Civil War Battles 4.05.1 Updates

Happy Friday, and as promised we are now bringing you the balance of the Civil War Battles updates to get the whole series at the same level.
As mentioned with the Gettysburg announcement on Monday as the Game of the Week, we had one bug surface right after we made the initial 4.05 updates public with Antietam and the Demo. Unfortunately the problem was out there pre-4.05, but as luck would have it we didn't catch it and squash it until post release. So, now we bring the reset of the series up to the 4.05.1 level.
We covered the various new features brought into play in our 4.05 blog post, which you can read here. An additional feature was added with the .1 updates:
  • Added so that 'Leader casualty' is now reported on the game map along with loss results with 'on map results' enabled.
Additionally, we've been receiving a variety of positive feedback on the AI's performance through our forum, Facebook group, and the Help Desk. We're still not touting it as a "human replacement" by any means, but we are confident in saying it will be giving you a better challenge going forward.
Similar enhancements have been made to the Napoleonic Series, which is going to start receiving it's next round of updates in the very near future as well.

** A completely Clean Install is required to obtain this update. You can grab a new copy of the installers from your Store Account. The only exceptions are Antietam & the Demo, since they already were on 4.05. For those two you can grab the small update off the CWB Support page. And of course Gettysburg went out with the 4.05.1 update on Monday the 15th, so if you grabbed that this week you do not need to again.

Beginning with the recent Squad Battles updates, then Panzer Battles then Musket & Pike updates and now on to Civil War Battles - we have been requiring a complete clean install of your games to get the new version. There's a variety of reasons for this - core changes to file formats (moving to PNG files in some cases), new infrastructure for future A/I enhancements, Windows 11 compatibility changes and the enormous size many of the updates have grown to be. Regarding that last point, many of the updates were retaining backwards compatibility with ancient installers, in some cases back to the HPS days! This required inclusion of a huge amount of files, and in some cases an additional Batch file to reorganize everything into the new file structures. It was getting problematic on several points, not the least of which was some security software packages were blocking the batch files from running.

So, these fresh installs will resolve all of those problems in one fell swoop. You uninstall your existing copy of the game using the built in Windows "App Management" feature in the Control Panel. You then do a clean install of the game and everything is in its proper place. 

We will be doing this for every game series we publish, in time - if all goes well during the course of 2024. Once the new "base line" is established we will begin to offer incremental updates again on the site. These will only include files changed since that new baseline for that series. With that said, you can ALWAYS do a clean install at any time, and the installer linked in your Store Account is the most recent version.

So, again, how do you get these new versions? 

You must go and login to your Store Account to download new full installers. 

Notes regarding Store Accounts.

  1. If you go to login using one of the above links and it tells you "no account found" - don't worry! - just send us an email at the Help Desk and we will locate your records. It's just a matter of completing the account setup process.
  2. When you login you will see all your orders listed there. Under each order number is the word (Downloads). If you click that it will take you to a page where you can do a new download of the game and it will also display your serial number. Again, each of the installers is fully up-to date with the latest patches already included.

Again, you can visit this blog post for the details of what this update cycle has to offer. Or you can head out and go grab your new files from your Store Account.

And don't forget - Campaign Gettysburg is on sale at 25% off now, and for another 72 hours or so.

Enjoy!

 


7 comments


  • Shawn

    I agree with Jens L. Perfect transformative of tabletop Boardgame to PC (& better with FOW etc), and great attention to updates and efforts to improve an old 90’s genre ‘Engine.’ Max it must be a pain to try update all 60 games at once but unlikely you will get the same attention to detail and customer attention on Steam. BTW: Having (just WDS alone ?) 60 games just how to you play ‘more and more’ anyway!?) Agree with Christopher re: AI help. I’ve tried before but a major learning curve which just does seem to get the desired results. Overall, again thanks WDS for all your efforts.


  • Gilbert Collins

    Will there ever be Mac versions of these games?


  • Jens L

    I can hear Max and feel his pain. ( Not with the “playing the games less and less” though ). This is a grueling process, i of course have all 16 games. BUT to me its absolutely worth it. This IS the definitive Civil War Games. There can neither come anything better or more “realistic”. I am an old boardgamer.. GBACW, Brigade series and so on. And this is it, The Perfect transformation of boardgames to PC. Thanks Guys for keeping the old HPS JTS WDS and, not forgotten, Talonsoft series alive and well.


  • Christopher N Bosch

    One thing I hope is corrected is that the A.I. canNOT conduct a simple route march. Even with a Leader at the head. a column will be spontaneously disrupted by units stopping to deploy in line for no apparent reason. A divisional column ought to be able to follow a road all the way across the map, barring proximity of the enemy. And the “shortest distance” is just nonsense if it requires crossing an uncrossable river, especially if there is a bridge within sight and on the road the column just left. Following a road, through swamp or forest or across an unfordable water obstacle, should not be beyond the A.I.’s capabilities.


  • Max

    Sorry to be a voice of dissent guys.

    On one hand good news and great work.
    Improvements in the last two years have been fantastic.

    On the other hand, owning over 60 games the update process “from scratch” is extenuating* (there’s still people who ask why at the end of the day a lot of players use Steam to buy their games?).

    Maybe later I’ll find the mood to go over with all this re-installations, for now I download the files and let them there, waiting.
    And I’m playing the games less and less…


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