New review from "Out of Eight"

[IronBMike]

This guy and most of the WARGAMER forum that left have had it in for Norb ever since he had some issues with his ingame partner when they did 2nd Manassas. I wouldn't believe a word he says since he's already a hostile participant. Wait for other worthy reviews like Tom Chick or if he's still around William Trotter.

There's already a handful over at the Matrixgames site trying to stir up trouble about some of the things that don't look right. They haven't been around the game as long as many of us and they don't know much of what they are talking about. They are trying to say Norb said this and Norb said that when in fact it was someone else.

I look for armchair general to give it a bad rap too. Many of the old wargamer crowd are associated with arm chair general too. Some guy name Bismark is the pak leader I think.

Yeah there is a group of people that have an agenda against Norb because of the Mad Minute drama and drive the criticism. I've met Norb personally and he is an awesome, nice guy. It's a shame that all of that had to play out, but luckily it's a small amount of people who have that (incorrect) view.

And yeah this "review" is a total joke. Complete garbage.

[Bloody Bill]

It is very clear in his review that he is not a veteran SOW player. He does bring up some good points of frustration for new players. The game has a big learning curve and time is needed to get a good grasp upon structure and tactics.

That being said some of what he says about the AI is not off. I have played SOW for many years and play a lot of MP. SOW GB felt like a more solid game to me than Waterloo. The review is correct about AI adjusting to do strange things, in GB you can manage much easier and the AI seems to handle itself with more confidence.

I feel the pathing in WL is poor, units kinda go all over and do very strange twists and circle formations. In GB odd things did happen at times but was easy to sort out. In a lot of way WL has the feel of GB combat with Napoleonic uniforms.

The buildings are a nice addition but is strange to have a battalion march through the wall and not use the gate(visual issue only). I would of liked to have the option to charge into the fortified areas instead of only shooting.

Artillery is useless at range. I moved my entire I Corps in the attack on the allied center and sustained 4 losses by arty. When I got into 200 yards range I started taking losses and of course canister range. GB had the same problem with arty.

The new UI I am on the fence with. I like the Grog mod but do not like the normal. The changing of how the mouse works for scrolling is annoying when you play a lot of GB still. Switching between the two is irritating.

Being a Veteran of the game series with 1000s of hours played I would have to say Waterloo visually is wonderful, gameplay not so much. Not complete feeling to me.

I would have to recommend to my gaming clan to keep playing GB series of games and the Napoleonic mod for GB and wait for WL to be either patched and completed or modded before adding it to the clan games.

[Gunfreak]

It is very clear in his review that he is not a veteran SOW player. He does bring up some good points of frustration for new players. The game has a big learning curve and time is needed to get a good grasp upon structure and tactics.

That being said some of what he says about the AI is not off. I have played SOW for many years and play a lot of MP. SOW GB felt like a more solid game to me than Waterloo. The review is correct about AI adjusting to do strange things, in GB you can manage much easier and the AI seems to handle itself with more confidence.

I feel the pathing in WL is poor, units kinda go all over and do very strange twists and circle formations. In GB odd things did happen at times but was easy to sort out. In a lot of way WL has the feel of GB combat with Napoleonic uniforms.

The buildings are a nice addition but is strange to have a battalion march through the wall and not use the gate(visual issue only). I would of liked to have the option to charge into the fortified areas instead of only shooting.

Artillery is useless at range. I moved my entire I Corps in the attack on the allied center and sustained 4 losses by arty. When I got into 200 yards range I started taking losses and of course canister range. GB had the same problem with arty.

The new UI I am on the fence with. I like the Grog mod but do not like the normal. The changing of how the mouse works for scrolling is annoying when you play a lot of GB still. Switching between the two is irritating.

Being a Veteran of the game series with 1000s of hours played I would have to say Waterloo visually is wonderful, gameplay not so much. Not complete feeling to me.

I would have to recommend to my gaming clan to keep playing GB series of games and the Napoleonic mod for GB and wait for WL to be either patched and completed or modded before adding it to the clan games.

In Gettysburg(and 1st bull run and 2nd manassas) The excuse was that ACW artillery was less effective then pervious wars.

1. I don't a agee it was, yes using 200 cannon in a forest is not a good idea, but claming the 200 guns fireing at Pickets charge only killed 3 guys before they got into canister range is silly.

A battery of 40 guns fireing on the enemy with clear field of fires killing 5 guys during one hour...


The same problem is in Waterloo(tho they said arty was more effective)

180 guns all fireing at a single brigade just 500 yards away kill 30 guys in an hour.

At 500 yards atleast one guy should die every time a battery fire of all 8 guns.

Right now, arty are close range weapons only.

[Saddletank]

I feel the pathing in WL is poor, units kinda go all over and do very strange twists and circle formations. In GB odd things did happen at times but was easy to sort out.

My experience is the exact opposite is true! The pathing in WL is very much improved, partly because the AI deploys it's units further apart and partly through Mitra's more extensive coding. There was some infamously bad stuff in GB like a line of infantry running down the gap between two opposing firing lines and regiments ordered to advance and going via Seskatchewan to get there.

The buildings are a nice addition but is strange to have a battalion march through the wall and not use the gate(visual issue only). I would of liked to have the option to charge into the fortified areas instead of only shooting.

Bear in mind that melee was useless against fortified buildings. The French attempted it numerous times against Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte and Papelotte and were driven back every time. They only captured Ligny on the 16th June when the Prussian reserves were used up and the Garde attacked fresh at the end of the day. You can't 'bayonet' a stone wall, a solid wooden door or a man shooting from an upper storey window. At Hougoumont the 30 yd wide lane that ran along the south side of the 8-foot high garden wall was a lethal killing zone. The French attempted repeatedly to cross this very narrow open space and were shot down in heaps by just a couple of hundred defenders shooting through loopholes. The French infantry didn't have scaling ladders or grenades. There were some engineers who had axes though. At Waterloo the French brought up artillery to set fire to Hougoumont and still it held out all day, as did Papelotte and La Haye. La Haye Sainte only fell because the garrison ran out of ammunition. I think NSD were right to make firepower the only means of attacking fortified buildings; short range artillery is the best tool for this.

Artillery is useless at range.

Agreed. This needs modding but fortunately is easy to fix. Remember however that the WL Morning battlefield is very muddy and artillery has less effect than on the Afternoon map. There's numerous accounts of both solid shot and shell burying themselves uselessly in the mud during this battle. It's one reason the Anglo-Dutch Army was able to hold on so long. Make the artillery too powerful and you could critically unbalance the scenarios.

[IronBMike]

It is very clear in his review that he is not a veteran SOW player. He does bring up some good points of frustration for new players. The game has a big learning curve and time is needed to get a good grasp upon structure and tactics.

That being said some of what he says about the AI is not off. I have played SOW for many years and play a lot of MP. SOW GB felt like a more solid game to me than Waterloo. The review is correct about AI adjusting to do strange things, in GB you can manage much easier and the AI seems to handle itself with more confidence.

I feel the pathing in WL is poor, units kinda go all over and do very strange twists and circle formations. In GB odd things did happen at times but was easy to sort out. In a lot of way WL has the feel of GB combat with Napoleonic uniforms.

The buildings are a nice addition but is strange to have a battalion march through the wall and not use the gate(visual issue only). I would of liked to have the option to charge into the fortified areas instead of only shooting.

Artillery is useless at range. I moved my entire I Corps in the attack on the allied center and sustained 4 losses by arty. When I got into 200 yards range I started taking losses and of course canister range. GB had the same problem with arty.

The new UI I am on the fence with. I like the Grog mod but do not like the normal. The changing of how the mouse works for scrolling is annoying when you play a lot of GB still. Switching between the two is irritating.

Being a Veteran of the game series with 1000s of hours played I would have to say Waterloo visually is wonderful, gameplay not so much. Not complete feeling to me.

I would have to recommend to my gaming clan to keep playing GB series of games and the Napoleonic mod for GB and wait for WL to be either patched and completed or modded before adding it to the clan games.

I find that I prefer the Waterloo AI.

[Bloody Bill]

Saddletank: Because it was difficult to melee a fortified position you think it should not be an option? If melee into the building causes an issue with the game I understand but if not than why not let the commander decide how he wants his men to die.

I have play WL for only four hours or so. My opinion may change but please take it that it is just my opinion as a WarGamer. I do not do code or anything. I may like GB better because I am comfortable with it. I will not stop playing WL and will give it a fair try these are just my initial observations.

[NY Cavalry]

I am a longtime SOW user and happily promote and defend the system when needed. I very much like SOW WL it gives us what we expected. In its favor, I can say that the coding has been solid, The AI is not the Civil War Ai, but adapted for Napoleonics, the game looks very good visually, the support team members are constantly on the forumns giving top notch service to end users and potential users.
I will also say that Bloody Bill's concerns are not without merit. I do not concure with all his points, but I do some some.

The game play is not as smooth as Gettysburg and some tweaks are needed. The game is not broke and is very playable. I endorse it, but lets look at the facts for what they are.

The team has done a great job and being responsive is part of that.

[Saddletank]

Bill - thanks. I completely take your point. An option to attempt to charge fortified building gates would be fantastic. I guess with such a very short development time these nice extras had to be back-burnered. I hope patches may address some of these issues.

I agree with NYC that the dev team presence on the forum is a huge bonus. So many devs just release a game, pocket the $$$ and go swanning off.