Which Game to Get...

[MattP]

I have played through the Wachau scenario using Philippe's graphics mod and I have to say it's a big step up from stock once you get used to what's what in terms of unit icons.

I had also forgotten that the sequence of play is quite different than the Battleground series of Naps games..... I like it better as it is here other than perhaps that I sometimes want to shoot something and inadvertently melee and take unnecessary defensive fire.

Once I locked in on the game and was into it, I wasn't really paying much attention to the graphics in any case. Very much looking forward to playing this against a person...………………….

[Sgt_Rock]

Marengo has more detailed maps for the simple reason that the area is very built up as far as natural and man-made obstacles go. Bavaria and Austria (EC and WC) on the other hand are rather open. Note the Austerlitz map has detail for the Sokolnitz area ...

RBR has a mix of maps. I add in a lot more fields now ...

However, for CEF - that is Campaign Eylau-Friedland ... its back to the "Open" look because we are talking about Poland after all. Poland is NOT Northern Italy for terrain features ;) CEF will feature a lot of clear hexes and not a lot of fields too. The land was used for grazing and farms were small. There are a lot of woods of course but not like on the Bavarian maps of RBR, EC or Austerlitz.

Want to see some built up maps look at the ones for the invasion of England in Austerlitz. Lots of walls and hedges.....

[geoff]

Each of those farm hectares would have required 2 workers and produced a ton of wheat (or 2 tons of oats). Thats alot of corn and farmers. I think the game always needed a light woods terrain tile in sparse groupings and surrounding most of the forests. This way you wouldn't have formations receiving a much greater defensive bonus as if standing in deep woodland firing unhindered out into the open. One other terrain flaw is hexsides such as walls and hedges don't have height or LOS restriction.

I just like how roads have become straighter later in the series. I'll sit on the Jena map and count out shortcuts but, end up using road movement anyway for realism's sake.

[Sgt_Rock]

The issue with higher resolution comes in for those of us with low end systems. I really wish I could afford my dream computer (about $1500-1800). When I tried to playtest Slitherine's "Field of Glory2" it played so slow I gave up even after they made some changes to help.

This is already a "niche" market and for me I hope that we still cater to those that have older systems. Many of us are limping along in life and the "average" system of today is often out of our price range.

(bought a refurbished Dell back in May of last year ... $175 .. great deal to be honest ... other than high res games it runs very well)

[MattP]

Sorry, but I just don't think that applies here. The PC's from 1996 could run these games, the graphics haven't changed since then. It's not as if they need to be ultra-high resolution, but it's silly to see the individual squares from graphics in 2018..... The games themselves are really interesting and fill a niche for those of us who love Napoleonic and Civil War (and i'm other sure) games. There just isn't anything out there like them except of course boardgames. But c'mon, having 30 pixels to work with is just silly.

[geoff]

I don't care how the game looks. Just so all it's elements are visually discernible. I'd rather not play an ASCII game of "Dwarf Fortress" but, I could definitely get into an SDL version. Problem with this series is the old interface popup windows don't display enough data on one screen. Such as the strength dialog.
I'm running a 15 year old low end commercial computer with Linux and this game works flawlessly. That can't be said for many Windows XP era games. Certainly no game engines developed in the last 10 years.

[Sgt_Rock]

Well to let you know .. I still cannot open up the 3D for Leipzig with my refurbished Dell. Same thing happened to Warren Bajan one of my playtesters. I can open up the 3D for CEF (Eylau) because it doesn't have 300 Unit images.

The PC I used to build Campaign Leipzig - 1814 and Bautzen - was a more capable system. So glad I had that one then so I could open the 3D and review the images prior to release. 3D for RBR opened up slowly.

Eventually when I get the money I will update to a much faster PC. Then I wont have the same problems that I do now.