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Leaders, Units & Supply Wagons in the OOB File
Leaders
An example of the format, with numbers colour coded for reference, is:
L 4 6 0 l'Empereur Napoleon
L informs the program that this is a leader. The pictures of leaders in the game are selected from the leaders.bmp in the sequence in which they appear in the OOB. Any discrepancy between the two results in leaders being misnamed according to the portrait that appears.
4 The first of the numbers is command ability. This ranges from 6 down to 1, which appears in the game as A to F. Napoleon's 4 translates to C, which is only average, correct enough for Waterloo. For his earlier battles this should be raised to 5, perhaps.
6 Leadership rating. The numbers rank the same as for the command rating, so Napoleon is a first class leader: his men will follow him anywhere and rally to him readily.
0 This is always 0, regardless of the leader. If set to a higher number, the commander appears with the portrait of the leader that number of places further right (and down) in the leaders.bmp picture file. If a negative number, the leader's portrait that many places to the left (and up) is shown. In each case the actual name and command position are unaffected, so Napoleon with -1 here would still be Napoleon commanding the Armee du Nord, but with the portrait of Ney.
Finally the leader's name, which appears in the game when the portrait is right-clicked. This needs to be spelt the same as that in the leaders.bmp, though it might be abbreviated due to the limited space there.
Units
U 26 8 G M 0 13 1er Bn. 1er Gren.
U
This
simply means this line refers to a unit.
26
This variable is the strength of the unit in increments of 25. So this battalion
is 26 x 25 = 650 men.
8
Quality. 8 is very high; 2 is very low. These are
the extremes in practical terms, though higher and lower values are possible. As
the scale is 1 to 9, tested with the simulation of a 6-sided die roll, extremes
beyond this become increasingly unrealistic.
In NIR, if this number is made negative, such as -5, the unit has the positive
number's quality level with the golden morale modifier, usually applied to
Russian units. The amount of this modifier is found in the pdt file.
G
Unit type, telling the program what formations it makes and other characteristics it has. These include:
A |
Foot artillery, heavy | |
B |
Foot artillery, medium? | |
C |
Horse artillery | |
F |
Guard infantry, unrestricted skirmishers, 2-deep line | |
G |
Guard infantry, unrestricted skirmishers, 3-deep line | |
H |
Heavy cavalry - cuirassiers, heavy dragoons, etc. | |
I |
Line infantry, restricted skirmishers, 3-deep line | |
K |
Cossacks | |
L |
Light cavalry - lancers, chasseurs, hussars, dragoons, etc. | |
M |
Militia. Not Landwehr or other trained reservists | |
R |
Line infantry, no skirmishers, 3-deep line | |
S |
Infantry skirmishers only, may not take up close formations | |
T |
Line infantry, restricted skirmishers, 2-deep line | |
U |
Line or light infantry, unrestricted skirmishers, 2-deep line | |
V |
Line or light infantry, unrestricted skirmishers, 3-deep line |
M
Armament. This list includes:
M |
Muskets | |
R |
Rifles | |
P |
Pikes or improvised weapons | |
S |
Sabres | |
L |
Lances | |
A-Z |
Excluding any of the above, artillery pieces as per the pdt file's definitions |
0
Unit picture from the units.bmp file shown on the game screen. These are read in
numerical order from top left, so 0 is the first picture. Number 21 here would
read the picture two rows further down and one to the right. A number higher
than the number of pictures results in no picture at all.
13
Unit icon from the appropriate icons3d#.bmp and icons4d#.bmp files. The program
knows which file to use according to the unit type code. The location if the
icons within each file is decided by this number, starting at top left with 0.
Cavalry are in pairs per row, right and left, for NIR, in threes per row for BGW
and PTW. Infantry and artillery are one per row, so this 13 means the 12th row
of icons in the icons3d2.bmp, which is French Imperial Guard infantry.
1er Bn. 1er Gren.
The unit's name, as it
appears in the game below the unit picture. This is independent of that picture,
so an incorrect picture number (see above) will result in the appearance and
name not matching.
Supply Wagons
S 6 39 Chariot Fourniture
These are similar to other units, but with less to them.
S
This simply
indicates to the program that this is a supply unit. The program then automatically uses a supply unit icon on the map so no separate indicator is used to select one.
6
The strength in supply
points of infantry ammunition. It seems to be possible to set this to any
strength, but if 0 the unit disappears from the map.
39
As for other units, this
is the picture location in the units.bmp file, in this case the last one on the
fourth row (the first row being up to 9).
Artillery Trains and Baggage Trains
These
have been introduced into NHWC OOBs for added realism in tracking artillery
ammunition availability and depiction of some of the vehicles that clutter up a
Napoleonic battlefield. They also provide targets for ambush and raid scenarios,
especially loved by Cossacks not least because they can't shoot. They do not
supply ammunition or anything else within the game.
They have been made by producing "infantry" units with certain characteristics,
which are treated in the game only as non-combatant vehicles. An example:
U 6 9 I - 52 43 Baggage Train
Using the explanation of unit descriptions given above, this can be seen to be a unit, strength 6 (150 men or 6 vehicles), quality 9 (to stop them "running" away all over the field), type "I", no weapons, picture 52 and icon 43. The "infantry type" is fairly irrelevant as long as it is an infantry code, though allowing smaller groups of waggons to split off might be useful in some scenarios, so type "V" could be used.
