Custers Last Stand

[Crikey]

For example....

[Martin James]

Hi guys

Many thanks for your continued assistance.

The way I have got the OOBs set-up is that within a typical Indian 'corps' structure, I include a division representing the camp (other divisions represent the various tribal groupings - eg Oglala, Hunkpapa, Northern Cheyenne. The camp divisional commander has a number of 'brigades' under him. Each one consists of either about a dozen wagon units (of 1 wagon each) or a similar number of 'regiments'
of non-combatants.

I would like to avoid treating the tepees as map objects, because that would mean they were always in one (known) place, and also that they could not be captured/destroyed.

Davinci has very kindly offered to try and turn what we have into a unit sprite. If he's successful, I can substitute a tepee class for a wagon class in the OOBs.

Hope the above explains the current approach.

Davinci also mentioned above the issue of the camp moving. That *is* a problem. In theory you can make units stationary in at least 2 ways - either by giving them nil speed in unitglobal.csv, or by specifying that their formation cannot move in drills.csv. Unfortunately neither seems to work (or at least not the way I'm doing it ). I can make them move very slowly, but that's not really sufficient in this case.

Martin (J)

[Martin James]

I think your last post crossed with mine, Crikey.

That's a terrific look. All those scenes are very atmospheric. And cutting-out the Sioux horse herd was a specific objective given to Reno's battalion. As if he didn't have enough on his plate :woohoo:

Martin (J)

[JohnVW]

this is looking great...please, keep us "posted" anytime you have any new files ready to be tested!

[Crikey]

Martin - I've packed all the sprites up so they can be deployed as terrain easily. You can therefore deploy numerous villages or decoys should you decide to move away from the unit/wagon way of doing things. Sounds like you need some pack-horse units for that to look right.

Once I've finished a current project I can do some quick maps if you can live with limited roads/vegetation. I don't do multi player so I'm not going to spend lots of time crafting them. I'll leave that to the MP community. B)

[Martin James]

Hey Crikey

Thanks for doing that. The mod is still a work in progress, and I'm not saying I will never go that way. The current approach does seem to provide a really tense gaming experience though, where even the guy setting-up the game shares in the mystery.

You're quite right re pack trains. Custer, Crook and eventually even Terry all had them, and Custer's caused him no end of problems. The Department of Dakota had never used mule trains before, and were quite unskilled in their management. What's often not mentioned is that Custer's train couldn't keep up. But it was crucial to the campaign, so couldn't be left unguarded. Custer therefore had to earmark slightly over 20% of the 7th to guard it. Crook had more experience of pack trains and used skilled civilian packers. These differences and many others are reflected in the mod. Commanding Crook's column is a very different experience to Custer's. And Terry's is different again.

I've managed to produce some reasonable looking trains by cannibalising stock mule sprites.

Some new maps would be *great*. Many thanks. Limited roads and vegetation are just right for the high plains. And of course we don't need any buildings, walls or fences either. Really this will be a walk in the park for you he he

At the moment I normally use the Pipe Creek maps. On minimum graphics settings, these are a very reasonable facsimile of the Little Bighorn region, but it would be really good to have more variety.

Martin (J)

[Davinci]

Davinci also mentioned above the issue of the camp moving. That *is* a problem. In theory you can make units stationary in at least 2 ways - either by giving them nil speed in unitglobal.csv, or by specifying that their formation cannot move in drills.csv. Unfortunately neither seems to work (or at least not the way I'm doing it ). I can make them move very slowly, but that's not really sufficient in this case.

Martin , I'm still in agreement with Crikey on this such as having the objects placed as terrain objects.

You don't have to edit the maps.....such as.....starting from scratch, only edit the mapname.bmp and the mapname.csv files on any existing map.

I haven't tried it but it might be possible to only place those 'two-map-files' into a Mod and load one of the default maps.

In 'theory' your files would replace the other two files.

Using supply-trains is problematic due to the fact that they are tied to the Divisional-Commander, so even if you give them a speed of zero, they default to the speed of the Div-Commander.

Using them as units doesn't solve the problem of them routing off of the field after sub-staining a number of casualties.

I'm not exactly sure how many members on your test-team have edited-maps, but Crikey has offered to help, and I'll help out as much as possible.

BTW - Crikey - Excellent Pictures!

davinci

[Saddletank]

Martin's objective of using the Indian encampments as sprites that are deployed via the OOB is really the way this ought to go. That way the scenario is a complete surprise for all players in MP (even the scenario 'designer'/host) and most crucially its a surprise for the player in SP as well.

Having the encampments in the OOB and not in the map files also means no editing of map files, no need to d/l them and no limitation on which map you select.

[Martin James]

From the standpoint of gameplay, and also convenience, I'm with Saddletank. But Davinci raises a far point concerning routing units. And routing tepees would look even more silly than routing wagons :sick: .

Here's a few questions:

1. Is there any way of preventing units moving, apart from the two I mentioned (unitglobal and drills)?

2. Do routing units move, at a set speed, regardless of normal speed settings in unitglobal?

Here's some other possible approaches to dealing with this:

(a) Ignore it. At the moment, I tend to stop the game once the army gets in amongst the camp (ie wagons). This is on the basis that they have achieved their key objective. Without the tepees, and the stuff inside them, the Sioux would not be able to survive winter on the high plains. Of course the army may still lose if they have taken too many losses in achieving this. As I suggest in the mod notes, even the loss of a couple of companies would have caused a furore. The army was not used to taking heavy losses against Indians. Their problem was usually catching them. So maybe it's not a big issue?

(b) Try and persuade some kind soul to make me a travois unit. That way the tepee could convert to that whenever it moves. And if it routed, it would be like any other routing unit, and wouldn't look odd. A bit like stationary guns and moving limbered guns having a different sprite.

(c) Amend the OOBs. At the moment I give the camp units very low morale and a headcount of 1. Despite this, I don't actually think that they rout very often, as any casualties will destroy them. To be on the safe side, I could increase morale to the maximum as well. I doubt this would make any difference to gameplay, and should minimise the risk of routs caused by damage to neighbouring units. This is obviously a very easy change to make, and I think I will do it anyway.

I've solved the pack train speed problem by creating a bespoke structure in the OOBs, and by treating the trains as 'infantry' rather than 'wagon' formations in unitglobal. That works fine, and we've played a few games now where the mules consistently lag behind the rest of the 7th. It's a real nuisance!

Martin

[Crikey]

Frankly, the answer is probably whatever you can live with without sacrificing the particular gaming experience which works for your group.

In terms of a moveable campsite which can be hunted down - you probably are best sticking with a slow moving horse based arrangement. Far less complicated. A travois or pack horse sprite would work well.

You could have a horse based sprite for movement which defaults to a teepee when standing still. Easy enough to allocate in the csv. However this might work best if the transition from one to the other is delayed significantly Almost like a battery unlimbering/limbering. Gives the hunter time to close. Not sure how easy this would be to set up. Suspect more trouble than it's worth.

I wonder if traits used for batteries might suit you better. They can be captured after all.. Make them toothless by allocating relevant stats or ammo types.

Routing in this instance is probably more trouble than it's worth too.You could consider two options - capture whereby the captured sprite disappears on capture. Think this option is used for batteries in the nap mod currently. Or adjusting the stats so surrender triggers much earlier, if that can be done for individual units. It'll then disappear soon after.

Just some thoughts.