Slitherine

pantherboy wrote: I can't really agree with your view on realism as you ignore certain factors. The composition of the army was based upon their doctrine of warfare and what they felt would give them the greatest advantage.

RBS has already answered this, but I would like to stress how wrong this conception is projected to the past in general and to this period in particular. The composition of most armies of this period was based on several factors, but doctrine of warfare play basically no role, and the chance for selection by the general was minimal. The factors involved were in fact quite others, for example
1) Money. This one was the most important single factor. Armies were based on the available monetary resources, and cheaper was always the prefered option, to the point of recruiting soldiers with no weapons, because it was prefered to have men enlisted than to have weapons in storage.

2) Social structure. The importance of the aristocratic factor in the army was almost entirely dependant on this, regardless of actual performance in battle.

3) Tradition. That is a powerful concept in all periods except maybe in our own, so that battle performance, so important in our days, was a concept of lesser importance. The social importance and tradition of any unit was more than enough to secure it a position in any army regardless of actual battle performance. That is why the typical argument "If they keep that or that type of unit is that it worked" in fact holds no depth.

4) Available troops. The deployment of forces was dependant on many concepts, most alien to their adequation to battlefield terrain. Garrison forces were always superior in numbers to field armies, and it was always tempting to generals to draw on nearby garrisons to fill their commands.

5) Finally, pitched battles were but one of the actions in war, sieges, skirmishes, raids, ambushes, nocturnal assaults...all were more numerous than pitched battles, and armies in a campaign could not be tailored for battles even if the generals tried it, there were those other operations to count with. Horse arquebussiers were once and again to be found worthless in battle, however they were invaluable in exploration, raids and campaign in general. Regardless, no general would leave them behind in a pitched battle, numbers were always a good thing to have, even if only for the morale factor.

To sum up, this is a game and we can pretend it to be a simulation, but if we go for the Historically accurate argument, leaving the AI to select the army is closer to history than leaving it to the players.

In fact, even the deployment feature is hardly historical, the deployment of armies in battle was dependant on the order of march primarily, and many times on other considerations different from tactics, for instance at Wimpfen Cordova deployed to the right of Tilly because the right wing was the post of honour and Cordova commanded a royal army while Tilly was fighting for the duke of Bavaria

In a short but violent battle iandavidsmith's Royalists 43% reluctantly succumbed to my New Model Parliamentary army 18%.

BTW, people, this is partly a Game, partly a Simulation.

A real simulation is no fun to play.

The simple fact that as players we control the movement of ALL our individual units rules this out as a simulation.
Personally I prefer the game.

TGM's Russians beat Shawkhans Turks
crazy battle map that had more forest tiles than clear, I simply had more streletskies than my opponent had Janissairies.

Results posted to here.

John

All -- please work to report and check your results.

I know I've got a couple of lost games my noble opponents haven't reported.

John

Pod A result:

rbodleyscott (Russian 1560-1597) won vs batesmotel (Ottoman 1560-1609) (39% to 62%)

The Russians deployed their army almost entirely in ambush in or behind woods, apart from their artillery. The Ottomans decided to swing round to their left and attack between two woods on the Russian right. However, the Russians had left the front wood largely unoccupied, so the Ottomans weren't outflanking anything. The net result was that Russian arquebus fire from the woods near the rear of the map dismayed the Ottoman vanguard, and cavalry emerging from behind the woods effectively outflanked both wings of the Ottoman army.

Chris was unlucky as his troops responded particularly badly to the Russian shooting in the early stages of the battle. However, they broke through the Russian line in several places, and Ottoman shooting cracked the morale of several Russian units, but ultimately the balance favoured the Russians.

In my first and long awaited victory in Pod B, rumguff's Pole's dispersed Flatsix's Transylvanians 63:45%.

The game was closer than the numbers suggest - with an early and large lead established by the Poles manfully clawed back by mid-game but in the end the Trans. had too few infantry remaining and their units too spread out to prevail.

Pod A result

Cavehobbit (French 1550-1559) 57% won vs moncholee (Spanish -Imperial 1543-1559) 67%

Thanks for a good game, well played!

POD A

Aryaman (French 1550-1559) won 32% vs 61% Moncholee (Spanish 1543-1559)

Moncholee outmanouvered me with his light cavalry, doing great damage to my arquebussiers, but my Swiss did terrible execution on the enemy keils and that was it.

Pod B

TGM Hugenots won vs Flatsix Cath. French


TGM Royalists won vs Iandavidsmiths Roundheads

Thanks for the games guys, good close tough fights.

All,

Just a reminder that you have about 48 HOURS left to complete games, report results, and correct scores.

Monday morning, Texas time, I will close scoring and adjudicate final scores and positions.

BTW. Someone has indicated to me an interest in running Caracole III. I'm not going to out him, in case he decides against running it. I'll let him control announcing and kicking it off.

Best regards,

John

flatsix518 wrote:All,

Just a reminder that you have about 48 HOURS left to complete games, report results, and correct scores.

Monday morning, Texas time, I will close scoring and adjudicate final scores and positions.

BTW. Someone has indicated to me an interest in running Caracole III. I'm not going to out him, in case he decides against running it. I'll let him control announcing and kicking it off.

Best regards,

John

Hello, anyway to have small extension? I have three ongoing games ( two w hutze 1 with rumguff) that should be completed reasonably soon, basically 2 games should be decided in a few turns, one possibly a little longer....If not no worries.

TGM,

I'm going to hold to the cutoff date.

Partly because I have some personal and family activities coming up that I need to focus on.

Also to clear the decks for a Caracole III.

Best regards,

John

POD C

Susji (Holland 1590-1609) won 52% vs 64% Htothgar (Spanish 1569 - 1599)

Susji (Russia 1560 - 1597) won 7% vs 52% Kmaher (Ottomans 1560 1609)

Kmaher (Holland 1590 - 1609) won 33% vs 67% Susji (spanish 1600 - 1609)

Hi all ! AAR = Vadim late 30 Swedes YW won agianst Flatsix Spainish. My cav outnumbered his from turn 1 and played a decisive role.

Thanks and we still have one more game to go, as I chosed both sides last time its your turn now. Please send me a PM as I dont check the forum as often as before.

Vadim,

Happy to play another game and seek revenge. But it will unlikely be done in time to score as a Caracole II game.

Just saying

John

This has been a frustrating Caracole for me, as it is impossible to do well when half your pod does not play.

We need some rules for forfeiture of games when people sign up then become inactive.

Next Caracole, please make the pods much smaller please, and a set timeline for completion, as I hate just sitting on my hands waiting around for a game or for a player to make a move.

BTW, TY for sticking to your standards, Flatsix. We need to have a firm deadline for completion. No reason that I can see why we cannot finish a round per month. That gives people thirty days to make at most 20 turns. Most of my games do not last more than 10-12 turns anyway, unless I am fighting the Cave.

Shawkhan2,

I've had offline conversations with the person who is planning to run Caracole III. He will be changing some things that may address this better than I have in the Caracoles I ran.

To be honest, I never expected to have so many people drop out of play or dawdle -- but that seems to be what has happened. So I never really formulated a good solution for the problem.

I have my own reasons for not pursuing a forfeiture solution -- but I prefer to not muddy the waters by discussing them. I'd rather see a fresh break for the next Caracole.

At this point, there is a good enough pool of experience to figure out what the good, bad, and ugly is for this tournament style. I am always for improvements -- but, as you pointed out, I've tried to avoid making changes in mid-tournament.

Best regards,

John

Pod A result:

rbodleyscott (French 1550-1559) won vs Moncholee (Spanish-Imperial 1543-1559) (14% to 54%).

Good game. Thanks.