All very good suggestions, would 'second' all of them (other than the one on 4th Crusade which I have not read). I would add one of my favourites (that made a big impact on me when I first came across it in the university library many many years ago) - The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the...

I think the Ian Heath books are excellent (he also did 'A Wargamers Guide to the Crusades' as well) and well worth having. I'm interested to know if the 2nd Edition of A & A of the Crusades is significantly different to the 1st. I'd also the second the suggestion re David Nicolle's books (although ...

Just a quick note to say that -

"Ph. Contamine, La Guerre au Moyen Age, 2003"

Is also available in English (as 'War in the Middle Ages'). I'd suggest its worth having in your library although I personally prefer Verbruggen and France.

I think the Ian Heath books are excellent (he also did 'A Wargamers Guide to the Crusades' as well) and well worth having. I'm interested to know if the 2nd Edition of A & A of the Crusades is significantly different to the 1st. I'd also the second the suggestion re David Nicolle's books (although I...

I rather like the idea of higher quality troops routing having a greater adverse effect on morale (be it at an individual unit level or as a weighting factor towards the % of army lost). 'La Garde Recule' and all that as has been pointed out. Have played various tabletop games where this has been us...

I would also recommend Imperial Governor by George Shipway, about Boudica's revolt. Recently(ish) reprinted so should not be too hard to pick up. He also wrote a couple of books about Agamemnon (Warrior in Bronze) and perhaps looking to the future 3 books about Norman England (The Paladin, The Wolft...

Coming late to this and I suspect most of what follows is a minority view point. I also I should say I don't think many/any of the following would make the game 'better', 'more fun' or 'more commercial' (except for me and probably a couple of others!) I should also add that 90% of my games are SP (a...

"Cascade of Terror"

Very good, I will need to borrow that for tabletop gaming … it would have been most apt for what happened to my army the other day

Just tried a Roman (24-196AD) vs. Parthian small battle (Diff 3), game finished in a draw (25% Roman losses vs 39% Parthian). Terrain was pretty open. I refused my left and massed cavalry (well I say massed, clumped my 4 units together) in my right/rear area. Parthians engaged along the line with no...

Only just seen this, recently limited gaming time got unexpectedly 'hijacked' by 'Op Art of War IV'. Cavalry getting locked by infantry has been intermittently bugging me for some time and I've started to feel slightly guilty about using low grade to foot to mob cavalry (in single player games). How...

Fair points that personally I'm inclined to agree with!

Sorry, forgot to shrink the screenshots Here is the 2nd screenshot showing the Arab reserve cavalry 'queuing up' to attack the French shieldwall and ignoring the open flank and rear around the wood. Arab v French rearguard end b.jpg There probably isn't an easy answer to this (and that any cure coul...

Finally managed to fight the 3rd battle in my French vs Arabs (chosen as there should be good numbers of cavalry to check how the AI handles reserves). This was a rearguard action for my French (the previous 2 battles all appeared to play through fine). There were no real issues with this 3rd battle...

Not had time for games recently but luckily a spare hour or so coincided with the release of the 1.15.16 saved beta. Quickly played battle 3 of my focussed 5 battle sandbox campaign of French vs. Arabs (battle 2 played 2 weeks ago sadly). Everything seemed fine, saved game started as expected with n...

Had a chance to quickly finish this mini campaign For 2nd battle was offered choice of recruiting troops from home or from Serbian allies. Bulgars had no allies (or none I noticed). Won 53 v 13, nothing very much to report, all seemed as expected. 3rd battle, no allies, Byzantine army list for addit...

Managed to grab 45 mins to give v1.5.15 a quick whirl (and was slightly alarmed at how much I'd forgotten in the 6 weeks since I last played). Started a custom campaign - Byzantine 904AD vs. Bulgar, 3 battle focussed campaign, starting with small battle. No oddities spotted in 1st battle, neither si...

Hello Richard Haven't been around much past few weeks for various reasons but grabbed the 1.5.15 public beta the other day (Slitherine version). It installed and booted fine and thats it for now. I don't really do PBEM due to time issues but intend to try some single player campaign games when I get...

TheGrayMouser (March 08)wrote what I would have done if I had seen this thread earlier! I prefer cohesion checks to POA penalties (and I think they suit better) - "I'd rather see non shock infantry take a cohesion test when charged by lancers ( fail, drop a level and then impact hehe) but some migh...

TheGrayMouser (March 08)wrote what I would have done if I had seen this thread earlier! I prefer cohesion checks to POA penalties (and I think they suit better) - "I'd rather see non shock infantry take a cohesion test when charged by lancers ( fail, drop a level and then impact hehe) but some might...

Perhaps because I come from a boardgame / miniatures background my personal feeling is that just because you can include myriads of factors in a PC game doesn't mean you should from a design point of view - although my gut feeling from reading forums and listening to pods such as (the excellent) '3 ...