Blore Heath 1459 re-visited . . .

[stockwellpete]

I would be interested to hear from anyone who has played this scenario. Dastardly reports have been received by me that nefarious Lancastrian commanders have been re-calling their cavalry after their compulsory first move and have then spread them across their front line to overload the Yorkist defenders pretty much wherever they please. This is an outrage that must be prevented in future! Apart from that, it breaks the scenario as well.

So, after a lot of thought, I have found a solution - a "medieval force field" - or a way of representing the military limitations of the Lancastrian cavalry commander, at any rate. This manifests itself as a row of "impassable" squares running down the road on the Lancastrian half of the map. So, Lancastrian cavalry now can only cross to where their infantry are by the perilous route of the riverbank, or by going right back to their baseline and using the gap in the "impassable" terrain there. You can see how it looks in this first screenshot . . .

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In this screenshot the play-test has reached Turn 9 (half-way) and you can see that just a couple of Lancastrian cavalry have made it across to the infantry. I think this is quite realistic . . .

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Also, on Turn 9, the Lancastrian cavalry do have a chance to break through on the Yorkist left as they have "fragged" an enemy unit . . .

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[stockwellpete]

Here you can see the two "difficult" squares on the river bank that Lancastrian cavalry can use to join their infantry . . .

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A Lancastrian cavalry unit has got across the river (it is soon to be chopped up though) . . .

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[stockwellpete]

The Lancastrian infantry attack is also making progress . . .

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The Yorkist left comes under renewed pressure but is still holding . . .

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The Lancastrians have broken through in the centre . . .

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[stockwellpete]

But are beaten back on their left . . .

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End of Turn 16 and the Lancastrian cavalry finally call off their attack . . .

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At Nightfall the Lancastrians are leading 50-42, having had 6 units rally from "Routed". If none, or only one, had "rallied" then they would have lost this play test.

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[stockwellpete]

An interesting play-test that is on the right tracks, I think. I will do another test this afternoon and try and get as many Lancastrian cavalry to cross over and join their infantry to see if the scenario can be broken. They can, of course, just turn round and go down to the baseline and get round that way, but that is probably going to take too much time for them to force a win (I will test this as well). So I will most likely introduce a rule to say that the Lancastrians must win this outright, otherwise the Yorkists will get the Victory Points in the campaign. The other re-balancing change I will make is to reduce the proportion of longbow/bills mixed units to ordinary bill units in the Lancastrian army to give the Yorkists a bit more of a shooting advantage.

The terrain on the river bank on the Yorkist right between the mill and the edge of the map has also been made impassable.

[stockwellpete]

I did another test this afternoon. I extended the "force field" a bit to deal with this ahistorical recalling of the Lancastrian cavalry charge on Turn 2. You can see the position of the Lancastrian cavalry on Turn 9 in the first screenshot. They will still need about 4 turns before they can support the Lancastrian attack and there are only 18 turns in the scenario altogether. They need an outright win to claim the Victory Points in the campaign.

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In this screenshot you can see that the Lancastrian cavalry has departed, which means that Yorkist battle group can now move across to join the main Yorkist force. This should prevent their defence being overloaded. If the Lancastrian player wants to keep the Yorkist battle group where it is, they will need to leave 4 or 5 cavalry units there to "keep them honest" . . .

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[stockwellpete]

I have been investigating whether I can use a scenario script that keeps the Lancastrian cavalry attacking for the first 3 turns, before the human player takes control on Turn 4. Paul59 used a script in the Raith epic battle in FOG Ancients that might be OK, but it will need a bit of work as my play tests today revealed some issues. It is easiest to look at screenshots to try and work out what is happening . . .

In this one you can see that the game has the central unit of the infantry melee-ing with a cavalry unit that is not in contact with it . . .

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In this one it is the cavalry side's turn, but arrow markers are highlighted on two of the cavalry units . . .

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And here the infantry commander unit is so fed up with proceedings that it has turned itself around to face the other way

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[stockwellpete]

Again we have the arrows, but now with 2 units melee-ing that are not in contact with each other . . .

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This is the first turn with the script and the cavalry units have spread out leaving a big gap in the centre. This just looks wrong. I just want them to go forward normally . . .

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Another defending unit has turned round the wrong way during the cavalry turn . . .

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[stockwellpete]

I tried starting off with 2 rows of 5 cavalry units, with 2 units at the back, but still the second row breaks formation . . .

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This cavalry unit is facing both ways at once!

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Any suggestions?

[Paul59]

Well, as I have said before, these automatic move scripts are a nightmare. Getting one to work perfectly is nigh on impossible, and the more complex the situation, the harder it is. In the Raith Epic battle there are only 2 uncontrolled cavalry units, in one line, and the script works okay. In your scenario, you have 12 units in 3 or 4 lines, so they will inevitably get in each others way. You also have several extra scripts that are modifying the shooting rules to complicate things further.

I thought the Raith style script might be worth a try, as it directs the cavalry to advance on a fixed point several tiles away. However, if the way ahead is blocked by friendly or enemy units the AI will try to bypass them to reach the target tile. Apparently, you do not like that. So the best thing might be to try a different, more complex script, that orders the units to just move directly forward, but the cavalry being deployed in multiple lines is a big problem for that.

I will see what I can do, but this will not be an easy task.

[Paul59]

Actually, I think I have come up with a quick solution using the original Aljubarrota script. I have also had to spread out the Lancastrian cavalry lines, so that there are 3 clear tiles between each line. The new script orders the units forward 3 tiles each turn, and as there are no friendly units in the way, there is no diverting off course.

I have tested it a couple of times and it seems okay. But as it's a mystery why the previous script was causing the weird errors this will need extensive testing. Perhaps most of the errors were simply caused by the units getting in each others way, which doesn't happen so much now.

Mind you, I never saw the weird arrow marker bug myself. Did you alter the scenario in any way after I sent it to you?

[stockwellpete]

Actually, I think I have come up with a quick solution using the original Aljubarrota script. I have also had to spread out the Lancastrian cavalry lines, so that there are 3 clear tiles between each line. The new script orders the units forward 3 tiles each turn, and as there are no friendly units in the way, there is no diverting off course.

I have tested it a couple of times and it seems okay. But as it's a mystery why the previous script was causing the weird errors this will need extensive testing. Perhaps most of the errors were simply caused by the units getting in each others way, which doesn't happen so much now.

Mind you, I never saw the weird arrow marker bug myself. Did you alter the scenario in any way after I sent it to you?

I appreciate these are difficult things to get working correctly, Paul. I did half a dozen play tests just looking at the first moves of this scenario. Initially, I did not change anything, but in the last couple of tests I changed the starting positions of the cavalry to see if I could space out the cavalry as I could see that "CHARGE" was coming up for a cavalry unit, but then another cavalry unit was getting in front of it and blocking the charge in the same turn. My guess was that this was causing the problem, or part of it anyway. I will try the Aljubarrota script today and hopefully the spacing out will solve the issue.

[stockwellpete]

Paul59 has solved the problem for this scenario.

It will now use the script from Aljubarrota and the Lancastrian cavalry will be under the control of this script for the first three turns of the battle, thereby severely reducing the opportunity for the cavalry to join up with the Lancastrian foot to overload the Yorkist centre. I have kept the line of "impassable" squares for the time being as I will need to do a number of play tests now. If I can reduce the number of them, or remove them altogether then I will do so.