Battle Maps as Teaching Aids

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

I wonder if anyone can help me.

I teach a class every January, in which I use 'Total War' as a platform to analyse the battlefield tactics of some of the world's greatest generals, and get my students to pit generals who never fought one another against each other.

This January, I'm expanding from 'Rome: Total War' into the horse & musket era, but I find the generic scenario maps provided in 'Empire' quite limiting. I can use Grassy Flatland III for Gustavus Adolphus; I can just about get away with Homestead III for Marlborough at Blenheim and Friedrich at Leuthen; and Syrian Ridge III works pretty well for Napoleon at Austerlitz, but I'm having real problems with Wellington.

Is there any way that I can import the Waterloo battlefield terrain from 'Napoleon: Total War' into the 'Empire' database? Please bear in mind that I am a technical klutz, so if it involves anything more than the moving or importing of pre-constructed files, I'm not likely to be up to it.

Frankly, I'd prefer to do Wellington at Salamanca, as that shows him in both a defensive and offensive light, but I can't see any scenario map which works for that.

Also, when trying to test the 3v3 scenarios in single player mode, I don't seem able to give myself the centre to control. Does anyone know a way I can do that?

Any help you can give me would be really appreciated.

[LEGIO_Desaix]

You would really want my Waterloo historical scenarios with detailed units and OOB. But it's only for NTW.
You can then play in a 1vs1 with a friend of yours and save the replay to be shown to your students.
That would be really a class I'd like to attend to

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

Thanks Desaix, but the way the class works, I really need to be able to construct individual scenarios on Empire: Total War maps.

The whole idea is that the students break down the battle tactics of, say Friedrich at Leuthen and Wellington at Salamanca. Then we pit the 2 together on terrain that approximates Salamanca, using a variant of their strategies.

I've already done this very successfully for the ancient world using RTW. But ETW doesn't have nearly as many useful maps, and doesn't allow the same flexibility in setting scenarios as RTW. Still, i think I've found a way of using Syrian Ridge III for Austerlitz AND Salamanca, so I'm getting there.

One thing I find very frustrating, though, is when I create a 3v3 1-player battle to test the matchups, the system only allows me to take the flanks of the 'home' army or the right flank of the 'away' army. There seems to be no way that I can tell a 3v3 1-player v AI custom battle to let me control the centre of either army. Do you know if that's possible?

[LEGIO_Desaix]

Thanks Desaix, but the way the class works, I really need to be able to construct individual scenarios on Empire: Total War maps.

The whole idea is that the students break down the battle tactics of, say Friedrich at Leuthen and Wellington at Salamanca. Then we pit the 2 together on terrain that approximates Salamanca, using a variant of their strategies.

I've already done this very successfully for the ancient world using RTW. But ETW doesn't have nearly as many useful maps, and doesn't allow the same flexibility in setting scenarios as RTW. Still, i think I've found a way of using Syrian Ridge III for Austerlitz AND Salamanca, so I'm getting there.

One thing I find very frustrating, though, is when I create a 3v3 1-player battle to test the matchups, the system only allows me to take the flanks of the 'home' army or the right flank of the 'away' army. There seems to be no way that I can tell a 3v3 1-player v AI custom battle to let me control the centre of either army. Do you know if that's possible?

That is possible if you set an historical scenario.

I see. My editor would make this kind of historical set up very easy to manage. If you are flexible regarding the choice of battle I suggest you check NTW3 after public release (prolly end of this week or begin of next one) with the alredy developed battles of Marengo, Auerstadt and Montebello.
They come with a detailed map, historical deployment, detailed uniform and OOB. I could set any wanted scenario for those battle like giving player 2 15 units and player 2 30 units and so on.

Salamanca is on my to do list but I think it will follow Corunna for what I've been already provided with a detailed OOB.

But worst of all they are for NTW, no chance they can work with Empire.

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

OK thanks, I'll look into it, but since they're not for Empire, that could be a problem.

[King Sama]

There seems to be no way that I can tell a 3v3 1-player v AI custom battle to let me control the centre of either army. Do you know if that's possible?

I thought that if you made yourself the 2nd or 3rd player in the list rather than the first, then you would be placed in that position Or is this not possible in Empire?

I wish I could take a class like that

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

That's my problem. It won't let me choose which player to be. All it lets me do is 'swap sides', which flips you from the left flank of Team 1 to the left flank of Team 2. Then if you 'swap sides' again, you can toggle infinitely between the Team 1's right and Team 2's left.

Very frustrating when the key position is the centre.

[LEGIO_Desaix]

No, you cannot select army, just side. That choice is only available in historical battle.

[King Sama]

Btw, a mapper here on TWC (falconpilot) has recently suceeded in porting a NTW map (the pyramids) to ETW. The only problem is that as of yet it is only possible without buildings. I dont know if this is of any use, but I thought it might be interesting to you if you plan on doing napoleonic scenarios in NTW.

[LEGIO_Desaix]

Porting a NTW map to ETW should be quite easy, just changing a couple of files and compiling the trees and buildings list with correct names. No difference elsewhere I guess. Maybe splitting the alpha channel from grass map to have a new layer.

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

Can you talk me through this? I don't even know where to start. Let's say I want to port the NTW Waterloo map into ETW. What do I do?

[Invictus XII]

Or you could buy NTW. Its really quite cheap and much easier and lighter on the graphics performance than ETW. Plus you could use Desaix's maps. And it is 1000 times more historically accurate than ETW.

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

I already have NTW, but if you read the rest of this thread, that's not the point. For the class, I need to be able to field armies from both the early and late eras (eg. Gustavus Adolphus, Marlborough, Friedrich) as well as Napoleonic armies on battlefields that at least vaguely represent the historical battlefields of Breitenfeld, Blenheim, Leuthen, Austerlitz, Salamanca, Waterloo etc.

The point is to find out how eg. Friedrich would have done if it was he instead of Marmont trying to outflank Wellington at Salamanca. So I don't need or want 'historical' battle scenarios - I need to be able to create multiple scenarios on vaguely historical battlefields with anachronistic armies.

NTW is too restricting in the army types it gives me. ETW is too restrictive in the 3v3 battle maps it provides. I can just about get away with it up to Napoleon at Austerlitz, but finding terrain that allows the students to accurately mimic Wellington is difficult. Syrian Ridge III is the best of a bad job, and actually works reasonably well for Salamanca, but it doesn't really have enough high ground to mimic Waterloo.

So, if anyone can find me a way to import a map for Waterloo into ETW, I would be very grateful.

Oh, and if there's a way to field BOTH early and late armies in a scenario, I'd love to know how. At the moment, I'm forced to create early versions of Napoleonic armies to pit Napoleon or Wellington against the pike blocs of Gustavus Adolphus.

[LEGIO_Desaix]

I'm so sorry I cannot help to port Waterloo map right now because we're so busy with NTW3 beta release I have no time to work on anything else.
Problem is you need to update tree layout, buildings name and rework some graphic map, more than a week of work I guess.

You wrote you don't need or want historical scenarios, but I think instead is exactly what you're looking for (i.e the chance to put on a given map some unit with a given strenght and position) but dealing with them is not trivial at all.

[M. Licinius Ibeii]

No problem Desaix, if it's not a simple job of identifying the file & transferring it across, I probably wouldn't be up to it anyway.

I get your point re. historical scenarios. I suppose what I mean is that uploading a scenario which just gives me the terrain and historical dispositions at Salamanca, for instance, without the ability to completely replace the Napoleonic army of Marmont with that of Friedrich from Leuthen is useless to me.

For example, I have just constructed a scenario which tests Arther Ferrill's (mistaken) assumption that Alexander the Great's army could have won Waterloo in place of Napoleon: by replacing Napoleon's army with an early Polish force made up of pike blocs supported by skirmishers and massively experienced Winged Hussars as Companion Cavalry. I'd love to do this on the Waterloo map, but currently have to make do with Syrian Ridge. It still makes the point, however, that no matter how good your Companions are, they still can't break an infantry square supported by artillery, and pike blocs vs the British Redcoats are going to suffer the same fate as the Imperial Guard as they crest the ridge.

Good luck with NTW3, and thanks for taking the time to discuss this with me.