Waterloo Screenshots #3

[yankee1950]

OUTSTANDING - CAN'T WAIT...

[Colonel Bill]

Just a quick reply with comment from someone who is eagerly awaiting the release of this game. Given I am an historical miniatures wargame player, with Napoleonics MY era, you can likely guess why.

First let me caveat my remarks with the fact that I have no idea detail and accuracy you want to put in this thing given your knowledge base, customer preferences, resources or the power of the game engine. However, from a visual presentation standpoint this is going to be a far more complex project than your ACW stuff. You have multiple nations, to include a lot of small ones such as Nassau, each with their own uniforms and flags, both which were often unique to each regiment. The Prussians are going to be particularly problematic as many of the units had just been officially made part of the regular army. One line infantry regiment thus still wore its old white uniforms with blue facings from the old Westfalen army, while several cavalry regiments took the field in their 1813 privately funded Freikorps uniforms. Indeed, it was for this very reason that many Prussian Uhlan (Lancer) Regiments had not yet been issued lances.

With that in mind here are a few things I noticed about your admittedly work in progress image set number 3.

a. The flag carried by the Prussian line is actually a Landwehr (militia) flag of unofficial issue, and in this case I believe conjectural.

b. The Prussian artillery should be single trail while both the gun carriage and limber should be medium blue. The British did provide some single trail artillery to the Prussians in 1813, but none were used in 1815 SFAIK.

c. The terrain and buildings are exceptional IMHO.

Again you may already know this and have put it in the "too hard to do" box considering resources and customer likes and dislikes, but I thought I would mention it. Your ACW games are excellent and I just don't want this game to turn into another Napoleon Total War, if you get my drift.

I'd be happy to help any way I can, so drop me a line if you might be interested.

Ciao, Colonel Bill

PS: And yes, before you ask, if I know stuff like this off the top of my head, I really don't have a life .

[Saddletank]

a). You're right, it's a placeholder flag from the Nap Mod of SOW:Gettysburg.

b). The guns are single trail, British pattern. Did you mean to say that Prussian 1815 guns were split trail? I agree that a lighter greyish-blue would be more correct. I understand there is work to do on the sprites yet.

[Colonel Bill]

Yes, actual Prussian manufactured cannon were split trail, and I have attached a photo that might be helpful.

The Prussian army in 1815 is one that will drive you to drink, because it was still in recovery mode from the 1813 - 14 campaigns. Prior to Waterloo the Prussians made a significant attempt to consolidate and regularize their military by converting all their reserve, Freikorps and foreign units into standard, regular army units. This process was not complete by the time the 100 Days kicked off, so newly raised Uhlan regiments took the field with no lances, and many wore their old Freikorps uniforms from 1813. Likewise, many infantry regiments continued to wear their old unifroms after being incorporated into the Prussian army from military establishments previously Allied with the French.

As regards the artillery, more research needs to be done on this subject, but there were a few Prussian batteries in 1813 - 14 equipped with British 6 lbers on block trails, as well as a few equipped with French An XI guns while the Russo-German Legion transferred into Prussian service with two complete batteries of Russian guns. Indeed, the 20th Prussian Field Artilery Battery actually used British 6 lbers NOT on the single block trail because they were naval guns, while the 11th Horse artillery wore British RHA uniforms (at least until the King saw them and threw a hissy fit).

Prussia was a poor country, with its military decimated via the 1806 - 07 campaigns, so they were willing to take any help they could get.

For the four Prussian Korps (I - IV) actually at Waterloo, I THINK (bold that word)all the batteries had actual Prussian guns, but several OB lists I have seen for the ENTIRE Prussian army in 1815 still shows a few batteries with foreign guns.

Ciao, Bill

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[Colonel Bill]

Two more images, one of the real thing (but with a black barrel, perhaps painted for preservation?).

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[tim]

Thanks for the feedback and information Bill. We strive for a high degree of accuracy and detail and will usually opt for the most historic choice if given the option. There are a number of constraints however - the two main ones being resources and pc memory limits/power.

As mentioned we have a new overlay system so we can add more variety to sprites - for instance we can overlay the facings colours for the British Infantry. We have a number of Napoleon experts and enthusiasts on the team (I count myself more as an enthusiast but have visited the battlefield three times including during re-enactments and had wargamed the period for a number of years).

We'll have a relook at the Prussian cannon - it would be reasonably easy fix - we did look into this and went for British cannon - we have to go for one or the other otherwise the memory hit is too big. We won't sadly be able to depict every unique regiment and flag. I wish we could but its just not possible and so we do have to make certain design decisions making sprites.

To give you an example of our thought processes I made an overlay of white trousers (pants to our US cousins) for British Guard regiments - as well as the various (blue I think?) facings. During research we discovered that the Guards probably didn't wear white despite most artists and books depicting them in white. So we debated and decided that for game purposes it would be good to distinguish them so stayed with the white (especially as the majority of gamers, books and models depict them in white - including the National Army museum). This is the sort of detail we will go to and discussions we have.

The great thing about Nappy wars are the variety of troops and uniforms but the flip side is we will not have them all in. As for it turning into a Napoleon Total War - well we don't have 3d troops or all the bells and whistles graphically but we do have thousands of troops on the field at any one time and a superb AI, historically accurate maps thoroughly researched and single and multiplayer scenarios!

Please keep your comments coming - we do listen and will change things if possible.

[Colonel Bill]

Understood and I fully realize the issues with the game engine for a period of history this complex.

The other issue I recommend you think about is the "Hollywood History" perspective many of your customers will have, especially in the colonies. Generally, this period of history isn't as popular as the ACW or WWII, so familiarity is based on whatever is on the television or at the cinema. Thus everyone knows all British uniforms were red (with full apologies to the RA, RHA, Light Dragoons, Hussars, Oxford Blues, the 60th and 95th Foot), because that's what it had in Mel Gibson's The Patriot! Make the detail of your game too accurate and people get confused and word gets around.

Fortunately you folks have stuck with making sure the units function historically in your ACW games, and North v South is pretty simple uniform wise. My recommendation is you dig in your heels and never portray the former, but compromise on the latter.

As an example, if I were doing this game (not knowing squat about programing) I would make two cannon sprites, one single and one split trail and just color them differently by nationality. I would pick one flag for the Prussians and have everyone carry it, even though Prussian light infantry, hussars, lancers, Landwehr and all infantry regiments numbered 13 and above carried no flags at all. Then you can get away with putting ALL Landwehr in grey Letewkas, all Jaegers and Schutzen in dark green and so on. The most common flag seems to have been the black and white standard carried by the 2d East Prussian Infantry, so either their Kings or Regimental Color is the way I would go.

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If you have time in your busy day, check out page 3 of a review I did for wargamer.com on Empire: Total War at http://wargamer.com/article/2688/pc-gam ... ive?page=3 . Just don't do what they did.

Otherwise I'll keep track of your progress and interject on occasion if I think it useful, fully willing to shut the hell up when told. Let me start by recommending a YouTube video you might want to watch given cavalry will have a much larger role in this game than anything you've done before. Its of the French Garde Republicaine executing a cavalry charge by the book, 1805 edition. Errol Flynn and Mel Gibson it ain't and you can find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOl4piWh2eA .

Given your other stuff, I am really, REALLY looking forward to this game.

Ciao, Colonel Bill

[Jolly]

Some very well written and informative posts Colonel Bill, with some nice observations.

Thank you

David(jolly)

[tim]

Great film of the cavalry charge! Thanks for the information - please keep it coming. No one will tell you to 'Shut the hell up'. We do read all posts and will consider suggestions and things do get changed.

The artillery sprite you suggested can't work due to the way we render them I'm afraid - I can't render a canon separately from the crew. Also as we use 2d sprites and not 3d models colouring them differently means a different sprite and therefore no saving on memory.

We will certainly avoid the red = British, blue = French trap. There will be as much variety and authenticity as we can fit in! There will be more screenshots coming.

Great review by the way of TW - for me there is just no challenge in TW (there used to be with Shogun and MTW but then it lost its way I think - my personal opinion). I prefer something like Combat Mission which is a great game - I see ourselves as making the horse and musket Combat Mission

[con20or]

Great film of the cavalry charge!

+1