"Peninsular Campaign still going 1 week on!" Topic

Well despite my fears that my online system would break down, 1 week into our campaign of daily turns and we're still going strong. I've just posted some screen shots in a new blog post now I can show some content.

link

For those of you who didn't see the first post, please check it out and let me know what you think.

Glad to hear that giant bugs have not eaten it. Getting to play the thing will allow you to better see what needs tweaking, but it will also keep you motivated.

Great work. I like the quiet, purely functional form and report pages that you use. Radically different from my noisy messes :)

Looks really good. Will you be "releasing" it in a form others my want to use? I'd be interested in it for some of the campaign plans I have.

10mmnapoleonics.blogspot.com

Malcolm, thanks for the encouragement. We're getting there slowly. Yesterday I think everyone got messages saying their troops were out of supply when they weren't which caused a couple of frantic emails but that's another bug cracked and off the list.

And there was me thinking I needed to liven it up a bit and have some more pictoral parts to it.

@Ironlegs, I'm not sure at the moment. There are so many bugs or potential holes at the present that I can't contemplate it being "finished" in a final sort of way. I'm not averse to the idea of setting it up so that other groups might use it, but I think it needs to be proven to work before I'd do that. Its one thing telling people I know that the campaign is on hiatus for a week while I sort something fundamental out, another thing entirely when it's people I don't. I have to say, my long term intention is to hopefully have it set up so that other GM's can either install it on their own server, or create and run their server on my site one day.

I do think that some graphics would work well on your pages, and there seems to be room for them, but yours has the advantage of being designed better for consistency andfunctionality(it appears)

My thought on trying to get colours on every page, and then on the menu system, was that players would have a visual memoryof the page they wanted by the colour on it, and then they would be able to find it quickly and easily on the menu. I don't think that's how most people remember/associate though.

As forr graphics, the thinking is that we play miniatures to see the little soldiers marching up and do and so can thereby imagine ourselves in that time better, and that it is the difference between miniatures and chit board games. The more I flooded players with period graphics, the more they would be able to roleplay. Often that attempt gets in the way of functionality.

The message reading format is an example of that: my system forces them to scroll through text with font trying to make it look like handwriting, where yours has it looking more like email so you can see subjects, times, dates, and scroll through and find messages easier. I bet that my players would love to have that functionality, but I like making them work for it… well, only sort of. :)

I left a message in the section called "Speak your mind" on Gavin's website. It wasn't rude or antagonistic though it was quite sarcastic. This message was then deleted a few days later after "moderation". I didn't hear anything by email and the IP Address I used was blocked from the site. This was the one and only time I visited his website after finding it on the first page of a Yahoo search for a Napoleonic Campaign System.

This seemed very draconian that if you question his motives – I suggested that he was using his friends and website to create a commercial system – he blocks your IP Address.

When I read the website I came to the conclusion that Gavin doesn't have a unique thought of his own but his blog is very "me, me, me". He admits that he's copied the campaign system from Malcolm and has used every map Malcolm created.

I get the feeling that he's using his "friends" to play test the system and he admitted in another post on here a year ago (theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=223060) that he was planning on taking this commercial. I wonder if his friends know this.

In short Gavin hasn't created anything unique but has taken ideas from everyone else and claimed them for his own. He's now planning (as stated in his message on these boards) to make money out of the work Malcolm and his friends are putting into the system. I would even bet that any ideas they come up with he's taking as his own to perfect the system to make it more commercial – why else advertise it on this site? You have to wonder at what kind of a friend he is.

Fortunately Gavin cannot delete this post but take this warning seriously – don't post anything he doesn't like on his site – he'll block your IP Address without any hesitation or warning.

Seems to me like blocking you would have been entirely the right thing to do. Wow, what a putz.

While I can't delete this tripe, I can stifle the poster so I again don't have to listen to his again.

This is so interesting – you see I'm Christie also known as Kit – and when Gavin blocked Bourrienne he blamed me as apparently the IP Address is the same. After a little research it seems that when I log on via a third party server I take that IP Address and so does anyone else doing the same. I do this to add extra security for my business as I have a huge archive of photographs and don't want a virus getting on to the server. It would therefore seem that Bourrienne and I use the same third party server.

The thing is – I was one of the group playing in the campaign with Gavin. As a number of the new ideas in it were from me, and the other players, I wouldn't have been happy had I known that he was planning to go commercial with it. He therefore must have thought Bourrienne was me, was scared about the contents of the post, blamed me and in actual fact it is some complete stranger.

Now that I'm learning more about Gavin the happier I am not to count him as a friend any more.

Malcolm – you may be interested in some of the emails I have from Gavin – I have written evidence that he's used you as much as he has me and the other gamers. You may want to reconsider how much you defend him.

Bourrienne – I would be really interested to hear from you to find out what you said in your post.

Gavin – remember that I keep every email that I send and receive. I can therefore substantiate anything I say on here. There is nothing like the wrath of an innocent man.

Go ahead. Use me. 'Steal' from me. All I care about is that people have some fun and get to play in interesting campaigns. If Gavin stole every bit of code that I wrote and packaged it up and sold it and somehow made a fortune off of it, I'd still be entirely happy, because it would mean people were getting use from it.

I don't think Gavin is going commercial, but if he is, I wish him all the best and will do what I can to continue supporting him.

It is all good for the hobby.

Thank you Malcolm.

Wow. I thought the campaign sounded interesting but like real Peninsular Campaign, the behind the scenes "intrigue" is also interesting.

Go ahead, Bourienne & Warrior of God, keep the cat fight going. In the meantime, I think malcolmmccallum and Peterborough WGC should get together and develop campaign software that us non-techie types can use.

Malcolm – it is good to meet such a true gentleman who is also altruistic. The fact that you are happy for your system to be used by the wargaming world in general speaks volumes for you.

Sadly though you are associated with someone who wants to make money out of wargamers from work that isn't all theirs, who doesn't have the courtesy to reply to posts and is so over-bearing that they block the IP Address of visitors to their website without warning. I fear that your good name will be dirtied by association.

Considering my treatment I consider putz to be too strong a word – perhaps disappointed gamer would have been better?

W of G – I would like to hear more from you. Put a dot between my fore and surname and add 35 to the end and find me at yahoo's company in the UK. I am shocked that Gavin hasn't apologised on here for his treatment of you. Tells people who read these pages what kind of person he really is.

I am not going to rise to the bait. You've already been told that no one else cares.

Watch out everyone, my campaign system is just so good that you'll pay me thousands of pounds/dollars to play it.

I'm gonna be rich, rich I tell ya! (alternatively, I almost certainly will never release the system commercially, ever intended to, and won't make a penny from it. You choose which is the more likely.)

I'm done with this thread, just as I'm done with the person who's identified himself as the one who's no longer welcome in my home. I have every right to censor my own blog and remove any comment I wish, just as I have every right to prevent people visiting it, and my home. If you feel hard done by, tough.

Quelle surprise! Bourrienne, who juat happens to have the same IP address as Warrior of God has been here for a massive 4 days. Ond he's never posted on another thread. Somebody's sock puppet needs darning.

Malcolm, it is good to know that you are willing to share your work. Sadly when I asked for a copy of Gavin's system he refused absolutely. He wasn't even willing to allow me limited admin rights to his website system so I could create other campaigns for the people we gamed with. Considering that I helped develop the system I find this attitude extremely ungrateful.

My ideas included "March to the sound of the guns", "Forced March", including artillery in the orbats, giving horse artillery a faster move than foot artillery and I plotted all of the roads of Portugal for him for his Peninsular Campaign.

I also note that you describe him as a programmer – he's not. Gavin created an Access database originally as he is a database manager by profession. When it came to putting it on the web he asked one of his colleagues at work to programme it for him because he couldn't do it himself. This is why it is written in PHP. Though Gavin does now claim to be doing the development work himself I don't know if that is true.

He has blamed me for Bourrienne's post and has emailed to ban me from not only his home, but those of the other gamers that we also meet in to wargame. Perhaps he should allow them the opportunity to speak for themselves.

Gavin isn't willing to apologise for his mistake and the abominal way he has treated me – what can I say? His comment about feeling hard done by, as Bourrienne says it does show what kind of person Gavin is. Do I feel hard done by, not really, more disappointed in myself that I made a mistake in considering him a trustworthy person.

I really must buy a new keyboard, this one keeps making mistakes, juat instead of just is understandable but Ond when I typed 'Oh, and' is out of order.

Buff, I've been a member of this site for three years and only posted on this thread. And your point is…..

Bourrienne, thanks for the emails and as you requested I'll post my replies on here to the questions you asked.

You asked Gavin for a book list. The last time he and I discussed the Napoleonic Period he had read two books:

Uniforms of the Peninsular War by Philip Haythornthwaite published by Blandford
French Napoleonic Infantry Tactics by Paddy Griffiths, Men At Arms Elite Series No. 159

I think this is one of the many reasons he removed your question as he couldn't supply a book list as you requested. He has probably done some more reading since then though I have to admit that I have declined to be drawn into a conversation on this subject with him since. I don't consider those books as primary sources for the study of either the Napoleonic Period or the Peninsular War.

Yes Gavin does have some beautifully painted figures but he buys them fully painted from ebay or sends them to a professional painting service. To my certain knowledge at least half of his Napoleonic collection was painted by other people.

No we are not Gavin's Wargames Group – we used to be a group of friends who met in two or three people's houses including his.

Three of us developed his campaign system and we all contributed something – Gavin's input was mostly ideas he got from Malcolm after joining one of his campaigns and writing the database system that has now developed into the web version. That is certainly a major contribution but this is in no way "his system" as he claims on his website. If he was ever to be fair it was a system developed by Gavin, Matthew and myself based upon the work of Malcolm.

I have known Gavin for six years, considered him a good friend and we have had dinner together with our wives/girlfriends a few times. Why he thought I would put something as insulting as your post on his website I have no idea. Before you say anything, it wasn't pointed, it was insulting.

As I had surmised we use the same company to host our websites. As I log onto their server to access the internet, and I now understand that you also do, it does appear that we use the same IP Address. I had thought that it had been a student at one of the schools I teach in who had posted to his site and that this had caused the confusion. However a friend of mine told me about your post on here and so I have found out what actually happened. Please moderate your posts in future as I don't want to find my access to this or any other gaming site terminated.

Wow, clumsy sock puppetry is clumsy. -10 fate points…

I like what you are doing Gavin (& Malcolm). And, hats off and deserved coin to the guy that gets a system like this working and available to us all!
I, for one, will gladly pay through the nose for an online campaign system that handles communications, allows you to adjust it for your tactical rules, and lets you to upload and code your own maps. I'd pay a thousand dollars for that application software today and save hundreds of hours using it!
Keep on going in this direction everyone-it is the future!

GQG, wow, thanks. Careful though, you might give someone the idea that I was in it for the financial gain all along! ;)

Hi Gavin,

I must say I don't quite understand the sense I get that some 'recoil in horror' at the thought of something you develop and create being sold.

I see it this way: You spend hundreds of hours working on something that YOU want to have, and after much trial and error, and WILLING help it works, and possibly other people would love to use it too, so you recoup a small fraction of what your time was worth (sorry, no economy of scale makes this pretty much assured) by charging the very very few people who have an interest (this isn't exactly World of Warcraft!) money that will save them/give them many hours/pleasure.

Honestly, what could possibly be wrong with that? The testing? Thats like telling a chef who perfects his dishes by letting people volunteer to eat them for free he would be unethical to sell the final product with out giving previous diners a cut of the profit!

You may give it away, or never have a product worth selling, or sell a product you create that is worth having, but if you do, good on you for making it work!

Not to mention that such a product would make campaigns and correspondence so much easier our hobby would benefit tremendously all across the board, socially and intellectually. I think you could say it would be the biggest leap forward in Napoleonic Wargaming since 'the convention'.

Best,
Rob

PS Cheers! keep working on it!

Yes Gavin does have some beautifully painted figures but he buys them fully painted from ebay or sends them to a professional painting service. To my certain knowledge at least half of his Napoleonic collection was painted by other people.

And…?

Buff, I've been a member of this site for three years and only posted on this thread. And your point is…..

TMP link

Time for a "Penisular Campaign still going 2 weeks on!" post methinks.

Indeed Aubrey. I've been hanging on in the vain hope someone would actually instigate a battle, but there's a bit of wimping out going on at the moment. I'll pop something up tomorrow on the current situation. Thanks for your interest.

It tends to match my experience with 'real-time' complete fog-of-war and limitied intelligence campaigns: Turtle and wait for the enemy to come to you rather than flailing in the dark.

My personal experience though has proven out that attacking boldly and aggressively into the great unknown and forcing your opponent to react, and thereby knowing where he is by where he must be, is how to achieve decisive results. After seven successive campaigns though, I have been unable to cultivate courage and confidence in my players.

Gosh, I wish I could play with you guys..well, maybe not you Malcolm ;) You understand how Napoleon approached maneuver!
"knowing where he is by where he must be"
Love that.

@Buff Orpington – An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, printer) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. Its role has been characterized as follows: "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there."

This is taken from wikipedia – so if two people log onto the internet using the same server they have the same IP Address regardless of their location. I'm an Accountant in London and I don't really know who Warrior of God is. Sock Puppet – that's insulting.

As for Gavin – how could he treat someone like this? He makes a mistake and isn't man enough to apologise. On his site he talks about his wonderfully painted figures that he hasn't painted, he's stolen all his ideas from other people and claims them for his own, he's got someone else to write this campaign programme for him, and this gets me – he's banned someone from other people's homes – how arrogant is that?

Is there anything that this man has said that is honest and true? If there is I haven't found it yet.

I'm fed up of this suggestion of me being two people – here's a link to a photograph of my wife and I in Cambodia last year.

link

I've emailed Bourrienne and he's doing something similar.

link

This is my Yahoo profile.

Because you totally can't just pull up pics of random people and post them.

Dude, seriously, fail.

I think Bourriene's photo looks like a younger version of Warrior of Gods.

ok, I find myself unable to refrain from observing:

"– he's banned someone from other people's homes –

Is it just me, or is it not difficult to see how someone can "ban" another from a third party's home without the informed consent of the host at that home. Does it not follow then that the one ostensibly initating the 'banning' is not alone in his wish to avoid the company of the banned?
Of course common sense would require me to avoid mentioning any of this, and clearly Gavin himself now has more common sense than I.

I would humbly and without malice ask Bourriene / WoG to leave your private quarrel out of the public forum, and for some perspective on the development of commonly useful technology I would suggest reading James Burke and Bill Bryson.

Thanks everyone for your continued support. I can't see what these two are writing as I'm stifling both of them in the currently vain hope of keeping my blood pressure to a sensible level.

Suffice it to say I could give reams and reams of "evidence" but it's not worth my time typing it up, nor your time reading it. Lets just leave it and go back to gaming, thinking about gaming or writing about gaming. ;)

Amen

Peterborough WGC – now that it's quiet again round here any thoughts on when you will post your next Campaign update. I'm looking forward to reading how you've been getting on.

This didn't start out as a quarrel – if you read back it was a warning that Gavin will not allow anyone to raise a voice against him. He's stifled the two of us on here and banned me, and thus Kit as well, from his website. You either agree with him and tell him how wonderful he is or you're out of his world.

So take a sensible approach to Gavin. Kit and he spent six years developing a system – one coming up with the ideas and the other creating the programme – and yet Kit was refused access to the system he designed. He wasn't given a copy of the Access database or access to the online system to provide campaigns for the people they gamed with. Gavin then drops him at the first opportunity without a word.

So if you're keen to help him beware – as soon as he's got what he wants from you how long do you think you'll last?

I get the feeling that if Kit and I were pictured side by side someone would still shout fake – I give up.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. I've only known Kit for approximately 6 years in total, Kit has copies of the Access database as it was emailed around in order for it to be played, according to the pair of you I didn't do the programming anyway, and I explicitly told Kit he COULD have a copy of the new online system, but that I would only do so once all the bugs and development had been done.

Keep digging. Have you not realised no-one cares yet?!

Peterborough WGC – my advice is not to reply to Bourrienne. Let's face it he is never going to be a fan of yours what ever you say or do.
I always find it strange that people can come to the opposite conclusion about something. I read Bourrienne's comments about your blog before looking at it and clicked on the link expecting to find an egotistical rant about how great you are. Instead, I found an interesting website, with some interesting ideas and a great looking campaign which clearly acknowleges the help you've recieved from Malcolm. The fact that Malcolm has come on here to defend you speaks volumes.

Bourriene(I am sure you will be reading this) – before writing another of your dire warnings about Gavin just remember that we are all capable of making up our own minds about someone without having to rely on the views of someone who claims to be a total stranger. I would gladly help Gavin in any way I can, as I think what he is doing is really interesting. If I do it would be with no strings attached. As to your warning about

as soon as he's got what he wants from you how long do you think you'll last?

What are you trying to say? Do you think he's going to bump me off?

Regards
Aubrey

I agree with Gavin – this campaign system has only been in development for about four years and I didn't design it – as I said above I just came up with some ideas and helped play test it. I have known Gavin for six years and we've gamed together for that long but that's it – and yes I do have a copy of the Access database but not the passwords to use it.

Bourrienne hasn't given up – he's still emailing me and I do wish he would stop. I hadn't realised what a complete twonk this guy is when I agreed to answer his initial questions.

Now if you'll excuse me I'll go back to what I used to do – which is use this site to find manufacturers and links to other sites and not posting on the message boards.

By the way – I would never post random images on the internet as it would be financial suicide given that I am a professional photographer.

If a client ever suspected that I had done something like that my reputation would be gone and I wouldn't work again.

If you followed the link to my website you would see that I don't even use a client's name for advertising – and I never use one of their images.

Ok, now you're just boring.

Hmmm as both WoG and the sock puppet appear to have stifled me should that really count as 2?

More like a half, see the wit in that?

So, make a fool of yourself then stifle all the people mocking you so you can pretend you haven't. Of course, everyone else can still see them laughing at you so how much good does it really do?

Honestly, if you don't know how to use a redirect just stay home and cry in yer beer…