Scourge of War Waterloo

I just watched the demo.  It's a bit difficult to tell how well the game plays given the presenter's micro-management of the troops.  However it does appear that pathing is better, although troops still perform their battlefield gyrations in line formation.  Again, due to the presenter's play it's hard to really say, but the brigades seemed to do a better job in maintaining formation.

I could see no improvement in the artillery.  It still can't hit the broadside of a barn and it still fires through friendly troops.  That was very disappointing to see.  I imagine the magic canister is still in use too.  The non-historic gun capture was also an unfortunate carryover.  It's hard to fathom why these obvious flaws weren't addressed.

The cavalry's abilities were not shown, which was too bad.  Although the fact that it stood around while the repositioned arty hammered it was not inspiring.  They do that now.

On the cosmetic front, all the armies shown fought in 2 rank lines rather than three.  That should be easy to fix though.

The ability to fortify some buildings is a very nice feature.  Hopefully all the maps will have at least a few such structures.

Although auto-square formation was not shown, it presumably works.  That may end up being the greatest improvement over the current game.

If the current game gets a C/C- for handling nappy battles, I'd give this one a C+/B- based on what was shown.  If all the observed problems can be modded away then the game could raise its grade to an A.

I noticed the scenario editor is not ready, NSD said in the stream that would be issued later.

I think it would be worth approaching NSD for a first patch and asking for:

1) Friendly fire.

2) Some kind of mechanic to inflict more losses on denser targets (basically sits with 1 above).

3) Different artillery capture process more relevant to this period.

4) Option to turn off pop-up messages when you intercept enemy couriers. In the stream the poor dude had to do that multiple times while trying to manage his cavalry charge on the guns. Same for pop-up messages from subordinates accepting your orders. Putting both these into the messages received box would work better.

5) A different facing indicator mechanic for HITS play. You won't be able to see that green arrow drawn on the terrain from the stock HITS height, let alone 2m.

Those are the main things I noticed, anyone got any more to add to a patch list?

1) how are they gonna deal with "friendly fire" if the guns shoot straight through their troops at the moment?

even the 2nd line sometimes fired over the heads of the 1st - and no - they were not standing on a hill...


I think this may be a lot to ask for - it would be perfect - no doubt - but if they can simply "fix" this in a small patch - not really sure...

the brief "no - no friendly fire" answer from the Devs in chat led me to believe that they never intended to have something like it...


2) as for guns - you have already mentioned it, Digby: why on earth can't they create "crews" for the guns that can retake them after they went to safety to nearby troops? I am sure that the cavalrymen still gladly capture guns and man them at the expense of letting their horses run off to the rear.... (or front )


3)  unfortunately one was unable to see melees and rout-recoveries. I sencerely hope that they have put away with those silly 10 minute melees and the fact that a battalion fights once, breaks and then never really comes back... I'd like to see a lot more fluent fights going on - with reserves being gradually fed in - not all at once  - and that not only, but also due to spacing. Spacing however appears to have remained mostly the same - only the unit's flag really counts - as one could see battalions form overlapping lines and not really bothering...

Total War among all its faults has friendly fire. You just hit the first thing in your shooting arc, unless you have lofted fire like artillery shot and shell, but a flat trajectory shot type like a musket ball (whether fired singly from a musket or in a big can from a cannon) just hits the first object in its arc.

I would have thought it was a fairly simple piece of coding except that NSD have gone for distinct friendly and hostile targets, so their whole combat system would need an overhaul. It would need a whole new AI pathing/zone of fire logic as well unfortunately. Just switching off fire of rear units who are blocked by friendlies would help for a start.

If we don't like the morale system I am sure we can tweak it in the same way we did with the first game.

Its the extra modding ability in the logistics files that has got me most excited about this new game, I'm hoping many limitations that hampered the first game will be removed.

What are the Old/Middle Guard wearing here? It looks like top hats and blue dresses. Who quality controlled those sprites? The blue is completely the wrong colour, the overcoat is the wrong shape/style and the bearskin is way off shape. Horrible.



What are these flags? Anyone know? Looks like something Henry V might have flown at Agincourt...

is that actually even a bearskin? looks more like the regular hat of the fantassins ....

well - on 2nd look - one could argue that it probably is meant to be one - the top view would indicate grenadiers - yes...

I think they are wearing greatcoats. Was it a cold day in June? The hats do look funny though, like the British stovepipes.

btw - why are they formed in square? where is the cavalry that is threatening them? or is this another one of those "cavalry can charge straight past the infantry because the flag only occupies one hex kinda thing?

as for the flags - is that an Irish harp in the bottom left corner? or what is this supposed to be?

I asked if auto-charging is in this game on the NSD forum. The unfortunate reply came back that it is.

The guard bearskin needs to be plumper and rounder on top and the cloth red crown atop it is sloped more down towards the back.

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/img/Old_Guard_Borodino.jpg

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/web2.airmail.net/napoleon/shakos_old_guard.jpg

The French uniform blue is a very dark indigo blue. It should be almost black.

https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img27/5841/napoleoncolgrenpied.jpg

I can't find a period picture of the greatcoat but it should be straight-sided and not flare out in a skirt shape.

https://s209.photobucket.com/user/pdguru/media/The%20PdGuru%20Total%20War%20Gallery/france_inf_elite_french_old_guard_info2.jpg.html

honestly - the darkness of the blue of the uniform is something that can be fixed easily from what I hear - I suppose that also goes for the uniform...

things like auto-charging, spacing, those blasted guns and friendly fire are way more important to me personally than this - cause I am unsure whether mods can fix this.... they certainly weren't able to in SoW GB!

You'd have to create a whole new set of Middle/Old Guard sprites to correct those issues. Given what a significant unit it was at Waterloo I'd count this as a fairly major fail.

oh it is a major fail, no doubt and no argument there - completely agree: BUT - I figured that we'd already have middle guard sprites since we have a Waterloo OOB - no?
the fail is even bigger since they only had to focus on one battle - not the entire napoleonic era!

whereas the other things really can only be fixed by programmers...

I'd be surprised if the sprite usage has changed in this game. We should be able to substitute the ones we have for the stock versions where necessary. The only ones we don't have are kneeling sprites for the squares. I can live with having all the units in squares standing, as we do now.

I guess they've got time to modify the final sprites - we're not seeing the final product here.. yet. Dunno how much of a priority it will be!

On the plus side Davide has revealed on the NSD forum that melees have been given a tweak and will now occur less often. Also division/brigade pathing and deployment routines have been improved so that units merge less.

thanks to all involved on the SoW Forum (I believe I saw Digby, Kevin and 7thGalaxy) we seem to have quite an idea on how melees work now....

all in all - sounds rather promising - especially the morale check before actual combat! Now if they improved they influence of good leaders being able to rally their men (also hinted) this should be a major improvement towards getting it "right"... (even though the last comment on "fun vs realism" is - well - "meh")

even though the last comment on "fun vs realism" is - well - "meh"

I let that one pass. It was the reason for keeping melees in the first game too. Now on to the next issue, LOS.

Wait, what? Realism is fun. Or did I miss something? Are they mutually exclusive now?

A concern I have is the contextual pop-up menu when we play HITS. I can see this floating toolbar being right in front of where you are looking and it actually obstructing what you want to see. I also don't see how the new green line with arrowhead on the terrain to show facing will work in HITS - and I don't mean our 2yds first person version of hits, I mean NSD 10yards giraffe-neck version.

I need to ask this question on their forums. Hopefully Stefan and Davide our two "allies" have done some 2yds HITS testing.

Also - no compass rose now? How are people supposed to communicate directions in MP?

no compass rose now?

The face of the guy in the video is hidding it. There is one in the screenshots.

Haven't really had a chance to look at the promo stuff yet. Does anyone know if they've improved the corps and army AI?

Martin (J)

I haven't heard anything about that, Martin. What areas were you curious about?

BTW, there are still only 2 sides. I saw one of the army selection screens and it had:

Duke of Wellington
---- Duke of Wellington
---- Feldmarschal Blucher

At the top of the structure. So there's at least a new level above army, which is possibly side or army group, it seems.

Thanks for the info about the compass rose Pepe.

Did you do some portraits for them Grog? If so where do they show up?

"I haven't heard anything about that, Martin. What areas were you curious about?"

I recall that one of the NSD wallahs - I think it was Jim - said that in the G/burg game they focused on developing AI for brigade and divisional leaders, but that it was left pretty sketchy for corps and army leaders. That's certainly been my perception from playing the AI in larger scale games.

That was probably a sensible call for the original game, where most scenarios are brigade & divisional level. As I understand it, Waterloo has been designed so you can play the full battle. If so, I suspect a different approach is needed.

Martin (J)

Norb said check Matrix store today after 2pm GMT.