ACW add-on battles

[Luciano B]

Gentlemen and fellow BG enthusiasts, some of you may remember my old, never completed project covering the battle of the Wilderness (1864) and the other battles of the Rappahannock front;
During the time the project grew to include the battles of Spotsylvania (1864), Chancellorsville (1863) and Fredericksburg (1862).

Since it seems that there's still a lot of interest around the old BG titles, I'm taking into consideration to continue the effort and complete all those games, which required so far almost four years of hard work, mainly on the giant maps included.

Current status
The maps for the battles above mentioned are all done, painted in the style of the early BG games like BG Bull Run and Antietam, a graphic style which I really love.
At present only the Wilderness has finalized scenarios.


The Wilderness (1864)
The map covers the area from the Mine Run on the West to Spotsylvania Court House on the East (254 x 218 hexes); the left portion of the battlefield should be suitable also for some minor fights of the Mine Run campaign of late 1863.

Spotsylvania (1864)
The map (254 x 218 hexes) covers on the left also the ground occupied by Grant and Lee at the end of the battle of the Wilderness, so the game may inlcude also the race to take possession of Spotsylvania Court House.

Chancellorsville (1863)
The map (254 x 218 hexes) ranges from the Wildernees forest on the left to Fredericksburg on the right, covering all the battlefields of the campaign, allowing to re-fight the whole multi-front battle on a single map.

Fredericksburg (1862)
The map (254 x 218 hexes) inlcudes also a large portion of the ground west of the town, allowing some "what if" scenarios exploring the chances of a Federal plan to turn the Confederate left.


The jump window showing all the ground covered by the map


Let me know please your feelings ...comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated

[Ashantai]

That is utterly brilliant! Well done, sir!

My only concern is how you will distribute it - the 3D map bmps must be over 100mb at least!

Great work, I look forward to more updates soon!

[berto]

ORIGINAL: Luciano B
Gentlemen and fellow BG enthusiasts, some of you may remember my old, never completed project covering the battles of the Rappahannock front; a couple of years ago I released a beta version of the battle of the Wilderness.
During the time the project grew to include the battles of Spotsylvania (1864), Chancellorsville (1863) and Fredericksburg (1862).

Since it seems that there's still a lot of interest around the old BG titles, I'm taking into consideration to continue the effort and complete all those games, which required so far almost four years of hard work, mainly on the giant maps included.

...

Let me know please your feelings ...comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated

[&o][&o][&o]

OMG, first the recent BGS Napoleonic activity, and now this. It's getting harder and harder not to drop everything else and dive back into the BGS (and more deeply into the HPS/Tiller Napoleonic and ACW) series of games.

This is all so awesome!!!

[Luciano B]

ORIGINAL: Ashantai

That is utterly brilliant! Well done, sir!

My only concern is how you will distribute it - the 3D map bmps must be over 100mb at least!

Great work, I look forward to more updates soon!

Thank you very much Ashantai
yes you're right ...it's something large; the whole Wilderness module is 145 MB zipped. The other battles should be of similar size when finalized.
...but they aren't so haevy to download if you think that the average patches for some recent games are even larger...

[Luciano B]

ORIGINAL: berto

OMG, first the recent BGS Napoleonic activity, and now this. It's getting harder and harder not to drop everything else and dive back into the BGS (and more deeply into the HPS/Tiller Napoleonic and ACW) series of games.

This is all so awesome!!!

Thanks a lot Berto ...I really need so warm encouragements

[Ashantai]

Only 145MB? That's pretty good!

Have you broken the units down into strength points of 10? How is that working out game wise?

[Luciano B]

ORIGINAL: Ashantai

Only 145MB? That's pretty good!

Have you broken the units down into strength points of 10? How is that working out game wise?

Ten men strength points allow to have a more realistic casualties rate; my only doubt is that in this way a single squad of ten men (instead of 25) may block the zones of control of two or more hexes for a turn (20 minutes of real time) ...however many players seem happy also with single man units blocking the ZOC as in more recent games ...so ten men shouldn't be a bad compromise

[tshaw]

That's absolutely amazing!  I look forward to seeing more.  Keep up the great work!

[DuncanLang]

That is excellent news. As someone who lives on the map segment you showed for Spotsylvania Court House, takes the train from Fredericksburg every workday and was a volunteer historian at Chancellorsville Battlefield for several years, I am most definitely interested in this expansion!

[Luciano B]

Thanks ...I'll be glad to receive suggestions and imputs from true Virginians from the area covered by the project

[Luciano B]

Here what I've done so far about the battle of Drewry's Bluff, the main fight of the Bermuda Hundred campaign fought in may 1864 between Butler's Army of the James and Beauregards' forces defending Richmond and Petersburg; not  a part of the Rappahannock battles project but another of the works I have under way.

Here the fortifications at Drewry's Bluff

...the whole extension of the map

[Kingmaker]

HiHi
 
That is gobsmackingly brilliant!
 
"Salute Sir, Salute!"
 
All the Best
Peter

[MartNick]

Excellent work! I look forward to it's release. Surely Matrix would provide the necessary server space for downloading the mod?

[Ashantai]

I am most impressed by your work! Is it easy to do the maps, or does each one take a long time to construct?

[Luciano B]

ORIGINAL: Ashantai

I am most impressed by your work! Is it easy to do the maps, or does each one take a long time to construct?

It is a very time-consuming affair; the time required to complete a map grow exponentially with the dimensions of the battlefield.

[captskillet]

Excellent work Luciano...........[&o]........cant wait for the finished products!!!!

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: Luciano B
Is is a very time-consuming affair; the time required to complete a map grow exponentially with the dimensions of the battlefield.

Amen to that.

Very impressive work Luciano. I cant imagine how you were able to seamlessly emulate the style of the stock maps. Any hints?

[Luciano B]

ORIGINAL: simovitch

Amen to that.

Very impressive work Luciano. I cant imagine how you were able to seamlessly emulate the style of the stock maps. Any hints?

Thanks Simovitch.

I'll make an attempt to explain my method using my badly shattered english
I reproduced the ground surface textures playing around with Corel Photopaint; the base "blank" hex map is obtained copying and pasting progressive screenshots from the scenario editor; linear elements like streets, pikes, streams and rivers are painted with the combined use of Corel Draw vectorial editor and Corel Photopaint graphic editor.

[Luciano B]

ORIGINAL: captskillet

Excellent work Luciano...........[&o]........cant wait for the finished products!!!!

Thanks a lot Captskillet ...I can't wait too

[Fubar]

Wow i only just bought the JTBG ACW/Nappy bundle pack recently and have been having great fun playing these classic games again and now i see this.....could the week get any better i wonder?

Keep up the great work, it's highly talented people like you that keep mod communities alive. [&o]

TTFN Matt