New mod for Campaign Waterloo

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I've dusted off my old Campaign Waterloo mod, updated it with the improvements that went into my Campaign Leipzig and Campaign 1814 mods, made a few changes, and added a few new features.



And the big news is that thanks to The Big Red One from Task Force Echo Four, I didn't have to break it up into lots of tiny pieces, so you'll be able to download it in one shot.



So what's in this mod?



First, it uses a slightly modified version of Ezjax's 3D units and terrain. The difference between my version of Ezjax and his original version is that I've made lower terrain elevations a darker green than the higher ones. The units and bases are unchanged, but there's a blood/no blood option for casualties in case you don't want dead bodies cluttering up the battlefield (blood is the default option).



The 2D terrain is based on the summer terrain in my Leipzig mod, which is in turn derived from my Panzer Campaign mods. The 2D unit symbols are essentially the same as those used in the original version of my Waterloo mod, though there have been a few improvements along the way (check out the victory flags). The idea was to make the unit counters look like the symbols that you would see on a map illustrating one of the campaigns.



The mod uses the same unitbox conventions as my Leipzig and 1814 mods, but the images in the unitbox are Volcano Man's (with a few slight modifications) mounted on flags that were in use in 1809.



Finally, I've kept most of the incidental artwork that went into my original Waterloo mod, though I'd present it a bit differently if I were doing the mod from scratch today.



Here are a few screenshots of what the current state of the Waterloo mod looks like:



























And above all I'd like to extend a big thank you to The Big Red One for making it possible for to bring my older Napoleonic mods out of mothballs. It's even more of a pain for me to break a mod up and upload it than it is for you to download a mod in a dozen pieces and have to reassemble them.





Here is the link for downloading this mod:



https://www.box.com/s/1d9cea9d7565155a7e8f




As everyone has probably noticed I update my mods fairly frequently, so it's not a bad idea to check it from time to time to see if the version number and upload date have changed.
 

holdit

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They all look great. Thanks for sharing.

Holdit
 
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The Waterloo mod has now been updated to version 3.3.

There were a few minor corrections to the unitbox images, and the lancers now sport lances.

But the important change, even though it seems a fairly small one, is that the color of the paths in 2D terrain has been adjusted so that you can even see them against the middle altitude open terrain in Waterloo. This is very important if you're trying to move cavalry through a hedge and need to know where that gap is so you can cross it without getting disordered.

The Waterloo mod can be downloaded from here:

https://www.box.com/s/1d9cea9d7565155a7e8f
 
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I've given my Waterloo mod a major overhaul to bring it more in line with my other Napoleonic mods.


It has now been updated to version 4.0.



Most of the incidental art has been changed, though many of the old images have been kept as alternates.



The units images file has been redone: the French Imperial Guard now uses a better flag, the Young and Middle Guard are now wearing the right uniforms, and a few new images will crop up from time to time (e.g. French cuirassiers, French Grenadiers a cheval, and Dutch militia).



There have been adjustments to the 3D terrain (chateaux and fields), and the campaign maps now have better flag symbols.



The victory music has been improved.



My original intention was to put together a music folder that relied heavily on the background music of the old Talonsoft Waterloo and Prelude to Waterloo games. I constructed the folder and it weighed in at less than 200 MB, but then discovered that the program would only select a few of the pieces and play them over and over.

So my fallback was to take the background sounds from my Leipzig and 1814 mods (lightly edited versions of the original), and retitle them so they would overwrite what was probably already in most people's Campaign Waterloo music folder. This turned out to be a good solution because the background sounds are much less distracting than the music, even if it is the better quality selections from the older games.







Here are some screenshots of the latest version:





























For those of you who aren't afraid to mess around with the inside of your game folders and who also have Campaign Leipzig or Campaign 1814 as well as my mod for those games, there is an alternative to using the music folder in my Waterloo mod that might give a slightly better performance (less repetitive looping in the selections). Look inside the HPS Simulations/Campaign Waterloo folder and disable the Music folder by changing its name to something the program won't recognize (e.g. Copy of Music or even just Music=). Look inside Campaign Leipzig (or Campaign 1814), find the Music folder, and copy and paste it into Campaign Waterloo. For those who find this too troublesome, dangerous, or frightening, using my Waterloo mod's Music folder as is will give you pretty much the same result and you'll be hard pressed to tell the difference. Just be aware that my mod's Music folder is designed to obliterate the entire contents of the plain vanilla HPS Campaign Waterloo Music folder, so your are strongly advised to make some kind of copy (probably by renaming files) just in case you find yourself missing the music six months from now. Worst case scenario, you can always retrieve it from the game's cd.



The mod includes three Desktop Icons that you can use as shortcuts on your desktop.

To use a desktop icon, make a shortcut from the cpw application file, and move it to your desktop (in Windows XP move your mouse over the file, right-click, choose create shortcut from drop-down menu, partially shrink your screen by clicking on the middle of three icons in the top right-hand corner, find the newly created 'shortcut to cpw' icon - probably the last icon in your Campaign Waterloo folder - and slide it onto your desktop).

Go to your desktop and find the 'shortcut to cpw' icon and right-click. Then click on properties and change the icon. Remember that you'll have to navigate back to the Campaign Waterloo folder and look for the Desktop Icon.


Once you've changed the icon (and don't forget to click on 'apply'), you'll probably want to rename the file from the cryptic 'shortcut to cpw' to something a bit more transparent like 'Waterloo' or 'Campaign Waterloo'.


I've included three desktop icons so you can choose whichever of the three protagonists you feel is most representative of the battle. If you decide, instead, to link one of the icons to the campaign game rather than the standard game, the file that you should use to create a shortcut is named cp_start.







Here is the link for downloading this mod:



https://www.box.com/s/1d9cea9d7565155a7e8f






Be sure to read the README file (which has instructions on things like how to use a desktop icon).



As everyone has probably noticed I update my mods fairly frequently, so it's not a bad idea to check it from time to time to see if the version number and upload date have changed.


As an additional note, the hosting account that I use tends to run out of bandwidth towards the end of the month. So if you're having trouble downloading, look at the calendar. I'm working on a secondary back-up, but it isn't quite ready yet.
 
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I picked up a copy of JTS Campaign Overland about a month ago and started poking around inside of it so that it wasn't too painful to look at. Somewhere along the way I realized that there were things about the terrain in my Napoleonic mods that needed attending to, so I've decided to start rolling out a series of adjustments. I'll apply this to each of the other Napoleonic games. It will happen soon, but not sure of the timetable.





Here's what the 'new look' actually looks like. Some of it resembles traditional HPS 3D terrain, but there are some subtle and important differences:









































I decided to remove all images of trees from the 3D building textures. While I was at it, I decided to use the transparent shadows that first appeared in my Campaign 1814 mod. As a reminder, the 3D images of chateaux do not have walls around them, because sometimes a chateau is surrounded by a hedge, sometimes by a wall, and sometimes by nothing at all. I've kept to the convention of including a cow (these were farmhouses, after all) so that you can tell the difference between a large house in a village and a chateau.

The 3D images of trees in forests have gone back to a more traditional look. They may or may not be a tad darker, but they also have the same transparent shadows that show up around the buildings (the hobgoblin of little minds strikes again). I've also remade the half-size version of the 3D buildings and trees from scratch, so they should be a lot clearer to look at.



The big change in 2D was a decision to roll back a failed experiment with woods textures. My 2D woods were too thick, and although it was easier to see where roads and trails crossed forests, you often couldn't tell what the underlying altitude was, and I finally decided that the end result was too angular and I simply didn't like the way it looked (took me the good part of a year to figure that one out).



Finally, the names on the game map had a few troublesome spots. The one that bugged me the most was the Chateau de Goumont which, although not technically wrong, was probably the least common of the three possible names. I went for the one that I'm most comfortable seeing, and then corrected a few placenames that could only have slipped by a non-French speaker (e.g. Mon Flaisir for Mon Plaisir). I'm sure I missed a few (correcting Flemish names is tricky), but if anyone spots one that I haven't fixed and can point to a convincing reason for changing it, I'll make the adjustment in the next patch. And just to be clear, the map hasn't been changed at all -- I've only corrected the spelling.





Here is the link for downloading this mod:



http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?111328-A-complete-list-of-the-links-to-Philippe-s-Napoleonic-mods&p=1618446#post1618446



The link will take you to the thread where I have links for downloading all my Napoleonic mods. Last time I looked they were in chronological order, so Waterloo will be at the end of the list.


Please note that there are two download links under each mod: a box account link and a dropbox account link. The link for the latest iteration of the Waterloo mod has only been uploaded to boxnet. I haven't decided whether to stay with dropbox as a backup (it's a pain for me to use), so make sure that the Waterloo mod you download is at least version 5.0a.


And be sure to read the README file (which has instructions on things like how to use the desktop icons that I've included with my mods).
 
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There's been a minor update to the Waterloo mod as part of the preparation for rolling its features out to my other Napoleonic mods.

The mod now uses the same 3D marsh textures that will soon appear in my Dresden mod (part of the Campaign Leipzig mod), uses a more regularly invisible 2D zoom out invisible marking, and has slightly yellower 2D fields.

The latest version of the Waterloo mod can be downloaded from the same place described in my earlier posting.
 
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The Waterloo mod has been updated to version 5.2.


The new version harmonizes my mod with the latest official patch.


The only change is that that I've added a mod of the new terrain contour features.


The latest version of the Waterloo mod can be downloaded from the appropriate section here:


http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?111328-A-complete-list-of-the-links-to-Philippe-s-Napoleonic-mods



The links to the dropbox account will download an older version of the mod, so only use the box.com links.
 
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