SoW and realistic scaling?

[Razorblade]

Hello

Back in 2006 I posted on the TCM2 Madminute website forums a post with screenshots of what realistically scaled soldiers and regimental lines would look like if they were scaled 1:1 on the maps the battles are played on.

Unfortunately posts before 2008 at that site seem to have been lost so I can't reference it.

My question is however, how has anything changed with SoW as far as trying to make the game more realistically reflect true battlefield scaling of both terrain, weapon ranges and unit sizes/frontages?

I recall that back then, things were not very accurate at all.

Cheers

RB

[RebBugler]

I believe all the necessary tools are available with the present engine, it's just that all the elements for realistic SR1 play haven't been put together yet. GB scenarios 21 and 22 come closest, but lack the correctly scaled map and weapons' ranges.

Only potential issue of making this a realistically successful mod I think would be map elevations. According to the map guys I spoken to about this, the difficulty of achieving accurate map elevations is that the present SOW sprites are scaled on the present maps at 11 feet tall. Whether new maps can be adjusted for this sprite size, I don't know. Time for a map guy to weigh in.

[Saddletank]

Back in 2006 I posted on the TCM2 Madminute website forums a post with screenshots of what realistically scaled soldiers and regimental lines would look like if they were scaled 1:1 on the maps the battles are played on.

Do you still have those screenshots? I'd like to see them.

[Little Powell]

We can make 1:1 scale maps. The first draft of my Ft. Wagner map was actually in 1:1. However, the game mechanics aren't' setup for it.. so it may look cool, but it won't play right at all.. Probably something that can be tweaked with the CSV files. But again, the game wasn't designed for 1:1 sprite ratio, so if it's used there will be issues.

[Jim]

The sprites can easily be rescaled but the map objects must be changed in scale as well. A larger issue is that with the GB engine you are only allowed 125 sprites per regiment, more will not be displayed. Also the game engine gets really slow with more than around 20,000 sprites on the battlefield so even if the regiment limit did not exist, you could not have more than a small corps sized battle at best.

-Jim

[Razorblade]

Do you still have those screenshots? I'd like to see them.

Funny you ask. In theory I probably still have them. I will have a bit of a look for them. If I can't find them I will consider trying to do them again.

PS: Discussing things like "realistic scaling" means different things to different people. Let me clarify exactly what I am talking about. It is the in-game comparison of distance (height, length, width) of a all the in-game entities (map, unit size etc) as measured using the in-game range tool compared to their real life equivalents.

I definitely remember what I found had some profound implications for any game designer wanting to go down the true 1:1 scaling design path.

Keep in mind, that it is possible to have game mechanics "to scale" but the graphical representations of the mechanics not to scale. This however will invariably be a problem to the player as what they visually see in the game is not a 1:1 representation of what the game mechanics are seeing.

[Saddletank]

it is possible to have game mechanics "to scale" but the graphical representations of the mechanics not to scale.

Can you explain what you mean here?

To me if some part of the game world is not to scale, then the game is not to scale, period. Either everything is to scale or nothing is. Having 12 foot tall sprites but a realistic in-game musket range is how SoW currently works, but just making the sprites 12 feet tall has meant NSD have gone off on a long series of compromises to find wiggle room between scale and appearance (mainly to do with vertical heights of scenic features and the horizontal distance. This also impacts the speed at which units move over the ground and weapon effects if troops are moving too fast for the ground scale. It is a really messy issue or complex mess of issues that really only raises its head in RTS games. Miniatures wargames have mixed different vertical and horizontal scales for decades but as these are turn based, the problems are simpler to overcome.

I find this whole subject to be one of the most fascinating of wargames and especially real time strategy games because one early decision in the design process can later define the whole mood and pace of a game and thus the gaming experience.