Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Your two suggestions sound fine. Sounds like a good addition to our gaming inventory.

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

Today the work on the tool progressed nicely.

I have implemented the min/max visibility range for tweaking how far the leaders can see (currently min range is 5, max range is 20, between it's the visibility parameter from the game that decides). Also the transition from BTL saves to BTE saves is complete, except for the encryption part. I have also fixed many bugs and increased parser tolerance for faulty oob or pdt files (like tabs instead of spaces, more spaces than necessary, some parameters not separated by space). I have also added as much support as possible for other Napoleonic games than Waterloo, Early American Battles and Civil War Battles as possible. I have to test it against those games (usually this means generating a snapshot from every scenario in the game) but I own only Waterloo, Russian Campaign, Campaign 1776 and War of 1812. For other games, support is only tested using files available on HPS site (in the patches), this means I have the biggest problem with Civil War games of which I don't have a single one. Of course adding support for those games already helped to make the tool better, like the option of having two armies of one nation in one oob file (1776 sometimes there are two American or two British armies). I still have to see whether all terrain that I intend to draw is drawn correctly (because there are some different terrain types in non-Napoleonic games).

Here's an example from 1776:


I still have some things on my list to do, like adding snow color scheme (for NRC of course) but now it's closer to the final goal than ever

Col. Dominik Derwinski (LoH, OCR, OE, CV, EM, MM)
Commandant de la Division
5th Polish Corps Cavalry
V Polish Corps
L' Armee du Rhin

Almost everything is complete for imminent release.

I have tried to check the compatibility with as much games as possible from all three series. It should work with all games, as soon as the "GlobalConfig" for each game will be written. Unfortunately without the games, I'm unable to create them so it will be up to you. I hope you will send me back this data, so it could be included in the download available to all users so that they won't have to repeat those steps. Any errors that should be corrected (like new cavalry types coming with patches etc.) - send them also in. In fact it's a very simple task (writing this "GlobalConfig"), but it has to be done nonetheless.

The one thing that need's to be done now, is to write some kind of documentation for the tool. Although the configuration files are almost self-explanatory, there are some items that need clarification, so please be patient a bit more

Some teasers:

A battle from "The War of 1812" with ships - they count as artillery in the stats (one gun on the ship = one cannon):


Berezina from "Napoleon's Russian Campaign" in the snow color scheme:


That's all for today

Col. Dominik Derwinski (LoH, OCR, OE, CV, EM, MM)
Commandant de la Division
5th Polish Corps Cavalry
V Polish Corps
L' Armee du Rhin

Looks great.[:D]

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, 1ère Brigade, 19ème Division, VI Corps, L'Armee du Rhin
President, Colonial Campaign Club
</b></font id="gold">

Some label code has been tweaked to show not only level 1 structures (those directly below army) but those level 2 structures that are far enough from others to have their label fit on map. Usually this means that all corps and divisions away from their corps will be visible.

Finally, the tool is available for download with some kind of documentation:
http://derwinski.pl/wiki/index.php/MapTool

I know it may be not detailed as you wish, but it's the best I could create in such a short time that was available to me. I hope it will get refined over time, especially as your comments will show up.

Please post any comments or questions here.

Col. Dominik Derwinski (LoH, OCR, OE, CV, EM, MM)
Commandant de la Division
5th Polish Corps Cavalry
V Polish Corps
L' Armee du Rhin

Have any of you tried the tool and made some observations? What can be improved or fixed etc.

Col. Dominik Derwinski (LoH, OCR, OE, CV, EM, MM)
Commandant de la Division
5th Polish Corps Cavalry
V Polish Corps
L' Armee du Rhin

Sorry - its a bit much for even me to handle (former IT guy).

I am strictly a GUI type of user mainly.

Maybe use Visual Basic to create a GUI?

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<br />Sorry - its a bit much for even me to handle (former IT guy).

I am strictly a GUI type of user mainly.

Maybe use Visual Basic to create a GUI?

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)




<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

GUI could be created with the same language but I saw no purpose in this as the tool is used mainly to execute a repeated set of commands like after each turn I add the bte file to the archive directory and run the bat file to get new image. Having GUI would complicate and lengthen the whole process. Of course for a new user it would be propably better to configure the batch using a GUI but is really editing a text file so hard? Certainly it's easier than edit for example the oob file of HPS games

I will consider creating a GUI if I will have some free time.


Col. Dominik Derwinski (LoH, OCR, OE, CV, EM, MM)
Commandant de la Division
5th Polish Corps Cavalry
V Polish Corps
L' Armee du Rhin

Thanks Dominik. I am afraid that about 95 percent of your audience is in the dark how to use this tool at this point. The techie guys like Rich Hamilton and other coders can figure it out but for me, even with some UNIX experience, its just too complicated to have to use a text editor/command line to get this thing to work.

Remember your audience, we are GUI users and any editor/tool also works best for us in a GUI.

Not all of us are of the high tech ability like Ernie! [:D]

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<br />The techie guys like Rich Hamilton and other coders can figure it out but for me, even with some UNIX experience, its just too complicated to have to use a text editor/command line to get this thing to work.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Hi Dominik,

Another old UNIX C programmer here, and I am completely lost: overwhelmed with customization instructions when what I need to know first is how to display one single BTE file. The program reports success, but I cannot even find the output it purports to have made.



Lieutenant Pieter Geerkens
2ème du 22ème, VII Saxon Corps,
L'Armèe du Rhin


"Even in the attack, [I found] the spade is the equal of the rifle." - Erwin Rommel

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<br />
Remember your audience, we are GUI users and any editor/tool also works best for us in a GUI.

Not all of us are of the high tech ability like Ernie! [:D]

Colonel Bill Peters<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I like the idea of the program, but after reading the manner of implementing it, I dropped it off my radar.


<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, 1ère Brigade, 19ème Division, VI Corps, L'Armee du Rhin
President, Colonial Campaign Club
</b></font id="gold">

I'm really amazed that it seems so difficult for you. The damage must have been done by years of using Windows I guess What's the difference in entering a number in a dialog window or by writing in in a text file using Notepad? Also, for those with C/UNIX background I can't imagine that it would be hard to adjust a text config file and run the program from command line. That's all what it takes...

I promise to make a GUI version in the next year wich will be basically a window to edit all those settings available in the text file.

pgeerkens - I can help you if you will provide some details.

Assume we have a game of Waterloo here:
<pre id="code"><font face="courier" size="3" id="code">c:\Games\Campaign Waterloo</font id="code"></pre id="code">
and we have a savegame there, called battle.bte:
<pre id="code"><font face="courier" size="3" id="code">c:\Games\Campaign Waterloo\battle.bte</font id="code"></pre id="code">
and we have the tool here:
<pre id="code"><font face="courier" size="3" id="code">c:\Games\MapTool</font id="code"></pre id="code">
with all it's files:
<pre id="code"><font face="courier" size="3" id="code">c:\Games\MapTool\MapTool.jar
c:\Games\MapTool\global.txt
c:\Games\MapTool\local.txt</font id="code"></pre id="code">

You don't touch the provided global.txt file as it is ready to use.

Waterloo module name is cpw (the module names are the same as the name of the game exe file, here cpw.exe), so you have to make sure in your local.txt you have a line saying:
<pre id="code"><font face="courier" size="3" id="code">LocalConfig cpw {
moduleDir = "c:\Games\Campaign Waterloo"
}</font id="code"></pre id="code">

Then you have to create a new file (use any name you like):
<pre id="code"><font face="courier" size="3" id="code">c:\Games\MapTool\batch.txt</font id="code"></pre id="code">

Inside you can put a basic config that will read the bte file (I assume it's not password protected here and you want to display forces of both sides):
<pre id="code"><font face="courier" size="3" id="code">BatchConfig 1 {
moduleTag = "cpw"
sourceDir = "cpw"
sourceMask = "battle.bte"
outputDir = "."
outputAppend = ""
autoName = false
side1DisplayMode = ALL
side1LabelMode = LEVEL2
side2DisplayMode = ALL
side2LabelMode = LEVEL2
sideInCommand = ""
inCommand {
}
inControl {
}
colorConfig = "default"
generateBTE = false
skipExisting = true
side1Password = ""
side2Password = ""
}</font id="code"></pre id="code">

This will read battle.bte from cpw directory (which you set in the local.txt to be c:\Games\Campaign Waterloo) and put the created image file in batch file directory (which is c:\Games\MapTool\). If the game file is encrypted you have to put proper passwords in side1Password or side2Password.

Now create a Windows bat file to run the tool (use any name you like):
<pre id="code"><font face="courier" size="3" id="code">c:\Games\MapTool\run.bat</font id="code"></pre id="code">

Inside write:
<pre id="code"><font face="courier" size="3" id="code">java -jar MapTool.jar global.txt local.txt batch.txt</font id="code"></pre id="code">

Save and close. Double-click the bat file. You should have now a battle.bte.png file in c:\Games\MapTool\ directory.

After that you may only adjust the contents of the batch.txt file to produce different images etc.

I have created a zip file for download with all the MapTool directory should contain. It's here:
https://derwinski.pl/wiki/images/2/2a/Maptool_sample.zip

Just make sure you have Waterloo in c:\Games\Campaign Waterloo with a battle.bte file there.

Col. Dominik Derwinski (LoH, OCR, OE, CV, EM, MM)
Commandant de la Division
5th Polish Corps Cavalry
V Polish Corps
L' Armee du Rhin