Modding the Hundred Years War . . .

[Paul59]

I am a bit confused about what the stake line actually is. Does it have any effect at all? Is it just the terrain text saying stakes?

If it does have no effect at all, what is stopping the English archers from advancing to the edge of the Difficult terrain, thereby forcing the French to attack while Disordered? I suppose if they did that, they would lose the flank protection, but the archers on the flanks could just turn to face the flank attack, and be no worse off than they would be behind the "stakes".

[stockwellpete]

I am a bit confused about what the stake line actually is. Does it have any effect at all? Is it just the terrain text saying stakes?

If it does have no effect at all, what is stopping the English archers from advancing to the edge of the Difficult terrain, thereby forcing the French to attack while Disordered? I suppose if they did that, they would lose the flank protection, but the archers on the flanks could just turn to face the flank attack, and be no worse off than they would be behind the "stakes".

Nothing at the moment (although making it a broken line of "difficult" terrain would be one possibility). I am just trying to see if I can develop an alternative way of portraying HYW battles. I am not optimistic as changing the nature of one unit alters its relationships with every other unit on the battlefield. What I really need to change is the fall back mechanism, but that is out of bounds.

[Paul59]

What I really need to change is the fall back mechanism, but that is out of bounds.

Yes, that is the issue.

I have tried to change the size of the longbow units to give the required melee odds, but it's pointless, as the MAA keep falling back, unless the melee is very favourable to them.

Similarly, it might be possible to give the MAA a Custom POA modifier against longbowmen behind stakes, to counteract the POA of the stakes, but the fallback issue would still be there.

[stockwellpete]

I have done another test this morning and I think this is the best I can do with it. There may be a couple of scenario scripts that could be added to improve things, but they may not be do-able. I am using pre-positioned stakes from the vanilla game (so the longbowmen cannot move and set stakes up elsewhere) together with a longbowmen "with some billmen" unit that I have made up myself. Rated "average" with 25% HW and "some armour" to represent the billmen/men-at-arms standing with the longbowmen. Ammo is only 2, as 3 makes them far too powerful . . .

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The French knights are also a made-up unit, with a rating of "Elite", with their armour downgraded from the custom army lists from "Fully Armoured" to "Heavily Armoured" to take account of the lethality of the "arrow storm". In the various HYW scenarios, the proportion of "elite" to "highly superior" to "superior" knights can be varied a bit, depending on the circumstances (e.g. is the French king present?) . . .

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I probably need to give this a bit more thought, but rather than have a straight (broken) line of "difficult" terrain in front of the stakes, I can probably just have a few squares dotted about like this. It breaks up the French knights formation if they go as fast as they can towards the English line, but they can be kept in formation if they slow down a bit. Of course, they may take the occasional extra shot because of this . . .

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[stockwellpete]

Here you can see how the "difficult" terrain limits the moves of the French knights . . .

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The French knights have decided to maintain their formation. The English longbowmen decide to fire at "long range", doubling up their fire in an attempt to cause a cohesion drop in the centre of the French ranks. They are unsuccessful . . .

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The odds for the French knights with commander are slightly in their favour giving a small chance of getting a "disrupt" result . . .

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[stockwellpete]

The predicted odds for the French knight unit attacking the end of the English stake line are 9-23 against, compared to vanilla, which would be something like 3-32 against . . .

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The first attack on the English line is repulsed and then the longbowmen fire at short range, disrupting one of the French units . . .

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The French knights with the commander make a second charge and disrupt their opponent . . .

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[stockwellpete]

The English longbowmen with the commander then attacks the French commander's unit. It is very risky but the resulting drawn melee causes the French unit to "fall back" . . .

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This allows time for the English commander to move to the "disrupted" unit, but The French charge again, causing a second disruption . . .

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The English commander successfully rallies one longbowmen unit while the other "disrupted" longbowmen cause the French knights to "fall back". But then the French cause a third disruption at the other end of the line. Note that all the English longbowmen are out of Ammo now (Turn 5 of the encounter) . . .

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[stockwellpete]

The French knights are starting to look a bit battered now, but the English commander has to move to the other end of the line to support the newly "disrupted" longbowmen there . . .

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They rally as well, but the French have resumed their attack on the other flank . . .

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No problem as the English commander returns to rally the unit and cause the French to "fall back" once more. At this point the French call off their attack with the score still at 0-0 . . .

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[stockwellpete]

This was not too bad really. The French did have a chance to breakthrough on a couple of occasions, but the English were lucky with the rallying. On another day they might not be so lucky. The whole encounter took 9 turns and I write my scenarios at 18 turns, so this was OK.

Issues arising . . .
1) on a couple of turns the English player would have had nothing to do on this part of the battlefield (things may have been happening elsewhere). What I would like is a "re-supply" script to give the chance to English longbowmen to have an extra "Low Ammo" shot during the battle (maybe between Turns 8-12 with a 33% chance there is no re-supply). Is this possible?
2) the next job is to re-balance the other unit types to be found in this battle. As I have basically bumped up the mounted knights one level, I am hoping that it won't be too difficult to do the same to the others.

[rbodleyscott]

This was not too bad really. The French did have a chance to breakthrough on a couple of occasions, but the English were lucky with the rallying. On another day they might not be so lucky. The whole encounter took 9 turns and I write my scenarios at 18 turns, so this was OK.

Issues arising . . .
1) on a couple of turns the English player would have had nothing to do on this part of the battlefield (things may have been happening elsewhere). What I would like is a "re-supply" script to give the chance to English longbowmen to have an extra "Low Ammo" shot during the battle (maybe between Turns 8-12 with a 33% chance there is no re-supply). Is this possible?

I should think so.

[stockwellpete]

Issues arising . . .
1) on a couple of turns the English player would have had nothing to do on this part of the battlefield (things may have been happening elsewhere). What I would like is a "re-supply" script to give the chance to English longbowmen to have an extra "Low Ammo" shot during the battle (maybe between Turns 8-12 with a 33% chance there is no re-supply). Is this possible?

I should think so.

OK thanks, that's good to know.

The other idea I mentioned a few days ago about linking losses from archery fire to a reduction in AP on the next turn. Is that a "safe" scenario script, or is it a step too far? If it risks breaking the scenarios at some point in the future then I can drop the idea completely and think a bit more about how a design the terrain in front of the pit/stake line.

[stockwellpete]

English army: HYW

Note: All these units will need to be tested in multiple scenarios before being finalised.

1) I quite liked the use of mixed bill/longbow units in my WOTR series, So I am thinking about using another type of mixed unit in the HYW series that I hope to do in the autumn. This is a mixed men-at-arms and spearmen unit . . .

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The heavy weapon and defensive spear values are 50 and this unit goes 50-50 when charged by "elite" French knights in open terrain, although sometimes it can be forced to take a cohesion test. It may be slightly overpowered, but this is easily adjustable in the Squads File. This unit will be, alongside the longbowmen units, the mainstay of the English HYW armies.

Richard or Paul - is there any way to visually show spearmen standing in the back rank? I am not sure what can be done with mixed units.

2) Defensive armoured spearmen unit
Just bumped up from "average" to "above average".

3) Dismounted commander unit
Bumped up to "elite" (value 260) so the predicted odds are almost the same as for "superior" mounted knights versus "superior" dismounted knights in vanilla . . .

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[rbodleyscott]

The other idea I mentioned a few days ago about linking losses from archery fire to a reduction in AP on the next turn. Is that a "safe" scenario script, or is it a step too far? If it risks breaking the scenarios at some point in the future then I can drop the idea completely and think a bit more about how a design the terrain in front of the pit/stake line.

It is not a question of whether something is safe or not. Anything you put in a scenaro script is safe. Modded game scripts are potentially not future-proof.

I am struggling to think how to implement your proposal in a scenario script, because by the time your scenario script code can run StartTurnPost() and adjust the AP, the previous turn's shooting damage will have been expunged from the variable in which it is held.

So at the time you would need to adjust the AP, the shooting losses information from the previous turn would no longer be available.

[stockwellpete]

It is not a question of whether something is safe or not. Anything you put in a scenaro script is safe. Modded game scripts are potentially not future-proof.

I am struggling to think how to implement your proposal in a scenario script, because by the time your scenario script code can run StartTurnPost() and adjust the AP, the previous turn's shooting damage will have been expunged from the variable in which it is held.

So at the time you would need to adjust the AP, the shooting losses information from the previous turn would no longer be available.

Righto, so that sounds as if it should be ruled out then. Instead I will concentrate on modelling the terrain in front of the stake line.

[stockwellpete]

Well, I have had a good day with this today. Moving the French knights to "elite" has enabled me to generate some interesting gameplay around the (vanilla) stake line - and I have spent the afternoon adjusting the Squads File values for the English HYW armies units to, more or less, replicate the vanilla predicted odds of French mounted knights versus all the English troop types. In a lot of cases, just bumping up units from "average" to "above average" has done the trick. I am not envisaging having any problems with doing the same for the French army tomorrow.

Just a couple of things. Billmen do not appear for the English in the Custom lists until 1450. I had it my head that they were appearing in significant numbers from about 1400 onwards. Any thoughts? And I quite like the idea of putting some billmen/men-at arms with the artillery units too. I can completely abstract them as 25% HW in the Squads File, but I would like to create a visually mixed unit if possible. The same goes for men-at-arms/spears and longbow/bills (mostly longbowmen though). What can de done, if anything? If the answer is "nothing" then I can just abstract them and label the units clearly, so gameplay will not be affected.

[SnuggleBunnies]

The heavy weapon and defensive spear values are 50 and this unit goes 50-50 when charged by "elite" French knights in open terrain, although sometimes it can be forced to take a cohesion test. It may be slightly overpowered, but this is easily adjustable in the Squads File. This unit will be, alongside the longbowmen units, the mainstay of the English HYW armies.

If intended that's fine, but keep in mind 50% Defensive Spears will halve infantry Swordsmen POAs and entirely cancel mounted Swords.

[stockwellpete]

If intended that's fine, but keep in mind 50% Defensive Spears will halve infantry Swordsmen POAs and entirely cancel mounted Swords.

Thanks. I haven't thought that far ahead, to be honest. I will draw up provisional army lists for both the English and French armies in the HYW with reference to the various Custom army lists. Once I have a basic Squads File to put into each future scenario, I will then test each troop type against each enemy troop type on my Training Ground and compare it with the vanilla outcomes. So, hopefully, I will be able to pick up any major anomalies during that process (there will be a few, I expect). The French armies will probably also have some mixed infantry units as well, although, of course, the mounted contingents are far more important for them, particularly up to around 1400 AD.

[stockwellpete]

I have made a version of Crecy so that I can test out a number of ideas in a proper battle setting. I am particularly interested in seeing how the mixed men-at-arms/spears unit of the English gets on. It may be overpowered and I may have to go back to representing the men-at-arms and spearmen separately, but it does seem as if they fought as a mixed unit at Crecy.

This is how the set-up looks currently. The Genoese crossbowmen will all start as "disrupted" to represent the rushed nature of their deployment (without pavises and sufficient ammunition) and the heavy rainfall just as the battle started. Their Ammo will be just 2 shots. I hope to have a scenario script that withdraws all the Genoese units by the end of Turn 3.
The English longbowmen and ribaldequins will have 6 shots with a good possibility of re-supply in the middle of the battle.

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I did a trial game in Hot Seat this morning, set at my usual 18 turns, and I ran out of time really. The English were definitely getting the better of it, but a number of the French knights were able to withdraw out of harms way, despite being absolutely battered. I am wondering if the lethality of the longbows can be increased so they can get more "kills", or whether I need to downgrade the armour of the French knights. The knights themselves were well-protected, their horses less so . . .

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[stockwellpete]

Here is how the trial Hot Seat game ended. The English are leading 14-10, but have not had the benefit of the missile re-supply that I intend for them. I think this would have quite a big impact on the scoreline. You can see the battered French knights that have managed to escape at the top of the screenshot . . .

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[stockwellpete]

Richard and Paul - there are a number of issues arising from the play test which I would be interested to hear your views on when you have time . . .

1) The French army did not assemble properly before beginning its attack at Crecy. French soldiers were actually still arriving the next day. The way that I want to represent this is to have the Genoese crossbowmen, all the French knights and a sizeable contingent of French foot on the battlefield at the start - with about another 20 foot units starting one hex off the map so that the game treats them as pursuers who may return. I think it is a good a way as any to represent the general disorganisation of the French army. Three questions - firstly, is it possible to alter the % chance per turn a unit will have of moving on to the map (maybe 25% instead of 10%)? Secondly, is it possible to change the message "RETURNING" to "ARRIVING" when a unit moves on to the map? Thirdly, do units starting off-map count in the size of the army and the calculation of army % losses as the battle proceeds?

2) Is there any way to make longbows more powerful? Maybe, the re-supply will be enough to increase the number of "kills", but increasing the number of casualties they can cause (+25%?) would be a useful option for me too.

3) In terms of the scenario scripts required for this one, there are a few . . .
i) a re-supply script for the English side between turns 8 and 10 (100% chance as they have a fortified camp behind their position
ii) a withdrawal script that removes all the surviving Genoese crossbowmen at the start of the French Turn 4. I don't want them hanging about in the scenario, however what impact will this have on the % losses of the French army? If it just reduces the number of soldiers the programme thinks there are in the French army then that is fine. The Genoese start the battle as "disrupted" and then get inundated with arrows so some will be "routed", others "fragmented". So they are not going to be moving into contact with the English line, so removing them with a script should not present any problems.
iii) I want the English missile units to start with 6 shots, the French with only 2 (no re-supply).

I think that is all at the moment. I would like to write this for 18 turns, not anything longer, not least because the battle did actually end in the dark, before resuming intermittently the next day (will not be represented in the scenario).