Battle of Dennewitz 1813 - Update Progress

[Bill-Peters]

Thanks, guys. I wish I had more mental energy to do more with the products I worked on. Of more importance to me is to update the Battle of Bergen OB using Geert's from his book on the 1799 Noord Holland campaign.

I have to update the Battle on the Mincio from Marengo too. It needed more turns and other changes. I played it and really like it but then the game would have abruptly ended had Ed Blackburn and I continued. Its a real knock down, drag out fight. Errors that he found were a lack of supply wagons in the scenario. That was taken care of in the latest update but the turn count is still not enough. Call it "Scenario Update Triage" if you will. Do the easier ones first.

[Bill-Peters]

I am nearing completion of the work on the Leipzig update. I have added in two items:

1. AI Script - Header settings. This needs to be set to "2" for the nationality that has AI Scripts. I am finding many where I did not do that when the game released. There have been a lot of them that needed to have the correct value entered into the scenario header - AI settings. At the time of this posting I have finished the basic set of scenarios plus the company level scenarios that Rich White designed and will move on to the additional ones that were included to cover the cavalry regiment OBs & 15 min. versions as well as the Bonus scenarios.

2. I am creating new blank maps for the 19 "OB View" scenarios. I find it hard to view them on the game map that matches their OB. I will not have time to add in the map labels to the map that show the Army and ORG for each formation. Its just a visual change but one that I think helps. Time permitting, I will add in OB view scenarios for the Berlin_Campaign_Aug & Fall OBs. There are many other OBs in the game but I thought that those two big OB files should be included too.

3. A total of 42 scenarios had map name changes based on the changes to the Dennewitz/Berlin_Operational maps apart from the OB view scenarios and also had other changes that had to be made to the unit setup location, reinforcement entry hexes and so on.

I should finish with all of this by tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

[Bill-Peters]

So this work is finally done and I have sent the files off to Rich Hamilton for him to look over and eventually include in the next update for the Leipzig game. Glad to be finally finished with this. I started it way back in the fall of last year. Nice to be moving on.

[Alan Sharif]

Look forward to playing it at some future date. Thanks for all your work on this.

[Sunbather]

I have to update the Battle on the Mincio from Marengo too. It needed more turns and other changes.

Bill, please allow me to chime in on this. I've just bought Marengo and first of all: this seems like an outstanding game. I love the maps and the terrain graphics and the general flow of this specific theatre and how it translates into the engine (or rather: how you translated it into the engine). And the amount of extra stuff one gets - from A/I scenarios to thorough documentation (even an abbreviations list!) to extensive scenario descriptions - is simply outstanding! Glad, I bought four more Napoleonic titles.

But being new to the Napoleonic Battles series, some questions came up and some of them have to do specifically with Marengo:

1. First listed are the 15 minutes variants of the scenarios. I've now read the notes on standardization but I still don't really know which one is preferable? And which one is played the most in PBEM nowadays so I can train against the A/I in the right format?

2. Why is the turn amount the same? Shouldn't the 15 mins variant have less turns to be in line with the historically informed decision that was made when designing the 10 mins scenario years ago?

3. Similarly, the SOLO variant of the first scenario (Loano) states in its description that "This is a shortened version of the Head to Head version covering only the first day of the action." But it has the same turn amount as the HtH version. I guess this is just a mistake in the description because the battle mainly being a defensive battle for the A/I almost throughout the whole scenario, it can be played in the full amount of turns (in my opinion!).

4. When you open the campaign.exe you can find 3 variants of the campaign. One 10mins variant, one 15 mins variant and one that states nothing in its title. There doesn't seem to be any difference in the description either. So while the difference between the first two variants is clear, the difference to the third one isn't. Is it just a leftover and is redundant?

[Bill-Peters]

Contact Rich Hamilton about this question. Are you asking about version 4.08? If so, it might be brand new scenarios that they added in to accommodate the 15 min. format. I cant think of any 15 min. scenario I have built where the turn length was not adjusted for the turn length format.

The turn count for a 60 turn scenario using the 10 min move. format translated to a 15 min. move version should be 40 turns. Again, Ask Rich about that. Otherwise you end up playing a night battle.

I note that I can only find two 15 min. format scenarios in the game, doing a cursory check. Its for the very large and long Quadrilateral situation in northern Italy from Castliglione to Mantua to Arcole time frame. The 10 min. move format would have had far too many turns to do.

But things have changed and more scenarios may have been added in for update 4.08. I have not installed it so I cannot help you here.

***** this is pretty much my last answer to a support question - I have moved on to doing more "outside" things in life and less on following the forums

[Sunbather]

Contact Rich Hamilton about this question. Are you asking about version 4.08? If so, it might be brand new scenarios that they added in to accommodate the 15 min. format. I cant think of any 15 min. scenario I have built where the turn length was not adjusted for the turn length format.

The turn count for a 60 turn scenario using the 10 min move. format translated to a 15 min. move version should be 40 turns. Again, Ask Rich about that. Otherwise you end up playing a night battle.

I note that I can only find two 15 min. format scenarios in the game, doing a cursory check. Its for the very large and long Quadrilateral situation in northern Italy from Castliglione to Mantua to Arcole time frame. The 10 min. move format would have had far too many turns to do.

Definitively all scenarios now have a 15 mins variant. It doesn't really bother me that turn times aren't adjusted. If I stumble upon serious problems/gameplay issues, I will let Rich know.

***** this is pretty much my last answer to a support question - I have moved on to doing more "outside" things in life and less on following the forums

Please do apologize. I already knew you are retired when it comes to WDS stuff and only work on it when you feel like it. In no ways did I want to disturb this arrangement by pinging you here!
Thanks for your games; they are outstanding!