New GCM

This is where we discuss anything multiplayer. From strategies, arranging games, to multiplayer related technical help. You will also find tournament and league information here.
Jonah
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Re: New GCM

Post by Jonah »

Thanks go to Ron and Swinder for getting this sorted Windows 10 now works very well i have been using a brand new W10 laptop which has been running this very well but for a stable connection i would have no issues what so ever, Great work guys.
exp101
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Re: New GCM

Post by exp101 »

NGCM now has a website and registered domain. We should be within a day or two of having it populated and ready for players to register & create their divisions. Word of caution though: the chances of Swinder & me getting all the settings for replacements, experience & roughly 1 zillion details correct right out of the box are probably limited -- meaning that nobody should get too attached to their pixeltruppen right away. It may well be necessary to do a reset or two of divisions before we're really off and running
exp101
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Re: New GCM

Post by exp101 »

The brand new Windows 10-friendly NGCM is up! This new system extends and in some ways expands GCM-style battles at its new home:
http://ngcmsow.com/

To get up and running...
-Go to the website, register and login
-Create your USA and CSA divisions of troops and name your division commanders
-In Preferences enter how many men and guns you wish to bring to battle
-Choose new brigade leaders and begin recruiting regiments (up to 16 per division) from the pool of over 2,000 historical Civil War formations
-Assign your regiments to brigades -- or leave them unassigned if you wish
-Follow the same process for your artillery units.

As with the old GCM, your personal division of troops carries over from battle to battle. We use all the familiar GCM mods and fight on battlefields drawn from an archive of hundreds of GCM Large Random Maps.

NGCM is both the same and different from the old GCM? Here's how:

NGCM is Windows 10 Friendly!!!

Division Sizes
Unlike old GCM all players, regardless of rank or skill level, may recruit the same number of regiments (16) from the pool for each of their divisions. By managing regiment-to-brigade assignments, dismissals, recruitment of regiments/guns, and their personal division preferences, players control what they bring to each battle and keep their commands fit for battle;

Impact of Losses
As with GCM, the impact of casualties on regiments in NGCM carries over from battle to battle with victorious divisions enjoying advantages over the vanquished in the repatriation of in-game casualties;
Unlike the old days, regiments captured in NGCM battles are removed from a player's division and returned to the pool where they are refreshed and made eligible for later recruitment by the community. It's a bit different with guns. Individual gun casualties are not carried over from battle to battle. However, routed or captured guns are removed and returned to the pool for future recruitment;

Replenishing Losses
Like GCM, players in NGCM may "run turns" in attempting to replenish losses in veteran formations. Significant numbers of new recruits will impact a regiment's experience levels. Players may run 1 player turn per day on NGCM divisions plus 1 turn for each battle that division participated in that day. There are no "global turns" and regiments are not randomly dismissed as a result of running player turns. On the other hand, individual regiments may be freely dismissed and recruited randomly from the pool at any time, but this is done regiment by regiment rather than through a brigade pool. Most players will also be able to maintain a "reserve" of unassigned regiments which may be rotated into and out of active brigades. Regiments recruited from the pool will arrive in 1 of 3 flavors: 500 men with "0" experience; 400 men @ level 1; 300 men @ level 2. It there it will be up to players to determine how they wish to manage

Gaining (and losing) experience
Regiments may gain levels of experience depending on their performance in battle, sometimes as much as 2 levels if they inflict extraordinary losses on an enemy. Regiments lose levels for significant numbers of new recruits added from running player turns; Individual guns gain experience as they inflict casualties. The numerous Scourge of War categories of regimental characteristics e.g., marksmanship, control, edged weapons are adjusted proportionately with the rise and fall of experience.

Regiments within Brigades
As with GCM, regiments in NGCM divisions must be part of a brigade to fight. What's different is that NGCM regiments may remain within their division without being assigned to a brigade. Players may want to do this for various reasons such as preferring to hold a veteran unit out of battle until it has been able to replace battle losses. Unlike GCM there are no action points limiting transfers within divisions or commander dismissals. Division sizes are capped as to numbers of commanders, regiments, brigades, batteries and guns

Battle Report
In its battle reports NGCM will show detail of about the results of the fight, unit by unit, including losses inflicted and sustained. It will also alert about experience level shifts

One Human = One Division
There were instances in old GCM where players created multiple divisions, sometimes necessitated by a division becoming corrupted. With NGCM, there is a strict one-player/one-division policy. This will both keep us within the bounds of our historical unit pool and avoid some of the server memory issues that resulted in the ultimate corruption and demise of the GCM website

Hosting
Old GCM allowed anyone to host. NGCM will also have a very liberal hosting policy, but hosting capability requires activation by an Admin. This should provide some protection against trolls. Let me know if you plan to be a host!

Inactive Divisions
Divisions not involved in battle for 2 months will have their regiments and guns removed to the pool to be refreshed and made eligible for general recruitment

Battle Generator
Hosts have the following criteria to select when making a battle:
-Player selection (hold down the "Ctrl" key to select multiple players)
-Map (select from GCM Random Maps 1285 - 1409)
-Map perameters (defaults at entire 5 mi x 5 mi map. Choose drop-down options e.g., NW 2,2 and SE 8,8) to play a sub-selection of map area)
-Objective count (Unlike GCM, this may now include even numbers of vps)
-Objective Holders (None, by Division, By Army)
-Game Length
-Spawn Type (by Division; by Corps)
-Supply Type (by Division; by Army)
-Supply Wagon Speed
-Random Only (set regiments per brigade, brigades per division and guns per division in random battles)
-Battle Size Limit (number of total men capped)
-Couriers (yes or no)
-Game Type (Random or Campaign)



From: Ronald Berg <rwberg53@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2018 2:39 PM
Subject: Discord for NGCM

Finally, the GCM community is no longer using TeamSpeak but has moved to the free Discord game comms system. If you haven't already joined us please:
-Install Discord
https://discordapp.com/
-Follow this invitation link to join our group:
https://discord.gg/rYst46p

See you on the battlefield!
Palmer
Last edited by exp101 on Sun Jul 29, 2018 6:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
exp101
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Re: New GCM

Post by exp101 »

Battle today at the regular time. I plan to be on Discord 1/2 hour early to help set up divisions for anyone who needs it.

A note about mods and maps: If you've already played an NGCM battle or even one of the last GCM games, your mods are probably OK (i.e., the old GCM mods work, for now, in NGCM). If you think you might be missing some mods, download and activate the NGCM mods from the Help/Install menus on the website. Just make sure you don't have both an old GCM mod and a new NGCM mod activated for the same thing (e.g., don't have both NGCM Toolbar and GCM Toolbar activated).

On the website some of the mods are listed as "Optional" -- but I do require all of these in games to be installed and activated in battles I host.

If you don't have a complete set of maps (i.e., from Random Map #1285 to 1409), you should download and install NGCM Random Maps 1 and deactivate the GCM Random Maps 4 mod. This will give you a complete set of the latest 125 Random maps for our battles. If you're not sure what maps you already have installed, go to c:\Matrix Games\Scourge of War - Gettysburg\Mods\GCMRandomMaps4\Maps and check out the range of maps in your list.
Wales
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Re: New GCM

Post by Wales »

Greetings Mr Palmer,
Am sad that the GCM site is down... I have been busy otherwise would have been more attentive.
My facebook email would be tricountyconst07@hotmail.com. Dave Line, Am still in federal heights, CO.
Hope to hear from you, feel free to email.

~S~

Wales
exp101
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Re: New GCM

Post by exp101 »

With GCM there's always been just 1 flavor of battle i.e., meeting engagement. Today in NGCM we played the first battle in Swinder's new "Attack/Defend" format now available to hosts. Here's how it works: Players of the defending side spawn in one quadrant of the map along with all the vps. Attacking players may begin in any of the remaining 3 quadrants. As you would imagine, defenders have the natural advantages that usually go with defense such as interior lines, ability to light up and score pts. with the vps from early on. Attackers have the advantage of being able to plan and time their attack from anywhere on the battlefield and a modest bump in troop numbers (for today's battle it was a random 5% - 9%). These numbers may require further tuning, but today's fight was highly competitive -- even seesaw with the defending Rebs eking out a close win. Everyone seemed to have fun and enjoyed the format variation. It looks like hosts now have another tool to add variety to the SoW experience!
Last edited by exp101 on Tue Jul 31, 2018 7:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
exp101
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Re: New GCM

Post by exp101 »

NGCM players will now notice that there are avatar portraits of all corps, division and brigade commanders (and generic portraits of others e.g., artillery commanders) in the game. Portraits of brigadiers will remain with them so long as the officer remains with a player's division -- and they are visible to enemy (though not the name) even with Restricted ID. Oddly, SoWGB had a large stash of these portraits in the standard game that have never, to our knowledge, been used.
Also, regimental commanders names have been added to all regiments in the game.
Hope players enjoy these additional touches!
Last edited by exp101 on Tue Jul 31, 2018 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
exp101
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Re: New GCM

Post by exp101 »

Wales, email and FB invitation sent. Let me know if you didn't get these.
Last edited by exp101 on Tue Jul 31, 2018 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Razorback429
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Re: New GCM

Post by Razorback429 »

Swinder.....many thanks for the enhanced(white)headings on the home page of our new website....sure makes it easier to find my division, preferences, etc.!
exp101
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Re: New GCM

Post by exp101 »

NGCM How to Host: Step by Step

-Login and create a Battle Queue (Battles/Battle Queue)
-Open Battle Generator (Battles/Battle Generator)
-Select Players manually or choose from available Battle Queues
-Choose Options for the battle
-Create Battle
-Click on “Battles” link on the battle summary page that pops up
-Click “Download” on Battles Page then look for the zipped battle folder in your Downloads area
-Click on zipped folder (this should unzip the subfolder of the same name)
-Drag the unzipped battle folder to C:\Matrix Games\Scourge of War - Gettysburg\Work\Scenarios
-Open Multiplayer Lobby Room and create a room
-When players have joined, go on to Staging, click “Create Game” and select your new NGCM battle
-Launch & play battle as usual
-When the battle finishes:
a) Click “End Battle” and confirm
b) Click “Save Replay” and “Battle Details” buttons
c) Click “Dump Game Database” button
d) Close and Exit the Game
e) (Back at the NGCM website) Login again (if necessary)
f) In the “ID” column, click your battle's details
g) At the bottom of the page, choose the winning side and the “gamedb” file for your recorded battle. This will be near the top of the list with a date that should be only a few seconds/minutes old. Here's the folder where these files live: C:\Matrix Games\Scourge of War - Gettysburg\Work
h) Record the battle (blue button)
i) Choose, upload and record the Replay file for the battle. This will be located in this folder: C:\Matrix Games\Scourge of War - Gettysburg\Work\Saved Games\Replay

You’re done!
Last edited by exp101 on Mon Aug 13, 2018 3:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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