Pike and Shot

[jomni]

Pike and Shot Expansion is coming.  More factions, units and battles.
http://www.slitherine.com/games/ps_ts

[Zulu1966]

Pike and Shot Expansion is coming.  More factions, units and battles.
http://www.slitherine.com/games/ps_ts

Still no leaders by the looks of things though.
The game is just a little bland without that flavour I find.

[Skwerl]

A day one purchase for me.  I love this game.

[jomni]

A little update, I am in the midst of rewriting the squads.csv file. Unit stats will be patterned after Field of Glory Renaissance Asian armies. After that I will paint some units and create army lists. Priority is to get at least two factions in Skirmish. Editing random map generation script for Japan terrain is also planned. Canned scenarios will be done last and will be somewhat based on GMT Great Battles of History Samurai.

Factions:
Unifiers = Oda, Toyotomi, Tokugawa, Uesugi, Aoi (generic blue force)
Opponents = Takeda, Imagawa, Uesugi, Ishida, Ikko ikki, Akai (generic red force) etc.

Uesugi appears on both sides but at different times. Early on Uesugi was at odds with Takeda. After Takeda was defeated by Oda, Oda and Uesugi battled each other. The actual 3 Unifiers of Japan during the era are Oda, Toyotomi, and Tokugawa. Generic blue and red forces are included for fun.

I will also build Imjin War (Korean Invasion) armies namely Joseon Koreans and Ming Chinese. These should be paired againt the Japanese Toyotomi clan units in Skirmish.

New 3D assets are not a priority but it may eventually find its way in the mod especially in the terrain aspect.

[Nefaro]

Cool.

No Mori clan?  I am disappoint.

[jomni]

Cool.

No Mori clan?  I am disappoint.

Maybe in as part of opponents. They weren't present as a major faction in GMT Samurai scenarios. They fought against Toyotomi.  They were an alliance leader vs. Tokugawa but the over all leader in the Battle of Sekigahara is Ishida. They were a no-show in the battle. Shimazu also comes to mind.

You have GMT Ran right? Who else is there?

[Nefaro]

Cool.

No Mori clan?  I am disappoint.

Maybe in as part of opponents. They weren't present as a major faction in GMT Samurai scenarios. They fought against Toyotomi.  They were an alliance leader vs. Tokugawa but the over all leader in the Battle of Sekigahara is Ishida. They were a no-show in the battle. Shimazu also comes to mind.

You have GMT Ran right? Who else is there?

Yes, I have Ran.

It also has Hojo, Takeda, Amako, Otomo, Shimazu, Ikeda, Tokugawa, Ryuzoji, Date, Ashina, and Toyotomi along with many of their smaller subordinate and allied troops.  In 7 battles. 

[Jack Nastyface]

FWIW...just finished playing some more quick battles with this game.  I really do enjoy the title, but I agree it would benefit greatly from leader units.  I would also like to see a "unit performance" screen at the end of each battle, so that you can go back and see survey individual unit losses, number of casaulties caused.  Etc.  Admittedly I am geek for this kind of statistics based stuff (heck - it's what computers are DESIGNED for).  It's one of the reason I used to enjoy playing Waterloo: Napolean's Last Battle so much.

[jomni]

There's a debate about leaders in the Slitherine forum. A majority has voiced concerns that leaders historically do not add much in renaissance era battle.  Leaders that run around the battlefield rallying and inspiring units "Total War style" does not simulate the chain of command during that era. Less commanders in chief are leading charges and fighting from the front.  Individual battlefield leaders were more influential during ancient times. The brilliant leaders of the renaissance were more responsible for development of organization and tactics which happen before the battle.

I partly agree. As for Sengoku Japan, the Commander in Chief stays in his command tent.  But ancient / mediveal style leadership is also practiced.  The battlefield commanders do the rallying and inspiring but it is limited to their own followers / units. They do not go rallying other general's men as in Field of Glory rules and Total War gameplay.  But not sure about renaissance Europe as I'm not an expert in that topic.

[Nefaro]

Having Leaders as Mobile Bonus Units isn't something I think games of this scale really need.

The only time you need leaders, IMO, is when you have a command structure modelled in the game mechanics.  Like that in Scourge Of War or in the Great Battles series where turn sequence & activations are tied to them.  Otherwise, they're just some unessential bonus DRM fluff.

[Cyrano]

Leadership, and that from the front, was vital in this era.

Gustavus is the easiest example, but Cromwell, Fairfax, Parma, Wallenstein, &c., counted as well.

The critical piece to note is that the game that this is notionally based on has them.  Why?  Because they mattered and it made good sense to include them.

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[southern_cross_116]

Having Leaders as Mobile Bonus Units isn't something I think games of this scale really need.

The only time you need leaders, IMO, is when you have a command structure modelled in the game mechanics.  Like that in Scourge Of War or in the Great Battles series where turn sequence & activations are tied to them.  Otherwise, they're just some unessential bonus DRM fluff.

I am not talking about this particular game by Slitherine, but rather the period instead.  I don't really entirely know if it is inessential bonus dice roll modifier stuff in that how else would you be able to rationalise why it was that Gustavus Adophus felt compelled to lead charges -one of which resulted in his death? Why exactly would a king go and do that unless he felt there was some sort of advantage because of his presence; it had to be more than just he could whack a whole lot of enemies and tip the balance -so it had to be down to more than any sort of individual impact...

But the real thing I wanted to talk more about, is how do you avoid having a command structure built into the mechanics in so far as if you accept that the reason all of the formations in this period were compacted - very compacted, and I don't mean just say a combined pike and musket unit ... but entire formations of them which were mutually supporting, if it was not down to some sort of command control factor?  The other thing too is, that if subleaders (below say a wing, vanguard, or centre) had no role -then wouldn't this basically encourage units to spread out all over a field of battle? I don't know that it would be a good enough solution to restrict the size of the battle field on a map - because, really these guys back then -would go out of their way to pick their spots to situate their lines of battle - and these lines were uniformly compact (when compared to later periods) ... again due to command control - I guess in a sense a lot of it had to do with being aware of what the formations on either side of you were doing as to how stable a particular group might stand...

I had bought the FoG:Ren mini rules in (what turned out to be vain) hopes that I could work out what was going on when compared to reference material -unfortunately all there were (including in the supplements) were several army lists and no specific scenarios or description of what was in the rules when compared to the actual events of a given battle... kind of s disappointment, but I did have to know...   In other words it is pretty much impossible to directly compare the FoG:Ren mini rules to say, something like the Father Tilly system.

Thing is though - I am not going to claim that I have the answer for something like GA and the impact I described -it is a tough one as the results run counter-intuitively to what one might expect to happen -otoh there is the theory that after Breitenfeld and even Rain that GA thought himself invincible... (spoiler alert: he was vincible  -to paraphrase Flight of the Conchords). :D

[jomni]

Preview of my new units.


From top left:
Ronin (swordsmen)
Samurai Teppo (dragoons)
Sohei Warrior Monks (heavy weapons)
Mounted Samurai Yumi (mounted archers)

[Nefaro]

Excellent.  O0

[jomni]

Excellent.  O0

thanks. I think the first public build will be out in a month or two if i stick to the current pace.  Reading the FOGR Asian armies expansion help speed things up with regards to conceptualization.