As a figure gamer of advancing years and limited time for painting etc. I have long had an interest in a computer simulation. Way back in the dawn of time I started producing 15mm Napoleonics under the name of Battle Honours and had an artist friend, Antony Barton, ( who'd never designed a figure in his life!! ) produce some masters. The whole thing worked out of a barn in Shropshire but we seemed to make a good impression with them. That was a long time ago but even then we experimented with computer moderated rules.
Since that time I've been involved in other areas but still kept a keen interest in Napoleonic gaming. It's always been an ambition to produce a system for PC's that would allow figure gamers to fight historical actions on a computer screen, either against each other on-line or against the computer AI. The idea being that gamers could come home and with a some time to spare grab a beer, sit down at the keyboard, load up Salamanca or Wagram and play in the style of a tabletop game. Lets get it clear right from the start. This is no way a substitute for a table full of nicely painted battalions and the company of fellow gamers. More of a kind of 'Napoleonic Lite' version that would allow accurate historical actions with a minimum of setting up, fast play and done in the style of figure games. i.e the player selects his troops, deploys 'em and moves 'em around on a realistic map and can make the same tactical decisions as normal. The troops fight and the PC does the paperwork and calculations.
Best of all it allows gamers who have trouble finding time and opponents to indulge in their pastime without the normal time consuming hard work.
All serious Napoleonic enthusiasts have no doubt seen the various commercial attempts over the years and like me consigned them to their rightful place. Usually in the waste bin. Various attempts like Cossacks etc are fine for younger arcade style players but don't do much for figure gamers used to accuracy and visual appeal. I make no comment on computer moderated rules 'cos I don't have time for traditional games any more and know nothing about them. There's probably good ones out there.
Couple of years ago along with some fellow Napoleonic enthusiasts a group was formed to develop a program which had been around some time and which showed a lot of potential as being a very acceptable system. There has been almost a total rebuild. The original program was developed for Medieval Warfare. A group called the Lordz had produced a Napoleonic version called Napoleonic Total War. All credit to them they produced the basics but there were a lot of rough edges. We took the mod and fine tuned it as far as possible. It's meant re-programming all the unit statistics to get the troop types to behave as it is generally agreed they did, adding new ones, changing names etc, building in advantages for formations column of attack etc and a lot more. The last and most complex project has been overhauling the graphics to make the units look as near as possible to their counterparts. It's an old program and has limited capabilities in the graphics dept but we think its a passable attempt.
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Before the purists start yelling about uniform details they are cordially invited to take the files and perfect 'em. We'll be very pleased :) but it's a nightmare job. The original mod had the kinda French are blue, Russians are green, Brits are red approach.
So if theres anyone one out there who'd like to try it out then please help yourself. It will be available as a download from our site within the next 24-48 hours maybe and is totally free. All you will need is a copy of Medieval Total War ( first version ) and the Viking expansion pack. Both are available on E Bay or Amazon and will cost around £5.00 GBP – 8 pounds for both discs. You can also use the Gold Edition which combines both discs in one and might be found in your local store.
Along the way we have also produced Orders of Battle for a lot of the major actions, pretty accurate but obviously scaled down, theres also some independent commands based on Corps sized units for all the 5 major nationalities that the system is geared around i.e Austrians, Brits, French, Russians and Prussians. These are ideal if you want to play the AI or an online opponent in a two handed game. If you want to play the big actions, up to 4 players per side you'll need to find some opponents. There are a group of us who play regularly weekends and evenings and your welcome to join in. It's very informal and great fun.
Further information on the system, 1809 Version 5, and background info can be had from the 1809 site at:
link
Thanks for your interest.
