Properly Presenting SOW Waterloo

It seems that among a couple threads over on the Matrix site that some questions have been raised concerning this game. The best way to address these concerns is to show them just how the game plays. My solution is to get 10 guys together for MP and record the game. That way it will be shown what the game is and by that I mean a full battle experience. Not just some screen shots of weird behavior, but the big picture of armies clashing in battle.

It will be important to those veterans of SOW that we show how to set up our divisions and corps.

It will need to be unlimited viewing as we would want to show the entire battlefield and couriers can be an option.


Can the battle be uploaded straight to the matrix site or do we need to place it on youtube.

It would be nice if Norbsoft helped us out with a few things.
1) more damage from canister
2) less aggressive cavalry
3) rifle range reduced to 80 yards.

NY Cavalry wrote: 3) rifle range reduced to 80 yards.

Rifle or musket...?

Musket range should be about 100-140 yards.
Baker rifle out to about 180 or 200.

As I am still learning Napoleonic tactics please feel free to set me straight. Here is my question. From what I have read so far and heard from discussion; rifle or musket fire did no damage at those distances. That effective distances were like 40 yards.


If you have infantry units blasting away at those distances does anything get hit? If the game uses those setting isn't it a civil war battle and not Napoleonic?

We had an extensive discussion on this during development. The bottom line is that troops did open fire from those ranges despite the poor effect. The team was able to cite significant historical support for this choice. Mitra did add into the AI that more veteran troops will hold fire until the ranges are shorter.

The exception is not the rule. Undisciplined or untrained troops might at times fire at long range, but even that was uncommon. Prussian troops, no matter how green would never, ever fire at long range. Their physical punishment system was severe and the men would not risk the consequences of firing before ordered.

In the game, the troops usually begin engaging at ~10 yd. below the maximum weapon distance. That matters little since the game can be modded to reflect reality and musket ranges can be shortened to proper distances. However, the infantry reaction range is based on the maximum weapon distance. Also, events such as when a unit has enough time to form a square is based on the cavalry to infantry distance which happens to be at about the historic maximum musket range. Basing the reaction range on the weapon range was a huge blunder. It makes it very difficult to create realistic battlefield conditions. To do so will require combing through all the code and replacing instances of this system with a better one.

I am perfectly fine with how muskets are handled right now.

There are other things to worry about rather than that, which can be easily modded anyways.

The biggest thing right now is creating a huge, positive player base and making these devs some money and creating a huge player base!

I think what MTG is saying, Reb, is that with the square and cavalry reaction range set to a distance linked to infantry weapon range, modifying the weapon ranges has unfortunate consequences. Modders now have to dig that much deeper to discover these interlinked tactical relationships and change these also or else any mods could throw up weird and ahistorical side effects.

What I have noticed Mitra is infantry staying in a square a long time with only minimal cavalry threat. We played a Prussians-v-French game a couple of weeks ago where just a single Chasseur a Cheval squadron kept about 4 or 5 Prussian battalions in square even though I had 2 Uhlan squadrons manoeuvring towards the enemy cavalry.

Could infantry in square be made to check and come out of square if nearby friendly cavalry is seen to be equal or stronger to an enemy cavalry threat?

I have downloaded the SDK and confess in the past couple days I've been looking at these routines - such as infantry in danger from cavalry - and I can see that the kinds of changes being discussed are possible with a modded AI dll. However as has been alluded to there could be unintended consequences from adjusting the reaction distances. It would absolutely be possible to alter the criteria used to determine reactions to threats - or how close a unit is to a friendly etc.

All of this I must say is due to the generosity of the devs providing the actual code, project file, headers etc to do this work. Of all the games I've bought this is unprecedented and I applaud it. I have been able to successfully compile alternative AI libraries without trouble. Thank you NSD!

However this is getting off the track. Perhaps a separate thread is warranted.

I'm fairly certain my description of how the game treats infantry and cavalry threats is accurate. In an MP game this weekend, using the KS mod, where musket ranges are shortened to 110 yd., average Russian light cavalry had their way with the French Imperial Guard.

One of our Russian divisions was heavily engaged by the Hollanders. The rest of the Guard began marching towards his flank. I moved a regiment of uhlans and hussars forward to intercept the Guard. My intention was not to engage them, but merely slow them down and allow our 2nd infantry division time to move up and engage.

The cavalry commander deployed his squadrons forward, (great cavalry AI by the way), to menace the enemy. Occasionally the Guard would form squares, but most did not. The result was a cavalry romp, riding down Old and Middle Guard units that did not form squares. Nearly all of these attacks were frontal so the Guard had plenty of opportunity to see the cavalry and react, but given the shortened musket ranges they did not.

The French side was controlled by the AI. So the division and brigade AI does not set a stance?

Was it likely that the shorter musket ranges caused the Guard not to form square as often as they should?

...and is it possible to disconnect that link between musket range and reaction distance?

One thing this might allow to be represented is if you can set a reaction distance longer for poorer quality troops so as to represent them forming square early out of fear or lack of good officers, etc. A cavalry threat could then pin poorer quality troops into square from further away, making them less "reliable".