American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

WDS has announced the release of 4.05 for Antietam only (others to follow). It looks like they fixed the enormous points for leader losses problem along with some other issues. BTW, it requires a complete reinstall. Thoughts?

_________________
General Richard Whipkey
Commanding Officer
Army of the Potomac

I saw this today and IMHO it's a good update. Resize dialogue boxes & PDT remain open in game. Major addition I believe and long sought. WDS did well for my money.

_________________
Karl McEntegart
Brigadier General
Officer Commanding
Army of Tennessee





Make my enemy brave and strong, so that if defeated, I will not be ashamed.

WDS calls it a "clean install". If you do it for any for any title with ongoing games all the files will be lost. That is, your game will be gone.
Finish all games in Antietam or Demo before installing v4.05 (and other titles when the v4.05 update is provided for them).
As WDS said:
"Updates for the 4.05 Release Cycle require a Full Installation. You must uninstall your existing copy then download a new installer from your Store Account in order to do a fresh installation. Normal patching will resume for future updates."

As for 'thoughts' it's a bit early to say. I've only installed the Demo (a "clean install" as required) so I can have a look around without removing the old Antietam version.

The bizarre 'VP for Leader Casualties' thing that appeared in the last version appears to be fixed as you said. It is not listed as a 'Fix' but falls under a new title of 'Content Changes' in the Changelog.

I don't understand why there was a need for a colour change in the CSA units but I would see that as an unimportant issue.

I'll be interested to see what has changed in the User Manual but it'll take some time to go through it. The User Manual (and others) need a rewrite as there were a number of confusing things in it or missing from it. However, it does not appear that any substantial changes have been made to the Manual. The type in the Manual has changed but the graphics all seem to show the old, rather than the new, CSA colour.
In another example, we see from the Changelog that Mounted Cavalry Skirmishers and some other Optional Rules are now built in. The Manual says that:
"Only Infantry in Line formation and Dismounted Cavalry may deploy Skirmishers"; and
"Units with less than 51 men may not deploy Skirmishers".
However, the Manual also says:
"All mounted cavalry regardless of the size of the unit have the ability to detect enemy units like infantry skirmishers without having to deploy skirmishers".
Does this mean that the change introduced in v4.03 to remove mounted cavalry skirmishers for small units (50 and below) is gone. Unknown. It'll take some time to check that and other things.

_________________
Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia

I welcome the change of colors for the Rebs. In extreme zoom out view, the color of fields was too close to butternut and looked like Reb units. It was enough to give a fella a heart attack.

_________________
Gen Ned Simms
2/XVI Corps/AotT
Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em.
VMI Class of '00

LOL, that made me want to put back on the old uniform.

WDS said it can be done by copying the files from 'Info/Traditional' folder into the 'Info' folder to overwrite the files there. I followed that process but it did not work. I even tried deleting the selected files in 'Info' first, and then moving the Traditional ones there but that didn't work either. Our boys no longer have their camouflage.

_________________
Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia

Going back to the traditional look involves changes in both the Info and Map folders. Changing the units from the new gray to the old butternut color is made by taking the files from the Traditional Map folder inside the Map folder and copying them up one level into the Map folder. I was able to return the game back to the former look without a problem following WDS's instructions. I backed up the v4.05 files so I could return to the new look.

I really had to do some work to get the images and everything back to the "Traditional" look. I'm not loving the new color schemes. The Rebs look like Yanks. Butternut please.

But, hey, to each his own. Maybe someday a palette will pop up and you can just click on your preferred color scheme. You know someone out there will have Orange vs. Green.

_________________
Gen. Blake Strickler
Confederate General-in-Chief
El Presidente 2010 - 2012

Do you need to replace all the files or just a few specific ones?

If it's only a few specific ones, which ones?

_________________
Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia

If you're just interested in going back to the Butternut 2D counters, then it would be the 2DSymbols... files in the Traditional Map folder (inside the Map folder) than need to be copied one level up. There are 6 of those files. Feel free to email me if you want more detailed information.

_________________
Wallace Welder
Lt Col

Yep, that worked. Thank-you.

If I meet Ned on the battlefield again I need any small advantage I can get so my boys might don the old uniforms for any such contest.

_________________
Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia

_________________
Gen. Blake Strickler
Confederate General-in-Chief
El Presidente 2010 - 2012

That doesn't seem right. WDS said you should do a "clean install" for this version. In their Blog post, they said [my emphasis]:
"** A completely Clean Install is required to obtain this update. You can grab a new copy of the installers from your Store Account. Yes, even for the Demo - please do not get another copy from the Store as that issues a new serial number and also creates duplicate entries in your order history"; and
"So, these fresh installs will resolve all of those problems in one fell swoop. You uninstall your existing copy of the game using the built in Windows "App Management" feature in the Control Panel. You then do a clean install of the game and everything is in its proper place."

Surely, once you "uninstall your existing copy of the game" that will remove everything associated with that game, including game files. WDS has a paragraph on why this Clean Install is necessary and should occur in preference to the normal method for installing updates.

_________________
Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia

Agreed entirely ! On a purely personal note, I do not believe an ongoing game should be updated in any instance, despite what WDS may say, why risk it ! Under the new system of Clean Installs I too cannot see how this could be done without losing all previous files.

_________________
Karl McEntegart
Brigadier General
Officer Commanding
Army of Tennessee





Make my enemy brave and strong, so that if defeated, I will not be ashamed.

LOL don't shoot the messenger

I'm just repeating what I was told. I am sure someone here will try it and let us know one way or the other.

_________________
Gen. Blake Strickler
Confederate General-in-Chief
El Presidente 2010 - 2012

The Clean Install should only be for updates to this version. As WDS said in their Blog post they used to version to clear out a lot of old stuff because of, as they said, "core changes to file formats (moving to PNG files in some cases), new infrastructure for future A/I enhancements, Windows 11 compatibility changes". WDS also said: "many of the updates were retaining backwards compatibility with ancient installers, in some cases back to the HPS days!". Well not only that, some of the things dated back even further. There is an icon/picture associated with the games that dates back to the Battleground days (over 30 years ago) that is even associated with newer titles like Shenandoah.

_________________
Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia