I'm looking to get back into the various Napoleonic Series games and as I was looking around the at the games wondering which one to get. And this got me wondering exactly what is the difference between the HPS Sims Nap games and the John Tiller Software Nap games. I understand they are all Tiller games, but are the HPS Sims Games the exact same games as the John Tiller Games (Campaign Waterloo for example). Just wondering...
Also, i'm wondering if there are any plans at all for updates to the graphics of the games as they are doing with the Civil War Games....again, just curious.
I have the old Battleground Napoleonic Wars games and I think maybe Eckmuhl and Wagram. But I am looking to add another one and play some PBEM (or IP real time for smaller games). From an interest perspective, I'm thinking Leipzig as I'd like to play Dresden (a favorite) and sections of Leipzig as well as maybe Hanau. Which ones are the most popular for multiplayer? From the recent ladder games, looks like everyone is playing Republican Bayonets.....
The HPS and JTS games are the same games. Tiller has stopped issuing updates for the HPS titles, so if you're going to purchase a game, you'll want to buy from the JTS site to get the most up-to-date versions. If you happen to have or acquire one of the HPS games, you can upgrade it for free to the JTS version by contacting JTS support and showing proof of ownership.
As for everyone playing RBR right now, that's largely because it's the most recently released. In another couple of months it'll be everyone playing Campaign Eylau-Friedland when that one is released. :-)
They're all great. You can pretty easily find opponents for any of them. You're best off to pick a campaign that's of greatest interest to you. I'm sure you'll find someone that's happy to give you a game!
Yes, buy from the JTS site from here on. My stock answer to this question is always to get the one that interests you the most. If Dresden is a favorite of yours then by all means pick up Leipzig. You'll be able to find opponents.
Really, I like all of the subject matter....Borodino, Waterloo, Eylau, Dresden, Lutzen, pretty much anything that doesn't involve the Peninsula and I'm not a huge 100 days fan.....
"Though I love them all, I cannot buy them all".....That's my Rod Steiger…..
Thanks for the feedback, as long as their are opponents around for all that's good. I guess I was more looking to confirm that there is no reason to buy one over the others due to improvements. Realistically, it probably hasn't changed much in two decades, so I think i'll go with Leipzig and then Eylau (another favorite) when it comes out. In addition to having the Battleground games, i'm pretty sure I bought the JTS Russia game as well, but that was probably 3 PCs ago...….
Playing through the Fleches scenario from Napoleon in Russia now just to refamiliarize myself. Great fun, horrid AI.
08-24-2018, 05:25 PM, (This post was last modified: 08-24-2018, 05:26 PM by phoenix.)
No, the AI isn't really worth it. But PBEM games are easy to find in this forum. Personally, I think the map style changed significantly for the last few titles, and is much, much better now. BPW, Marengo and RBR have fantastic maps (of those Marengo and RBR have, imho, the best maps of all the games in the series), with more detail. There's lots of blank space in many of the maps for the older titles. That's the style, so no criticism, but the later maps look much more appealling to me. Bill Peters, in particular, has done amazing maps for his latter 2 titles. Of the older titles, I think Waterloo has the best maps. The Company level maps in Liepzig are also nice.
As far as graphics upgrades go, I have heard nothing and I seriously hope there will be none. My personal opinion, again, is that these games modded with Phillipe's mods look way better than the upgraded ACW games (of which I have 3) or the upgraded PC games. David (Strela) is doing a really great job improving those titles but the maps still are not as natural and beautiful as those in the Nappy series as modded by Phillipe. If you use Phillipe's mods you get wonderful, natural, less hexy, more realistic maps that are also beautiful to look at and clear in terms of elevation.
It would be nice to get the interface changes, on the other hand.
All in all I think RBR has been the best title I've played.
None? Well aside from I am not probably doing them for the company, it takes a real interesting perspective to actually want to keep 8 bit graphics. As I understand it, though, it is in the plans to do just that.
Personally I was not into waiting, and I needed a test bed for Musket and Pike before they added in the NB look -so it resulted in a NB mod (or a revised NB mod).
I don't have the link handy, but I did send it over to Doug at some point.
08-25-2018, 12:50 AM, (This post was last modified: 08-25-2018, 12:55 AM by phoenix.)
None? Well, all sorts of improvements are possible. They could buy Phillipe's excellent work, make it the stock appearance, then I wouldn't have to mod anything. The stock look is awful, I should say - I forgot to say that. But I'm always looking for a natural look in the map - so it looks like a real world map (or at the very least something the staff might have drawn up) and all the upgrades so far seem (still) more hexy and angular than the stock graphics modded with various mods, mostly Phillipe's. I love the interface changes in the Panzer Campaigns series, but I would go back to the more natural look I had achieved by mixing and matching various mods if I could. I can't now - because in doing the upgrades they changed the resolution of the graphics files, so all the mods out there no longer work (at least, not without work that I haven't a clue how to do). My fear would be that they would do the same with the Nappy series - upgrade the graphics and in the process change all the graphics file resolutions so that, for instance, Phillipe's mods would no longer work with it. Even worse, they could impose Jison's obligatory heavy hex look on everything. Some people really like their maps to look full of hexes and jagged lines, I guess. But some don't.
I can't see them adding in hard-coded hex lines; there has been too much feedback saying that it removes the ability not to see them. I had to take them off of the latest release, for the stock graphics. Doubtful that they would do a larger size of hexes -but it could be done -it wouldn't break what you are currently using unless hexsides were messed around with (like what had been done with Panzer Campaigns, and then the graphicswise also added in some new graphics lines ... but those guys have their own programmer so have an easier time doing that whenever they wanted to. I've worked with the PzC original stock, the next version, and the Gold version and that is what happened there -- it was the hexsides thing that messed up some existing mods -- I don't think that would happen in the JTS ones ... I guess it could -but it probably would have to be tied to some other change.
What I am saying is - if that happens - you just change out the name of the file and you can have it usable still -- did that with the CWB update, and know it works ... eg -- where some file ends in a 50, you change it to a 25. the 100 change it to 50... save a back up of the files that are being changed -and it really is trial and error.
Seriously, I would encourage you to learn to do the graphics. I think the only way that your main concerns can actually be overcome is to use the single map image. I am not saying like what was done in CWB -well not exactly, but a single image would not have to strictly conform to a hexside as the way the maps are built. The downside to that is that I think anyone doing that would be limited to the ones already out there and those are pretty big file sizes as well (not sure if that is something on the artists' end with file size optimization or what -- have not played with it ... but know that it can be done. Actually it is this - that is where I come from when I talk about wanting to learn 3d graphics -because I think there is a lot of potential there.
Also for what it's worth, since it was brought up, sensitivity to copyright is a major issue when running a business, and not nearly so much when a lone modder does it. In those cases it is the modder who is responsible for the modder's work, but with a business, it ends up being the business. In the position that I am in, I have to be a steward for that sort of thing for them.
Let's be realistic here, the graphics for the series be it ACW or NAP are horrid. It is one of the biggest detriments of playing them, they're hideous to look at and difficult to see given my screen resolution. I installed Leipzig last night and ran through a small test scenario and BGN Russia even makes it look bad and that game was made in the 90s...…though I think those had hand drawn maps, not modular or whatever maps like the others.
Perhaps they don't sell enough of these titles to warrant a full graphics overhaul or ...perhaps because the graphics are so outdated and horrific, it prevents them from selling more of them. If they would overhaul the game and get rid of the silly low res graphics I'd probably buy all of them and certainly enjoy them more. I guess one thing I don't understand is that most VASSAL boardgames and all printed boardgames look 1,000,000 times better, so what gives.
The changes made to the ACW graphics are certainly an improvement but still restricted by incredibly low resolution and not nearly what they should be in 2018.
In regards to Jison mentioned in another post, if he is the one who did the War in the East Map mod, I loved it. It was 100 times better than the stock map that came with the game and I would be ecstatic if these games could look like that (and really, can't fathom why they don't).
(08-24-2018, 05:25 PM)phoenix Wrote: As far as graphics upgrades go, I have heard nothing and I seriously hope there will be none. My personal opinion, again, is that these games modded with Phillipe's mods look way better than the upgraded ACW games (of which I have 3) or the upgraded PC games. David (Strela) is doing a really great job improving those titles but the maps still are not as natural and beautiful as those in the Nappy series as modded by Phillipe. If you use Phillipe's mods you get wonderful, natural, less hexy, more realistic maps that are also beautiful to look at and clear in terms of elevation.
I've downloaded Phillipe's mods. While I certainly think they are an improvement over stock, they are still entirely limited by the low resolution of the core artwork itself. Further, when you zoom in on a modern PC with a high screen resolution, you can see all of the individual blocks making up the counters for example. I have tried as well previously to mod the counters in Campaign Overland but it's impossible to get a good result with such low resolution. You literally are coloring individual pixels....
I guess one way to view it is that if Phillipe's mods are good on low resolution, imagine what he could do if the art resolution was many times higher...……………….
Anyway, I think playing solitaire one notices these things much more. In the heat of an actual game, i'm sure I'll be looking for function over form....
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Well aside from I am not probably doing them for the company, it takes a real interesting perspective to actually want to keep 8 bit graphics. As I understand it, though, it is in the plans to do just that.
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