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Author Topic: Scourge of War Waterloo: Review by JC  (Read 3850 times)

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Offline Asid

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Scourge of War Waterloo: Review by JC
« on: November 07, 2016, 03:52:42 PM »


Friday, November 27, 2015
By: JC
Scourge of War Waterloo - Review

Some years back, I wished that NorbSoftDev would expand their portfolio to other periods of warfare. The time has come.



Waterloo is a battle that needs no introduction. Even my mother knew about it (does being an  ᗅᗺᗷᗅ fan counts?). So, I will spare you my non-professional attempt to review the battle and rather focus on how well you can wargame it with Scourge of War Waterloo.

Readers will notice that this review comes some 5 months late. The delay was on purpose. The original release (although in great shape already) was due a patch and it was released a couple of weeks ago.





The Big Picture
As stated in my preview, Scourge of War Waterloo (SoWW) is a tactical/grand tactical/operational 3D continuous time wargame about the Battle of Waterloo. Playable from both sides in multiplayer and single player modes.

The Sandbox Campaign
The scope of the game engine has expanded from the purely tactical/grand-tactical towards the operational level thanks to the brand new campaign sandbox. This new campaign sandbox mode features a 90 x 90 km map in which armies and corps and detachments move and engage in battles that are fought using the regular 3D map depicting all the units involved. The sandbox campaign mode, being customizable for the type of operation and order of battle (see screenshot below) is a game on its own and adds a lot replayability.



The sandbox campaign mode is realistic to a certain extent. You should not expect a Napoleonic army maneuvering simulation from this game mode. First, the area of operations is shaped entirely by roads (no movement outside the road network) and there is no apparent effect of cramming an entire army into a single road. Second, there is no apparent supply logistical constraints in this game mode. However, the rate of movement of some units make sense: a cavalry detachment moves from Charleroi to Dinant takes 2.5 hours of simulated time, which is pretty close to reality. Other units, like foot armies move too fast: I once marched an infantry corps from Dinant to Mons in 6.5 hours of simulated time.



On the bright side,  the area of operations  in the sandbox campaign is relatively small (the player is not invading Russia, after all), and the time span of campaigning relatively short making food supply and movement rates kind of irrelevant. This tends to ease any other grievances you may have, like the extremely spartan campaign interface which doesn't even tell you what's the fatigue and morale status of your army is, although it is noted that those two attributes can be "recovered" at strategic towns marked with gold name tags in the campaign map.


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Offline Stardog765

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Re: Scourge of War Waterloo: Review by JC
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2016, 04:35:24 PM »
I think if it actually had a few more soldiers on the field it would be more realistic and I might like it more.
There are just so few thats its hard to get immersed  :)

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