Scenario Design Question

I'm designing a scenario and i have a question.   In the games that MTG has designed, the troops seem to be fully deployed and placed precisely where he wants them to be.   In my design (using the scenario desiger) i see no option to allow me to deploy the troops in specific places or formations.   Really i can only deploy them in the center point of a map grid and always bunched up by division/corps in column formation.   Any guidance on how to be able to get a bit more flexibility with how to deploy the troops?  

Also, are there ways to change the effects of terrain such as a river for a specific scneario (i.e. make it impassible or something like that).

Thanks!

Matt

In the Scenario Generator you can assign deployment zones around the map to every division:

https://kriegsspiel.forumotion.net/t695-scenario-generator-for-scourge-of-war

and you can finetune deployment of troops generating a startlocs.csv file. Hope this helps:

http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/modifications/54209-mp-scenario-creation-tutorial

Regards.

are there ways to change the effects of terrain such as a river for a specific scneario (i.e. make it impassible or something like that).

Yes, you can alter the greyscale value in the bmp file to make rivers uncrossable except at fords/bridges. Kevin is the expert at this so seek his advice. He has done this for me on a couple of maps for the campaign and he then saves them as mapname_rm.bmp (for restricted movement) so we get 2 versions of the same map. He can then include it in the supplemental maps mod.

Only one caveat, the method Garnier uses (used?) to generate the random maps means this technique can't be used on those

Thanks for the assistance. I found the post last night about hitting L to generate the startlocs file. I ran my game in debug mode and spent about 2 hours moving troops around, hit L, ended the battle and no startlocs file. GRRRRRR.

As for the map, i'm using the RandomMap.6.1 (Polish) one. I assume that is one of Garniers and we can't change the value of the rivers? I'd like to make the Moscowa river (Sanok river on the map) unpassable.

Will mess about the with the Startlocs again this morning.

MJP wrote:Thanks for the assistance. I found the post last night about hitting L to generate the startlocs file. I ran my game in debug mode and spent about 2 hours moving troops around, hit L, ended the battle and no startlocs file. GRRRRRR.

The autosave function would have saved nearly the last position of the troops. Just load that up, make any needed minor adjustments and then create the startlocs file.

As for the map, i'm using the RandomMap.6.1 (Polish) one. I assume that is one of Garniers and we can't change the value of the rivers? I'd like to make the Moscowa river (Sanok river on the map) unpassable.

The problem is that the bmp file is an indexed color map. It can be converted to grayscale, but the values will be off. For example those pixels that should have a value of 25 will instead have a range of values from 22-27. So a lot of bucket filling is needed to repair all those errors. You might take a look at some of the Pipe Creek maps. Some of them have impassable rivers and very little tree cover.

Thanks, will definitely take a look at the Pipe creek maps.  

Just loaded up the game again and moved a brigade and hit L and no startlocs file generate.  In fact, L seems to want to bring up an Officer chat menu.    I hit L and it sort of skips a line and then gives me the > symbol.   I then hit L again and hit enter and it says Officer: L

Is it possible this is because some keybindings are set incorrectly against stock?

Sigh.

Just figured it out, the startlocs dump had been overwritten in the GCM CSV file. So it was a key mapping issue and now i get the startlocs when i hit L.

Your keyboard file must not be set up to use the 'L' key.  Instead, while in the game, press the tilde key, '~', then type dumplocs, (you'll see it in the upper left corner of the screen), and hit enter.  That should generate the file.

Heck, Kevin, isn't there anything you don't know?

About how much bucket filling would be needed on a 5 mile Garnier map Kevin? In terms of hours? I've often looked at several of his maps and badly wanted uncrossable rivers on them. I think I'd be prepared to do it - but would converting the bmp to greyscale then mess up lots of other terrain types like roads and so on?

While I'm at it, how easy would it be to add buildings to a random map? I'm in the mood for some more serious messing about with maps these days.

I imagine the amount of time would depend on how many different ground types his map would have. We can't use the mapname.csv file as a guide since it is just a generic version that lists all the types available. The major problem is finding all of those slightly different values. I think you could replace most of them, start a game with the new map and then look at the log file error messages. It should complain about not being able to find certain grayscales in the csv file.

While I'm at it, how easy would it be to add buildings to a random map? I'm in the mood for some more serious messing about with maps these days.

That might not be too hard since the map is already created. It would just be a case of plopping down a few buildings. Of course you'll have to find the correct package, (that's the file that has the buildings in it), that contains the building you are looking for.

I looked at the scenario generation, but I can't use it as I do not have Excel, and I am not paying £170 for MS office.

I use (freeware) Libre Office, it can open the xls files OK but the visual basic macros the generator uses are incompatible as Libre Office uses a different basic.

Any ideas how can I get a copy of MS Office cheaply, it apparently works with Excel 2000, 2003, 2007 & 2010 so possibly someone has a pre loved licensed copy of an older product I can get my hands on :-)

Another question - are there any maps that actually have buildings on them besides the lynchburg map? I know that some maps have spaces for buildings and the terrain is building/farm/town in the game, but without the graphics. If someone could point out which maps have actual buildings and towns including graphics on them i'd really appreciate it!

Thanks,

Matt

Besides the stock maps, 10 Mile map, Elkhorn Tavern, Chancellorsville mapp, (CV & FBSC), the Pipe Creek maps, (PCL), Brandy Station, and Antietam maps all have buildings and have the ground types modified for use with the nappy mod.

Thanks! Any chance the on the gettysburg NAP map that the Tartaro? Creek/river is impassable except at bridges??

Use the Nap_Italy_Gburg_RM map. Both the Tartaro and Oglio are impassable except at the bridges.

Thanks, that's PERFECT. New scenario idea and with those rivers impassable should really work.

Is there any place to get a list of all NAP units in the OOB style format? For example, in the scenario generator it pulls the available OOB unit information from somewhere, but i can't see from where. Is there a single list in excel showing all available unit type (i.e. french line, french legere, russian line, etc..) for all nationalities?

Thanks!

I don't know if there is a list like you describe, maybe the creators of OOBs may have something like that.

For NAP games the generator takes the info from the OOBs folder within your mods/KSNapoleon folder.

MJP wrote:Is there any place to get a list of all NAP units in the OOB style format? For example, in the scenario generator it pulls the available OOB unit information from somewhere, but i can't see from where. Is there a single list in excel showing all available unit type (i.e. french line, french legere, russian line, etc..) for all nationalities?

If you are talking about the different classes of units, those are all listed in unitglobal.csv. If you are talking about the different types of units themselves, then there is no central listing. You'd just have to go through each OOB and compile them.