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SCALE - 5/23/2015 6:48:55 PM   
Phoenix100

 

Posts: 2826
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Status: offline 		Well, at the risk of irritating fans, but because this is an important question for me, in terms of whether to buy or not (and may well be important for others judging by the fact that my previous question about this got over 2,000 hits), could someone NOW tell me whether or not this is a REDUCED SCALE battlefield? It certainly looks nothing like the actual Waterloo battlefield - in all the pics and vids I've seen - because it looks too small, by a long way. Is it a four times reduced scale battlefield, or something like that?

Thanks,

Peter

< Message edited by phoenix -- 5/23/2015 7:50:19 PM >
Post #: 1
RE: SCALE - 5/23/2015 7:30:13 PM   
con20or

 

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Status: offline 		I have followed up on this again.

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RE: SCALE - 5/23/2015 7:57:08 PM   
Jim_NSD


Posts: 81
Joined: 9/19/2012
Status: offline 		The battlefield maps are 4.96 miles per side and cover that exact amount of the actual territory.

-Jim

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RE: SCALE - 5/24/2015 10:35:55 AM   
Phoenix100

 

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Status: offline 		OK. Thanks Jim. But it's still unclear for me. Is the map 1:1 scale? Or are buildings, trees, sprites etc bigger than in real life? I'm wondering why in the pics it looks smaller for me....

Could ask it differently - have you changed the approach since SOW? Because the maps were scaled down versions in that, in that all objects ON the map (including the sprites) were roughly four times larger than in real life. Is Waterloo different?

Thanks.

Peter

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Post #: 4
RE: SCALE - 5/24/2015 9:02:24 PM   
Jim_NSD


Posts: 81
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Status: offline 		The buildings, trees and unit sprites are still oversized but not as much as with GB. We can get more sprites on the map now but only IBM/Watson could run a battle with 240K sprites on the battlefield.

-Jim

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RE: SCALE - 5/25/2015 9:48:49 AM   
Phoenix100

 

Posts: 2826
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Status: offline 		Thanks Jim. That makes it kind of a reduced scale, I guess, since the scale of the map only makes any sense relevant to the scale of the objects on it, and that would account for why when I look at the pics and vid everything looks smaller than on the actual Waterloo battlefield. Given current computer technology and assuming you want to represent the entire battle as one scenario, rather than break it down to individual parts (with more manageable numbers of sprites), and hence you run into the challenge of putting 210,000 sprites on the map at the same time, I can understand the design decision to put less sprites in.

But I find it harder to understand a design decision to make all objects on the map 'larger than life' creating, thereby a mismatch in scale between objects and map which will change, for example, every single line of sight calculation and render it nothing like the actual line of sight decisions that terrain features and objects would have created historically. As a aside effect, as I've noted, it also makes the game battlefield look very different to the actual one. But no doubt - it seems - most players are not worried by this as I am, and I certainly wish you luck with sales as no doubt much hard work has gone into this! Thanks again for replying.

Peter

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RE: SCALE - 5/25/2015 12:11:12 PM   
e_barkmann


Posts: 1307
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Status: offline 		it's hard to tell anything about the game via the currently released videos they move around so much and are rarely focused at ground level. We should get a better idea of how well the scale works once we are able to play the game (imho)

cheers

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RE: SCALE - 5/25/2015 3:12:42 PM   
risorgimento59

 

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Status: offline 		I'm sorry to contradict Jim, but current computer technology perfectly allows rendering 210K billboarded quads.
Say you catch them all within a camera's single scene, which is the absolute worst case (!), people wouldn't even notice if you're going to display triangles or quads.
Figure it out if you need proper texturing. An half dozen shared textures (per sprite type: cav, art, inf, sup, etc.), with the opaque part colored (per instance, RGB being a property of every unit) in the pixel shader, would be more than enough.
Using DX9 Hardware Instancing then, GPU draw calls could be counted in the fingers of one hand.
Not talking about animations, which can be throw away at that distance.
Believe me or not, it should be rather manageable.
If it's worthwhile the effort of a small team of programmers is another matter...
Excuse me again.

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RE: SCALE - 5/27/2015 1:24:31 PM   
AP514

 

Posts: 176
Joined: 11/26/2001
From: Houston,TX ,USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: risorgimento59

I'm sorry to contradict Jim, but current computer technology perfectly allows rendering 210K billboarded quads.
Say you catch them all within a camera's single scene, which is the absolute worst case (!), people wouldn't even notice if you're going to display triangles or quads.
Figure it out if you need proper texturing. An half dozen shared textures (per sprite type: cav, art, inf, sup, etc.), with the opaque part colored (per instance, RGB being a property of every unit) in the pixel shader, would be more than enough.
Using DX9 Hardware Instancing then, GPU draw calls could be counted in the fingers of one hand.
Not talking about animations, which can be throw away at that distance.
Believe me or not, it should be rather manageable.
If it's worthwhile the effort of a small team of programmers is another matter...
Excuse me again.

Well, Seeing I do not know much about what this guy is saying so I will ask JIM.........

Is he speaking the TRUTH , BULL , or TROLLING

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Post #: 9
RE: SCALE - 5/27/2015 2:57:48 PM   
risorgimento59

 

Posts: 6
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Status: offline 		Level-of-detail and batching are optimization techniques being truth since prehistoric game programming.
I repeat myself, the problem is they require more research and development costs than brute-force approaches.
Period.
Don't think I'm trolling.
I appreciate NSD's work and respect their choices.
And I guess there're good reasons behind them after all.
But technically it's perfectly possible.

< Message edited by risorgimento59 -- 5/27/2015 3:59:37 PM >

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RE: SCALE - 5/27/2015 4:13:49 PM   
risorgimento59

 

Posts: 6
Joined: 5/25/2015
Status: offline 		Just for the sake of completeness...
Nowadays, using well-known techniques like chunked-LOD, background resources preparation, virtual texturing and some precision workarounds to avoid jitters and depth-buffer problems, you could theoretically draw one detailled and richly populated campaign map in 1:1 scale as big as whole Belgium (maybe more). No need to have a limited set of separated battlefields, with hundreds of thousands sprites (of course) and still navigating around seamlessly and running on DX9 APIs. AI would be challenging, yet several semplifications are exploitable in Napoleonic Warfare to gain some speed.
It's all about trading what you can or want to do according to resources, capacity and time.
SOWWL is not the exception...
But this doesn't exclude these techniques are extensively documented and possible.

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RE: SCALE - 5/27/2015 4:54:23 PM   
Phoenix100

 

Posts: 2826
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Status: offline 		Well, for me, I'm enormously disappointed that they have chosen again to distort the 3d images so that it gets difficult to say in what way this is any kind of simulation of the battle and the tactical decisions that would have been made then, especially those taking into account the terrain. I guess it's not an attempt at a sim. It's a game, and that's good, but I loved so much about SOW that I was hoping they would go for greater realism with this title.

What they've done, if I understand correctly (and it's difficult to get a clear idea because they are a little sparing with the detail at the moment - understandably), is they have made every object on the terrain at least twice as large as it would be in real life, relative to the map terrain. So, for example, if the view from a building (like, say, La Haie Sainte) would not quite give you line of sight as far as Belle Alliance farmhouse in real life because the building was only, say, 4 metres high in real life and that wasn't high enough to get line of sight over the far ridge (not sure if this is so, this is just a hypothetical example), in the game the house is in fact the equivalent of 8 metres high and could give that line of sight. Everything on the map is larger than life relative to the map (or, another way of looking at it - all the objects are scaled true and the map is 2 or 3 times smaller than in real life). For the life of me I cannot understand why they have done this. There may well be a good design reason, but no one has ever explained it in anything I've read.

This distortion accounts for why the houses look huge to me when I look at the pics, because I know what the actual battlefield looks like (I live 15 mins drive from it, but anyone can take a look on google earth or street view).

I must be very old fashioned to be bothered about this realism point, perhaps. When I was a little kid playing with toy soldiers I would NEVER have played a battle using a mix of scales for the models and soldiers. Everything had to be the same scale. Lol. It's not quite like that here (for all I know all the objects are the same scale relative to each other) but it's very similar, I think. And I just don't know why.

This is a different issue to whether you feel you have to break the battle into scenarios to fit a realistic 1:1 number of sprites within current computer technology, or whether you feel the need to only put a third of the units on the map to make that compromise. That bothers me too, of course.

But, like I said, it's obvious a lot of work and time has gone into this and though I will not now buy (so what?) I wish the launch all luck and good will.

< Message edited by phoenix -- 5/27/2015 5:55:30 PM >

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RE: SCALE - 6/2/2015 3:12:20 PM   
BloodyBill76


Posts: 68
Joined: 4/14/2015
Status: offline 		I would like to know if the game will run at 1:1 scale? If it does will the sprite ration match up or will the units only be allowed 125 sprites like in SOWGB? It would be very cool to have the 1:1 option.

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RE: SCALE - 6/2/2015 6:51:47 PM   
BigDuke66


Posts: 2013
Joined: 2/1/2001
From: Terra
Status: offline 		Well check out this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDlkIjcq1o4&feature=youtu.be
Units still 1:2 but they are working on 1:1.

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RE: SCALE - 6/2/2015 7:07:21 PM   
AP514

 

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From: Houston,TX ,USA
Status: offline 		Histwar....Buggy and in Dev for years...a BIG PASS

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Post #: 15
RE: SCALE - 6/2/2015 9:26:18 PM   
BigDuke66


Posts: 2013
Joined: 2/1/2001
From: Terra
Status: offline 		Nonsense, I'm not talking about the old "HistWar", I talk about "Histwar Napoleon", with latest patch just minor bugs are left and a lot stuff is still to come like new GUI & new graphics and all that is rather impressive with such a small team(I think just 3 men).
I also I don't know what problem it is for a game to be developed further, that is much better than turning games into Abandonware but still selling them like nothing is wrong or retool the same engine just with new clothes.
Unless we get Brother vs. Brother for the Napoleonic area I suggest to give "HistWar Napoleon" a try and if you're not into the 3D environment you might want to take a look at John Tillers Napoleonic Battles:
http://johntillersoftware.com/NapoleonicBattles.html

< Message edited by BigDuke66 -- 6/2/2015 10:57:27 PM >

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RE: SCALE - 6/2/2015 9:48:18 PM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
Joined: 10/22/2006
From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		Thanks Phoenix, you have saved me some money.

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RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 12:48:59 AM   
e_barkmann


Posts: 1307
Joined: 4/18/2000
From: Adelaide, Australia
Status: offline 		I'm more interested in the immersion factor and will I get real Napoleonic warfare outcomes from the game.
Their Gettysburg game certainly gets it right in spades so I am reasonably hopeful this will deliver as well.

In terms of the argument between SOW and Histwar - well, I am sure Histwar looks prettier but even the current comments say just wait for the next patch for the bugs to be fixed (like say the cavalry charge 'keystone cops' event at 17:14 of the video shown?). The developer has been saying 'wait for the next patch' for many years now. So I have concerns based on the history of the game. Still, I would be happy to try the game again when it is further developed and give my opinion on it once I have played it for a period of time.

Michael T, I think you should wait for the reviews to come in before deciding on this.
Additionally, we need more Australian based SOW multiplayers :-) (We run a small SOW MP group that plays every few weeks in the evenings, AU timezone) Great games are had. And multiplayer works well ;-)

cheers Chris

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RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 2:53:25 AM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
Joined: 10/22/2006
From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		Hi Chris
From my reading of the posts in this forum it would appear this game tends to the 'beer and pretzels' type play rather than a serious Napoleonic Battle. Would that be a fair remark?

It seems a lot of the things that are required to simulate a Napolenoic battle just are not included. Not to mention the scale strangeness.

While obviously a lot of people enjoy the SOW titles from my reading I doubt its going to be detailed/realistic enough for me.

For example I found Combat Mission (if you are familiar with it) very cool and quite realistic for WWII combat/tactics. How would SOW Waterloo compare to that game in so much as realism/detail?

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RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 3:29:44 AM   
e_barkmann


Posts: 1307
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From: Adelaide, Australia
Status: offline 		Hi Michael

from my readings (see below) I would say the upcoming game is far from a beer and pretzels style and will require some skill to master. Given my familiarity with their previous engine I would say the level of detail they should present will be unprecedented for a real time depiction of this battle (eg historical research has gone into items such as unit marksmanship ratings,unit weapons types, individual officer traits, exact unit strengths etc). Not to mention getting the uniforms correct. Was pleased to see the French Guard are depicted in greatcoats rather than parade uniform, for instance.

I have been reading the norbsoftdev forums (imho far more informed than those here) and another item that strikes me is the amount of work gone into get ai behaviour to make it work correctly for the period (eg correct skirmisher behaviour, cavalry charge conditions, pre-melee morale checks, square formation conditions etc) and happily the ai has now been split out from hard code and is able to be modded.

If you do go on the forums, check out posts by Mitra76 who wrote the ai, it sounds very well considered and executed. The forum attracts 'grog' types so it will give an indication on the audience the game will attract. If you like, download the SOW Gettysburg demo and give it a shot (although it's an old engine now, it will give you perhaps an indication of where Waterloo will take you)

I also own CMx2 and find it very well done in terms of detail although the lacklustre ai drives me nuts, which is why I play it almost exclusive tcp/ip online these days. Had a great online game the other night which was only decided in the last couple of turns when my OT-34 managed to place a lucky flame shot directly into a squad of hapless German stragglers (who had just shot off a pf30 and missed it by a couple of meters!) Great historically accurate fun.

cheers Chris

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RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 4:28:39 AM   
Michael T


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From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		Thanks Chris, FWIW I never use or play the AI, it has no relevance for me. I only play PBEM or more recently 'live internet' if it not too tricky or unreliable. Maybe they will do a Waterloo demo, that would be good. As I am very much over paying good money for hype these days :)

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RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 4:40:24 AM   
e_barkmann


Posts: 1307
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From: Adelaide, Australia
Status: offline 		Fair point, but SOW uses tac and strat ai in both single and multiplayer just like CMx2 does.

This also allows some fairly cool things in multiplayer like just controlling a portion of sides, or all players coop against ai.

Hopefully they'll release the demo at some stage

cheers

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RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 5:50:57 AM   
76mm


Posts: 4688
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From: Washington, DC
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Michael T
As I am very much over paying good money for hype these days :)


Hear hear. I'll also be watching this one closely but won't buy unless/until I'm pretty certain that it is what I'm looking for, and actually works.

I bought HistWar years ago and was seriously disappointed in that mess...

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Post #: 23
RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 8:55:17 AM   
con20or

 

Posts: 246
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Hi Chris
From my reading of the posts in this forum it would appear this game tends to the 'beer and pretzels' type play rather than a serious Napoleonic Battle. Would that be a fair remark?





'Chokes on beer and pretzels, sprays them all over his monitor'

Good god no, not a fair remark at all. Realism is what we pride ourselves on. It is where we distinguish ourselves from Total War. They have the graphics, we have the massive battles, Ai and realism. Every element is researched meticulously, from the OOB, to the uniforms, to the maps and even vegetation in each area of the map. Napoleonic tactics are recreated. Orders can be given by courier, introducing a realistic time delay. Couriers can get killed, so orders might never get through and reinforcements never arrived. Generals act depending on their historic traits, ie aggressive or cautious.

We do not have a 1:1 scale because we aim to have realistic unit frontage, large units, massive battles and still allow for complicated AI decisions. Most PCs could not handle our AI and full army battles at 1:1.

Here is a review from one of our previous releases, Chancellorsville. A score of 98% from Armchair General should say it all.

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/scourge-of-war-chancellorsville-pc-game-review.htm

"Superlative graphics, high level of realism and historical accuracy, innovative game play, high replay value."

"...every wall, fence, ditch and road has been modelled and reproduced in the game, all with excruciating attention to historical detail. The game could easily be used for a virtual terrain walk of the battlefield. Weapon ranges, ballistics and effects have also been modelled in detail, as have units’ morale and fatigue factors. The game could very easily be used in an advanced military history class to teach about the Civil War."

< Message edited by con20or -- 6/3/2015 11:26:00 AM >

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RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 1:54:51 PM   
AP514

 

Posts: 176
Joined: 11/26/2001
From: Houston,TX ,USA
Status: offline 		Well, maybe if Histwar has an updated DEMO I might give it another try. I am not going to hold my breath that it will be much better than last time(few years back) I looked at it.
Histwar was little/no improvement from the game he put out 10 years earlier...

As far as the Tiller games...Unlesss he has done a total rework of the AI..his games are just a repackage of the ones he put out years ago..(Dumbest AI ever)

At least norbsoft has some good AI...

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Post #: 25
RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 3:16:11 PM   
BloodyBill76


Posts: 68
Joined: 4/14/2015
Status: offline 		I help Beta test for Histwar for MP. The game is looking better and better but the units make no sense when they interact with each other. Still very buggy. It is a game to keep an eye on for the future as it get better all the time.

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Post #: 26
RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 3:19:02 PM   
BigDuke66


Posts: 2013
Joined: 2/1/2001
From: Terra
Status: offline 		Not sure when you tested "HistWar" but alone the improved GUI in "HistWar Napoleon" is a major improvement to playability. Not to speak from the graphics, just take a look at an old HistWar videos and compare this to the new ones for HistWar Napoleon. And there are more changes compared to "10 year earlier".


Every time the topic AI comes up it seems that I have to remind everyone that you sooner or later learn how to handle EVERY AI and what then?
Nothing then, then you have to buy a new game or go for a human player and that is why it's just important to make the AI good enough to act as sparring partner, because after that it's on to a real enemy.
Better AI just means longer time to know how to tackle it but after that you still land at the point where you have to search for a human opponent or buy a new game.
That's the reason we got War game clubs for both the Civil War and the Napoleonic series of Tiller.

quote:

ORIGINAL: con20or
We do not have a 1:1 scale because we aim to have realistic unit frontage, large units, massive battles and still allow for complicated AI decisions. Most PCs could not handle our AI and full army battles at 1:1.


Then I would not have aimed to represent the battlefield like it would be realistic, I would have preferred something more abstract tabletop figures, unit counters, etc..

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RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 4:02:23 PM   
BloodyBill76


Posts: 68
Joined: 4/14/2015
Status: offline 		I test Histwar currently. I am running MP fights to see how units line up and engage each other today. Like I said it looks better and is getting better all of the time. VC is making a better UI that will be out soon I hope but the game in 3d mode does not work correctly. There are still a lot of unit targeting issues that need fixed and a lot of other things.

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Post #: 28
RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 7:54:41 PM   
kipanderson

 

Posts: 394
Joined: 8/27/2001
From: U.K.
Status: offline 		Hi,

I think Scourge of War Waterloo will be fantastic. I... like many here set near run realistic standards for the games I will play. But Scourge of War are very top end stuff in my view.

But...I do hope the developers will be sensible enough to allow us, i.e. help with the odd bit of advice, allow us to play true, uncompromised 1 : 1 scale once the full editor is out. We will soon learn what our systems can and cannot handle.

I have no doubt at all that the reasons are sound for not playing the game in default as true 1 : 1. They will have tested it and found the target spec machines cannot cope.

But if people wish, why not the odd small scenario 1 : 1.

The Scourge of War games are very serious wargames... very in my view.

All the best,
Kip.


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Post #: 29
RE: SCALE - 6/3/2015 9:26:24 PM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
Joined: 10/22/2006
From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		A couple of questions if anyone could answer please.

What scale is the map?

What scale is a single soldier?

What scale is a building?

How many men does one single foot soldier represent? Is this consistent?

As above for Cavalry and Artillery.

How do any inequalities of scale affect LOS?

Thank you.

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