Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

In an Eckmuhl "Campaign" game my cavalry charged an Austrian lancer that was surrounded and had no escape route. With NME ON, when I meleed the lancers they should have taken severe losses because they couldn’t retreat, but remained in the hex and my cav could then melee them a 2nd and/or 3rd time. Instead, the system had my cav enter the hex that the Austrian cav was on! Moreover, it won’t allow my cav to vacate the hex because I “Cannot move units from the other side” even though I was not selecting the Austrian cav.

This is the straw that breaks my back vis. a vis. the 4.02 - 4.06 "updates." Inter alia:

It's ridiculous that only one unlimbered battery can now fire out of a hex. Grand batteries were a prominent feature of the Napoleonic era with guns lined up almost wheel to wheel.

The permanent "leash" on skirmishers means that a skirmisher that routs away becomes immobilized because it is "too far" from its parent unit.

Cavalry have been castrated. The reduced charge multiplier and lower cavalry stacking means that stacks of 1600 infantry become walking squares. The decisive charge at Marengo, for instance, was delivered by a handful of cuirassiers. The new parameters make such a charge impossible.

Bill Peters' carefully crafted movement parameters which differentiated between, inter alia, "pike" vs. "road" movement was abandoned in favor of the cruder NRC/Waterloo parameters. The different pike vs. road movement rates were a key ingredient of the large 50+ turns scenarios in Eckmuhl, Wagram, etc. because they accentuated the differences in the road network.

I could go on, but I am simply going to re-install the previous versions of the games.

Regards,

Paco

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Maréchal M. Francisco Palomo
Prince d'Essling et Duc d'Abrantes
Commandant en Chef du 1er Corps d'Armée

The same hex bug was fixed in the latest downloads I believe.

For artillery density – my conclusions based on the reading is that 100m is a typical space required for a 12 gun battery. Indeed, it should not be 6. But there is an easy fix: deploy 8 gun batteries into extended line and/or change the PDT parameter to allow 6 gun batteries to go into extended too. But I agree I would rather see this being a default option then trying to explain this to an opponent every time you start a new game and want to change PDT parameters.

1600 men per hex is exactly a walking square if you consider a density in a 100m by 100m space. Artillery is the way to go.

I agree the lack of difference in movement costs for pike and road completely destroys the strategic value of pikes. There is an easy fix through PDT – changing movement costs for the roads to 2. I raised this recently after realising that in Quatre Bras battle the French can outflank the allied position via road from the right completely shifting the battlefield in unhistorical manner. Not to mention the total loss of strategic value of the QB crossroads itself – what’s the point of controlling it if you can use any other road- there are plenty of them and their movement costs if the same.

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General-Leytenant Alexey Tartyshev
Leib-Guard Preobrazhensky Regiment (Grenadier Drum)
1st Brigade
Guard Infantry Division
5th Guard Corps


(I don't play with with ZOC kills and Rout limiting ON)

Alexey,

It obviously wasn't because I was using the "latest" version, v.4.06.

Regards,

Paco

_________________
Maréchal M. Francisco Palomo
Prince d'Essling et Duc d'Abrantes
Commandant en Chef du 1er Corps d'Armée

Paco, you need to uninstall the game, and then download the latest installer from WDS and then reinstall the game. You don't need the update after that as the installer is at the correct build. There was a bug present if you just update the game without what I described. I had the same thing happen in Waterloo and Leipzig and the new installer fixed them both.

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Field Marshal Sir Edward Blackburn, 1st Duke of Aberdeen K.G.
85th (Buck's Light Volunteers) Regiment of Foot
16th British Brigade
7th Division
III (Peninsular) Corps
2nd Battalion, Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards

I found a prior post that addressed this issue.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17157

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Feldmarschall Dale Fürst Lastowicka von Galizien und Lodomerien
Grenzer Regiment Wallachia-Illyria Nr. 13
2. Leichte Brigade
Avant Garde Division
Österreichische Imperiale Armeekorps
Coalition Army

Just reapply the 1.06 update. No need to reinstall UNLESS you want to apply an older update. The 1.06 update was recompiled with the correct main program replacing the one that allowed enemy units to stack with friendly in melees.

For me ... I have the 4.00 installers and intend on using a COPY of the game folder to update. That way my original installation is kept intact.

I am to blame, partly, for the standardization of EC/WC to use the NRC/Waterloo PDT file format as I told Rich that he might as well go this direction. Looking back on it now I should have suggested that he also look to differentiating between Pikes and Roads and use the BEST of both PDT files in the updates.

Glad to see that the Bridge MP cost is now 2 in some of the games where it was 6 before.

I agree that many of us are not happy with what has transpired. I now am a customer and not part of the team but I won't pour out my frustrations with it all on this forum. It is what it is and unless sales plummet and the customer base tells Rich that they are moving on to play something else its not going to change. Its not like Rich is not listening but he and his team have their own philosophy on the series. Its best for me not to build up mental anguish anymore over all of this. Its why I am getting outside more and enjoying the bicycle riding.

I was literally on my way to a second heart attack if I continued to work for WDS (let alone eye issues I was having). My mind wont accept certain things and to continue working with the guys would have just been too much. I just hope that something changes to where the updates get something like 3-4 months of Quality Control testing prior to being released. Philippines '44 was rushed out the door and frankly I wont work with a team that does that anymore.

So an open note to Rich and David .... PLEASE look over your code for a longer period of time. Its obvious that this is NOT being done. We are all seeing it. An update is NOT going to influence your income that much. However, if word gets around that product is problematic then sales will drop. Dont let that happen. A lot of us put our lives into these games. It truly saddens me to see what has happened to this series. I know that if more series are changed in the sudden fashion as this one has been that I will start playing Slitherine/Matrix products MORE and WDS less.

I have heard that the ACW series might see changes to the VPs For Leader Casualty calculation. Not really sure why that has to happen. We are talking about a series (again, I mean ACW, not Nap Battles series) that was one of John Tiller's favorites. Its stood the test of time. I really cannot think of any reason to change the code. The gun VPs should be standardized and so on but please, no VP formula changes for leader casualties. I mean, the Nap Battles series values are just GROSS to play with.

Mark it down that if by this time something hasn't turned around by next year some of us "Old Guard" guys will be playing something else or will just drop back to using 4.00 or earlier and just shun the new updates but others have no recourse to do that as the games are being packaged with the latest game version and hey, that makes a lot of sense but it also means that the older, more reliable code is gone. I know I wont be sharing the older installers (something about copyright ...) with anyone so it means we will be on an uneven basis in the club. Some will stick with 4.00 thru 4.02 others wont have that luxury.

From a guy that was there at the very beginning of computer wargaming .... sitting in a UCLA class room listening to veteran game designer and SPI owner, James Dunnigan give a talk on "The Future of Computer Wargaming" I know what I am talking about. So DONT SCREW THESE GAMES UP! Reverse course, make changes that make sense, get some guys like Paco and Andy Moss to participate in update testing and lets see this QC issue ended once and for all. Coming from a former insider who was there from the beginning, this is NOT what John Tiller would have wanted and at no time in the past that I can remember, has this line of games seen so much code with bugs. Its not too late to take corrective measures to avoid this. Again, there is no reason to rush a game out the door and certainly NOT an update.

That's all I have to say on the matter.

Paco - 4.02 definitely will have the older PDT files for EC and WC. I believe the new subfolder scheme for the main folder that we all like is in that too. Lots of GOOD things have come out from WDS ... this just happens to be the series that has been affected the most by changes that frankly should have been more carefully thought out and have had a lot of community input. As this is THE MOST COMPLEX series to play in the entire lineup, its causing a lot more than a minor "ripple" effect. Its going to break the play balance too I am sure.

Note: Dont read me as "pissed off" .. read me as concerned. In the end I don't own the products and I am going to move on in life and not lose one bit of sleep over this ... its the ONLY path I can take at this point .. i cannot even work on new custom scenarios as if this present course is not changed, they will become unplayable under the newer updates. Also read me as grateful I worked with John, Rich & David. This is not a mud slinging event. All three have been very good to me. Making that plain and open. You guys in the club and other customers have to let them know your concern as well. Don't forget to use either the WDS forum or the support email to voice your concerns. Do it politely and lets hope that something changes for the better. We have played the daylights out of these games and love them. Lets work with the WDS folks and help them to see that some of what is coming down is just not working out.

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

I have to say, that was a great post-Bill.

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2ème Brigade, 1ère Division, 1er Corps d'Armee
Général de Brigade