PM
Re: rockets, it should be clear that they're thete, but abstracted graphically.
Besides, as the forum posts notes, they were largely a curiosity that Nosey distrusted greatly and, despite the number fired, did not have a dramatic effect on the battle.
"Only good for frightening horses!"
The degree to which I suck at corps command in this game can not be understated...
Perhaps you should try some scenarios as the Prince of Orange.
And in the future, some of the Russian or Austrian corps commanders.
The French had the most experience, so starting off comparing yourself to them is unfair.
I'm reading more about the courier system in Gettysburg (didn't play it a lot) and realized that the new right click context menu where you can chain commands in Waterloo is a graphical interface of the said courier system. Though commands are limited and only show the essential ones. How cool is that?
If you open the "courier bag" of the sub unit, all your previous commands are there written in text form.
I think one of the problems with some of the anal Nappy miniatures players is they look at this as just minis on the computer. Some of the innovative features of SOW, like courier system, are not only lost on them, but completely misunderstood.
Quote from: RyanE on June 17, 2015, 05:28:07 AM
I think one of the problems with some of the anal Nappy miniatures players is they look at this as just minis on the computer. Some of the innovative features of SOW, like courier system, are not only lost on them, but completely misunderstood.
Then they should not be complaining that the game is not 1:1 because minis are 100:1.
Maybe one day some CO OP or PVP with some of our GH friends from here?
Also for SOW Gettysburg.
I think it would be great fun :)
Regards
Quote from: jomni on June 17, 2015, 01:15:14 AM
I'm reading more about the courier system in Gettysburg (didn't play it a lot) and realized that the new right click context menu where you can chain commands in Waterloo is a graphical interface of the said courier system. Though commands are limited and only show the essential ones. How cool is that?
If you open the "courier bag" of the sub unit, all your previous commands are there written in text form.
That is pretty cool! I hadn't looked at that yet.
Quote from: besilarius on June 16, 2015, 09:54:11 PM
Perhaps you should try some scenarios as the Prince of Orange.
And in the future, some of the Russian or Austrian corps commanders.
The French had the most experience, so starting off comparing yourself to them is unfair.
Actually, the issue is more a lack of familiarity with the UI and what I can do with it. I just figured out last night, for example (after I was done playing) that you can put a battalion or brigade in "Attack March" and they will not deploy into line when they get close to the enemy. So, you can simply issue an attack march order and have them double time until they hit an enemy and they'll melee. I've been trying to maneuver units close to a target and then hitting the charge button. That amount of micromanagement works up to division-sized engagements but is untenable (for me) at corps and above.
Also, I'm trying to win an assault that D'Erlon himself couldn't pull off...
I do think the "command simulation" part of the game fails a bit in the larger battles. As a Corps commander I shouldn't have to tell a battalion to do any of the above; that's what my brigadiers are for. It's absolutely vital to do so, though. The AI on it's own won't make that charge.
I'm kinda liking the courier mode better than that right click thingy and the buttons at the bottom of the screen.
The courier mode is quite detailed and flexible because of all the chaining options that you can do.
But it is sometimes quicker to just do things using the right click menu and it can point at precise locations (more useful for commanding battalions).
Too bad the courier option is not yet as refined as SOW Gettysburg but in due time it will be improved and maybe modded.
The problem with the interface is that each mode of commanding (bottom buttons (default and grog mode), right click context menu, and courier mode) all have different capabilities and I end up using all those modes (except grog) to do some stuff because the other mode can't do it. Now if all modes are equally capable, then I will just stick to one mode of play. :idiot2:
Quote from: Asid on June 17, 2015, 07:03:41 AM
Maybe one day some CO OP or PVP with some of our GH friends from here?
Also for SOW Gettysburg.
I think it would be great fun :)
Regards
I plan on it. Eventually.
Haven't done much PC gaming in these past few months and I'm still not in much of a mood for some reason. Longest hiatus evah. :-\
Quote from: RyanE on June 17, 2015, 05:28:07 AM
I think one of the problems with some of the anal Nappy miniatures players is they look at this as just minis on the computer. Some of the innovative features of SOW, like courier system, are not only lost on them, but completely misunderstood.
Not all of the "anal Nappy" players fall into that category I assure you...:)
Quote from: Nefaro on June 17, 2015, 10:02:19 AM
I plan on it. Eventually.
Great O0
Quote from: Nefaro on June 17, 2015, 10:02:19 AM
Haven't done much PC gaming in these past few months and I'm still not in much of a mood for some reason. Longest hiatus evah. :-\
Still???? That has been a while :'( ...Step back into the light :)
Updated Grog Toolbar ModFrom Norb:QuoteReb will post a thread with the mod here. It's not a good idea to have it as part of the game. It's his baby and supporting it from the boards will allow him the freedom and accessibility to develop to the community. But since it was shipped with the game, I'm just trying to make sure it doesn't crash the game when enabled.
I am attaching the latest version. So you can just delete the mod and replace it with this and it should work for everyone. Later Reb will start a thread where he can release updates.
Download: http://www.norbsoftdev.net/media/kunena/attachments/63/ToolbarExpanded-Grog.zip
Mod location: \Scourge of War Waterloo\Mods
From Jim of Norbsoft
QuoteOur priority has always been to make the best simulation possible of the experience of commanding troops in combat. This is distinct from making a simulation of the battle. At the end of the day if you have a real appreciation for what it was like to sit in that commanders saddle and have to make those decisions in real time then we have succeeded. As long as the troops react in a way that allows you fight the battle correctly we do not worry about drill book perfection. It is that command experience that we are after.
Seems fair. The simulation of command is great. You appreciate this once you stop playing it like a RTS, or tabletop game. I really think writing those courier messages is the way to go when commanding Divison and larger formations. Just give orders to the generals below you and let them do the fighting. Must not be tempted to micromanage each individual 3d unit like it's Total War or a minis game. Historically accurate visuals and formations become secondary.
James Allen ("Out of Eight") is in no way amused:
His conclusions re: sandbox and the campaign aren't relevant to my experience of playing the game, but his bill of grievance against the subordinate A.I. sounds to comport with the experience of many hereabout.
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
Boggit's back, and drops a nicely-screenshotted AAR (http://grogheads.com/?p=8376) for your anniversary enjoyment.
Bawb, try not to have any flashbacks.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgrogheads.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F06%2FWaterloo-SPLASH.jpg&hash=4572ac543e0fc73698e7b9f75ee4808cabe97beb)
Quote from: Cyrano on June 18, 2015, 09:03:15 AM
James Allen ("Out of Eight") is in no way amused:
His conclusions re: sandbox and the campaign aren't relevant to my experience of playing the game, but his bill of grievance against the subordinate A.I. sounds to comport with the experience of many hereabout.
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
Stupid AI tricks are frustrating me as well. Like the video, I am seeing the AI really mess up my battle-plans. Getting frustrating. Considering shelving the game until it's fixed.
Ok, it's not just me, then. I'm all in favor of the idea of the AI commanders having their own personalities, and love that in SOWGB, but this seems a lot less controllable. I frequently can't get a brigade to do anything close to what I'm ordering, even if I've TC'd the brigade CO.
Then there's the issue where you frequently simply can not put French troops in La Haie Sainte after you drive off the Allies. You can't get VPs for it then, which are absolutely crucial in the D'Erlon scenario. Sometimes it works, but 2/3 of the time, it doesn't.
I just played a divisional scenario where despite having a brigade on "Hold at all costs" the commander insisted on aggressively attacking the enemy in front of him, getting his brigade wildly out of position. We're talking Peach Orchard levels of out of position. Meanwhile, the other brigade simply refused - even with the brigade CO TC'd - to break off combat with Hougoumont despite repeated "Retreat your Unit" orders.
I'm confident that NorbDevSoft and Matrix will clean this up, but like "To End All Wars" this was pushed to hit the anniversary date and the warts are showing a bit. I do like the game, but the longer I play the more I'm convinced that it requires a lot of micromanagement at the battalion level in its current state. Watching the Matrix guy play today during the Twitch stream I see him doing exactly that.
Napoleonic combat is not sufficiently different from ACW combat that the skills I learned playing SOWGB for years should be as lacking as they seem to be when playing SOWWL. Something needs some tuning.
Quote from: ArizonaTank on June 18, 2015, 08:06:40 PM
Quote from: Cyrano on June 18, 2015, 09:03:15 AM
James Allen ("Out of Eight") is in no way amused:
His conclusions re: sandbox and the campaign aren't relevant to my experience of playing the game, but his bill of grievance against the subordinate A.I. sounds to comport with the experience of many hereabout.
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
Stupid AI tricks are frustrating me as well. Like the video, I am seeing the AI really mess up my battle-plans. Getting frustrating. Considering shelving the game until it's fixed.
Isn't that a depiction of real life?
Quote from: panzerde on June 18, 2015, 08:48:58 PM
Ok, it's not just me, then. I'm all in favor of the idea of the AI commanders having their own personalities, and love that in SOWGB, but this seems a lot less controllable. I frequently can't get a brigade to do anything close to what I'm ordering, even if I've TC'd the brigade CO.
Then there's the issue where you frequently simply can not put French troops in La Haie Sainte after you drive off the Allies. You can't get VPs for it then, which are absolutely crucial in the D'Erlon scenario. Sometimes it works, but 2/3 of the time, it doesn't.
I just played a divisional scenario where despite having a brigade on "Hold at all costs" the commander insisted on aggressively attacking the enemy in front of him, getting his brigade wildly out of position. We're talking Peach Orchard levels of out of position. Meanwhile, the other brigade simply refused - even with the brigade CO TC'd - to break off combat with Hougoumont despite repeated "Retreat your Unit" orders.
I'm confident that NorbDevSoft and Matrix will clean this up, but like "To End All Wars" this was pushed to hit the anniversary date and the warts are showing a bit. I do like the game, but the longer I play the more I'm convinced that it requires a lot of micromanagement at the battalion level in its current state. Watching the Matrix guy play today during the Twitch stream I see him doing exactly that.
Napoleonic combat is not sufficiently different from ACW combat that the skills I learned playing SOWGB for years should be as lacking as they seem to be when playing SOWWL. Something needs some tuning.
Is there anything to clean up? Isn't that the whole point of the game system. You depend on the subordinates and they don't always do what you ask. SOW wants to put you in a somewhat real-life position of the commanders on the ground. You have to plan around the people under you. Its not miniatures where all men are at your beck and call.
Agree. But players expect their guys to do proper drills learned from military school. Sometimes the drills performed by the pixel troops are funny . Like the circle that they form when orders to retreat and the snake like pivoting.
I saw this over at The Wargamer's Club for Gentlemen. It's a free 3-pdf bundle of Wargames Magazine featuring the battles of the 100 days (or something like that). You have to register to download them, which held me up; I'm not in the mood for that right now. Still, can't beat the price.
http://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/shop/waterloo-bundle.html
Quote from: RyanE on June 19, 2015, 05:28:52 AM
Is there anything to clean up? Isn't that the whole point of the game system. You depend on the subordinates and they don't always do what you ask. SOW wants to put you in a somewhat real-life position of the commanders on the ground. You have to plan around the people under you. Its not miniatures where all men are at your beck and call.
If that is the intent, then it is poorly and frustratingly implemented. Of course commanders delaying execution of their orders, or being slow in carrying them out were typical problems on the 19th century battlefields. It did happen that commanders would completely blow their orders off, but was kind of a rare event. Maybe once in a campaign. Dan Sickles at Gettysburg comes to mind. But in SOWWL it seems to happen quite frequently just in one battle.
Also, if local initiative is what they are trying to portray, the implementation is frustrating because it puts the player in a "fight" for control...that just in no way feels historical. ie. having to keep issuing the same orders over and over. To me, it feels more like Dr. Strangelove fighting with his hand, than a command simulation.
No, IMHO, this needs to be fixed or at least tweaked...otherwise I fear SOWWL will not be remembered for long.
This "feature not a bug" debate re: TacAI is not a new one here. I remember it most fondly (not) in re: CMx1 where, as every schoolboy knows, you can't alter orders for a whole minute and folks went half mad complaining about units disengaging, firing erratically, &c.
I've played a lot of SoW:G, but usually in KS's with the couriers on. There, as a division commander, I'll admit I did an awful lot of micro-managing, but felt the pace of the game was sufficiently languid that I really never felt rushed. Is it the general perception that this is worse in SoW:W?
As things stand, I think Norbsoft has shown itself to be strong in support of its projects and will work to tweak as matters go forward. In an area like this, it strikes me as a painfully fine balance between just enough and too much...
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
My reference is ACW...any number of battles featured commanders doing exactly the opposite of their orders. Gettysburg had a number of commanders that attacked when ordered specifically to not expose themselves.
My understanding was it happened in the Nap battles as well, especially with cavalry commanders seeking glory.
Quote from: Cyrano on June 19, 2015, 08:53:47 AM
This "feature not a bug" debate re: TacAI is not a new one here. I remember it most fondly (not) in re: CMx1 where, as every schoolboy knows, you can't alter orders for a whole minute and folks went half mad complaining about units disengaging, firing erratically, &c.
I've played a lot of SoW:G, but usually in KS's with the couriers on. There, as a division commander, I'll admit I did an awful lot of micro-managing, but felt the pace of the game was sufficiently languid that I really never felt rushed. Is it the general perception that this is worse in SoW:W?
As things stand, I think Norbsoft has shown itself to be strong in support of its projects and will work to tweak as matters go forward. In an area like this, it strikes me as a painfully fine balance between just enough and too much...
Having played vanilla SOWGB and the expansions for years, my sense is that the commander AI in SOWWL is considerably more "independent." A lot of my play in SOWGB was HITS with the "house rule" to not TC anything but artillery. I play this series almost entirely for the experience of 19th century command, so I'm looking for exactly the sort of thing the the SOW series is known for. I have no objection to, and in fact quite like the idea that not all your subordinates will respond exactly the same and are not simply robotically executing orders.
SOWWL in my experience so far seems to take that to an extreme, well beyond what SOWGB does. I've played D'Erlon's attack at least a dozen times now, a situation that is very akin tactically to Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg in general outline. If one attempts to command only division commanders, the result in SOWWL is often the equivalent of Pickett deciding to go park in the Peach Orchard, Pettigrew moving to within 100 yards of the clump of trees and engaging in a firefight with the Union artillery, and Trimble moving to occupy Gettysburg.
Put another way: in SOWGB subordinates generally implement your tactical plan with their own interpretation and responses to local conditions. In SOWWL, at least at the Corps level, subordinates often seem to completely ignore your tactical plan and come up with their own - that's the part that isn't realistically reflective of how military organizations of this period work.
And yes, there are things that need fixing. NSD has acknowledged that and are working on the first patch. I and others are providing game saves for them of issues that they are having trouble replicating. There is a lot of discussion about the forums about modding the AI and formations. There is no doubt in my mind that NSD is and will continue to work to get SOWWL to the same point that SOWGB is - is just isn't there yet.
Quote from: RyanE on June 19, 2015, 05:28:52 AM
Is there anything to clean up? Isn't that the whole point of the game system. You depend on the subordinates and they don't always do what you ask. SOW wants to put you in a somewhat real-life position of the commanders on the ground. You have to plan around the people under you. Its not miniatures where all men are at your beck and call.
I think thats a great concept, but does it work? I don't know if the issues on Matrix's site are being exaggerated or if their frequency is being exaggerated, but for the subordinate AI to be a true factor in the game, the instances of AI failure rather than AI subordinate iitiative has to be very low otherwise the immersion factor breaks.
For those that have the game, are the instances of the AI failing low enough that when the AI demonstrates subordinate command incompetence or subordinate command initiative, that it feels like part of the game? I love the way this happens in Command Ops, because it manages to execute orders well enough that when it fails it doesn't break the immersion factor.
For example, The British cavalry swept through D'Erlon's corps crushing the French attack and winning a significant victory. Instead of wheeling back to the ridge they continued charging to the French lines and were eventually slaughtered. During the period, the loss of a force's entire cavalry was a critical factor; and in 10 minutes Uxbridge almost cost the entire battle. There are instances of this type of mistake or subordinates not following orders and winning critical victories, across the period. It would be superb if this type of event happened, but if the AI is continually unable to execute a formation change, or marches across the battlefield in line, then it's less the friction of subordinates and more that the game would need more work.
Its really hard to tell from the Matrix site as there are people saying its perfect and people saying its rubbish.
But do the AI controlled units do the same thing? Do they blunder ahead in a charge when it was obvious they were to defend? Is this disobedience a two-way street or does it just hamper the player?
My experience is its a little random+some personality trait of the commander.
Quote from: RyanE on June 19, 2015, 03:54:25 PM
My experience is its a little random+some personality trait of the commander.
Based on commander's ratings / personality traits. So ideally, you should assign tasks based on their traits for best results.
Here's some advice on using the TC commands that I found really helpful. Playing this way has significantly reduced my frustration with command and made it much easier for me to direct me units. It turns out that the issue is not just putting a unit in TC, but when to put a unit in TC.
Using this in a recent Division sized scenario I found that by TC'ing the brigade commanders at the right time, and turning off TC at the right time, I was able to put them where I wanted and then let them take over local tactical decision-making. I didn't have to engage in a flurry of micromanagement of battalions. About the only time I did TC battalions was when I wanted to pull them out of an engagement they wouldn't leave and get them to rejoin the remainder of the brigade.
Doing it this way, rather than getting badly shot up I was able to keep casualties roughly even, maneuver in a manner that was reasonably Napoleonic in nature, and take my designated objective in time to score sufficient VPs to win the game. I probably need to go back and approach some SOWGB scenarios this way...
Scourge of War Waterloo/SDK Pre ReleaseFrom Norb:QuoteOK, this is just to help out until we can get a full installer with our tools. Many have asked for the files, so here they are. As well as the MyGUI tools that we built and the translated documentation. In the end we did a mix of using the tools and editing the xml directly. The skin editor was the toughest, as it messed up the files a lot, but the other tools were helpful. This is really a great product, as it worked very well once we understood what was going on.
There's not a lot of support for this. Jim is working on the docs, so it's use at your own risk. You should grab the SDK folder in the zip file and put that in your game directory. I think then the tools will work. They need access to their folders of resources.
SDK Pre Release: http://www.norbsoftdev.net/NSDTeam/Downloads/SOWWL-SDK-Pre-Release.zip
Original post: http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/waterloo-modifications/68669-sdk-pre-release
Recently played Army vs Army sandbox and to my horror, there are three Wellingtons (overall commander, army commander, corps commander). I guess he historically did those roles but playing this way is kinda strange... giving orders to my Army commander clone to manage my army for me.
Wellington was an unusual commander. Keegan describes his development and battle management in Mask of Command. Basically he went to the endangered area and gave closer direction to his subordinates than other army commanders. Napoleon relied on his corps leaders to handle their command. Wellington could be viewed as a micro manager with some measure of judicious appreciation.
He was at the top of his game at Waterloo, while Napoleon was not.
Quote from: besilarius on June 22, 2015, 06:36:15 AM
Wellington was an unusual commander. Keegan describes his development and battle management in Mask of Command. Basically he went to the endangered area and gave closer direction to his subordinates than other army commanders. Napoleon relied on his corps leaders to handle their command. Wellington could be viewed as a micro manager with some measure of judicious appreciation.
He was at the top of his game at Waterloo, while Napoleon was not.
The devs replied. They say it is a limitation in the system. If I want to play historical, then I can ignore the Wellington Army and Corps commander clone and "take command" of all the Allied corps and Wellington's own divisions. On the other hand, I can imagine some other general acting as Army and Corps commander if I don't want to micromanage like the real Wellington.
Looks like some ingenious soul has figured out a way to get 1:1 sprite to troop ratio working:
http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/waterloo-modifications/68724-11-sprite-ratio-revealedsandbox-friant-vs-cooke-sr1#68724 (http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/waterloo-modifications/68724-11-sprite-ratio-revealedsandbox-friant-vs-cooke-sr1#68724)
So what do you experienced SoW-ers think? Is Waterloo worth getting now, or do you advise waiting for a few patches before purchasing? I'm still on the fence.
Quote from: sandman2575 on June 24, 2015, 07:09:30 PM
Looks like some ingenious soul has figured out a way to get 1:1 sprite to troop ratio working:
http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/waterloo-modifications/68724-11-sprite-ratio-revealedsandbox-friant-vs-cooke-sr1#68724 (http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/waterloo-modifications/68724-11-sprite-ratio-revealedsandbox-friant-vs-cooke-sr1#68724)
So what do you experienced SoW-ers think? Is Waterloo worth getting now, or do you advise waiting for a few patches before purchasing? I'm still on the fence.
That's actually been done by RebBuglar, part of the dev team (and the guy that did all of the bugle calls in-game). And, while you can play it, he did it as much to illustrate why you
don't want a 1:1 SR in this game as anything else. It does give a better picture of the size of units, but is no doubt a bear to actually command.
Waterloo is definitely worth getting if you are interested in the era. Continued development and modding will polish the rough edges off of the game. It is not the ACW in Napoleonic skins, but rather an actual Napoleonic game. As such, there are things that don't work the same way as they work in SOWGB, and that's as it should be. I think there are easily as many hours of entertainment in SOWWL as I've derived from SOWGB over the years.
Waterloo is not my favorite battle. I'm very much looking forward to expansions that cover some other battles of the period, which I honestly think will be more interesting.
Thanks, panzerde. 1:1 sounds great in theory but I see the shorcomings. What might be ideal (in my mind) would be something like a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio but without the 200-sprite cap. I really dislike that cap more than anything else.
I'm tempted ... maybe this weekend. Really the only thing holding me back is the steep learning curve and knowledge that it's hard for me to find time these days to master a game of this complexity.
Nice (french) review : http://www.wargamer.fr/test-de-scourge-of-war-waterloo/
One minor annoyance : the names of cities and towns. They seem to be a combination of english, french and dutch names with no real logic behind it.
Our capital city Brussel (or Bruxelles) is in english (Brussels), some flemisch (dutch language) towns have their french name (Mechelen=Malines, Aalst=Alost, Leuven=Louvain, Dendermonde=Termonde).
But also some flemisch towns have english names (Gent=Ghent, Antwerpen=Antwerp).
Really nothing to serious but it is rather distracting when you live in the area. Other people probably want even notice it.
We do make it hard on foreigners to find their way around. I once had to explain to someone on the train he was about 50 km from his intented destination.
He left Brussels for Tienen and ended up in Dendermonde (the directions in Brussels he reveived were in french and then you get : Tienen=Tirlemont and Dendermonde=Termonde).
The first official patch for Scourge of War: Waterloo is now available.
This patch fixes a number of crashes as reported by the community.
The patch can be downloaded using the automatic updater tool or by going here:
ftp://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/ScourgeOfWarWaterloo/ScourgeOfWar-UpdateComp-v10006.zip
V1.0006
Bug Fix Patch Release
Fixed runtime crash.
Fixed crash on replay
Fixed crash on loading high scores screen and on opening modifications screen.
In Tsarist Russia, we Waterloo you!
KS mod bring Russian troops to Waterloo.
http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/waterloo-modifications/68731-russians-at-waterloo
KS MOD!!!
Whiskey? Check.
Sandwiches? Check.
Proximate WC? Check,
Gentlemen, I will be in my biodome...
Quote from: jomni on July 12, 2015, 10:28:38 PM
In Tsarist Russia, we Waterloo you!
KS mod bring Russian troops to Waterloo.
http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/waterloo-modifications/68731-russians-at-waterloo
Nice! One of my favourite Napoleonic armies. O0
The long awaited full WL SDK. Released.
In addition to what we included in the beta release is a very full manual. The work that went into this thing is pretty crazy. We are all very lucky to have Jim on this team as he is very thorough and you can see the manual to understand. But it's all there.
Tim wrote a scenario editor and has put a ton of hours into it. He is going to work with you guys on these forums to get it to a place where it gets everyone writing scenarios. Only our team has seen it so far and we have tunnel vision by now. It's pretty cool and has a ton of helpful features that should make the process much more fluid.
All of the MYGUI tools and resources as well as the source for the AI DLLs (including the campaign), all of our csv data and scenario files. It's all here.
Download SDK here (17.1MB): http://www.norbsoftware.com/Downloads/SOWWL/SowWLSdk.exe
A couple of things that we had to put off for now so that we can move on with the patch.
1. map editor is not ready for prime time yet, we have a lot of requests and we want you guys making maps, it's just that we need to clean it up some more as anyone that has used our map editors knows that they are very rough and take a lot of time to master.
2. we expect that once Tim is ready, we'll release the source for the scenario editor as well
Scenario editing forum section:
http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/scenario-editor
Scourge of War Waterloo will be coming to Steam next week on the 19th of Nov. Almost purchased this but have always put it off for w/e reasons. Looks like I might have to pull the trigger, hopefully this adds more players to the fanbase as ive heard multiplayer is great fun.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/369390
Lost complete sight of this game after release even though I own it.....has any updates ever been released for it or is any planned with the Steam release? Any news of any kind of expansions? This one kind of went quiet pretty quickly for some reason.
I felt that it died based on Matrix forum. But I'm sure the SOW forum is quite active right?
Quote from: jomni on November 11, 2015, 08:58:23 PM
I felt that it died based on Matrix forum. But I'm sure the SOW forum is quite active right?
That's the problem with Matrix games, so many different forums to look for information:) You have Slitherine forums, you have matrix forums, and then in some cases you have specific developer sites like Norbsoft...too many places, with too little time:)
I did take a quick peak and looks like patch soon....breakout of what kind of stuff included....
50% Ai improvements
20% reported bug fixes
10% gameplay changes
10% performance improvements
10% UI edits
and something else big which will not be in the patch but will follow on shortly afterwards.
The sandbox mode needs some serious work, it's by far the most unique feature added but it's totally unfinished. I had to stop my sandbox campaign because every time I generated a battle it was the same map with the same start positions.
Once it gets some love, sow wl will be a great game. I've shelved it in the mean time.
Patch up, some of which will dramatically improve sandbox battles, I think me, but the sandbox meta seems here to be little addressed. Still, good work on the core game -- which was terrific out of the box, may I note, if occasionally wonky:
V1.0043
• Patch Notes
• Fixed a bug with building "best" detail level on MP map Options settings.
• Fixed a tooltip text error on the Status item in popup.
• Fixed language errors in WL03 text.
• Fixed the La Haye Sainte occupy bug reported for WL04.
• Added missing units in the scenario introduction text for WL01
• Fixed the bug where Probe button was in an incorrect location on the toolbar.
• Added missing unit status tags in languages other than English.
• Fixed a bug where the end of scenario time for MP02 was missing.
• Fixed a bug in cavalry column reserves formation.
• Fixed the bug with some missing cavalry division ammo wagons.
• Fixed errors in about-face flags for some LVL6 infantry and cavalry formations.
• Fixed the bug that caused the "Compose Courier Message" screen to close if a courier message is received.
• Added two corps level formations per army. Corps movement is now possible through the in-game context menu or via the movement map. The error messages in SOWWL.log are of no significance.
• Added an "Additional Details" option to the OOB screen in main game. This is also used to see the unit summary at the end of battle.
• Changed the "Compose Courier Message" screen so that full names can be seen.
• Changed tooltips to dynamically re-size courier window.
• Added a courier message "Send" button to the OOB window.
• Added the full manual in Italian.
• Corrected uniform usage issues with Dutch commanders.
• Implemented a new Line-of-Sight battle starting formation.
• Increased the starting distance for LOS Sandbox battles and road battles in the Sandbox campaign.
• Restricted the advance of scripted French officers in initial stages of WL06 so they don't approach too close to enemy lines.
• Changed the scripted formation for skirmishers at beginning of certain Waterloo scenarios.
• Amended some cavalry parameters to reduce unrealistic results in cavalry vs. cavalry melees.
• Updated the Windmill model.
• Fixed the spelling of a number of officer, unit and map names.
• Reduced the stance auto-activation distance to 150 yards from the enemy for all troop types. The player has maximum control at this setting. The player must decide if and when to activate the AI full control without using TC by choosing a stance which provides for greater control over cavalry and artillery.
• Improved cavalry movement, edited attack distances and damage calculations.
• Improved infantry combat maneuvers, square formation\leaving square and unit overlap when near the enemy.
• Improved square vs. cavalry dynamics: squares can be formed at smaller distances, but now cavalry can try to break them if they are still in formation phase (when there is at least one sprite in movement) and at short range.
• Improved skirmisher behavior and reduced the maximum number per brigade.
• Some improvements to the combined arms unit strength calculations in the campaign AI and also retreat/regroup time.
• "Hold to the Last" stance now forces fewer autonomous movements by the AI for infantry and cavalry.
• Changed artillery wagon AI to auto supply batteries at divisional level.
• Updated the "Full French" mod to include corps fixes.
• Added a fix for the British/Prussian artillery wagon sprite clash.
I see it's on Steam now for $44.99...I wonder if it includes this patch?
I can't say for certain until I transfer my install this evening, but I've never known Steam to announce the release of a patch that it wasn't including in current product.
Today the "Quatre Bras" expansion is out for "Scourge of War: Waterloo"
http://store.steampowered.com/app/369390/
From matrix site (where you can also buy it):
Extensively researched Order of Battle
Historical 5 mile x 5 mile battlefield map
Five scenarios covering critical actions during the battle.
Exclusive new loading screen art from Mitchell Nolte: "The 79th Highlanders"
AI, Gameplay and UI Additions
Added new slider Toolbar for player feedback (mod menu)
Added the 'targeting' logic for cavalry squadrons (see slider toolbar)
Improved Hannover flags added.
Removed the ability for cavalry to capture and bring enemy guns into action.
Removed auto-run reaction of troops under fire.
Increased melee penalty for skirmishers.
Skirmishers now fall back at shorter distance from nearest enemy if supported.
Improved control of TC units when near the enemy and under fire.
Improved Cavalry and Infantry Square logic and dynamics.
Improved brigade command AI.
Reactivated cavalry orders in courier menu.
Added new battle statistics screen on 'end of battle' screen.
Improved AI stances when stationary and when at long range from the enemy.
Historical variant adjustments for WL10 and WL20
Modding improvements
Enabled modder access to skills level and defensive ground bonus with three new AI functions: DBonusVal(), GetLevel() and GetPoints().
Added two new variables: #unitAItype, #onlyoffAItype.
Fixed dump of 'dumpoobscen' command.
Fixed problem with additional column for French unit names in the scenario files created using 'dumpscen' or 'dumpoobscen'.
Corrected ORDTACDivPlay AI function.
Corrected 'friendcloseyds()' AI function.
Corrected GetOrders() AI function - brigade AI is now more under player control when using stances, stationary and far from the enemy.
Hmmmmm. From the looks of it and the fact that I necro'd the hell out of this thread...I guess I am the only one still playing this! I know the hard-core Napoleonic grogs on the forum dislike some of the formations, movements, etc., but I don't know the difference so it's fine for me. Still love Scourge of war games and if I am in the mood to play battlefield general, there is no substitute
Campaign mode was a failed experiment. Still no fixes for that?
I guess to be fair....didn't really seem like this new content was hyped that much, very little chatter at both the official and matrix forums, and this seemed to come right out of the blue as being released. Doesn't seem like the developers/matrix really put much effort to promote this series, likely leading to minimal interest. I have the core game and likely will pick this up at some point, but not in a hurry.
Ill be picking it up, it will make for a good backround video for my napoleon series
Quote from: jomni on June 16, 2016, 05:33:47 PM
Campaign mode was a failed experiment. Still no fixes for that?
If your talking about the sandbox campaign, I can't advise on that. I play the Waterloo and Quatre Bras scenarios or a sandbox game but not the sandbox campaign.
Quote from: mikeck on June 16, 2016, 08:36:37 PM
Quote from: jomni on June 16, 2016, 05:33:47 PM
Campaign mode was a failed experiment. Still no fixes for that?
If your talking about the sandbox campaign, I can't advise on that. I play the Waterloo and Quatre Bras scenarios or a sandbox game but not the sandbox campaign.
Yup that one. I have Waterloo and was really let down.
I'm really surprised the sandbox campaign isn't getting more treatment, it was best new feature added to the series, you'd think they would put some time into that.
As usual, i have the game but didn't find time yet to play it. :-\
Apart from campaigns, what's the state of the game playing individual scenarios?
Quote from: Anguille on June 17, 2016, 02:05:58 AM
As usual, i have the game but didn't find time yet to play it. :-\
That's been my hold back in buying it.
Gotta wait for the right time. Hell, I still have plenty of the original SOW yet to be played. Swamped!
I'm thinking of picking this up...what's the dealio with the sandbox campaign?
Question.....is there a way within Waterloo to UNLOCK the single player battles without having to play them in order outside of the campaign? I looked in a few forums, couldn't find anything.....as I have mentioned in the past, I simply HATE unlocks in games, let me play whatever I want and when I want if I purchased your game!
I believe for Gettysburg, at one point someone released modded versions to make this happen, just could find if done for Waterloo.
Reaper. I think I played a battle and walked off... lost it when I came back to my chair. Was able to move to the next one.... I could be wrong.
maybe they aren't locked after all....I was always trying to play a battle that was labeled as carry over, which I didn't see that text.....so that one is linked to the prior, but seems all others are playable from the start.
When I say lost it, I mean I lost the battle. Which may have counted as finishing it at least once.
I do remember though a message when I tried to go higher saying play the other lower ones first.
I have never noticed the "carry over" text either. But really I find the whole game a real arm wrestle atm so it has only been loaded maybe 10 times and I have only finished a few low end scenarios.
Quote from: Destraex on January 07, 2017, 09:39:16 AM
When I say lost it, I mean I lost the battle. Which may have counted as finishing it at least once.
I do remember though a message when I tried to go higher saying play the other lower ones first.
I have never noticed the "carry over" text either. But really I find the whole game a real arm wrestle atm so it has only been loaded maybe 10 times and I have only finished a few low end scenarios.
yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with the series...absolutely covers battles that I am interested in and love the concept, but when I try playing it, at times just get lost in it. To be fair I likely haven't put enough time into it to ensure I understand everything....some day I will.
No scenario locks...just checked (embarrassed that I had to).
It's a brilliant game on it's own, but, for those that have a desire to try it, the KS mod played HITS is unique and awesome.
If your Waterloo is Steam only and you buy the DLC on Matrix or Slitherine, do they give you a Steam key?
Quote from: Tuna on January 07, 2017, 11:56:39 AM
If your Waterloo is Steam only and you buy the DLC on Matrix or Slitherine, do they give you a Steam key?
You get steam key as well. But you need to register the game at matrix/slitherine and then after you can redeem to get steam key that works.
ahh ok.. I got a key, but it was a regular serial that Steam did not like. I went to my members section and didn't see it, so opened a helpdesk ticket. I will try registering the game and see if that resolves it..Thanks!
You have to go to member section on slitherine site I believe...don't think it can be done on matrix, might be why you didn't see.
Registering worked for me Grim, thanks!
Matrix have released a Collector's Edition (http://www.matrixgames.com/products/703/details/Scourge.of.War.Waterloo.Collectors.Edition) if anyone is interested. Base game + all three DLCs in one bundle.
I've done some working out of the various discounts etc... and this is what seems to be the situation:
The Collector's Edition is cheaper than buying all the parts individually (naturally), although the CE is about £3.03 cheaper on Steam. Base game is 50% off on both Steam and Matrix store, although it's again cheaper on Steam (£14.99 vs. £20.99).
If you already have some of DLC, then it depends what you need to pick up:
x 1 DLC - cheaper on Steam (£14.99)
x2/3 DLC - cheaper on Matrix Store. List price is £16.99 but they have cross-sales active, so if you buy one DLC full price you get a second and/or third at £11.99.
Worth mentioning that if you buy via Matrix Store you're supposed to get a Steam key you can redeem anyway, as well as access to their direct-download version.
I haven't looked today, but when I looked yesterday I could have sworn that it was slightly cheaper to buy from Matrix while their sale lasts.
But that was in dollars, and things maybe different in sterling (even though Slitherine is a UK company).
Looks like a major update that includes a tonne of performance and graphical updates is coming on october 1st.
I will definitely be having a look.
Post processing and bump mapping for terrain as well as multi core tree rendering that took things from 10 to 60fps on the worst performing tree tests sounds great.
Edit: ignore this it's the remastered version