While i do not want to mess around with the Napoleonic series anymore, what Paco has posted has caused me to want to take the files from the 4.0 version of the game and use them as a "Retro" set for the gamers to use in the latest updates. These will use the OLD 15 min. PDT files. The scenarios will be RENUMBERED to go along with my format I used for most of the games. That is I used a numbering system that was easier to follow.

This will not be hard to do. Given time I will do the campaigns too.

I will post these for the game clubs to post on their sites and NOT a forum venue. I also have no plans to post a website at this time so the clubs will be the "holders" of these files.

I should have the "Scenarios" and "Data" folder files done this week. Will include a scenario list too. The names of the battles will remain the same. "Retro" will be at the end of the PDT files used in this set so as to differentiate them from the ones that WDS uses.

Note: NONE of these files will be for use by WDS in an update. This is no knock on them. This is so we always have the correct ones to use.

I will make sure that the Bridge cost is correct.

You will be using the PDT file format as per ver. 4.00. Many did not have that installer. I am making the files available for those of us that do not care for the Waterloo/NRC file format.

"According to this thread, will WDS update the existing Napoleonic Battles games to the 10mins turns in the future updates?" - Luc's question

No, Luc, this is my own project I am talking about. And anything that WDS is going to do you would have to discuss with Rich Hamilton who heads up the Napoleonic Battles series.

Their plans were to take the EC and WC games and update them to the Waterloo/NRC format. This was done in the last update (4.06). Once we saw how it affected the games I decided to post the old scenarios and PDT files for everyone to access.

One thing I found out last night while working on this is that the Alternate scenarios sometimes have a "H" designation which is incorrect. This was my mistake and has permeated the files since the EC game was released. I also will be reorganizing the scenarios to have a better title. I will create a list that shows the old and new scenario names so folks will know which scenario in my set corresponds to the ones in the WDS set.

Its up to the club how they want you to report these scenarios I am working on. My call would be to use my list, use the older name already in the Dept of Records and just continue to use the same name as before for club purposes. The only difference could be that the play balance for the NEW 4.06 format might be off.

But I am providing this for our members that prefer the older 15 min. format I came up with that makes PIKES faster to travel on than ROADS and so on. In the new format you can whip down a ROAD as per PIKE and that is really not my original intention.

Its Rich and David's product of course but there was no consideration made to play balance or intent of MPs and rates when they changed things. This could definitely result in the Bavarian VII Corps being caught in "Hunt for Davout" and so on. See this image to see what I mean (Roads are brown, Pikes are light gray in the attached image.

While Davout still will be using the road, the Bavarians have access to that Pike roadnet.

For the large campaign scenario it becomes much more pronounced.

Why put a Pike in the terrain set if it was not going to be BETTER than a road! That is why I originally set the MP rate to be different for Roads and Pikes. Why research the roadnet to find out where the better class roads are if they are all alike? Makes ZIP ZERO SENSE.

The older Battleground series, I believe, had Roads and Pikes using the same rate. That was its fault.

Lets not bow down to Battleground and Talonsoft as the perfect emulation of a Napoleonic series. Because of the phased play you have skirmishers blocking routes of an entire division if you do not use SINGLE PHASE (meaning no Melee at the end) and the BLITZ was effecting done away with USING MY MOVEMENT SYSTEM to all of you that favor the Waterloo format back in 2000 when Eckmuhl was released.

Paco reported wiping out an entire brigade of Ken Jones Austrians in a playtest game of EC and John Tiller took their advice and he and I worked in a No Melee Elimination optional rule. BIG DUH GUYS! Its a no brainer to avoid the phase play. Its ARCHAIC and I for one am sick and tired of hearing that its superior or even worth playing. John more or less abandoned it. Why resurrect it?

So yes, these files will be for gamers like me and Paco and Andy to use to recreate the ORIGINAL INTENT of the title. We playtested the game for two years. I am not sure why Rich and co. want to toss those hundreds of playtest hours and findings out the window. Its their product and they can screw it up all they want but some of us still have the 4.00 installer and have the files that we put out originally.

And yes, I plan on doing this with any of the games that get changed where we note that the play balance is going to be tossed out the window by future updates. That much I will commit to doing.

All of the original files will have this scenario file format:

R (for RETRO) followed by the rest of the scenario name. If its different than the original name I will be including a list like I am doing for Eckmuhl.

For my sets I will update the PDT files to make sure that the Bridge movement rate is correct.

I will NOT be tinkering with the sets that WDS releases. That is up to them to fix their product, not me. The purpose here is to recapture the original file set that came with each product I worked on. That's it.

Just to clarify – I suppose in case I do want to use latest update from WDS but to fix Pike-Roads issue. The solution would be to copy PDT movement values from your Retro version as of 4.00 and copy pasting it into the latest WDS version?