Marshal Villars
Posts: 976
Joined: 8/21/2009 Status: offline
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I would love to be involved as a play tester. Not too long ago, because of my repeated demonstration of my passion for the period and my knowledge of it, another Matrix affiliated company signed me up to do a 1683-1789 game modification of one of their Napoleonic titles (I just won't say who or when, but the Matrix people know about this and can easily figure it out I am sure). I did 1 year of non-stop, hard core research to understand the period which had previously been just a (kind of serious) hobby. I am sure I read most of -- but not ALL of -- 30-40 books on the period which covered the military, naval, political, religious, and economic changes of the time. Unfortunately, the project did not move ahead for various reasons. I have hundreds of pages of notes which focus not only on the STATE of warfare, but more importantly on how warfare CHANGED and WHY. And what is surely the most complete database of fortresses of the period. How complete? When AGEOD's (my FAVOURITE historical game developer) came out with their Wars of Frederick the Great, I reviewed the accuracy of their fortresses locations. 60% to 75% of the fortresses of the period in Germany were missing. And many of them were SERIOUS fortresses -- including one that Marlboro called southern Germany's most difficult fortress to take, which he AVOIDED because of its reputation! Missing from the game completely. When I was working to design my proposed 1683-1789 game, I decided I would not fall prey to the "Superstar Fortress" problem which most games fall into. The "Superstar Fortress" problem is that of course, when a major siege or battle happens near a fortress OF COURSE it gets reported on by historians and ends up in history books for game researchers to easily find. If there is no battle or siege or historical event, then of course no one mentions it. So, locating where all of these were is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. I either found period drawings, sketches, databases, historical books, and more to put this list together so that players could write THEIR OWN HISTORY and not be bound by the one historical path that occurred to put "Superstar" fortresses in the history books. These games MUST have these fortresses to give an accurate representation of warfare of the period. That is just ONE area of this period which I spent so much effort on. Central Europe rippled with major fortresses. Most of them forgotten by time. I was stunned with the density of fortifications of 1700s Europe when I finally got done with my map. Naval warfare was COMPLETELY different than games had represented it to be. And this was another awakening for me. How can I sign up as a play tester/contributor?
< Message edited by Marshal Villars -- 9/1/2016 4:35:15 PM >
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