SCENARIO: The Napoleonic Wars

[Smoking mirror]

Looking good, I would recomend a remodeling of England; especialy London and Kent, right now kent is represented by a single mined square; through out history the towns in kent have proved an important industrial and cultural center of the south. Dover or canterbury should be included with london moved up slightly. You dont have to make it so that the city has a full city radius, just enough so that it can be represented.

perhaps just an extra land square would be good.
Also a few size one cities in scotland/Ireland would be good, even if its just for extra trade. Also even a single shield will produce a unit eventualy.

 

[joespaniel]

The screenshots look fantastic!

I am eagerly awaiting the rest of the unit pics.
Especialy Prussia.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Thanks Joe! Prussia is my favorite country of the time, and it should be enjoyable cleaning up central Europe with their invincible army.

Originally posted by Smoking mirror
Looking good, I would recomend a remodeling of England; especialy London and Kent, right now kent is represented by a single mined square; through out history the towns in kent have proved an important industrial and cultural center of the south. Dover or canterbury should be included with london moved up slightly. You dont have to make it so that the city has a full city radius, just enough so that it can be represented.

perhaps just an extra land square would be good.
Also a few size one cities in scotland/Ireland would be good, even if its just for extra trade. Also even a single shield will produce a unit eventualy.

I'm trying to make the population and size of Britain as small as possible, and even now Britain has almost as many people as Russia and France, which just isn't right. If you have suggestions for better city names/locations, let me know, but I'm somewhat against adding even more cities to Britain at the moment.

 

[Jon Shafer]

One thing I'd like to know if someone has accurate info is how each nation's cavalry stacked up. I have a very good idea of how good each nation's infantry was, but on cavalry I'm a bit sketchy, so if anyone knows more than me I would appreciate if they would inform me.

 

[Jon Shafer]

New update for the first post. Remember to refresh to see the new mini map, otherwise it'll look the same.

 

[Steph]

Well, I've decided a break in France picture, as they are quite common. Instead, I have some pictures for Spain and Poland.

So here's come the poles! 2 Infantry, and 4 cavalry
1 = Grenadier, 1808
2 = Grenadier, 1806
3 = Lancer, 1808 (cavalry)
4 = Ulhan, 1807-1814
5 = Krakus; 1813
6 = Hussar, 1807-1814

The most significant part of poles uniform was their hat (picture 2,3 and 4)

 

[Steph]

Now some early Spanish infantry
1 = Line infantry, 1808
2 = Light Infantry, 1808
3 = Grenadier, 1808
4 = Gunner, 1808
5 = Gunner, 180
6-7 = Grenadier, 1807-1808. I like their hat : Spain only!

 

[Steph]

Spanish cavalry
1,2 = hussar 1808
3 - Line cavalry 1808
4 - Dragoon 1808
5 - "Cazador", 1808 (Chasseur)

 

[Steph]

To finish with Spain, late infantry

1 = Grenadier
2 = Officer (chasseur)
2 = Light Infantry
4 = Rifleman
5 = Chasseur

 

[Steph]

Last pics for today, we go not to far from Spain : Portuguese infantry. Next time, I should post Sweden and Austria

 

[Steph]

About cavalry, here is my own statement. It's just my personnal opinion, backed by some reading, so others may see things differently.

France : very brave and bold cavalry, with excellent officers. I would give French cavalry the best attack, but a lower defense : their charge is terriffic, but they can let their enthousiasm bring them in dangerous situation.

Russia : average cavalry, good cossacks for harassing technique. I would give cossacks +1 move.

Austria : some very good caavalry units, at least in the beginning of the war. Should be one of the best early cav.

Prussia : outdated tactics at the start of the period. Should be worse than other. Better for late unit.

England : overall, poor cavalry, and seldom used by its officer. The strength of England should be its infantry.

No info for the other countries.

By the way Trip, was is the current status of infantry?

And I agree Prussia had a major role in the period.

"The English hated Napoleon so much they were ready to fight him to the last Prussian".

 

[Jon Shafer]

Thanks for the pictures and the cav info, both will be very useful. I didn't know that about the cavalry, so I appreciate that most of all.

Right now for infantry units, I have 1792 and 1805 flavors of muskets, I have 1 type of Militia (for all major powers only), and some other fairly 'custom' units, like British early riflemen, Turkish Janissaries, etc. I'm not sure if I can fit in light infantry somewhere though... the 'scout/ZoC' type unit is bundled into the 3 movment Hussar, making it of much greater importance than light infantry in the role. There is already a weaker, cheaper version of muskets (militia), so that may be redundant. I don't want to add a wasted unit. For example, all mounted units have an express purpose. Cavalry units are designed mainly as mounted, fast infantry. Dragoons have a high attack, low defense, and high cost. Hussars are quick-hit ZoC and recon. Each has an expresss purpose. If you have an recommendations on how to impliment light infantry please post them.

 

[Steph]

First cavalry :
- Heavy cavalry were mainly cuirassier, so they should have a decent defense, but they main purpose was to breal the ennemy. So I would give a good attack, and lower defense (as the tank). Perhaps also blitz capability.
- Dragoon : armed with rifle and sword. As they were more polyvalent, I would give them a attack slightly better than defense, and a bombard strenght with 0 range (so they can fire at incoming unit).
- Hussar : ZOC, 3 MP, low attack/defense (compared to other cavalry).

I think you have mixed cavalry and dragoon. And Cuirassier would be a better name, as dragoon and hussar are part of the cavalry.

For infantry :
- Line infantry : standard unit, with defense slighty better than attack.
- Light infantry : bombard strength, with 0 range. There purpose is to fight skirmishes, and reduce the strength of attacking troop before they are in contact.
- Grenadier / Guard : higher cost, but with better state, especially attacl. Big strong guys used to break ennemy unit.

I would drop the militia, as not so many countries really used militia.

Instead, you could have units specific to some civ :
- France will have a very strong imperial guard
- England could have highlander
- Prussia will have landwehr (low cost militia).
- Russia will get deadly cossacks.
- Austria : could be hungarian infantry ?
- Spain will have guerilla



And finding uniform for light infantry will be a lot easier than for militia.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Steph
First cavalry :
- Heavy cavalry were mainly cuirassier, so they should have a decent defense, but they main purpose was to breal the ennemy. So I would give a good attack, and lower defense (as the tank). Perhaps also blitz capability.

That's what I was planning on changing it to, and like you said, I had Cuirassier and Dragoon switched around.

- Dragoon : armed with rifle and sword. As they were more polyvalent, I would give them a attack slightly better than defense, and a bombard strenght with 0 range (so they can fire at incoming unit).
- Hussar : ZOC, 3 MP, low attack/defense (compared to other cavalry).

That's what I have currently, aside from the Dragoon having a bombard strength... do you think you should make the cavalry even stronger? I think the Dragoons were mainly meant for skirmishing. Their carbines weren't really designed for regular musket combat.

I think you have mixed cavalry and dragoon. And Cuirassier would be a better name, as dragoon and hussar are part of the cavalry.

You're right, somewhere within my making the units I switched those two.

For infantry :
- Line infantry : standard unit, with defense slighty better than attack.
- Light infantry : bombard strength, with 0 range. There purpose is to fight skirmishes, and reduce the strength of attacking troop before they are in contact.
- Grenadier / Guard : higher cost, but with better state, especially attacl. Big strong guys used to break ennemy unit.

I would drop the militia, as not so many countries really used militia.

Good call there. I'll get rid of the militia and make it Light Infantry instead. Also a good call with the 0 range bombard... that does outline the Light Infantry's role as well as it possibly could within the Civ 3 engine. And I'm changing the Imperial Guard unit to Grenadiers, and making the Imperial Guard something different.

Instead, you could have units specific to some civ :
- France will have a very strong imperial guard
- England could have highlander
- Prussia will have landwehr (low cost militia).
- Russia will get deadly cossacks.
- Austria : could be hungarian infantry ?
- Spain will have guerilla

I'll look into implimenting those, they're good ideas. I'll probably give Austria Freikorps, which are similar to Landwehr. The true 'unique' units will help give flavor to each nation, rather than having different strength versions of the same unit.

And finding uniform for light infantry will be a lot easier than for militia.

Very true.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Something that you may know that I don't is which nations don't have the units I have listed for the current scenario roster. It would be useful in working on the complete unit stat list.

 

[Jon Shafer]

3rd project update in the first post.

I've placed all of the nations navies on the map now. I'll give you the numbers that each has of each type of ship. If I don't name a unit, then it doesn't have any ships. The total warship count at the end doesn't include transports.

Ship list being redone.

 

[Steph]

About Grenadiers : dispite their name, they didn't use grenade at all. In fact, Grenadier stopped to use grenade at least 50 years before. Strangely, they kept for a long time on their uniform a small device that was used to carry the mesh used to lit the grenade, even if this device was empty.

At that time, Grenadier were big strong guys. Their role was to lead the other forces (and even sometimes to push them).

 

[Steph]

Comment about the different units and their availability to countries.

France : had all of them (and some more, especially for cavalry).
Prussia : all of them. Light Infantry ) jaeger. Also had Ulhan cavalry and landwehr (militia).
England : infantry : all + rifleman and highlander. Cavalry : no cuirassier
Austria : all of them + ulhan and landwehr, but no guard.
Russia : all of them + ulhan + cossacks

Not : almost all country had guard.

And I have picture for all these units.

I don't have a lot of info for minor countries

 

[Jon Shafer]

What's an Ulhan Steph? Not sure if I've heard of those before. Not sure if I want to go overboard on units (I've got quite a few for such a short period of warfare already), but if it's important enough to include I suppose I should look into adding it.

Thanks for the info on the countries. I think I'll leave the minors' rosters somewhat thinner than the majors, since that was most likely the case anyways (how often do you see the Papal States running around getting into wars? ).

Oh, and the 4th project update now in the first post.

 

[Arne]

Originally posted by Trip
What's an Ulhan Steph? Not sure if I've heard of those before.

I'm not Steph, but I think I can help too. As far I know, ulan is nearly somthing like a Hussar. The Ulan was originaly a polish lancer, I think. Later the most european armys formed their own lancer regiments, some of them dressed and equipped almost identically like the ulans.

Here is a russian pic called "Ulan from 1805".