NorbSoftDev Announces Waterloo!!!

[Saddletank]

We will share details on any features etc. as soon as they are set in stone.

Would you be willing to open a section of the forums for SoW:Waterloo and have a thread for community ideas/suggestions? This may help some useful or cool features be implemented that otherwise may not have been highlighted.

[Little Powell]

Yes thats a good idea. I think we are going to re-do the whole site for Waterloo and I'm sure we'll include a section like that.

[Grog]

Great news

Its well worth watching the podcast and, although these are early days, I am very pleased with NSD's approach to its development. Its obvious that there is carefully chosen and dedicated team embarking on this challenging venture but, from what has been said and from what SOW has already become, I've got little doubt we will be in for a real gem.

I'm a real Napoleonic enthusiast, so I'm obviously pleased with the choice. Having said this, before Take Command and SOW, I was not keen on the ACW but these games opened me up to a great period of history and I have really enjoyed reading about it and gaming it too. Hopefully, it will work for some who have not considered Napoleonics before.

[McHugh]

I hope that a PBEM option similar to Combat Mission Battle for Normandy is included in SOW Waterloo.

[Saddletank]

SoW is an RTS while Combat Mission is a WeGo turn-based game. Not sure PBEM would work with an RTS. Online MP is how SoW is played.

If you're talking at the campaign level that might work although I got the impression from the podcast that a campaign would run in real time as well and not be turn-based.

[McHugh]

Actually Combat Mission Battle for Normandy can be played in real time or PBEM. I like SOWG but just don't play it much because it is so much easier to play games by PBEM. Still, I look forward to Waterloo.

[Ingles of the 57th]

This development really surprised me. I really thought we would see the Pope married before Norbsoftdev moved away from the ACW.

I guess the problem with battles in whatever war is that eventually a certain ‘sameness’ about them creeps in and it becomes harder to keep finding originality to sustain the moderately interested user. The great maps provided do their level best but, at the end of the day at short range, a tree is a tree, a road is a road, a hill is a hill … however beautifully they are presented and whatever they are purported to represent.

I recall reading somewhere a lowly ACW veteran being asked which battles he participated in. “Danged if I can remember. They all looked just the same from where I usually was”

Just a few observations about the Waterloo project.

a. Will Prussians be included this time ? The SOWGB mods have never had the OOB capacity to achieve this.

b. If so, will the preliminary skirmishes like Wavre be included ….. if only as a map.

c. Will Quatre Bras be included ?

d. Do you predict that the OOB and associated structures and the map structure for the new engine will differ sufficiently from the old to make it difficult for existing OOB’s and maps from SOWG to be modded across ? It would be a shame to lose them.

e. Can we please have unique “casualty replacement” lists suitable for each nation ?

f. With the advent of the new engine, will the original SOWGB finally release also the ability to add and amend maps. I foresee initially a great conflict of support between SOWGB with Napoleonic Mods versus SOWW with ACW mods. Bit like the Catholics and the Protestants !!. We live in interesting times.

Geoff Laver Late of Her Britannic Majesty’s 57th Regiment of Foot (who never made it to Waterloo)

[Saddletank]

Geoff, did you watch the podcast? All your questions are answered there.

Yes to Prussians. The full battle of 200,000 men at a 4:1 sprite ratio is the goal, so 50,000 sprites.

All 4 main battles of the campaign are planned each on a 5m sq map. Its not so much SoW:Waterloo as SoW:Hundred Days Campaign. There is even a possibility of a campaign mode though that's not certain.

Its a completely new game, not a Napoleonic version of the current ACW engine. Old content probably won't be useable (and actually given the improvements planned we wouldn't want it) though no doubt the community will be able to bring some things across. We won't be wanting the existing sprites though as NSD have hinted at a new higher quality sprite system.

I don't see NSD doing any more work at all on SoW:Gettysburg. They've given themselves an extremely tight schedule to get the new game ready in just 18 months. Also on the podcast it was said that the new engine will be more mod-friendly and map-making will be practical so its a whole new change of direction for the team. With the new game the community will be given a full set of modding tools and I imagine that within a few months we'll see other Napoleonic battles as well as battles in N America from wars like French-Indian War of 1760s, War of Independence, 1812, Tex-Mex and ACW.

For me this is the most exciting part of the announcement. The modding tools that'll ship with the new game.

And Prussians are in the latest Waterloo OOB that comes with MTGs most recent Napoleon mod patch, along with all Gunship24s other sprites like Dutch, Belgians, Nassauers, Brunswickers, etc. Russians too. All now available for MP as well. Kevin's most recent Nap mod patch seems to have gone under most people's radar.

[rudy]

So, the whole team is going to be intensely focused on Waterloo for the next 18 months.

And its going to be a new game or system, with no opportunity to port over the ACW achievements of SOW.

And it would be natural for the team to continue to be focused on the Napoleonic Wars after Waterloo is realized in 18 months time.

That means probably another 4-6 months, after the 18 months, before any return to the ACW, even if done by modders using the easier modding system of the new game.

2 years is a very long time in gaming before any more ACW from the game team, or from modders using the new game system.

How many ACW players will still be here, or willing to wait 2 years for more ACW, with no guarantee anyway?

I think many ACW players will drift elsewhere over the next 2 years.

And no, not every ACW player is interested in the Napoleonic Wars, even as a second best, while waiting a very long time for more ACW.

I play this game because its interesting to me. I have learned so much about the ACW battlefields, what the commanders and soldiers had to deal with, and what it felt like to be there. That's why I play SOW. Not just because I can have computer sprites riding horses and shooting muskets and cannons. And not because I get computer sprites whose uniforms look like they were designed by Fruit of the Loom.

You're excited about the turn to Napoleonic War, and that's good for you.

But for me, its like my dog just died.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

rudy wrote:

And its going to be a new game or system, with no opportunity to port over the ACW achievements of SOW.

Since the game AI and maps will be open to modding, people will have the ability to create maps and behavior suitable for ACW battles. Folks will be able to create their favorite ACW battle and play it without waiting and hoping that NSD gets around to covering it. It's a huge step forward from which everyone will benefit.