Set Up for SOWWL NAPOLEON GAMES For Kriegspiel style

Those Foot Guards are serious gentlemen.

You ruined my surprise scenario. Grog wanted more infantry related casualties and I was going to give them to him.

British foot Guards were certainly Elite status but should they be given as high Moral as the Grognards?

Perhaps after several Campaigns they might come close.

Old Guard by 1815 each man had 12yrs service, 2 out of 3 had the Legion of Honour and a third had fought over 20 Campaigns.

Interested in opinions here?

I don't think its so much about experience but esprit de corps. And inexperienced men can sometimes perform better than veterans.

The charge of the light brigade is a good example. Completely inexperienced men who actually did incredibly well considering the odds against them.

I would certainly rate the British FG as highly as the OG and MG and better than the YG. Their firing factors should be higher as well.

I wonder if anyone could help me with a problem with saved games in SP mode. This has been an ongoing issue for me since I started using the KS MOD in 2018. I have updated through the various releases, I’m now on V132, but I can’t find a fix for this. I note the most recent manual says the MOD uses a special file (defsave.sav) for restoring game data in MP games but there is nothing for SP games.
When I load a saved SP game the status of detached units and artillery guards is lost. The most dramatic effect of this is that the game then goes through the process of allocating further artillery guard units (it is never the same unit as before), so I have to quickly go about and either cancel the new guard orders, leaving the artillery with no guards, or move the previous guard unit from behind the battery. AI controlled formations end up with a couple of units stacked behind the battery.
Am I stuck with this anomaly or is there a way to fix it?
My preference would be for me to amend the way in which guards are allocated and do away with the automatic allocation all together. Is there a file which I could amend, or is it hard coded in? The ‘manual’ ordering/allocation of guards seems to have been disabled both on the tool bar and in the orders section as I have never been able to get either of these to work.
You may wonder why I would want to do this.
I would prefer to allocate guards when needed before my formations come into action, and select which units act as guards.
The automatic selection process is a quite random and does not always follow the description given in the manual. Often units are stripped from the line of battle necessitating a reorganization.
Any help or suggestions would be most welcome.
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For an SP game, go to the Load Save Games panel and select the defsave.sav save. Everything should then be restored.

Hi, thanks for the reply. I only seem to have one such file, this was created some weeks ago after a MP game. no version of this file exists for later games.

Under what circumstances is the file created? I want to make sure I'm going through the correct process for savings my SP games. Could I check that this should work for sandbox created games?

thanks

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If you go into Options, the bottom left item on the first page is the game autosave interval. Set that to about 2 minutes. That gives you a save file at most 2 minutes old if you have a game crash, or quit without remembering to save. Take care of it though as it gets overwritten in the next play session.

Thanks Mr Digby,

I have my option set to 5 (mins) and this gives me autosave files, plus any named saved files I produce manually, but none of these when loaded give the correct status of detached units and artillery guards. I only have one version of the defsave file which is weeks old.

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I forgot to ask, do you know of way of stopping the automatic allocation of artillery guards? Is there a file that can be easily amended, or is this hard coded into the AI for the mod?

I usually think its a worthwhile practice and in player vs player it definitely is. However once a battalion moves to guard your guns you can TC it and it will then go where you order. If you un-TC it though, it will return to gun support duty.

I have my option set to 5 (mins) and this gives me autosave files, plus any named saved files I produce manually, but none of these when loaded give the correct status of detached units and artillery guards. I only have one version of the defsave file which is weeks old.

Hm. Can't help with that. Kevin?

Probably best to remember the wise words of the Duke of Marlborough.

For God's Sake be sure you do not risk the cannon.
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough

Re-attach the battalion and it will again obey orders from the brigade commander.

I'd assumed from the manual that any manual game saves or autosaves should be ignored as they would be invalid and only the "defsave" should be used to resume a game.

I have autosave set to 0 which seems to stop any "autosave" files appearing (although I appear to have an older dated 12th Feb _autosave0.sav even though I thought I'd cleared everything out).

What I see is the following:

"defsave" seems to get written approx. every 3 mins of game time - it won't get written if you have the game paused.
If you have the map window open when the save happens, the window closes of its own accord (at the start I thought it was an errant keystroke form your truly)
I now use that feature when I'm closing down SOWWL so I know I've got the latest save for resumption.

I've no idea if the above is the expected behaviour but it works for me. However, the OP seems to have something different happening.

Thank you all for posting suggestions.

Parmenio, I have tried the 0 autosave but I do not get the same results as you. I have tried exiting the game with and without manual saves, none of these options produce a defsave file.

Mr Digby & others, I have no issue with having artillery guards, essential in most situations, I would just prefer to allocate these myself if possible. If it's not possible and the allocation has to be automatic then I want to try and avoid the situation whereby the status of guarding units is lost when the game is saved, resulting in multiple units being allocated. I accept the original unit(s) designated as guards will then rejoin their brigades, but the swapping of units in and out of the line is not optimal behavior.

That aside, is anyone able to suggest why I do not get the defsave file? Would you expect this to be created in sandbox games, and would you expect this to be created if a manual save file has also been created? I'm just trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong here as you all seem to have different results to me and have no issues with saved games.

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The only thing I can suggest if you're not getting the "defsave" file appearing is that the mod isn't installed properly.

I can still manually save from the UI and I was getting autosaves but the KS Mod manuals says that using those would result in an invalid restart as data important to the mod itself is saved in "defsave" and would then be lost is you didn't restart it with that.

"defsave" seems to get written approx. every 3 mins of game time - it won't get written if you have the game paused.

That is correct.

If you have the map window open when the save happens, the window closes of its own accord (at the start I thought it was an errant keystroke form your truly)

Yes, that is an unfortunate byproduct of saving via the AI dll.

That aside, is anyone able to suggest why I do not get the defsave file? Would you expect this to be created in sandbox games, and would you expect this to be created if a manual save file has also been created? I'm just trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong here as you all seem to have different results to me and have no issues with saved games.

Does the KSData.bin file get updated? It is also in the Saved Games folder.

I'm getting a "Can't Find Package File" error and the game hangs up when loading "NetServ".

The log says only this:

Game Launched
20:36:00 Version:SOWWL
1.0106
20:36:06 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\KSSpritesMod 107
20:36:06 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\KS SOW Supplemental Maps120
20:36:06 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\GB_lsl files
20:36:06 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\KS Napoleon Mod II 131
20:36:06 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\KS SOW Supplemental Maps121
20:36:06 Ansi:16, TexH:16384, TexW:16384
20:36:06 SowWL Loaded
20:36:06 20:36:06
20:37:19 Networking initialized.
20:37:19 Server Started...
20:37:19 Attempting Connection to NAT Server...
20:37:19 Connection to NAT Server Accepted.
20:37:23 Player List Sent.
20:37:27 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\KSSpritesMod 107
20:37:27 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\KS SOW Supplemental Maps120
20:37:27 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\GB_lsl files
20:37:27 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\KS Napoleon Mod II 131
20:37:27 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\KS SOW Supplemental Maps121
20:37:27 Mod: C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\MATRIX GAMES\SCOURGE OF WAR WATERLOO COLLECTORS EDITION\Mods\KS SOW Supplemental Maps122
20:37:27 Loading NetServ
20:37:27 Load your muskets...
20:37:27 20:37:27
20:37:27 Loading NetServ
20:37:27 Loading Map (Nap_Ger_Kelheim_KS)
20:38:21 PR: (ERROR) DirectX Error in Loading DDS: D3DERR_INVALIDCALL

20:38:21 PR: (WARNING) Texture not loaded - BURNSIDE.DDS


If I recall this has something to do with map files but it has been a long time since I saw this error. Anything jump out at anyone?

You need to delete old versions of the mods. Your game is trying to load no less than 3 versions of the Supplemental Maps. I expect one of the old mods is calling for a package file that is no longer there.

That's my opinion too. Also you are not using the newest version of the KS Napoleon mod. It's version 1.32.

Voila, that helped although there was even another step involved. I had downloaded 1.32 and maps 1.22 but didn't think I had activated them. Obviously, I had activated the maps and that is where the problem was because there was a hiccup on the install and I had an extra folder in there. The thing is, it was only happening with that one Kelheim map. I was figuring that one of those map files must have been corrupted. I deleted 1.20 and deactivated 1.21 and after fixing the extraneous install folder it loaded fine.

I haven't taken a good look at 1.32 yet as I was deeply involved with my "make the MP continuation work right" project which I pretty well have down now. Kelheim was to be the last test. I wasn't sure how 1.32 would react to all of my previous scenarios so I just ignored it for now. When I tried to load one of my OOBs into the new scenario generator it told me to get lost so I figured that extra column for skirmishers must be incompatible and set that on the side as well. I'll get to it, though.

Thanks gentlemen.

Uncle Billy,

the KSData.bin file does not get updated - the latest date for this is the same as the defsave file I have [ 15 Feb 2020 ]. Both files were created on 4 Feb 20, I downloaded the latest version of the MOD on 2 Feb. These files were created at a date and time when I saved a sandbox game, but since that date and time they have not updated.

They are not automatically created in either sandbox or scenario play, and I have had the map open for 15-20 mins and this has not closed. I presume you would expect the files to update themselves at the time intervals suggested in your post?

I have an old windows 7 machine which has a second copy of the game on it, my main machine is running windows 10. I have run the old machine up, updated the MOD and I'm getting the same results there.

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I really don't know what the problem is. Perhaps some sort of security setting on the Saved Games folder?

Hi,

I really enjoy the KS mod which brings much more realism. Great job to the creators !

A small question that didn't bothered me at the beginning but still. Why the map and battle information in "scenario decription" is not available when I select one scenario (see the screenshot below)

The only thing I can think of is a language localisation issue.