Hello.

I'd like to introduce all of the Hawks and Guests to participate in my new Grand Map Project.
I'm aiming to create the Waterloo Campaign map. Size: HUGE.
The point is I want to try something much different from just a single battle and expand our online battle experience from the tactical level to strategy level. Playing on a huge map has many advantages! Firstly, we get to play several battles on one map. Secondly, we can expand our organisation and maneuverability skill. We get to command big units, we must minimize our losses in order to fight another battle. We have the room for withdrawal.
Thirdly, we can now experience the difficulties of doing the XIX-century warfare - without radios, cars, trains and other modern devices, where it takes days for some divisions to gain contact with the enemy or unite with the allies. We will get to know the importance of speed, while delivering units from one corner of the map to another... lalala and so on.

Now a question for the experienced map makers:
is it actually possible to create a whole campaign on one map?
Won't the game crash due to many units? The unit limit for one player is said to be around 8000. What if I increased the number of players to say 4? Does that mean placing 20k units on a map will be ok?
Also, I've read that the game tends to remove tons of objects... Is the sprite object limit bearable or is it ridiculously low?

It'd be also appreciated if a person or two helped me make the map or the armies. I will also need to consult each step of my work with you, as I know only a little about the Waterloo campaign. There aren't even any accurate maps.
The only map I found is the one below, however it doesnt show any topography details, such as hills, rivers...

Any info on anything would be helpful and appreciated.


What do you think? Is it going to be a useless effort?

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It is a wonderful idea Foxy but alas it is not possible and I fear any attempt will prove to be a waste of time.

The 'huge' map in the editor does, as you say, eliminate placed sprites and seems to do so after only a very few have been placed. It is too unstable to make a map upon and in addition it is now firmly established that around 14k - 15k troops in total is the safe amount for a map to run without problems, although it is sometimes possible to squeeze a few more in.

You may have to try some different ideas. I recall I had a fairly good idea for a Waterloo campaign and wrote some rules but never got round to developing it, maybe you could?

The premise was to have 4 players, each taking the role of a personality (Napoleon, Ney, Wellington and Blucher) each having to make a strategic decision in ignorance of their fellow player and as a result of that decision a different map with different "consequences" as a result of their combined decision being played.

[e.g. Napoleon has to decided whether to order D'Erlon to march to Ligny or Quatre Bras or to stay in reserve etc etc. . . and Ney also has to decide whether to order D'Erlon to march to Quatre Bras or Ligny or to support him as a reserve etc... depending on which choice is made by each player will depend on whether D'Erlon appears at Ligny, Quatre Bras, straight away or only after a time delay or appears at neither battlefield at all!!!]

And I recall that the idea for the final confrontation at Waterloo was to have the 'Napoleon' player unable to move around the map and promising to fix his game screen on a zoomed in spot of his command post with only the mini map to assist him and then having control over which elements of the army can be released to the 'Ney' player and only being able to release a set of units every 15mins or so.

They were some of the ideas, but as I say, I never followed it through. Feel free to use them but I would not waste your time trying anything on a huge map, that way madness lies.

Stu

Hehe, i planned doing this some 2 years ago, but had to quit for the same reasons Stu said...

The funny thing is I was planning doing this on the waterloo campaing aswell as you do! But is probably waste of time since as he said huge maps are totaly unstable, prone to crashing and eraseing half of the maps content!

But if u pull it off gz m8!

Oh btw try using as least as possible sprites!

gex

make sure u put the right number of highland batallions

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Huge maps dont work they just crash

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I was wondering if you could make the maps the same size they are in now, but with differant parts of the battlfield played, say the right half/centre and left say three maps with the before battles and after maybe with the Prussians chasing the field.

This could then be made into a campaign under Waterloo.

'Just a thought'.

That's what I started doing with Gettysburg in DN - none of my historical maps are the whole battle, always just a section of it.

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HighlanderS:D

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