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View Full Version : Some cautions on Napoleonic research



Dave
10-27-2003, 21:23
I'm new to this forum and to the Napoleonic mod of MTW. However, I've been a Napoleonic gamer since 1972 and reserached and painted more figures than I can remember.

I've skimmed over the long thread on the Napoleonic Mod and have two observations to make:

1) Please be very careful assigning unit qualities and strength to any and all units that are included in the mod. Ya, we all know what the TO&E says about units, but the facts are that all armies by 1815 were very far from their ideal state and condition. Everything from horses to the so-called veterans and elite troops were in far shorter supply than the theoretical orders of battle would indicate. You almost have to toss out the popular coffee-table type history books as being inadequate except as a source of colour plates.

2) I noticed that someone posted some of images of Prussian unit flags for 1806. Very few of those flags made it through to 1815 -- almost all that did were assigned to the 12 professional regiments. However, very little of the those 12 regiments survived the campaign of 1813 in Saxony. One other thing to note is that the Prussians were big on historical revision during the middle of the 19th century. It's difficult to trust images and paintings from that period when the Hohenzollerns were establishing the justification for their imperial designs. Much of that revisionism survives to this day. When I visited the family chapel where Friederick is entombed the regimental flags ornamenting the place were, for the most part, totally bogus. Again, popular histories seem to fall for the revisionist line every time.

Gregoshi
10-28-2003, 06:54
Hello Dave. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif Welcome to the Org. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. I copied you post into the Nap mod topic (pinned) in the Dungeon - Alchemist lab forum.

Lord De Moray
10-29-2003, 10:36
Hi Dave

Thanks for the input. Many of the issues that you have mentioned are still to be addressed. Some are difficult to get just right due to the software itself and we must work within those limitations. I myself have been a tabletop wargamer for some 20 years, and fully understand your points. Thing is for now I don't think we'll ever be able to recreate the magic we get on the tabletop, save the computer prevents that 'wargamers license' that we all know so well. Rest assured there is a number of the Lords more than qualified for Napoleonic historical input. The team has been built not just around those with modding skills.

For more information on the Mod and online play of the mod visit: http://pub162.ezboard.com/broyalfootguardclanforum

Thanks once again nice to see such comments,

Regards,

Lord De Moray http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

LordUxbridge
10-29-2003, 11:47
Hi Dave, cheers for the input. As my Lord De Moray stated, we have an excellent team working on NTW, and we are not all modders. There are a number of us involved in the historical research side of things and we have everything very much under cover.

Thank you

LordUx