American Revolution

[Raindem]

I just finished a (rather old) book on the revolutionary war, and now I'm in the mood to play something. I don't suppose there are any playable revolutionary period scenarios out there? There'd have to be some heavy duty database modification. Any standalone wargame recommendations?

[larryfulkerson]

Hey Curt dude:

I found this Revolutionary War scenario at Rugged Defense. Here's the url if you want to read about it.

http://www.the-strategist.net/RD/scenar ... php?Id=532

I've downloaded it and attached it to this post...just delete the .txt off the end of the file name and unzip it.

[Raindem]

Hey thanks Larry. I'll check it out.

[larryfulkerson]

I tried the American side against the British PO and the British won a major victory.  I suppose my mistake was leaving Knox's arty and a very sizeable force on Long Island too long and it got wiped out to the man.  It went downhill after that.  Nice little scenario.  I like it.  The unit colors are fantastic.

[Raindem]

I agree it's a nice scenario, but I'm more into the campaign side of things. I think I'll once again push TOAW into territory it shouldn't be and take a crack at designing an American Revolution campaign scenario covering the whole war.  The large time scale (1 month) and small map (5km) I used in CSV should work nicely here.

[larryfulkerson]

Wow !  That would be great.  Lemme know if I can help in any way.  By the way....I don't remember how long the Rev. War was...I'm thinking it was about a year and a half or two years or something like that.  1776  -> 1778 ?

Great plan.

[Zaratoughda]

There are two ways you can look at the ARW.... as a series of historical battles or as a campaign.

For the former.... there is the old Horse and Musket game and the user designed series of battles of the ARW. These were interesting but the system was mainly designed for line infantry and other factors were more at play in the ARW. Also, the AI was not that great and.... HnM is no longer available.

Then there is the ARW game from HPS (1776). This has almost the entire set of battles at the company level but the system/AI has some problems. If the AI as Cornwallis cannot break through the first line of North Carolina milita at the battle of Guilford Courthouse... lemme tell ya... you got MAJOR problems <g>.

The best ARW battle game ever released, IMO, was SSI's Sons of Liberty (three battles). Outdated graphics for sure but the game is quite good. Maybe the smartest AI I have ever played against. Of course, no longer available commercially.

For the latter type of game, there is Birth of America 2 available from Matrix. I have heard good things about this game, albeit I have heard that AGEODs games are on the complex side, and I would guess that the game has all sorts of ecomonic and political aspects and... well, I have been thinking of getting this one myself but am not sure. Besides the ARW you also get the F&IW and the W1812 so, an interesting possibility.

So, a campaign game of the ARW focusing solely on the military aspects.... would be interesting... though a challange to make something like that work with TOAW.

Zaratoughda

[Jeff Norton]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Wow !  That would be great.  Lemme know if I can help in any way.  By the way....I don't remember how long the Rev. War was...I'm thinking it was about a year and a half or two years or something like that.  1776  -> 1778 ?

Great plan.

1781(Effective end of Combat - Treaty signed 1783) - 1775 (Lexington/Concord) = 6 years

I guess it would use some sort of alternate DB? Is there one?

[Raindem]

Scaling it to a month turn isn't that difficult.&nbsp; You look at what the armies could have historically accomplished and adjust movement, casualty, and replacement rates, test, and repeat.&nbsp; Then you use some kind of simple on map calendar to indicate the time.&nbsp;

The weaponry, tactics, and combat results is going to take more time.&nbsp; The database may very well require modification, I'll have to see how it plays with the generic musket squads.

[sapper32]

I like the sound of this scenario this period in history interests me a lot so looking forward to it,are you going to provide an AI for both sides or PBEM only.

Ian

[Curtis Lemay]

I have a copy of an attempt at this by Trey Marshall from long ago. It was labeled as a "beta" version, but he never posted an update. So I don't know if it actually works. The title was "Campaign 1775". It might yet be on Rugged Defense.

It was 50km/hex with 320 weekly turns.

[Raindem]

ORIGINAL: sapper32

I like the sound of this scenario this period in history interests me a lot so looking forward to it,are you going to provide an AI for both sides or PBEM only.

Ian

It will be near the bottom of my priority list, but yes I plan on it.

[Raindem]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

I have a copy of an attempt at this by Trey Marshall from long ago. It was labeled as a "beta" version, but he never posted an update. So I don't know if it actually works. The title was "Campaign 1775". It might yet be on Rugged Defense.

It was 50km/hex with 320 weekly turns.

It didn't come up on a search. Too bad. I really like Trey's scenarios but that scale wouldn't work for what I have in mind.

[Zaratoughda]

Hmmmm... I was looking at this possibility and.... as you go back into time (particularly the further back you go past 1870) you get away from the continuous front warfare that TOAW was designed for and back into 'battles' warfare. In other words, instead of all the units on a side being spread out across the front, you essentially got much of the forces of a side being concentrated into a single hex.

Now, with this, you might run into some equipment density problems, and if you get past that, there is the TOAW stacking limit of 9.

Looking at the OOB for the Battle of Monmouth, the American army has 21 brigades. So, if each unit represents a brigade then you got problems here. If, on the other hand, each unit represents a 'division' (the American army at Monmouth called them 'wings', while the British army indeed called them 'divisions'), you would have 4 divisions on the American side and 2 on the British side (the British had 14 brigades).

So, would be a real problem trying to do an ARW campaign at the brigade level but, can be done at the division level, albeit you would not have that many counters on the map.

I checked out some of the other battles and a divisional level game would be possible albeit with 1-4 divisions on a side for each battle.

However, one problem here, is 'divisions' in the ARW were not like WW2 divisions, instead typically just an organization valid for a given battle only, completely different setup come the next battle, and TOAW is not good re changing the makup of units.

If you have Advanced Tactics, might be better to try putting this together with that. The stacking limit there is 16 units, so that is a bit more, and it is also easy from a player's perspective to ogranize smaller units into larger ones (but, you lose the smaller units identity... AT wasn't necessarily designed for scenarios during this time period either).

Whatever, just some perspectives.

Zaratoughda

[BillLottJr]

Scaling it to a month turn isn't that difficult. You look at what the armies could have historically accomplished and adjust movement, casualty, and replacement rates, test, and repeat. Then you use some kind of simple on map calendar to indicate the time.

The weaponry, tactics, and combat results is going to take more time. The database may very well require modification, I'll have to see how it plays with the generic musket squads.

Check this modified equipment file, it might be just what you are looking for, or at leas a starting point.

http://www.the-strategist.net/RD/scenar ... thcentury/

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Raindem

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

I have a copy of an attempt at this by Trey Marshall from long ago. It was labeled as a "beta" version, but he never posted an update. So I don't know if it actually works. The title was "Campaign 1775". It might yet be on Rugged Defense.

It was 50km/hex with 320 weekly turns.

It didn't come up on a search. Too bad. I really like Trey's scenarios but that scale wouldn't work for what I have in mind.

Well, I'll post it here in case anyone is interested. Remember to change the .txt back to .zip.

And remember that this is an ACOW scenario - I don't know what version it was updated to. It may need to be updated before TOAW III can read it.

[Raindem]

ORIGINAL: Zaratoughda

Hmmmm... I was looking at this possibility and.... as you go back into time (particularly the further back you go past 1870) you get away from the continuous front warfare that TOAW was designed for and back into 'battles' warfare. In other words, instead of all the units on a side being spread out across the front, you essentially got much of the forces of a side being concentrated into a single hex.

Now, with this, you might run into some equipment density problems, and if you get past that, there is the TOAW stacking limit of 9.

Looking at the OOB for the Battle of Monmouth, the American army has 21 brigades. So, if each unit represents a brigade then you got problems here. If, on the other hand, each unit represents a 'division' (the American army at Monmouth called them 'wings', while the British army indeed called them 'divisions'), you would have 4 divisions on the American side and 2 on the British side (the British had 14 brigades).

So, would be a real problem trying to do an ARW campaign at the brigade level but, can be done at the division level, albeit you would not have that many counters on the map.

I checked out some of the other battles and a divisional level game would be possible albeit with 1-4 divisions on a side for each battle.

However, one problem here, is 'divisions' in the ARW were not like WW2 divisions, instead typically just an organization valid for a given battle only, completely different setup come the next battle, and TOAW is not good re changing the makup of units.

If you have Advanced Tactics, might be better to try putting this together with that. The stacking limit there is 16 units, so that is a bit more, and it is also easy from a player's perspective to ogranize smaller units into larger ones (but, you lose the smaller units identity... AT wasn't necessarily designed for scenarios during this time period either).

Whatever, just some perspectives.

Zaratoughda

You bring up some excellent points and frankly I don't have an answer. I am still in the "feasibility study" phase of this idea. Not only did the battles take place in a smaller area, but there was a lot of maneuver with open flanks. Which is why I believe I need a small map scale even though it will result in an obscenely large map. Maybe it would help the density issue. I'm still debating the turn scale. Week turns would play better than months, but geez, 300+ turns?

I may come out my study with the conclusion that the obstacles are insurmountable. Still, it's fun to research a project and play with new ideas.

[Raindem]

ORIGINAL: Bill II

Scaling it to a month turn isn't that difficult. You look at what the armies could have historically accomplished and adjust movement, casualty, and replacement rates, test, and repeat. Then you use some kind of simple on map calendar to indicate the time.

The weaponry, tactics, and combat results is going to take more time. The database may very well require modification, I'll have to see how it plays with the generic musket squads.

Check this modified equipment file, it might be just what you are looking for, or at leas a starting point.

http://www.the-strategist.net/RD/scenar ... thcentury/

Oh yes, I had almost forgotton about this. A great resource which I'll probably tap into if I decide to proceed.

[Raindem]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
Well, I'll post it here in case anyone is interested. Remember to change the .txt back to .zip.

And remember that this is an ACOW scenario - I don't know what version it was updated to. It may need to be updated before TOAW III can read it.

It loaded just fine into TOAW III. Trey really does nice work (except for the opening newstring blooper "Gates is ordered to destroy Concorde depot"). The scale confirms my suspicions, however, that 50km doesn't leave enough room for maneuver.

[Zaratoughda]

Hmmmm... I was thinking about this one some more and.... if you have Advanced Tactics you might be better off developing this scenario there.

The thing is.... if you have a campaign with reinforcements.... then TOAW is the better model, but if you are talking production (including recruiting) then TOAW doesn't really have much of a production capability at all, while AT is strong in that area. Also, AT allows up to 16 units in a hex and it is easy to combine smaller units into larger ones if you are otherwise gonna go above that 16 unit limit. AT also allows you to add things like leaders that have a significant impact on combat.

I recently did a random game generator for AT on the 500BC period. Built this on a scenerio that another individual had done. The combat model works OK as far as this period is concerned..... you get a 10% bonus if attacking from two adjacent hexes, and up to 50% bonus if attacking from many hexes. The leader bonus only goes out 1 hex before it starts rolling off, so wise to keep leaders and their units within a 1 hex area if possible, which is accurate for pre radio periods.

The leaders have stats that affect combat and morale, and also how many units that commander can command. What I got from the original scenario was Ceasar being better than the rest but I added Alexander the Great and gave him even better combat adder than Ceasar but, just average as far as the number of troops he could command.

Anyways, you got me thinking and maybe I might just do a random game generator for the ARW period. For production, you would have to put something in so you can only spend so much producing regular units, with the rest going into... militia. Also, would probably have to have a supply situation where you can barely keep your army afloat.
Then, there are the British and that means re-inforcements rather than recruits.. off map supply... and torries.

Whatever.... the problem is that neither TOAW or AT were really made for pre-1870 warfare so, a challange to make something happen in either case.

Zaratoughda