Napoleon in Russia Project

[jonnymacbrown]

First, I think this is the wrong place to point to the problem, no offensive to the Blitz oh lord for sure not but this is neither the developers forum nor that of a club specifically dedicated to this games series.

I don't comprehend this idea. This has been the forum for change and updates not only in Napoleonics but Pz.C and other titles as well.

And second, by yearly pointing to the problem you don't get anywhere unless your target is to keep the people from buying it, but by that you simply cut yourself because with less people that could participate in any future endeavor you will just make work on this specific scenario harder if not unbearable.


People will still buy the game because evry wargamer is, in one way or another, interested in that battle. The historical Waterloo is why people buy the game, not for hypothetical encounters and that is why the game has that title: Waterloo; the world's most famous, discussed, remembered, researched battle.

Now If you want to do something good, find a place with enough dedicated people that can join a project to rework this scenario, with enough concentrated historical research but also dedicated playtesting you surely could achieve a better version of this stock scenario and that version might even end up in the next patch.

I did do that, right here. The 4 Days in June campaign scenario files are recovered and next month I'll be able to produce a Waterloo historical battle if I can get some assurances it will be reviewed. I am open to anyone getting on board with this project. I must wait because my WL disk is in another residence.

Now besides the placement of some French units, is there something wrong with the British lines or the map itself?

The map is a triumph thanks to Rich Hamilton; the best Waterloo map ever created.
British and Allied disposition also bear little semblance to historical dispositions. In July I'll have something more to say about it. Thanks for your participation Big Duke! jonny

[BigDuke66]

@trauth116
Would be nice if you would do a blog post about "research, citations, multiple sources, and reconciling accounts, as well as tracing sources", I'm sure that could be handy for everyone who wants to contribute to such a project or any history project at all.
I myself have given a lot feedback over the years, I think most covering WW2 for the TOAW series scenarios but I never did this in a "professional" way, I just grabbed any source that covered the topic that had to be researched and after forming my own picture I gave my feedback.
I guess there are better and more effective ways to do it, so any enlightenment is welcome.


@jonnymacbrown
I agree that this forum is the best spot for PC because the dev forum is quite dead and the PC wargame club dissolved many years ago. Also I myself give Ed feedback for his France 14 scenarios here as there is simply no other place to go.
But I doubt it for Napoleonics, I see some familiar names that may have been playtesters for the series but the main designer(Bill Peters) is not here I think, also none of the officials from HPS or JTS.
Also when looking at the active player base, well 65 players for all the games that the "Black Powder & Cold Steel" ladder covers is not much and I bet the majority of it are Civil War players.
Anyhow if this forms into a serious project to rework the historical Waterloo scenario, I will make sure that the other club also knows about, I'm sure they appreciated any work on improving Waterloo and some will surely participate.
For my part I surely will volunteer as playtester, as French fanboy I'm curious how much a better position will impact the battle.

[-72-]

Fwiw, I did find your edit, Jonny, or at least one of them and I was not aware that you had done something about it way back then (2007).

https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...?tid=39205

And that is fair enough I guess - fwiw, it seems like the search function is messed up here -luckily it was about the first couple of pages.

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Research: that can be a tough one -it can depend upon a team and that isn't always going to be present. What I am specifically meaning would be source material in other languages (not just for the interpretations, but also for the accessibility) - it can vary a bit based upon the topic. I guess too what needs to be parsed out would be identifying and synthesizing bias, and conflicting interpretations even amongst 1st person accounts. I am not really talking about Waterloo, or even the Napoleonic period although I would not be surprised that it does, anyway it is more of a general situational statement. There are a lot of aspects to this ... so I am sure there is a lot more to it to write about,

One thing though, is just because other games show something in one way does not really mean all that much necessarily, although I guess if a scenario designer decides to go another way then it would be fair to expect some sort of explanation - if for no other reason, because it can be pretty interesting to people that were not privy to the decision making process.

Edited to add: Since Mr Moss posted this, I would prefer that anything like that get sent through HPS or JTS; Rich generally passes that material along. At the moment I am engaged in some other related hobby projects, and anything sent through to me would maybe get lost.

Edit 2: and continuing to read through the past pages here ... lots of material there.

Edit 3: The reason I would prefer it to go through Rich is that I have read the material in this folder here, and I will let him make the call. To me it is just putting up on a board, but considering some of the stuff that was posted in the past, and its tone -unless that were to change radically I would not be putting it up there, as there would be no point to it -if someone's point to doing something is to bash the companies (and my reading of the relevant material in here back to 2007 is that it is), then I have other things to do than even taking the brief amount of time that it would take to upload material.

Edit 4: If not using a submap, then you will need to show where you got the map from. I will know the source of it, and there are only so many people with the ability to create legitimate maps for the series - otherwise, frankly, it is not getting hosted on SDC. This is meant to be a blanket application -not only this specific topic.

[BigDuke66]

Started a new thread about the rework on the Waterloo game, check out here:
https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...?tid=68172

Please move anything useful from this thread to the new thread.

[jonnymacbrown]

If not using a submap, then you will need to show where you got the map from. I will know the source of it, and there are only so many people with the ability to create legitimate maps for the series - otherwise, frankly, it is not getting hosted on SDC.

Rich Hamilton's Waterloo map, both battle map and Campaign map are perfectly done and cannot be improved upon. jonny