Battle of Sagrajas 1086 AD

[ZeaBed]

This was a key battle in the long history of the Reconquest of Spain, pitting King Alfonso VI of Castile and his Christian allies against Almoravid emir Yusuf ibn Tashfin and the emirs of the taifas of Andalusia.

UPDATED on 28/03/2015 to v3.1:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/405 ... 20v3.1.zip

[amenofi64]

Nice work, thanks.

[Turk1964]

Just played this one and it was most enjoyable . Well done

[ZeaBed]

Thank you both. I'm glad you enjoyed it Turk. Getting the scenario balance right on this one is a bit tricky without doing too much violence to what historical facts are available (such as they are for this 11th century battle). The victories I have seen with this scenario, with one exception, have been Pyrrhic ones.

[ZeaBed]

Sorry, the dropbox link to the update is not working from here - it gives me the blue skeleton box of death. It works right from the dropbox site into my computer, just not from this thread. Will keep trying.

[ZeaBed]

Very peculiar. The update url link to dropbox works everywhere except in this thread. I was able to update Panipat but this Sagrajas link does not work no matter what I do. Could it be - Satan??!! I'll see what I can do to fix this problem.

[ZeaBed]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40593264/Battle ... 20v2.0.zip

[stockwellpete]

Yes, I have got the new version OK, Zeabed. Not sure what the problem was before - sometimes my scenario links on Dropbox do not work because only part of the link is underlined. If I recopy the link directly from Dropbox then that has always rectified it.

I am in the middle of a paired game with the first version at the moment -one game is level and the Castilians are well on top of the other. I notice that the difference between army values of the two sides has been increased drastically in the updated version - from 599-683 to 595-778, so the difference between the two armies is now a whopping 183pts! Have the Castilians been winning too easily then?

[ZeaBed]

Pete, I mostly tried to get more "authentic" styled troops for the almoravids, since I could find no troops listed for them that were dated for their era. And yes, I made the Black Guard and other troops a bit stronger to compensate and reflect the superiority of most of the North African troops over their Iberian taifa allies. And yes again, most if not all the available Christian knights seem to be from a little more advanced warfare era than the 11th century, so balance was initially a problem.

I found that even when attacking from the rear and the front, the almoravids got creamed. That's not right imo. Even in the second version, the almoravids really have to really think it through to win. And when they do it is usually by a relatively small margin. Castilian armor is simply superior in the quantification of battle values. The historical battle was a slaughterhouse for both sides, but the almoravids did win a decisive victory.

Dropbox has not been allowing me to right click to Copy the link; I have to click on Copy to Clipboard. The link that finally worked was identical to the ones that didn't, so who knows what the hell happened. I had just updated Panipat a few seconds prior and had no problems with that link. Must have been gremlins.

[ZeaBed]

Stockwellpete, one change in the second version that raised the value of the almoravids was 'decompressing' some of the units, such as the javelinmen, from 5 units at 1000 strong each to 10 units at 500 strong each. it's the identical number of troops, but the program reads the increased number of units as improved battle value. I'd noted that in the first version some large units had been routed by smaller units because of the percentage loss, not the numerical hits. One routed javelinmen unit in the first version still had 738 troops left! This was ridiculous and the situation distorted the results and grossly negated the larger number of troops on the almoravid side. So I changed it in the second version.

The basic advantage, however, is still on the Castilian side, imo. The results of a recent game with the second version left the Castilians with 25 out of 43 break points lost, while the almoravids lost with 72 break points (original total for them is 64).

[stockwellpete]

Two results from the play-test I did with Rex for version 1.0 . . .

Almoravids 43/55 beat Castilians 44/43
Castilians 28/43 beat Almoravids 57/55

so overall, the Castilians narrowly got the better of it on aggregate. We both think giving another 100pts to the Almoravids (as in version 1.1) might make it impossible for the Castilians to win.

[ZeaBed]

Thank you for your valuable feedback, Pete and to Rex too for taking the trouble to play through both games. If a scenario ever needed some varied and extensive game-testing it's this one, imo. So your take on it is certainly welcome.

As long as you can get the Almoravids to beat the Christians at all in this scenario, that is good enough. It seems the Almorie light units must use the classic Berber 'hit-flee-return' battlefield tactics in order to hang on. This tactic in its execution is a bit more relentless and coordinated than the usual hit and run tactics. If they do so, they tend to outlast the Christians in the attrition and trap some formidable Castilians. A good example of a famous use of this tactic was the Battle of Teba (1330) in which an illustrious Castilian ally, Sir James Douglas, was killed.

In my experience, even with 1.1 changes the Christians still beat the Almories about half the time. But I defer to your gaming expertise and experience, stockwellpete and rex, and am considering revising the Almories down 100 points or so again. All that would mean is to 're-compress' the 10 javelinmen units of 500 each back into 5 javelinmen units of 1000 each, I think. And maybe play with the Average, Elite and Superior levels a bit. No heavy lifting here, I think, but any suggestions in this regard will certainly be appreciated.

Thanks again to Pete and Rex for your valuable input.

[stockwellpete]

The game where the Almoravids won was quite interesting inasmuch as the Castilian knights won the centre very powerfully but the Almoravids won decisively on both flanks. The elite Black Guard units were transferred to the left to support the camel troops so the Almoravid centre was weakened - but the remaining Almoravid foot fought well and held the contour line for many turns. On the right flank the Almoravid LH "escaped" into the open plain and shot up the Castilian cavalry there - this was the decisive part of the game really, the LH were the reason why the Almoravids won so the Castilians have to keep them bottled up somehow, I feel.

When I make my scenarios I tend to use round numbers for army points so for this one I would probably have gone 600 for Castilians, 700 for Almoravids and worked from there. 100pts+ for the Almoravids would be somewhere near the mark, I think.

[ZeaBed]

Yes, the camels and the black guards on the left Almorie flank, that's been my experience too with playing this scenario. The Almories have to prevent a complete Castilian breakout into their center-right while avoiding rear attacks. Great feedback this.

Thanks for the tip. I've revised the Almories down, hopefully not too much. Will post it forthwith.

[ZeaBed]

Update: Version 2.0 now available.

Here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40593264/Battle ... 20v2.0.zip

[stockwellpete]

Zeabed, the Berber Spear in the Almoravid army (1.2 version) have MF icons but are designated as light foot, except the leader unit who is heavy foot. I sense something might be wrong here.

[ZeaBed]

Zeabed, the Berber Spear in the Almoravid army (1.2 version) have MF icons but are designated as light foot, except the leader unit who is heavy foot. I sense something might be wrong here.

There is something wrong. The only Berber unit listed in the Arab later menu (under 'other' of course) is the HF spear-bow. For some reason the unit is designated by type as light foot, a designation that could only correctly apply to the rear rank light bows. Highly irregular but there it is The emir of Badajoz was in charge of these Berber troops newly arrived from north Africa. He was new at the job having only recently dethroned and slain his brother.

[stockwellpete]

There is something wrong. The only Berber unit listed in the Arab later menu (under 'other' of course) is the HF spear-bow. For some reason the unit is designated by type as light foot, a designation that could only correctly apply to the rear rank light bows. Highly irregular but there it is The emir of Badajoz was in charge of these Berber troops newly arrived from north Africa. He was new at the job having only recently dethroned and slain his brother.

You can edit them to "heavy foot" with rear rank LF bows if you want to.

[ZeaBed]

They are HF with rear rank LF bows. But the unit type listed at the bottom designates the entire unit as Light Foot. Lowest Common Denominator I guess. Thanks for the suggestion but I'll keep them like that. I can live with that. I like to think of them as Light Foot anyway.

[stockwellpete]

They are HF with rear rank LF bows. But the unit type listed at the bottom designates the entire unit as Light Foot. Lowest Common Denominator I guess. Thanks for the suggestion but I'll keep them like that. I can live with that. I like to think of them as Light Foot anyway.

OK. But the unit type field is editable so in my version now I have edited the "light foot" designation to "heavy foot" and they are all now HF with rear rank LF bows.