Next Scourge of War Project

[agathosdaimon]

It depends on the period and theatre in napoleonic wars, towards the end, fighting was less rigid with much more skirmishing being done, also the wars are full of smaller battles , just have to read any decent work , - like the battle of teugn hausen in1809 or the battles around and
Leading up to the battle of the nations at leipzig, which was massive but went over several days so it wasnt hundreds of thousands fighting all at once, also you can break larger battles down into component battles like in Sow gettysburg.
This is probably the best way to do the scale and Sow seems already to know how to do this

But also ii would like to see more from the  american civil war as there are still dozens of battles to do, like shiloh, chickamauge, fredricksburg etc

I dont understand why CA hasnt done a Civil War total war game yet, some of the ETw mods looked spectacular
There is still alot to do everywhere in all the periods  and it is bizarre that still after 30+ years of pc gaming the 30 years war and English Civil War are virtually non existent - i think Cossacks might be the only game

[TheCommandTent]

They've said they would like to to include an Operational Campaign, they have said they want to include it in a sandbox style mode if possible.

I would defintly like to hear more about this feature.

[Dolan50]

I would love to be able to play an operational level PC game similar to this game on my computer.
7 Days of 1809 [OSG]
It's been awhile since I've been bitten by the Napoleonic era bug,but I remember having many hours of fun with this game 4-5 years ago.
http://bigboardgaming.com/7-days-of-1809-osg/

[Grim.Reaper]

I dont understand why CA hasnt done a Civil War total war game yet, some of the ETw mods looked spectacular

Although I wouldn't mind seeing an ACW version of total war, I think there are a couple of potential reasons.

- For the most part, only two factions, North and the South....unless you tried to model outside assistance from other countries.
- What kind of diplomacy would be in the game?  Maybe with outside countries for possible intervention and food/supplies, but what else?
- It seems this game series does better with swords then rifles....
- Would only cover a short period of time, assuming you were confined to the original war years
etc.

Don't get me wrong, I would buy it on sight, but thinking these might be some of the reasons it hasn't happened....

[bob48]

I seem to remember a similar discussion a while back, and the problem of there only being 2 factions. One idea, if I remember, was to tie it in to a general Victorian Period game that could also include stuff such as colonial wars, Crimean war, the 7 weeks war, the Franco-Prussian war and so on.

Would still prefer 30 year war / ECW though  :)

[agathosdaimon]

Well i guess the turn scale would need to be different, it would need to depart from some of the limitations of the usual formula.

Regarding a pc game Dolan - i urge you to check out Campaigns on the Danube on the matrix games website. That game is fantastic and elegant i find and models detailed fog of war, supply trains, hospitals, stragglers, weather and various factors can not only hinder your armies movements, but can even delay the return of messengers which means information delays which must factored in.

Get it while the matrix games sale,is on, only 28dollarsAUD atm for a boxed copy plus download.

[mikeck]

I'm wondering if this is going to work for the developers, particularly considering the significant scale increase.

Numerous well-known US civil war battles were skirmishes in terms of troops involved compared to Napoleonic battles. A battle like Waterloo (and the rest of the 100 days) might be OK, on a similar scale as Gettysburg until the Prussians arrive, but if they move further back to before the invasion of France in 1813, they'll face the problem that Napoleonic campaigns tended to feature fewer crucial smaller battles (in terms of troops involved) than Civil War battles and they'll have to cover several really large battles.

The invasion of France 1813-1814 would be an option with the scale for the current engine in mind, although playing as the French would be very challenging.

The engine would also need to represent the more formal way of fighting in Europe during Napoleonic times, and the even lower accuracy of weapons than in the Civil War (although a musket from 1815 would be about as accurate as a musket from the 1860's I guess, it's mostly smoothbore weapons or rifles that saw an improvement in accuracy).

I disagree here. Some civil war battles were skirmishes is comparison but the battles modeled by SoW were not.
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Antietam (and for that matter Wilderness, spotsylvania courthouse, Shiloh) were just as large if not larger than Waterloo with well over 160,000 combatants and 20 percent casualties. Most of the ACW battles lasted for days as well.

So while I would love a Waterloo battle, I think it's a mistake to say the developers might have trouble having not developed battles that big

[ComradeP]

mikeck: Like I said, the 100 days, Waterloo and the invasion of France are similar in scale in many ways, but not the earlier battles. Leipzig involved over half a million men. Like agathosdaimon points out, a battle like Leipzig could be broken into components, but that massive number of men was still there.

A quick look on wikipedia for a figure gives a bit over 100.000 for Antietam and Shiloh, and indeed a higher number than Waterloo for Chancellorsville. However, the 100 days were exceptional in the sense that neither Napoleon (who couldn't mobilize enough men in such a limited timeframe) nor his opponents (whose armies moved towards France one by one) had enough time to field the armies they fielded during the times when France was at war with Prussia, Russia, Austria, Britain and their smaller allies.

It depends on the period and theatre in napoleonic wars, towards the end, fighting was less rigid with much more skirmishing being done, also the wars are full of smaller battles , just have to read any decent work , - like the battle of teugn hausen in1809 or the battles around and
Leading up to the battle of the nations at leipzig, which was massive but went over several days so it wasnt hundreds of thousands fighting all at once, also you can break larger battles down into component battles like in Sow gettysburg.

True, the smaller battles were there, but they were rarely decisive. None of the battles fought from the end of the Russian campaign up to Leipzig were as decisive as Leipzig turned out to be, and the outcome of Leipzig itself was an anomaly of sorts. Likewise, the victories of Napoleon in France were irrelevant because he couldn't stop the entirety of the allied forces, the means to do so were just not available.

This is as opposed to the US Civil War where the terrain and more limited number of available forces meant delaying actions or smaller battles could have a decisive influence on the course of the campaign of that year. On the other hand, there were also few disasters that destroyed most of an opposing force or at the least its ability of engaging in offensive action.

[Anguille]

They provisionally want to include the following battles but as they said there is a lot up in the air so they can't guarantee including anything beyond Waterloo but Jim said they want, Quatre Bras, Ligny, Waterloo, Wavre

Seems like a must buy for me! Great  8)

[mikeck]

mikeck: Like I said, the 100 days, Waterloo and the invasion of France are similar in scale in many ways, but not the earlier battles. Leipzig involved over half a million men. Like agathosdaimon points out, a battle like Leipzig could be broken into components, but that massive number of men was still there.

A quick look on wikipedia for a figure gives a bit over 100.000 for Antietam and Shiloh, and indeed a higher number than Waterloo for Chancellorsville. However, the 100 days were exceptional in the sense that neither Napoleon (who couldn't mobilize enough men in such a limited timeframe) nor his opponents (whose armies moved towards France one by one) had enough time to field the armies they fielded during the times when France was at war with Prussia, Russia, Austria, Britain and their smaller allies.

It depends on the period and theatre in napoleonic wars, towards the end, fighting was less rigid with much more skirmishing being done, also the wars are full of smaller battles , just have to read any decent work , - like the battle of teugn hausen in1809 or the battles around and
Leading up to the battle of the nations at leipzig, which was massive but went over several days so it wasnt hundreds of thousands fighting all at once, also you can break larger battles down into component battles like in Sow gettysburg.

True, the smaller battles were there, but they were rarely decisive. None of the battles fought from the end of the Russian campaign up to Leipzig were as decisive as Leipzig turned out to be, and the outcome of Leipzig itself was an anomaly of sorts. Likewise, the victories of Napoleon in France were irrelevant because he couldn't stop the entirety of the allied forces, the means to do so were just not available.

This is as opposed to the US Civil War where the terrain and more limited number of available forces meant delaying actions or smaller battles could have a decisive influence on the course of the campaign of that year. On the other hand, there were also few disasters that destroyed most of an opposing force or at the least its ability of engaging in offensive action.

At chancellorsville, there we're over 170,000 combatants. Same at wilderness. Gettysburg was about 160,009. Spotsylvania had about 155,000.  Now I know there were some napoleonic battles which were a bit bigger but the idea here is to duplicate Waterloo. Surely they can do that since many civil war battles were just as large or larger.

For me, the issue is appearance and order. It's one thing for a US civil war army to look like a
Mob but not a napoleonic European army. They have to find away or keep the regiments from going everywhere and pointing in different directions

[ComradeP]

A Napoleonic army is a very colourful army in terms of appearance, many unique uniforms for unique units. If done well, it will look awesome. If not done well, people interested in the period will feel something is missing.

Considering the somewhat rudimentary graphics of individual units in the Scourge of War series, the new engine would have to include substantially more detailed unit models to make uniforms truly stand out.

I do not envy their graphics artist, he has a lot of work to do if they want to do it right.

[Slick Wilhelm]

Oh sure, I spend one evening completely with Wifey, and look what I missed!

I think the best part of this news is that they're making the engine more moddable.

[mikeck]

As much as I love SoW...I prefer histwar:Napoleon. The graphics are better and formations are better. The AI...not so much

[Grim.Reaper]

 :o

As much as I love SoW...I prefer histwar:Napoleon. The graphics are better and formations are better. The AI...not so much

Upcoming 3d models coming for histwar

http://www.histwar.org/forum/index.php/topic,7816.0.html

[HistoricalGamer]

As much as I love SoW...I prefer histwar:Napoleon. The graphics are better and formations are better. The AI...not so much

This isn't just a new map for the same game, while Jim stated certain graphical elements will be the same to be able to provide the scale they want I don't think it's fair to criticize the formations yet when the game isn't even out yet. Scourge of War Waterloo will have a lot of upgrades under the hood. It is a bit premature to say how it will play out.