Slitherine

Battle of Worringen, 1288

Massive cavalry battle between archbishop Siegfried von Westerburg of Cologne and Johann I., Duke of Brabant.


Download:

- Fixed link 01/23/2013 -

http://www.mediafire.com/?wgizz2zeyd071v3

Version V1.2

- new map design (see first screenshot below)
- minor changes in units
- typo eleminated

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This is my first scenario for FoG (and my first post in this forum, BTW), so I would be really grateful for any tips, hints and constructive criticism in general. Thanks in advance!

(I've tested it several times for both sides against the AI - which has the nasty habit to turn it's attacks into a huge confusing mess of men and horses ... )

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Screenshots:

- The Map



The battle took place on the Fühlinger Heide ("Heide" = heath), in those days a landsape of meadows and pasture. In the North it is bordered by the Fühlinger Bruch, a back water of the Rhine; on the game map it is represented by the wooded and marshy aera on the right side.

The battlefield today: http://www.figuren-modellbau.de/schlach ... -1288.html (scroll down)


- The Brabant troops and allies:



Left wing: Köln militia and Berg peasants; knights: Graf Adolf V. von Berg and Graf Eberhard I. von der Mark.

Centre: Johann I. von Brabant (C-in-C)and Brabant-Limburg knights.

Right wing: Graf Walram von Jülich and knights; Graf Arnold VI. von Loon and knights. Brabant sergents and militia.


- Kurköln troops and allies:



Left wing: Graf Reinard I. von Geldern and knights; sergents

Centre: Graf Heinrich VI. von Luxemburg and Luxemburg-Limburg knights, sergents

Right wing: Archbishop Siegfried von Westerburg (C-in-C) and Kurköln knights; Kurköln sergents, militia and war wagon ("Fahnenwagen")


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EDIT: Corrected some typos.

EDIT2: scenario update, new screenshot

Looks great, will d/l later today

Welcome to the forum !
Cheers!

Hello Schweinewitz. I just had a game against the AI. I think it is a very, very good scenario - you provide excellent historical notes, two well-balanced armies that are nicely labelled, and very well-laid out terrain that makes for a fast-flowing battle. It looks very pretty indeed!

There are two issues with it for me to think about - one big and one small. The big issue is that you have set the game up on a west-east axis across the screen - and the problem with this occurs when units start to rout, because they will rout one move away from their attacker but then they will continue their routing moves either to the bottom or the top edge of the map. This means that they can often disrupt lots of their own troops on their way out, sometimes affecting a row of three or four "steady" units. So I would redraw the map on a south-north axis with the Brabant army (side 1) at the bottom of the screen and their opponents at the top. This will improve the routing situation dramatically and it will make it more realistic as units rout away from the action and towards their own map edge.

The second (small) point is that you have some of the foot units on both sides as "offensive" spears. I had this explained to me only a few weeks ago (so I had to alter all my scenarios), but most medieval spearmen should be "defensive" unless they were formed into phalanx-like formations e.g. Flemish or Scots schiltrons. So, personally, I would change those units from "offensive" to "defensive".

Thank you very much for your kind words!

- Concerning the map problem: You've got a point there. In fact it was a spontanous idea to make the map like that; it was a mistake as I can see now.
Is there a way to change the map in the way you propose without the need to redo the whole scenario (without loosing the OOB, descriptions etc.)?

- The "offensive spears": Very well, I'll change that.

Thanks for the proposals!

Well, personally , despite the odd route behavior, I like the army deployment angles. lets face it , the graphics of the backsides of the units isnt the most flattering(my opinion might change if they someday include female Amazon warriors)

I think offensive defensive spears comes down to what you are trying to represent in your scenario, there are several lists in SoA that have offensive spears , not so sure what "offically" might be in the Oath of Fealty lists(which would be contemporary to this battle)
D/l now!

Schweinewitz wrote: - Concerning the map problem: You've got a point there. In fact it was a spontanous idea to make the map like that; it was a mistake as I can see now.
Is there a way to change the map in the way you propose without the need to redo the whole scenario (without loosing the OOB, descriptions etc.)?

You can use the "edit scenario" button to make any changes you need without losing your troops and notes etc.

TheGrayMouser wrote:Well, personally , despite the odd route behavior, I like the army deployment angles. lets face it , the graphics of the backsides of the units isnt the most flattering(my opinion might change if they someday include female Amazon warriors)

The thing is, if the left flank of the Brabant army (the infantry) were to come further across the map than the knights (maybe trying to get on a flank) then they could end up routing through the main body of Brabant knights and that would be fairly catastrophic. My own view is that until the rout direction facility is activated in the scenario editor, all scenarios will work much better on a south-north axis.

I think offensive defensive spears comes down to what you are trying to represent in your scenario, there are several lists in SoA that have offensive spears , not so sure what "offically" might be in the Oath of Fealty lists(which would be contemporary to this battle)
D/l now!

Yes, the Low Countries and the Scots have "offensive" spears, so do the Nueva Castilians, I think. But I think they all fought in a particular manner in phalanx-like formations (schiltrons). But your bog-standard medieval spearmen was not trained in that particular way so can be classified as "defensive". Some of the Brabant troops appear to be peasants so they really should be "defensive" pointy stick people.

stockwellpete wrote:You can use the "edit scenario" button to make any changes you need without losing your troops and notes etc.

Yes, sure, I know that. I just wanted to know if I can change the map size of an existing scenario. The map is 40 hexes wide, 30 hexes high; I thought of changing it to 30x40. But I doubt that that is possible.

ATM I'm thinking of just mirroring the map. The problem of units routing through steady ones would't be eliminated by that, but at least the rout direction would be more realistic:



The Kurköln units would retreat to the West (ROUTE) towards their camp near the abbey of Brauweiler while the Brabants would retreat eastwards to the streets (ROUTE) leading to their camp near Castle Worringen, which was besieged by the allies during that time.

What do you think?

Schweinewitz wrote: Yes, sure, I know that. I just wanted to know if I can change the map size of an existing scenario. The map is 40 hexes wide, 30 hexes high; I thought of changing it to 30x40. But I doubt that that is possible.

ATM I'm thinking of just mirroring the map. The problem of units routing through steady ones would't be eliminated by that, but at least the rout direction would be more realistic:

The Kurköln units would retreat to the West (ROUTE) towards their camp near the abbey of Brauweiler while the Brabants would retreat eastwards to the streets (ROUTE) leading to their camp near Castle Worringen, which was besieged by the allies during that time.

What do you think?

I don't think that you change the map size of an existing scenario, Schweinewitz. At least, I don't know how to. Your map size is fine and 40x30 is one of the three sizes of DAG map that the developers have asked us to use if we are thinking of submitting a scenario to them for inclusion in the game (either by a patch or an expansion pack). The other two sizes are 50x30 and 30x20.

Personally, I would re-design the map on a south-north axis and correct the routing directions as far as possible at the same time. If you did this, I think the scenario would probably be accepted by the developers for inclusion in the game without any other changes. That's just my view though.

Hm, re-designing the map on a south-north axis would force me to reduce some of the topographical features of the original design, for example there would be no space left for the back water on the north side of the battlefield. Also it would result some useless and ugly looking empty spaces to the left and right sides.

I reconsidered the problem today and decided to mirror the map as shown in the picture above. I take the problem you mentioned seriously and will test the new version of the scenario in regard to that. I hope that one day we will see a rout direction facility in the scenario editor; until then we have to live with some chaos on the battlefield.

(In fact, the real battle turned soon into a chaotic mess of seperate duells and fierce attacks - while the Berg peasants, to the horror of the nobility, killed every knight who approched them, friend and foe alike. Well, they fought their own battle. Think about making those guys a little bit more powerful ... )

UPDATE!

OK, scenario now has a new, mirrored map as described above (see new screenshot in the first post). I tested it for both sides and I'm glad to say that there's no problem anymore with units routing into the wrong direction and causing trouble. I think it was worth the work.

Enjoy!

Reuploaded because of broken download link. Enjoy!

(Reup of the Marchfeld scenario will follow soon.)

massive work, compliments!

Schweinewitz, thank you for your update to those two great scenarios. BTW, regarding the retreat of routed units I've been playing with XML Notepad to change the retreat directions for both sides of the dispersed units in my Qadesh scenario and for those in the slanted presentation of my Crecy Revisionist map. From the limited testing I've done thus far, it seems to work! (Crossing fingers.) In Crecy Revisionist, I've also managed to reduce the range of Genoese crossbows from 5 to 4 to underscore the longer range of the English crossbows. It's a bit time consuming but better than having to redo the entire scenario to straighten the map. It also provides some variety. I hope to be able to repost these scenarios once I get a chance to finish testing them.

Interesting approach, ZeaBed! I'll check the xml files of your Qadesh scenario later to see what changes you have made.

(I also wonder if the new version will fix the problem. During the last weeks the devs remained very silent - surely a means to increase the tension ... )

(Oh ... I'm a 'strongpoint' now ... )

Schweinewitz wrote:Interesting approach, ZeaBed! I'll check the xml files of your Qadesh scenario later to see what changes you have made.

(I also wonder if the new version will fix the problem. During the last weeks the devs remained very silent - surely a means to increase the tension ... )

(Oh ... I'm a 'strongpoint' now ... )

The few test games I've played showed that editing the game with XML Notepad worked and the units from either side are retreating to opposite directions. I decided to make the Egyptians retreat to the west rather than to the south in this scenario. Seems to work better that way. This means you can do an east west map scenario without worrying about retreat direction snaggle-ups.