Slitherine

This is something that has come up in conversation when I have been play-testing scenarios with other players and I was just wondering what other people thought about it. My main historical period of scenario-building at the moment is the War of the Roses and it does present this dilemma in quite an acute form. For example, at Bosworth Field, if you accurately try and portray what actually happened on the day then you might not actually include two of the main contingents of troops because they did not actively participate in the fighting (although their very presence did affect the behaviour of the other bodies of soldiers).

But, instead of doing that, I included all the contingents on the battlefield and effectively constructed two versions of the battle - the first one assuming that all participants were active in the battle from the outset; and the second one (which I call the "historical variation") having a "historical what-if" mechanism built into it (by using break points as a "trigger") which allows for the other contingents to possibly join the battle at some point or other in the proceedings.

Another example is the Battle of Northampton (1460) which I am working on now - which, in reality, actually lasted about half an hour due to the treachery of one of the Lancastrian commanders. On the face of it then, this might not seem to be a very promising battle to try and create a scenario from. But I have found it possible to both re-create history and make a good wargame by effectively making two versions again. The default version will assume that the Lancastrian commander stayed loyal and all units are active from the start. This makes for a good wargame. The "historical variation", however, does include a "TREACHERY EVENT" (again triggered by total break points) which requires the Lancastrian commander on the left flank to abandon his position. This will obviously make the prospects of the Lancastrian player very bleak (it will not affect his break points though) - but some players might like the challenge of this option - or they might be playing the scenario in the context of a wider campaign where losses and leader casualties are important.

The other thing I try and do is to weight the scenario outcomes slightly in favour of the historical victor. Henry Tudor won Bosworth Field, and the English won at Flodden, so my aim is to make the outcomes of these scenarios come out at about 2:1 for the historical victors (in games between players of roughly equal ability). So, if history is to be reversed, it requires a very good performance in the game from the player who is the "historical under-dog).

I would be interested to hear how other scenario-builders have approached this question.

I think if you stick too closely to history, it would become boring to play as you'd know which side will win in advance. It's important to give both sides a chance I think.

Then there's the aspect that is the scenario equally balanced for single player and for multiplayer? I try to make my scenarios winnable against the AI for either side.

If the scenario designer is being accurate with the known facts, then there will probably be a tendency for the actual winner to come out on top anyway. But there are a number of ways to 'bend' the odds even if you're being accurate with the numbers.

I like to think that principally it is a game we are playing and so it should be 'balanced' accordingly. If you go too far down the 'historical at all costs' route then you have to start by questioning every rule. The biggest unhistorical aspect to my mind is the way that the player (commander) has an almost complete view of what's going on and total control over every move that every unit makes and that it's orders are transmitted instantly.

Slitherine's earlier games (Legion, Chariots, Spartan, Legion Arena, etc.) give a far more realistic lack of control in my opinion. But that doesn't detract from FOG in the least, it would be a horrible game if half your orders never got there and you couldn't see anything of what was going on!

I think I agree w maximus on thi.. Also there are many battles in history that just dont play out very well in any game system ie Cannae, maybe Hastings etc

maximvs wrote:The biggest unhistorical aspect to my mind is the way that the player (commander) has an almost complete view of what's going on and total control over every move that every unit makes and that it's orders are transmitted instantly.

Yes, this is very true, Max. And some players scrutinise the combat resolution in the game so that they have even more information as the "commander". But when you read accounts of the real battles you do wonder what on earth the commanders were thinking about. Take the battle of Wakefield (1460), for example. Richard, Duke of York, an experienced soldier, charged out of his very strong castle at Sandall and blundered straight into a trap set for him by the Lancastrians. He was killed and his army was heavily defeated. If he had taken time to scout the woods - or if he had simply waited a few days for reinforcements - then the outcome might have been very different. It was a possibility too that he could have succeeded Henry VI to the throne.

Wakefield is quite a difficult battle to wargame because of the disparity between the sizes of the different armies. One way that I might be able to produce an interesting scenario is to introduce "triggers" for the two ambushing contingents. Can Richard's forces overwhelm the Lancastrian forces he could see from his castle before the other Lancastrian contingents hidden in the woods could come to their assistance? It might work.

Well, it is just a game - the historical factors cannot be fully recreated in it. However, you can strive to get some of the basics right - names of commanders, numbers of men (roughly) and types of units. But no matter how accurate these are, you are not recreating history as such. It is also terrifically difficult to get even the basics of some of the battles right - the records are just not full enough. There has to be some guesswork. That is where I try to tilt my scenarios in favour of the victor! The other important thing to do is to allow enough flexibility to allow players to test out the what-ifs. So, for example, in a version of Dyracchion I have made for myself, I have a larger map which includes at a distance the troops Alexius sent off to raid the Norman camp. In a normal game, they cannot get back in time to change the outcome one way or another. However, if I alter the set up I can see what would happen 'if' by putting those units back with the main army. But I do not fool myself - I do not end up by saying 'so Alexius would have won if he had not sent this force away!'. These decision change the game play only. Then again maybe, just maybe the sceanrio is so good .....

tonymcenery wrote: It is also terrifically difficult to get even the basics of some of the battles right - the records are just not full enough. There has to be some guesswork. That is where I try to tilt my scenarios in favour of the victor!

Yes, even with the War of the Roses battles - which are 15thC and take place in an increasingly literate society - there is much discrepancy and uncertainty about what happened in battles, the numbers involved, even to the point of not knowing where they were actually fought e.g. Bosworth Field. With Flodden, there seem to be no surviving Scottish accounts because all the literate Scotsmen present perished in that dreadful battle.

So I agree that nearly all scenarios have to have a degree of historical imagination about them. And, of course, I am primarily trying to make a good wargame for people to enjoy. With my Livonian trilogy I had very little hard information at all, but hopefully that short series of scenarios conveys a little of the atmosphere of what a 13thC battle in the Baltic might have been like.

Your scenarios certainly do that - and that is what I think we should be doing. Giving a flavour of what happened while making a cracking good game which plays well. Am just working out a Myriokephalon scenario - I am having to imagine quite a bit of the order of battle for the reasons you outline. So I am focussing on the spirit of the scenario - a nasty ambush that starts in a massacre and finishes, probably, in a stalemate. All of this in a confined space. So - I am right there with you in saying that the atmosphere is really important in some of these scenarios!

Tony

tonymcenery wrote:Your scenarios certainly do that - and that is what I think we should be doing. Giving a flavour of what happened while making a cracking good game which plays well. Am just working out a Myriokephalon scenario - I am having to imagine quite a bit of the order of battle for the reasons you outline. So I am focussing on the spirit of the scenario - a nasty ambush that starts in a massacre and finishes, probably, in a stalemate. All of this in a confined space. So - I am right there with you in saying that the atmosphere is really important in some of these scenarios!

Tony

Thanks very much, Tony. Will you be posting your new scenario here in due course?

Yes, I am working on a 'Byzantine Trilogy' - Doryleum, Dyracchion and Myriokephalon. Just tweaking the last one at the moment. Will try to post them up as a Christmas present to all! All of them interestingly involve ambushes - two failed and one succesful. Getting the succesful ambushes right is much more challenging than dealing with the failed one.

tonymcenery wrote:Yes, I am working on a 'Byzantine Trilogy' - Doryleum, Dyracchion and Myriokephalon. Just tweaking the last one at the moment. Will try to post them up as a Christmas present to all! All of them interestingly involve ambushes - two failed and one succesful. Getting the succesful ambushes right is much more challenging than dealing with the failed one.

Sounds very interesting - I shall look forward to trying them.

I know a lot of players are slightly frustrated that they cannot play fairly straightforward and fast-moving campaigns with FOG at the moment. I am working on a set of rules for a two-player campaign that might work as a generic set for all periods in due course. I will be starting the first play-test of it this weekend. The other idea is that it might be possible for players to construct a campaign around a sequence of historical scenarios. For example, I intend to work my way through all the Wars of the Roses battles - and there are probably around a dozen that might work reasonably well for FOG (the Tewkesbury and Towton scenarios already in the game are very good). So two players who wanted to do a Wars of the Roses style campaign could select half a dozen of these scenarios and keep a simple tally of who wins the most battles e.g. 3-2 with 1 drawn would win the campaign. Very straightforward, no paperwork - and hopefully a lot of fun. Might that sort of approach work for the periods that you are interested in?

It certainly would - you could do a nice series of scnearios for the First Crusade, for example - maybe Dorylaeum, Antioch and Ascalon, for example. The campaigns of Alexius Comnenus would be ripe for that approach too as that poor guy basically took on all comers for his whole reign! It would be great to have those campaign rules.

tonymcenery wrote:Yes, I am working on a 'Byzantine Trilogy' - Doryleum, Dyracchion and Myriokephalon. Just tweaking the last one at the moment. Will try to post them up as a Christmas present to all! All of them interestingly involve ambushes - two failed and one succesful. Getting the succesful ambushes right is much more challenging than dealing with the failed one.

I have an ambush in my next Wars of the Roses battle - Wakefield 1460. I'm not quite sure how to handle it really. I have built "historical variations" and "triggers" into some of my earlier scenarios - but they can all also be played in the usual way i.e. all troops are active from the start.

But with Wakefield, I think that it will only work as a "historical variation", because the Yorkists were completely outnumbered by the Lancastrians. A default battle would be a foregone conclusion. Perhaps the key to recreating the battle is to hinge it on whether the Lancasrians can manage to execute the ambush quickly enough to prevent the Yorkists defeating the one Lancastrian contingent they were aware of (the ambushing Lancastrian forces were concealed in woods in real life). Maybe the numbers generated by missile fire can be used to trigger the movement of the hidden contingents? Something like - each time the Lancastrian archers score a 5% hit or more then that activates one of their other contingents. It might work. If their shooting is poor then Richard of York would have a chance to close with the enemy and defeat him.

Do you consider these sorts of "triggers", or are all the units in your scenarios active from the start? The thing about the Wars of the Roses battles is that there was so much treachery and swapping sides etc than straightforward battles (like Towton and Tewkesbury) were less common than is usually the case.

Another way to 'slow down' units that you don't want active from the start is to place them in scub, marsh or broken terrain and position them so they have further to travel of course. Even having them facing the 'wrong way' will slow down their first move.

stockwellpete wrote:
I have an ambush in my next Wars of the Roses battle - Wakefield 1460. I'm not quite sure how to handle it really.

I have used 2 ambushes in my Montaperti scenario (Count of Arras and Bocca degli Abati - can't remember if we played it) setting units next to the enemy but hidden in woods or in a gully; obviously, it works only the first time a player plays it and if he is unaware of the historical situation; also, it can't work against the AI

In Myriokephalon I have set up the ambush at the moment when the ambush begins and have used broken ground to make sure that the intervention by Byzantine forces close by is not too switft. This is quite fine - there was a lot of broken ground in the area historically anyway. Also, the Byzantines had been ignoring Turks on their flanks for some time befroe the ambush began, so they were really asking for it, so to speak. With Dorylaeum, I have started the battle at the point where the Turkish ambush goes horribly wrong for them - they think that their ambush has been succesful and that they have the crusader army surrounded. They do not - they have the vanguard surrounded and the man army and rearguard is just coming into view behind them. With Dyracchion, the game starts where the battle proper started - with Alexius springing a failed ambush - his force attacking the Norman camp turns up to find it abandoned. They are supposed to be attacking the Norman rear but cannot as the Normans have guessed what is going on, have abandoned ther camp, marched across the lagoon and broken the causeway behind them. Alexius now has to face the Normans on his own. So - in each case, I guess it is a case of trying to get some historical accuracy into the game while making sure it is playable also. If folks don't like it they can change the start set up anyway .....

I have not had to deal yet with the issue you have faced in the Wars of the Roses - defections and forces sitting out the battle. I have thought about that as I want to redo Manzikert at some point. Ducas and the Byzantine cavalry acted treacherously at that battle and left when they should have intervened to save the infantry. It is a bit like Bosworth. I must say, the only solution I have come up with is to simply not have them there at all - that is after all the net effect of their treachery on the day. As long as the game is set up so that the Byzantines are deployed as though the cavalry is there, then the game should (sort of) play as though the cavalry are about to/have turned heel and gone home.

Yes, Max and Tony, using broken ground could be an option if you just wanted to slow down the arrival of a contingent.

We haven't played that one, Frank - but I am trying to create scenarios that will be re-playable and will be different each time (like Bosworth Field is when both players are not sure if or when the other contingents will start moving).

With Manzikert, I suppose you could build a "what-if" element into it around the treachery of Ducas, Tony. Even % result on the first shooting he remains loyal, odds he is treacherous, or something similar. I suppose it also depends on whether the game developers want to include these "what-if" options in the historical scenarios, or if they want to keep them as straightforward battles. Really if they are to be included then the scenario notes need to be available to players throughout the entire battle. If one of the development team is reading this, what do you say?

Yes, conditional rules would be fun - right there with you on that one! Until then, we will have to work our way around things ....