Wile waiting for the results of what I hope will be the final round of playtesting of Las Navas De Tolosa 1212AD I have begun work on my next battle which is to be Tours 732 AD between the early Carolingian Frankish forces of Charles Martel and a raiding Andalusian Arab force under the command of Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi..

I have started with the map. This is the first scenario where I am making use of an out of playing area movement track to give the Frankish forces the option of a flank march down the eastern side of the map to come out in the rear of the Muslim position and raid their camp. I have uploaded a screenshot below of the northeastern corner of the map showing the start of this, which also shows the whole battlefield in less detail in the mini map in the bottom right.

Effectively we have an L shaped playing area with the main battle taking place along the vertical axis with the Muslim camp in the horizontal axis and the Franks having the option of feeding a raiding force along the movement track to approach this from the east. The scenario should always be played with fog of war on so that the Muslims don’t know if the Franks are going to take up the option to make a flank march until they debouch from the woods to attack the camp.

I am also using Tours to test out a new scenario documentation template in Microsoft Word which will sit inside the scenario folder but outside the data subfolder and contain detailed scenario design notes, orders of battle, a glossary of terms used, and sources employed for the Scenario. This will mean that only a brief introduction has to be put into the information box in the game itself.

I want to go down this route because any text for the information box in the game has to be copied in, and cannot be spell checked once its there, while laying everything out in a Word document makes it easier to present more information in a more user friendly format. Anybody who wants to have a look at the draft template I am using at the moment and wants to use it, as, is or modified for their own scenarios can download it here.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54384751/Draft%20Scenario%20Design%20Notes%20OOB%20%26%20Sources%20Template.zip

I now have a couple of weeks leave coming up the 1st of which will be in Weymouth were we are going for my 49th birthday during this time I expect to get some background reading in for some Viking & Carolingian scenarios I plan to work on later in the spring. To this end I will working my way through “The Viking Art Of War” by the late Paddy Griffith and I P Stephenson’s new book .”Viking Warfare.

Enjoy

Ian

 
My scenario for the battle of Las Navas De Tolosa 1212 AD has now been through several closed beta tests and subsequent revisions with 2 of my established virtual sparring partners. At this point I thought it would be a good idea to make it available for more general testing and invite players to post feedback using the option to make comments on this blog. The open beta version of the scenario can be downloaded here.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54384751/Las%20Navas%20De%20Tolosa%201212%20AD%20IDL.zip

At this point the scenario text and bibliography still needs to be typed in and checked, something I will be making arrangements to do over the next couple of weeks. I have also put the full orders of battle for both sides into an MS Word document which has been saved into the scenario folder for easy viewing.

To balance the scenario (which was previously weighted to heavily in the Christians favour) I have cut scenario length down to 10 turns. Any result other than a Christian victory by game turn 10 should be deemed to be a victory for the Almohades on the basis that had the battle been drawn out longer than it actually was then the superior numbers of the Almohades would have told to a greater extent.

This week I have also made a start on the Glossary page in the “Scenario Design Resources” sub section of the “Resource Centre” part of this website. The idea here  is to provide a source of relevant words and wordings to help give orders of battle and scenarios generally a suitably authentic feel.

 
Just a quick blog this week. As I have been back to work not much chance to work on the website. I have added some links to video tutorials on YouTube about and brief introduction to “Field Of Glory Digital, (which I will expand on an and refine later.

Two bits of good news on the scenario design front I have found additional source material including maps and orders of battle for my first post 1492 scenario the battle of Tondibi which was fought in March 1591 between an invading  Moroccan  army under Judar Pasha  and the forces of the Songhai Empire led by its ruler Askia Ishaq II. This means that this one will be appearing on the website sooner than planned.

Also I have now got my hands on European character versions of the Arabic words for right wing, left wing, centre, rear guard & advance guard divisions which will give my order of battle for the Muslim side in my forthcoming scenario for the battle of Tours in 732 AD a more authentic feel.

Finally I have now finished a further round of playtesting for my battle of Las Navas De Tolosa 1212AD scenario so should be able to get a further and hopefully a final reworking of it underway this week.

 
Having set this website up last week, I thought it would be good to get a blog going as well to explain and discuss the scenario design and other work I am doing for "Field of Glory Digital” (FOG PC) . Also, I thought I would use my first blog to outline my scenario design and other plans for the first quarter of 2012.

The scenarios available on the site as of now represent the scenario design work I have done over the last two years,  with the two scenarios featuring Anglo-Saxon armies, being my most recent creations.

Currently in play testing and due for another fairly major revision, (to balance it) before release, is a fairly large scenario from the wars of the Spanish reconquista covering  the battle of Las Navas De Tolosa fought on 16th July 1212 between a Castilian led  Christian army and the forces of theAlmohade Caliph,  Caliph Mohammed Abu Abd Allah assisted by some not very willing Andalusian allies. I aim to have this scenario available for download on the website by the end of the month, and will be putting it forward for inclusion with the "Oath of Fealty” module.

I am also currently working on the map and order of battle for my next scenario which covers the battle of Tours in 732 AD between the early Carolingian Frankish forces of Charles Martel (assisted by allies from Aquitaine) and A large raiding force  from the Umayyad Caliphate under the command of Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi the Governor-General of al-Andalus. I plan to follow this scenario with two others, one covering the battle of Lechfeld fought on 10 August 955 AD, (Germans verses Magyars) and the battle of Stamford Bridge fought on 25th September 1066. AD (Vikings verses Anglo–Saxons)

All 3 of these battles (which I will be putting forward for inclusion for the forthcoming “Wolves From the Sea” module) feature the arrival of reinforcements and / or  flanking forces once the major clash of armies  was underway. While the FOG PC games engine does not make allowance for this sort of thing as such I aim to use the “Impassable Hex” facility that does exist to create off map reinforcement boxes and movement paths to both delay the availability of reinforcements and to allow one side to choose to place a force in a designated location in the rear of their opponents during play. To prevent the blocking / misuse of  movement tracks by the wrong side I will be introducing powerful special static units to act as “Player Probity Guardians” (PPG’s) to protect the exits from deployment tracks.

Finally to get round the limitations of the information that can be placed in the text information boxes with individual scenarios I will be introducing for my own scenarios and making available for download, full colour “Order Of Battle” & “Designers Notes” templates in MS word which can be saved inside scenario folders (but outside the data folder) for easier scenario construction and viewing once a scenario has been finished.

Happy new year
Ian Leask