when can we create our own maps?

[Ingles of the 57th]

Hi Jmayer

Do bear in mind that actually a great number of SOWG's 2000+ members are not American either.

Let us have Waterloo ans Rourkes Drift eventually and we promise to try very very hard not to drop any more oil in the Gulf.

Geoff Laver
Late of Her Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot

[J Canuck]

Adding to Ingles of the 57th wish list, there is the Plains of Abraham battle at Quebec City which sealed the end of French rule in Canada by the British. Some of you may recall the excellent Canadian SMG mod of that battle. SOW would be an exciting adaptation for refighting all the battles of the War of 1812 amongst the belligerent Canadians, Americans, British and Indian allies.

I believe our international flavour in this community has been a value that should continue to be fostered.


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[Ingles of the 57th]

An Outsider’s View of the American Civil War

I am posting this in a completely wrong section of the Forum simply because it follows a comment made there regarding the need for the retention of “americanness” in SOWG and also in the priorities for the game’s future development I hope the moderator will move this and the preceding posts to a more suitable venue since I feel that the place of the American Civil War in the minds of non-americans, their desire to have non-american battles eventually included in the SOWG progeny and their reasons indeed for buying and playing the game is a subject worth exploring.

I think my first response was perhaps somewhat terse and a little flippant so I would like to float my own more sober and considered views.

The forum clearly demonstrates many different attitudes towards the game by various participants. The following list is in my order of perceived “saintliness”.

(1) A need to feed one’s ego by wanting to appear as a successful commander even to the extent of demanding cheats to cover up one’s actual underlying incompetence and unwillingness to learn the skills of the trade slowly and progressively.
(2) A desire to observe as much blood as possible and to cause as large a field of victims as possible. Whether from ghoulishness or from a real desire to be continually reminded and shocked by the awfulness of war, doubtless varies from player to player.
(3) As a relaxing and absorbing game which exercises the brain and offers wide variety.
(4) As a genuine attempt to reconstruct the atmosphere and historical actualities and accuracies of the war.
(5) Each time of playing, as a renewed tribute to those who fought and died so bravely and so unquestioningly during the real battles.

I came into TC2M initially at (3) right at its beginning. All I knew then were the names of the major battles and the senior Generals. The consequent experience drew me into the military history of the struggle and, more importantly, into the study of the personalities and the regiments involved to the extent that I feel, after several years of playing that I have the War in my bones as much as any American. Now at last I understand and sympathise with the desire for (4) and always feel something of (5).

No war before or since has entered into the psyche of a nation to such an extent. We had civil wars in England, but a long time ago and mostly fought by professional armies. The volunteer nature of the 1914-18 War (please note the first date) is the nearest we can come to it. But the British in their ever-pompous manner erect massive memorials covering whole battles and campaigns. The American Civil War is notable for the plethora of “little” memorials to regiments and to individual people. In exploring the web over the past years, I have been humbled to observe the love and dedication put into maintaining the Regimental Websites and the efforts of the Reconstruction Associations in keeping the vision alive. It is my dearest wish to visit at least Manassas and Gettysburg but my advancing age, my location in Southern Africa and the effects of the financial crises has rendered this desire most unlikely. I must satisfy myself with photographs and Google-Earth. But one can dream.

The Civil War was undisputedly fought in America by Americans and it was largely Americans who died (although the numbers were swelled by recent immigrants who still may have felt some bonds to their country of birth). I would therefore not be so arrogant as to suggest that SOWG should not first emulate its illustrious predecessor and re-create the Bull Runs, the Shilohs, the Antietams et al before looking further abroad for inspiration.

A joyous moment for me during TC2M was the introduction of the Revolutionary, the Jacobite and the Napoleonic sprites and OOB’s and just one foreign battlefield (Quatre Bras). The Albuhera OOB included my old regiment the 57th of Foot, The Middlesex Regiment, with whom I spent a happy, though somewhat exciting, period of my life. I still spend happy hours maneuvering this long-gone regiment around the various exotic battlefields.

As Louise rightly says this was all really TC2M in fancy dress, with supporting music, and no actual battle was ever offered as part of the package. But it added a great deal to the visual scope of the game even though the enormous Waterloo OOB could never be used without the armies overlapping and the game eventually crashing.

Norb has done us a great service in making this latest “platform” available and I trust that developments similar to the above will be allowed to go ahead before long. I bought a new super-computer to play SOWG and using this now with TC2M has really lifted that venerable game to another level.

I don’t often agree with “rckgunny” but I too have got to feel that a change of scenery in SOWG would not be a bad thing. The existing limitation of maps does begin to make it a bit tedious after a while. This is especially so in Open Play (I hate the word “sandbox” …… refuse to use it). Another map of the Laurel Junction type would be ideal …… then no one can argue about its historical accuracy.

I did ascertain that a large number of SOWG members were non-american. Norb, out of pure interest, do you have any statistics on the global spread of members ?

A final thought. When playing the game I constantly think of the advantages we have over those poor souls who fought the original battles. We have the advantage of hindsight. We know who is the enemy and roughly where he is or when he will turn up and what he is going to do. All they could do in most cases was “advance to engagement” into the fog of war and take whatever came. We can alter the difficulty, the weather and the effectiveness of our weapons. And we have a dynamic map that updates itself before our eyes. And some people still say we need cheats !!

Best regards to all from Darkest Africa
God Bless America and The Special Relationship.

Geoff Laver
Late of Her Majesty’s 57th Regiment of Foot

[RebBugler]

Ingles of the 57th

Excellent narrative, needs to be published beyond our modest forum. Your breakdown of the audience here seems pretty right on, hopefully the balance will remain in line with your optimistic observations.

Sure makes Americans proud to hear such narratives, and even prouder knowing they have allies such as you Sir. SALUTE

In regard to this game just being American, or course that's the focus now, but 19th C warfare is too important of an overall genre to be ignored by a successful RTS ACW game. Least, that's what I think.

Again, Thanks for your appreciation and support of this game's efforts to historically emulate those 'volunteers' on that 'hallowed ground'.

[RDBoles]

In regards to the last two posts, my heart felt thank you with respectful admiration. This game is as perfect as it gets. A little tweek here and there no problem. As far as new maps and armies, they will get hear soon enough. I too would love to get to Gettysburg and Bull Run but it doesn't look like I will. This "game" is it for me. I read books and attend the little re-enactments they have out west hear. Norb is the Man and thank you very much. No cheats for me, just enjoy.

[Marmusman]

No disrespect to the above conversation, but was wondering if someone has any comments on my last post above, which was on topic.

Repost:

"Regarding maps....I understand that we cannot make new maps, but can the existing maps be modified? Looking through the SDK manual, it appears that you can move trees and buildings and fences, etc???? Can you also "repaint" the map surface? ie move roads, streams? bridges, etc???

Just thought I'd ask, I am not there yet....still working on enjoying the base game."

Thanks.

[Little Powell]

Marmusman wrote:

No disrespect to the above conversation, but was wondering if someone has any comments on my last post above, which was on topic.

Repost:

"Regarding maps....I understand that we cannot make new maps, but can the existing maps be modified? Looking through the SDK manual, it appears that you can move trees and buildings and fences, etc???? Can you also "repaint" the map surface? ie move roads, streams? bridges, etc???

Just thought I'd ask, I am not there yet....still working on enjoying the base game."

Thanks.

I'm no map guy by far, but there are certain objects that can be changed. There's already a tree mod, Davinci has altered the fences, and I believe there's something else someone did I'm missing... As far as moving stuff around, I don't think that's possible without using the NSD version of Power Render.

[Davinci]

Well, I guess that I can guess with the best of them, so here goes…..

You can add trees, bushes, corn, weeds, orchards, etc… on any of the maps that you have, you can also remove any of the above items off of any map!

I don’t see any reason that you can-not add roads, trails, or paths on any of the existing maps; you can also probably remove any of the current roads, trails, or paths.

But , you can-not actually remove the graphic of any existing road, that is defined in the ground terrain , and the current ground terrain can-not be altered!

So, even if you add a road that runs through a field, you will not be able to see that road that you just made, but the units will still march on it!

You can add items on the road, such as small rocks, that will show you where the road is located on the ground. So the new road will be invisible , and the old road will be visible , just not used to march on.

Objects – you can remove them, but you can-not add any new objects to the maps. You can replace an object with another object, but that is a long-drawn-out-process, so I’ll leave that one alone. This would require messing up the games default status.

You will need a copy of Photoshop or an equivalent program to alter the mapname.tga file, that file should be in the SDK , but must be moved to the Mods \ directory … (i.e.…Mods\Scenarios\Maps).

You will also need something like Excel , or equivalent to alter the csv files that are also in the Maps-folder.

All of these changes should be done within the Mod files, so as not to alter the current game files, this way if you mess something up, the default game will be unaffected by these changes.

Hope this helped!

davinci

[Marmusman]

davinci,

Thanks. That helps alot.

So IF someone wanted to build a map of the Wilderness (for example) you could use the Kansas map and add a ton of trees, except at the "new" roads, so they would be defined. Then use the historical view setting to keep everything even more challenging.

I am sure that it isn't easy. I am still working on managing a Brigade in battle, so I am a long way off!!!

[RebBugler]

"I don’t often agree with “rckgunny” but I too have got to feel that a change of scenery in SOWG would not be a bad thing. The existing limitation of maps does begin to make it a bit tedious after a while. This is especially so in Open Play (I hate the word “sandbox” …… refuse to use it). Another map of the Laurel Junction type would be ideal …… then no one can argue about its historical accuracy."

As already revealed by Norb, with the next patch, ALPINE, 4x the ground. :woohoo:
Maybe historical only to Hannibal's elephants. :laugh: