St. Quentin

[Adebar]

Has anyone tried this scenario? I'm just asking because I do not get it.

Your retreating infantry is AI controlled. Two third of your cavalry panics and flees before your first turn. All that's left are 5 cavalry units, one of them fragmented - against masses of Spanish horsies. Sounds like fun, does it?

What is the sense in watching the AI doing most of the work? Is this supposed to be fun to play? What was the scenario designer's intention?

For me it was just frustrating. I quit after 2 turns. Maybe I've missed some deus ex machina salvation by doing that. (Well, I guess not.)

[rbodleyscott]

The number of cavalry units that rout varies - partly randomly and partly on the difficulty level set. If you get a particularly unlucky start, you can always restart the scenario.

If the enemy get close to your infantry, those units come under player control.

The idea is to try to keep the enemy as distracted as possible without actually losing many more units, so that you can get your infantry, and then your cavalry, safely off the map. Light horse are good for this.

The program does not let you control all your infantry, because otherwise you would just turn them round and smash the Spanish cavalry. Historically you wouldn't do this because of the overwhelming force of Spanish (and English) infantry coming up behind the Spanish cavalry. (These are not represented in the scenario because the French did retreat and so the Spanush/English foot weren't engaged).

Some will find this an interesting challenge, some won't. Certainly it is a problem that historical generals faced fairly often.

YMMV.

[Adebar]

Thanks for the explanation, Richard.

I shall try it again, maybe it works better then for me. The thing that bothers me about the gameplay in general is that the AI does so much through all the several phases while you, the player, just cannot do anything except sitting there and watch. That can be boring sometimes for the AI plays the game and not the player. In this scenario it's so extreme that it can be quite frustrating. I know that the phases are based on specific rules but they sometimes can kill the fun of playing the game. At least for me, it may all be very subjective. Don't want to sound harsh, just talking about my experience and my "feelings".

Regards,

A.