Matrix Games Forums

Here is a second screenshot showing vineyards and the new updated rough ground.

Lovely screenshot! I personally would make the rough a bit less rocky. The smaller boulders look fine, but the very large rock formations look like the Devil's Den. Just a personal preference. The fields and units look absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait to play this game.

Good point Arinvald, what should I have there instead of the rock formations?

WOW! That shot looks terrific. I'm really looking forward to the improved version of this game. I have the original and as much as I like it, it is definitely frustrating to play sometimes. We need a good, first-class tactical treatment of the Seven Years War with all the necessary "pomp and circumstance" that adds so much to the immersion into this interesting and colorful period of military history. It looks like you guys are on your way to doing just that. Keep up the great work!

Thanks Horst, doing my best to give this period justice.

This is just my personal preference mind you, but when I think of Rough Ground; from an 18th century military perspective; I think of uneven ground, broken by small rocks or dense scrubby growth. A thicket or plowed field would be an example.

I like the new rough as depicted it is very clearly visible. small pebbels would be hard to make out, especialy if zoomed out. Stick with the boulders and stuff. It looks good.

I have dense shrubbery as you can see in the first screen Yeah I think I'll stick with the rough terrain for the first release at least. I can always change it later on.

Also mind you that the rough terrain might be placed on higher levels of terrain, this showing here is the lowest of the terrains, just plain grass.

Magnus:
I too prefer your current depiction of "rough terrain", this way it is clearly visable and identifiable from all other terrain. As Arvinvald pointed out, it may appear like there are a lot more large rocks than in reality, but at least you can easily spot the current rough terrain this way.[:)]

Panama Red do you like the scale so far? I think you said earlier that you wanted me to try to keep everything in scale instead of increasing the size of the units. I think I'm near to achieve that.

I agree that being easily identifiable is paramount. I just think that any battlefield that contains alot of rough terrain, and many did, will look nothing like the historical terrain of that battle, but more like the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Maybe a slight tweak with the bigger rocks would do the trick. Again, this is simply personal opinion and only a very small niggle with what I think is a huge improvement of the graphics from previous releases.

Magnus:
It is close enough to the HnM2 figures that the men do not look to large compared to the terrain, vegitation and buildings. Well done and I am looking forward to your excellant artistry in these new HnM3 games.

Once again turning to Tim's posts, I think that "rough" should be graphically illustrated by whatever the actual terrain is supposed to be.  If it's rocky, use the rocky graphics; if it's bushy, use the shrub graphics; if it's uneven ground, then we need some uneven graphic, too.  It would be visually inappropriate to make a battlefield that merely had uneven ground look like a rock garden, which would be my concern.  It would all have essentially the same game effect by being "rough", but making the field look appropriate should also be a factor.

Magnus
 
While I would like more choices for rough terrain, I think the addition of any graphic representation for it will greatly enhance the game.  What you have here looks really good.  Will the agricultural graphics (plowed ground) impact movement?  I eagerly await the new game.
 
Sumter

The games are going to have a default graphics set that has 6 images for each terrain type.

The new addition is that there can be a different file designated in the scenario editor for each scenario...and if one if not, then the default is loaded.

Is there a maximum number of units that can be deployed in HNM2?  It seems that if the total number of units exceeds 215-220 the game crashes.
 
Thanks,
Sumter

Very nice looking, excellent work.