Category Archives: Scenario Design Module

How to Edit Unit Speeds in General Staff

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We recently had a series of very spirited discussions about the speed of units in various formations and across different terrain types during the Napoleonic Era in the Facebook Wargaming groups. A number of people were very kind to forward documents, tables and charts that had estimates of unit speeds. But, one thing that quickly became apparent was there was quite a bit of disagreement about, “how fast could a unit march,” in the 19th century.

Furthermore, we hadn’t even begun to talk about battles that took place in bad weather (the battles of Stone’s River and Fort Donnelson during the American Civil War come to mind).

The solution, obviously, was to allow the user (the scenario designer) to have complete control over these values. Consequently, we’ve added a very easy to use utility to facilitate editing and displaying unit speeds in various formations across different terrains.

Below is a video we created that demonstrates these utilities:

First Look at the General Staff Scenario Editor

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The General Staff Scenario Design module allows users to create new battle scenarios by combining any two armies created in the General Staff Army Design module with any map created in the General Staff Map Design module. 

This screen shot of the General Staff Scenario Editor shows how victory conditions are established for a scenario. Click to enlarge.

The General Staff Wargaming System allows users to create armies, maps and battles from the Age of Gunpowder. These can be historical recreations or completely new ‘what if’ scenarios.

Video Demonstrating the Scenario Design Module!

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Below is a video describing how to use the Scenario Design Module for the General Staff Wargaming System. Yes, it really is that simple: just combine two armies previously created in the Army Design Module with a map created in the Map Design Module and create a new battle scenario.


Also, there’s a gameplay surprise in this video!

Announcing the Scenario Editor!

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The Scenario Editor Module for General Staff allows the user to combine any two armies created in the Army Design Module with any map created in the Map Design Module and create a scenario or battle. In the screen capture before we’ve combined the Allied Anglo-Portuguese Army from the Battle of Albuera (May 16, 1811) as the Blue Army with Napoleon’s Imperial Guard as the Red Army and placed them on a map of our own design.

Screen shot of the General Staff Scenario Editor. Note that the time to deliver orders via courier between units is displayed. Click to enlarge.

Also, note that when you slick on a headquarters unit the route, distance and time that a courier will take to deliver orders to the next subordinate unite are displayed. This is just the beginning because General Staff is actually two wargames in one.

We will be posting a video showing off some of the new features shortly.

 

 

A Big Thank You to John McNamara!

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Yes, I really do have a doctorate in computer science but often that just means I’m aware of how much I don’t know about computer programming. General Staff is being written in Microsoft WPF and sometimes it seems very arcane to me. I recently had a major problem with something very small; I just wanted to add a ‘thousands comma’ in the display of unit strengths. Well, because of a number of weird programming issues specific to WPF and the Victorian typography that we’re using, it took a couple of days to straighten it out and then only because John McNamara of Maine spent a great deal of his personal time to help me understand how Hierarchical Data Templates work in WPF. Here’s what the final results look like;

Sneak peak at the Scenario Editor Module. Just click and drag units from the Order of Battle Table on the left onto the map to place them for the beginning of the scenario. (Click to enlarge)

Again, thanks John! You’re the greatest! You want a free copy of General Staff when it ships?