GB vs. WL

[r59]

In my opinion a wise idea, not too difficult to implement, forward-looking and modding-friendly for maps would be to drop the .lvl file format altogether and replace it with .gltf + "extras" fields to preserve the app-specific bits of data the PR engine actually needs to draw terrains.

Considering the poor state of the Landscape Studio, if I were in your shoes Norb, I wouldn't spend a single minute of my time trying to make it properly work.
Just move on to Blender or any other stable and well-tested tool to arrange the scene graph transformations, camera stuff, etc.
We can create a dummy terrain node attaching all the required configuration data, heightmap, splatmap textures (in Blender you can also do texture painting), etc.
You can have texture and mesh data embedded or pointing to external references indifferently.

Then we should import from gltf into the existing PR engine structures. The data must resemble the old one, so it shouldn't be too tricky to achieve this.
TinyglTF is a good header-only glTF loader lib and could probably help here.

Finally we'd need to make some python-like tools (or just reuse the PR LoadLevel function) to convert en-masse the current maps/lvl chunks into the new format, saving the huge amount of hours, passion and care map makers put in to create and assemble them.

Sorry for not being of much help apart from popping up with these high-flown plans...
But they were really sticking in my mind since years and what happened here was such a surprise!
Any reborn Ney around offering to bring me back to the zoo in an iron cage?

Cheers.

[seamount0]

What does WL do worse

A couple of minors things:

- it's missing the Move to this map point feature that we had in GB. Actually we lived without it for so many years but it would be good to have it back

- about the positioning of the units, as I said before WL is better but I feel that the arrow we had in GB was more visible than the green pointer we had in WL at least when you play in HITS. It's not a matter of color (green, yellow, whatever) but it's that the pointer is a 2D image drawn parallel to the ground. Probably having it tilted of 30 degrees it would help when you play from the ground and doesn't bother the player when the camera is high in the sky

I agree with the two points, the first one is very important in my opinion

I see many talk about MP but I still play Single Player very often, and as I do, I think many others do, so please do not forget SP for the future

[norb]

Don't worry about SP. I only play SP games myself so I'm certainly going to make sure it's supported.

[anvil]

Is there a place to get some help getting sowwl running? I bought the boxed game from slitherine just before the delisting and am having a resolution/mouse problem.

if I set full screen =0, no matter what i set the res in the ini file, i get a mouse cursor, but only the upper right 1/4 of the game screen

if I set full screen=1, no matter the res i set, I get the full game screen but no game cursor.l I see it, but it wont move. when I move my mouse, I can highlight different boxes such as options and click on them, but from the options screen, i can highlight some functions, but its too small to click on anything.

FWIW, I have no problem with TCSM.

[RebBugler]

Is there a place to get some help getting sowwl running? I bought the boxed game from slitherine just before the delisting and am having a resolution/mouse problem.

if I set full screen =0, no matter what i set the res in the ini file, i get a mouse cursor, but only the upper right 1/4 of the game screen

if I set full screen=1, no matter the res i set, I get the full game screen but no game cursor.l I see it, but it wont move. when I move my mouse, I can highlight different boxes such as options and click on them, but from the options screen, i can highlight some functions, but its too small to click on anything.

FWIW, I have no problem with TCSM.

Try this, it fixed a similar problem:
[initialization]
full screen=1
screen res=0

For future WL tech issue questions, please use the Nuts and Bolts section.

[pag]

Don't worry about SP. I only play SP games myself so I'm certainly going to make sure it's supported.

Happy to read this. I own both entire series of games : WL and GB. I haven’t played enough of WL to be able to properly compare to GB, but I do agree with comments already made .

I play GB 90% . I often hike the Amer. Civil War battlefields depicted in the games. I enjoy comparing maps, mods and scenarios. Hits mode the whole courier system and the Take Command”concept, and Sandbox are wonderful features in the games. I also found the SDK helpful.

With work and family , I generally only have time for hour or two of play, so the ability to save the game is especially important for me. MP does look amazing .

[BankSixdeis]

I would say where you could really make either game shine is in adding a little more depth to the campaign experience, I'd say -- speaking broadly to any rehab or upgrade effort. I'm a very roleplay oriented gamer these days and so ADDING more robust and dynamic context to any wargaming experience, which can create even more "story" in it, is always really really cool to me.

I would say also re-working some of the scenarios to just...make them MAKE a little more realistic sense would be worth it too -- again in that spirit of roleplay (if you will).

It feels like the makers and publishers, or distributors of the game, understandably hopeful of making the game more mass marketable -- may have artificially and perhaps unnecessarily squeezed the timeframe of combat action into scenarios that just require too little time to acquire important landmarks and objectives in a style which would truly breath life into the alternate (fictional) history playing out before you.

I suppose I'd say, the game is relatively quite highly complex for people interested in highly complex thinking at scale and perhaps it's best to just own that at this point??

If scenarios truly deserve two hours instead of one -- or a one hour scenario to take Ligny as the French just doesn't quite square with how it could EVER have gone in reality -- or something like that -- I don't think it would make a HUGE dent in marketability or profitability of the product at THIS point to just streeeeetch those time tables out...juuuuust enough to sprinkle "even more real life" into the whole thing.

Micromanagement of leader placement at objectives is an aggravating pain for a role player who likes to just set things in motion and watch a lot. If enough TROOPS have taken the ground around an objective and are holding out...that should be well enough alone to gain the credit for it, I think.

Again, as a fella who likes to set things in motion and let the A/I do a lot of the leg work and management where possible, I think when you do that -- casualties start piling right up at a far more rapid pace than in history. That one's maybe more of a nit pick -- it's really not a major pain...just noticeable.

And I would say I do not mind a rather "ACW tilted" tactics engine for a Napoleonics game. ACW tactics were, in fact, based on Napoleonic tactics, so I'd say at least with infantry -- that part is honestly pretty much just fine with me at present. I would think with the Napoleonic weapon types and lower ranges and higher quality troops as well as all the differences with cavalry added and lower ranged and less accurate artillery built into the combat engine can even make that "ACW tilted" tactics engine come out looking OK on a Napoleonics battlefield.

The reason ACW armies basically just engaged in gigantic mass firefights from cover across open fields and stuff is because the damn guns were so accurate from so far away that it became the only reasonable way to keep massed fire AND vital communication properly in order without getting shot to pieces in the process. My point being -- Id' say make it a "19th Century Combat" engine and then let the weapon types, troop types and troop quality determine the rest and then you have scenarios and games and battles for days and days and days -- of ALL periods in that span.

Cavalry could get tricky -- tho. Maybe have to curve troop quality WAY down for the ACW game in order to prevent Yankee or Rebel cavalrymen from running off and charging infantry lines haha.

Agree with much of what DR posted earlier otherwise.

[seamount0]

I only hope that any change will not make the mods not working anymore.
About GB there are many mods that are great, maps and scenarios included, and I think they are a must, so please we cannot change the game and kill those mods