Pike and Shot

[-budd-]

not yet, but found the list of user made stuff. Wow some interesting battles, even a little big horn battle.

[jomni]

Someone made the Battle of Balaclava (Crimean War).

[Philippe]

I have a hard time getting enthusiastic about the more modern battles since the P&S engine starts to creak the further you get from the early 17th century.

It doesn't model grape shot and cannister, so artillery at close ranges doesn't work by the time you get to the eighteenth century.

I suspect it doesn't handle 18th century musketry very well, so I can't imagine it does justice to mid- to late-nineteenth century rifle fire.

If you're going to make a game about a certain period in history, you need to use an engine that attempts to model what was going on then.

I'm very fond of 19th century colonial wars as a subject (don't ask what that says about my politics), but it needs to be handled correctly.

If you dress pixels up in Roman costumes and make them behave the way everybody else did in your last game rather than having them use maniple or cohort tactics, all you've made is a Roman-themed arcade game.

[mikeck]

I have a hard time getting enthusiastic about the more modern battles since the P&S engine starts to creak the further you get from the early 17th century.

It doesn't model grape shot and cannister, so artillery at close ranges doesn't work by the time you get to the eighteenth century.

I suspect it doesn't handle 18th century musketry very well, so I can't imagine it does justice to mid- to late-nineteenth century rifle fire.

If you're going to make a game about a certain period in history, you need to use an engine that attempts to model what was going on then.

I'm very fond of 19th century colonial wars as a subject (don't ask what that says about my politics), but it needs to be handled correctly.

If you dress pixels up in Roman costumes and make them behave the way everybody else did in your last game rather than having them use maniple or cohort tactics, all you've made is a Roman-themed arcade game.

This is exactly why it boggles the mind why so many people want AGEOD to use the AGE engine to make a WW2 game

[Philippe]

Most people want something that wears a WW II costume and don't really care if it behaves like WW II or not.

[panzerde]

I'm pretty happy with the community scenarios up through the end of the 17th century, and even the very early stuff in the 18th, like the Great Northern War and Blenheim scenarios. I have to agree with Philippe though on any scenarios that have been created for periods beyond about 1710.


It's a great engine, and I'm sure it can be adapted for all sorts of periods. But P&S is not suitable as it stands for Colonial, or American Revolution, or ACW, or Napoleonics...etc. As evidenced by the 9 Years War scenarios, though, you sure can do some great stuff with it when working within the period it covers.

[jomni]

True.  If the modder is skilled enough, they can sneak in the 19th century stuff. The engine can actually handle additional scrips and rules for specific scenarios and doesn't break the core. But of course the community just use standard rules which is stuck in the Renaissance. It will just end up being basic musket + bayonet + cannon.

[Raied]

I always say this about the engine, the original always tailored for a certain functionality of certain theme/ period of history.

I appreciate modders work to try to bring another period into the original game engine, but it is really rare to see this work, I can think of few games mods that work really well (Third Age for M2TW for example).
Mods are good experiment to see if the engine has a potential to cover another theme or period.

However, many developers try to take their engine somewhere it doesn't originally built for and create a game just based on fans request (AGEOD TEAW as an example) (Total war the second engine was perfect for classical period, and the third was only for working well for musket warfare to some extend).

I think P&S engine can handle earlier warfare mechanism pretty well.

[Cyrano]

Lest we forget, this is all part of RBS's Fields of Glory system.

There are certain underlying principles to be sure but each of the tabletop games has been very different.

I remain hopeful that the digital iteration of the Napoleonic version will see the light of day, but, as Phillipe correctly says, there needa to be significant changes to the engine to accommodate the differences in warfare between the two periods.

Oh, and leaders.  Leaders become non-optional in the Napoleonic period...not that they should have been omitted from P&S, but I digress.

[mikeck]

Raising this sum'b@tch from the grave.

You guys who play are aware I'm sure, but if you don't or haven't played lately, I recently discovered the mods. Battles in the Great Northern war, Spanish and Austrian Seccsion, nine years war....all sorts of battles. Plus, it cannot be easier to load them. You just select "campaigns" from the start menu and click on the "download scenarios" button. It brings up a list of all the battles and mods. You click the ones you want and that's it.

I had no idea I could fight Fontenoy, Malpequet, Blenheim, Narva, etc.

Just throwing it out there of your in a game funk

[panzerde]

This game has turned into the one game I pretty much constantly have something going in. It's almost entirely due to the great community generated scenarios. Most of the scenarios that come with the game are just okay - and they could completely rip out the "campaign" system for all I care. It's a barely passable means of generating random battles, and that's about it.


The sandbox mode, however, particularly combined with the mods that reduce fire ranges and move speeds, and the amazingly well done community scenarios keep me playing this more than nearly anything else. In particular the exhaustive set of scenarios that have been done for the War of the League of Augsburg/ Nine Years War and the Great Northern War are not to be missed.

[mikeck]

Yeah, the new scenarios make it for me. I know it was already discussed above, but I hadn't realized that there were so many - and more importantly- so easy to download and play

[panzerde]

Hit me up if you want to play a game or two!

[Boggit]

I'm pretty happy with the community scenarios up through the end of the 17th century, and even the very early stuff in the 18th, like the Great Northern War and Blenheim scenarios. I have to agree with Philippe though on any scenarios that have been created for periods beyond about 1710.


It's a great engine, and I'm sure it can be adapted for all sorts of periods. But P&S is not suitable as it stands for Colonial, or American Revolution, or ACW, or Napoleonics...etc. As evidenced by the 9 Years War scenarios, though, you sure can do some great stuff with it when working within the period it covers.

+1

[Rayfer]

I see Pike and Shot Campaigns on my Steam wish list on sale for $19.99. In games like this I prefer individual battles over linked campaigns. Does this Campaign version include all the single battles and can I  download individual battles from the mod community to play? Thanks....Ray