Slitherine

Athos1660 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 23, 2025 8:26 am In your mod, are the Carabiniers (Determined Horse with only Carbine et Swordsmen as capabilities) and/or the Arkbusiers (Horse with only Carbine) in armies such as the French or the Prussians made to simulate the spread of using the Dragoons as charging units on horseback on the battlefields of the 18th-century ?

Athos1660 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 27, 2025 11:24 am The different types of battles during the period

I took a quick look at ‘The Twilight of the Soldier Kings’ rules for table-top miniatures in the era of Frederick the Great (1730 to 1770).

According to these rules :

"In most cases, one player will be the defender, the other the attacker. Encounter battles were much rarer irl. In defender vs Attacker battles, there are two options :

1) the Pitched battle (the classical one) : the armies are on table in their half of the table and generally facing up to each other. The defender will usually have something to protect. There might be streams or special terrain protecting its front and flanks. The defender is deplloyed first and can fire their guns at the start of the game.

2) the ‘Manoeuvre' battle : the defending army is in active and placed in the centre of the table with a wide area empty of troops around them. The attacking army can then attempt to march around the defending army to attack from one or more different directions. Alternatively the attacking army can arrive on table in sections from all edges of the table in a converging attack. Of course these manoeuvres might not work or can be delayed or the inactive defenders can activate and react to the situation."

Afaik P&S allows only Pitched battles, not manoeuvre ones.

However, according to the rules mentionned above, it may be intereresting to try and play this mod with Open battles, Attack and Defend scenarios in P&S and reduced width (like the Very Narrow Map Size for the English (Continental) 1415 in the Custom battle of FoGM).

That may make the cav job harder when trying to flank the infantry which might be historical.

Athos1660 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 27, 2025 11:57 am I guess being able to add Chevaux de frise (movable barriers lined with spikes) and Earthworks to the defensive infantry (like the stakes and other defensive assets in FoGM) would be nice.

Athos1660 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 27, 2025 11:24 am ...
2) the ‘Manoeuvre' battle : the defending army is in active and placed in the centre of the table with a wide area empty of troops around them. The attacking army can then attempt to march around the defending army to attack from one or more different directions. Alternatively the attacking army can arrive on table in sections from all edges of the table in a converging attack. Of course these manoeuvres might not work or can be delayed or the inactive defenders can activate and react to the situation."

Athos1660 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 28, 2025 8:25 am @Cronos : As you seem interested, these rules provide more info on how they see Manoeuvre battles. They are of two types and the attacker have to choose one of them at the start :

1) 'Attaques convergentes' (converging attacks ?). Austrians are good at that one, thanks to their general staff. The attacker starts outside of the table and march to battle from any direction. The time and place of the attacker's arrival is planned before the start of the game.

2) 'Ordre oblique' (Oblique order). Prussians are good at that one. The attacker starts in front of the defender and if all goes well, can cricle him and attacks him from where he wants, while the defender remains inactive and cannot intervene.

Both types of Manoeuvre battles are meant to give an advantage to the attacker if all goes well. And there seems to be game mechanics to make it goes wrong

Cronos09 wrote:

Athos1660 wrote: ...
2) the ‘Manoeuvre' battle : the defending army is in active and placed in the centre of the table with a wide area empty of troops around them. The attacking army can then attempt to march around the defending army to attack from one or more different directions. Alternatively the attacking army can arrive on table in sections from all edges of the table in a converging attack. Of course these manoeuvres might not work or can be delayed or the inactive defenders can activate and react to the situation."

I think all this can be scripted in P&S. We can use FoG2M scripts for an example, where we have more various custom battle situations. For Frederick the Great's Prussian army it must be implemented necessarily

Cronos09 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 28, 2025 9:18 am As I see it, the second battle type can be implemented quite easily now:
For example, with a certain probability (determined during the pre-start turn), the second army's units cannot be moved during the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th turns (the second player's 1st turn has long been blocked in my P&S mods) unless the first player's units are within 5 tiles of the second army. During this time, the first player can perform at least a cavalry flanking maneuver.

Athos1660 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 28, 2025 9:52 am At the start of a game in the FoG2/P&S series, the deployment zones face each other.
Can you script them so that, randomly, they don't ?
Or is it non-changeable in the engine ?

For example :
- they start in a T-shape (I hope this tournure doesn't mean anything special in English, including for a certain neo-Puritan governement )
- or one army can only deploy with the enemy behind it
- etc.

Athos1660 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 28, 2025 8:25 am @Cronos : As you seem interested, these rules provide more info on how they see Manoeuvre battles. They are of two types and the attacker have to choose one of them at the start :

1) 'Attaques convergentes' (converging attacks ?). Austrians are good at that one, thanks to their general staff. The attacker starts outside of the table and march to battle from any direction. The time and place of the attacker's arrival is planned before the start of the game.

2) 'Ordre oblique' (Oblique order). Prussians are good at that one. The attacker starts in front of the defender and if all goes well, can cricle him and attacks him from where he wants, while the defender remains inactive and cannot intervene.

Both types of Manoeuvre battles are meant to give an advantage to the attacker if all goes well. And there seems to be game mechanics to make it goes wrong

rbodleyscott wrote: ↑Sun Dec 28, 2025 11:40 am
It would be at least theoretically scriptable, but the standard AI probably would not work properly.

So you would really need to do it as an editor created scenario with its own AI in the scenario scripts.

Lysimachos wrote:

Athos1660 wrote: @Cronos : As you seem interested, these rules provide more info on how they see Manoeuvre battles. They are of two types and the attacker have to choose one of them at the start :

1) 'Attaques convergentes' (converging attacks ?). Austrians are good at that one, thanks to their general staff. The attacker starts outside of the table and march to battle from any direction. The time and place of the attacker's arrival is planned before the start of the game.

2) 'Ordre oblique' (Oblique order). Prussians are good at that one. The attacker starts in front of the defender and if all goes well, can cricle him and attacks him from where he wants, while the defender remains inactive and cannot intervene.

Both types of Manoeuvre battles are meant to give an advantage to the attacker if all goes well. And there seems to be game mechanics to make it goes wrong

These are interesting concepts but I fear that only few players would accept to play a battle where they must remain inactive for many turns or are forced to face an enemy coming from different directions, being situations that, though historically accurate, put the defenders in a heavily penalized position.

wrote: (...) game mechanics to make it goes wrong