Which battle would you want to play next

[paulprithu]

I am a bit confounded by the choice of expansions. Is this what the players really want? I am curious, if given a choice, which battle would players like to see next?

• Austerlitz
• Leipzig
• Ulm
• Borodino
• Jena-Auerstedt
• Eylau
• Wagram
• Another inconsequential unbalanced battle from the Hundred Days with most of the great generals dead or absent
• Anything else (please mention)

[CaptainAndrew]

Any major battle from the Napoleonic wars would be great to play out on a special, custom-made map with new sprites made by the people that made the ones for Waterloo.

If you want to know, the choice for Ligny and Quatre Bras was probably because of the significantly smaller workload required to create a scenarios for the battle. No new sprites except for a building or two, no need to tweak balance or any AI-specific feature, which might be required if they want to better represent some army fighting in that battle.

[Saddletank]

The release of Quatre Bras and Ligny (and I expect in the near future, Wavre) is so that the 100 Days is completed. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the full 4 battles was always NSDs objective for the WL game. As Andrew says, the OOBs and most scenery/vegetation sprites are available so the workload is much reduced.

A battle like Austerlitz, for example, would be a vast load of extra work. Leipzig might even be impractical in this game engine due to its size and complexity.

[Little Powell]

Correct, it was our intention all along to cover the 100 Days.

[paulprithu]

Yes the reasons for the choices are pretty obvious.

Strangely despite using much fewer resources, the expansions do not cost much less than the bigger expansions to Gettysburg. Given that a very small number of people pay a large amount of money for these games, should you not also consider what those people want for their money? Hence my question to the players.

Personally I would have been have been happy to wait a little longer and spend a lot more money for a SOW Austerlitz or Jena-Auerstedt, yet I did not buy Quatre-Bras, will not be buying Ligny... or Wavre or whatever 100 days battle you choose next. I consider the battles too uninteresting, the OOB too similar, the forces too unbalanced, and the great French Marshals too dead. To me any more 100 days expansions are a waste of my money, and a waste of your limited time and resources.

For what its worth, as a fan of the series since the first Take Command, I wanted to be heard on the subject. Enough to finally sign up on this forum. At this point, I can only hope once you are done with 100 days, we will see expansions for some other great Napoleonic battles, instead of moving to a different era / series altogether. Hopefully other players think so too.

[DarkRob]

Yes the reasons for the choices are pretty obvious.

Strangely despite using much fewer resources, the expansions do not cost much less than the bigger expansions to Gettysburg. Given that a very small number of people pay a large amount of money for these games, should you not also consider what those people want for their money? Hence my question to the players.

Personally I would have been have been happy to wait a little longer and spend a lot more money for a SOW Austerlitz or Jena-Auerstedt, yet I did not buy Quatre-Bras, will not be buying Ligny... or Wavre or whatever 100 days battle you choose next. I consider the battles too uninteresting, the OOB too similar, the forces too unbalanced, and the great French Marshals too dead. To me any more 100 days expansions are a waste of my money, and a waste of your limited time and resources.

For what its worth, as a fan of the series since the first Take Command, I wanted to be heard on the subject. Enough to finally sign up on this forum. At this point, I can only hope once you are done with 100 days, we will see expansions for some other great Napoleonic battles, instead of moving to a different era / series altogether. Hopefully other players think so too.

Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I for one am looking forward to having the complete hundred days battles. If you're going to go through the trouble of doing a game on Waterloo to begin with it only makes sense to do Quatre Bras/Ligny/Wavre along with it in my opinion. It would be a waste of the OOB not to.
I don't think a game on Austerlitz or Jena or Wagram would be an expansion to Waterloo anyway but probably a standalone title of its own.
But I think you would see the same pattern from those games as well. I wouldn't expect them to cover a massive battle like Wagram without doing an expansion on Aspern/Essling, again it just makes sense. NSD wouldn't be reaping all they could for the painstaking attention to detail and work that goes into designing these things in the first place if they didn't.

[paulprithu]

Well, we got Chancellorsville (yeah I know it was standalone, but it was still an extension of the SoW:Gettysburg game) and Antietam as expansions to Gettysburg. I was hoping for something similar here.

It will be a a great waste if they skip some of Napoleon's tactical masterpieces and move to some other era.

[DarkRob]

Well, we got Chancellorsville (yeah I know it was standalone, but it was still an extension of the SoW:Gettysburg game) and Antietam as expansions to Gettysburg. I was hoping for something similar here.

It will be a a great waste if they skip some of Napoleon's tactical masterpieces and move to some other era.

Well yea I understand what you're saying. But for all intent and purposes the entire eastern theatre of the civil war was the same two armies slugging it out for 4 years. Sure the organizations changed somewhat, Generals were killed, replaced or reassigned, units reshuffled, absorbed, or dissolved. But by and large, its the same two armies going at it every time.

The Napoleonic wars were different. They were a collection of entirely different wars, with entirely different combatants. Unlike Antietam or Chancellorsville where there were a lot of common units and you could just tweak and adjust an existing OOB since it was always the same two sets of forces.

A battle like say Austerlitz would be an entirely new set of OOBs compared to the OOB in the hundred days. No British or Prussians, a completely different French army, plus you have to create brand new OOBs for the Austrian and Russian forces. I would imagine the research that goes into creating an accurate OOB, along with map design and troop deployments is probably the most extensive part of making a new game. To me I wouldn't think this would be an expansion of Waterloo because its basically starting from scratch. Which is why I think it would be its own title, probably with expansions of its own.
The same could be said for a lot of other major Napoleonic battles. There were often smaller battles that led up to the decisive big battle that decided the war. So whatever battle they pick to do next after they are done with the hundred days will probably see a similar pattern. The big battle, followed by an expansion or two of smaller battles leading up to them. The Napoleonic wars followed a different pattern than the civil war. The civil war, especially in the eastern theatre was basically fight a big indecisive battle, and then sit in camp for the next 3 to 6 months. By Napoleonic standards not one battle in the eastern theatre of the civil war was ever a decisive one. There were no Austerlitz's or Waterloo's or Wagram's, battles that for all intent and purposes ended the wars right then and there.

I guess what I mean to say is the eastern theatre of the civil war could basically be done all as expansions to Gettysburg(Gettysburg being the logical place to start)which is basically what NSD did. While the Napoleonic wars were all very different and I think would require new games for the various different battles of various different wars.

Also, I have a feeling it wont be the end of the Napoleonic series of SOW games with Waterloo. Waterloo and the hundred days is probably the most popular and well known of the Napoleonic wars. It was a logical and good place to start. But the Napoleonic wars were chockfull of great climactic battles, many of which you named in your initial post. And I wouldn't be surprised to see one of them on the horizon from NSD once the hundred days are complete.

[paulprithu]

But the Napoleonic wars were chockfull of great climactic battles, many of which you named in your initial post. And I wouldn't be surprised to see one of them on the horizon from NSD once the hundred days are complete.

Thats all I ask.

[Jacquinot]

Borodino