What side are you on?

[kAISER9701]

Hmmm.

I choose ... the French! ... which intervened in Mexico during the period of the American Civil War.

Had they succeeded in propping up the 2nd Mexican Empire, they probably would have goaded the Mexicans to re-take Texas.

(I hear the grand campaign mode only allows choosing the Union or the Confederacy .. so, yeah, no luck on being a Frenchman pooh-pooh-ing the Monroe doctrine)

[Primergy]

Hmm, since this mod is called "American civil war: the blue and the grey" i always believed it should be obvious that it's a mod about the american civil war and not about the french, mexicans and russians aswell .

But it's interesting to see, how many people would be interested in a more global 19th mod/game.

[kAISER9701]

Oooh. I don't want the team to be distracted from the main focus of the mod at this stage. Just keep on the good works.

[Flavious]

A quick progress report:

Gettysburg Day 2 is in the finishing stages. I'm pleased to say it looks unbelievably good -- when I look at actual photos of the battlefield, I can easily find the same POV on the map and I'm astonished at the resemblance. The battlefield is so thoroughly photographed that I can find almost any area online, and check it against my map as I go.

All the basics of terrain and textures are done, trees are placed, deployment zones set, grass maps done.

I'm in the object-placing stage now. Buildings are done, and now it's on to other objects -- mainly rocks and boulders, particularly around Devil's Den and the W. slope of Little Round Top. I'm pleased that the terrain on that W. slope came out just as rough and mostly impassable as in real life, too.

Once the rocks and other eye-candy objects are done, I'm going to try Primergy's latest version of rail fences to see if they work in-game. If they do, I'll be busy for a while planting those all over Gettysburg.

But then it's just a matter of a few tweaks here and there (I'm still not happy with the way Plum Run looks -- I'm experimenting with various brush techniques to make the creek. There won't be the ETW water effect on this map, since the creek isn't that deep and can more effectively be simulated by a texture. I save the water effect for rivers or lakes or major bodies of water where bridges and fords to play a role in shaping the battlefield). Not having water effect also means a lower hit on your graphics card, so all the rocks and objects can be on the map without adding any lag issues.

Having the 1868 Batchelder map as a source really speeded things up - I was able to use it as a tracing layer in Gimp, so it gave me totally accurate placement for vegetation, buildings, roads, etc, without my having to create a template map of my own. He even used different lines to represent walls, rail fences, post-and-board fences, etc., so if I have working models for those I know exactly where they go.

If the fences work, my next project after G'burg will be to go back and put them on an updated version of Port Republic.

I'm really interested to see how this map plays in multiplayer. It's set up pretty much as in Hinkel's photo suggestion, above. The 2 Confederate forces have the entire W edge of the map, just at the E side of the Emmitsburg Road, and loads of room to the S to try and flank the Union Army.

Union player #1 will be in about the position of de Trobriand's brigade, near The Wheatfield. His right flank will be secure on the right mapedge. But he's exposed and will be racing to establish his left flank before the first Confederate wave hits him.

Union Player #2 is the wildcard -- he'll be torn between acting as a reserve to avert Union Player #1's collapse, racing to expand Player 1's left flank to the south along Houck's Ridge to Devil's Den, or going straight for a solid defensive line of his own on Little Round Top and leaving Player #1 to fend for himself.

So, I can envision a head-on and very bloody fight all around The Wheatfield, followed by lots of maneuvering and meeting engagements all over the central and southern areas of the map. Although the overall "story" of the battle is channeled by the map to more or less follow history, it could play out in many different ways depending on where the Confederate flanking forces on the southern half of the map choose their attack route or hit the Union line.

The Confederates could skip the flanking movement altogether and just throw everything at Union player #1, hoping to defeat him in quickly in detail and then proceed en masse to crush Union player #2. But that also gives the Union #2 player more time to set up his own defense and choose his ground.

Flavious

[Lord Ency]

Confederate!

[Flavious]

Just thought of a couple more Union strategies for this map:

1. "Meade Takes Command" (What-If) -- What if Meade noticed Sickles' exposed position in time and overruled him, forcing him to return to the main Union line? In this strategy, Union player #1 doesn't stand and fight at all -- just leaves a rearguard in the woods near Rose Farm to screen the withdrawal and fool the Confederates into thinking the main body is still there. In the meantime, Union PLayer #1 runs like hell for a position along the N. half of Little Round Top to Cemetery Ridge, while Union Player #2 takes the line from the S half of Little Round Top to the "saddle" between the round tops.

2. "Custer's Grand Stand" -- Union Player #1 stands and fights along the Wheatfield-Houck's Ridge line. Union PLayer #2 makes an army of 50% infantry/artillery (moving the infantry/artillery half into position as reserve/flank/maneuver element to support Player #1), and 50% cavalry-horse artillery. This mobile force screens the entire Union left, slowing and harassing any Confederate flanking effort to the point that it becomes isolated and can't really make any meaningful impact on the battle. The cavalry's scouting ability also gives the Union players "eyes and ears" all over the southern half of the map, minimizing the chances of any suprise in that area.

Come on, you generals -- put forward your battle plans and let's see what you've got!

[Wess_Hudson]

Flavious.............I'm.........I'm crying! But tears of joy!!

I can't wait to edit a new Map Overview Video for Gettysburg.
Shiloh is almost done.

Keep it up! Sounds great

Wess

[Poudjik]

Where do you get your topographic data from?

That sounds just amazing to plugin real geographic data and throw it in almost instantly into a 3D sketch. Me want to know moarr!!!!

[Primergy]

Which technique flavious is using i don't know, but i used google earth and microdem to convert the DEM files to a greyscale format.

This is described in this tutorial:

http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=607176

[austin.weathers]

Just thought of a couple more Union strategies for this map:

1. "Meade Takes Command" (What-If) -- What if Meade noticed Sickles' exposed position in time and overruled him, forcing him to return to the main Union line? In this strategy, Union player #1 doesn't stand and fight at all -- just leaves a rearguard in the woods near Rose Farm to screen the withdrawal and fool the Confederates into thinking the main body is still there. In the meantime, Union PLayer #1 runs like hell for a position along the N. half of Little Round Top to Cemetery Ridge, while Union Player #2 takes the line from the S half of Little Round Top to the "saddle" between the round tops.

2. "Custer's Grand Stand" -- Union Player #1 stands and fights along the Wheatfield-Houck's Ridge line. Union PLayer #2 makes an army of 50% infantry/artillery (moving the infantry/artillery half into position as reserve/flank/maneuver element to support Player #1), and 50% cavalry-horse artillery. This mobile force screens the entire Union left, slowing and harassing any Confederate flanking effort to the point that it becomes isolated and can't really make any meaningful impact on the battle. The cavalry's scouting ability also gives the Union players "eyes and ears" all over the southern half of the map, minimizing the chances of any suprise in that area.

Come on, you generals -- put forward your battle plans and let's see what you've got!

Gen. Hood's Plea:
When surveying the task that he was given, John Bell Hood began pleading with Gen. James Longstreet to allow him to swing his division around Big Round Top and get into the Union Army's flank and rear. The typically recklessly brave Hood foresaw the destruction that awaited his division should it carry on the attack as ordered and push through Devils Den and the Valley of Death on toward Little Round Top. The attack never happened in reality, but you can now take control and realize Hood's vision of destroying the Union left flank!

In this situation, the Confederate commander would offer a feint with part of his force to make the enemy think that the frontal assault is coming across the Peach Orchard to Wheatfield line, while he moved the majority of his force south, making a mad dash to get up and around Big Round Top in order to crush his enemy from the rear.

[Flavious]

Good strategy ideas, Austin -- and authentic ones, at that! Soon you can see for yourself if Hood's plea would have worked.
The new hidden-units improvement in B&G will make tactical surprises very possible in this battle, as well.

On mapping techniques:

With height data downloads, it's actually easier and faster to make authentic battle maps than to create fictional ones from scratch.

I start with Google Earth, placing placemarks on the 4 corners of the 2km by 2km area I want.

Then I use a download-and-convert procedure that I discovered a few projects ago in this tutorial I found online:

http://www.christianhart.de/bb/blitz...BlitzTiles.pdf

The procedure in that tutorial involves grabbing the heightmap data from the USGS site, then converting it through several shareware programs (3DEM, Wilbur, L3DT) to eventually get a heightmap in the .RAW file format. There's a particular export setting in L3DT I discovered that exports the file perfectly to PnP Terrain Creator, preserving the maximum detail.

After that, it's just a matter of following the Lordz mapping tutorial setp by step.

It helps if you have some experience with Gimp or Photoshop, or are artistically inclined and willing to spend some time learning the capabilities of those tools.

Even then, however, there are some technical steps that can baffle and frustrate the first-time mapper -- a few little tricks here and there -- I got massively stuck several times on my very first map, but it gets very easy and quick to make maps after that. My first map took me a couple of months -- now it's about 10 days, plus a bit more for final tweaking.

I encourage anyone else who wants more maps and wants more authentic battlefields to try mapping -- If we had collaboration, we'd have a lot more maps very easily. if you're technically proficient but don't care for the artwork part, then you could just focus on getting the .RAW heightmap files from actual battlefield locations, and let someone else turn them into finished maps.

Flavious

[Saavedra]

Kinda hard to decide. On one hand, there are the Confederates, who are the Underdog that Could Fight. On the other, there are the Union, who have Joshua Lawrence "You mean charge?" Chamberlain, and Robert Gould "Bury me with my negros" Shaw.



Meh, I´m sure all the best players will go Confederates, so I´ll go Union.

[Ulysses S. Grant]

Kinda hard to decide. On one hand, there are the Confederates, who are the Underdog that Could Fight. On the other, there are the Union, who have Joshua Lawrence "You mean charge?" Chamberlain, and Robert Gould "Bury me with my negros" Shaw.



Meh, I´m sure all the best players will go Confederates, so I´ll go Union.

Yay some support. There hasn't been a lot of that recently.

[Big Pacha]

Hmm, since this mod is called "American civil war: the blue and the grey" i always believed it should be obvious that it's a mod about the american civil war and not about the french, mexicans and russians aswell .

But it's interesting to see, how many people would be interested in a more global 19th mod/game.

The B&G campaign could include the neighbors = British Dominion of Canada & Mexico, with a French "invasion", maybe as "minor nations". No "global 19th c. mod" here, just some action on the border & the possibility to make them playabe.

As for this conflict, I'd pick the Union at first. I know the South has that romantic image, but honestly... a bunch of overly rich slavers, owning all the lands like medieval lords, who sent poor hillbillies & rednecks to the slaughter only to keep their privileges & fancy mansions? I know the northern industry tycoons were not angels too, but come on... the Confederacy is morally undefendable. That being said, their chicks are hotter.

[Primergy]

A pity that this only works for the US

[Hampton Legion HQ]

Glad to see that the confederacy is winning the votes! Fight for independence!

[Lachdanan]

Well I think you can't reduce the civil war to the slavery question. It was important economically, but Lincoln himself would prioritize the preservation of the Union not the liberation of the slaves. Perhaps the taxation of the southern states was handled poorly prior to the Civil War? Perhaps the issue of the liberation of the slaves was handled poorly from the north to the south?

Another thing is: people love their home and roots so deeply they will defend their views in this question (regardless of what they are) no matter what.

The south was wrong regarding the slavery question (no one on his/her right mind is going to defend slavery only realize it existed as part of humanity since antiquity) but perhaps in other things the south was right.
---------------------------
In mods and games of the Civil War I usually play Confederates but it's only because they have better hats and music (also I do like Stonewall Jackson, Lee and Longstreet).

[kAISER9701]

Who cares about slavery in E:TW? It's a researchable technology! It ain't need no Civil War to abolish it!

[austin.weathers]

Who cares about slavery in E:TW? It's a researchable technology! It ain't need no Civil War to abolish it!

You'd be amazed at the amount of people that blow their tops over that issue in a game.

I once stated on the Napoleon board that I wished that CA would make a Civil War DLC using the Napoleon graphics and such.

People came out of the woodwork saying that it would be bad because you would have the opportunity to fight "for slavery"... despite the fact that slavery is in Empire and Medieval II.

[kenniston5]

You'd be amazed at the amount of people that blow their tops over that issue in a game.

I once stated on the Napoleon board that I wished that CA would make a Civil War DLC using the Napoleon graphics and such.

People came out of the woodwork saying that it would be bad because you would have the opportunity to fight "for slavery"... despite the fact that slavery is in Empire and Medieval II.

Yes slavery was a main topic of the war,since the introduction of the "Mason Dixon Line", But more than anything it was culture class between the north and the south which each had different beliefs from religon(catholic,protestant northerners,and southern baptist in the south) to ways of life(rural,plantation south,and industrial north).you got to remember alot of southerners did not have slaves,and were poor(as stated by other members) and when your homeland is threated and the "only" way of life you know is in jeopardy,you will fight for what you believe in....I'm not saying slavery is good,but when a army from "another country",and "yes another country" because they did break from the union and told the world they are there own country and independent,you would defend your land and home against invaders foreign or domestic.