The Field of Waterloo Has Never Looked Better: Major Engine Update October 1!

On October 1 , Scourge of War: Waterloo receives its biggest engine update in years. The update brings higher frame rates, a sharper and richer battlefield, proper ultra-wide support, and near-instant saves. To celebrate, starting October 1, Scourge of War: Waterloo, Scourge of War: Gettysburg and all of their DLC are deeply discounted .

The same day, our Gettysburg players get Scourge of War: Brandy Station , the largest cavalry battle of the American Civil War. If you've ever wanted to trade the squares of Mont-Saint-Jean for the sabers of Fleetwood Hill, the discount makes it the perfect time.

What's New in the Engine

This is a free update, and every battle you already own benefits, along with all your favourite mods. Here's everything that's new.

Performance

• Much higher frame rates in wooded battles. Tree and foliage rendering now uses multiple CPU cores, removing the biggest slowdown in large battles. Our heaviest forest test scenes went from about 18 FPS to about 60 FPS. Battles on open ground run faster too.
• Saving is now almost instant. The pause when saving a game is gone.
• Saved games are about half the size. They take less disk space and upload to Steam Cloud faster. Your existing saves still load.

Graphics

• New optional post-processing. Sharpen the battlefield and adjust colour, contrast, brightness, warmth and a subtle corner vignette, all built into the game with no extra tools. Distant columns look crisper. The HUD, menus and text are never affected, and the performance cost is negligible. Off by default.
• Ground bump detail. On Shader Model 3.0 graphics cards, fields and pastures can show fine surface relief that catches the sun, so the ground no longer looks flat and painted. Steep slopes stay smooth to avoid streaking. Off by default.
• Terrain self-shadowing. Ridges and slopes now cast shadows across the ground, adding depth and a real sense of time of day. The shadows are pre-baked for each map, so they cost nothing in frame rate.
• More natural water. Water now blends with the scene behind it instead of glowing, and the shimmering along shorelines is gone.
• Trees fade into distance fog. Distant treelines no longer look pasted onto the landscape.
• Trees now draw at their correct proportions. Some trees used to look stretched or squashed.
• Less flickering and shimmering of trees and foliage as the camera moves, and no more halo artifacts where trees overlap.
• Much less flickering at high camera heights. Soldiers, objects and models no longer shimmer and flicker when you view the field from high above.

Displays

• Ultra-wide support fixed. On screens wider than 16:9 (such as 32:9), soldiers, objects and trees no longer vanish when the camera faces certain directions.
• Proper ultra-wide framing. Wide screens now show more of the battlefield to the sides instead of squeezing the view. 16:9 and narrower screens are unchanged.
• New VSync option to remove screen tearing. Off by default.
• No more windows stuck off screen. If you choose a resolution too large for your monitor, the game now keeps the window on screen or picks the largest resolution that fits. This also works at startup, so a resolution saved from a bigger monitor can't lock you out.

Saves

• Autosave now keeps ten saves. It used to skip every other slot and kept only six.

For Modders & Map Makers

• GenerateShadowMap tool. Bake terrain shadows for your own maps from the heightmap, with your choice of sun direction, sun height and shadow darkness.
• Per-map NearClip setting to fine-tune depth precision on each map.
• Triple the AI save slots. AI mods now get 30 integer slots per officer instead of 10. They start at zero, are stored in saved games, and existing AI mods work unchanged.
• More forgiving drills.csv. Cells that contain only spaces or start with spaces no longer corrupt formations.

Full details and all INI settings are in the Engine Release Notes included with the game.

The Emperor Awaits

The Grande Armée is formed up on the ridge at La Belle Alliance, and Wellington's line waits in silence behind the crest. On October 1 , the guns open again, better than ever.

With Waterloo, Gettysburg and every DLC deeply discounted, there's no better time to take the field. Update, sharpen your view, and march to the sound of the guns!