Combat in Onward, Christian Soldiers

by on October 31, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Posted In: Design and Effect

Crossposted from the Design and Effect blog on GameSquad.

I haven’t read nearly as much on medieval warfare as I might like, but what I do know is that for all the protestations of martial valor, and the romanticism of defeating your foe in combat, major battles were viewed as entirely too chancy things to trust the fate of your army and kingdom to.

With the considerable problems with communication, supply and training, this is an entirely understandable position. Instead, medieval warfare was largely a positional one, with control of key points being the objective.

With all this in mind, it makes sense that the combat system in Onward, Christian Soldiers is designed to be chaotic and unpredictable, with the idea of encouraging play that rewards sieges and other positional play. Even though it is acknowledged that players will remain more aggressive than their historical counterparts.

What gains my respect, is that even though they are chaotic, they are not random. Several factors go into the resolution. This means the system is a little cumbersome, but with practice it flows well, and it ensures the tension runs high whenever a battle is joined. Heck, the tension runs high whenever you think about a battle.

There’s good mechanics dealing with getting to a battle too, but we’re concentrating on the breakdown of what happens once battle is joined:

Step 1: What are the Odds?
Naturally, a larger army holds a distinct advantage over a smaller force, but instead of a conventional CRT system (a subject I should go into in another post), where the relative strength alone is the prime determiner of the possible results, this just generates a modifier for the final result.

An important note for those used to CRT wargames is that the odds calculation is rounded off instead of down. So, while normally 14 to 5 would be 2:1, in this game it is 3:1. While this is more appropriate as you’re just trying to gauge that the army is ‘about’ three times as large, and it keeps an odd hole from showing up in the modifiers, it does slow the process down because any edge case isn’t easy to resolve mentally. Aid cards are provided with a table for all the likely force strengths.

The odds themselves translate directly into the modifier—so 3:1 is a +3 modifier, 2:1 against is a –2, and so on—except that 1:1 is +0 (naturally), and 1.5:1 is +1.

Step 2: Formations
This is the real meat of what makes the system different, and why going into a good-odds battle can still put your heart in your throat—and why it can be good to seek a battle as the weaker army.

Reflecting the clash of different styles of combat that marked the Crusades, and the fact that even the best leaders did things in battle, that to our eyes, make little sense, Onward uses the idea of each side adopting a ‘formation’ for the battle (which has been seen before), but takes control out of the player’s hands by turning it into a die roll. The results of this roll depend on the leader rating, and side (Crusader or Muslim).

Also, the passage of time, and the fact that the Muslims adjusted to Crusader tactics is accounted for, as the Muslims get a different table in each Crusade, with better results each time.

The possible Crusader formations are Impetuous Charge, the vainglorious attack, possibly in the face of all military common sense, that was seen all too often from commanders just arrived in the Middle East; Defend in place (obvious), Flank attack (also obvious); and Frontal Charge, which is the well-timed charge most classically seen from Richard at Arsuf. A 1-rating leader has a 5/6 chance of IC (a ‘6’ being D), with the odds of an IC going down with each rating, and the normal competent 4-rating with one chance in 6 of IC, 2/6 of D, 1/6 of F and 2/6 FC. Richard the Lionheart (the only 5-rating leader in the game) replaces the chance of an IC with FC.

The Muslim formations are Defensive, Cautious (line up for battle and and look for an opportunity), Flank attack, and feign retreat and Encicle. In the First Crusade, a 1-rating leader has a 5/6 chance to go D and 1/6 C; by the Third Crusade it is even odds of either. A 4-rating leader has equal chances of C, F, and E in the First Crusade, and this only shifts slightly to a 1/6 of C, 2/6 of F, and 3/6 of E.

So… what does all this mean? What do the formations do against each other? As you might guess, FC and E are the formations that the Crusaders and Muslims respectively want to see come up. The Crusaders have a definite military edge in the fact that the Frontal Charge trumps everything else, and will always generate a positive modifier for the Crusaders, a mere +2 against E, and a +8 against a Muslim who is being Defensive. The Impetuous Charge is iffy, it can generate a positive modifier against D, but is a -5 against F and -8 against E (which sounds exactly like several of the worse defeats we read about in the Crusades).

Note that the worst Crusader formation (IC) does well against the worst Muslim formation (D), meaning that in the First Crusade a 1-rating Crusader leader can ride roughshod over 1-rating Muslim leader, as there are only three chances in 36 of not seeing IC vs D.

Step 3: Other Modifiers
There are a few minor modifiers that can show up, like defending in a town, some random cards that can be played, etc.

And then there’s armored knights. Due to the nature of the difficulties in employing knights in battle in the Crusades, and the devastating effect they could have when they did get to hit the enemy, knights are a separate factor of the army while everything else is just generic strength points. There’s a lot of restrictions on them: only certain formation results get to use them, they can’t be used in/against a town… etc. However, when the Crusader does get to use them, they generate a +1 shift per point. (This would generate a +8 in the First Crusade if the leaders of all four Crusader factions happened to be fighting together at this point—more likely it’ll generate a +2 or so.)

Step 4: Results
So, there’s all these numbers that add and subtract from the final result, inducing a fair amount of chaos into the system as it is hard to determine the end result without actually starting the combat. Now what?

The last bit is to roll 2d6, add the final modifier and consult a CRT table. As ever, dice don’t reduce the tension level. Combat results range from -10 to +24, with the results being #/# where the two numbers represent what the attacker and defender respectively take in casualties as a percentage of their army strength. The two extreme “blow out” results are 70/0 and 0/70, the two middle results (+7 and +8) are 15/15 and 20/20, and most of the time you can assume casualties will be between 5 and 25 percent of the army.

A nice brake on the system to keep a large army from taking excessive casualties against a small force is that if the odds are 3:1 or greater (or 1:2 or less), then the larger army figures its casualties as a percentage of the size of the smaller army.

And then there’s one last source of chaos. There are four results that say “X (#)”. These are Unpredictable Results, and you roll again (1d6 this time) add the modifier in the parentheses (from -2 to +2), and look for the entry marked with that number in its own column. As the six # entries are equivalent to -3, 0, +6, +9, +14 and +20, it can really shift where the results land. While the modifiers tend to constrain the results to what would be expected, so far in practice it has turned certain victories into costly ones and close battles into costly defeats.

Aftermath:
After all that, if one side took twice as many casualties as the other, it must retreat. Otherwise, either (or both) sides may choose to retreat, or both may stay of the field, and probably will go at it again soon (possibly after reinforcements arrive).

Summary:
I’ve found Onward, Christian Soldiers to have one of the best battle resolution systems I’ve seen. It is a little clunkier and unwieldy than I would strictly like to see, but I think it is well worth the time put into it. The results seem to mesh well with what I know of combat in the Crusades, and the formations give you a feel for the flow of the battle, creating more of a narrative, or feeling of ‘being there’. And finally, it achieves the design goal of being a horribly unpredictable thing, despite being influenced by several factors that the players do have complete control over. Battles will always be more common with wargamers than with leaders who had their own lives and fortunes at stake, but you understand why they were to be avoided.

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Ancient Warfare

by on October 19, 2008 at 11:24 am
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Had Mark over yesterday. We had planned this to be a play through of the 3rd Crusade in Onward Christian Soldiers (which I haven’t played yet, so I’d like to try it), but he had an urge to play Commands & Colors: Ancients instead, so we went with that instead.

The original box for C&C:A is massive, and he has all three expansions, each of which is just as big (they keep providing new blocks…), which turns into a really impressive pile.

Since I’ve been reading a fair amount of Ancient Greek history lately, we went with the Battle of Plataea from the first expansion (Greece & Eastern Kingdoms), and played it through once as each side. The first time, I had the Persians. The Greeks of course, have heavier infantry, but are broken up in two different lines with a gap between them (the Spartans and the Athenians, with the Spartans getting the true heavies). The Persians have two lines as well, with a central reserve in the back. Their troops include a fair amount of archers, stiffened by auxiliaries (which is to say, medium/light infantry) and cavalry detachments. I don’t think I ever got quite into the swing of how the army was supposed to work. I spent a fair amount of effort trying to use the archers, and not getting much for my efforts. At any rate, the action opened on my left, and a couple of powerful cards allowed me to more-or-less disrupt the Athenian contingent. However, I had lost all my offensive troops as well, and archers are less than handy for finishing off a foe. Over on my right, things went much better for the Spartans, and I lost 3 banners to 5.

I don’t recall nearly as much about the second play through where I was the Greeks. However, the Spartans pretty much carried the day again, with the Persians just not being able to counter two units of heavy infantry. (And if you’re following along at home, you’re asking “Two units? I thought there were three?” One of them starts back in a corner, and neither Mark nor I ever got a chance to move them up.) So, I won a very close contest 5 banners to 4. (Which is an overall loss of 8-9 for me.)

Then we went to Expansion 3 (Roman Civil Wars), and played a scenario on The Battle of the Baetis River. Having some affinity for Sertorius after nearly winning with him in another game, I took his side for our initial (and so far, only) play.

Almost winning with Sertorius may become a habit with me.

He has an interesting force. A couple of heavy units in reserve, an amazing amount of auxilia, with slingers and archers on the flanks, and a little light and medium cavalry. The river flows through the battlefield, separating a bit of the right flank. The Republican commander, Fulfidas, has a line consisting mostly of medium infantry. The Marian Legion rule is in effect for both sides, which means that nearly everyone has some missile capability.

I brought forward the heavies immediately. That may have been a mistake, as having them available at the end would probably be wonderful for demolishing a weakened Roman line. However, they’re slow moving, and I find it’s hard to use them later as getting them to catch up to where the action is takes too long. Mark got some very good luck during the game, wiping out fresh units with one attack on a couple occasions.

In fact, at first I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to put in a decent showing. But I went about the job of disrupting his main line of medium infantry and put in very good performance, taking half of it out of the battle. At this point it was looking like I should win, as I was eroding a bit, but his center was smashed, and he’d had to pull a couple wrecked units out entirely. However, I just wasn’t able to follow up this success, or hit his flanks effectively.

Mark’s remaining line of mediums hit part of the line of light troops that were still negotiating the river fairly hard. I pulled back, and he entered the river, which hampered his troops far more than mine. However, this was pushing me back to the edge of the board, and I wasn’t able to stop him. In the end, he smashed another unit, and forced one of my leaders off the board for the win, 4 banners to 6.

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Lich King Engine

by on October 15, 2008 at 11:22 am
Posted In: MMO

(Cross-posted with WoW_Muradin because I’m too primitive to have an editor that’ll post this to both.)

Well, WoW went to v3.0 yesterday.

It’s different. I don’t remember the Burning Crusade engine being quite so big of a shock, character-wise.

Hunters have changed a lot. The fact that Scatter Shot is now a 10-point talent in Surivival makes sense (I always thought it was a little odd in Marksmanship, but it worked well with the ‘utility’ feel that BC Marksmanship had), but it caught me flatfooted. Since I’ve been needing that to survive a trap that breaks early, Dunain is currently invested in a little Survival rather than Beast Master, and won’t be trying Chimera Shot until 71.

Everything else is weird. The reactive abilities have had that stripped out. Mongoose Bite no longer requires a dodge before I use it and Kill Command no longer needs a crit. Instead they’re just on timers.

Aimed Shot has been massively depowered. In fact, it really doesn’t do much more than anything else, and less than Multishot does per shot. It’s pretty much Arcane Shot with a ‘no heal’ debuff now. The good news is it’s now an instant. However, it shares a cooldown with Multishot now. The only shot with a cast time I have now is Steady Shot. I should check if they fiddled with that.

Aspect of the Viper changed, but is still pretty sick. Before it increased mana regeneration, with the effect getting stronger the lower the hunter’s mana was. It meant that it was effectively impossible to run Dunain out of mana for more than a few seconds. Now, it halves damage done, but returns mana per shot (I approve of the idea of making it a real choice). I was getting back ~380 mana per shot, and interestingly, I got mana back on each hit with a Multishot. ~380×3 – ~340 for Multishot = ~700 mana profit. When out of mana, it will get a hunter going again even faster than before.

Lance is very different. I’m noticing the AI seems to have changed, and he *sometimes* charges a target as soon as I attack. (Or else I’m way too used to hitting control-1 now.) Don’t know why sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t. I’m going to have to study this and try to understand what the heck he thinks he’s doing.

The guild managed a quick run through Heroic Steam Vaults Slave Pens last night to see how things were working.

The only way I could tell that it was Heroic is that we got Badges of Justice off the bosses. I know that SV is a really weak Heroic, but… this was a pushover.

Part of it is definitely Blanc. They have really upped the DPS on Protection Warriors.

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My Successor Needs Success

by on October 12, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

A little while back, I got in the new edition of Successors. Generally, it’s a four-player game, and we currently have four in the regular group. But, Jason tends to get busy between teaching duties and working on his advanced degree, and so he hasn’t been available.

I have a friend, who is something of an old-time gamer, but he’s in school and is generally busy. After the latest reshuffle of dates, I mentioned it to him last Thursday and he said, “Sunday? I can do Sundays.” ^_^;

So, the four of us (me, Mark, Patch, and Zjonni) finally sat down to it today, a little over two weeks after our initially scheduled time. Despite the extra time to prepare, there was of course the requisite amount of head scratching and misplayed rules.

I got Antipater and Lysimachus as the two generals of my faction. This was a very nice consolidated location, with initial control of Macedonia and Thrace. While everyone else went out on grand adventures, my policy was to play a quiet conservative game and try to slowly grow my power base without attracting undue attention.

Patch had Perdiccas and Antigonus which gave him Phrygia and Babylon, as well as initial control over the body of Alexander the Great. The initial maneuvering of course involved lots of claims of control over the bulk of the Asian territories. Patch expanded into Lydia, Mesopotamia and Susiana. Zjonni drew Peithon and Craterus, giving him Media and Cilicia; he moved south into Syria and parts of Mesopotamia. The first coup of the game was early in turn 2, when he played Treachery to spirit Alexander’s funeral cart out of Babylon and gain control of it. He subsequently marched the cart into the near east, and it rested for a while in Damascus.

Meanwhile, Mark got Leonnatus and Ptolemy, and therefore had Helespontine and Egypt. This also made him the Usurper. His initial expansion north into Judea and Syria ran into Zjonni moving south, and at the end of turn 1, we had the first battle of the game. Craterus lost the battle (barely), but Ptolemy lost his life, which left Mark in a much weakened position as he had to rely entirely on Minor Generals in that area for the rest of the game. Also, three Unrest Spreads cards turned up in the first two turns of the game, and the first two hit Egypt.

This caused the Usurper to become Patch on the second turn, who retained that status for the rest of the game. Mark ended up retaking Egypt and leaving it well garrisoned before moving out again. In the meantime, he spent his efforts around Helespontine working his way around Thrace, breaking my control of it, and working on controlling the entire Hellespont (worth 2 victory points). I had to start generating garrisons so that if he wanted to get into Macedonia (my worry) he would have to forgo his Champion status. As well, I moved into Bithnia to take control of it, and left a garrison behind in Nicaea, which frustrated Mark’s ambitions.

Most of the game for me was losing lots of troops in sieges, and beating those armies that did come my way (mostly the independent Illyrians). I did, after some struggle, take Athens, but I kept having to fight off other problems, rather than actually nailing down control of Greece. Admittedly, the plan was to put it off a bit, rather than draw the attention that the six victory points would generate.

Meanwhile, Patch drew Seleucus on turn 2, giving him a third general, and automatically got Demetrius on turn 3. He was in the lead, he had four major generals… and we had a hard time disengaging from each other to attack his position. Zjonni had a great plan to work over Patch’s back areas with the Indian Elephant Corps, but Seleucus arrived in Babylon with Anti-Elephant Devices and defeated that army handily. The fighting in the near east continued with Alexander being buried in Tyre, and then Mark managed to take it from Zjonni in a close-run battle.

I had ended up with Treachery in my hand myself and was wondering if there was any way to get an army out to the near east, spirit the body out into my army and then get it back for Pellas for a proper burial (10 legitimacy points, which would put me close to a victory on that basis–and it’s rare enough that just being able to say I did it would have been nice). But Alexander got buried before I could come up with anything, and that was the end of that plan.

Losing Tyre also wrecked Zjonni’s plan to win a surprise Legitimacy victory (which wouldn’t have worked because he hadn’t properly realized that Cleopatra needed a card to activate, not just a capture). In fact, none of the marriage cards, nor Plans of Their Own ever showed up in our game. One of the surprises in our playing was to realize that each turn only uses up a little over half the deck. I had expected that we would burn through most of it, after Surprises were burned.

I might have been able to disrupt Patch’s control of Phrygia, but I was still burning movement points like mad on seiges, and Mark gave up his Champion status to become a Successor, and started making threatening moves towards Macedonia again. This meant he no longer had anything to loose by attacking me, and I was free to attack him. Polypercheron (Antipater having died and been replaced by him) came up and drove Leonnatus into the sea at Chersonessus. Free, for the first time in the game, of enemy armies on my doorstep, I was getting to be in a good position.

However, at that point Patch managed to take control of a couple more provinces, and got the points he needed for an automatic victory.

We’re looking at the next meet being in a month. At the moment we’re looking at Conquest of Paradise, but we might end up with five people, at which point we’re thinking more towards Soldier Kings or Civilization.

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