Changes planned for Napoleonic titles.

[phoenix]

Just so everybody is aware.  There are plans to turn the look of the Napoleonic titles into the same look the ACW series has. Now would be the time to tell David whether you like that idea or not. I personally prefer my (modded) Napoleonic look to the ACW look. But I expect I'll be in a minority, in that respect. I'm at least relieved they're not planning to force jison-type hexes into the Napoleonic titles...

https://www.wargamedesignstudio.com/2020...-update-1/

[Lowlander]

Just so everybody is aware.  There are plans to turn the look of the Napoleonic titles into the same look the ACW series has. Now would be the time to tell David whether you like that idea or not. I personally prefer my (modded) Napoleonic look to the ACW look. But I expect I'll be in a minority, in that respect. I'm at least relieved they're not planning to force jison-type hexes into the Napoleonic titles...

https://www.wargamedesignstudio.com/2020...-update-1/

Well I have all the Nappy, ACW, games with several mods so whatever transpires I think I'm covered.
Sorry I also have all the PZC games modded " Jison Style ", my pet hate is the counters on the unit art.
Regarding counters on unit art in the PB series which light up " I.E. highlighted " let us all pray it ends there.
Used to love the 3D mode but since the advent of a LARGER zoom level it's fell into disuse.
With around 60 John Tiller games and 4 Gary Grigsby's I'm still playing catch up.

[-72-]

Feedback regarding hex borders directly on the art -and the logical argument for why they should not be done was used to change Seven Years War.

I guess my point being is that feedback can be where you find it, and I oftentimes find it around the traps (one of the slang expressions I was taught down here).

I totally understand about the images on counters; that's sort of a new thing that came along in board wargames as well. I don't entirely know where it originates from -but it goes back a long ways ... I mean even Panzer General was doing it in the 1990's although that really was more of a puzzle than a wargame...

One of the complications I have found in design with the new level of 2D is that you look at it and need to add a layer so the impulse is to just convert an existing graphic (in other words one at a smaller size) to the new larger size. I don't know that that is probably the most advantageous sequencing to be doing that.  I mean what I am working on right now might take that exact path but it is something worth exploring and experimenting with I think.  

-Meaning I think maybe a potentially better way to work with the newest size units is make your initial design based upon the new amount of real estate, so to speak -and then scale it down -so maybe you take elements as the 2 other levels progress smaller.  

I do really like the addition of the single image maps (I sort of wished it would have been introduced for the 2D level as that might have had an impact - it would have also meant that they could have been done for maps covering larger areas than just using the 3D style- but they aren't.  What I like is that it establishes a naming convention so that anyone so inclined to give it a go can.  With the Civil War series, the one thing I am not overly keen about is that there is either a bug or an intentional design aspect that prevents a couple of selections being deselected and then not saved for when you open up the program the next time.  For example. say a user prefers the b/w images -while you can select those in a menu - you have to select that every single time you open the program -and honestly it is annoying as all hell to have to do that.  I assume it is a bug -and if so fair enough... the same holds true with the single image maps... you cannot simply select to look at the other style without having that show up every single time that you open the map. In fairness there are some work-arounds for this that involves moving or renaming files ... but, well ... anyways ... my point I guess is that I don't think this update should maybe include programming to that level -but one never knows until you see it.

Hexy - that's true - it shouldn't be with the single image maps so much as essentially from what I can tell by nutting out how I would work them - is you overlay them over a screenshot of the larger map and use opacity so that you know what you are designing aligns with a hexside ... the hexsides are still what the game is looking at underneath -so technically speaking the artwork itself doesn't have to directly conform to that -it can vary some -- you should find that with roads, fields, woods, orchards, etc -and to a limited degree anything that runs along a hexside.  But I mean that is just common-sense and having looked at a lot of physical game maps over the years.

I got told my own style sort of channels the Clash of Arms titles- but I wasn't actually working off of those - and to be fair while I do have them (and they are great -- the La Bataille, and Battles in the Age of Reason series -among others ) - I didn't actually have any to work off of until after the fact -so it was sort of circumstantial.  In SYW, at any rate part of what had to be done was to amalgamate work that came from elsewhere.

Back to the images on counters ... and I don't know if NB will go as far as CWB by assigning a different graphic to each sides' leaders (it should in my opinion - but I have no idea what all the brief is for that) ... a simple star, or a crummy flag ( mine or whoever's ) doesn't seem to cut it.  You have a lot of room now to make something happen - in my own project I think I have it easier- there were no uniforms more or less, and most from the same class background would have dressed in a similar fashion - I only have a single Leader area I can use on the bmp file -so I might go with an image there -but only for a Leader -- I haven't put it in stone though ... so I mean don't take that as gospel. It does, though make for some interesting possibilities that were not there before.

Question -and I sort of know that there are limitations with this - because the counters themselves will not be able to change facing --- I was at one time thinking of going with some silhouettes, along the lines of what SPI did with their Civil War series ( that began back in 1976 with Terrible Swift Sword) -- need to come up with a more aesthetically minded arrow for facing ... but I mean that is sort of academic really.  I don't know if that works better or not - I mean there were no NATO symbols used at the time ... it was largely rectangles to show infantry formations... I don't know the answer - it is something to work around with.  In the design project - it will just be NATO symbols like always -- but I may do some work in that space outside stock imagery later on.

[LarkinVB]

Playing mostly with 3D view I stronlgy prefer the larger figure sizes with fewer men compared to the lots of tiny men where any unit flavor will be wasted. For the ACW this might be not that impactfull but the napoleonic periods immersion and charm of beautiful uniforms will be gone.

[-72-]

Playing mostly with 3D view I stronlgy prefer the larger figure sizes with fewer men compared to the lots of tiny men where any unit flavor will be wasted. For the ACW this might be not that impactfull but the napoleonic periods immersion and charm of beautiful uniforms will be gone.

I'm kind of the opposite- as it ends up being all about scale and scope- meaning I think if I were to play miniatures it would be 6 or 3mm and go with that.

Mind you if you are on the field and under duress; the type of duress that you would be facing someone that has every intent to kill you -you aren't really going to care about if the other guy's epaulets are mauve or chartreuse - you probably wouldn't even notice.

I guess what I am saying is what exactly would have been the real impact on a battlefield?  I can imagine that the Old Guard's uniforms, their height requirements and big bearskins were (and did) fully intended to demoralise an opponent on sight. 

But that's just me -one can actually do both if you have the time and inclination to put it together.

[LarkinVB]

I don't quite understand what the battlefield impact of uniforms has to do with me preferring the aesthetics of bigger 3D figures? Btw we play 25mm miniature games ;-)

[BigDuke66]

Happy to see the Napy series finally getting some of the CW series stuff!

Division colors on the side? Great idea!

Where I have my doubts are the counters and depiction on them.
CW series had the counters pretty solid with just a slight 3d effect. What I see here looks pretty strange, like a package of chewing gums pressed out. I assume this comes from the depiction being mainly black instead of the white/yellow seen in the CW series.
So, solid counters with white/yellow depiction, doesn't this work out in the Napy series???

Next the coloring of some Nato symbols. Is that needed at all? Why have green pioneer counters when the Nato symbol seems pretty clear, Or the light blue on some cavalry when you can work with letters like you already do for heavy, cossacks, dragoons.
I think there is a higher chance of mixing them up with base counter colors, like Russian green and green pioneers or restricted infantry gray and Prussian/Austrian gray, then improving the chance to identify the unit type.
Nato symbols should carry an overall "neutral" color, that can be applied to all counter colors without the risk of mixing them up for a unit of a different nation.

Last but not least, will there be a set to switch to ingame that has no Nato symbols like it can be done in the CW series?

[O.Schmidt]

I am also working on some! In the appendix to info a zip file! Some test 2D!

[-72-]

I don't quite understand what the battlefield impact of uniforms has to do with me preferring the aesthetics of bigger 3D figures? Btw we play 25mm miniature games ;-)

Yes, sure 25 mm and the immersion/charm factor is not an uncommon thing to say -it is why those scales get played, I was only mentioning the other with regards to what a similar sentiment is with smaller scales and what the argument for using them is. All I am saying is that if a smaller size would be used -- that would be why.

----

Christian -if you are serious about providing feedback on that, the most effective avenue to do that would be to either talk to Bill Peters, the Support email, or Mr Freer, directly.

To me the units look identical to what was used in Wellington's Peninsular War. I think you were talking about highlighting maybe? Yeh sure there is no reason that you can't use that -the only qualifier that I found is that sometimes a lighter shade of highlighting does not work with a lighter shade of unit - so yellow didn't seem to work so well on white, and red didn't work so well on ... well ... red. Green not so well on green - so when I was doing similar work I had a couple of set styles (and I tried to keep it limited to 2 within a set of units ... plus I am working with 15 different sides --- so with the smaller number of nations being used in NB - in theory, it should be that much easier to do what you were pointing out.

I can see where the new style of unit highlighting can potentially change the dimensions of unit counters - as they should match the height of the highlighting ... that never was a factor before- it was only about maybe trying to center what shows up on the counter when toggled on. To me it wasn't a big deal before although the limited palette that was used when they were first designed was not always ideal --- sometimes they were too dark to see the unit symbol (talking about PzC ) or sometimes too fluorescent (magenta, and I think the green) --- I imagine these could be toned down in the engine coding (you cannot mod them) - by the programmer choosing a different hexidecimal code... to be fair there weren't as many available back when it would have been initially coded so it might not be an easy fix --- sort of a moot point because it isn't something that the end user can change themselves.

The biggest change- and this impacts modders especially - is that the 2D will have a double size file from what is currently in the games - so you will have more unit to design a symbol to. For me that means that mostly filling a counter with a unit symbol right now might be a waste - in the sense that if the idea then is - simply expand that to double the size - ok -you will have a really big symbol -and that sort of is a waste of the extra room to design something --- otoh - well that is the purpose of mods.

I don't have any answers about what JTS will do - but I do know what can be -- with that larger set -you could actually put an image on to the unit -although in my mind it also has to demonstrate formation (line, square, column) - and facing. I have a leader mock up done as a draft for my own project -and if I have some time I might see if I had gotten some art done that looks more appropriate for REN - and apply the same technique -- it would give an idea of what is going to be possible... and that is really where things get interesting. :)

------

Oskar- your files won't work when the new updates come out; you will also have to adapt them to the extra symbols being added otherwise there will be a lot of blank units coming out. Plus you will want to put together a file called 2DSymbolsMag.bmp that is double the dimensions of 2DSymbols100.bmp (Tiller was already using that naming convention in his EAW series ... and if doing the the other 2D the naming convention goes *50.bmp,*100.bmp, *200.bmp as opposed to changing them all to *25.bmp, *50.bmp, & *100.bmp).

Just be prepared to do some extra work is all :)

[phoenix]

For all these reasons could we not stress to JTS that it would be great if they were to update the game and graphics separately, so that people who have already paid their money, already spent a lot of time modding etc, are not forced to lose all that just to keep up to date with game changes. Why can't that happen?