Cerignola 1503 AD

[Sabratha]

Well, this is my and Ardaeshir's attempt at Cerignola. It is a somewhat tricky battle to simulate for several reasons, one of which was the presence of arquebusiers. We believe we found a pretty good way of simulating those, as far as damage dealing properties are concerned. The range of these may be slightly too far, but we saw it as a better alternative to the 2 hex range of handgunners.

Enjoy!

http://www.filefactory.com/file/c5e2311/n/Cerignola.rar
http://depositfiles.com/files/nnxj4gdu4
http://uploading.com/files/m2m498m7/Cerignola.rar/

[Micha63]

Hi, thank you for your work.

[stockwellpete]

It is a somewhat tricky battle to simulate for several reasons, one of which was the presence of arquebusiers. We believe we found a pretty good way of simulating those, as far as damage dealing properties are concerned. The range of these may be slightly too far, but we saw it as a better alternative to the 2 hex range of handgunners.

A very interesting idea here. I think the range is certainly far too far, particularly as this is a small-ish scenario, but . . .

I did a quick test scenario. I set up three units to just fire at blocks of Swiss pikes (who were turned around so they did not "anarchy" charge). The results were as follows (20 shots for each unit) . . .

i) average handgunners 27% total hits or 1.35% damage inflicted per shot

ii) superior handgunners 28% total hits or 1.40% damage inflicted per shot

iii) average light artillery 56% total hits or 2.8% damage inflicted per shot

So the light artillery was doing twice as much damage as the handgunners, which I imagine is a reasonable representation of the difference between handgunners and the earlier arquebusiers. So the only problem is the range. Light artillery can fire 6 hexes which is clearly ludicrous for arquebusiers, so what if you introduced a voluntary historical rule that said the arquebusiers can only fire at targets that are 3 or less hexes away? Not too difficult to remember, I would have thought - not compared to all the things TT players have to remember, anyway.

The sequence of hits for the light artillery was interesting too - 41420133680241518111. So 2x8's, 1x6, 1x5, and 3x4's - 7 really solid hits out of 20 shots.

What do you think?

[Sabratha]

Well, we were mostly concerned about the damage dealing effects. As for range, we thought the 16th century arquebus had about the same effective range as crossbows. So in game terms, it would be 4. (although we also thought that the crossbows in the game have a too long range in comparison with the longbow for example, but that's another story).

[stockwellpete]

I am playing a game now and restricting my shooting to 3 hexes. 4 would work OK too, I think - although this is a small scenario. I just did another test . . .

If you set the handgunners to "elite", 20 shots at Swiss pikes managed 36% hits or 1.8% damage per volley.

[Sabratha]

I am playing a game now and restricting my shooting to 3 hexes. 4 would work OK too, I think - although this is a small scenario. I just did another test . . .

If you set the handgunners to "elite", 20 shots at Swiss pikes managed 36% hits or 1.8% damage per volley.

Well, that was my goal here really. the battle was won largely through arquebus fire and the arquebusiers should be a very important factor. I wanted to strongly distinguish this from earlier "its all fluff until the pikemen slug it out" battles.

If the French are too outmatched, I can turn a few more Spanish pikemen units into spanish swordsmen. There's very little exact data on the spanish infantry other than the arquebusiers. I assume the majority were pikemen, but the pikemen-to-swordsmen ratio is anyone's guess.

[stockwellpete]

Sorry, but I forgot to post the result of the game that I played . . .

Spanish 10/26 beat French 24/24

I have to say the idea of using a light artillery classification did not work for me . . . it felt odd, to be honest. My hope is that if we get modding opporunities at some point we will be able to create early arquebusiers for our scenarios that are on the borderline between late medieval and early renaissance warfare.

[Sabratha]

Sorry, but I forgot to post the result of the game that I played . . .

Spanish 10/26 beat French 24/24

I have to say the idea of using a light artillery classification did not work for me . . . it felt odd, to be honest.

What in particualr was wrong? Can you be a bit more specific, I can see if it can be fixed or not.

[stockwellpete]

Sorry, but I forgot to post the result of the game that I played . . .

Spanish 10/26 beat French 24/24

I have to say the idea of using a light artillery classification did not work for me . . . it felt odd, to be honest.

What in particualr was wrong? Can you be a bit more specific, I can see if it can be fixed or not.

Well, it just "felt" wrong to me, Sabratha. Of course, classifying them as "light artillery" meant the range was far too long for arquebusiers and the sound was an artillery sound, not a handgun/arquebusier sound. I do think it was an interesting attempt to deal with the arquebus though. Another way to try to do it might be to make most, if not all arquebus units "superior" and then to downgrade the "armoured"/"protected" status of all other troop types in the battle (i.e. so "armoured" become "protected" and "protected" become "unprotected").

EDIT: the scenario editor will not let you pick "unprotected" pikemen so "pikes" have to be re-classified as "offensive spears".

In addition, the scenario is very heavily tilted towards the Spanish - the French do not have much chance. So maybe there are ways that you can balance it up a bit more?