Scourge of War Waterloo

So into the helicopters we go! I got dips on the Apache!

Reb Bugler has a modded toolbar that comes with the game.  It is much better than the stock one.

You can turn stopped battalions with the , and . keys.

Black squares around the units and flags and basically all the superimposed elements for me.

Drivers updated.

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System Information
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Time of this report: 6/9/2015, 19:58:27
      Machine name: CAMBRIAMKIII
  Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-bit (6.3, Build 9600) (9600.winblue_r9.150322-1500)
          Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
      System Model: 810-370st
              BIOS: 8.19
        Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4960X CPU @ 3.60GHz (12 CPUs), ~3.6GHz
            Memory: 32768MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 32702MB RAM
         Page File: 2927MB used, 34639MB available
       Windows Dir: C:\windows
   [color=#ff0033DirectX Version: DirectX 11[/color]
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
  User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
   DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
    DxDiag Version: 6.03.9600.17415 64bit Unicode

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DxDiag Notes
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     Display Tab 1: No problems found.
     Display Tab 2: No problems found.
       Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
       Sound Tab 2: No problems found.
       Sound Tab 3: No problems found.
       Sound Tab 4: No problems found.
         Input Tab: No problems found.

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DirectX Debug Levels
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Direct3D:    0/4 (retail)
DirectDraw:  0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (retail)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (retail)
DirectPlay:  0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow:  0/6 (retail)

---------------
Display Devices
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         Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 745
      Manufacturer: NVIDIA
         Chip type: GeForce GTX 745
          DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
       Device Type: Full Device
        Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1382&SUBSYS_6893103C&REV_A2
    Display Memory: 20324 MB
  Dedicated Memory: 3972 MB
     Shared Memory: 16351 MB
      Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
      Monitor Name: HP 23tm Touch Monitor
     Monitor Model: HP 23tm
        Monitor Id: HWP3110
       Native Mode: 1920 x 1080(p) (60.000Hz)
       Output Type: HDMI
       Driver Name: nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver File Version: 9.18.0013.5012 (English)
    Driver Version: 9.18.13.5012
       DDI Version: 11
    Feature Levels: 11.0,10.1,10.0,9.3,9.2,9.1
      Driver Model: WDDM 1.3
Graphics Preemption: DMA
Compute Preemption: DMA
          Miracast: Not Supported by Graphics driver
Hybrid Graphics GPU: Not Supported
    Power P-states: Not Supported
 Driver Attributes: Final Retail
  Driver Date/Size: 4/8/2015 17:58:18, 15818528 bytes
       WHQL Logo'd: Yes
   WHQL Date Stamp:
 Device Identifier: {D7B71E3E-50C2-11CF-1860-9E481FC2C435}
         Vendor ID: 0x10DE
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Driver Strong Name: oem89.inf:0f066de32f46433e:Section110:9.18.13.5012:pci\ven_10de&dev_1382&subsys_6893103c
    Rank Of Driver: 00DA0001
       Video Accel:
       DXVA2 Modes: DXVA2_ModeMPEG2_VLD  DXVA2_ModeVC1_VLD  DXVA2_ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3876271

When SOW:Gettysburg first came out, or thereabouts, I remember playing a few HITS games with our dear friend Gordon.  HITS and Couriers. It was a complete disaster.  You need to be used to the controls before playing HITS, in my opinion.

I think most of us will have to play with a little air under our legs until we get used to the controls.  Perhaps gradually dropping the view.

Reb's toolbar makes the game a little more familiar, but I've got a lot to learn before I'll be ready to command a division from the saddle.

12) No way to change a units formation WITHOUT moving it.

This can be done by right click on the unit's flag.

I agree with everything that has been said. In addition, the one thing I am missing are all those nice brigade formation buttons.

a few points I have come across that suprised me:

1) French infantry loves moveing in line (if under AI control)- never ever advanced in attack column.. ever - but with the ineffective artillery this would be more than the already historical suicide...D'Erlon' attack was a bunched up assault of lines behind lines looked more like Blenheim than Waterloo to me!
2) when in line it uses a two rank line only - so far I have failed to find a button that lets you create anything BUT the two rank line....is there one? the new UI - well.. I might have missed it...
3) apparently no morale check required for a unit to form line under fire
4) like everyone else saw - skirmishers seem useless although the split bataillon option is certainly nice - and with mods it should make skirmishers very effective and a prerequisite for any attack
5) attacking building - from my limited tests it felt like the unit inside a building concentrates on one opposing unit - if there are more they can fire at the units in the building in turn almost without punishment... - very bad
6) buildings as such - how does one storm them? I was lucky to get one unit to charge the outlying walls of Hougoumont - but never got to charge the iinner building - is there a lvl of destruction caused by bombardment that allows you to charge into the building?
7) sandbox campaign: I tried both sides - also with the new OOB for the Frogs - is there difficulty setting? Because in my attempts I always marched across the entire map - only to find the AI always in Brussels... maybe I have overlooked some settings - if not - why have all those towns if you always fight over Brussels anyway?
8 ) the clock in the sandbox campaign is hilarious - it lets you march from Charleroi to Brussels in about 1,5 hours... or something close to that...
9) like Pepe mentioned above - it would appear that you no longer have different brigade formations - even the "line" option usually results in the brigade taking a double line formation...
10) in one scenario one gets to command Bijlandt's Bde - it appears that one bataillons starts there completely deployed in skirmish order - how does one recreate that? so far I was only able to split off a substantial part of a bataillon and then deploy them in skirmish order - happens automatically anyway


as for the rest- quite agree with the above statements - useless skirmishers (they run away at first sight of the enemy - jeez) and even worse artillery seem to be really stunning... in GB the guns were water pistols already - it would appear that they have now been left without water to shoot as well...

" when in line it uses a two rank line only - so far I have failed to find a button that lets you create anything BUT the two rank line....is there one? the new UI - well.. I might have missed it..."

Yeah, this amused me in a down heartened sort of way, because norbsoft were trumpeting how the British formed lines 2 deep and the French 3 deep.

Great.. except as far as I know, at waterloo, lines were formed 4 deep due to space issues. It should be a tactical decision.

However, it should be modable enough.

I've been giving thought to the interface (the grog one). I like the way the floating toolbar changes depending on unit type selected. I don't like the way it floats though - there's plenty of space to put it in the bar at the bottom. I'd also like to see an OOB in the bar at the bottom, rather than having to click through the 'OOB' button. This could be simple - and would provide a really quick way of selecting a unit to give orders to & even have a basic colourcoding for the status of the unit. I wonder if that could be added in.

I quite like the contextual menu, but I've not tried it HITS yet. It certainly works from a floating perspective.

Given that people with and without the grog UI can play together, it might well be that we can each have our own UI, which might be fun.

Anyone know where the log file is? It doesn't seem to be in the Work sub-folder anymore.

Martin (J)

Hello all,

After a long time following your web, I rush to the battlefield thanks to the new Waterloo title.

Martin had sent me some emails in the past for inviting me to play here, but because the ACW wasn't my cup of tea I had never decided to purchase the Gettysbourg, although the mods tempted me a lot... I think now it's the time ;-)

On purpose your question Martin, I think the log is in your personal Documents folder\SoWWL

Best,
Andreu

Welcome to our group Andreu.  Hope we see you in MP soon.

Thanks re the log file.  It is indeed in My Documents.

Martin (J)

There's a problem with the Grog toolbar - for some odd reason the buttons are rendered in the toolbar at a smaller size and at my screen res they are so small as to be quite awkward to use. The default toolbar buttons are a nice size - why make the mod ones smaller? Its not like there's a lack of room on that huge plank of wood at the foot of the screen.

Regarding skirmishers I think we are better off going back to our KS Nap mod system of disabling them and giving each brigade a converged light companies unit. The current btn detachments are not controllable and responsive enough. We are talking tactically as the brigade being the smallest independent manoeuvre unit anyway so skirmishers at btn level are not needed.

I have no idea what is really possible with mods, so I will keep to the military side of things - but I do hope that the knowledgable people take a good look before dismissing new features that have the potential of improving realism, if properly modded and fixed to actually represent things the most historically accurate...

Sometimes having things the most historically accurate is not the most desirable for gameplay, nor best for representing command problems at our chosen level of play. Most of our players are division commanders and at that level we don't want to be worrying about what companies are doing. Going down past our brigade commanders to take charge of a single battalion is as far down the chain of command we should really be worried about. Its the same thing we did with the individual guns I think - the game lets you control every single cannon if you want - but we chose not to want that.

BTW, I'm in TS and can do another test game today.

like I said above - IF it is possible to mod new features into them being represented accurately - I believe every attempt should be made to do so - that includes accounting for command problems of that time and age...
if the engine does not provide the modder with the needed flexibility or the basis.... then there can be little doubt that feature should be dropped - if in turn possible.

Solinvictus wrote:6) buildings as such - how does one storm them? I was lucky to get one unit to charge the outlying walls of Hougoumont - but never got to charge the iinner building - is there a lvl of destruction caused by bombardment that allows you to charge into the building?
7) sandbox campaign: I tried both sides - also with the new OOB for the Frogs - is there difficulty setting? Because in my attempts I always marched across the entire map - only to find the AI always in Brussels... maybe I have overlooked some settings - if not - why have all those towns if you always fight over Brussels anyway?

6) You will need to force the defenders to retreat. This is done by artillery bombardement or pro-longed infantry fire. By clicking on the icon above the building you can see the amount of damage the building has already taken - and also visually by a burning/smoking building. Note that the enemy might reinforce a garisson in the building with fresh troops so it is best to deny him that.
7) There is no difficulty setting, but you can choose from four different campaign types IIRC. You probably have chosen the one type where you have to battle for 1 City (Bruxelles)? Try "dominate map" for example.

KR
Stefan

Did people try the HITS keyboard?

I find it difficult to move where I want when I am close to units. I wanted to go beside 1 battalion to give it the leader bonus and almost charged the Papelotte Farm occupied by the enemy nassauers. (I predict a lot casualties between the officers).

Sometimes I want to go to a point close to the destination or the position of a unit and the destination given to me is not what it should be.
Sometimes I pressed the space bar to stop beside a battalion and my destination and facing changed.

And the flag of the general is very bothering when you are stationary and press a or D to change facing.

It is quicker to use "," and "." to change facing quicker. I learned it yesterday with Mark Soldier, For Villaflor and Howenwarth!

Played it for a day and a half, now it just gives me a run time error when I start the game.

Forgive me, but I have grown tired of the Techno Babble in the computer field as to why so many programs (other than SOW) don't work.

SJ, if you use Win 8 there's several links to help pages on the NSD forum.

Kevin, Roland and I played another game last night. We commanded brigades of a defensive Prussian division vs an attacking French corps.

I am not sure if I like Waterloo or not. There are some very good improvements, yet in other areas the game has gone backwards to things that SoW:GB addressed several patches ago.

MP play seems extremely smooth and stable. 5 out of 5 stars on that.

Graphically the battlefields are much nicer, the trees especially, yet NSD seems to have messed up the terrain objects settings so they make no sense. Last night we found the 'low' setting produced the best textures on the buildings and the most vegetation... The 'best' and 'high' settings either deleted whole villages entirely or left out critical parts of La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont's structures and removed hedge lines, etc.

Cavalry and squares... I dunno. I'm just flat out nonplussed over them. Infantry seems to form square much too early and against a very modest threat and stay in square long, long after any reasonable cavalry threat has gone away and I had a cavalry squadron which charged an infantry line. The line broke and ran... and the cavalry stopped! Why not pursue?

I think I need to wipe my expectations slate clean and start over. Maybe I have too much baggage from my readings of history and the KS Nap mod to be giving the new game a fair chance.

Ag, three posts in a row. Heck.

What Kevin, Roland and I discovered last night is that apparently French and Prussian lines do form 3 ranks deep... except when the unit strength is too low.

The drills.csv appears to allocate the lowest numbers of sprite positions to the first two ranks, so a battalion will form its full frontage with (probably) only 1 rank deep, then it fills the 2nd rank with sprites and then (when strong) fills the 3rd rank. We saw a Prussian battalion with its centre 4 companies 3 ranks deep and the 2 companies on each flank 2 ranks deep.

In Sow:GB a line formed always 2 or 3 deep from the centre outwards.

This is clearly nonsense.

Easily correctable in the drills.csv. Obviously a battalion that is weaker will form a narrower frontage than a shallower formation! Duh.

Thank you,

I have already been on the forums.

Nothing against NORB.

Some of the postings go over my head, because I'm stupid.

SJ, if the game use to run and now suddenly doesn't I can think of two possible causes. 1. One of the files from the game has been corrupted. A reinstall will fix that. 2. Your AV may be interfering. Try creating an exception to the SOWWL program in your AV to take care of that.

Its a runtime error causing the crash.

Re-Downloaded/ reinstalled many times.

Av was turned off.

original SOWGB runs fine.

Thank you any way.

did you try a regedit SJ after you uninstalled and then reinstalled?