Waterloo
Waterloo sunset
1)      As the French tourist once queried why do you British name your 
railway stations after defeats? The Iron Duke himself made Waterloo out to 
be  "...the most desperate business I ever was in." Once having played Peter 
Turcan's second innovative wargame the reviewer can only agree, its a knife 
contest playing either side in a battle that's much smaller in area and units 
than Borodino (ST World 37). A quick recap though on why this system is the 
best thing yet for computer wargames.
At the speed of horse?
2)      Before the advent of radio the main way to command an army in the 
field was by rider. Commands and information back from the front went as 
fast as the rider (about 5 1/2 miles per hour). By the time the order to 
attack had arrived the corps in question might be in full retreat. The other 
limitation was that nobody could see further than the next ridge - no all 
seeing AWACS here. So not only the commander couldn't react to the event in 
real time they often didn't see it happening either. The vast majority of 
wargames before Turcan have simply ignored these factors and have 
presented the gamer with god like powers and senses.
Its all in the AI 
3)      The Turcan system gives you a realistic static perspective view of 
the battlefield from the point of view of the commander and limited in 
range by the Eye Ball Mk1 - usually up to 2 miles for a land battle. Combined 
with this is an excellent parsing module that allows the entry of English 
commands that are relayed to the corps commander by rider and are thus 
subject to fortune on the battlefield - they get lost, killed or confused. 
Driving the whole is the artificial intelligence (AI) at the four levels of 
command; Commander in Chief, corps, division and regiment - the gamer 
provides the played sides commanders AI. The actual mechanics and 
sequence of play are derived from boardgame rules. All of this has been 
attempted before but never as a whole nor with the historical rigour that 
Peter Turcan displays. 
War and Peace
4)         Waterloo was the climatic battle of the Napoleonic era, a period of 
war and some peace that ran from 1799 to 1815, bringing together for the 
first and last time the two geniuses of the battlefield - Emperor Napoleon 
and the Duke of Wellington. In the previous four days the French army had 
fought two battles and thus succeeded in driving the Allied and Prussian 
armies apart. Now on the 18th June time was the essence for Napoleon to 
defeat Wellington before an AI Blucher at the head of the Prussian Army 
intervened from the east. 
Hougomont or bust  
5)      The game starts at 11 am as the previous night had seen a deluge of 
rain that made for a muddy field of battle that made the siting of the 
critical artillery prolonged. The battle itself takes place in an area about 3 
square miles with a shallow valley separating the armies. There are 3 
garrisoned outposts in front of the Allied army, Hougomont - superbly 
detailed in the game, La Haie Saint with its sand-pit and La Haie. They are 
the key to the Allied defence. The majority of the Allied army lies either on 
the ridge or behind it out of artillery line of fire. Arrayed against this are 
Reille's corp to the west and D'Erlon's to the east each being supported by a 
cavalry corps whilst in the centre rear is Lobau's corp and the Guard.  There 
is no leeway in reserves if you make a fatal error in your orders to the corps 
as to when and where they attack. As once an attack goes in you learn that it 
takes hours for a corps to pull back and reform. And without formed 
reserves your going nowhere fast. You can tell how well formed the corp's 
divisions are as you can see them either in neatly turned out lines and 
columns or scattered about with some regiments heading rapidly for the 
rear.
Point and panic
6)      By using the hand pointer ( changed from the telescope cursor in 
Borodino ) and clicking on a unit their status appears in the text window. 
This is effective up to the horizon, the only way to check further is to move 
the HQ which you can do once ever 15 minute game turn. Just don't do what I 
did in the first game and move the HQ into the path of a routing unit. All of 
a 
sudden Napoleon found that the HQ was disorganized and wasn't able to issue 
any orders for 2 turns or move the HQ. I sat there like a lemon forced to look 
south whilst the battle raged on to the north and broken regiments fled past 
the HQ. By which time the first of Bluchers corps had started to arrive on 
the eastern flank. 
La Garde recule!
7)      Waterloo is an easier game to get into than Borodino, its size and 
scope make for a quicker more comprehensible game. I could image actually 
playing this by mail - one option the game gives. The corps commanders AI 
is quite believable, indeed you curse Reille as he sends Jerome's division off 
on its own to attack Hougomont. The victory points  now increment thus 
aiding you in noting how well or not your doing. Yet the graphics are so 
realistic you can see by looking around locally just how well its going. The 
manual is an improvement on Borodino's tho' I couldn't find any note on the 
unit colours - I like to know if my heavy cavalry are about to crash into 
British guards or Brunswick militia.  One final plea would be for an order 
retrieval module so you can keep track of your sent orders. The game system 
is excellent as it stands and can only improve as its developed further - it 
has great potential. 

Design: Dr. Peter Turcan.
Publisher: PSS/Mirrorsoft.
Price: £24.99.

Frank@brazen.demon.co.uk    News International Newspapers Ltd.
fdunn@it.newsint.co.uk      1 Virginia Street London UK E1 9BD
100012.23@compuserve.com    +44 171 782 6384/6 +44 171 782 5213 fax
      "you can tune a file system but you can't tune a fish"