Impromptu Games

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST. Friday was another smashing victory in spite of a large part of the fight being in the Richwol swamp. Today we will see how the Cossacks perform.

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST. Sunday's battle resulted in the destruction of the Russian army. The much vaunted Cossacks were of little use.

I guess we are Cossacks today?

btw. even if you don't intend to watch it I advise everyone to go to Ehey's youtube and like his video and obviously subscribe to his channel - this works for youtube algorithms and at some point it may start appearing in recommended videos to someone that browses youtube after napoleonic videos/games etc... I started leaving comments there as alternative to our AAR conversation, makes sense as you can see part of the battle that Ehey was involved in and also the whole replay that we discuss during post battle chat.

Cossacks are the shirkers par excellence...
It's obvious now their AI clearly served as prototype.
By contrast, most of mine (+400) returned as soon as they heard celebratory cannon firing from the battlefield.

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST.

On Friday I fallaciously claimed I would not be able to make the game on Sunday. It will be next Sunday that I will miss so I'll see you all tomorrow.

Fake news Ehey. Shocking

I will not be there Sunday but can play Tuesday.

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST. Friday's disappointment has added another scenario to the Pat Commands folder. They go in but never seem to ever leave.

I shall toddle along today.

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST.
Although it was touch and go for awhile but the British were once again victorious in the battle of Quatre Bras. Remarkably, the AI came up with a battleplan that was very similar to Ney's. It also failed this time.

It was good to be back after a month's break. I shall join you again today. I cannot stand any more of the real world during my break from playing SoW. I'd rather suffer a 1000 of Kevin's sick and twisted scenarios than one more day of GOP convention BS.

The fight was over once Alten's crack reserve division showed up. The Orange Wonder Boy clearly gave up when he saw my personal banner arrive on the field. One of my men reported a nasty blister on his heel from a stone in his shoe but that was my only casualties. I like the new shirkers rule. Now we can really see who the bad managers are.

Can't play today fellas. Sorry. Have a good game chaps

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST. On Tues. Spanish forces repelled the French in grand style. Inconceivable!

It's because Digby is back to business
On serious note, the AI's "plan" was dumb as Union's at Battle of the Crater...

Can't play today fellas. Have a good game

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST. On Friday our Russian forces gave the French a lesson in superior battlefield tactics, inflicting heavy casualties on the invaders. Are we getting bored with all the winning yet? An appearance by Pat should remedy that problem.

If you blokes prefer losing I can take another month off? My division standing at the bad polishing it's musket barrels does seem to inspire the rest of you to greater acts of valour.

Hi guys
Can't make it tonight. Have a good game

I can play today at the usual time, 14:00 EST, 19:00 BST. Sunday's shortened battle would have been an inevitable French victory. The hapless Austrians were beaten at every turn.

One of the AI division commanders appeared to be channelling Pat because it attempted a cunning plan to flank us via the far side of the 10 mile map. It might have showed up in the last 15 minutes of play but it was doubtful.

I think this had been already raised by Miko, but did AI have any objective set for yesterday scenario?
Austrians really seemed to don't care about them...

Also, the stoneblocks representing towns in Garnier's random maps were rather atrocious for the eyes yesterday, especially if you compare them to the prettiness of several shipping with the mod...

Wouldn't be possible to automatically spawn a few buildings at those locations instead, through some QGIS/Python batch/reprocessing script?
Objects alignment could be as simple as getting the closest road point to any 85/87 grayscale area centroid; then take that road segment direction.
The selection of models type picked randomly from a pool, then depending on their size vs area available (the collision volume descriptor you find in the packages *.ls files should suffice, right?); plus some simple rules (like avoid placing two churches too close on the map, put farms and rural stuff if there're fields close, etc.).
Programmatically adding content to the LVL file isn't a big issue for me.
Don't know if it's worth the effort, though.
But I can help if there's any interest.

No, the AI didn't have any objectives in the battle.

It would be great if we could populate a map with buildings programmatically. However, problems will arise with the sloping landscapes. Quite often, buildings need to be moved or exchanged with other buildings of a different size because it original one can't be adjusted to fit on the slope of the ground. Then there is the issue of adding all the little extras that make the towns and farms look interesting. Things like barrels, woodpiles, wells, outhouses, especially outhouses, make the makes much more enjoyable to look at. The original NSD maps are famous for their sterile, boring look. I suppose templates of buildings and their "accessories" could be created. Then clusters of these different templates could be put on the map programmatically.

It would be an interesting project to attempt. When can you get started?

I think editing the greyscale map will allow us to 'hollow out' some of the massive Inca stone platforms so they look like stone walled enclosures. Whack a house down inside them and you get an instant farm. Archaeologically they are interesting as the remains of an earlier culture but they are hard on the eyes as R59 says. I suppose I should get my map editing hat back on and do a bit more. I think it might be a quick-ish job to at least slap down a few basic buildings at these random map 'towns' to at least get us a bit of period and regional flavour. The public lavatories, pub signs, haywains, Mona Lisa cows, and bloomers on the washing lines can come later.

I've found out why we have those huge stone platforms. There is no greyscale 85 within the 87 code wall outline, so its all wall. I'll edit those bitmaps and upload them to my drop box. I think it only affects 2 or 3 of them.

Kevin - are there any other maps that Garnier did that would be suitable for us? Back in my Gettysburg/GCM days I had stacks of them and not all of them were mountains and forests. If we could source a small number of fresh maps with minimal effort that would be good.