Development

[kzucker]

Received the following query from a fan of the system:

Contemplating this upcoming game led me to this question. Since this 2x
isn't quite 2x in ground scale and is only 1.5x in time scale, why is the
SP scale going to 3x?
It seems that you will lose a lot of definition that way, particularly with
cavalry, artillery and elite troops. Attrition and combat losses can not be
expressed very finely. I've never liked this aspect of games with a similiar
scale such as "War for the Union". It also seems likely that some of the
multi-national variety of Napoleon's army will wash out, leaving a more
bland counter mix. I would much prefer to see 2,000/s.p. or even 1,500. Is
this part of the design carved in stone or is there some angle to this that
I am missing?

That is an excellent point. If you are familiar with Highway to the Kremlin, you see that in that game each Corps has two or three counters instead of a counter for each division.

For example: Oudinot's II Corps has the "Organic unit" (the II Corps counter) a substitute unit, (in this case, Legrand's Division), and a vedette unit to send out (Corbineau). Also there is a leader counter to represent Oudinot on the map.

What is lost in detail is made up for in ease of play. When we re-publish Struggle of Nations we will include all that detail. What is wanted here is a good and playable game covering the whole theatre that is not a monster.

some of the multi-national variety of Napoleon's army will wash out ...
The substitute division of each Corps is the German division in most corps, since that was the unit most often detached.

[kzucker]

Napoleon at the Crossroads is now well into the final stage of development. We are working on the scenario set-ups. Each separate force is plotted at the start of each of eight start dates. (We decided to leave out a separate start date for the 29th of August but this change didn't make it on to the back of the box.)

The process involves a careful line-by-line reading of the campaign narratives. It takes about a day to get through 2-3 pages of Petre, what with referencing several maps, game components and other sources.

The end result will be a multi-page unit manifest and a leader manifest for each side: a total of about 640 data points, all double-checked against various sources. Right now the unit strengths on the unit manifest are all finished, and the French March Tables are nearly done. There is less information about the Coalition forces and their whereabouts, so we have a lot more holes on the Coalition March Tables at the moment.

Then all those set-ups have to be playtested. So far we are testing only the Campaign game. We will have about a month to test all the set-ups.

We are still on track for a September 5th release!