Opponent for Waterloo 007

[jonnymacbrown]

"There is also an editor. Let me know when either of you post an "accurate" historical scenario. Time to put up or shut up, gentlemen. Making scenarios isn't as easy as it looks. Of course some folk just complain, and don't contribute to the solution of percieved "problems."

British and French deployments, as well as Prussian arrival routes are not based upon any known historical sources. It’s not like this information is hard to come by: Adkin's The Waterloo Companion is the best source for French (and other) deployments at Waterloo among others. Unfortunately HPS did not use John Tiller’s accurate historical scenario that he created for BGW; hence all historical scenarios in HPS Waterloo are primarily fantasy. There is no doubt that Prince Jerome’s 6th Division launched the French attack at 1130 with an infantry assault and bombardment. A quick glance at the HPS historical scenario shows that 6th Division on the left is not anywhere near in position to attack anything, ensconced in a wood and more than 1000 yards away from the enemy!



In this historical set up, you are forced to attack the Hugomont orchid with Bachelu’s 5th Division (highlighted), because the 9th and 6th Divisions are too far left and to the rear to do anything. In historical fact it was the 6th and 9th that led the initial II Corps assault with the 5th Division held in reserve. VI Corps (marked by the cursor) is also too far to the rear and to the left; they were actually centrally located.

Prussian route of march is also madly askew; the first arrivals should be through Lasne, and not so far south. In this “historical” scenario everyone but the I Korps infantry and cavalry come on through Couture or south of there. This is clearly wrong as most arrivals marched through Lasne. The Prussians would and did take the more northern route through Lasne to avoid any possible interference from Grouchy. It’s all a made up fantasy, from a scenario designer noted for fantasy scenarios; and it creates insurmountable problems for any wargamer wishing to recreate a Napoleonic battle. In this ‘historical’ set up you are forced to begin moving everything at once, just to get into position to attack. In Napoleon’s actual deployments every unit in the French Army was in position to attack, or quickly assist the attack, without doing any addition movement. This is the essence of Napoleonic deployments and the game designer here doesn’t understand this. Haven't even touched upon the the insane allied deployments. Jonny :whis:

[Al Amos]

That's nice. Where's your scenario?

[jonnymacbrown]

Obviously Al, you don't have anything useful to add to this discussion. jonny

[Al Amos]

Not so, I may agree with you about the scenario not being "top drawer", but I'm not going to tear it apart (unless I'm ready to make an alternate.) That helps no one. I've challenged you to make a good version. I think you can do it. It is you with unending griping about the stock scenarios who "don't have anything USEFUL to add."

[jonnymacbrown]

Not so, I may agree with you about the scenario not being "top drawer", but I'm not going to tear it apart (unless I'm ready to make an alternate.) That helps no one. I've challenged you to make a good version. I think you can do it. It is you with unending griping about the stock scenarios who "don't have anything USEFUL to add."

The link to the scenarios has already been listed in this thread. If you'd been paying attention to anyone's agenda but your own, you might have seen that.

[Al Amos]

Johny, I did see WARREN's scenario link. Where's yours?

[Compass Rose]

OK guys. It is apparent that you are not going to cool off on your own.

THIS IS THE 1ST AND LAST WARNING I AM GOING TO ISSUE PUBLICLY!!!!!!!!!!!

IF THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR CONTINUES, I WILL BE FORCED TO TAKE DISCIPLINARY ACTION!!!

[Al Amos]

Warren,

You webpage does not warn players that the Weapons.dat file will be overwritten. Some may not feel comfortable having this done. I'd recommend an explanation on the page stating that you have created new weapons classes and that your scenarios are not compatible with the stock scenarios due to this reason. That way they know to move original files, and it helps them know they need to use different files if playing original games, and your scenarios with different people.

I prefer not to have to change my graphic files to play your stuff. Could you please bring your packet inline with the stock graphic numbering system so your scenarios can be played without all the hassle of changing out everything.

Changing everything, as you have may put off some people in trying out your scenarios and therefore missing out on the opportunity of seeing how you interpret the OOB and layout of this campaign.

al

[Philippe]

A few years back I started messing around with making a mod for Campaign Eckmuhl. I became obsessed with accuracy, and ended up creating an elaborate Units.bmp that was about twice as long as the plain vanilla version. I also ended up rewriting all of the Eckmuhl OOB files, correcting and cleaning up the spelling of names and what have you.

I eventually realized that if I ever published that monster I would be condemned to re-making the mod (as in going through all of the oob files line by line) every time a patch got issued. And after some beating over the head by Bill Peters it finally began to sink in that no one, myself included, would ever really know what was in that scenario if they came on it cold.

So that is why I eventually abandoned hand-tailored scenarios and decided to stick to a style of modding that only changes the graphics. And I'm a bit reluctant to download (and especially to install) any scenario that messes with the internal mechanics of the game, even though there's a lot that goes on in the plain vanilla engine that I don't happen to agree with.

I remember the experience of pulling PTW out of the shrink wrap when I got it home from J&R many, many moons ago. I was especially excited when I started reading the program notes by an English historian who was talking about things in his discussion of Napoleon's return that I had never seen discussed before, e.g. Napoleon manipulating France's credit with the German bankers by the way in which he issued bills of exchange (or were they promissory notes -- like the lamented Nora Ephron I remember nothing). That particular passage really made an impression on me because at the time I just happened to be a promissory note and bill of exchange trader, so it was pretty exciting to have an aspect of my daily life in common with something that Napoleon had done during the Hundred Days. Or so I thought.

Fast forward to a different decade in a different century, and I was trolling Napoleonic history sites one night and stumbled on a series of threads attacking a certain British historian who loved to write about the Napoleonic wars. He knew his stuff well enough, but had a medieval attitude towards fabricating evidence to support his point of view. It seems that more than ten percent of what he'd done might have been spun out of whole cloth.

I realized, of course, that this was probably the same historian who had written the shatteringly dramatic analysis of the background of the Waterloo campaign. The problem, of course, is that after you encounter an accusation like that (and it was being made by heavy weights) you then either throw up your hands in despair (which is what I did) or become a specialist yourself tracking down every nasty little detail.

So when it comes to spending increasingly scarce money on one of these games, what is it you're really spending it on? The research, of course. You go for a ride with someone you trust to at least get the basics right, and you're willing to spend real money and put up with a lot of imperfections just to be sure you're getting that one thing.

Warren, I really, really want to see your vision of a historical version of Waterloo (the battle *and* the whole campaign) made flesh in a universally acceptable way [translation -- patch material]. Is there any chance that in your spare moments when you aren't working on your other projects you could put together a watered down version of your scenarios? And it's really important to make the scenarios work with the plain vanilla version of the game, not because I'm in the process of reviving my Waterloo mod, but so that more than a handful of people will get a chance to see things the right way. And I'm specifically addressing this to you because I know the kind of meticulous research you do, and you're one of the few that I would really trust on a project like this.

There's a serious problem with Quellenforschungen here. I'm not a specalist in the period, but I get the impression that a lot of people had a lot of axes to grind in their accounts of the campaign, so you can't even wholly trust 'eyewitness' accounts, let alone secondary historians.

And whatever you do, don't mention the Prussians.

[FM WarB]

Al,
I certainly do mention, right near the top on that website that the weapons.dat file overrides the original. I could find no list for the stock units.bmp file saying what the original icons were supposed to represent. I was unwilling to laboriously put one together as I don't want to play stock scenarios, anyway.
Phillipe,
I actually have an almost 1000 icon units.bmp for Eckmuhl/Wagram incompatible with the original (gotta luv correct french carabiniers *w*) As I now do have a list of the numbering for the Eckmuhl/Wagram units.bmp, I will be coming out with a compatible units.bmp file at some point.

If someone presents me with a Campaign Waterloo units.bmp numbering list, I might re do the units.bmp file to be compatible with the lousy scenarios I never play in addition to my own. The now expanded possibility for the weapon.dat file means mine could probably now be compatible with a stock version. But why it is so difficult to swap a couple of files is beyond me.

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Of course, any new or revised Campaign Waterloo scenarios, units.bmp file, pdt files or weapon.dat file await an update to the game engine.