Battle of Crecy Field 1346

[ZeaBed]

I'm a FoG newbie but a medieval history oldie, particularly interested in the 14th century and the 100 Years War. The campaigns, battles and chevauchees of The Black Prince have always held my attention as emblematic of that calamitous century. So, perhaps unwisely, I chose a difficult (for me) battle to model/game, Crecy 1346. I was drawn to a battle map that included some of the periphery of Crecy Wood and the cities/towns of Crecy and Wadicourt, on which the English anchored their right and left flanks, respectively. One problem is that the same unchanging limit is given to the archery range for both longbows and crossbows. I was not able to duplicate the larger range of the uber strong longbows or the reduced range of the Genoese crossbows, which in this battle were dampened and tightened by the rain. (The English longbowmen managed to protect their bowstrings from the rain.) Still, fools rush in... so, here it is. This is my first scenario and hopefully not disgraceful enough to be my last. So you can imagine how much I would welcome critique and suggestions. Thank you for any measure of forebearance and patience; I promise to try to do better. This is also my first time posting a URL link to this site, so I hope they work.I studied many sources of the battle, becoming particularly wary of the Froissart sourcing. The scenario map and setup, however, more closely resembles the following battle map:


NOTE: I have deleted the zipfiles in my dropbox folder that contained the different earlier versions of this scenario versions. I've replaced the Crecy scenarios with the ones listed in a different post and in my scenario collection stickie post. Please disregard the links in this thread, as they are obsolete.

Updated 11/28/2011. French troops revised and expanded, etc.

[Darthvegeta800]

I'm a Master in History and I wrote my Master Thesis (in Dutch) on the topic of the Black Princes campaign. So we're quite likeminded!
I'll give this a try for sure!
I treated Crécy, Poitiers and Najéra in it. The latter being info-poor so to speak.
Anyway I'm curiou what you'll come up with! This forum really draws in the historybuffs. Reminds me a bit of paradox interactive's forum!

[ZeaBed]

Pleased to meet you (electronically at least). You're right Darth, this site and in particular FoG games are ideal for the history buffs. Back in the day, when the old GBoH came out (1998?), I used some of those battle scenarios to help my children and nephews visualize the history book narratives, even if those old computer scenarios could never really exactly duplicate the actual conditions. The battle effects that I've seen in FoG are a much better model than any of the older classic battle offerings.

While I agree that there is scant information on some 14th century battles like Najera, there seem to be too many disparate versions of Crecy itself. One has to rely on some historians' analyses, such as the likelihood - based partly on study of the terrain - that the French attacked from their left, since they were approaching from heights too steep for heavily armored knights to descend frontally. Unfortunately, there is no "steep hills" hex available, and I don't want to use the Impassable terrain (looks weird adjacent to slopes), so the AI frequently has the French attack through almost the entire Valley of the Clerks. But the French always end up wending their way to their left (the "angled" archer positions on the English right).

I'm preparing v. 2, which would include Impassable terrain to simulate the towns of Crecy and Wadicourt.

I had forgot to mention that in this scenario, with the single player option the human must of course play the English, as the AI does not do defensive/positional very well and tends to ignore the archers' stakes and careful positional placements. They simply abandon their high defensive ground and attack the numerically superior French. I can see their point, but their role is strictly defensive and positional if they're going to have any chance in this scenario, as it was in 1346.

[ZeaBed]

Scenario updated to include Impassable terrain hexes to represent the outlines of the towns of Crecy and Wadicourt.

[frankpowerful]

Unfortunately, there is no "steep hills" hex available

are you sure? i don't think so, a lot of custom made scenarios have steep hexes, (mine included )
omarquatar

[ZeaBed]

Unfortunately, there is no "steep hills" hex available

are you sure? i don't think so, a lot of custom made scenarios have steep hexes, (mine included )
omarquatar

I was surprised to find no steep hill terrain available in my scenario creator/editor, just the 0-1-2-3 etc. elevations. I found that placing a high elevation hex, say a 3 over a 1, the program would interpose a 2 level elevation between the two, giving it a gradation which can't be read as "steep." If I somehow missed the correct procedure for steep hill creation, however, please let me know where you found it in your scenario editor.

[frankpowerful]

if i recollect correctly, you must first create hill hexes, then right click on the hexes with the mouse. unfortunately, there are a lot of things not documented in this game

[stockwellpete]

if i recollect correctly, you must first create hill hexes, then right click on the hexes with the mouse. unfortunately, there are a lot of things not documented in this game

Yes, that is how to create steep hills.

[ZeaBed]

Thank you Frank and Pete for the instruction. I was afraid I had an old version of the scenario editor, and I couldn't find the "formula" for steep hills in the game instructions. Well, here goes version 3.

[stockwellpete]

Thank you Frank and Pete for the instruction. I was afraid I had an old version of the scenario editor, and I couldn't find the "formula" for steep hills in the game instructions. Well, here goes version 3.

When you get a bit more experienced with the scenario editor you can also create contour lines with "steep" and "gentle" sections combined together. Build your contoured area a bit smaller than you need - right click to make the inclines "steep" - then add further hexes for each level and they will be "gentle".

Another thing I do at the start of making a scenario sometimes is to cover the whole area with either level 1 or level 2 elevation - that allows you then to create larger depressions in the landscape that can be quite striking (which can also be filled with marsh or water hexes). This is especially effective if you are writing a moorland scenario.

[ZeaBed]

All great tips, Pete. Thanks again. I've still got a lot to learn about FoG and plan to have some fun doing it. No better way than scenario design.

Version 3 is up. I gave them three levels of steep cliffs, now if only the French knights would get the idea and obligingly follow the historical scenario I mentioned in my earlier post.

[frankpowerful]

All great tips, Pete. Thanks again. I've still got a lot to learn about FoG and plan to have some fun doing it. No better way than scenario design.

Version 3 is up. I gave them three levels of steep cliffs, now if only the French knights would get the idea and obligingly follow the historical scenario I mentioned in my earlier post.

as far as i have experienced, the AI is not capable to read complex map features correctly, better test your scenarios in MP or solitaire

[ZeaBed]

All great tips, Pete. Thanks again. I've still got a lot to learn about FoG and plan to have some fun doing it. No better way than scenario design.

Version 3 is up. I gave them three levels of steep cliffs, now if only the French knights would get the idea and obligingly follow the historical scenario I mentioned in my earlier post.

as far as i have experienced, the AI is not capable to read complex map features correctly, better test your scenarios in MP or solitaire

I'm a newbie Frank, so first I'll have to look up what MP and solitaire are. But thanks for the tip. I noticed the AI's difficulty with terrain when observing unimpeded movement over rough terrain or streams. No rivers, no towns, and the blocked option does not work.

[stockwellpete]

I'm a newbie Frank, so first I'll have to look up what MP and solitaire are. But thanks for the tip. I noticed the AI's difficulty with terrain when observing unimpeded movement over rough terrain or streams. No rivers, no towns, and the blocked option does not work.

MP is multi-player.

"solitaire" is when you set both players in a solo game to "Human" so that you move for both sides. This is how I do my initial play-tests on my scenarios and knock out any obvious faults e.g. lack of balance, poor starting positions etc. Once I am satisfied with this stage I move on to multi-player play-testing.

[omarquatar]

I'm a newbie Frank, so first I'll have to look up what MP and solitaire are. But thanks for the tip. I noticed the AI's difficulty with terrain when observing unimpeded movement over rough terrain or streams. No rivers, no towns, and the blocked option does not work.

MP is multi-player.

"solitaire" is when you set both players in a solo game to "Human" so that you move for both sides. This is how I do my initial play-tests on my scenarios and knock out any obvious faults e.g. lack of balance, poor starting positions etc. Once I am satisfied with this stage I move on to multi-player play-testing.

great pete, you write down in good english what i'm thinking

[ZeaBed]

I'm a newbie Frank, so first I'll have to look up what MP and solitaire are. But thanks for the tip. I noticed the AI's difficulty with terrain when observing unimpeded movement over rough terrain or streams. No rivers, no towns, and the blocked option does not work.

MP is multi-player.

"solitaire" is when you set both players in a solo game to "Human" so that you move for both sides. This is how I do my initial play-tests on my scenarios and knock out any obvious faults e.g. lack of balance, poor starting positions etc. Once I am satisfied with this stage I move on to multi-player play-testing.

Thanks for the info. Solitaire as in the card game, of course. I frequently play both sides as human, but with this scenario it's essential, as the English must play defensively, at least for most of the game. If the computer plays the English, they will just abandong their defensive positions and go on the attack. Lol.

[ZeaBed]

Being my first tentative step in custom scenario design, I can't seem to keep my hands off this one. I eased up on the steep hills a bit and tried to make the terrain in the two flanking cities visually resemble settled areas a bit more. So, Version 3.1 is ready.

[kujalar]

Being my first tentative step in custom scenario design, I can't seem to keep my hands off this one. I eased up on the steep hills a bit and tried to make the terrain in the two flanking cities visually resemble settled areas a bit more. So, Version 3.1 is ready.

This is no easy scenario to reproduce. I have a version of it also.

some criticism about the wikipedia article and the map of the battle layout there.

If you compare wikipedia map to the google-earth you can find that the scale of the map is wrong with the wikipedia. The distance between Crecy and Wadicourt is longer by ~50% (figured out from google maps) than in wikipedia map and if you spread the english such a wide distance their numbers must be a lot greater or then their lines would be a lot too thin.

so...

I would assume that the battle took place in left part of the ridge near the Crecy, and the French in hurry came along the road near the Mave river. There is also a book which says this might be the place where the battle took place.

[batesmotel]

One thing you could do to represent the wet bow strings for the Genoese crossbowmen would be to down grade their quality. Assuming they would have been rated average in normal circumstances, you could certainly rate them as poor to represent their reduced effectiveness on the day of battle. (Just a thought. I haven't tried the scenario yet.)

Chris

[ZeaBed]

Yes, there are several books written since the 1950s that supposedly gathered the best of 20th and 21st century research on this battle. There is an unending and fairly complicated amount of apparent conflict/contradiction among all this research: How many English were there really in relation to the French numbers; did Edward position his archers in "wedge" shape formations or not for the battle? Etc. Also, were Crecy in Wadicourt covering roughly the same urban and ex-urban (i.e. outside the city but within the defensive walls) in 1346 as they are now? Whatever the answer to that last one, it would make little difference in this particular scenario map, as the Wadicourt "walls" can just be deleted without much altering the battle layout itself. The English are not using Wadicourt for a defensive purpose here, at least not at the onset.

Thanks for your useful feedback and your interest. I agree, a tough battle to game. Wikipedia is not the only one at fault, though. I continue to slough through books on this problematically documented battle. But the usual reliance on the Osprey Battle books is complicated by the mistakes made in my edition of that volume: The Black Prince is labeled wrong and the direction indicators (i.e., north-south) are wrong. At the end of the day, I tried to make it as playable as possible without doing too much violence to the received knowledge on this battle, conflicted as that may be in itself.

Being my first tentative step in custom scenario design, I can't seem to keep my hands off this one. I eased up on the steep hills a bit and tried to make the terrain in the two flanking cities visually resemble settled areas a bit more. So, Version 3.1 is ready.

This is no easy scenario to reproduce. I have a version of it also.

some criticism about the wikipedia article and the map of the battle layout there.

If you compare wikipedia map to the google-earth you can find that the scale of the map is wrong with the wikipedia. The distance between Crecy and Wadicourt is longer by ~50% (figured out from google maps) than in wikipedia map and if you spread the english such a wide distance their numbers must be a lot greater or then their lines would be a lot too thin.

so...

I would assume that the battle took place in left part of the ridge near the Crecy, and the French in hurry came along the road near the Mave river. There is also a book which says this might be the place where the battle took place.