Screens

[herbie]

hi,

please can you show us new screens (about battles ...........)

bye

herbie

[ericbabe]

Sure! I'll try to get something together tonight.

The 3D unit icons for the battles are almost implemented -- we need to change how we do infantry and skirmishers just a bit. Also our firing smoke and flashes are just a bit misaligned.

[ericbabe]

Here's a winter battle from the 1796 scenario between Austria and France. My graphics guy will be mad at me because the Austrians are still wearing Prussian uniforms (I switched the file numbers by accident and haven't fixed it yet and he's been nagging me to do it for a while).

The French flag with the artillery unit shows the presence of a commander. The Austrian division on the road is disordered and out of supply. There's a French guard south of the caisson and the artillery, and a French light infantry at the east side of the map.

[ericbabe]

Here's the same view but with the very popular chits instead of the 3d icons.

[ericbabe]

Here's a snap of the strategic map. It's updated from the snaps on our website -- has the 3D icons in place.

There's an Austrian commander and supply depot in Veneto, and an Austrian diplomat in Tyrolia. The striped areas are under Austrian protectorate. You can see the strategic fog of war on the west side.

One thing unfinished on the strategic map is city placement -- we need to sit down and put all the cities in (roughly) the proper locations.

That's all I've got right now. I'll try to remember to keep taking snaps during testing and will try to upload a new one every few days.

[CushVA]

Thanks for the screens. What is the flag with the red/blue triangles in each corner? (or the green ones in Switzerland) Is that the fog of war? There might be units there, but you're not sure what type?

On edit: I guess I could have just called them the flags with the diamonds in the center

[ericbabe]

Flags represent armies, corps, or stacks of armies/corps.

The flag with the white diamond is French. The green/white is our generic minor country flag (in this case, Swiss.) The boxes beneath them show strength. You can right click on them to open popup box showing everything the flag represents.

[sol_invictus]

Very nice screens.[&o] Show as many as you can.

[ancient doctor]

They look very nice,especially the one of strategic map with province info.However i still fail to understand how battle is done in tactical map.What scale of units is the smallest in it?Regiment,brigade,division and how the mechanics of battle are actually handled?something like panzer general series of SSI or Imperialism 1?Are the fighting units in tactical battle one type per icon(infantry,cavalry,artillery)each alone or units represent a mess of the above and their combined strength fires?

[herbie]

thanks, thanks ...........


please more


herbie

[ericbabe]

There is a bit of information about the tactical battles on our website, west-civ.com. They are fought at the division level, though the divisions may be split into two units. As best as I can recall that game, I believe it is similar to SSI's Panzer Generals in terms of general interface and turn structure, though there are some important differences.

Each icon represents a single type of division -- though obviously at the division level (theoretical strength of 10,000 men) there needs to be some abstraction going on: for instance, when a division is in line formation it only represents that a majority of regiments are deployed in this formation, not that every single man is formed into line.

[ericbabe]

Herbie, thank you for the interest in COG.

Eric

[herbie]

thanks for the information.

herbie

[ericbabe]

Here's a snapshot showing the forts (at night, in the rain).

My Austrians were up on the height overlooking the southern fort and managed to blast a breach in the walls. Mack's division worked their way inside when the northern garrison was disordered, but then became disordered in a fight with the western French garrison. You can't see it on the snapshot but there are a few French divisions in line formation just west of the fort obscured by the fog-of-war. (These are in addition to the two I'm trying to distract on the far west side.) I've got reinforcements coming down the road on the east, but the odds are against my holding out until they arrive.

[Becket]

Wow, I *love* the 3D units, eric. Looking great - I can hardly wait for this one. AAR! AAR! AAR! [:)]

[CushVA]

was the wall breached by Artillery, or are the other ways of doing it?

[ericbabe]

Hi Cush,

Artillery units are the best way to breach the walls, but infantry divisions are considered to have some artillery attached and so their attacks have a chance to breach as well.

There's a military training upgrade -- Engineering Corps -- that gives a nation's units a greater chance of smashing walls (and helps with other things, like defending in villages and crossing rivers).

[ericbabe]

Thanks Becket, I'll pass your kind words along to the graphics guy, Mr Barish.

We're hoping to squeeze more of the 3D infantry icons into a hex -- maybe 3 per unit. I'd also like to add separate, smaller unit bits for units with skirmishers deployed: right now the 3D icons kneel when skirmishers are deployed (you can see it in the raining snapshot -- Austrian skirmishers opposed to French between the two forts). The kneeling icons look good, but it's hard to tell at a glance when skirmishers are deployed.

The beta team is working hard helping me rout-out a couple of troublesome bugs, but hopefully somebody will get a chance to put together an AAR.


Thanks for the interest,

Eric

[ericbabe]

Here's another Austria vs France battle, this time in 1805. (I finally fixed the Austrian uniforms.) I'm the Austrians; AI is playing the French. They drove me out of the fortress at the start of the battle. I've got the two garrisons remaining in the fortress, but they are disordered and very depleted. Units in the fortress are considered to have access to the big guns and can attack as heavy artillery, so the French infantry division in column at the northern part of the fortress has just started blowing away Archduke Charles' division in the woods beside it.

It set up in line formation on the ridge at the east at the beginning of the battle but my units there are too far out of range to do much good. The two French artillery in the middle have been doing a lot of damage, and I see they have a third artillery coming up from the rear. The French have reinforcements on the way and I do not, so I better hurry up.

[ericbabe]

Here's the same battle five hours later. (I had to include this one just to show off our fine smoke effects.)

French reinforcements are here. Notice the heavy cavalry (black horse) facing my artillery and the French guard helping to flank my milita at the top of the map. I'm moving around to flank his line at the south but France has several cavalry down there holding me back. He's also got two cavalry that just rallied north of the river that are headed my way.

I ended up winning the battle, but just barely. I managed to drive off the cavalry and complete the flank at the south just before their guard and cavalry moved in position to flank my line at the north. (I was able to split the Austrian infantry division at the north and hold the horses on the other side of the river for an hour before the guard finally knocked me back and let the cavalry through, but by then my infantry in the south had rolled back their line.)