Latest Game Release - Short Delay

[Sgt_Rock]

Jim did a good job of whetting your appetites for the game. He clobbered my French in the Battle of Neerwinden. His outnumbered Austrians used the terrain to their advantage forcing the French to crawl through the fields.

Included in the next game will be:

The battles of the campaigns of 1792-94 in France and the Austrian Netherlands. This includes 9 battles:
Valmy
Jemappes
Neerwinden
Kaiserlautern
Pirmasens
Tourcoing
Tournay
Fleurus (balloons too!)
Aldenhoven

For the campaign of 1796 in Germany we have 6 battles:
First Altenkirchen
Ettlingen
Neresheim
Amberg
Wurzburg
Emmendingen

For the campaign of 1799 in Switzerland and Germany we have 5 battles:
Ostrach
1st Stockach
Winterthur
1st Zurich
2nd Zurich

For the campaign of 1799 in Holland we have 2 battles:
Bergen
Castricum
(and I will be adding in more battles after the game releases - I want to wait til Geert's book on the campaign comes out next year)

For the campaign of 1800 in Germany we will have 6 battles:
2nd Stockach-Engen
Messkirch
2nd Biberach (Paul Synnot translated part of a French text for me for this one)
Neuberg
Ampfing
Hohenlinden

Altogether TWENTY-EIGHT (28) battles! Definitely the hardest title that I have worked on up to this point. The OBs for the battles were often built by piecing together information from various sources.

There are FOUR campaigns to include:
The Battles of the War of the First Coalition - not the traditional kind of campaign but a string of historical battles with choices for both sides. Its meant to acquaint the players with the battles and let them make choices as if they were the commanders at the battle.

The Campaign of 1796 in Germany
The Campaign of 1799 in Swizerland and Germany
The Campaign of 1800 in Germany

I want to add in a campaign in Holland in 1799. I have built a large map of the entire upper peninsula above and including Amsterdam. Its a huge map. I was aided in this work by Mark van Hattem, a Dutch member of our team who made numerous corrections to the map. As I said before once Geert's book comes out I will finish off the battles and then build the campaign.

You will like the Situation maps and image maps for the campaigns we built. Joe Amoral reworked some physical relief maps and they look great. I look at this game as our team's crowning achievement for this series. No one has ever done this period of the wars on this scale before.

The armies represented are:

French
British
Austrian
Russian
Prussian
Hesse-Darmstadt
Hesse-Kassel
Hanover
Dutch Republic and the Batavian Republic
Conde's army and other Emigre contingents
Bavaria
Poland (Legions)
Swiss
Cisalpine Republic (Grenadiers and Hussars)
Saxon

The Spanish front was not as active so I chose to pass on working on the battles. We also did not do the Egyptian campaign for Marengo and I chose not to include it here too. A game on the Russians, Austrians, French vs. the Ottoman Empire would be interesting but unlikely. Its the only way I can see us ever adding in the Turks. Frankly I have little data on those battles (other than Egypt) and it would be a real "crapshoot" for me to try and guess at the OBs, troop locations on the maps, etc. Just not my strong suit.

There were numerous "Clashes" listed in Digby Smith's book that I passed up on. I felt that 28 battles was sufficient (HUGE WINK). Moving on to the Eylau-Friedland game was the next logical step for me.

Once the game comes out I know that you folks will enjoy it. Its going to round out the period nicely. Marengo is the companion game to this next title and yes, I may eventually include a huge campaign file for the 1796 Germany AND Northern Italy campaign which would give both sides choices in transferring troops to Italy. Wurmser was sent to the Italian theater right before Moreau and Jourdan attacked across the Rhine. It didn't matter as Charles defeated the French without those Austrian troops. Italy was the more important theater anyway.

A campaign linking the 1799 campaign in Italy to that in Switzerland and Germany would be interesting too. I have variant scenarios (stand alone) featuring Suvorov arriving at 2nd Zurich.

There are several variant battles added in as well. I have an "Islands" battle that use a map of islands that each player tries to hold. Naval forces arrive for the French to do battle against the British. Units use the "Has Boats" capability to try and take other islands. All SIX Nations are used in the game to include:
French
Austrian
Russian
Prussian
British
Emigre (replaces Spanish)

There is a variant Battle of Fleurus where Bonaparte and his army of Italy (Massena, Augereau, etc) take on the Prussians. Also featured is a battle of Zurich where Bonaparte fights Charles AND Suvorov.

For diversity this game has it. Pick a nation of the period and you can fight with its army. The British army in Holland is not terribly large but has nice morale. Lots of Dragoon Guards cavalry units. Guard infantry and the usual regulars.

Ok .. enough hype! Off to work on the Battle of Ostroleka in Poland, Feb. 1807.