Scenario Design Center

New Look ...and an idea, plus an update

2012-01-29T10:00:00.000+11:00

1st off- introducing the blog's new look (if reading off of the webpage --- I'm talking about the new format if you were to click through).

It does have its downside- in that, for whatever reason, you can't post links on this style of blog (well a widget with a list of links to, say, other blogs -as is commonly done by many bloggers.

Chelco, over at his blog, Real and Simulated Wars, has written a review on Tigers Unleashed . It got me thinking of writing something along the lines of reviewing a review. While I haven't played TU, nor do I think I will get a chance to do so anytime soon (basically it just arrived at my work queue... and there are too many others that also deserve my time as well)... I do know that the author spent a good deal of time with that product -which is in stark contrast to writers that are so interested in being first out with a 'review' that is heavy on snarkiness, but extremely shallow on content. In short, if you are looking for a review on any sort of product; if it were me, I'd read it off of Chelco's site. (The same Chelco, who is making me jealous of his armoured sims... confession, I am an 'old tanker' from the Battlezone days.).

All of which brings me to the queue(tm) -the above map is from Roman Civil Wars, as I have completed work on the planning maps for that title. I'm currently working on maps for Greek Wars (none of which have made the web page yet, but I do have what I got done available in the Gallery. Incidentally, the above map is of Philippi.

One big advantage that working with these maps has, is that it always gives me a good look at the map, as well as how the graphics are assembled to form the larger picture (in other words -gets me thinking on modding methodology). I was playing around with my friendly image editing software, with the water hex images, and noticed that in the Ancient Warfare series, that there is never a hexgrid superimposed over water hexes. During the time when I had been wondering about what I might have done wrong (e.g. was my water hex size off, was I overlaying the hexgrid somehow, etc...) I was also wondering about the precise hex dimensions of the series- or more accurately, how to work out what it was, when I eventually made the above observation about the water hexes, and also realised that a simple screenshot with the hexgrid showing -if one were to blot out the contents of the hex -presto -you have the dimensions... that this was probably the way to go. So, despite not having a schedule for working on a 2D zoom in mod for this- this was some important leg work to have accomplished for me.

I've still yet to create page banners, and similarly to how I handled the work for the Napoleonic Battles series, I will probably just make a post here when work is finished.

I do have to add, though, that for the moment, I have been given a higher priority project from my boardgame work, so there will be a bit of a pause while I work over on that material (best project at this point is about 2-3 weeks.). Unlike HPS/JTS, I get work while projects are in development for SPW ...and SPW has one that they want out this (northern hemishpere) Summer. I might spend some time writing about that a little later -but you know those wargame series (board games) that had a number of smaller scale games that were intended to be added up into one big picture of a war (in this case the First World War)? Well, this product is the game that ties up a lot of smaller scale campaigns/fronts into World War I in Europe and the Middle East at the division level.

Napoleonic Battles section -done

2012-01-07T09:30:00.000+11:00

http://hist-sdc.com/spotlights/series_nb.php

All pages feature campaing maps, as well as links to the original 'Getting Started' files (for reference purposes), and Notes files. In some cases, I have converted .hlp files to .pdf files. At some point I will edit in reading lists.

The next project will be building an Ancient Warfare series set of pages ( as well as restructuring what information that I have on the site). Look for that in the coming weeks.

Thanks to SDC's 2011 donors

2011-12-25T11:11:00.002+11:00

As ambassador for SDC, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the site's donors in 2011. Your generous contributions are greatly appreciated.

-Steve

Happy Christmas from Down Under

2011-12-25T11:00:00.001+11:00

...and while it is nearing midday in Oz, and so to have an excuse to make a post, I have an early present for the NB community; early in the sense that I was working out of my designated order to finish this one.

I present you all with the planning map to Campaign Jena (in 3 different sizes to suit your level of immersion).

Small ( Slightly over 1 mb)

Medium ( A bit of 5 mb )

Deluxe (Warning - Deluxe is a full sized, 2d zoom out gif file running at approx 77 mb).

It was a bit like climbing Mt Everest (and mind you if one is prone to typing too fast, -be careful to note that the 't' is right next to the 'r' - it changes the meaning of the sentence radically :D ); but for now, the rest of the series maps should be a breeze. ;)

...and to all a good night.

ST -over and out. ;)

Progress Report - Campaign Austerlitz and a bit more

2011-12-23T08:22:00.001+11:00

At the moment I am stuck into the Campaign Austerlitz planning maps. I have a few done, have started on the new page (which also has included taking a few more screen shots).

But, when dealing with NB series planning maps, I have the idea that you are only defined by the largest map you can do... so, I sort of let the Campaign map from Jena jump the queue. I haven't assembled it yet, but I do have all 84 screenshots that it will take -this one is the largest current map in the NB series, and things will really start rolling now. I will probably give in to temptation, and put it together possibly before finishing off Austerlitz's maps -and then share it in here.

I should add, that 84 screenshots is 7 h x 12 v -in 2d zoomout; for zoom in- it would be double that (I doubt I have the hardware to do that one at this point, so I am not going to try it).

Campaign Leipzig planning maps done -Austerlitz on deck

2011-12-19T17:23:00.000+11:00

Campaign Leipzig planning maps - (2nd tab)

There are still about 3 or 4 medium sized maps that I haven't done (but these are basically submaps of some of the larger maps), as well as some of the smaller maps which I was not going to do as the scrolling is relatively minimal.

I did the 5 CL level maps in 3d zoom in, and may come back and eventually do others in that resolution as well (including those mentioned above).

To a person with a moderate amount of exposure to miniature gaming, it is pretty obvious where the 3d maps have drawn their inspiration from - but then again I suppose one has to have had exposure to wargames in a few different mediums.

Next up: - Campaign Austerlitz maps (Moravia will be first) and creating that title's material in the current site format, then Jena, and then the rest will follow shortly.

Working on:

2011-12-11T17:14:00.001+11:00

Frankly there is a lot... so it becomes a matter or prioritisation.

1st off: Campaign Leipzig planning maps -I am in the process of cropping the Berlin Operational map file from the game, and will be ready to assemble it shortly (probably today in fact). I had to make an executive decision on these, so I decided to go with the 2D zoom out mode. I may come back and try them at 2D zoom in mode at some later date, however the fact of the matter is that quite a few of the larger maps would run in the range of 200+ mb per image -and I do keep some stats on the page. No one has ever downloaded anything quite that large. The smaller maps should be in the 40-50 mb range (still large images, but a little easier to get). Since this is an ongoing project, I will add the maps as they are created.

I also have a lot of work to do within the series, so I will be creating similar material for the other titles of the series.

Full sized Berlin Operational planning map

2nd off: Tigers Unleashed -I have a few more screenshots from the page HPS posted (uncharacteristically these were different than what was released in the Press Release).

Also, I should add that I found when installing the software, and using a custom install location (in my case switching to a different lettered hard drive), that the program creates another folder called HPS Shared which gets installed under the C: drive. I had run into a "can't find" error, (in my case for the maps). I seem to have fixed this situation by cutting this file (HPS Shared) and then pasting it into where I had installed the Tigers Unleashed folder. Although I am not going to claim that I have had time to learn the software, that might be of assistance to some users.

On another note, I plan on adding in screenshots for the map tiles that come with the program. I say 'tiles' as these are what can be used in geomorphic map creation (although TU is not limited to these).

3rd off: Roman Civil Wars -actually in thinking of this series as a whole, I need to a fair amount of work on it. Part of the issue I have is that I haven't found the time to learn the system properly. I do believe that I have the gist of the overview of things, and I have only reinforced that opinion by reading more on miniature gaming. At any rate, I plan on eventually working on screenshots of the map images (and will dig around to see what other things I can come up with). However, I think, in this case it will ultimately end up working on material for all of the titles for the series in one go.

Larger size Ulm Campaign map available

2011-12-03T21:34:00.001+11:00

http://hist-sdc.com/downloads/nb/maps/small/ulm_campaign_b.jpg

SDC's Napoleonic Battles planning maps

2011-12-03T16:54:00.001+11:00

I had been working on a planning map for Campaign Austerlitz's Ulm Campaign and started this maybe a week to 10 days before Leipzig was released. Part of the challenge for me is seeing if I can get these done, and this particular Ulm one was (iirc) the largest map included with Austerlitz. My screenshot dimensions are 1894 x 930 pixels, and this map at 2D zoom out was 12 columns x 19 rows of screenshots (although I didn't bother to include the hexfield in the blank area -so technically the math came out to 12 x 19 - (say) 15 or so - or over 200 screenshots. Mind you I did these saved as jpgs instead of bmps (which I should probably have done so).

The good news... I got it assembled and it looks fairly good (although some of the mountain areas -well, I want to probably give it another shot some time while using bmps and see what happens). It is probably a moot point anyways, as the image is a 207 mb jpg or 234 mb gif file. At first I reduced the size to 1600 px on the long side and have posted that at: http://trauth116.com/gallery3/var/albums/Map%20Screen%20Shots/Napoleonic%20Battles/Campaign-Austerlitz/ulm_campaign_a.jpg?m=1322890879
I also decided to go with the long side dimension that Bill Peters used on his Leipzig planning map from his recent title (9430 px). That one looks pretty good, although I did not add in the label text as Bill did - my Ulm campaign map image came out to a shade over 43 mb and will get that posted to the site when I update the Austerlitz page (which should be shortly although I am probably going to take a crack at the Leipzig maps first).

Yes, I have been avoiding the NB planning maps ( :-) ), especially Bill's as it is pretty clear that he is a big believer in giving buyers a lot of bang for the buck. His maps are pretty big and tax my hardware, but boy they are sure worth the effort. Stay tuned more to come.

Campaign Leipzig released... HPS announces 2 for Pre-Sale

2011-12-01T19:10:00.001+11:00

Monday JTS released Campaign Leipzig, covering the Fall 1813 campaign, for sale.SDC will refine the material as time goes on. Specifically I have in mind doing map screenshots along the same lines (2d zoom in) as I have done before. These will be pretty big files, probably about a couple of hundred mb's apiece. I will try to make a few sizes available over time.

And at the same time HPS has announced the impending release of 2 titles (both available on Friday, 9th December 2011).

Romans Civil Wars, an Ancient Warfare series title and Tigers Unleashed, an early war WWII Eastern Front tactical title (Eastern Front being Poland 1939, Russo-Finnish War, and Russia 1941-42).

More info on the HPS material after they become available (mainly because I don't have either).

Page relaunch: The Renaissance

2011-11-19T11:05:00.001+11:00

As part of SDC's efforts to convert pre-existing site material to the new format, the Musket & Pike series has been updated to the new site format.

Musket & Pike Series page

The Renaissance page

WSF and TFB pages updated

2011-11-15T19:18:00.001+11:00

Also included are some planning maps, where WSF has one massive on, and TFB has 4 main maps.

I have also updated the Series level page.

Strategic War series page

The First Blitzkrieg page
War on the Southern Front

The Random Image

2011-11-11T18:53:00.001+11:00

Currently this only applies to the webpage (although in thinking about it, I will try to remember to add that here as well -just a little bit of dynamism to the site).

It comes from the Gallery on the site, however I haven't been able to work out a way to get this feature to point to specific folders -therefore, the image you see there is pretty much anything. Want to see something different, just hit 'Refresh' or 'F5'.
___

Progress update, got screenshots down for planning maps for 'The First Blitzkrieg' and 'War on the Southern Front'. I got the maps done for 'TFB', and about ready to get into coding that title's new page shortly.

The Return of Digger History (the site)

2011-11-06T11:31:00.001+11:00

There is a great resource site base out of Australia that talks about all things Australian military history ( ANZAC as well iirc). and for awhile it seemed to have disappeared.

During a search recently, the site (or a significant portion thereof -since I have never looked at the entire site before -so am not now in a position to declare definitively), has been archived by the Pandora Archive (which is an Australian library initiative).

Digger History.info archived site.

Posted for users' reference requirments (or just plain surfing).

2011-10-31T08:11:00.000+11:00

Why have a store?

To clear up what may be a misconception, neither HPS Simulations, or John Tiller Software pay for SDC's hosting; they do provide material to be worked off of, but I bear all of the costs of hosting, and eventually domain registration. While I create and use official material from both HPS, and JTS, and have a relationship with them, the SDC site is a fan site, or maybe more accurately, a fan site where the focus is on providing and creating value-added material such as Planning Maps to users.

All commission money earned through this will be used to pay for SDC's hosting.

SDC's Amazon.com affiliate:

Technically, the SDC store is really more of a grouping of affilitiate accounts, where if you buy, say, a book using a link back to Amazon.com, then the site earns a commission on the purchase price. The price you pay is still the same, but Amazon diverts a cut of their profit to SDC, as being the referring site.

What's even better, is that it doesn't matter if you buy the product directly from Amazon.com or one of Amazon.com's resellers. So say, there is a book that you want, and it is unavailable, out of print, or you just are ok with a used book, all of those sales count for SDC's commission from Amazon.com.

The content of the Amazon.com affiliate store site is only limited to the products sold through the Amazon.com site- which means, in effect, it is virtually unlimited.

*** An important consideration, is that the store site only lists a price when the item is in stock at Amazon.com. If there is no price listed, it only means that Amazon.com itself is out of stock for a particular item. In most cases, the item will still be available at one of Amazon.com's resellers -so go ahead and have a look, you just might find a bargain... and at the same time help support Scenario Design Center.
Cafe Press' Scenario Design Center Store:

This site features the artwork of your humble webmaster, Steve Trauth -me.

Like the Amazon affiliate area, anything purchased through the Scenario Design Center Cafe Press store earns a commision for the site, and that commission will all go towards paying the hosting expenses of the site.

Since artwork files suitable for Cafe Press' products need to be larger (in many cases, much larger), than the material I created for the website, it will mean that the product range I have on offer will gradually grow over time.
Donations:

All monies donated will be used for the hosting expenses of Scenario Design Center.

Currently (as of Sept 2011), this comes to about US $100 per year, and that with the traffic generated by SDC in any given month, if everyone that visits donates 10 cents on their first visit in a month -then the entire site's hosting would be covered for the year.

Some important points, all of this is entirely voluntary, and the Donate button works through PayPal - frankly, I don't want your credit card details ... ever. You keep them.

And it is also the reason for the SDC Store and Cafe Press Store - so people can also have something tangible for showing their support for the site.

I appreciate your continued use and support of the site :) ~ST

Presenting the Squad Battles Area

2011-10-23T17:29:00.001+11:00

The SB area is now completed; the following is a walk-through of the features on each page.

First off, there is a series level page - complete with navigation, just click on the bar near the top of the page. I also added a new set of button choices over on the left. The purpose of this page is to highlight key aspects of the series (admittedly, as taken from the user manual), such as scale, unit types, etc...

Each individual title also has its own page, with the following features:

Original Press Release: This is more or less, what each company has on their own page. It was included as a reference point. I used a semi-modified layout that is consistent with the style the JTS site uses. Note that the JTS site has room for 12 screen shots, although some of the earlier titles used somewhat less, as well as screen shots of varying sizes. These might get addressed in the future, but is basically when I have time for it.

Planning Maps: I left off the smaller maps (generally if a map file is under 10 kb, I didn't create a map for it. These can be used for scenario design, planning moves, or just something to see what is available for any given product. I used the stock graphics, although at some point when I am done with everything, maybe I'll go back and do a few using some mod art (but only in situations where SDC has a working agreeement with the modder).

Book List: Mostly these are books listed in the Designers' notes files, although in some cases, I listed books that came out after the publication of titles. The links all point to the Amazon.com affiliate account SDC has, and anything generated there will go towards the hosting costs of SDC. I also know that there are a lot of books listed in the notes that are in the public domain. At some point, I may add links to some of these as I find them, although at the moment I am satisfied with the info included on the SB sites -so that is more of a long term prospect, as opposed to anything immediate. Note that there were no bibliographies listed for either 'Red Victory' or 'Advance of the Reich', I might add something -or just leave it be.

Game Documents/Misc: Game Documents are generally the designer notes, scenario list, getting started (note that these are included for reference only -the most current title will feature the latest material from the current series engine), and map list (which were available in some of the older titles). Occasionally there will be more than this, when the designer has included extra material, such as the info included in Dien Bien Phu regarding scenario design. Misc- this might include links to books that I know of (per mentioned above - the public domain material, at this point I think it might be largely info available from the US Army and Marine history units; it might also end up in a separate tab over time.

____________________________________________________

-What's up next? SDC will be working on the 'Storefront'; the page is already available, although I will be fleshing out the categories with a wide range of material. Then I will go on to working on some other material; at this point, I think this might be to complete a few other series' sections where there aren't so many titles - just to get further down the track.

At some point I will have to do some housekeeping on the AAR Blog; there are a number without images now -and that one is entirely on me, as I did not insist upon these images being hosted on site ... and well, if the site where images were hosted goes and changes focus, sometimes some folders just plain go away. It is something that needs to be cleaned up; however too I do have an AAR that needs to get posted, and for all I know, I might even write one myself, of an aborted match I had in Campaign Waterloo earlier this year.

That's all for now ...

SB Area... nearly done, and other stuff

2011-10-07T11:19:00.001+11:00

I am nearly done working on the Squad Battles' titles for awhile. All I have left are to add some reading lists for about 6 titles. I got individual banners in place for all of the pages, and switched the planning maps areas around so that they are smaller (will load faster), and all on a single tab as opposed to multiple ones as I had had them before.

That being said, some of those graphics are not much more than labelled place holders, and if anyone spots a glitch, like a misplaced flag (particually the Spanish Civil War one), please drop me a line and I will get that fixed.

The site's next project will be to talk about the Donate button, and the Store Area, plus develop those areas. What I have on the site right now, will change a little when it is all said and done; the current button will point to what basically amounts to a portal to some affiliate sales accounts that SDC has set up, with the goal of supporting the hosting costs for the site.

The Bardia banner... that is really just a placeholder for now. I do plan on writing some historical articles at some point, and Bardia will be one of the topics, another one will be the Long Tan (August 1966). Ideally these will be tied into either planning and/or actual scenario design. The above 2 battles, being ones with some Australian content. There'll be others as well, it just so happens, that those two right now are a little fresher in my mind, having just read about them both recently.

That's it for now. :)

-ST

And over at Wargamer.com... An FIW graphic mod feedback request

2011-09-22T20:52:00.001+10:00

Over at Wargamer.com, 'Earl of Warwick' has been posting samples of a French and Indian War graphics mod he has been working on for some time.

http://www.wargamer.com/forums/posts.asp?t=561934&p=4

He's put a lot of effort into this project and is looking for some constructive feedback; Wargamer.com is a site that requires a log in to post, so if anyone, not a member there, would like to have feedback passed along, please feel free to post it in the comments section here and I will make sure it gets posted there.

At the moment, I was lucky to fit in this post the way things have been going around my end of the world, so maybe I might get around to it - but just in case I don't- well... one thing I have learned in doing web design work... there can never enough feedback :).

Head Down Keyboard Clacking ... or: Work, Work, Work

2011-09-11T06:11:00.002+10:00

The site continues to evolve. I won't bore you with the details yet, until it is ready. However, I want to take a second to showcase a new feature here - the Search SDC function.

If viewing this one the SDC site- have a look at the next tab over.... type in your search item - and ouila- you got info ... even stuff you may not be aware of what might be on the site.

Of course, that isn't all I have been working on - but that is all that I am talking about right this moment. ;)

Some SB page updates

2011-08-16T09:31:00.002+10:00

Dien Bien Phu

Spanish Civil War

Soviet-Afghan War

Red Victory

Squad Battles: Red Victory designer calling for feedback.

2011-08-12T11:15:00.002+10:00

I saw this over on the Blitz site ( theBlitz.org ) yesterday. Ozgur Budak, the lead scenario designer for Red Victory is requesting feedback about his last title. While I haven't been in touch with Mr Budak, an educated guess is that he is working on an update to Red Victory.

Feedback needed for Red Victory

Guys,
I am compiling a list for data and parameter tweaks for a possible RV update. I already have a check list. Just wanted to hear your voices here about the problems in dats and parameters.

Former posts pointed out a couple of issues:
- Soviet M37 illumination round has no indirect fire flag
- Soviet Fog41 Flamethrower has 0 range.

Anything else?
Oz

Even if you don't have access to the Blitz, - feel free to drop a comment here (meaning the blog -since when writing this I managed to forget that I have the feed running on the home page of the site ) if you have any and I will pass it on over Ozgur's way ( or alternately, if you know his email address - I don't think he'd mind if you dropped him a line about it).

SB: Falklands -and an update

2011-08-08T16:24:00.003+10:00

By now, I imagine that most users here will have heard that on 6th August 2011, John Tiller Software released a new Squad Battles title, Falklands.

There is an accompanying site on Scenario Design Center/Centre. Although I haven't had the time to come up with a banner -so I slapped a generic placeholder one on there.

http://hist-sdc.com/spotlights/sb_falklands.php

When creating map images, I generally go for the largest .map file within a given title.

The Port Stanley map here, is comprised of 88 total screenshots of roughly, 1893 x 930 px -I've made two versions of the map - one at full-sized 2d zoom out mode (which is an 80.5 mb download), and a smaller one that is roughly the size of my monitor (turns out -that was wrong- as I didn't account for what part of the res that my browser was using -but... well, I can resize it later a bit -still pretty impressive in terms of size).

______

On another note, it looks like the next pages to get updated in the new format are going to be France '14 then Red Victory (of which I still have some map images to put together for anyways...).

Not sure what I am going to do about Greek Wars, as I was thinking of seeing if I could put together some maps for that -but so far I haven't expiremented with that series to see how feasable it is.

Anyways ... that is where things currently stand in the "SDC Universe".

What the (blank) is that favicon?

2011-07-31T09:05:00.001+10:00

Ok, first off -the favicon, is the little graphic in the address bar by the url.

And now, just what the heck is that blob on the SDC site?

The Ft-17... actually -this Ft-17, resized to a 16 x 16 px image.

Ok, why? Well there isn't any reason, other than I was working on this graphic for my SPW project. I am also the webmaster of SPWGame.com

Behind the Scenes...

2011-07-28T19:43:00.001+10:00

As is probably obvious by looking at this; this is going to be the new look for the site. It is still being worked on, of course, and I will be adding additional graphics as time goes by.

This is just the front of the site, the rest of the site still looks and should work as it had previously.

I decided to go with this format, as I had had some success designing the SPW (Schroeder Publishing & Wargames) site recently. It is more flexible and uses space more efficiently, plus it rescales easily, as per users' browser controls. It does work best with wide-screen monitors, although there is a fixed limit as well (of about 1200 some odd px wide).

I've had requests to add links; at this point I am limiting my link useage to sites, where I have some connection or relationship with.

Any feedback ( positive, negative, changes needed, repairs needed), please feel free to mention it. :)

~Steve

1776 Tournament being run at the Blitz

2011-07-16T06:37:00.000+10:00

Head over to the Blitz to sign up tp their latest tournament.

Gallery moved - images here gone

2011-07-03T19:09:00.000+10:00

First off -technically the images haven't gone anywhere, although the address for the gallery has changed.

http://trauth116.com/gallery3

I had some issues getting a subdomain name to take (as the actual plan was to use the subdomain: http://gallery.hist-sdc.com - I'll keep working on that, and figure it will get resolved, but at the moment -the address is per the above. The original gallery is at: oldgallery.hist-sdc.com - however, as is obvious, a whole gaggle of image links got broken in the blog -I may go back in and edit these, at least the most recent ones... otherwise -well, things will just start off from where it has left off, moving forward.

Working on...

2011-06-10T19:14:00.002+10:00

Planning maps for Red Victory. I have gotten many done, but there are many more to finish. There is a bit of crossover as well with this title and Advance of the Reich.

I did run a little poll over at the Blitz, which I will maybe expand on over time. For some unknown reason I added Red Victory as an option for what folks might want to see next. I wrote it that way, as it really should have been a no brainer for me, as Red Victory was the newest SB title available after Modern War... so it is a natural fit.

Below is the Borisov map:

Many of the maps in Red Victory are of significant size, so it will take some time to get these all taken care of.

There is also another Squad Battles title soon to be released, so I will also probably do those maps, then progress to another phase of the Squad Battles' pages redevelopment project (ok, I just made that term up -but it does fit). The idea here is all about consolidating pages and making greater use of tabbed panels.

Update -SB Planning map albums restored

2011-06-04T21:43:00.000+10:00

This morning, my time, I finished restocking the Squad Battles' albums that I managed to delete. Some of the images are at a different scale, although these are just previews of what will be available in full size on the web page, in due course.

I don't have any set plan as to what album to work in next, although I would like to post at least one map in each of the existing folders -at the very least, to serve as a representative image for that respective game titles' album.

SB maps' album repair update

2011-06-03T21:29:00.001+10:00

Since last leaving off here yesterday, I have worked to restock the missing SB maps. I still have Spanish Civil War and Modern War to get done. I expect that to be completed by this weekend.

The New Link to the Squad Battles Maps (well, the previews...)

For the life of me, I can't remember if I had any Modern Campaigns maps showing or not -but since I got most of them (maybe all), I will resize what I have and eventually get that album up and running.

...and then tragedy strikes...

2011-06-02T18:00:00.001+10:00

I managed to delete my Squad Battles maps album, so that will need to be reconstructed.

Apologies for any inconvenience; it will be back shortly. (And all of this after I had uploaded a couple more - including Corregidor).

Bear with me, please, and I will get them all back up shortly.

SB:AoR Stalingrad map available + other news

2011-06-02T12:29:00.007+10:00

Ok, well the preview is up, and the full sized 2d zoom out map is slightly larger than 27 mb. Based upon feedback I'd received, I think that I might focus upon RV and AoR, and then go from there.

Of course, I also have to revise the pages for the SB titles as I go.

A preview of the Stalingrad campaign map:

A larger scale version is available on the gallery.

Ok, how is this map different? It is different, as the map image used on the HPS Simulations' page (as well as the dedicated one available on 'Scenario Design Center/Centre is based upon the jump map, whereas this one is a 2d zoomout screenshot. It took 35 images ( 7 x 5 screenshots) of 1893 x 807 px (before overlapping and some cropping). Maybe at some future point I might try out a 3d zoom in mode map, but that for sometime down the track.

Other News: someone tried downloading one of Rich Hamilton's Gettysburg scenarios, and the site reported the link was broken -this was a false positive; if you're out there reading this, please try again - it should work for you, if you haven't done so already.

On another note, per the message on the download area, it is still valid, in that I haven't had time to address any issues in the Battleground series' downloads. As far as I am aware, though, all of that material is still available at Gamesquad.com. I do eventually plan on addressing issues like that, I apologise for any inconvenience, however my personal time doesn't permit me to spend the time needed to address those issues at this time (it is a big download database). I will try to find the link to it on the ftp site and post it in a future blog so that you can go and download it directly from there. Anyways, please bear with me on that one.

Finally: The SB: ToD, Long Tan map is huge; the scenario lasts about 12 turns ( I think that the time scale in that series is something like 5 minutes per turn ). Also the is a lot of unused space on that map, so I think that someday it might be interesting to develop maybe something larger scale on that map; after studying the battle itself. From what I remember the actual Battle of Long Tan took place over the course of a few days. So... I suppose it might be interesting to see what else might be workable on that map.

I suppose the short version of this, is that I would like to see if some other actions involving Australia, might be feasible in the scope of the series. To that end, I have Paul Ham's book "Vietnam" available as a starting point, and at some point might work out from there and see what all is out there in the various repositories available here.

More work

2011-05-18T22:02:00.000+10:00

I did a few map images for Squad Battles: Spanish Civil War; and took the opportunity to have a think about my Gallery album for the map images. I decided to go with creating sub-albums for each series; there are still a fair few series to contend with, so there will be enough material to keep users busy. Badajoz's map is below.

Spanish Civil War map album

Work Start Notice

2011-05-15T09:44:00.002+10:00

I've seen a few posts over time, where people would like to see some maps for the Napoleonic Battles' series. Now then, these will have to fit in as time allows.

Well, here's a start - the Sacile map from Campaign Eckmuhl. I will try to get an Abensberg out shortly as well (from the same title).

Link to full sized Sacile map (2d Zoom in)

Broken Links on the Download area

2011-04-24T09:34:00.000+10:00

I just wanted to drop by to let users know that I am aware of the broken links in the download area; it is a project that will take a fair amount of time to sort out. It seems to have to do with naming conventions and incompatabilities with the free software that the site is using. I will get to these when I can, but have no prediction as to when that will happen.

I will, however, post here as things progress.

MapMod Update plus some SDC projects

2011-03-23T19:54:00.004+11:00

The project to continue planning maps is continuing; the next set I am working on are for 'The Renaissance'. Most of these are fairly small, but a couple are significant. :)

Mapmod released an update, which includes mods for Tunisia '43, as well as Mius '43.

Which got me thinking, and playing around with Jison's files to see what would happen if I added them to the MC 2d zoom out for, in this case, ME 67.

Link to the Sinai image on the SDC Gallery

I've started creating some planning maps using the MapMod graphics packages, and have for now set up an album at the Gallery page. At this point I have been able to add the full-sized versions of these maps to the album; these will also probably be used on the site is some format or other. There'll probably be more news on this down the road.

JTS announces Panzer Campaigns: Tunisia 43

2011-03-12T09:12:00.001+11:00

Available starting 11 March 2011 - see the JTS site for more info and to purchase via their direct download system.

Tunisia '43

1776 and War of 1812 pages updated

2011-03-11T19:28:00.000+11:00

For now I haven't come up with unique banners for either of these titles as of yet, however I did finish up with the map images.

The pages can be found below:

1776

War of 1812

JTS Demo Games to be Mirrored at SDC

2011-03-01T08:41:00.000+11:00

Last week John Tiller Software released a Panzer Campaigns Demo game (Mius '43), and gave permission to anyone to rehost the file or distribute it as they see fit.

I threw together a brief page on Mius '43, along with the link. The SDC servers work with download managers, so if you are on a slower connection -this aspect could come in handy (well it does for me -which says a little about my connection :) ).

Status Report

2011-02-21T13:52:00.003+11:00

SDC Update

I've been working on maps for 1776 and once done with that will move on to 1812. Since a lot of these maps are smaller, I've done more in 3d modes than I had for other titles in the past.

I don't actually have any set timeframe for getting these done, however if anyone is interested in the progress - there is a maps area on the Gallery.

In time, I will also be introducing some of the custom maps that Al Amos has done (technically I have one done already - his pre-1754 map of Indian Lake). I've also been weighing whether to start working on some alternate graphics for 1776/1812/FIW sooner rather than later, with MAW to follow at some point. (MAW having more of a SW feel, it would probably require a different approach). So all of that is out there.

I'm putting this out there now, mainly because I think I may not post again here until I get another page up there and it might take a few weeks -but no, I am not dead. :)

New Material Added...

2011-02-08T15:10:00.000+11:00

This time it is a relaunch of the page for French & Indian War.

I had to do something different with the Quebec map (it is big -probably too big to be usable - "weighing in" at 249 mb in a rar file (which contains a jpg). I will make 2d zoom out version at some point and will add that to the site as well.

Until then, you can check out the page here.

Page Relaunch...

2011-02-07T19:14:00.004+11:00

... this time it is Mexican-American War. Technically, I had already sort of announced this one before; what was done this time was to add larger 'thumbs' for the maps and switch to the scrolling used in Soviet-Afghan War (see immediately prior entry).

View the page here.

New Material: Soviet-Afghan War

2011-02-03T12:03:00.001+11:00

Just added, an updated page for Soviet-Afghan War (from the Squad Battles series). Comes complete with a set of map images.

Check it out here.

Donwload Section ... the challenge

2011-01-18T22:05:00.000+11:00

Hi... back again... the challenge of the Download section is that it only allows for files of 8 mb and smaller. SDC will be hosting files larger than that ( and already does). So, it comes down to working out a method to redirect over to where these are located at.

Also, when I get time I will add a link on the tab on the SDC homepage for 'SDC Downloads' that directs users over to the main 'download portion' of the site.

I know that there are a lot of files that are either illegible (under or just not documented), and duplicated. It sort of worked out that thing ended up getting disorganized. I will be blaming that on my hectic schedule, so things got a little more out of hand than I would have liked.... but mostly that is because I uploaded a bunch of files, and now I have to go through what I have on the site, what is there twice, and time to cull those out of there. It will be a bit of a process, but will get done.

Progress report

2011-01-13T20:43:00.005+11:00

A day ago or so, it came up that I ought to have a 'what's new' area. It is a valid statement to be sure. In thinking about it, I think that I wanted to have more new things to post about than I figure that I currently do.

I do have some areas that I am working on, and have been working on. Taking a page out of the JTS site, and then putting my own stamp on things, I decided that it is a good idea to format game title pages using files from the games in the same manner that both of JT's newest titles do on his webpage. (For sake of context - those would be Panzer Campaigns: Kharkov '43, and Squad Battles: Modern War).

In working on the MW page, I got interested in creating screenshots of the master maps for that title; so I decided that now was a good time to fulfill a promise for content that I had made to Mike Cox (DBP's lead scenario designer), and create some maps and redo my page for this title.

You can find it here.

I might go in and maybe have another try at the banner, but that one there will work for now. And too, I should mention that the page is not quite done.
____________________

Another title that I worked on was the Early American Wars' title: Mexican-American War. If memory serves me right, it is from the Nebel lithograph of the storming of Chapultepec.

One challenge that MAW presented me was the number of tabs for the maps. I went with some really small thumbs, but do have a larger version of the maps available in a section of the SDC Gallery.

However links to the full sized maps can be found on the redesigned page for MAW.

You can find that one here.

I will probably add a section on the Nebel lithographs that I found awhile ago, and I am also looking in to ways that users can support the site, which you might run into on the MAW page. Sure, I put this way down the list on this posting; mainly because at this point I am waiting on a couple of things to happen. There'll be an announcement of that probably in the 1st or 2nd Q of 2011.

____________________

At any rate, back to the initial suggestion... it was a solid one, and that will be happening. I have a Downloads section that I am still working on. I'm only too aware that the software that I am using went and took file names with spaces and added the dreaded '%20' thing to it making them unnecessarily tougher to read. That will be fixed, but it is a big project. At the same time then there is the prospect of adding in the descriptions. Mostly that amounts to copy/paste then edit sometimes. Which all sounds easy enough as an individual process... however when I got done uploading there were nearly 650 files.

I did drop the idea of having a separate account for uploads, and now if you register to the site, you will be allowed to upload files. I will have a posting for instructions and all of that in due course.

At the moment, I have TJD of Ancient Warfare's Gladius Blog also adding some files.

One thing that bears noting on the Downloads section is that, it is much more user friendly for users than it is for Admins... I think TJD would agree with me on that. I have never seen something that is so easy to use but nearly the opposite to admin. I do commend TJD for gutting it out to the level he has, it isn't easy ... looks good enough though. :)

_____________________

I would be remiss, if I did not acknowledge that I am very much aware now, due to the efforts of Hudson (the AAR Depot writer as well as owner/operator of the Blunt Force Gamer Blog.) of some situations that I would not necessarily have been sensitive to. I do need to write up an 'About SDC' blurb for the site. SDC is not owned or operated by either HPS Sims or John Tiller Software. I do happen to be focusing on their products however... but I do not want to create any sort of misrepresentation of things. Yes, that means I had virtually ignored that a major game publisher owns a gaming site, but neglects to actually ever have it stated on that board. Such isn't the case here - despite if one goes to WhoIs .... what one would find is that I haven't been all that keen to list my address and phone number along with any of my domain registrations. Anyways- here isn't where I was going to talk to that point other than to talk to the point that I needed to talk about it -if that makes sense :) .
_____________________

Anyways -- more new stuff is coming all of the time ... not necessarily drastic in appearance- but more along the lines of adding on material and keeping a familiar look. You know, I did not set out to write a book -but I guess it had been awhile.

~Steve

Next Up ... Recreating the Downloads section

2010-12-27T18:48:00.000+11:00

A little back history here; when Rich first ran the SDC site he had a downloads section, which was pretty comprehensive when it came to HPS products as well as John Tiller's designs from Talonsoft. With 2011, that section is returning to the site.

Barring release material, re-establishing that area will be the site's priority; so in effect I am calling my shot in this one. Software has been found, at it looks as if it will work fairly well. There are a few hitches to be worked out with some of the controls as it is a little new to me (although the format does resemble forum controls -so it looks relatively easy to set up.).

So coming soon to this place, will be a dedicated download area, and the blog idea will sort of -well, still be there - but I guess you can call it all a learning experience.

Squad Battles: Modern War out Monday, 27th Dec 2010 -from JTS

2010-12-26T08:48:00.002+11:00

Ok, this isn't news anymore... but per Rich Hamilton at John Tiller Software, this one will be available for download at the JTS store on Monday (US time ...).

I did some work for SDC content and created a series of planning maps. What a 'planning map' is in JTS vocabulary -is basically a screen shot of the map (usually stitched together). In order to get as much done as possible, I focused my efforts on the largest maps in the title (and may well come back to some other maps in due course -most of those are about 2 or 3 screen shots as opposed to say the 30 or more that some of the larger maps required). I liked doing it so much, if I can find the time I will do more of these maps for the other titles in this series; who knows- but this might even include 3d maps for some of the titles that use that graphics set.

There is one thing, though - these are only the maps that are p[provided with the game, I am not sure if the scenarios themselves are not mostly (if not exclusively) using portions of these maps for the scenarios that come with the title. This isn't intended as a review- just supplementary material for the title.

You can check out the JTS site's Modern War page here.

You can check out the planning maps at the SDC Modern War page here.

And check out a 'thumb' (using quote marks -since 'thumb' in my case sometimes ends up being larger than other thumbs you might come across :)). Click on the image for a full size (2d zoom out) image of the same map.

The Ramadi map:

And since I've got the idea that rivers don't run blue in this part of the world, at some point I think I might try a bit of a map mod for this one -sort of an alternative to this, as well as other map packages. (And maybe some day I might end up being cloned like Michael Keaton in that movie Multiplicity I think it was... yeah-I can dream, can't I? :) .

Normandy '44 v. 1.12 patch available

2010-12-23T14:09:00.000+11:00

Update files posted to HPS Sims' site.

Link

Full sized Kharkov 43 planning map available

2010-12-22T09:35:00.000+11:00

It took awhile, although really there isn't too much that can be added to the Kharkov 43 site's material. Ok actually there are some campaign maps and some background history - however the maps I have take a little bit of editing in order to get to a useful resolution.

Until that comes, I put together a full sized 2d zoom in planning map for KH43.

The one that you get from the JTS site is resized to a smaller size, since this site has ample room -I went for the "full monty" as they say.

Get it Here

Introducing SDC AAR Depot

2010-12-19T12:15:00.000+11:00

So new it exceeds my ability to have created a nav button for it (yet ;) )... and managed by the capable hands (as well as capable authorship) of Hudson, who's already been hard at work.

Have a look, and get in touch with the site if you'd like to contribute an AAR.

aar-depot.hist-sdc.com

Coming in 2011, contests with actual prizes ;)

PzC Sealion v.1.01 released by HPS

2010-12-15T08:21:00.000+11:00

Released 13th December

Patch link

The documentation link on the HPS site (for the moment) is wrong - the downloadable documentation link is below:

http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/Updates/up_PzC/up_SeaLion/Sealion40_101_pdf.exe

Modern Campaigns series' Movement Sound Files Patch

2010-12-10T14:28:00.002+11:00

Download Link

File Size: Approx 24.2 MB
From the Modern Campaigns' development team. Special thanks to Ed "Volcano Man" Williams.

Below is from the Read Me file included in the zip file.
__________________

Installation instructions:
--------------------------

Extract these files to the ...\Media folder of where your Modern Campaigns game is located on your hard drive (for example: ...\Korea '85\Media).

ENJOY!

////////////////////////

NOTES:

- You must update your Modern Campaigns titles to the most recent versions (from at least 2008) in order to hear these sounds.

- There will be an option in future versions to disable the movement sounds in the game's menu. If you do not want these sounds then do not use them. If you get tired of hearing these sounds in the game, between now and when the option to disable the movement sounds is added, then you should either turn off the sound effects in the game, or go into the game's ...\Media folder and delete all .wav files with the word "Movement" in the filename (64 files).

Panzer Campaigns Series' Movement Sound Files Patch available

2010-12-09T08:35:00.002+11:00

Download Link

File size: Approx 22 mb

Created and provided by the Panzer Campaigns development team headed by Glenn Saunders.

This supplies the new movement sound files being used in Kharkov '43 to the rest of the Panzer Campaigns series' titles as they are patched to the Kharkov '43 version of the series engine.

This is a simple zip file. Once downloaded, needs to be extracted to the Media folder of the title you are going to patch. Currently this will only work with the latest Budapest '45 patch (v. 1.02) that was released 7th December 2010 on the HPS site.

Important: This patch will work with all of the Panzer Campaigns titles, however *only* with patches dated **7th December 2010 and later.

A Thank You from John Tiller Software

2010-12-09T07:31:00.001+11:00

JTS is using their home page as a news page, and it is more of a space to put something for awhile and then reuse that space. I figured I'd post it here, since while it will get buried over time -hey, it's the nature of a blog, isn't it?

______________

Thank You!

Before this endeavor started last Friday, we had no idea what to expect. I had established a sales goal for the end of the month that I felt would represent indisputable success. I am delighted to report that because of your enthusiastic response, our first month sales goal was achieved Tuesday.
Our second game, a Squad Battles game, is finished and ready for release in the near future. And we have a very aggressive publishing schedule established for the first half of 2011 to populate the store with a variety of games from many different areas.
Thank you for ensuring that my team and I will be able to continue our efforts well into the future.

~John Tiller

08 Dec 2010

______________

On another note, as I had note, as I did not read it before posting it .... sounds like a good news, "bad news" situation ... the "bad news" is it looks like I will be busy making up banners on a busier pace than normal. :) Oh well, I like a challenge as well as anyone else -hell, I am on what passes for "broadband" in Australia ... if that isn't a challenge, I don't know what is- maybe satellite coverage out in the boonies anywhere :D. Nevermind that.

PzC: Budapest '45 v. 1.02 released

2010-12-08T16:29:00.003+11:00

Available at the HPS Simulations' site. Direct Link

New feature -another Blog tab

2010-12-07T12:09:00.003+11:00

Just in, the site will be adding a tab for TJD's Gladius blog that feature's Paul Bruffell's Ancient Warfare series through HPS. I will also probably have to come up with a scrolling box in a tab featuring SDC site updates, as when I installed the tabbed feature - some of that sort of thing got lost in the shuffle.

I expect to get that done shortly... and will also be adding in a like feature for Al Amos' blogs on EAW and AW as well.

It was suggested that I have an area dedicated to AAR's (as well as write a few of my own). I'm looking for any of those. I do have one in hand - and have to work out how best to feature these - I am thinking it might work to have a dedicated folder for nothing but AAR's.

5 Minutes with JTS Support

2010-12-06T20:54:00.002+11:00

Working under the assumption that new businesses might mean new business models, SDC took time out to look for answers that no one seems to be asking. I got in touch with Rich at JTS over their opening weekend to that end.

SDC: With this new enterprise (John Tiller Software), will the release dates for new titles continue to be on the first Fridays of months?

JTS: No, we don't plan on holding to that schedule, it just happened to work out this way this time ( 3rd Dec 2010 - a Friday ). The beginning of December was a good time to launch we felt.

SDC: John Tiller's title, 'The Renaissance' represents the earliest point in history he's modeled so far. Are there any plans to design anything earlier than 1490?

JTS: Hard to say at this point -tons of work in the pipeline that needs to be finished before we can address new stuff. You won't see anything like that in 2011 for sure. (Editor's note- that isn't a 'no' -it isn't a yes, either :). )

SDC: Is the no vaporware policy still in effect? (I'm talking about the policy previously held that nothing would be said about titles under development).

JTS: Generally, yes, but there might be little glimpses here and there. You definitely will not see the days of Talonsoft advertising concepts as future games though!

Ok- well there you have it --5 minutes with JTS...

Edited 7th Dec 2010: Also saw today, that Rich has mentioned that JTS will be opening up their own dedicated messageboard.

Two Feet of Games - An Open Letter (John Tiller)

2010-12-06T17:25:00.001+11:00

Over the past 10 years, my development team and I have enjoyed a great development and publishing situation with HPS. Scott Hamilton went through some significant stress in taking me on as a developer 10 years ago but stuck it out and as a result we have been able to accomplish a great deal over the years.

As a result of his open attitude towards games, my development team was able to address all kinds of areas that other publishers wouldn't have considered. Computer wargames on the War of 1812, the Spanish Civil War, and the Corinth Civil War Campaign are examples of the interesting yet lesser known topics we have been able to address as a result.

Because of this, my development team and I were able to develop games at an incredible rate given the enthusiasm everyone had and the freedom we enjoyed. And the result of that 10 year collaboration? If you take all the games I have published through HPS and put them side by side, you would have a row of CD cases over 2 feet long. Unbelievable but only through the combination of hard work by scenario designers and the publishing freedom to pursue these games was this possible.

Although I have moved on to a new publishing method, my team will continue to update every HPS game we have ever done. And I encourage any developer to seriously consider asking Scott to publish their games. I don't think you'll find more opportunity to pursue your dream with anyone else out there.

-John Tiller

_________
Source URL

Editor's note- at the time of writing this, the above text was posted to the home page of John Tiller Software's site.

Letter from Scott Hamilton at HPS

2010-12-06T08:56:00.003+11:00

This one was posted on the HPS Simulations' site .

HPS has been, is, and I have no doubt, will continue to be a great company to deal with. From a customer service standpoint, I have dealt with businesses that do it as well as HPS, but never any that do it better. :)

________________

Dear HPS Customers,

As of December 2010, HPS will no longer publish new games developed by John Tiller. We will continue to sell, and John has agreed to continue to support, the games we have already released and published. We wish him the best.

HPS has several new games scheduled for release in the next few months, including titles from Jim, Paul, Jeff and Scott.

All of our games will continue to be available on physical disk (both through direct purchase and through distributors); gradually we will make existing games available by Digital Download too. The DD process is already set up – it is straightforward, easy, and devoid of registration hassles.

The HPS “No Nonsense” end user license agreement (EULA), also remains unchanged – whether the game is purchased by digital download or disk. Customers can install the software on all computers they own, and install the software on an “opponent’s” computer for the purposes of playing the game – as long as the program is removed from the non-owner's computer once the game is finished.

HPS is committed to being, “The Wargamer's True Ally”. We will continue to treat our customers... our fellow gamers... as we would want to be treated. That has been the HPS way for over 21 years, and will continue as a cornerstone of the company's philosophy.

I sincerely thank all of you for your support over all of these years, and hope that you will continue to support HPS in the future.

-Scott Hamilton
HPS Simulations

________________

Source URL

JohnTillerSoftware.com goes live -announces PzC: Kharkov '43

2010-12-04T09:46:00.006+11:00

JohnTillerSoftware dateline 3rd December (North American time) ... JTS goes live, and announces the latest Panzer Campaigns title: Kharkov '43 (aka KH43).

This title is only available as a direct download (and JTS is a distinct entity to HPS).

Please have a read of the JTS Download/Activation FAQ for their statement on how this all will work.

Naturally with a launch such as this, that involves a game as well as a new company as well as a new business model, that was all best left for the new company to announce.

HPS still exists as an entity, and business will continue as normal; SDC will support both companies' products.

What's being worked on...

2010-11-29T09:54:00.000+11:00

Lately I've been working on an AAR submitted by Einar Jon Masson about a Napoleonics match he had with Mark Nelms recently, its coming along nicely, but I also need to come up with the best format for this (as far as creating a page goes -and I haven't had as much time as I have needed for that), still in all it will be appearing here soon.

I've also begun working on more planning maps for Mexican-American War (MAW), which like Einar's AAR above, I need to put together a page for this shortly as well. This title has a fair amount of maps to cover as well, so it will probably end up being a page with tabs all over the place (but then again ... as a wargamer more is always better :) -so bring on more titles with more maps please ;).

Presently I am working on a Cerro Gordo planning map, and then I also have collected the screen shots for the Central map (which has a few of the smaller featured battles all on that one single map), as well as the Disputed v2 map (which looks to be the Matamoros/border area).

I've had a think, and might do a bit of a modified set of graphics for MAW, the stock graphics are pretty good, but the roads can be tough to make out at the higher (and consequently darker colored hexes) elevations; that and I did mention that I would probably be working on a 2D map mod for the Early American Wars (EAW) series at some point, mainly because it looks to be a fairly easy mod, to work with, as mod creating goes. I had toyed with it a bit earlier in the year, but that was just part of my general playing around and there wasn't really ever any organized effort intended at that time. Well, this time there will be. No time frame- but sometime in 2011, sounds about right... it depends upon how busy upcoming releases end up keeping me.

At the moment the site is sort of in a holding pattern, as I am expecting the other shoe to drop, and life will keep me busier I think.

Anyways - hoping my friends Stateside had a great Thanksgiving ... and avoided most awkward familial situations ( I think I'll have to cue up Christmas Vacation sometime before the 25th).

Introducing the new SDC homepage

2010-11-10T11:13:00.001+11:00

By expanding the area used by the Blog this will allow the site to be kept more current - an update, is literally only a blog post away now.

As you may have noticed, too, I have introduced a tabbed panel feature to the home page to allow more coverage in the same space.

Plus there is room for expansion as well - so overall, this is a much more practical solution that promises to keep the site more dynamic.

Now all I need to do is really get some time in tweaking the css page for the tabbed panels --- :) never fear, I'm on it.

Edited: -I've noticed that some of the formatting has gone awry - this would be based upon using a single tabbed file - (which is my fault) - I think the vast majority of the impact was on pre-existing pages where I was using a similar function. That will be corrected as time permits (basically it amounts to creating a separate tabbed panels set of files unique to the planning maps pages.

Planning maps - slight return

2010-11-10T10:58:00.000+11:00

I had started in on some maps for Mexican-American War, but put them on the backburner when it looked like the Buena Vista map was going to be "trouble" (it was a little big for my image editing program of choice to handle at the time). Since that time I have grown to appreciate the ability of Photosho and its liberal limitations -and have started using it. I expect this will continue to be the case.

As continues, also, to be the case - I don't actually have a page for this title yet as I am sort of "treading water" for awhile. So there will be one soon -probably before the end of the year.

Anyways - Buena Vista below... it is a big one (about 70 screenshots).

SDC Dev Priorities

2010-11-05T07:33:00.000+11:00

It is about time to post a set of priorities that I have for the site for the next little while, to minimize any confusion, as I have been on a couple of boards promising some features.

I expect some releases to come out shortly, if for no other reason, because it has been awhile, and HPS is not a static company. . . so that, when it happens, will become a priority even higher than what I am about to identify. (Which also requires a little artwork on my part as well.).

The home page can do better at announcing new features on the site. I have identified an RSS feed of this blog as the best, and easiest method of updating the site. I want to host this on the SDC site. Actually coding this to work doesn't appear to be the problem; what looks like the "problem" (in the sense that I have to learn how to do it), is to learn how to code a php page using Dreamweaver. So that is on the table...

Then I expect to have a look at the Early American Wars series, and do a map mod for it. I did some work on it when I was playing around with mods earlier in the year (there'll be some screen shots on the blog probably around December through maybe February- of what will be the style I think I'll be using- at least so far as the hexes go.).

And then, there are some more planning maps that need to get done. I finally had time to learn enough about Photoshop to understand how to assemble planning maps in that program. It is much more flexible than Fireworks for this (and has a massive limit -that I don't think any of the maps I have ever seen from HPS could choke... although, fair warning - I have seen some - that might ;) ). If I could do one for TWiE's master map (based upon how much is available right now ... I am sure that I could with what appears to be left).... that takes in a quarter of a million hexes.... that is a pretty significant map... I am pretty confident that it can handle anything else.

Finally, a sort of "sub-priority" - I am looking forward to learning more Photoshop techniques. In the 80's there was an artist, Rodger MacGowan whose work, I found, could sell me the game. I want to see if I can use some public domain images and sort of emulate some of Mr MacGowan's style. Although I should add, make no mistake - doing it freehand, as Rodger has done over his career, -that is the real talent in my opinion. Anyway I look forward to seeing what I can come up with by playing around with some of the filters and some of the iconic photos that are out there. Seems like a bit of a challenge.

New Planning Map project -TWIE

2010-11-03T19:32:00.001+11:00

For a larger image:

http://gallery.hist-sdc.com/main.php?g2_itemId=768&g2_imageViewsIndex=1

I will have the full sized image available on the site soon. -This is a composite image of all of the maps currently available from The First Blitzkrieg & War on the Southern Front.

SDC's Total War in Europe alternate map graphics mod released

2010-10-31T21:57:00.003+11:00

This mod has been designed for both 'The First Blitzkrieg' as well as 'War on the Southern Front' -the above bing my attempt at stitching together as much of TFB to WSF in 2d zoom in mode as I could while also using the mod. (The above is normal weather condition).

For more screen shots check out the SDC gallery album at SDC TWIE Mod gallery

And download the file from the link on the home page: hist-sdc.com or hist-sdc.com/downloads/twie/misc_files/!SDC_TWIE_map.zip

Operation Compass from 'War on the Southern Front'.

MapMod major update released plus other stuff

2010-10-30T21:56:00.001+11:00

As announced on various boards Jison over at MapMod has released a major update to his mods; the main feature of which is adding a 2d zoom out mode for his work.

It has been SDC's privilege to serve as host for MapMod -and as Jison noted (and I clearly forgot :) ...) it has been a year now; which also means that it has been a year since I got handed the keys to the site. I'd get retrospective, but well I tried writing out a draft the other day while at the local library -and, well ... I should have just like ..well, not :D .. Enough said. Thanks to all of the people who have stopped by in the past year, I will strive to make the site more useful in the coming year.

Ok -- aside from that, I will finally release a mod of my own, probably this week. Basically it is in the can as they say - although I want to write up some notes to include as a txt file.

I also have some work to do on a gaming related site that I need to finish up; and then expect to sort out some coding -so that I will be able to improve drastically the ability to highlight new material on the site. . . of course, that is dependent on any new release info that I might get before the end of the year (which effectively means that that material gets priority).

Edit: Oops -forgot -I did have occasion to play around with the Kursk and Kharkov maps in attempting to combine them into a larger screen shot and found that although there is some overlap, that the terrain (or possibly some of the water courses and elevations did not align with each map), so in American parlance ... I punted.... in Australian parlance ... I gave up the ghost :) (trust me, it makes a difference).

Of course all of this means that my PBEM return rate has slowed to less that a glacial return rate, for which I ill try to improve on.

~ST

Panzer Campaigns -the Russian Front maps

2010-08-25T10:44:00.001+10:00

This image at http://members.shaw.ca/gcsaunders/downloads2.html has always gotten me thinking - there has been some overlap in the series' maps (this is an older screen shot, to be sure). I know that Minsk '44 extends the area a little further to the west (based upon a resent playing of that title's campaign game).

I've also begun working on some 2d zoom out mode maps for VGG (they are fairly quick and easy compared to what I have been doing on SDC). I am wondering just how many maps can be combined in to one giant image of the USSR during WWII? I sort of made the mistake early on of varying the weather conditions in the maps (and unlike these above I am just working with the maps and not an actual scenario or two). In the future I am looking to see just how much of a connected map image that can be put together (I am figuring that it might be possible to connect the Kursk map to this (and maybe even the Kharkov map). I am not sure if the Kursk map goes far enough east to link up to the Stalingrad map - but it is possibly that the Kharkov map goes far enough west to link up to the Korsun map ....) Ok, see what I am getting at? No time table -mainly because I have to go back in and get normal weather screen shots for Moscow '41 (as well as Korsun '44). But it should be reasonably soon.

More VGG

2010-08-22T18:42:00.001+10:00

Ok not more VGG -just some image scans that I have done (in this case just one). This is the cd insert for Campaign Chancellorsville.

I do a little bit of clean up on these after scanning; managed to not be able to find maybe 20% of my existing inserts (and 80% of my CWB's ones).

And the NRC insert (I decided I couldn't add just one). :)

VideoGameGeek.com

2010-08-17T09:35:00.002+10:00

About 2 weeks ago the guys running BoardGameGeek.com went live with a sister site devoted to video games. To me this is a pretty ambitious undertaking, and considering the sheer numbers of games that have been released since Pong and maybe before ... it is a bit like creating the Great Library of Alexandria (to channel some Sid Meier).

At any rate, how this all fits in with SDC, I don't entirely know, but I think it is a good thing, so much so that I have done my bit in adding whatever content that I can, while creating more "stuff" as well. None of it has actually made it to SDC yet - but most of it is related (for example I have done some smaller versions of the planning maps -which really are nothing more than a sample of what I have got in store for SDC (where I don't have an image limitation)... probably my best so far is for Middle East '67.

http://boardgamegeek.com/image/784797/middle-east-67

I am trying to focus on the largest map within a title (although I am unsure how to go about it when I get to titles with multiple battles and no single map (such as the CWB titles).

If you've never visited VGG before, you have to register there in order to gain access to the largest images on their site (just like at BGG). If you are a BGG member, although at the moment VGG requires a separate log in- you use the same user name and password that you have at BGG.

http://boardgamegeek.com/videogamepublisher/13774/hps-simulations

Of course VGG isn't limited only to HPS titles- that just happens to be the area that I have spent the most time working on there (hey -it got me an avatar and a Stanley Cup microbadge- so it can't be too bad :) ).

Moving towards other maps -Panzer Campaigns

2010-08-09T11:08:00.001+10:00

While I'm still plugging away at the Civil War planning maps, I thought I'd see what a PzC map might look like. After staring at a small gif of the Crete map (from Salerno 43), I decided to give it a go. It isn't particularly large, compared to some of the ones I've done -so it was a fairly quick assembly.

I don't actually have any pages set up for anything outside of the CWB series so this is sort of a preview.

Planning maps - I'm still working on them...

2010-08-08T21:41:00.000+10:00

In July, life caught up with me a little more, and one of the things that took a hit would be the blog entries.

I recently completed the planning maps for both Gettysburg and Vicksburg but want to get them all done (at least for the CWB for now). I've learned a fair bit more about image editing in some of these huge sizes. And I think the biggest challenge I will have will be the Atlanta map. I may only focus on doing maps for the scenarios other than the entire big map. Well who knows -but that one figures to tax the capacity of my software.

http://hist-sdc.com/bookshelf/cwb_gettysburg_maps.html

http://hist-sdc.com/bookshelf/cwb_vicksburg_maps.html

I do want to do something where all of these maps -or at least links to all of the pages are in one place -at the very least by series.

I may well end up being wrong about this, but it seems like some of the HPS documentation (particularly the designer's notes), remained in .hlp format- so I have created some .pdf files for these notes. I suppose at some point I will get organized enough to show these. On the other hand, too - these might end up in html format -in short, I've yet to decide that part.

I still plan on working on the home page - as I have said before, it is a little too static for my liking - but there is also a learning curve to using this software that I have... so it might take awhile, but it will be getting done, as will a better page featuring Philippe Divine's screenshots for his downloads -of which he has been busily churning out.

I also do want to work on my own terrain mod for the Civil War series- but I suppose that is for sometime down the line. I also have a couple of articles in mind.

Looking Ahead-

2010-07-01T20:51:00.001+10:00

I'm enjoying creating the planning maps; it is a little like the electronic version of laying out a boardgame table...

In looking at some of the other maps I am going to want to deal with, I've seen some pretty huge maps in the upcoming titles. Right now I am working through Gettysburg which has its share of large maps but by far, the largest CWB map published is the Atlanta campaign's map. Luckily this one has a lot of blank area that I won't need to have screenshots for -however the empty space will still take up space on any image created.

Then there comes Napoleonic Battles. If I have done my calculations reasonably correctly... in Campaign Austerlitz -the Augsburg campaign map might take 300 screen shots. Now keep in mind that I am using images of about 1900 x 950 px -and you have a pretty big project to say the least. And there are a few maps of this size in the NB series.

I looked over Danube Front based on a comment over on Consimworld - and I had thought that one would be a large project (it will), but nothing like the above ... so at some point I will be finding out if my PC chokes on all of those potential temp files...

At left is the Jump Map from Campaign Atlanta - see the little red rectangle in the upper right corner? That is the approximate size of my screen ( 1900 x 950 or so px ...) - that is what is ahead... granted it is an extreme example - but still it is there.
So with all of this ahead of me, I think the best way to take on this workload is to post them as I create the maps. There still needs to be a better overall navigation scheme -and that seems easy enough to handle; probably less work-intensive than the process of creating the maps. So what you have are some fairly rough web pages, that will be a lot better, but not til I get the maps done. Anyways... back to work for a bit...

More CWB planning maps

2010-06-27T19:52:00.003+10:00

In the past couple of days I revamped the original Corinth page (so that it wouldn't scroll up and down forever). Changed the format to just plain big jpgs (much smaller footprint). And added a Campaign Franklin planning maps page and should have a page up for Campaign Ozark probably by about the time I post this one.

I am considering the merits of having a page for an entire series' planning map set as well.

There are a few different ways to handle these, and I am thinking that maybe scrolling panels might be an interesting option as well. So there will be a little tweaking still, but I think the main thing is to have the material available as well, so that is the angle I am going to take.

-Example: Lexington Missouri planning map from Campaign Ozark-

At any rate -the current CWB planning map pages are:

Corinth: http://www.hist-sdc.com/bookshelf/cwb_corinth_maps.html

Franklin: http://www.hist-sdc.com/bookshelf/cwb_franklin_maps.html

Ozark: http://www.hist-sdc.com/bookshelf/cwb_ozark_maps.html

Civil War Battles Planning Maps project

2010-06-21T21:03:00.000+10:00

I was inspired by some add-ons in the new France 14 title, in that there are planning maps included in pdf format. At any rate I decided to start this project with the Civil War Battles series, and I made the executive decision to start at the beginning ... in this case it means Campaign Corinth.

These images can be fairly full on to create, and I am not entirely sure that I can use the same method I am comfortable with (due to possible image size limitations with the software) for maps that are much larger than the area shown in this map of the Corinth area.

It is still early days -but you can find the Corinth Planning Maps page here.

The full url is: http://hist-sdc.com/bookshelf/cwb_corinth_maps.html

Endurance Tests

2010-06-09T20:52:00.000+10:00

As some might recall, Scenario Design Center had had a download section; and the past few days were spent securing these files for future use.

I can say that this has been completed - these will take some time to sort through and get something together - but no matter what happens, these have been secured for future use.

A Change of Philosophy....

2010-06-08T09:46:00.000+10:00

Ok, this isn't really all that radical, but it is still a change, in that I am not really all that keen to go posting a bunch of "Under Construction" type stuff- although the fact of the matter, is that -well, it is...

I am engaged in some more behind the scenes type stuff that is fairly intense. After that, I still have some pages to get posted, and then I will take on the main home page -which I realize is a little too static.

And then... maybe I can get to some stuff that will add in material that isn't mostly available; but this type of groundwork is important too -even if it is a little uninspired. All in due course I guess is all I can say.

France '14 & Red Victory

2010-05-29T21:05:00.001+10:00

Both titles were announced at Tillercon III in Nashville, as well as available for sale there. In case anyone was wondering why these weren't available here on Friday - it was per the instructions as given to non-retailers by HPS.

I did, however, take the time to update my portfolio with the banners I'd made for each of these titles.

Edited: Yesterday (30 May) I took care of this major site upload, and in the process made both new titles' pages available. You can find them at:

http://www.hist-sdc.com/spotlights/sb_red_victory.html

http://www.hist-sdc.com/spotlights/fwwc_f14.html

That's about all there is for now...

as always

ST

Killing Time

2010-05-26T19:55:00.001+10:00

Well, as far as updates goes, that is exactly what this amounts to. Per the HPS blog on Gamesquad.com there are two new titles to be sold at Tillercon III (which starts at the end of this week, in Nashville Tennessee (USA)). Rich has stopped lobbing out hints; and it is a moot point anyways as I already got all of my work done. Since these won't be released to everyone else until 5th June, I'm going to hold off updating the site until that time.

I've engaged in some rearranging that should be pretty much unnoticeable to users (but I also have to remember to get rid of the old pages) - basically this is a lot about organizing so that I can find stuff easier, and update stuff in stages ( by series). Leastwise, that is the plan anyways.

I am also in the process of breaking in some new software (and there is a learning curve involved) -even so - it promises some good stuff for the future.

Edited - yes it turns out I don't have any idea what I posted yesterday - one of the few hazards using copy and paste with notepad.... this is what it should have been. ~ST

Retro-fitting banner work

2010-05-13T09:50:00.002+10:00

At this point I have only been working on banners for new items since the site has gone live, and the original Austerlitz banner I had used was good enough, but not really in line with where I have been at lately with banner work -so I redid it.

I don't necessarily know if I will go back and try to create banners for all of the titles (although it is a distinct possibility).

At any rate, I already have the next one done (and will probably have to scramble to get the other one done -as it is a bit of a complete surprise to me).

Greek Wars historical notes

2010-05-08T18:18:00.000+10:00

Rich White has provided some historical notes for the new title; you can find them at http://hist-sdc.com/bookshelf/aw_greek_wars_notes.html

HPS releases Greek Wars

2010-05-07T08:39:00.003+10:00

First Friday in May:

Slipping one in before Tillercon, which comes at the end of the month, HPS announces the newest game from Paul Bruffell's Ancient Warfare series: Greek Wars.

http://hist-sdc.com/spotlights/greek_wars.html

Spoiler Alerts?

2010-04-28T17:43:00.000+10:00

In considering the many different ways that you can go with posting information about games, it can come in conflict with some people's preferences for how they play. I don't really want to do that, but at the same time, the way I think of it is pretty much along these lines -while some guys prefer to play a scenarios without ever looking at a given scenario, and I certainly appreciate the merit in this, the fact is that this only works once.

I have decided that I have to look at the situation in a little more depth on the website, at some point, with the goal of providing more information about game titles, and series'. In my mind, these can be critical elements in a person deciding whether to buy a title or not, and the more information available then the better it is for all parties concerned. Now, let's be clear about this though, I am doing this as part of how I enjoy my gaming hobby.

And with this in mind, I think it is appropriate to eventually dicuss campaign trees within game titles; what is involved, where the trees branch out, and things of that nature; however too, to be fair I suppose it would be fully appropriate to label these types of discussion with some form of "spoiler alert" type of tag. For me, examining the campaign trees are interesting, and playing campaigns can involve a different sort of strategy from playing a stand alone scenario. Mostly, this involves losses that carry over from one scenario to the next. Another aspect too, that can be found, is that some campaigns don't offer players strategy choices - they can be merely a series of predetermined and linked scenarios -in some cases losses don't carry over either. And I think it is fair that players be aware of this beforehand.

Now, at this point I am really mostly concerned with the stock standard scenarios and campaigns from the game disks themselves, although at the same time I aware that Volcano Man has some 'alt' scenarios for the Mexican-American War, and that he puts a great deal of time and effort into his work. I am not really all that up on MAW as a title, so while I will get to that, and will probably (VM's time permitting) try to have a brief chat with him at some point about his work on that title - at this point I guess I am going to limit what I am taking a look at to what I can find on hand, and not have to search all over the internet. Basically when it comes to that sort of thing, at this point -me, myself, and I are all just a one man team, so to speak (at least in terms of discovering, organizing, creating, and processing material), and it takes time.

Another factor I thought about after initially typing this out (and yes, sometimes I resort to typing this out and saving it in notepad :) ... is from the point of view of anyone interested in editing a campaign. Although it seems as if no one does it, or maybe I haven't seen anyone writing of having done it, there is a campaign editor included in titles, and it can be its own hobby, aside from simply playing the games.

At any rate, all of this boils down to a web design challenge, and how do I handle it? It seems as if it is a valid topic.

For the Pacific War fans...

2010-04-26T21:16:00.000+10:00

ABC TV (in Australia) has a 2 part documentary on Kokoda, based upon Paul Ham's book on the same title.

They have an interactive website that might be of interest to fans of the Squad Battles game "Pacific War" which also features a Kokoda linked campaign.

Check out their site here.

Panzer Campaigns articles and a site update

2010-04-14T17:29:00.000+10:00

If you are familiar with the great site run by the guys over at the Blitz - this won't really be news, however if you aren't familiar with the site then the following page might come in handy.

http://www.theblitz.org/articles/Articles-for-the-HPS-Operational-Campaigns-Series/cid=6

___

As for other business, I recently completed and uploaded a set of pages for all of the games in the Panzer Campaigns' series and will ultimately get to the rest of HPS' series. At the moment, basically this is the same info from the HPS Simulations' site; however this is only intended as a starting point for these pages, and more material will be added as time goes by. There is a lot of good material on the disks as well as elsewhere, and that is what I would like to have in place as a point of reference for all of the titles.

___

Gamesquad.com is a good place to find AAR's (after action reports -for those not into acronyms), and a newly created on on Gettysburg can be found in the Gamesquad Blog section by 'Sedated' -AAR's are always a labour of love, and also pretty tough to pull off while in the midst of play (as I'd discovered myself - as the details never seem to stay as fresh as when you take notes). So 'Sedated' is to be commended for the AAR as well as the effective use of screenshots. :) http://forums.gamesquad.com/blog.php?17040-Sedated

___

A future update for SDC will involve a Blog section where I hope to find various blogs of interest and provide a portal to them. Basically this seems to mean a few things, but that too that the number of games' related Blogs the SDC homepage would soon run out of room. So that will be a

Publish Post

n eventual change to the site in the coming weeks/months.

Update

2010-04-11T09:05:00.000+10:00

About a week ago I assigned myself the job of creating a better upper level page in the Spotlights area;
however it turned out that my idea of having an image for each game title on that page would have made
for an impossibly large page (even at the relatively small size I had reduced them all to).

With that in mind I added this feature to each page for each of the series (and will deal with the main
Spotlights page a little later). And of course that means that these images should be pointing
somewhere.

I have started adding pages to the Panzer Campaigns' series first, and in order to do this for a large
number of pages I asked for and got permission to use the information from the HPS page. This is only a
start, as each of these pages are going to also include other material (at this point mainly from the
documentation as provided by each game disk as well as the HPS site where downloads such as expansions
are involved.

The on thing that people might notice is being different from the HPS site (and I verified this with
HPS), is that for older titles, the minimum requirements are going to be different (in some cases very
different), however considering the state of PC technology, the minimum requirements are still very
modest; the main point being, however though, that being different from the HPS site, these are still
accurate as based upon the last patch available from HPS. I figured I'd better point that out (as I know
wargamers are into the details ... combine that with computers -and well ... it was asking for trouble
on my part :) .

Update...

2010-03-27T20:47:00.001+11:00

I've been putting together some material provided by Paul Bruffell by way of Al Amos for the site, and have also had occasion to review the documentation for the Ancient Warfare series as well, which is giving me an idea of some further material that will be showing up on the site. Check it out here.

As has been noted elsewhere, Al has begun his own blog dedicated to the Ancient Warfare series and you can check that out here.

Jison has also been busy, creating a new mod for Sealion '40 as well as refining his mod's look overall, and you can check that out here. He also updated Moscow '41 to take in some additions that Volcano Man had made in his own mod and alt scenarios.

I've begun standardizing the menu at the right of the page (and added 2 more categories), plus some did some technical stuff so that it will make updating that mechanism a lot easier on the webmaster. I've also done some pretty mundane stuff like some margin graphics, and have standardized the Blog feeders -and ditched the buttons for them (the entire reason they were there because the previous feed reader I was using would sort of become invisible at times- and -well, that isn't a good look -well, technically it isn't a look.).

At the moment, that is all from me, still here, but blogging time sort of takes a hit before site work.

Until next time ...Happy Gaming

Launch Day

2010-03-05T20:45:00.006+11:00

March 5th is nearly done by me, so I can rest up and get to a backlog of work (personal time permitting); and with TC coming up soon I imagine that I will be doing this all over again in the not too near future ;).

Some interesting news to go along with the launch of Midway is that Mike Cox is working on updating scenarios for Guadalcanal to utilize the features in the new Naval Campaigns engine, so that is something to look forward to. See Mike's comments on page 2. -http://forums.gamesquad.com/entry.php?792-A-final-hint/page2#comments

Anyways, check out the SDC page for more info on both new titles, as well as stay tuned as I will be adding material for both titles.

With Rich's inspiration I was able to dig up a link to "The Fighting Lady" -a color documentary from 1944 (it won the Oscar for best documentary in 1945), and has some great imagery of life aboard a ship; including during the Battle of Philippine Sea -which was during the Marianas Campaign.

Finally I want to thank those that passed on the word as my connection decided to call it quits for the night at about the time I should have... so it really helped out, and I appreciate it.

Steve

Panzer Campaigns: - considering the Commonwealth forces

2010-02-24T11:16:00.004+11:00

A lot of game titles lump the WWII Commonwealth nations in to one generic force group, which I can understand is an expedient, as many had similar style of TOE. However, too I understand that there were distinct national traits within this collective group, and people like to see their countries' forces represented as something a little bit more unique than one collective army folder will allow. Mind, you this is common in a lot of wargames.

Now, consider the file structure of the unit portraits within the Panzer Campaigns serier, and of course, there is a Commonwealth folder, however it is also true that within this particular graphics folder that unique unit portraits are assigned, so that it is possible, for example, to have Australian troops wearing slouch hats, NZ troops wearing Lemon Squeezers, etc... However, the standard (and all of the unit backgrounds that I'd seen mod'ed before) unit background has some sort of national emblem in the upper right corner, which in the case of the Commonwealth is made into a collective type symbol. On the files used by Jison on his MapMod site the generic emblem loads off of a file on the 2DSymbolsLg.bmp file.

What this calls for is, removing the generic image from the 2DSymbolsLg.bmp file; the top right corner space will be taken care of on the individual unit portrait being used- so that the unit portrait when layered on to the background creates a unique indicator in the space where the generic unit emblem had occurred previously.

Now, what to use there? Well for Australia it is relatively easy to imagine the AIF sunburst there, and finding an image may or may not be problematic; in my case it involved a trip down to the local war memorial and taking a snap shot to be edited. Now, the thing is - is that the sunburst was used as a collar tab as well as on the Australian slouch hats; so finding what the equivalent emblem was for the New Zealand, Canadian, Indian, and South African armies is all what is needed in order to convert a more generic representation of a Commonwealth nation's unit into a nation specific unit, that seems to achieve a pretty good level of compromise as well as providing for more immediate recognition of countries with an individual identity...

And, yes, it is all on the infamous 'to do' list here.

(Reminds self to grab some screenies and post them here as well).

Edited to add: - I understand that Canada has its own distinct unit folder within the series; however, for consistency's sake it can be added into this particular topic as a possible graphics modification.

Update .. nope I hadn't forgotten :)

2010-02-22T20:18:00.000+11:00

As many may or may not know, Rich Hamilton has been dropping hints all over the place, and while you aren't getting any from me here; I have been out back with the saw and hammer, building stuff. So there really isn't all that much to update.

On a more mundane sort of note, I had looked at the notes files in the Civil War series, with an aim to coming up with pages for each of the titles in the series (then expanded the scope to include the Modern Campaigns and Panzer Campaigns series), and will probably just grab all of what I have in my personal collection. I am pretty fond of the maps used in the Civil War series; and I might add one or two of stuff that I find myself (in the case of Campaign Antietam, I couldn't find a map for First Bull Run, and I'd like to have one...).

At any rate it also promises to be a busy few more weeks, so I may not make it to the weekly, weekly updates- it certainly doesn't mean the site has all of a sudden gone into hibernation; but in fact probably the opposite.

February's here, your weekly update.

2010-02-07T17:50:00.000+11:00

Well another week has gone by, and while there doesn't appear outwardly, that anything is new on the site- behind the scenes things are busy back behind the scenes.

While the first Friday of the month came and went; the site plans to become active at the point that releases are made, so watch these spaces (so to speak)...

A few weeks ago, Tiller Con III was announced, and since that time I've noticed some 404 errors showing up on my webmaster tools -where people are looking for what had been hosted before at the url: http://www.hist-sdc.com/con - the information that had been hosted there was referring to Tiller Con II which was held in 2007 in Kansas City. At this point it doesn't look like Scenario Design Center will have any information directly on its site apart from information linked to off of the various blogs that the site links to (other than this one of course ).

Tomorrow being Super Bowl Sunday -I'm the type of guy that can't get interested in the game unless one of my teams is playing - in this case the Chicago Bears - and since they had a less than spectacular season --- they aren't playing ... so I really don't have a team involved. So go (fill in the blank)... I hope they win. :D I suppose that was diplomatic enough.

Calling all Clubs!!! and the (er) Weekly Update

2010-01-30T17:03:00.002+11:00

Recently (ok, yesterday to get technical), I sent a call out to some of the clubs that I am associated with or familiar with, to have a look at Rich's original Opponent Finder page. However I don't claim to be aware of all of the PBEM clubs out there. The bottom line is, Scenario Design Center wants to help you. So if you are in a club not on the list, please drop me a line- you can find the email address at the site's Contact page, and I'll see to it that it gets taken care of. I've already had a couple of responses, also I'll add a little more about this in the coming weeks.

Now on to the update. I've been a little indisposed lately, so there hasn't been much going on, that most users are going to be aware of at the site. I, at least, want to share with anyone interested, an idea of the site's forthcoming homepage layout. Check it out here . I wouldn't consider it to be completely polished at this point, but I figure you can get an idea about things. The disappearing Blog trick is something that I haven't been able to overcome yet, as it is something to do with the feed reader host, so in the tradition of the best of my former civil service experience... I decided on a work around - the links atop the Blog areas are a "fail-safe" if ever the Blogs look like they're gone. More than likely a page refresh would fix the display problem, but as a designer I am not that interested in dealing with someone else's problem. I'll design around it until what point I can get it to the point of not relying on another level of someone else's servers. (Fair warning, it may never happen, though).

Finally, in ruminating mode... a thread on the Wargamer.com got me thinking about the Total War in Europe series and its graphics. While as I stated in the thread, that I couldn't really see a problem with resolution size, I could see where the map themselves could maybe do with a graphics mod, if at the very least to try to make the hexsides more visible. It also got me thinking about maybe writing up some information about how TWiE's graphics are structured a little differently from the other series' graphics. (Basically the hexes are divided by weather type, and not so much elevation, as in most of the other titles). So a simple colored hex grid isn't necessarily going to work. At some future point I will actually take on working out a full graphics mod for one series or another and actually post it, instead of just talking about it... well at least that is the plan.

Also staying within the realm of Modding, I think I played enough of Renaissance this past week to convince me that Jison's colour scheme works great for the Panzer Campaigns series or the Modern Campaigns series, but that maybe my own approach might work a little better for games in the grand tactical scale. Ok, yes and I also admit that I am not sold on my Civil War hexgrid mod colour-scheme, but rather like the one I did for the expanded Napoleonic Battles series hexgrid instead. Unfortunately the shape of the hexagons are not uniform between the CWB and NB series; specifically what I don't like about my CWB mod is that some of the textures are a little too much. I had access to more texture files when I was working on the NB set. I want to adapt the NB larger hex grid to the smaller size hex grid file.

Finally, if you have a look to the right if this Blog, the images are sort of growing, as I've gotten the idea to use images as links for the most significant links to Scenario Design Center. I need to get the size down a bit better for the next image, but it is going to be for Jison's MapMod page, then I'll do one for Philippe Divine's page (which I still have yet to actual get done to my own liking). At any rate there will be a sort of smallish banner link over there shortly. Since I am doing all of my own graphics sometimes the "creative process" takes up the most time towards actually getting it done.

And I'll end with, I know there are a lot of ideas for the site, that the site will only stand to profit from. And of course I'm petrified that I will forget some of them (man, that is my curse ... a good enough memory to know I've forgotten something ... but not good enough to remember what.... :/ I blame a hockey head injury... yep that's my story and I'm sticking to it.).

Til next time...

~ST

Weekly Update

2010-01-22T20:25:00.000+11:00

Most of the updates this week should be relatively transparent. I am working on a real site map, and how to effectively present it.

I did some coding adjustments with the aim of addressing the tiled images off the the left of the main area; not really a huge deal really but more of an aesthetic annoyance to me.

Finally, noticing a fair amount of hits from all over the world, I decided to add a Translator gadget to the Blog associated with the site. I also know that translator programs can sometimes produce some very odd sentences. As long as users allow for that, the translator gadget should be of some value.

Weekly Update

2010-01-15T22:10:00.000+11:00

A critical technical glitch this week, ate up half of the week, until I had found a solution, so there is not much to report on this week.

The organizational infrastructure is still in progress, and I have gotten more ideas about articles, as well as getting a handle on how I am going to organize the Bookshelf area, as well as having drawn up a sketch of the new home page (as well as did some coding of the same during the down time). I am now in a position where I am going to need to take some time in sorting out some images in order to use them to the fullest.

There is lots of new stuff in the pipeline; I will need to spend some time on some graphics and they will be rolled out shortly.

Other than that, there isn't much that happened on the site this past week that has been uploaded.

Stay Tuned.

~ST

Weekly Update

2010-01-08T19:11:00.002+11:00

Happy 2010...

This week was spent mainly on administrative details that are not yet entirely sorted out; since this is all going to be transparent to the casual user it is only relevant that something was being done, even if nothing actually looked like it happened. :)

Gamesquad.com's boards are down due to what I recall reading about a week ago - that site's messageboard wwas going to be upgraded to the newest version. SDC is not connected to Gamesquad in any way, apart from the downloads that were originally hosted here, are being hosted there.

The Site Map link, ok -I guess technically it *is* a Site Map; but in my opinion it isn't very useful -I will probably keep it there until what point I can create a real one that actually reflects *all* of the cotent on the site -so I suppose it is a little useful, but not much more than that.

Articles are on my mind; and unfortunately most of the recent information that I was posting was all on Gamesquad. To bring this site's viewers up to speed, I am wanting to get into the campaign editor program; and 1776 is one title where there is some room for additions. I am also working on the outline of an article regarding the process that this involves.

Another request that I floated over at Gamesquad was that I am looking for tips for Order of Battle information for the German Peasant War which occured in 1524-25. Also known as the Bauernkrieg in German. I suppose as part of this process I will post a list of battles that I have found; I think the main hold up is that there doesn't seem to be much information in English. Again, the idea is that the process should make for an interesting article no matter what comes of the idea.

I also have a scenario design project in 1776, that might also make for an interesting "development journal" type of article; however that particular project is not very advanced, and I also inherited a good part of it so I have to sort of play "catch up" in order to get up to speed on it. The first part of this project is going to be coding an order of battle file.

Work is still going to be done on the home page as well as all of the top level pages; in order to provide at the very least some navigation to get to what there is on the site.

Until next time ...

~ST

Weekly Update

2009-12-30T12:44:00.000+11:00

I doubt that it comes as much surprise, that I've been taking a bit of a break for the past week or so. Pretty much most of Australia seems to, at any rate ... :)

The problem that has begged some sort of solution is one of downloads, as well as -do I use a download manager, or if not how do I sort them? I think that the solution was always right there under my nose; as when I'd set this blog up, I had also set up another one for testing purposes. Tags seem to make a good index to sort by, and I don't really have to mess with databases on the host site ... well, not yet anyways (I want to do something about hosting the feed software- but that will come in due course).

I still want to make some graphic tags, and set up some pages featuring screenshots (for Philippe's material) - I haven't really gotten to the stage where I feel that I have enough done in order to justify calling it a mod- they are a little more like experiments.

Who knows- but if the Blog idea works out, I might create another one or two -but I want to get this one squared away before I worry too much about things a little further down the road.

Now that being said; I have some ideas for articles that I will probably take time off to write and then post- part of it is a technical examination of the HPS graphics' files; Another probable article is going to be on editing an existing Mexican-American War scenario; I am not a big fan of "the opponent's army is your objective" school of design theory -well, I guess it really depends, in this particular scenario it seemed like it was out of place.

And finally to all- wishing you a happy and prosperous 2010.

Plans...

2009-12-20T18:35:00.000+11:00

Ok, so you had gotten used to all of the images I suppose? Well then this post might come as a bit of a disappointment. Well I hope that isn't the case. :)

I have been staring at the homepage for SDC for awhile, and I have the idea that it is a little too limited at the moment. My original idea was that it was to function as a sort of glorified navigation interface, but ... well, it can be a little bit more than that I guess.

The real content is always going to be below the surface of that homepage- but it probably is time for an adjustment.

I am going to add a feed to Task Force Echo 4 for all of the Squad Battles series' fans. That site is really the place to go if you have any interest at all in that series.

I am in drawing, and layout mode at the moment. What I have in mind is to add in material while retaining a familiar look. I still need to do more with my main subpages, and as always, I am looking for more content sources.

I have partially completed Philippe's page, but there are some loose ends there -the main part, though - the downloads -all work. I am going to make a newer banner with work from the latest mod, as well as adding text while rearranging some other screen shots.

I will be adding more links to the Blogs I have feeders for, as sometimes in my experience, they just decide not to load. You can call that a backup until what point I can work out a way to host the applicable software myself. (That might get done- time, permitting... but not really a priority).

On the mod's front. In CWB, the stone walls don't really look like stone to me, I have some ideas, but at the moment what I have -is basically a copy and paste job. I do want to take a shot at maybe seeing how "stone-like" I can get it... also I am trying to come up with a good 'cut' graphic (think the railway cut on Gettysburg maps), and an alternate abati file.... and hopefully some sort of different breastwork graphic. I will have access to a scanner and see what all I can manage with that tool... so, as they say- stay tuned. But of course I suppose it might mean more if I actually had something to download. And that sort of builds into -how to present them; I'll get it done.

I am thinking of making a generic Mod Page, but at the moment that is just sort of a "maybe". I truly have enough material to keep me busy for a very long time.

Here's hoping everyone has a fantastic Summer/Winter Holiday season ... Merry Christmas, or Happy Festivus- whatever you do. ;)

~ST

And an oldie for Kharkov '42

2009-12-17T21:21:00.002+11:00

The OOB's make it very work intensive; however the graphics as used in some mods were a generic Soviet star, and I figured that adding a unit size to the image would be more intuitive. Background is from Jison's MapMod.

CWB Mod -working on buildings and fences

2009-12-17T21:13:00.003+11:00

Some more screenshots - pay attention to the fences (I've since done a little clean up on the fence image) and buildings.

Another NB mod screenshot, and general status report

2009-12-14T16:45:00.002+11:00

In yesterday's installment (I really doubt that I can do this daily for too long... :) but I must have been inspired or something).. screenshots of my NB mod using the Eagle map from Austerlitz.

This first file below is slightly larger than the actual file (so clicking on it should be a little clearer - but slightly smaller ... I did it to match the image's size shown below.)

Now about some business. I am going to be working on expanding the information shown on the homepage shortly. I want to do a little more to showcase newer material on the website, but not really replace some of the (er ...) older newer material (if that makes sense).

SDC now hosts more NB mods; these are done by Philippe Divine - my page for his work isn't really finished yet, however the links do work and are fully documented. http://hist-sdc.com/add-ons/nb/pd_mods.html

Philippe's technique also involves collaborating with other modders ( so far, both VolcanoMan and EzJax), and his mods include aspects of each's prior work. There is more information in his documentation included with the zip file.

With that being said, work on the site has sort of slowed down during the holiday season. I suppose this might be a sustainable rate of slow-down, however I am also working on getting my material in a format so that I am not reliant on being connected to the internet while I work on it. That should all be done and dusted after Christmas.

I suppose that is all for the moment... carrying on :)

~ST

Scenario Design Center

New Look ...and an idea, plus an update

Napoleonic Battles section -done

Thanks to SDC's 2011 donors

Happy Christmas from Down Under

Progress Report - Campaign Austerlitz and a bit more

Campaign Leipzig planning maps done -Austerlitz on deck

Working on:

Larger size Ulm Campaign map available

SDC's Napoleonic Battles planning maps

Campaign Leipzig released... HPS announces 2 for Pre-Sale

Page relaunch: The Renaissance

WSF and TFB pages updated

The Random Image

The Return of Digger History (the site)

Presenting the Squad Battles Area

SB Area... nearly done, and other stuff

And over at Wargamer.com... An FIW graphic mod feedback request

Head Down Keyboard Clacking ... or: Work, Work, Work

Some SB page updates

Squad Battles: Red Victory designer calling for feedback.

SB: Falklands -and an update

What the (blank) is that favicon?

Behind the Scenes...

1776 Tournament being run at the Blitz

Gallery moved - images here gone

Working on...

*Update* -SB Planning map albums restored

SB maps' album repair update

...and then tragedy strikes...

SB:AoR Stalingrad map available + other news

More Squad Battles maps posted (well previews anyways)

More work

Work Start Notice

Broken Links on the Download area

MapMod Update plus some SDC projects

JTS announces Panzer Campaigns: Tunisia 43

1776 and War of 1812 pages updated

JTS Demo Games to be Mirrored at SDC

Status Report

New Material Added...

Page Relaunch...

New Material: Soviet-Afghan War

Donwload Section ... the challenge

Progress report

Next Up ... Recreating the Downloads section

Squad Battles: Modern War out Monday, 27th Dec 2010 -from JTS

Normandy '44 v. 1.12 patch available

Full sized Kharkov 43 planning map available

Introducing SDC AAR Depot

PzC Sealion v.1.01 released by HPS

Modern Campaigns series' Movement Sound Files Patch

Panzer Campaigns Series' Movement Sound Files Patch available

A Thank You from John Tiller Software

Thank You!

PzC: Budapest '45 v. 1.02 released

New feature -another Blog tab

5 Minutes with JTS Support

Two Feet of Games - An Open Letter (John Tiller)

Letter from Scott Hamilton at HPS

JohnTillerSoftware.com goes live -announces PzC: Kharkov '43

What's being worked on...

Introducing the new SDC homepage

Planning maps - slight return

SDC Dev Priorities

New Planning Map project -TWIE

SDC's Total War in Europe alternate map graphics mod released

MapMod major update released plus other stuff

Panzer Campaigns -the Russian Front maps

More VGG

VideoGameGeek.com

Moving towards other maps -Panzer Campaigns

Planning maps - I'm still working on them...

Looking Ahead-

More CWB planning maps

Civil War Battles Planning Maps project

Endurance Tests

A Change of Philosophy....

France '14 & Red Victory

Killing Time

Update -SB Planning map albums restored