Ye King of Spaine Inn - NPC OOC Discussion

Really sorry to hear about that Diggers.  Real life can be a bummer at times.

It does sound as if you’re making progress to be even thinking about the campaign.  Very commendable too, as lots of folks would have just walked away.  

I do hope we can get it moving again, and can certainly assist with spread sheet work.  I suspect others can too.  Maybe you could parcel up the work between a group of us.  It may be a good idea just to circulate both teams to check continued availability first though.  Just to make sure we still have enough folks, before starting on the work.

I think Kevin’s now found a way of automating the repacking of all the old sprites too, so we should have lots of new uniforms to play with.

Re the Battle of Vallodolid, I think you’re making a good call.  I’ve been very impressed with the Spanish team’s willingness to take repeated knocks in the name of history, and can only hope that we Frenchies would have had the maturity to do likewise.  Where a battle is so unbalanced though, I think it’s a good idea for you to just come-up with a result.  It would also help to keep the campaign moving in a more general sense, as there will be other occasions in the future.

Martin (J)

I too am sorry to hear of your recent misfortune.  Hopefully your enforced vacation won't last long.

I fully agree with Martin that it is great you are thinking of restarting the campaign.  I don't think the oob changes needed to make them compatible with the new KS mod are all that many.  They mostly affect the Frenchies at this stage.  You can send me a few of larger ones and I will fix them up.  I am just finishing up adding Prussians to the Waterloo OOB.  The other Martin has given me a long list of wants and desires.  Once I have disposed of those, I will be free to work on your oobs.

Hang in there.

Thanks guys. I would be interested in seeing how you dealt with the 1815 Prussian organisation and fitting it into the SoW formation heirarchy.

So if I were to leave the Spanish alone and they didn't have skirmish-capable troops, that would work? They do have some light infantry (6 regts of pre-war regular Cacadores) but these are few and far between.

Yes, only the cacadores can skirmish. They just need to be moved to the 2nd battalion slot.

The Prussian brigades are enormous in size, so I use those as divisions and use the individual regiments as brigades. Thus the battalions become regiments.

I still need to create a couple of flags, e.g. a small Prussian flag for commanders and arty.

Uncle Billy wrote:..................The other Martin has given me a long list of wants and desires.  Once I have disposed of those, I will be free to work on your oobs.

What?  One might almost think I'm unreasonable.   Back to work!

Martin (J)

Martin (the other)

I hope it all works out for you, fella.

Please keep the Campaign going, if you can. I know it must be difficult, given your unfortunate circumstances but you really are doing a great job and am really looking forward to the next chapter (even if my command gets chewed up like frogs on a 'Frenchies' dinner plate:D ).

There is, of course, plenty of time and no pressure, mate. I am completely happy for you to work out Castanos's fate in whatever way you choose.

Mike

Sorry for your difficulties, Mr. Digby. I was wondering about the campaign and hope to play more. Hello, from Bangkok, Thailand! I made the trip, have had a nice two weeks plus and will be returning to the U.S. this coming Sunday, 1 December, ready to return to play. The ceremony for placing my late wife's ashes at the temple was smooth and quite a release of tension for me as she is fully at rest now. In another week I should have SOW upgraded and all the other mods installed. Could we be looking for a campaign using Prussians and Russians in the future? I would like that, as the Russians were my favorite army when we played 15 mm miniatures. Winter time here, and the weather is beastly! Temperatures in the 70's during the day and upper 60's at night. heh. Talk to you all later.

Sounds like a good trip, Ike. See you next week for a game.

Martin (J)

I would be all for a Prussian campaign or even Russian campaign. I was really getting into cavalry there in the campaign. I can see the difficulties in having to redo all the OOBs, I used to work on OOBs all the time. Or maybe we just craft scenarios and not worry about the carryover since it puts a heavy burden on whoever runs the campaign. I may look into Stefan's scenario generator, I haven't used it yet but maybe that might do the trick. I would also says thanks Digby for a well crafted campaign and all the hard work.

There probably isn't *that* much work in adjusting the OOBs and I could redo them on as as-needed basis when that particular army has a battle. I just need to be in a better place with my personal life to have the spirit to do the work. I love doing it, I just can't face it right now.

There was a nice idea I had for an 1815 campaign based around a political collapse at the Congress of Vienna around February. Some of you probably know that due to British intransigence and manouvering, Prussia was being alienated and denied some territories she thought she had fought and bled for and for a couple of weeks feelings were running so high that there was nearly a war between Prussia and Russia on one side and Bourbon France, Austria and Britain on the other. In the middle were all the German states (as usual) who would have either been happy to join one side or the other, or been coerced into doing so, with Britain most likely forming an Allied army with the King of the Dutch-Belgians (though Wellington may have lacked his Brunswick and Orange-Nassau contingents). He'd probably still have got the Hanoverians.

While the entire scope of that is just too huge we could pick a few scenarios based on it or even string some together in a GCM way using Niall's battle casualty calculator.

Possibly even culminating with a final battle where the 'winning' allied army is the only one left on the field to deal with Napoleon - or not - after he returns from Elba.

Good ideas, as ever  

I read only now of your problems, Digby; I'm very sorry, my friend, I hope all will solve for the best soon.

About the campaign: someone know this: http://www.vassalengine.org/ ? it is a free modular engine used for replicate on the PC the old board\wargame rules; the number of games replicated is very big, and according to this guys you can modify the battle results outside http://www.vassalengine.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5646 .

Digby - I have only just read this, and am sorry to hear about your woes.

I'm going to go against the grain here - how unusual.

As much as I would love to see the Campaign back up and running - and would of course get back into it if it did - I think my trying to encourage you to restart it would be a little selfish. I was having a great time, sure, but I know how draining an experience (granted though at some times rewarding) it can be - not to mention stressful.

Having read your post, I just think that if you drew a line under that campaign, you might feel a bit of a weight off your shoulders, and I think that would probably be beneficial to you in the greater sense of things. I mean, that campaign was always going to be a monster, it is HUGE! Get it off your mind old boy!

As I say, if it does get underway again, I'll be there of course, but please consider carefully, for your own sakes.

I might have given the wrong impression. Aside from preparing the OOBs the workload was pretty light. I didn't fail to restart it after the summer break because it was too daunting to face, I was just so focussed on having to deal with other things, and I still am, that I just can't get back into the right mood.

I really do want to continue it at some point. The British will land in Portugal soon and then the french won't be having everything their own way. Some of the Spanish armies lurking in the wings are really huge too and not so rubbish as the one's we've seen on the battlefield so far so the Spanish-Allied team should have their day eventually.

I have in fact been thinking about this camapign a lot over Christmas and want to get it going again.

I would be happy beyond words if the Peninsular Campaign were to resume. Just sayin'...   

I would also like to see the campaign restarted at some point.
I have enduring memories of all campaign battles I have ever fought. In Neal's ACW campaign I think I only fought 3 battles, but they were excellent fun! The pre-battle phase is something I really like and this is something that goes amiss with ad-hoc games. It is really a different experience when you know your performance does have consequences for your future battles.
Digby, in your campaign I loved how much immersion you created for each player by individual status reports with plausible stories. Very nice readings there. I cannot estimate how much work it was to write all that stuff and to keep the overview

Thanks guys. I will restart it when my life is in less of a mess.

As to the written items... I just love to write. I've been something of an amateur writer all my life.

I've been thinking more and more about resuming the campaign. Been looking at maps and OOBs today...

Thanks to Martin's efforts we seem to have revitalised the regular weekly games so I suggest that we use one of these slots to play the Battle of Valladolid scenario that was going to be fought as an opening event for the 1/July turn. Its a fairly one-sided affair and would need about 3 or 4 Spanish players and up to 6 French.

Main problem is the scenario was written before Kevins latest Napoleonic KS mod was made and it uses the old KS mod and my Peninsular mod so players would need to have these.

In the words of Uncle Joe, "Not one step back!" I can make the scenario oob mod compatible in just a few minutes.

Good Man, Signor Digby.

General Cuesta has a plan so cunning, you could brush your teeth with it  

Kevin. Your da man!
I'm sure you would be a real attribute to the NSD team (although I suspect it might be complicated  )

Grog wrote:Kevin. Your da man!
I'm sure you would be a real attribute to the NSD team (although I suspect it might be complicated Wink )

Ya think?   

I don't think Kevin and the NSD team have quite the same vision. Close but slightly skewed at significant points

Uncle Billy wrote:In the words of Uncle Joe, "Not one step back!"

Hm, I think Adolf Hitler said it as well. Didn't do him any favours.

I can send the scenario file and OOB to a file sharing site and give you a link. The scenario is hand-made (individual units positioned by hand), not using Stefan's generator so changes will need it to be fully hand re-made. That is not the job of a "few minutes".

You underestimate my abilities to automate. PM me with the link.

And... we can't change the OOB at all since it was generated by Hays campaign casualty tool and if you change it, that breaks its conversion back into the tool format...

This campaign is going to be continued when Neal's Lost Division campaign comes to a close.

Kevin is kindly looking at what needs to be adjusted in the OOBs to convert them from my old Peninsular Mod (of last year) to fit into the KS Nap Mod. This means we'll be using just one standard Nap Mod, now with Grog's awesome generals portraits and all the new sprites.

When I have the right OOB formatting from Kevin I will reorganise the campaign OOBs into one master file, refresh my memory of who is where and doing what to whom, introduce a couple of map changes and then it'll be time to kick off the third turn, Early July 1808. Each turn is two weeks.

For anyone who was involved before you are all welcome to pick up your old commands. If anyone new would like to join there will almost certainly be commands to be picked up and played. There is scope for people to command forces on the map (controlled by messages sent by e-mails) even if you do not or cannot play in the Scourge of War online battles.

The basic situation is based on the historical positions in summer 1808. A French army of 25,000 under General Junot marched across Spain in 1807 and invaded Portugal in November, suppressing that country and occupying it as punishment for the Portuguese crown's refusal to stop trading with Britain. At the same time, France pretended to be sending "allied garrisons" into Spain and occupied Barcelona and some other Pyrenees cities. Much political wrangling then followed, partly caused by French meddling and partly by discontent within Spain against her own royal family. In April 1808 the Spanish king Carlos IV abdicated under French pressure and Napoleon placed his older brother, Joseph on the throne hoping to gain a meek and compliant ally and source of income. Instead there was a violent popular uprising ("Dos de Mayo") and by the end of May 1808 the Spanish army (what there was of it still functioning) and many popular volunteer amateur regiments were forming and arming themselves for war.

There is no Spanish central authority, either politically or in the army and her armed response is broken up into nearly a dozen armies, each based in the coastal provinces and each of whose Generals is vying for political power and supreme authority. Few of them agree over the future of Spain, whether it be a monarchy (and even who should be king), a republic, or a regency (in Spanish terms a regency of this period was a council of nobles who ruled Spain while there was no monarch on the throne). King Joseph and the French army C-in-C Marshal Murat hold Madrid with two army corps, with two more near Burgos and the Pyrenees and a fifth smaller one made up of about half Italian troops at Barcelona. Each side has around 100,000 effectives in the field or being raised (Spain) or assembling north of the Pyrenees (France). In addition there is the threat of a British armed landing in Portugal under Maj-Gen Sir Arthur Wellesley. Portugal too is openly hostile to General Junot's occupation, pinning down his corps in numerous small garrisons.

For France the objective is to suppress the popular uprising (which they currently see as just a few fanatical armed locals) and effectively bring peace by policing the cities, planting garrisons at key points and ensuring that taxes are collected and sent to Paris. The French win by occupying as many towns and cities as they can with garrisons and getting some support from the nobility for King Joseph. The Spanish want the hated invader thrown out of Spain.

In the game Spanish players each command an army. These vary greatly in size from big corps of about 25,000 for the strongest down to not much more than a division for the weakest. French players each command a corps d'armee (more or less) of between 12,000 and 25,0000 men. In the MP battles sides will be fully flexible although orders issued by that army's or corps' C-in-C will be issued and followed.

Please express your interest here. Thanks.