HPS NB vs. Battleground

[bwv]

thinking about getting into these, having played BGW a fair amount in the 90s

I take it they do not have the turn phases that BG has, what are the other major differences or learning curves for someone familiar with the BG series?

[Liebchen]

thinking about getting into these, having played BGW a fair amount in the 90s

I take it they do not have the turn phases that BG has, what are the other major differences or learning curves for someone familiar with the BG series?

They do have the turn phases as optional rules, but I don't know that anyone uses them for PBEM.

[jonnymacbrown]

"thinking about getting into these, having played BGW a fair amount in the 90s
I take it they do not have the turn phases that BG has, what are the other major differences or learning curves for someone familiar with the BG series?"

The biggest problem with BG games is that the cavalry charge phase immediately follows the movement phase which gives cavalry a tremendous advantage; they can suddenly appear out of nowhere and then charge, giving them very often a 2000 yard charge; for example, from behind a hill, move 14 hexes by road movement, take a few hits on the defensive fire phase and then charge 7 hexes. Tiller solved this problem with HPS games by having the charge phase at the beginning of the movement phase. von Egan

[agmoss99]

For someone familiar with BG you will adapt to HPS quickly. The graphics aren't as stunning, that's a fact. In terms of gameplay Optional Rules (and there are a lot) mean you can play the game in a number of different ways from almost exactly like BG to pretty much like Blitzkrieg with the single phase move-melee-move system. And the maps are bigger giving more emphasis to movement. And there are linked campaign scenarios.
The biggest issues for me in BG were the use and abuse of skirmishers, and the big zoc kills. Both have been addressed by HPS.
HPS is supported and BG is not.....I understand BG doesn't run on WIN 7 but may be wrong about that.
The AI is well, ahem, the same.
Overall, strongly recommend moving to HPS.

[jonnymacbrown]

The large scale Waterloo campaign map is a great achievement and thanks to Rich Hamilton for his work on it. The map alone is worth buying HPS Waterloo. j
:)

[rahamy]

While John Tiller was the programmer for the Battleground games, his newer games are much different. The essence of the games (turn based, hex format, historical strategy games) are the same, but there's been a large number of changes which make game play significantly different over his older work:

- Game turns can be played in single turns, with movement, fire & melee all taking place in a single segment - with the defender taking "opportunity fire" as the offensive player is moving. This gives the game a bit more of a "real time" feel without requiring the players to both be on-line at the same time. It is still possible to play in phases too, if you select that option. The single turn mode radically reduces the amount of file transfers needed to play a PBEM game as well.

- Losses are now handled in single man increments rather than in 25 man segments.

- Fatigue is now handled in single points too, rather than huge blocks - though some things can really make the fatigue rack up, such as loosing a melee.

- Campaigns. There is now a feature which allows you to play through a series of battles, making a decision before each which will directly impact the positioning of your forces for that battle. Losses are also carried over from battle to battle in most cases, stragglers can return to units, and if a short amount of time passes in between actions fatigue will also carry over.

- Maps...the format of maps have changed from a single bitmap image to a "tiled" approach. This allows MUCH bigger maps to be used, and also allows many more maps to be included with each game.

- Content - tieing into the map comment above, there is also a significantly larger amount of content included with each title now compared to the Battleground games. For example Campaign Waterloo includes more scenarios & maps then all three of the BG Nap games combined. NRC is huge with ton's of maps, battles and a big campaign. In fact most of the titles feature really good sized maps - which to me - make a big difference in my enjoyment of a title.

- There are many more engine enhancements as well, which you can read about by checking the "Changes.txt" file from one of the games on the HPS site. Here's the one for Eckmuhl, which was the first title released with HPS - http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/updates/up_...hl_113.txt - these games are still supported as well, with new content being released for the entire series as new games are published, for free. The BG series is stuck in time.

So, all in all it is a far better value to pick up the HPS titles, and will continue to be, over the older games.

If you have more questions please don't hesitate to ask!

[Jolly Roger]

I agree with Rich, although in my opinion all games of John Tiller and Gary Grisby are worth every dime you spend on them.
As I prefer phased gameplay, I´d like to see the "Counter Cavalry Charge" option added to the HPS games too. The impact of cavalry charges is more effective in BG, but on all other subjects the HPS version is far more recommendable.

Cheers, Klaus

[JasonC]

I've played them both and have the opposite opinion. I think practically every design change made for HPS was a step backward, and the net effect is a much more boring system. There are also numerous places were the design decisions are stark raving mad. (E.g "batteries" for every 1-2 guns in some of the ACW titles, because Tiller wants each specific field piece type modeled separately - while ignoring the lousy effects this has on the ammo system, player micromanagement, etc). Skirmishers are not really fixed. You can instead have huge stacks in skirmish order - just silly. The effects of villages are crazy. Cavalry melees horribly unless charging, but now can't charge from anything beyond point blank. The idiotic high point values for cavalry are still there - loss of a regiment of horse is about 10 times worse than having Napoleon captured (lol). The single man loss system is more like a "there aren't any losses" system. There are maybe 2-3 things that can touch a stack of infantry.

The worst side effect of the move and fight all you want new unphased sequence of play is that it encourages "panzerblitz" thinking and tactics. Instead of ranks and reliefs that fail through morale issues or disorder, we get instead the choreographed sequence on a tiny stretch of front when all is in place for it. You can hit here with the left regimental column then there with the right one then through them with the next rank then charge with the cavalry after seeing what happened - in one 15 minute turn on 500 meters of frontage, while the defenders sit there and at most get off a volley if you close to point blank. The tendencies to micro-tactical giantism and mindless mashing of stuff together is worse than ever. The net effect is to make tactics out of Guderian not out a Napoleon viable.

The old BG games had problems as many people played them, because many players turned on all the morale enhancing and rout limiting optional rules, which results in US civil war style tactics of continuous lines, completely wrong for the Napoleonic era. But it was easily solved just just turning the optionals off (other than cavalry countercharges and VPs for leader casualties). That made formations want to spread with intervals to prevent rout contagion, and made shots and attacks for the purpose of inducing morale failure a major, viable tactic.

[rahamy]

I've played them both and have the opposite opinion. I think practically every design change made for HPS was a step backward, and the net effect is a much more boring system. There are also numerous places were the design decisions are stark raving mad. (E.g "batteries" for every 1-2 guns in some of the ACW titles, because Tiller wants each specific field piece type modeled separately - while ignoring the lousy effects this has on the ammo system, player micromanagement, etc).

I would contest you on many points. First off, you confuse John Tiller with the scenario designer - the scenario designer is the one who will make OOB choices and the like inside any given title.

Skirmishers are not really fixed. You can instead have huge stacks in skirmish order - just silly.

If the strength of stacked skirmishers exceeds a certain amount, 250 men I believe, then they loose the benefits of skirmish order and are treated like a formed unit.

The effects of villages are crazy.

In what respect?

Cavalry melees horribly unless charging, but now can't charge from anything beyond point blank.

Really? What game are you playing, because its certainly not the ones I have been for the last 10 years...

The idiotic high point values for cavalry are still there - loss of a regiment of horse is about 10 times worse than having Napoleon captured (lol).

Of course the loss of a trained war horuse should be simmilar to a foot slogger, silly me, what was I thinking? -- If you disagree that strongly with the value change it! Its editable!

The single man loss system is more like a "there aren't any losses" system. There are maybe 2-3 things that can touch a stack of infantry.

LOL! My goodness what are you playing? During the course of a battle losses are always higher than historical, primarily due to player styles. And why would you get firing range results on a battlefield, when none of the conditions are the same?

The worst side effect of the move and fight all you want new unphased sequence of play is that it encourages "panzerblitz" thinking and tactics. Instead of ranks and reliefs that fail through morale issues or disorder, we get instead the choreographed sequence on a tiny stretch of front when all is in place for it. You can hit here with the left regimental column then there with the right one then through them with the next rank then charge with the cavalry after seeing what happened - in one 15 minute turn on 500 meters of frontage, while the defenders sit there and at most get off a volley if you close to point blank.

Several changes have been made to the system that reduces this, and ZOC elminiations was far worse in the BG system than it is in the HPS one. Again though, this has something to do with player styles - so milage will vary, and I will agree with you that some people take things to extreame. With that said, the old phased system still exist - even with manual defensive fire if you wish - so players have options as to how they play.

The tendencies to micro-tactical giantism and mindless mashing of stuff together is worse than ever. The net effect is to make tactics out of Guderian not out a Napoleon viable.

Again, more of a function of how a player chooses to play, than a fault of the system. The overriding design philosiphy is to punish players for unhistorical tactics, not make them impossible to do. There's a balance between "game" and "simulation" that has to be addressed.

The old BG games had problems as many people played them, because many players turned on all the morale enhancing and rout limiting optional rules, which results in US civil war style tactics of continuous lines, completely wrong for the Napoleonic era. But it was easily solved just just turning the optionals off (other than cavalry countercharges and VPs for leader casualties). That made formations want to spread with intervals to prevent rout contagion, and made shots and attacks for the purpose of inducing morale failure a major, viable tactic.

Again, you place the fault on the system when in fact it is squarely at the feet of the player in most instances.

Are the HPS titles perfect? Definitely not, but they are far better than the BG system. You are of course welcome to your own opinion, but please don't falsely represent something you obviously disdain. That's just wrong.

[jonnymacbrown]

"The idiotic high point values for cavalry are still there - loss of a regiment of horse is about 10 times worse than having Napoleon captured (lol)."

If you open the editor you can see the values that are attached to cavalry loss; usually 6x1 to infantry. In the BG system it was 8x1. There has to be something there to prevent players from over-using cav.

Villages are there; there's no getting around that, and if occupied by skirms, they are easily driven off by a formed battalion. Rich is right; you can't stack over 250 skirms in a hex or else they become a class A target, like a column.

The cavalry charge system in HPS is good, and a vast improvement over BG where it came after movement; so a cav unit could move 10 hexes by road and then charge in the same phase. HPS eliminates that: Now the charges take place in the beginning of a phase before they move, so they can't suddenly appear. This is a very positive improvement.

The biggest problem that remains is the ability of units to use their full movement allowance and then still be able to melee; which makes every infantry unit in road march column a flying missile to be sent crashing into the enemy line, sometimes from 500-1000 yards away. This is one reason why losses are so high, but they were also incredible high in BG, and like Rich says, this is more about how players play Napoleonic games than about the game system. Jonny