Well in fact, we didn't have one at TC3. The reason: I was still rather sick to lead one and Rich Hamilton was very busy as well. We also noted that there was not alot of interest.
We discuss the series alot here so I feel that we do get alot of input. And we didn't have anything new to report that hadn't already been noted here.
But here is a gist of what we would have covered for the Napoleonic series:
1. The series still has life obviously based on the release of Campaign Austerlitz. Sales are low and we would like to see an increase in this if we were to ever want to release multiple games within a quarter. So for me I would say that releasing the games six months apart is probably the wisest course. Or something like this. Rich could give a more educated response on this area but I know that he would agree that putting out two Napoleonic games together in the same release or even a month apart is probably going to hurt our sales where it regards the series than help it.
2. While John or Mark/Joe will add in some enhancement to the engine or artwork only those series that have government funding would ever see any extensive update. The contracts drive John's ability to work on a series to any great degree. Therefore, while what we have now can be updated in areas where it take a low amount of hours dont look for anything extensive that would cost John days to program. Its just not going to happen.
3. Rich and I agree that about somewhere along the line of seven more titles max remain to be published but after that the titles start to be such that royalties will be too low to justify our time (and this is not even considering if John would release it too). We are set on doing up the major campaigns (and I have a few minor ones I am tossing into one title) but after that the series will be more or less finished.
4. Artwork - Joe Amoral showed me some updates to the 3D ground tiles and buildings he did for one of the Pacific Squad Battles games. Very nice. The artwork for the Squad Battles: Red Victory game has a new look and its very good. He says that there is a decent chance that we might see something like that for the Nap series as its a low investment of his time to update the graphics (scaling and so on). However, do not read this as a given and I am not going to answer questions about whether its coming in or not. More or less a possibility and nothing more. Note: the old tiles for the Campaign Series that Matrix got from Talonsoft (East Front, West Front, Rising Sun) were done in 3D according to Joe. That is what he is doing now for the games. This was positive news for me as I was agonizing over the 3D tiles we have currently. Update the ground and so on and the game would look much better for the eye candy crowd. (and I really liked to play West Front in 3D too)
So that was pretty much all I was going to discuss. As to new ideas: well most of mine are for game specific issues that come up. If the battle or campaign had such and such a thing that happened and it would really distort history to not have something in the engine (or if I cant figure out how to model it using the existing tools) then I try and get John to add in something that we can use. As to enhancements in the engine for Napoleonic warfare: I have yet to hear anything NEW that would be something we could add in. A good discussion offline on the Counter Charge and Auto Square was done and here is the gist of it:
Counter Charge: I put up my usual pros and cons for such a rule (for both the Single and Multi Phase play). My mind is a bit fuzzy on what the others said but I heard nothing that was a strong case for why I should ask John to reconsider this. If one of you guys that was there can remember something I missed please respond to this post. I cant remember if Jeff Mathes was in that group but I think that Gary M. was there and possibly John Corbin. If you can remember anything that was a strong case for the rule and how we decided how it could be done without being a gamey rule let me know.
Auto Square: Again, I commented on the usual pros and cons of such a rule. In some ways the 5x or 4x bonus makes a strong case for having such a rule even if its just a squadron charging you as if its 150 Cuirassiers against 600 men that is 150 x 5 or 750 for melee purposes. And truly there were cases where 150 cuirassiers ran over a large amount of men. My usual objection to the rule is that a player can cause a large amount of infantry to go into square and then IN THE SAME TURN can pull up horse batteries and fire at them. The guns if placed far enough away cannot be assaulted by the squares (assume that they go out of square in the next turn) and thus would escape any harm. For me this gets too gamey so I usually am against the rule for this reason and there are more I am sure I missed. For instance: one squadron is left behind to harass a column. As they move down the road it charges and the entire column goes into square. Historical? Yes. Gamey - I know folks would start using this tactic to delay columns. Send out cavalry? Yes, unless it was a group of Austrian infantry for instance with no cav support (this happens alot what with the 3rd Div having all of the cav). So the jury is still out on this one for me.
Mainly for the above I really would like to see John get more done on his new projects or new engines and contract work. I am thinking that it would be nice to have the second of the two options. To me an auto square makes more sense than a Counter Charge rule.
Colonel Bill Peters, 17th Dragoons, III Corps, French Army
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Swiss-Swedish Army CinC, Musket and Cannon Game Club - Come over and see what we are all about!
NWC
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