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Rob Zacny

Episode 388: Scourge of War: Waterloo

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Three Moves Ahead 388:

Three Moves Ahead 388


Scourge of War: Waterloo
Rob, Rowan, and Troy "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster" Goodfellow talk about Scourge of War: Waterloo. Waterloo is the first departure for the Take Command series in which we travel to a conflict outside of the American Civil War. Rowan has concerns about forts and Rob has concerns about... a few other things.

Scourge of War: Waterloo

 

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I think, to be quite honest, the 'on the field' camera perspective is disadvantageous to the gameplay of strategy games in general.  One of the reasons Sid Meier's Gettysburg was more managable than Scourge of War is that the perspective is based on old maps that were made to inform.  There's also more abstraction in that game but I think there's a very good reason strategy games tend toward a higher perspective than SoW typically allows.

 

Also, I think automation is a very poor solution to dealing with the problems of the player not being able to manage the forces at his disposal- the perspective, interface, and level of abstraction can all be adjusted to make units more manageable and I think that the further they got away from Gettysburg's qualities(from TC Bull Run to Waterloo) the less manageable the game gets and the more it leans on the gimmicks.

 

That being said, if you're looking for a battle with a sense of scale, it's hard to match Scourge of War, and it's a testament to how much better it is to work with real military units rather than Total War's generic approximations.

 

Also interesting to me is that the experience of watching the number on a brigade go down very quickly with a devastating volley in Ultimate General is almost more satisfying to me than seeing a cavalry charge hit its mark in Total War.

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The story of this "franchise" or rather, line of games, is truly fraught. Starting with what Polygon called the "The Public Death of Mad Minute Games"

 

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/2/21/3996460/civil-war-mad-minute

 

and eventually, what we can scoop from the rumour mill on the "Matrix" branded forums of SOW publisher, Slitherine

 

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3882336&mpage=4&key=#

 

which I quote here with typos and all.

 

Quote

Redmarkus4, 

Your taking this a bit personal. I am not affiliated with nor have I ever been a member of Norbsoft, but from what I have seen and heard(if you can believe 2nd and 3rd hand accounts) this is what happened. 

Norbsoft has a good American Civil War title. Matrix picked them up and immediately wanted new titles that they could market. Norbsoft made a expansion for current users and a stand alone game for new users called Chancellorsville. After that, Norbsoft decided to move its concepts into Napoleonics. The Waterloo anniverserary was coming up and it would be good for sales and Matrix wanted it. Matrix will deny the following, but it is all very true. Matrix wanted Norbsoft to design a new interface in the game and have the game out by the anniverserary. Matrix was very involved in telling Norbsoft what THEY wanted. Norbsoft spent vast ammounts of time on the new GUI and other things that they didn't have to. When it came to things that they really needed to look at and work out for Napoleonics warefare very little was done. Yes there is squares and cavalry and the like, but tracking in any Napoleonic game is crucial was left not seriously addressed. Formations and movements again was not looked at. Changing the AI for sub commanders didn't change much from the Civil War series. 

My point is is that Norbsoft was directed and pressured by Matrix and a very lacking product was put out. Again, Matrix will deny, but it was Matrix's idea to change the GUI (so the game could be marketed to younger players???????? Even though younger players who play Gettysburg don't like the new GUI) and it was Matrix's date that Norbsoft felt compelled to hit. I mean when the game came out there wasn't even a final combat information screen showing casualties. Just read the acknowledgments written by Norb himself with the release of the game and you can get the feel of the pressure that they were under. 

This is Matrix's disaster and for the ones of us who support Norbsoft it may be over. There is no talk of new titles or expansions beyond what was already planned. Matrix may have killed Norbsoft. They will say sales are good and this is all rubbish and sales are good, but the future doesn't look so good or we would hear about more titles etc. Nothing. 

Personally, out of the players that I know, lets say around 25, all but a few have put the game down. It is a shame really, but the games potential was lost. 

Now please do not knock the players who are enjoying the game. It does have flashes of greatness and where else can you put out the types of battles that the game engine does? The Kriegspiel mod makes the game more playable and the online experience is good (if you can get past the new GUI) 

When I say new GUI, the pop up commands are optional and do work okay. What I am talking about is that they changed everything else from the Gettysburg game. Once clear and easy to navigate is now clumsy and covered with smoke. 

 

This post f I think illustrates some of the themes in the podcast. With a player base which probably can be counted to be in the hundreds, stuff like the "conga lines" or "cartwheels" we get in this installment (and which have been present to a lesser degree in the Civil War titles in my experience) going unadressed just kill the game for good. The UI I think was an improvement in some departments with respect to the "legacy" Civil War games ones, as I find it "cleaner", but there was a distinct feel of it not being "finished" or major features from the ACW games just being cut out. From posts like the above what I read between the lines is that an overhaul of the existing UI wasn't properly supported by a revision of long standing complaints about the AI, neither by revisions to existing systems to please the most discerning - when it comes to historicity of tactics etc. - customers.

 

Anyways, probably it's too late for SOW (and also to HistWar, a title with similar ambitions of scope, but less well thought-out in my opinion). Looking forward to the next iteration of the concept, even if I don't think there's an audience to justify the effort, to be very honest.

 

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51 minutes ago, panzeh said:

I think, to be quite honest, the 'on the field' camera perspective is disadvantageous to the gameplay of strategy games in general.  One of the reasons Sid Meier's Gettysburg was more managable than Scourge of War is that the perspective is based on old maps that were made to inform.  There's also more abstraction in that game but I think there's a very good reason strategy games tend toward a higher perspective than SoW typically allows.

 

Also, I think automation is a very poor solution to dealing with the problems of the player not being able to manage the forces at his disposal- the perspective, interface, and level of abstraction can all be adjusted to make units more manageable and I think that the further they got away from Gettysburg's qualities(from TC Bull Run to Waterloo) the less manageable the game gets and the more it leans on the gimmicks.

 

That being said, if you're looking for a battle with a sense of scale, it's hard to match Scourge of War, and it's a testament to how much better it is to work with real military units rather than Total War's generic approximations.

 

Also interesting to me is that the experience of watching the number on a brigade go down very quickly with a devastating volley in Ultimate General is almost more satisfying to me than seeing a cavalry charge hit its mark in Total War.

 

Well, the "on the field" or, rather, "in the saddle" is meant to be part of a immersive experience, which has way more to do with what Mount & Blade does when you go in the battlefield next to your men, than what more traditional war games do. I do think that the original concept of this series (and followed on by the Mad Minute Games titles) has a lot of merit: you are dropped in the middle of a "critical point" of the battlefield, and you need to handle whatever the game throws at you. One gets to appreciate generalship better.

 

Obviously, this concept totally breaks down when you move anywhere past the Division level - there was a reason historically Corps and Army commanders had (and still have!) an entourage of officers around him at all times. It is just too much detail for a human to comprenhend. Automation can go a long way in having those "virtual troops" animated and acting in a concerted fashion. That is, it helps with the mechanical aspects of "pushing counters" forward or backwards. But it does not come for free, as it requires a great deal of technical effort and if you get it "totally right". That is unlikely since you can program as many "clever" reactions in your AI to specific contingencies arising in the battlefield as you have time to actually 1) understand the problem posed by that contingency in the context of whatever the AI was supposed to be doing, 2) work out an algorithm or heuristic to deal with it, 3) test it for "correctness" and 4) get feedback from your beta testers/co designers advising to iron out possible kinks. The amount of time you can devote to that will easily eat out any other time you could devote to improve the presentation (and actually deal with the cognitive overload), work out a useable user interface, develop workable multiplayer modes to nurture a sense of community around your game, and so on.

 

That's why SOW feels "unpolished" or even "unfinished". Because, quite simply, there weren't the resources to do so.

 

The sad truth is that there isn't just enough of an audience out there to support several programmers working on parallel (leaving aside beautiful 3D models or animations). Unless you outsource that to countries were labour is cheap and cheerful, like UGCW does, partnering with a Belarus (?) based development team. If you don't plan to outsource that programming work, and you are not moving to Thailand (as Total War's original designer R.T. Smith has done) or Indonesia, then certainly the only option to work on a war game like these is to do it part time (almost in homeopatic quantities) and have a real job that pays the bills. Because if your audience is, say, about 10,000 people, of which 90% expect your game to be priced at a similar level as other games in the store - e.g. 25 USD - the revenue you will get is capped at about 170,000 USD (after discounting the 30% fee from fulfillment via some established online store). That sounds like a lot of money but it isn't. Since from that you need to cover:

 

 - Salaries for the Art and Graphic Design 

 - Expenses in Hardware or Software Licenses or Royalties paid to engine makers

 - Taxes and Administrative Expenses

 - Salaries for programmers

 - A monthly salary for yourself

 

So actually viable development cycles for this kind of games are measured in years not months. This is an issue in the current state of things, where people expect developers to engage in a hourly basis through various social networks, expecting if not fixes for issues on a really short notice, feedback on everything they post, be it an insightful, constructive critique, or an outrageously ludicrous rant. It's just too much to anyone to handle by themselves.

 

That's pretty much why I haven't got involved in this business, other than as a volunteer putting some odd hours during nights and weekends on a project that inspires me. Is that a viable development model for this genre? I don't think so either... If the price of software is what it is for good, then, what is the model that can work for the developers?

 

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8 hours ago, Bletchley_Geek said:

 

Well, the "on the field" or, rather, "in the saddle" is meant to be part of a immersive experience, which has way more to do with what Mount & Blade does when you go in the battlefield next to your men, than what more traditional war games do. I do think that the original concept of this series (and followed on by the Mad Minute Games titles) has a lot of merit: you are dropped in the middle of a "critical point" of the battlefield, and you need to handle whatever the game throws at you. One gets to appreciate generalship better.

 

Obviously, this concept totally breaks down when you move anywhere past the Division level - there was a reason historically Corps and Army commanders had (and still have!) an entourage of officers around him at all times. It is just too much detail for a human to comprenhend. Automation can go a long way in having those "virtual troops" animated and acting in a concerted fashion. That is, it helps with the mechanical aspects of "pushing counters" forward or backwards. But it does not come for free, as it requires a great deal of technical effort and if you get it "totally right". That is unlikely since you can program as many "clever" reactions in your AI to specific contingencies arising in the battlefield as you have time to actually 1) understand the problem posed by that contingency in the context of whatever the AI was supposed to be doing, 2) work out an algorithm or heuristic to deal with it, 3) test it for "correctness" and 4) get feedback from your beta testers/co designers advising to iron out possible kinks. The amount of time you can devote to that will easily eat out any other time you could devote to improve the presentation (and actually deal with the cognitive overload), work out a useable user interface, develop workable multiplayer modes to nurture a sense of community around your game, and so on.

 

That's why SOW feels "unpolished" or even "unfinished". Because, quite simply, there weren't the resources to do so.

 

 

It is impressive seeing such a studio come out with such an ambitious game, and yeah, likening it to commanding troops in Mount & Blade is a really solid comparison.  It's an interesting game concept that comes with its own limitations but can still be wonderful when it works.  I think as the game got more tactically complex, it became even harder for the AI to play it well.

 

A lot of it also comes down to scenario design- because you have to traverse a 3d space to go around parts on the map, you can't really have a geographically huge scenario be manageable for a single player.  The earlier games were a lot better about that.  I've seen so many games come out with interesting premises and scenarios that did a poor job of showing off what the game was all about.

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Very bold it was, and still is.

 

On 14/03/2017 at 8:46 PM, panzeh said:

 

 

 

A lot of it also comes down to scenario design- because you have to traverse a 3d space to go around parts on the map, you can't really have a geographically huge scenario be manageable for a single player.  The earlier games were a lot better about that.  I've seen so many games come out with interesting premises and scenarios that did a poor job of showing off what the game was all about.

That happens remarkably often. 

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