Slitherine

Kerait wrote: ↑Mon Mar 21, 2022 9:41 pm I've been working through the Field of Glory II Medieval Epic Battles in multiplayer, and on the whole, it's been a great experience. I've greatly enjoyed battles like Ascalon, Sirmium, Tinchebrai, Bouvines, Las Navas de Tolosa, Kalka River, Bornhoeved, Lake Peipus, Steppes, Mantzikert, Sagrajas etc. My thanks to the excellent scenario designers for hours of entertainment.

However, Arsuf strikes me as unwinnable for the Ayyubids where there isn't a massive skill or fortune disparity between players.

What are the horse archers and common lancers supposed to do against an unbeatable combination of pavise crossbowmen and knights and sergeants? What are the dismounted mamluks supposed to do? Hide in the marshland?

In my attempt as the Ayyubids against a human opponent, I managed to get light cavalry behind the enemy line and take out every single baggage train unit. This is not nearly enough to compensate the yawning combat disparity between the Christians and Muslims here.

I am genuinely curious as to what you can suggest as to take out the pavise crossbowmen. In shooting, they will handily outmatch their horse archer adversaries. Nor can horse archers defeat them in the melee. The Muslim lancers have perhaps a couple of tries at most to disrupt them before they will be too decimated to overcome the Christian foot, and that's before the knights get involved.

Why not flank, you ask? Flank what? If the Muslims cannot sustain, nor even effectively enter into a melee (the cavalry will mostly bounce) against the pavise crossbowmen, there are no units to flank. Nor do the Muslims have the numbers to really envelop the enemy effectively.

So, even the first line of pavise crossbowmen is an enormous hurdle for the Ayyubids to overcome. And then you still have knights!

Is it historically accurate and must the Ayyubids simply swallow the defeat they sustained historically? Perhaps, but in history, the Muslims outnumbered the Christians significantly, quite possibly more than two to one.

So here are my suggestions to improve the scenario:

1. For the crusaders, reduce the number of pavise crossbowmen; add a few regular spearmen. This would actually allow the Ayyubids to harass the crusaders effectively as they did historically, not simply punish any horse archers who dare even approach the same neighbourhood as the Christian foot with overwhelming firepower.

2. Increase the numbers of Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub's troops, as is historically accurate.

3. At the start of the scenario, force the Christians to break formation by compelling a chunk of the crusader knights led by the Hospitallers to charge wildly forwards, as was the case historically. As it stands, they can simply lounge behind the pavise crossbowmen line and defeat Muslim flanking attempts.

Once again, thank you to the scenario designer/s for this great work, but I really think this one needs balancing!

Paul59 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 21, 2022 10:51 pm Thanks Kerait,

I was concerned that some players would find this one difficult as the Ayyubids, so gave them a sizeable points advantage. Incidentally, that points advantage has now been eroded due to recent unit points changes! We have also had some other changes, such as the increased later Knight movement that might have affected the balance here. So I will take another look at it, and see if I can make some changes for the next update.