Welcome to the NapWars Discussion Forum! This page updated 14 NOV 08

We run this forum just for amusement and exchange of information! We discuss the wars and military times dominated by Napoleon around the turn of the 19th century. Most of us are hobby war-gamers most interested in Napoleon's battles in general rather than any one form of game or set of rules. However, you will find more 'figure' gamers than board gamers here.

Please feel free to post your own question or join in any of the discussions. Sorry - We do not do student papers. We will help with military references, but we will not boil the ocean of opinion on Napoleon down into a tea-cup-full for your teacher. If you are really new to the period:
If you are a student (maybe a life-long learner) really new to the Napoleonic period and have arrived here through a "search engine," here is another place to look first: http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/napoleonic/
This is a commercially produced "study guide" which seems to be free. Reading through the guide will give you a very basic, elementary orientation to the period. That's the opening to exploration that everyone needs.

We recommend browsing the inactive discussion threads because there are many messages with detailed information not easily found elsewhere. That is a sign of the generosity of the amateur (and professional) historians who visit here for a relaxed view.

This forum is meant to be open and light hearted, whilst being 'accurate'. Please don't post any offensive messages. We are long-suffering, but eventually those engaging in 'flame wars' will be banned. Please recall that there are none now alive who can speak as eye witnesses of the Napoleonic period. That makes our views subject to considerable limitations. Please respect those limitations.

Important Technical Note: Messages over 7500 characters, including HTML code, are truncated by the system. Note that if the truncation occurs in the middle of some HTML code, the material following the truncation will be entirely lost. If you are using the WYSIWYG editor, you are including HTML code. If you are composing your message in an "off-line" text editor program and then copy/pasting the message, it is likely that you are including HTML code that you don't see. That may cause you to get some strange results.

To expand on that point: If you are typing (or otherwise composing) your message in a word processor and copying & pasting the result into the composing page here, you run the risk of going into "overflow" mode. Since the word processor you are using may itself use a HUGE amount of invisible formatting code, your posts include (probably) twice as much invisible format code than visible text. Every character of that invisible code counts against the character limit.

You also need to consider how you set the radio buttons just under the compose window. That is, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) vs SOURCE because pasting in code may work better with 'Source.' WYSIWYG is a Microsoft program that Delphi uses, so it seems not to have major conflicts with Microsoft Word. The big problem is that Microsoft Word acts as if there is no limit on space, so it repeats the format code for every paragraph. For example, if you set it to show blue text, it repeats that instruction every time you hit the 'enter' key. So it repeats your initial settings for font, size, color, etc. so many times it drives you nuts if you actually look at the code.

To see what I am talking about, open an edit on one of your posts which you have 'pasted in'. Then change the radio button below the compose window to "Source". Then you will see all the characters which bump against the 7500 limit.

The folks at Delphi recognize that users may wish to compose posts in word processors and use copy & paste to post. So they recommend the simple word processor 'Notepad' easily available to Windows users. If you have questions about this, please post them on the "Notices" Board.

It is best to use both letters and numbers in selecting a password. Never record it anywhere; your memory is perfect and does not fade over time. (grin) Get a can of spray paint and decorate a wall of the room in which your computer lives. Intruders trying to gain access will never notice the wall; they will be looking for the tiny scrap of paper you misplaced long ago. In addition, the unique e-mail address you had to provide to start the account should be one that shall work through the ages. You can update it when you move from one to the next.