First Impressions

con20or wrote:

IronBMike wrote:

con20or wrote:

IronBMike wrote: I just need to get a handle on cavalry and charging the correct target.

From what I remember they just go for the closest, so get your cav unit flag close to the desired target unit before hitting charge. Or just charge through everyone in your way

Yeah it's just that sometimes with lots of units around, targets switch constantly and it's difficult to line up the correct one. Any way to get manual targeting like WNLB had?

WNLB?

In strategy firsts Waterloo Napoleons Last Battle when you ordered cavalry to charge you got a crossed saber icon you used to select the victims I mean target.

Despite my initial feelings towards the context menu I was determined to give it a fair shake. I have to say after several hours I am warming to it.

Xreos1 wrote:

con20or wrote:

IronBMike wrote:

con20or wrote:

IronBMike wrote: I just need to get a handle on cavalry and charging the correct target.

From what I remember they just go for the closest, so get your cav unit flag close to the desired target unit before hitting charge. Or just charge through everyone in your way

Yeah it's just that sometimes with lots of units around, targets switch constantly and it's difficult to line up the correct one. Any way to get manual targeting like WNLB had?

WNLB?

In strategy firsts Waterloo Napoleons Last Battle when you ordered cavalry to charge you got a crossed saber icon you used to select the victims I mean target.

Yes, this exactly!

IIRC WNLB shipped with no targeting but it was patched in (very successfully).

MacDonald wrote: As a long term player of all Scourge of War games my first impressions of Waterloo are pretty good. Credit has to go to the developers for shipping it in a very stable form, a depressingly rare feat in the gaming industry these days.

I do like the new pop up box that appears next to a unit when you are giving it commands, although it does take a little to get used to. I can see that after using this mechanism it would be hard to go back to the older system. However, the brown bar on the bottom of the screen isn't so great, I find the different icons all very similar and not immediately clear what they represent, I don't feel like it's easy to read in the heat of battle.
.



The compose order screen is also a big improvement and a lot clearer than it was before.

The new sprites for the regiments look great, particularly the variation in uniforms. I also like the way regiments and arty line up neatly now in line.

One complaint is that I feel like the maps looks comparatively bland compared with ACW maps. I know however that is the reality of the Waterloo battlefield, lots of empty, wide open green spaces.

I think the game needs some minor improvements, but all in all I'd say you guys have done an amazing job.

Generally speaking almost all "European battles" were like that. forests and fields were avoided as much as possible.

Doing miniature wargaming, making awi and acw battlefields are much cooler then napoleonic or 7yw ect. You can "clutter" the table with streams, wheat, corn, snake fances, stone fences, lots of woods ect. It looks lush and prestine. Making the carnage about to happen all the more grousome!

Gunfreak wrote:

MacDonald wrote: As a long term player of all Scourge of War games my first impressions of Waterloo are pretty good. Credit has to go to the developers for shipping it in a very stable form, a depressingly rare feat in the gaming industry these days.

I do like the new pop up box that appears next to a unit when you are giving it commands, although it does take a little to get used to. I can see that after using this mechanism it would be hard to go back to the older system. However, the brown bar on the bottom of the screen isn't so great, I find the different icons all very similar and not immediately clear what they represent, I don't feel like it's easy to read in the heat of battle.
.



The compose order screen is also a big improvement and a lot clearer than it was before.

The new sprites for the regiments look great, particularly the variation in uniforms. I also like the way regiments and arty line up neatly now in line.

One complaint is that I feel like the maps looks comparatively bland compared with ACW maps. I know however that is the reality of the Waterloo battlefield, lots of empty, wide open green spaces.

I think the game needs some minor improvements, but all in all I'd say you guys have done an amazing job.

Generally speaking almost all "European battles" were like that. forests and fields were avoided as much as possible.

Doing miniature wargaming, making awi and acw battlefields are much cooler then napoleonic or 7yw ect. You can "clutter" the table with streams, wheat, corn, snake fances, stone fences, lots of woods ect. It looks lush and prestine. Making the carnage about to happen all the more grousome!

Yep because cavalry was used much more in battle so the combatants preferred open land. Plus, European lands have been cultivated as farmland/grazing for centuries and centuries so lots of land is cleared, whereas even today in the US most terrain is broken terrain (at least not in the Great Plains).

Trilogy wrote: I have a problem with the Grog Toolbar. One block of the commands sits in the middle of the screen, right in front of the action. There's a blank brown-wood space down on the bottom bar where these commands are probably supposed to be, but they're up near the middle of the screen instead.

I'm using Win 8.1 (Win7 compatibility set) at 1920 x 1080 with standard 96 dpi.

___________________________
Grab it at the top with your mouse and slide it out of the way. I think I read someplace if you slide all the way down, behind the menus, you will lose it forever...............

Bill

Glad you guys are enjoying it . It was a joy to develop the Nap mod for GB, and an even greater joy to help develop this game!

MacDonald wrote:
One complaint is that I feel like the maps looks comparatively bland compared with ACW maps. I know however that is the reality of the Waterloo battlefield, lots of empty, wide open green spaces.

Having played a bit more of the game last night, I take back what I said about the bland parts of the map. The more easterly part of the map (east of la Haye Sainte) looks great. I'd say it is the more westerly part of the map that looks a little less interesting, which is just the reality of the battlefield.

I noticed also that you included Wellington's tree (the tree he stood under during the battle), which is a very nice detail that not everyone would notice.

Accidental or otherwise, I noticed it during WL05 (I think, it was D'Erlon's attack). There was Wellington standing under his tree, just north of La Haye Sainte. I think after the battle some part of the tree was made into furniture as a souvenir.

Firstly would like to congratulate the developers of the game - having visited the battlefield and often imagined what certain parts of the battle would have looked like I can see you guys have captured it really well.

I fired up the D'Erlon attack scenario last night a and it was truly epic watching those massed French columns advance towards me....like Pickets charge on steroids.

I wonder if it would be possible to think about the way large formations work - the French 1st Corps columns at waterloo were arranged in a one battalion frontage with successive battalions behind as a means of battering through the allied line...in game there seems very little incentive to do this is in confers no advantage (that I know about) in moral or meelee ability that I think it should.

Also the AI doesnt seem to use this formation very well - most of the French troops advanced to the bottom of the slope and them muddled around in a aesthetically displacing mess of multi-directional lines before advancing a few battalions up one at a time to get shot to pieces....

I played out the D'Erlon attack and Alten's defence against the french cavalry in 1:3 scale.

ABSOLUTELY BLOWN AWAY!!

Thank you NSD team for a work of real beauty.

Greek wrote:

Trilogy wrote: I have a problem with the Grog Toolbar. One block of the commands sits in the middle of the screen, right in front of the action. There's a blank brown-wood space down on the bottom bar where these commands are probably supposed to be, but they're up near the middle of the screen instead.

I'm using Win 8.1 (Win7 compatibility set) at 1920 x 1080 with standard 96 dpi.

___________________________
Grab it at the top with your mouse and slide it out of the way. I think I read someplace if you slide all the way down, behind the menus, you will lose it forever...............

Bill

I think it disappears for the game. When your restart it will pop back up in the middle of the screen.
I generally slide both pop up command bars just above the large command bar.

MacDonald wrote: I noticed also that you included Wellington's tree (the tree he stood under during the battle), which is a very nice detail that not everyone would notice.

Knowing it should be there I specifically went looking for it. Pleased to see its planted in a fixed position.

What I noticed about the ground north-west of La Haye Sainte is the team have used the correct ORIGINAL 1815 ground contours before the Dutch-Belgian Lion Mount memorial bulldozed so much critical soil off that ridge in the 1820s.

Going down to HITS level its scary how steep and high that ridge is. Wellington sure chose a superb position to hold, it's more obvious in the game than the ground is today.

You can really sense the mountain that Ney's cuirassier charge and the Moyenne Garde had to climb.

EDIT: SoW:WL is probably the finest depiction of the Waterloo battlefield outside of the best academic book - and maybe including the books. It really feels right. I was galloping around Frischermont, Pappelotte and La Haye last night (perhaps the most neglected and least-documented area of this critical battlefield) and I was delighted at the buildings, houses, woods and streams that seem exactly right. I think this area of the field is now my favourite location. It has a mood and atmosphere all its own. It does credit to the brave Nassau brigade that defended it all day.

Saddletank wrote:

MacDonald wrote: I noticed also that you included Wellington's tree (the tree he stood under during the battle), which is a very nice detail that not everyone would notice.

Knowing it should be there I specifically went looking for it. Pleased to see its planted in a fixed position.

What I noticed about the ground north-west of La Haye Sainte is the team have used the correct ORIGINAL 1815 ground contours before the Dutch-Belgian Lion Mount memorial bulldozed so much critical soil off that ridge in the 1820s.

Going down to HITS level its scary how steep and high that ridge is. Wellington sure chose a superb position to hold, it's more obvious in the game than the ground is today.

You can really sense the mountain that Ney's cuirassier charge and the Moyenne Garde had to climb.

You're spot on, I noticed that you really get a feel for the undulations and dips in the terrain that caused problems during the battle. What particularly struck me was the almost enfilade artillery fire of Wellington's cannons (on his right wing) aimed at French infantry advancing just west of La Haye Sainte towards Wellington's centre. Wellington's right wing had a slight bend in it that made this possible.

It's difficult to envisage this just from a map or text book but it really comes alive in this format.

Saddletank wrote:

MacDonald wrote: I noticed also that you included Wellington's tree (the tree he stood under during the battle), which is a very nice detail that not everyone would notice.

Knowing it should be there I specifically went looking for it. Pleased to see its planted in a fixed position.

What I noticed about the ground north-west of La Haye Sainte is the team have used the correct ORIGINAL 1815 ground contours before the Dutch-Belgian Lion Mount memorial bulldozed so much critical soil off that ridge in the 1820s.

Going down to HITS level its scary how steep and high that ridge is. Wellington sure chose a superb position to hold, it's more obvious in the game than the ground is today.

You can really sense the mountain that Ney's cuirassier charge and the Moyenne Garde had to climb.

EDIT: SoW:WL is probably the finest depiction of the Waterloo battlefield outside of the best academic book - and maybe including the books. It really feels right. I was galloping around Frischermont, Pappelotte and La Haye last night (perhaps the most neglected and least-documented area of this critical battlefield) and I was delighted at the buildings, houses, woods and streams that seem exactly right. I think this area of the field is now my favourite location. It has a mood and atmosphere all its own. It does credit to the brave Nassau brigade that defended it all day.

Yes indeed, and that high ground to the west of La Haye is land that I always avoid. I always, always strike to the east. At least back in WNLB, but I don't think I'll change now! Like that other poster said, there is serious artillery fire concentrated there and it is just a murder zone because of the elevations and position. It's a shame (for Napoleon) that his attacks veered off in that direction rather than to the east.

Little Powell wrote:

Saddletank wrote: EDIT: SoW:WL is probably the finest depiction of the Waterloo battlefield outside of the best academic book - and maybe including the books. It really feels right. I was galloping around Frischermont, Pappelotte and La Haye last night (perhaps the most neglected and least-documented area of this critical battlefield) and I was delighted at the buildings, houses, woods and streams that seem exactly right. I think this area of the field is now my favourite location.

Yeah, that's my favorite part of the battlefield too..

And if you haven't yet, be sure to check out Ferme du Caillou to the south--Napoleons last headquarters.

Thanks so much for the feedback. That makes everything we do worthwhile.

Y'all do an awesome job

IronBMike wrote:

Gunfreak wrote:

MacDonald wrote: As a long term player of all Scourge of War games my first impressions of Waterloo are pretty good. Credit has to go to the developers for shipping it in a very stable form, a depressingly rare feat in the gaming industry these days.

I do like the new pop up box that appears next to a unit when you are giving it commands, although it does take a little to get used to. I can see that after using this mechanism it would be hard to go back to the older system. However, the brown bar on the bottom of the screen isn't so great, I find the different icons all very similar and not immediately clear what they represent, I don't feel like it's easy to read in the heat of battle.

Hard to use USA's landscape today. In the 1800's 80% of NH was clear (for farming). Today, 80% of NH is forest. No need for the large amount of local farming.
.



The compose order screen is also a big improvement and a lot clearer than it was before.

The new sprites for the regiments look great, particularly the variation in uniforms. I also like the way regiments and arty line up neatly now in line.

One complaint is that I feel like the maps looks comparatively bland compared with ACW maps. I know however that is the reality of the Waterloo battlefield, lots of empty, wide open green spaces.

I think the game needs some minor improvements, but all in all I'd say you guys have done an amazing job.

Generally speaking almost all "European battles" were like that. forests and fields were avoided as much as possible.

Doing miniature wargaming, making awi and acw battlefields are much cooler then napoleonic or 7yw ect. You can "clutter" the table with streams, wheat, corn, snake fances, stone fences, lots of woods ect. It looks lush and prestine. Making the carnage about to happen all the more grousome!

Yep because cavalry was used much more in battle so the combatants preferred open land. Plus, European lands have been cultivated as farmland/grazing for centuries and centuries so lots of land is cleared, whereas even today in the US most terrain is broken terrain (at least not in the Great Plains).

Sorry to blow my own horn here, but here is my (screenshot-heavy) preview of Waterloo:

Scourge of War - Preview at Real and Simulated Wars

This game blows my mind.

Cheers,

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TDE2_QSMt60/VXpSsydVVgI/AAAAAAAASfo/fo4mXlkXjEM/s1600/screen0045.bmp

RandSW - Excellent ScreenShots!

Also, a very good introduction of the features that are presented in the game!

davinci

I like this Waterloo game a lot.I have not held a very favorable view of most computer wargames for many years.I am more of a tabletop player with dice to roll. The games produced by Norbsoft Development have been an exception to the rule for me.The Waterloo graphics are great and the AI seems to work very good.Like some others I am having a bit of difficulty getting units to charge but I believe I just need to get used to the control system.One thing I wish is that creating maps was easier.I have no idea how to even start making one,though I was able to with the TC2M game.At any rate, keep up the great work.

My first impressions of the game are most favorable. Thanks very much for this game.