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SDC Host funding status for 2012 Goal: $100 Start: $0 Current: 2012 Goal Achieved :) 100% Many Thanks to all who have contributed in 2012; future contributions will go towards 2013.

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Site Blog for www.hist-sdc.com

Mon, 07 May 2012 15:39:00 +0000

Site Activity Levels

I wanted to let you all know that there have been some circumstances beyond my control (and toss in a technical issue as well ... namely a laptop that has reached its used by date), that has meant and will continue to mean for a bit longer that the site will remain a bit static.

I am aware that JTS released a Bill Peters project in John Tiller's Napoleonic Battles series last Friday ( Campaign 1814) ... and that I will be providing the usual amount of content on the site for this title -eventually, although at the moment I don't have the time to work on material for this... so it will be a little while before I get to it (and anything else that might come up in the meantime).

So, I beg your patience while the site remains a bit more static than usual... it doesn't mean anything apart from I'm off taking care of some other business. ;)

~Steve

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:22:00 +0000

Rich Hamilton's Series Update Schedule

From my Inbox this morning; a brief message from Rich Hamilton (project manager for both HPS Simulations & John Tiller Software):

All, we're in the process of updating all of the Tiller games. As part of this process I will be posting each update to the main forum on these boards to allow any interested parties the opportunity to download and play around with it before it goes public. We believe these updates resolve all open graphical glitches, so the more people looking at them the better.

We are starting with the Squad Battles series and we are on the 3rd game now, DBP (ed note: - Dien Bien Phu ). We'll do Modern Campaigns next followed by Panzer Campaigns and on down the list. If you wish to participate watch this forum:

http://hpssims.com.c7.previewyoursite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=2

Simply grab an update once posted, post a little reply saying you have it, then follow up once you have put it through a few paces.

Any questions can be posted to that forum directly as well so all can benefit from the answers.

Regards,
Rich

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 08:55:00 +0000

The Drift 1879: The Battle of Rorke's Drift released through HPS Simulations

Available 6th April 2012, from all of your favorite resellers, and HPS via direct download (also available on disk); the Jeff Lapkoff designed title, The Drift 1879.

Per the press kit the price point through HPS Simulations is MSRP: $24.95 for the download and $29.95 for the CD.

SDC's take on the HPS Press kit.
 

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:34:00 +0000

Interested in testing patches for HPS or JTS titles?

Rich Hamilton posted the following on his messageboard:

http://hpssims.com.c7.previewyoursite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=31775

New updates

We're getting ready to start rolling updates for the various series... if you would like to help test these please keep an eye on this forum. Not going to be an in-depth testing process, but would like to get a wide sampling of machines to run the new exe's on before sending them out.
__________________
Rich Hamilton

Board Moderator
Tiller/HPS Scenario Designer

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 23:55:00 +0000

Gallic Wars Expansion Pack Available

An email arrived in the overnight box from Paul Bruffell with his Gallic Wars Expansion Pack. Mind you, as I understand the situation, these had been posted to the HPS site at some point (or were supposed to have been), so I don't want to misrepresent these as 'new' as much as it is 'new to SDC'.

Scenario highlights are:

•  Days of Blood and Thunder
•  Another Assault on Alesia
•  Arausio
•  Orchomenus
•  Vercellae
•  Camel Estuary 2
•  Carrhae (different from the scenario included with the Roman Civil War title.).
•  Sotiates
•  Legio VII
•  Legio X's First Baptism
•  Rescue of the Foraging Party
•  Veni Vidi Vinci

Scenarios designed: Glyn Hargreaves, Peter Dawson, Al Amos, Klaus kuhlmann, and Paul Bruffell.

SDC's Gallic Wars page


Note planning maps are still in preparation for the Gallic Wars' page as of the writing of this entry.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:28:00 +0000

Jison's MapMod work gets an update

 ...of course I managed to miss that this was done about 2 weeks ago.

:-/  All of which means that SDC will be getting together some planning map samples of his latest work.



 

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 01:38:00 +0000

Sent in from Bill Peters: A Victory Point Calculator for HPS/JTS ACW titles...

A handy tool to assist Civil War Battles series' scenario designers (there's a much better description from Bill, himself in the download section listing).

Download available 

Plus word is as well, that he is also working on a similar tool for the Napoleonic Battles' series.

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 08:24:00 +0000

Word in today from Paul Bruffell that HPS Simulations now has available an Expansion Pack for Roman Civil Wars (Ancient Warfare series) entitled German Wars.

There is a copy of this at SDC under the Official Add-Ons tab of the Roman Civil War page, or directly from HPS Simulations' site.

German Wars Expansion Pack includes scenarios such as Idistaviso, Teutoburger Wald and the campaigns of Germanicus.

This pack adds 15 new scenarios (incl. 13 maps) to cover a range of battles in Germany.

 

-Editor's note- which means that additional planning maps for this expansion pack will be provided  at SDC shortly. (ST)

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 23:56:00 +0000

A Quick Mod Try On (Naval Campaigns)

This isn't done yet, but promises to be a fairly quick mod job. I've been thinking of a 'map mod' (or playing surface mod might be more accurate in this case), for the Naval Campaigns series.

This is just a trial run, but see below for the initial result.

Now, NC now comes with both a day and a night state (and 3 resolutions) - so there is a little more work to be done -but it is not nearly as involved as say, working with one of the hex and counter games.

Stay Tuned...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:04:00 +0000

Greek Wars planning maps available

Above is the map for Marathon from Greek Wars. All the rest can be viewed by clicking on the Planning Maps tab on the page.

I was able to fit in this update between working on another unrelated project- further maps for the other titles will be posted after the completion of that project.  Stay tuned.

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:00:00 +0000

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

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.

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:30:00 +0000

Napoleonic Battles section -done

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.

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:11:00 +0000

Thanks to SDC's 2011 donors

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

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Happy Christmas from Down Under

...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. ;)

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:22:00 +0000

Progress Report - Campaign Austerlitz and a bit more

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).

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 06:23:00 +0000

Campaign Leipzig planning maps done -Austerlitz on deck

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.

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 06:14:00 +0000

Working on:

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.

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 10:34:00 +0000

Larger size Ulm Campaign map available

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

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 05:54:00 +0000

SDC's Napoleonic Battles planning maps

 

 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.

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:10:00 +0000

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

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).

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 00:05:00 +0000

Page relaunch: The Renaissance

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

 

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:18:00 +0000

WSF and TFB pages updated

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 

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 07:53:00 +0000

The Random Image

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.

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 00:31:00 +0000

The Return of Digger History (the site)

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).

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 21:11:00 +0000

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

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GameSquad Forums - Blogs - HPS Simulations Blog by rahamy

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:01:49 GMT

SB Updates

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:49:00 GMT

New HPS / JTS Updates in the works...

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:13:25 GMT

More PzC updates...

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:06:56 GMT

PzC Updates continue

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:55:32 GMT

PzC Updates

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:36:31 GMT

Atlanta updated...

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 10:48:13 GMT

More updates...

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:09:45 GMT

Gettysburg updated

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:02:01 GMT

Ozark is up!

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 03:37:12 GMT

Corinth update...

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 18:17:48 GMT

New updates...

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:24:14 GMT

Ancient Warfare Poll

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:36:56 GMT

Budapest & REN

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 12:49:42 GMT

Panzer Campaigns: Kharkov '43 & going forward...

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 02:46:23 GMT

Ren 1.03

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:03:01 GMT

Punic & Gallic Wars updated

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 17:40:53 GMT

Jutland updated

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:09:11 GMT

France '14 scenarios & finishing notes & tips

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:33:59 GMT

New Ancient Warfare updates posted...

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:43:18 GMT

France '14 1.01 update

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:06:37 GMT

Designer Notes: France ‘14 - Part III

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 20:18:01 GMT

Designer Notes: France ‘14 - Part II

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:10:45 GMT

Designer Notes: France ‘14 - Part I

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:39:46 GMT

Red Victory Operations, part II

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 02:40:24 GMT

Red Victory Operations, part I

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:03:20 GMT

Photos from TCIII...

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:25:44 GMT

Catching up...

Sat, 22 May 2010 15:41:19 GMT

Midway 1.01

Fri, 14 May 2010 19:12:55 GMT

Another hint...

Tue, 11 May 2010 11:07:09 GMT

Greek Wars scenarios

SDC Downloads consists of 2 areas. A dedicated download area, as well as a Blog format. The reason for the differentiation is that the software has a limit of 2 mb, and some of what is hosted here is occasionally larger than that limit. downloads.hist-sdc.com hist-sdc-downloads.blogspot.com

 

 

Scenario Design Center aims to provide you with utilities and ideas to create custom scenarios for use with titles released by John Tiller Software as well as John Tiller's and Paul Bruffell's games from HPS Simulations. Also supported are John Tiller's games through Talonsoft Games. This site is not owned and/or operated by any game company, and as such all material posted here should be considered unofficial; the above companies are not responsible for providing support for anything found on this site (although SDC may be able to assist in some cases).

Scenario Design Center/Centre (aka SDC) use and hosting of images/files of their respective product lines is done with with the expressed written permission of HPS Simulations and John Tiller Software.

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