Slitherine

My first Great Northern War scenario; The Battle of Narva, is now available for download within the game. I was not going to release it for a few more weeks, but there seems to be a lot of interest in the GNW at the moment so here it is. I hope to cover all the major battles of the war in chronological order, and have already made a start on the Battle of the Crossing of the Duna 1701.

I don't know if many of you have discovered my design notes text documents, buried within my Scenario folders, if not here are the Narva Design Notes;

I used the Great Northern War Compendium, Lars Hoglund's two volumes on the GNW and Tacitus.nu's website as the basis for this scenario.

1) I have chosen to ignore the Russian Infantry's Regimental Guns in this battle. They fought so ineffectively I did not want to give them this bonus.

2) The Swedish Drabant Cavalry Regiment does not have flags. This may seem strange, but there are no historical references to
a flag at all and you would think that as a guard unit there would be some record as every other detail of their uniform has been recorded. The Swedish Livgardet grenadier unit also does not have flags.

3) I have reduced all infantry units (except Swedes) using less sophisticated firing techniques to 80% Musket. As the Swedes have the Salvo capability, they are already reduced at short range and if I reduce their Salvo percentage that would affect their impact capability. So I withdrawn their Regimental gun capability instead, although I have kept the LG graphic.

4) Tacitus.nu states that there were 6 battalions of the Livgardet at the battle, and he seems to be very knowledgeable and reliable. But this is strange as other sources state that there were only 3 or 4 battlions of the Livgardet at that time. I do not know from what source Tacitus.nu gets this info, maybe these 6 battalions are temporary formations?

5) Both the Russian and Swedish armies were still wearing old style uniforms at this stage in the war, and neither army was yet wearing the tricorne. The Swedish Livgardet grenadiers wore hats, not mitre caps.

6) I have used a reduced visibility script to simulate the effects of the blizzard that was blowing at the time of the battle (and the later inevitable gunsmoke).

7) The 64 units per side limit is a slight problem for this scenario. I have had to limit the size of the battlefield to exclude Narva fortress and the Russian troops that were guarding against sorties from it. Also I could not represent the right wing Russian cavalry, although they seem to have fled immediately and took no part in the battle.

I have given bombs and swordsmen capability to the Swedish Livgardet grenadiers, and to a percentage of each Swedish battalion that had grenadier platoons leading the assault.

9) Also due to the reduced visibilty I have reduced the range of muskets to 2 squares.

10) I have used Adebar's Winter Snow Terrain tiles for this scenario.

11) Be careful with using many of the Swedish battalions, they are very small and cannot take many casualties before breaking.

13) This scenario uses the RBS socket bayonet mod, which also allows Swedish salvo infantry to charge cavalry.

14) I have given these early war Swedish infantry an increased movement rate, equivalent to Determined Foot.

15) I did not want the Russian Dragoons evading charges, as they are supposed to be defending the earthworks, so I have made them Medium Foot (instead of dragoons). They still move at the normal dragoon rate.

16) Difficulty Rating; Hard. The original battle was a very easy victory for the Swedes, despite the vast numerical superiority of the Russian army and the earthworks they were defending. Obviously that would not make for an exciting scenario. Luckily, despite downgrading most of the Russian units to Untrained (which is a lot worse than Raw) and giving them Light Fortifications instead of Medium, they are still a tough nut to crack.

17) Sideicons are as follows;

Swedish; King Charles XII, commanded the Swedish army at the battle.

Russian; Peter I, Tsar of Russia, he had been in command of the army at Narva, but left and handed command to Marshal Du Croy before the battle. I have been unable to find a portrait of Du Croy

Uniforms and flags; I have given all units their historical uniforms and flags where possible.


Cheers!


Paul

This looks great! Thanks for the scenario and the detailed information.

I'm recovering from a rather tenacious illness (but quite entertaining: every week another new symptom ) and I'm happy to see that there's still new content in the making for my favourite game; it's a good diversion for me ATM.

Shortly before the mess I was experimenting with new unit icons (the round unit pictures you can see next to the UI unit descriptions). The idea was to have seperate sets for 30YW, ECW, late 17th century etc.



(30YW artillery)

Couldn't find good examples for 9 Years War units; if you could direct me to some good usable images I would do a comlete set for your 9YW scenarios (and perhaps for the GNW scenarios too).

Cheers!

Thanks for the offer Adebar, but I am afraid finding suitable new icon pictures that can be distributed as a mod is rather difficult. I have icons for both GNW and 9YW, but they use modern illustrations and cannot be used due to copyright problems. Your 30YW artillery icon has the same problem.


Cheers

Paul

Yes, you're right, I always forget the annoying copyright issue ...

I should mention that the way to use these Swedish Salvo infantry is to use "Assault", do not bother firing with them at close range. That caught me out the first time I played a 30YW scenario! They used a tactic called Ga Pa, which basically was an advance to contact, let off a salvo at close range and then charge in with swords and bayonets. The game recreates this by giving Salvo infantry a big bonus in the assault phase, but reduces their firing ability at short range.

From now on I will try to offer Single Player scenarios (for both sides) and Multi player scenarios for all my battles. However for the Great Northern War battles that may not always be possible. These battles are unusual as the Swedes were usually at a huge numerical disadvantage, and also the AI does not seem able to use the Swedish Salvo infantry effectively, they tend to hang around and get involved in fire fights, when they should really go straight into an assault.

For Narva, I was only able to do a Single Player scenario for the Swedes. To give the Swedish player a reasonable chance of victory I had to reduce the Russian troop quality hugely and reduce the fortifications to light. To make a Russian Single player or Multiplayer scenario challenging, I would have to remove the fortifications completely and reduce troop quality to nearly zero, I don't think that would make for a very satisfying scenario.

My next GNW battle to be released will be The Crossing of the River Duna, that will only be Swedish Single Player and Multiplayer. I am working on The Battle of Kliszow now, I am hopeful that I can release all 3 types of scenario for that.


regards


Paul

also the AI does not seem able to use the Swedish Salvo infantry effectively, they tend to hang around and get involved in fire fights, when they should really go straight into an assault.

Actually I use my Swedish salvo infantry in firefights prior to charges. With the attached artillery and concentrated fire on a single target, they can inflict enough losses to produce cohesion tests. Once a unit is disrupted, then comes the charge with the impact POA to hopefully frag the unit from disrupted. Once fragmented, then they should fall apart quickly and hopefully disrupt adjacent units. Leading to additional charges with impact POA into the disrupted units. The problem with a straight charge into a non-disrupted unit is that the Swedish salvo infantry lacks a melee POA and if the charge doesn't produce a cohesion drop, they end up bogged down in a long, slow melee with exposed flanks.