Historic Waterloo as Napoleon scenario plus associated Artillery mod

[Jean Lafitte]

Prussian artillery tends to cluster even in the stock scenario.

Thanks for the opportunity for me to clarify. My post could be interpreted to be bashing Mike's mod scenario, but, it isn't. I realize that the AI is doing this and has been doing this in the stock scenario.

If there's any solution to this, I'm certain that Mike would have found it by now, so, fixing this AI trait can't be done right now.

It would be nice if the game company could fix it, Hook. Tell me if I'm wrong, but, in your view, does the AI in this game act an awful lot like the AI in WNLB that was published in 2001?

[Jean Lafitte]

Vandamme has appeared at around 1800 hours! Prussian First Korps appeared and is currently attacking from the East and is on the outskirts of Mont St Jean!

The whole enchilada seems to have appeared on this play-through of the my original game which I saved and re-started at 1437 hours.

Mike, it appears that, although all randoms fire and are determined at 1130 hours, that the game engine has variable unit appearance notwithstanding. Something is happening after 1130 hours to cause random variation from no new units to the whole host appearing.

[Jean Lafitte]

Hi Jean

I did set up a few Prussian artillery batteries with units that had Guard commands that effectively detaches those units from their parent. Unfortunately apparently the AI will disregard the detach state and call the unit up if it thinks it has a need for it. It is easier I think to script the AI to look after its guns better when it is essentially on the defensive. I have been experimenting with the "screen" command but so far I cannot make it work from battlecript, I raised that in another thread.

I will have another look at the way I have set up the Prussians and see if I can reduce the clustering.

Regards

Mike

Mike, I think that we are dealing with the same game engine and AI that was coded into the game Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Battle, which was published in the summer of the year 2001, i.e. ancient times WRT the PC world.

[Jean Lafitte]

2000 hours

Infantry and Artillery from the Prussian II Korps have assembled East of La Haye Saint and are attacking towards that objective presently.

[mcaryf]

Hi Jean

I guess you are already well ahead with your points score so unless Napoleon gets killed you will still win. There are probably over 200 variants given the various randomising options but most of those options are determined at 11.30 am.

I dis in fact use quite a lot of the scripting from the standard game in the version you have. My current versions have continued to add new scripts so in my latest Waterloo there is probably about twice as much of my code compared with the original. I tried out having ammo wagons with lower loads just letting the AI play itself today. Two French wagons ran out of ammo altogether but the remainder still had plenty so I have just gone through the scenario files and reduced them further. I should say of course that I do not do that for the AI side.

Regards

Mike

[Jean Lafitte]

Do you agree with my opinion that SOWWL is the same game engine as WNLB?

Did any French battalions or batteries run out of ammo at Ligny or Waterloo?

[Jean Lafitte]

The attachment SowWL_gamedb_07-09-18_22-46-11.csv is no longer available

Scenario ends itself near 2130 hours.

[Hook]

I remember playing ANGV. For some reason I don't remember WNLB, but I know I have the game.

As for the AI, I have no idea. There's no reason why using a similar AI is a bad thing, and I'm certainly not going to criticize the developer for reuse of resources. But as far as I know there has been considerable rewrite of the AI. Ask Mitra, he's the one who did it. I doubt there was much from WNLB that he *could* use, and you would expect the general AI philosophy to be the same when it's from the same company.

I remember people complaining bitterly because arty in those games could "run out of ammunition." At the time I explained it as the guns will be fighting another battle soon enough and have to have ammo for that battle as well. There is, after all, only so much ammo in the trains. Since then I've learned about guns overheating, which is a much better reason to withdraw from combat. An overheated cannon is more dangerous to its own crew than to the enemy. I have suggested linking the overheating problem to crew exhaustion, which may already have some effect.

Hook

[mcaryf]

Hi Jean

I did play WNLB and the related Peninsular Mod. I do not think the game engine is really related to SOW except in so far as they are trying to simulate the same event. As far as I recall WNLB was based on Sid Meier's Gettysburg in the same way that SOW started with Gettyburg. I think in WNLB you used to see the flags of units that were low on morale begin to droop which was a nice feature. I might be thinking of another game but WNLB might have had a facility whereby gun crews could retreat into squares as did happen in the battle.

It was possible to mod WNLB but not as easily as you can SOW.

With respect to ammo I am not aware of any French units being reported as running low on ammunition unlike both the Allied and Prussian armies but as the French were mainly on the offensive against Wellington it would be less likely that they should.

Of course if the battle takes a different shape with the French more on the defensive particularly against an earlier arrival of the Prussians then ammunition might be more of an issue. I had hoped to cause the player to have to think rather more carefully about artillery expenditure. Unfortunately artillery rounds seem to "cost" the same as a musket round and every wagon can service any unit so it is not possible to limit artillery fire by that means. Crews do seem to suffer from exhaustion late in the day. I intend to experiment with smaller crews to see if they get tired quicker.

I am going to be away on holiday for a week from tomorrow so I may not be able to respond to any posts for that time.

I have had a quick look at your dump file and again Wellington's guns seem to have caused less casualties than they should. I hope to be able to let you have my version with the batteries regenerating after my return from holiday.

Regards

Mike

[Jean Lafitte]

Take your time. No hurry. Enjoy your holiday.

Could you make a quick mod to your version that delivers all of the Prussians in every case? And leaves out all of Grouchy's folks, in every case?

If you can just tweak to guarantee all Prussian arrival, the player can always just leave any arriving Grouchy people down there in the lower Southeast corner of the mapboard and completely out of the fight.

PS My game actually ended near 2130, not 2200. The game ended on its own after dark.