Random Dumb Questions

Having finally perfected the art of scripting AND getting the MP game to restart properly I've been having a blast with this thing lately.  I'm almost to the point where I'm ready to start messing around with v 1.32 but I have to go read the notes on the skirmishers.

So I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask a few questions that have occurred to me.   Some of these probably belong over at the Norbsoft forum but I figured I'd start here.

1.  The SOWWL.ini file:  Normally all I do with it is turn the alphaomega and noai on or off.  However, one day I gazed through the whole thing and was quite surprised to see that there are "relics" for want of a better word from games that I played long ago showing up.  Specifically the one that caught my eye was a Campaign Game - which I tried once, years ago, thought it stunk and never went back to it.  Yet, it seems as if half of the .ini file is taken up by references to that one abortive CG attempt.  If I delete that file will it regenerate and be more "up to date?"

2.  Why do leaders ride around like kamikazes?  Their brigades can be all lined up in formation but the leaders are off on a joy ride through the enemy lines and never get shot.  Worse, you can take a Corps or Division commander and send them on scouting missions to make contact with the enemy.  Not realistic but they never get shot or captured and they can run all the way out and back and never get tired.

3.  I cannot figure out why the ammo wagons from the OOB do not show up on the Kriegsspiel maps.  

4.  In the KS toolbar many of the order/combat indicators do not light up or even give a hint that they have been selected.  They work - but I feel as if I am always having to repeat my orders.

5.  The Take Command All function works in SP but not in MP.  I can't figure out why.  There have been occasions where I have started an MP game on SP ( and vice versa) sometimes accidentally but I have noted that the TC function always works on SP and never works on MP.  That makes no sense to me.  The scenario.ini file is the same.  The sowwl.ini file is the same ( that's what I was doing when I noticed the "relics" mentioned in #1 above) but I can't see anything that jumps out at me as a reason.  Any thoughts?

1. The SOWWL.ini file: Normally all I do with it is turn the alphaomega and noai on or off. However, one day I gazed through the whole thing and was quite surprised to see that there are "relics" for want of a better word from games that I played long ago showing up. Specifically the one that caught my eye was a Campaign Game - which I tried once, years ago, thought it stunk and never went back to it. Yet, it seems as if half of the .ini file is taken up by references to that one abortive CG attempt. If I delete that file will it regenerate and be more "up to date?"

Yes, it should.

2. Why do leaders ride around like kamikazes? Their brigades can be all lined up in formation but the leaders are off on a joy ride through the enemy lines and never get shot. Worse, you can take a Corps or Division commander and send them on scouting missions to make contact with the enemy. Not realistic but they never get shot or captured and they can run all the way out and back and never get tired.

Officers are not considered valid targets. If they get close enough to the enemy they do stand a chance of being killed.

3. I cannot figure out why the ammo wagons from the OOB do not show up on the Kriegsspiel maps.

If you are talking about creating a scenario with the KS Scenario Generator, that is by design. The ammo wagons are unnecessary and not very realistic. Drive-by fill ups didn't happen.

5. The Take Command All function works in SP but not in MP.

It should work for both.

Thanks.

I'm going to try it. I think to be safe I'll copy the file somewhere else first and then give it a go just in case. I wonder if the crap in the .ini file is somehow interfering with #5.

I don't worry about the ammo much. I just increased the amount they start with and the batteries that are in action normally get shot up or the gunners fall down from exhaustion long before they run out. It just seemed odd to me that I could physically put the wagons into the OOB and they would show up but be immobile. I figured it was a sprite issue. No big deal.

The TC thing is annoying because it works so well on SP.

Even in our 3 or 3.5 hour battles we very very rarely have troops run out of ammo. It happens, yes, but only infrequently and the amount is does happen we feel is a reasonable amount (think KGL Light Btn at La Haye Sainte). We therefore do not think that ammo wagons are a necessary part of the game. They are a complete fantasy element introduced by Norbsoft. What would happen is men from the unit would be detailed off to go to a forward "dump" and carry ammo boxes back to their units - this happened at Waterloo when the Allied infantry were stationary all day on their ridge and the logistics were practical. Artillery would have integral supply systems of caissons, etc. and we think there is plenty of ammo in the OOBs to represent this. Infantry who were attacking had no means of getting fresh ammo at all except by scavenging from casualties. If you wish, you can increase the starting ammo by a certain small percentage but to compensate you should lower the unit headcount by the same percentage to represent men leaving the firing line to go scavenging or "ammo box runners".

Armies in this period were almost always resupplied overnight, as they were as late as WWII, certainly in the British army in Normandy. Generally speaking its a very bad idea to take ammunition vehicles up among forward fighting troops! There are several accounts of artillery ammunition carts and caissons exploding with pretty disruptive results.

The latest version of the mod introduces baggage trains which are slow and cumbersome and mostly road-bound but they don't carry ammo. We use them as devices in certain scenarios.

We use them as devices in certain scenarios.

I recall reading that in the discussion of 1.32.


The scenario.ini file did regenerate without all the relics from my one abortive look at the campaign game. The new one is less than half the size of the old one! It had no impact on the Take Charge command in MP, though. And that is a puzzle because you guys say it is supposed to work. I'm guessing that something is not quite right with the KS toolbar?

Another interesting oddity. By accident I hit Single Player when loading up an MP game. I let it load and it loaded fine, which was surprise #1. But surprise #2 was when it loaded the map looked different. I checked around near the primary objective which was near the town of Limale on the Wavre map and noticed that in SP there are more buildings showing up than in MP. Specifically, next to the stone church aside the Dyle in Limale, there were two buildings near the bridge. Those do not show up in the MP version where there is a clear field of fire to the bridges over the Dyle at that point. I did not touch the settings in the options menu.

I'll see if I can get some screen shots so you can see what I mean. How can the same map display differently just by going to SP or MP?

MP




SP




Apparently you have to right click on the picture and click VIEW IMAGE to see the full image.

There are different scenery display options in SP and MP. You need to go into options in SP mode to set them for SP and then again in MP mode for MP.

I was initially a little confused about how I would go about doing that but then I recalled that there was a separate MP Options menu and found an option for Map Objects that was set to "Low" for MP and changed it to "Best." Voila. There they were.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the TC Command to work on MP but I didn't see anything on the menu that could address that.

Hi, gentlemen.
Had my few first launches of KS mod (played pretty long time before basic version with grog toolbar).

Question is: in KS mod (sandbox battle) screen freezes for 5-10 sec. when orders given on div./brig. level. Meanwhile, all actions in game (movements and so) still operate.
What's wrong with this?.. Is it ok, or it can be fixed?

Thank you.

Hello Offcourse, welcome to the KS forums.

In SP play the game pauses when the order screen is open. That is standard in the base game as well as the KS mod. Is that what you are referring to? Or did you mean when a courier arrives at the officer he's being sent to the game pauses? There is often a longish pause as the recipient reads and digests the new information, but the game is still running and other units will move and fight. If your whole game is freezing when this happens that may be a limitation of your PC. Do you experience any jerkiness or low frame rates at other times? Is your machine spec above the games minimum?

Mr. Digby, hi. It's not about order window.

- starting random sandbox battle core vs core
- click on division general
- right click on the surface (general starts moving)
- FREEZE (general keeps moving, but camera does not rotate, move...)
- click on formation button
- than it unfreezes and works ok till aprox. same situation.

What's confusing, in basic version everithing works almost fine.

P.S. - btw, when in KS mode I launch Scenalio (Ligny, FR, Div. level) game crashed 2 times in same place (after first order to brigade to move). No idea why so.


Anyway! I had my pleasure from this game 2-3 years ago. So as a fan of napoleonic era games, at list I'm glad that U guys developed these modes, dag that that well and it works good for many people.
Thank U for your attention.

I had an interesting issue a couple of days ago.

When trying to enter the Lobby for MP I would click on it and nothing would happen. When I realized that nothing had happened I clicked on it again and got a message that said "Not Connected to Server." This seemed odd because every other online function was working perfectly (browser, email, ) I clicked on "Host" to see what would happen and it loaded up fine to NetServ. I did that for a day or so and then, without me doing anything except looking around on the web to see if anyone had had a similar issue. Someone actually had and found some convoluted way to go through Windows to fix it. It seemed like too much trouble so I continued using my workaround.

Yesterday through force of habit I went in and tried it again and it worked properly! I repeat that I did nothing to fix it. Perhaps it had a 24-hour virus?

Offcourse, do you have any other mods activated? If you do, deactivate them all except the 3 KS Mods and see if that helps.

If sprites are still moving (as in actually covering the ground rather than just animated) then the game isn't freezing. A freeze is when the whole game stops apart from the animation of the flags.

In Options have you got the "context menu enabled" checkbox UN-checked? If its not, try that.

The stock scenarios do not work with the KS Mod. You can play sandbox, one of the scenarios that come with the mod or use our scenario generator.