What about the Great Northern War?

[AEWHistory]

I know this is really outside the chronological scope of the game, but it seems like to me that the Great Northern War would make for a wonderful subject for additional scenarios for this game. The type of warfare was still quite similar to what had existed in the latest period already represented in the game. In fact, this makes me want to get the PC version and try my hand at the scenario editor..... alas I won't get a chance to do this anytime soon. But would this make for a cool expansion maybe?

[Adebar]

But would this make for a cool expansion maybe?

Definitely, it would be a logical advancement. There are plans to cover other epochs with this game system but noone outside the Slitherine circle knows what will come next. Thinkable is everything from antiquity to Napoleonics, so let us be surprised.

Well, and if they'll ever decide to do a 7YW expansion, I'll do the following:

a) throw all my other games into the dustbin
b) go into early retirement
c) becoming even more robinsoncrusoeish than I am righ now

[TheGrayMouser]

But would this make for a cool expansion maybe?

Definitely, it would be a logical advancement. There are plans to cover other epochs with this game system but noone outside the Slitherine circle knows what will come next. Thinkable is everything from antiquity to Napoleonics, so let us be surprised.

Well, and if they'll ever decide to do a 7YW expansion, I'll do the following:

a) throw all my other games into the dustbin
b) go into early retirement
c) becoming even more robinsoncrusoeish than I am righ now

This engine would be good for these periods(although the 64 units per side could be an issues in some of the larger battles), however while were waiting , Matrix Games has the old but still good Horse and Musket engine which covers the Prussian Austrian wars of the mid 18th century. With the editor you could create any # of 18c battles.

[Adebar]

Yes, those were the days. I liked H&M, it was a good game with potential and real charm, but had a terrible AI, more restrictive gameplay than P&S, outdated graphics (to mod a single guy in a battalion you had to edit literally HUNDREDS of image files), and was not developed any further (there are some problems playing it under Win7). A projected 2nd part with the "Russian battles" was never published; the devs simply vanished into thin air without further ado.

Shame.

[TheGrayMouser]

Yes, those were the days. I liked H&M, it was a good game with potential and real charm, but had a terrible AI, more restrictive gameplay than P&S, outdated graphics (to mod a single guy in a battalion you had to edit literally HUNDREDS of image files), and was not developed any further (there are some problems playing it under Win7). A projected 2nd part with the "Russian battles" was never published; the devs simply vanished into thin air without further ado.

Shame.

Yeah, for years I was holding out that the developer would come back. I didn't think the AI was that bad, at least not as bad as the HPS games. After playing all the major scenarios several times I modded them, giving the Austrian leaders better activation ratings which made the AI in some cases impossible to beat. I liked the graphics but you had to zoom to the perfect "zone". Too far in and everything was pixelated, too far out the units and landscape blended together in a mauve blur. I still fire it up occasionally as the phase based command system, imho, captured 18 c tactics perfectly .

[Adebar]

I didn't think the AI was that bad, at least not as bad as the HPS games.

At least HPS has no suicidal artillery ... In the end I had to edit the scenarios to solve the problem by making the arty immobile.

But it was that leader activation thingy what killed the game for me, it could be very annoying sometimes. IMO the AI was ok with smaller battles, but with larger ones ... Oh my!

[Aryaman]

The leader activation was a multiplayer killer, a single turn could last forever. I modded that to activate leaders in sequence by sides so that you could play all leaders on one side, the only way to play in multiplayer at a decent speed

[Hoplite1963]

Of course there was always "Age Of Rifles" such a pity that was rendered unplayable by Windows XP mind you this concept of building up the soldier image with individual uniform clothing items (when designing a scenario you literally dressed each and every unit from head to toe might be made to work with DDS files and there were some good Napoleonic and South American wars of independence graphics mods but I fear its a pipe dream to raise this one from the dead

Sorry guys
Ian

[Adebar]

Ah, Age of Rifles, that was a great game at its time ... So much content, so much fun. That 1813 Napoleonic mod was done by me BTW, never managed to finish all scenarios I had planned back then.

AoR was running well with DOSBox on my old WinXP machine; never tried it with Win7, but it may also work.

[Hoplite1963]

I think somebody even did some 30 years war scenarios for it and there were some good ones done for WW1 in the Middle East and East Africa as will when I switched to XP with a new PC this had the wrong graphics card to run it even with DOSBOX.

There was also a "Battles Of Napoleon" game that never got past the Beta test stage that promised the same sort of scope. Adebar I played some of the battles that used the 1814 files, nice work

[Adebar]

After all these years it's very nice to hear that someone actually played this stuff ... Thanks!

[AEWHistory]

But would this make for a cool expansion maybe?

Definitely, it would be a logical advancement. There are plans to cover other epochs with this game system but noone outside the Slitherine circle knows what will come next. Thinkable is everything from antiquity to Napoleonics, so let us be surprised.

Well, and if they'll ever decide to do a 7YW expansion, I'll do the following:

a) throw all my other games into the dustbin
b) go into early retirement
c) becoming even more robinsoncrusoeish than I am righ now

You too?!

In all seriousness, even though I had some complaints of BA, it was/is an excellent game and this is even better IMHO. I think the engine really does lend itself exactly to the periods you mentioned, although I would go later into the 19th century. Still, I could see why they'd avoid things like the ACW.... it isn't as if the subject hasn't received attention whereas I can't think of any other game covering the P&S period except maybe Europa Universalis (and that's not really the same sort of game). And the 7YW is an excellent idea for this game as well--wish I had thought of it! In fact, all of the post 30YW period would be wonderful for this engine. I dare say the engine, as it stands at the moment, is a bit better for late-17th and 18th century battles than it is for late-medieval on the other end (even the Renaissance stuff I think is a bit of a weakness for the moment, but still quite enjoyable).

BTW, does anyone know why the skirmish mode--and maybe the scenario creator as well, I don't know--is limited to around 3700 points or so? I would LOVE to make larger battles and don't mind if the game slows a bit. Call me a glutton, but the more electronic guys to kill the happier I am.

That sounds awful, doesn't it?

[AEWHistory]

But would this make for a cool expansion maybe?

Definitely, it would be a logical advancement. There are plans to cover other epochs with this game system but noone outside the Slitherine circle knows what will come next. Thinkable is everything from antiquity to Napoleonics, so let us be surprised.

Well, and if they'll ever decide to do a 7YW expansion, I'll do the following:

a) throw all my other games into the dustbin
b) go into early retirement
c) becoming even more robinsoncrusoeish than I am righ now

This engine would be good for these periods(although the 64 units per side could be an issues in some of the larger battles), however while were waiting , Matrix Games has the old but still good Horse and Musket engine which covers the Prussian Austrian wars of the mid 18th century. With the editor you could create any # of 18c battles.

Okay, this might've answered my question above. Is it that the engine is limited to 64 units per side in both skirmish mode and the scenario creator? Anyone know why? Any chance of this changing?

I think I might have to add this to my long list of game-change requests.....

[AEWHistory]

After all these years it's very nice to hear that someone actually played this stuff ... Thanks!

Since we are talking about blasts from the past does anyone remember a very early family of battlefield sims where you took the role of commander with indirect control on your army? You didn't control the troops. You issued orders instead, and the commanders had to interpret those orders. Also, your view was ground level, not from above, so to see the whole field you needed to move, but being too far out of place caused delays in your orders reaching commanders. I recall they did a sim on Waterloo and Borodino, I think there were others but I'm not certain. I cannot recall the game maker though. Anyone play these?

PS- this was about 1989 or 1990 they came out. I had them for my Atari STe. Now THERE is a blast from the past. 8mhz of blazing speed!

EDIT: I found a site with some info on the game. I had forgotten that it was published by Atari Corp. back in the day. Check here: http://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-st/borodino

IMHO, this was a terribly innovative game for its time but it was VERY slow. Each turn was a quarter hour of battle time and writing out orders could become tedious. Still, the concept was there and I'd love to see this rebooted with modern hardware and programming.

[Doyley50]

I remember those games, I think they were developed by a chap called Turcan. I had the ones one Waterloo, Borodino, Austerlitz (I think) and one on the battle of Jutland. As you say, writing out orders was a pain, but otherwise they were quite fun. Of the ones I had, I liked the Jutland one most. I am not really into naval wargames but to me it was the one that seemed to work best.

[TimW]

There's also the later 17th century Dutch wars, James II's attempt to keep his throne firstly against Monmouth then against William of Orange and the British parliament. Stuart family get-togethers must have been great fun, considering James' daughter and son-in-law were quite happy to pop over the North Sea and replace him by force...

Imperial and Russian armies fighting the Turks, the Russian/Cossack eastward expansion into Siberia....The list goes on and one.

Obviously there'd be a need to add foot units armed with matchlock and bayonet or flintlock and bayonet, but the basic units and tactics from earlier years still held good.

As for the GNW, the early stages when the Russian army was a variant on the earlier Tatar influenced horse army is clearly within period. Not so sure about after Tsar Peter's reforms when the Russians remodelled along more Western European lines, that's perhaps foing over a watershed. Though Charles XII's gung-ho Swedes versus an "early 18th century standard" Russia has its appeal.

After that I suspect the scale of the game might benefit from changing to cope with the larger-scale battles and better organised armies that became the norm. Have units represent brigades rather than battalions/regiments perhaps?

I agree that it's the "less popular" wars that deserve some attention. The ACW in particular, and Napoleon to a lesser extent, have seen a lot of games issued over the last 10 years or so. The Lace Wars, War of Spanish Succession and Seven Years War being largely ignored. Come to that, so have the 18th century wars in the Americas at the tactical level.

Cross-platform matters as well. The BA and Panzer Corps engines don't need high-powered graphics and run very well on iPads, and some of us use Macs. There is a real dearth of good historical tactical games for OS X.

[Micha63]

But would this make for a cool expansion maybe?

Definitely, it would be a logical advancement. There are plans to cover other epochs with this game system but noone outside the Slitherine circle knows what will come next. Thinkable is everything from antiquity to Napoleonics, so let us be surprised.

Well, and if they'll ever decide to do a 7YW expansion, I'll do the following:

a) throw all my other games into the dustbin
b) go into early retirement
c) becoming even more robinsoncrusoeish than I am righ now

This engine would be good for these periods(although the 64 units per side could be an issues in some of the larger battles), however while were waiting , Matrix Games has the old but still good Horse and Musket engine which covers the Prussian Austrian wars of the mid 18th century. With the editor you could create any # of 18c battles.

For the waiting time you could check out my peoples General 7 years game. It has 29 Scenarios for the Moment. Ok , old outdated graphic but maybe it helps until you will see a 7 years wargame here.

[Micha63]

For great northern war Scenarios surch for the game "Field of Strategy ".

[Hutze]

After all these years it's very nice to hear that someone actually played this stuff ... Thanks!

We have to thank I've had my fair share of fun too with the Napoleonic scenarios. With age of rifles and the operational art of warfare being my favourite wargames, every couple of years I power on dosbox for a quick skirmish in AOR. The decisiveness of melee in AOR is something I miss in pike & shoot. I have the feeling, that in p&s at least cavalry clashes should be resolved somewhat faster.

[Miletus]

>>AoR was running well with DOSBox on my old WinXP machine; never tried it with Win7, but it may also work.

Just for info - I run AoR on Win7 using DosBox and it seems to work pretty well. Cracking game!