ACW add-on battles (Full Version)

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Luciano B -> ACW add-on battles (3/21/2009 12:50:17 PM)

Gentlemen and fellow BG enthusiasts, some of you may remember my old, never completed project covering the battle of the Wilderness (1864) and the other battles of the Rappahannock front;
During the time the project grew to include the battles of Spotsylvania (1864), Chancellorsville (1863) and Fredericksburg (1862).

Since it seems that there's still a lot of interest around the old BG titles, I'm taking into consideration to continue the effort and complete all those games, which required so far almost four years of hard work, mainly on the giant maps included.

Current status
The maps for the battles above mentioned are all done, painted in the style of the early BG games like BG Bull Run and Antietam, a graphic style which I really love.
At present only the Wilderness has finalized scenarios.


The Wilderness (1864)
The map covers the area from the Mine Run on the West to Spotsylvania Court House on the East (254 x 218 hexes); the left portion of the battlefield should be suitable also for some minor fights of the Mine Run campaign of late 1863.

Spotsylvania (1864)
The map (254 x 218 hexes) covers on the left also the ground occupied by Grant and Lee at the end of the battle of the Wilderness, so the game may inlcude also the race to take possession of Spotsylvania Court House.

Chancellorsville (1863)
The map (254 x 218 hexes) ranges from the Wildernees forest on the left to Fredericksburg on the right, covering all the battlefields of the campaign, allowing to re-fight the whole multi-front battle on a single map.

Fredericksburg (1862)
The map (254 x 218 hexes) inlcudes also a large portion of the ground west of the town, allowing some "what if" scenarios exploring the chances of a Federal plan to turn the Confederate left.


The jump window showing all the ground covered by the map


Let me know please your feelings ...comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated :)



Ashantai -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/22/2009 12:08:34 AM)

That is utterly brilliant! :D Well done, sir!

My only concern is how you will distribute it - the 3D map bmps must be over 100mb at least!

Great work, I look forward to more updates soon!



berto -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/22/2009 1:51:44 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Luciano B
Gentlemen and fellow BG enthusiasts, some of you may remember my old, never completed project covering the battles of the Rappahannock front; a couple of years ago I released a beta version of the battle of the Wilderness.
During the time the project grew to include the battles of Spotsylvania (1864), Chancellorsville (1863) and Fredericksburg (1862).

Since it seems that there's still a lot of interest around the old BG titles, I'm taking into consideration to continue the effort and complete all those games, which required so far almost four years of hard work, mainly on the giant maps included.

...

Let me know please your feelings ...comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated :)


[&o][&o][&o]

OMG, first the recent BGS Napoleonic activity, and now this. It's getting harder and harder not to drop everything else and dive back into the BGS (and more deeply into the HPS/Tiller Napoleonic and ACW) series of games.

This is all so awesome!!!



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/22/2009 2:29:05 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Ashantai

That is utterly brilliant! :D Well done, sir!

My only concern is how you will distribute it - the 3D map bmps must be over 100mb at least!

Great work, I look forward to more updates soon!



Thank you very much Ashantai
yes you're right ...it's something large; the whole Wilderness module is 145 MB zipped. The other battles should be of similar size when finalized.
...but they aren't so haevy to download if you think that the average patches for some recent games are even larger...



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/22/2009 2:30:02 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: berto

OMG, first the recent BGS Napoleonic activity, and now this. It's getting harder and harder not to drop everything else and dive back into the BGS (and more deeply into the HPS/Tiller Napoleonic and ACW) series of games.

This is all so awesome!!!


Thanks a lot Berto ...I really need so warm encouragements :)



Ashantai -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/22/2009 10:47:35 PM)

Only 145MB? That's pretty good!

Have you broken the units down into strength points of 10? How is that working out game wise?



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/23/2009 11:25:51 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ashantai

Only 145MB? That's pretty good!

Have you broken the units down into strength points of 10? How is that working out game wise?



Ten men strength points allow to have a more realistic casualties rate; my only doubt is that in this way a single squad of ten men (instead of 25) may block the zones of control of two or more hexes for a turn (20 minutes of real time) ...however many players seem happy also with single man units blocking the ZOC as in more recent games ...so ten men shouldn't be a bad compromise



tshaw -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/24/2009 12:27:47 AM)

That's absolutely amazing!  I look forward to seeing more.  Keep up the great work!



DuncanLang -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/24/2009 12:00:39 PM)

That is excellent news. As someone who lives on the map segment you showed for Spotsylvania Court House, takes the train from Fredericksburg every workday and was a volunteer historian at Chancellorsville Battlefield for several years, I am most definitely interested in this expansion!



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/24/2009 12:33:21 PM)

Thanks :) ...I'll be glad to receive suggestions and imputs from true Virginians from the area covered by the project :)



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/24/2009 12:34:36 PM)

Here what I've done so far about the battle of Drewry's Bluff, the main fight of the Bermuda Hundred campaign fought in may 1864 between Butler's Army of the James and Beauregards' forces defending Richmond and Petersburg; not  a part of the Rappahannock battles project but another of the works I have under way.

Here the fortifications at Drewry's Bluff

...the whole extension of the map



Kingmaker -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/24/2009 2:06:20 PM)

HiHi

That is gobsmackingly brilliant!

"Salute Sir, Salute!"

All the Best
Peter



MartNick -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/24/2009 5:25:14 PM)

Excellent work! I look forward to it's release. Surely Matrix would provide the necessary server space for downloading the mod?



Ashantai -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/24/2009 10:13:29 PM)

I am most impressed by your work! :) Is it easy to do the maps, or does each one take a long time to construct?



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/25/2009 4:35:47 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ashantai

I am most impressed by your work! :) Is it easy to do the maps, or does each one take a long time to construct?


It is a very time-consuming affair; the time required to complete a map grow exponentially with the dimensions of the battlefield.



captskillet -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/25/2009 8:26:04 PM)

Excellent work Luciano...........[&o]........cant wait for the finished products!!!!



simovitch -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/25/2009 8:39:34 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Luciano B
Is is a very time-consuming affair; the time required to complete a map grow exponentially with the dimensions of the battlefield.

Amen to that.

Very impressive work Luciano. I cant imagine how you were able to seamlessly emulate the style of the stock maps. Any hints?



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/25/2009 9:27:03 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: simovitch

Amen to that.

Very impressive work Luciano. I cant imagine how you were able to seamlessly emulate the style of the stock maps. Any hints?


Thanks Simovitch.

I'll make an attempt to explain my method using my badly shattered english :)
I reproduced the ground surface textures playing around with Corel Photopaint; the base "blank" hex map is obtained copying and pasting progressive screenshots from the scenario editor; linear elements like streets, pikes, streams and rivers are painted with the combined use of Corel Draw vectorial editor and Corel Photopaint graphic editor.



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/25/2009 9:28:35 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: captskillet

Excellent work Luciano...........[&o]........cant wait for the finished products!!!!


Thanks a lot Captskillet ...I can't wait too :)



Fubar -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/25/2009 10:18:42 PM)

Wow i only just bought the JTBG ACW/Nappy bundle pack recently and have been having great fun playing these classic games again and now i see this.....could the week get any better i wonder?

Keep up the great work, it's highly talented people like you that keep mod communities alive. [&o]

TTFN Matt



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/25/2009 10:56:21 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Fubar

Wow i only just bought the JTBG ACW/Nappy bundle pack recently and have been having great fun playing these classic games again and now i see this.....could the week get any better i wonder?

Keep up the great work, it's highly talented people like you that keep mod communities alive. [&o]

TTFN Matt



Thanks Matt/Fubar ...I really love the old BG games, and I completely agree with you when you call them "classic" ...I hope to keep my motivations alive to complete the projects, so thank you very much for the support :)



V22 Osprey -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/26/2009 4:57:17 AM)

So..... *cough* when can we get our hands on this? *cough* *cough*



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (3/26/2009 10:23:39 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey

So..... *cough* when can we get our hands on this? *cough* *cough*


I really don't know when I'll manage to complete the stuff above ...it depends upon the amount of free time I'll be able to spare.



marcbarker -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (4/1/2009 9:22:06 AM)

I think for a mod like this a donation is in order. It takes a great deal of time and effort. I would be happy to donate $10 thru paypal to you bud with a hardy thank you!



Erik Rutins -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (4/1/2009 2:57:22 PM)

Great work! Very impressive, Luciano.



Luciano B -> RE: Battles of the Rappahannock Front - BG Expansion (4/3/2009 4:09:07 AM)

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your kind words. I'm glad there's so much enthusiasm over this stuff :)



berto -> RE: ACW add-on battles (4/9/2009 7:41:16 AM)

Questions for both you, Luciano, and Matrix:

quote:

ORIGINAL: Luciano B

Gentlemen and fellow BG enthusiasts, some of you may remember my old, never completed project covering the battle of the Wilderness (1864) and the other battles of the Rappahannock front...

Since it seems that there's still a lot of interest around the old BG titles, I'm taking into consideration to continue the effort and complete all those games...

Let me know please your feelings ... comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated :)


Pardon me for mentioning HPS, but:

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon in vain attempting to install and get working your (Luciano's) 3rd Winchester scenario, as posted at the ACW Campaign Games Design Center, for HPS' Campaign Corinth. With I believe all files correctly in place (not just yours, but also the auxiliaries), the map would load correctly, but no units. Something about an error in the .SCN file. I had similar difficulty, and similar failure, with several of the other posted scenarios (by other authors). Is this due to

quote:


8. These Add-Ons won't work with Corinth after I applied a new patch. Why not?

HPS has decided to protect their investment in their games by blocking maps which did not come with the original games, starting with Corinth patch 1.02...


Who knows? I didn't bother reinstalling Campaign Corinth (and leaving it unpatched) to find out. Life is too short.

A large part of the appeal of returning to the Tiller BGS games is the wealth of free user-modded scenarios available, particularly for NIR (see the Napoleon in Russia Project), also yours. But as I survey the mod and fan site scene, I see lots of broken links, outdated and even abandoned sites. Poorly organized. Confusing! Does not inspire confidence.

Other older Matrix games (one example: Uncommon Valor) are taking on new life as, years after initial release, modding teams are organized and gain access to the original game source code. In particular, another John Tiller game, John Tiller's Campaign Series (East Front, West Front, Rising Sun)--not only did Matrix remarket that old classic, it is being actively developed and extended, with new patches, upgrades, new scenarios, even entirely new eras and topics--all as easy-to-install, very-likely-to-work officially supported packages.

Question, Matrix: Is there any prospect that the John Tiller BGS games will be similarly blessed?

No offense to you, Luciano, but if in future attempting to install your Battles on the Rappahannock mod I have to jump through all sorts of hoops and struggle to get the thing to work ... I probably won't bother. I just want things to work "out of the box," with the least hassle. I don't want to futz and mod. I just want to play!

So, Matrix (repeating): Is there any prospect that the John Tiller BGS games will get the same treatment--active, officially sanctioned mods and upgrades extending into the future--as, say, the John Tiller Campaign Series (and other older games in your lineup)?

Or are the John Tiller BGS games officially done, stuck in time, forever just available on a take-it-or-leave-it basis?

If the latter, the BGS games lose much of their potential appeal (for me), and I will probably just give up on them and turn my attention back to the HPS ACW and Napoleonic games (actively supported, upgraded, new titles coming out all the time). Sure, I will have to pay HPS for their new stuff, but I don't mind paying for the peace of mind and convenience. Time is money, too.



Luciano B -> RE: ACW add-on battles (4/10/2009 9:30:21 AM)

Berto, about the sceario covering the 3rd Battle of winchester for HPS Corinth, I'm afraid that you have to reinstall again CC Corinth and then the patch 1.01.

About BG add-on's, you have to copy each battle package into the game main directory, and launch them using bgc.exe file (the icon with the eagle). It should be something quite simple.

I agree with you that would be great if the development of the BG series will receive official support from Matrix, but only Matrix and John Tiller may give you an answer... I can only hope together with you :)





rtshaw -> RE: ACW add-on battles (9/13/2011 5:18:02 PM)

Hi Luciano,

I followed the original posts on this thread and then things kind of went silent. How is your Battles on the Rappahannock project coming along? Is it still alive? I'm a big fan of the series and have always wanted to see battles from the 1864 Overland Campaign. Thanks!



berto -> RE: ACW add-on battles (9/17/2011 2:45:27 PM)

I'm still interested in these projects. Brownie points if they work successfully in Linux. [:)]



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