MarkD Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Yes I remember "Fields of Glory." It was great fun to play even with the stupid AI. It's nice to see so many Napoleonic fans, it's really an amazing period. I hope the Matrix game is decent.. Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commissar Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 You know, Ive been playing around the editor, and I realized that with just a FEW simple code modifications, we could have a game that would be a decent representation of the age of muskets! This could look like this: First off, change the power and accuracy of a rifle man by about 75%, remove all semi/automatic weapons, armored vehicles, and off map arty. Modify a few models (for the cannons). Modify AT guns and decrease their accuracy (but probably not firepower) by about 50% Now, group a company worth of squads into a line (or any other 16-18th century formation) and make the men act as a single unit. IE: When I click on any of the squads, I the info for the whole group. Have all actions given to one squad, like movement or fire, performed by the entire group. Reload times would take longer, directly depending on how experienced a unit is. Routing would be decreased (those mean officers dont look kindly on that sort of thing). Formation changes would be the only real tricky part, since you would have to make a new interface to allow it. Since CM isnt able to model a lot of men anyway, we can leave the turns at 1 minute each. Increase reaction times by a good bit, what, with no radio and all. To model things like disorganization, have the entire group have its firepower slightly decreased. When it comes to meleeing, all BTS has to do is show the little models swinging and poking their guns and leave the rest as is. Finally, when all that is done, have a group of mod artists draw up uniforms and change unit names around. There ya go, a simple simulation! Albeit, without cavalry *snif*... This probobly wouldnt take very long if the code was open to us, but alas, it isnt. " *sniff* # 2 ". What do you all think? ------------------ "...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..." - Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Space Thing Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Originally posted by The Commissar: You know, Ive been playing around the editor, and I realized that with just a FEW simple code modifications, we could have a game that would be a decent representation of the age of muskets! This could look like this: First off, change the power and accuracy of a rifle man by about 75%, remove all semi/automatic weapons, armored vehicles, and off map arty. Modify a few models (for the cannons). Modify AT guns and decrease their accuracy (but probably not firepower) by about 50% Now, group a company worth of squads into a line (or any other 16-18th century formation) and make the men act as a single unit. IE: When I click on any of the squads, I the info for the whole group. Have all actions given to one squad, like movement or fire, performed by the entire group. Reload times would take longer, directly depending on how experienced a unit is. Routing would be decreased (those mean officers dont look kindly on that sort of thing). Formation changes would be the only real tricky part, since you would have to make a new interface to allow it. Since CM isnt able to model a lot of men anyway, we can leave the turns at 1 minute each. Increase reaction times by a good bit, what, with no radio and all. To model things like disorganization, have the entire group have its firepower slightly decreased. When it comes to meleeing, all BTS has to do is show the little models swinging and poking their guns and leave the rest as is. Finally, when all that is done, have a group of mod artists draw up uniforms and change unit names around. There ya go, a simple simulation! Albeit, without cavalry *snif*... This probobly wouldnt take very long if the code was open to us, but alas, it isnt. " *sniff* # 2 ". What do you all think? The Comissar, Great ideas. Its a beginning anyways. You know, they say that a forest fire is usually stated with a match or a spark. Maybe someone reading this thread will.......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commissar Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Space Thing, Heh-heh, glad you liked it, but I think the only persons who could read this and make a difference would be either Steve or Charles - then they could open up trhe code for us Otherwise, modifying CM code like that would require serious hacking, which is very difficult, not to mention illegal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Napoleon1944 Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Napoleonic CM would be a dream come true. I would never leave the house! If they can do WW2 then Napoleonics should be easy. BIG BUMP ------------------ The only enemy I fear is nature. -Napoleon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Never gamed Napoleonic, but I would be all over this. We are still waiting for a decent Medieval engine! Can't you see it... trebuchet, hull down in fog, spotter ability modified by rock availability and uniformity, boiling oil pourers won't launch when under arrow barrage, glacis of 11th C. Italian breastplate all wrong, voids in Welsh chain mail overmodeled (?)... and of course, medieval American armor underrated and discriminated against. Any GB/of Alexander/Hannibal/Caesar people here? Great stuff... this is the engine, this would be a great thing to do. Where else you gonna game Austro-Prussia, Spanish-American, Russo-Japanese, and the whole overlooked history of the hyphenated world of war? The CM Konstruktion Kit, that's where! My cherished dream. Pinch me, I'm charging Khartoum... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hussar Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Count me in for a Nap CM, that would be wonderful !! but please not another ACW game. Well not before Nappy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Space Thing Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Originally posted by Hussar: Count me in for a Nap CM, that would be wonderful !! but please not another ACW game. Well not before Nappy... LOL. Well said Hussar. Oh, and Comissar, don't worry about me. I don't like anything illegal. It must be easier to go from WW II to a slower paced combat environment like Napoleonics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 That's why I wanted to see BTS do the coding on horses for CM2, puts them that much closer to Napoleonic warfare. American Civil War with this game engine would be an entirely new concept. Anything really would be possible, but I figure the Eurpoean Napoleonic period and American Civil War period would be the two most popular. ------------------ "Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth." -Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commissar Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 I went into the editor today since I had nothing better to do with my damn time, and did a few test runs. First, the battlefield was relatively small and pretty hilly. On one end, with the victory flag on a big ol' hill stood my German defenders, compromosing of lots of Rifle men and 3 Inf guns. The infantry amounted to about 9 platoons, with all support weapons thrown out. The attacking Americans sported 6 guns with truck transport, and had 12 platoons worth of men. Now, for modifications: --- To simulate relatively inaccurate cannons, both my own and my enemies guns were set to Green (they wouldnt go down to Conscript level!) and given about 8 shots of ammunition each. Both my enemies and my own infantry were set to conscript, and given as high a level of fanatacism that I could set. To simulate that "stand and die" mind set of the time. Now, to simulate those pretty ranks of advancing musket men, my own and my enemie's men were divided into lines compromising of 3 platoons per line. So I had 3 lines, while the enemy had 4. I had no fog of war, so as to observe the actions of the enemy and to simulate unseen scouts often used in the afe of muskets to report enemy activities. Now, to fight the battle! --- My men were positioned around the single VL, as far out of range of cannon fire as possible. Thus, my men could not shoot at the advancing infantry. I liked it this way however, since muskets had a low range anyhow. My cannons are positioned behind my infantry line so as to be protected. First turn, all hell breaks loose! Cannons fire one clumsy shot after another. Half way into the turn, one of my guns is KO by a well placed shot! The enemy has started to advance with his men, although a cannonball in the midst of their ranks reduced one formation to a quievering heap. Turns 2-4 are relatively uneventful. The enemy ifantry have passed under my LOS and are climbing the hill I am positioned on. My cannons are all destroyed, and my men have taken a few hits. Thanks to the brave liutenants, most of my men have stopped covering and are standing strong! The enemy cannomns finally run out of ammunition early into turn 4. On turn 5, the first of the enemy infantry pop up from behind a rise in the earth. A foolish squad, seperated from the group, gets cut down by the combined firepower of 3 companies. The computer, as is to be expected, did not keep his men in strict formation. On turn 6, a mass of men which could be passed off as a disorganized formation appear into my LOS, onto my right flank. My men open fire and the enemy hits the dirt! ---Note to Devs - there's another thing you need to remidy: men CANNOT hit the dirt to avoid getting hit!--- On turn 7, clumps of men appear on my right and left flank, as well as in the centre. I have noticed that most of the enemy is concentratedin the middle and on my right flank. Many are pinned down. Many make foolish rushes into my line only to be butchered in melee. I decide to take action and end this massacre. On turn 8, I order the formation on my left flank to charge the small clump of men before them, and then to sweep up the enemy line. By the end of turn 8, my men are about to clash with the seperated and pinned down defenders facing them. In the beginning of turn 9, my men make quick work of the enemy, and proceed as planned into the disorganized and suppressed flank. An all out rout begins. I order the rest of my men to charge the remains of the enemy infantry, and those who do not flee are cut apart by my bayonets! On turn 10, the enemy surrenders. --- Well, that was some game. First off, I learned from first hand experience why in that age and time, it was so important to keep in a tight and ridgid formation. The seperated enemy hadn't a chance when he came into range, but if he was only formed up, things would have gone differently! Im beginning to think that we could do a simplistic test run of this type of gameplay right now, via PBEM and two dedicated players. Simply have a setup similar to my own, and agree to keep your men in formation at all times. The ranges would be a bit long, but if you set your men as conscripts, it may not have such an effect from far off. I'd try it myself, but at the moment my computer is giving me lots of s@it which dont have a good effect on PBEMs Hope this spawned some ideas, Cheers! ------------------ "...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..." - Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back" [This message has been edited by The Commissar (edited 02-20-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derfel Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Gents, I did a quick check at Matrix games and found no trace of a Napoleonic game... are you lot having me on...? However perhaps you should check this out http://www.gamesdomain.co.uk/gdreview/zones/previews/feb01/waterloo.html -Derfel ------------------ The only problem for a cobra attacking small furry animals is that occasionally one of them will turn out to be a mongoose... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stodge Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Has anyone checked out dba online? http://www.dbaol.com/start.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blenheim Posted February 20, 2001 Author Share Posted February 20, 2001 Great test, comissar.. You left out skirmishers (an split platoon, maybe?) and a couple of other things, but wooow. It worked right. BTS, hear us !!! ------------------ "We do not retreat... we advance to the back of the formation..." (brave new soldier) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Yeah Commissar, ya gotta keep them babushka's in formation. Actually, lemme play the partypoop for a second. Now, I'm an avid supporter of this game engine being applied to Napoleonic warfare, and have looked upon that idea with a mouth a watering for some time. But, in thinking about it, it occurred to me that there is an inherent problem of scale. CM is a small unit action game. By design, what we all love is made for small unit management. Oh sure it'll do something up to a Battalion or so and the big maps really do look big. However, Napoleonic warfare is a different breed of management. Most battles, certainly the decisive ones and ofcourse the popular ones fought were large scale actions. A battalion during an American Civil War or European Napoleonic War battle would be little more than a small fish in a big pond. True, bigger maps could be made I suppose but how big? A WWII company is made up of approximately 100 men. A Civil War company is made up of approximately 1000 men, and so on. The maps would have to be gigantic, and the units could conceivably be unwieldy. Imagine for a moment attempting to apply the shear numbers and unit size, let alone the map necessary, to recreate the Battle of Shiloh, or the Siege of Vicksburg or a monster like the Entrenchment of Petersburg, on the unit scale that CM currently uses. Yes yes, I know you wouldn't necessarily do the entire battle just like we aren't doing the entire Normandy breakout on a single map. But again, unit size levels are vastly different for the time periods. To even reproduce a flank of a major event, like say the Battle of Antietam would (for CM), be a grand undertaking in representation of scale, I would think. Now don't go and conclude I'm against the idea or something, rather I'm interested in whether others have thought about this and to what degree it is perceived as a problem, and what potential solutions might be envisioned. ------------------ "Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth." -Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916) [This message has been edited by Bruno Weiss (edited 02-20-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commissar Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Bruno, The way I see it, most of these solutions will come with time. Yes, right now my Athalon 650Mhz with 64 RAM is chugging away when I load up a huge map crammed with units. In 5 years or so, when today's magnesium-cooled Cray super computer is looked down upon like the first run of Apple computers is looked down upon today, such a battle wouldnt slow down for a milisecond! Did you realise that with computer advancing at the pace they are now, we will have - brace yourselfves - 10Ghz PC's? Can you imagine what a monster of such proportions would be capable of? Oh, and any engine is modifyable. As I suggested, if we cram, say, a battalion into a group (some 600 men) and call it a company or whatnot, today the CM engine can support maybe 2 or 3 of these, at most. In 5 years? Quite a bit more, I would bet! For now however, I would be perfectly happy narrowing things down a bit. Have companies stay the way they are. For the sake of gaming, lets not concern ourselves with exact numbers, since that would be impossible. With a few modifications, we could have a glimpse at what the CM engine could do in terms of age of muskets warfare TODAY, and eagerly await the future and the many wonders it will surely bring. All IMHO, now and forever ------------------ "...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..." - Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Shaw Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 A Civil War company is made up of approximately 1000 men, and so on. The maps would have to be gigantic, and the units could conceivably be unwieldy. Actually an ACW company (at full strength) was also about 100 men. A regiment (again at full strength) was about 1000 men. Personally I would LOVE an ACW or Napoleonic game in which you could fight individual companies as units. So to compare that to CM, each "squad" could be a company and 10 "units" could then represent a regiment. As to the map, such a scale could easily accomodate actions such as Little Round Top, the Cornfield at Antietam, the Hornets Nest at Shiloh and so on. But again, the scale of the unit is simply a matter of deciding how many figures will be used in each unit to represent the strength of the unit. In CM, for example, three figures are used to represent a full squad and doesn't, IMO, cause much of a problem. As to whether or not CM could or will be modified ... I leave that to BTS but it would be great. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tris Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Derfel, my error. I meant to write Breakaway not Matrix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Bates Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Count me in for a Napoleonic game!! Imagine the massed cavalry charge... The game would sound fantastic, especially the French and Scottish troops! Napoleonic CM might also appear at a time when the CM engine is capable of more than 2 similtaneous players... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Yeah, my bad. Your right about the numbers. Regiment size was about 1000. But the representation would be the issue. In CM you can get away with three guys representing a squad, but in Nepoleonic warfare, a line of men was what provided firing power. And the ability to enfilade a line, or turn a flank becomes critical. How that would be represented would be important. True, you could break battles down into segments, and some might even fit into full scale actions, those that were geographically more compact anyway. I'm just not sure how the detachment of a section of a battle like say, Fredericksburg or something, would play out as opposed to the overall situation being represented. Not arguing the point, sort of mulling it over in my own mind as to the feasibility of it. ------------------ "Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth." -Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commissar Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Oops, one more easy to accomplish but crucial to gameplay adjustment: SMOKE! With every shot, a line of musketeers produced clouds of the stuff, which blocked all view and resulted in butched orders and overall confusion. All one has to do in the CM engine - assuming one has access to the code - is to type in that with every volley, x amount of smoke is produced. Kind of like a smoke round from a tank, but all along the line of men! Let's keep this going people, some good stuff here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Shaw Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Well clearly you'd want more than three guys to represent a company But I could easily live with a unit/stand that had, say, 6 figures in two lines of three. That would give you a regiment of 60 figures and they would LOOK about right I think. Back in my old miniature days we had Napoleonic battalions with about that many figures and they looked great. SMG/SMA has even fewer than that IIRC. It's mostly a matter of personal preference I think. I prefer smaller level fights over larger. Breakaway's Waterloo game, from what I can see ... and I could be wrong, uses units that are BRIGADES! If true, that really disappoints me since my view of Napoleonics has always been at the regimental level. But I really think the chances of getting something like that FROM BTS is slim and none. They might, perhaps, license parts of the engine or a copycat might come up with something. I even checked out the uniform BMPs just to see what could be done ... which promptly reminded me that I have zero talent with graphics. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commissar Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Joe, The uniforms would be the easiest part of such a project Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Shaw Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Not for me, Commissar I can, with a ruler, draw a straight line, but beyond that I'm hopeless. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Space Thing Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 There are several excellent rule sets for Napoleonics that use a ratio of 1 fig = 60 men. So, a French Line Batallion (of approx. 720 men) would only need 12 figs represented on the screen. That is why I recommended Empire V. Another is Battles for Empire Publication's "Battles for Empire" (My favorite for Napoleonics due to it's focus on tactics. Sorry, its out-of-print right now.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commissar Posted February 20, 2001 Share Posted February 20, 2001 Hmmm...1 to 60 sounds a bit big (not to mention as Bruno said, it wont "fit the map" so to speak). As in, the figures would each have to look gigantic on screen to fill up the amount of space 60 men would. That would just look terrible. I think for the large scale of things, with formations of 600+ men each, we would need to wait a few years for the engine to handle it. Right now we can just group a bunch of men together and have some detachments. Anyone seen "Last of the Mohigans"? I think that sort of combat would port very well to CM. The scale was generally much smaller then the gargantuan battles seen in Europe and CM could handle that! ------------------ "...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..." - Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back" [This message has been edited by The Commissar (edited 02-20-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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