Lets See YOU Do Better.

[esemesas]

The Carthaginians pretty much have our stuff organized and ready. We just need for the Romans to kick it off.

Unless ese and tamius aren't ready, in which case we need more planning.

I'm good. Feel free to send in the orders.

[tamius23]

I'm good. Feel free to send in the orders.

Which orders?

[NapoleonComple]

I've added all figures involved to the original post.

EDIT: Ok, so are the Romans happy to deploy with a standard camp, on the western side of the river, with a scouting force deployed on the other side and with water carriers deployed? Could the Romans specify their location relative to the river, and also state the composition of the scouting force in terms of type of soldier? Scouts could be cavalry or light infantry.

[NapoleonComple]

Romans?

[THE_SPLIT]

Romans?

Yes master?

[NapoleonComple]

I figured this had died a permanent death. It might well do.

Taking the opportunity provided, are the original participants still here to get this back on rails?

The Romans were deploying their camp, the Carthaginians were planning their own manoeuvers. I still have the relevant PM's regarding that. It's obviously been some time but are the teams able to get back together?

[jacob-Lundgren]

Drop them a PM in case they don't read the thread very often.

[Stuckenschmidt]

I`m not really surprised, that this died an instant death due to a lack of rules.

The concept reminds me of War Luster`s Vietnam War Game. So you need a proper map of the battlefield, time span per turn, movement allowance per turn and a lot of tables for sighting and combat resolution.

Choose a scenario, prepare it properly and I bet it will work.

[esemesas]

I`m not really surprised, that this died an instant death due to a lack of rules.

The concept reminds me of War Luster`s Vietnam War Game. So you need a proper map of the battlefield, time span per turn, movement allowance per turn and a lot of tables for sighting and combat resolution.

Choose a scenario, prepare it properly and I bet it will work.

This. The game lacked guidelines while putting the Carthaginian commanders into these constricting barriers of "Thou strategy shall not differ from the historical one!" was a double downer for me.

[NapoleonComple]

Hmm...

Thank you both for the feedback.

I hear you about the lack of guidelines. Going in I figured it wouldn't be too important; I figured we'd be able to "roleplay it out" and I was actually worried that putting in place firm rules would overcomplicate the equation and bring everything to a screeching halt. Instead what happened was the game evaporated into vaguaries.

As for the Carthaginians... that's difficult. The reason being that the purpose of the game is to play a team controlling the losing side off against a living, breathing rendition of the winning side, rather than against a static strategy that anyone can defeat with hindsight.

I have a few ideas... one involves setting up a squared board of the battlefield, with each square the same distance across in all directions. The other involves giving movement rules to each individual unit type; mixed groups of soldiers would move at the speed of the slowest unit if the unit types got jumbled up for some reason.

That would at least give some direction to the battle.

While not so important to Cannae, there would need to be some terrain rules. And, of course, combat interactions. I'm not entirely clear how to go about those yet. On one level it's easy; spears beat cavalry, archers shoot but lose at melee, phalanxes collapse if attacked in the flank. On the other hand, how do you factor in fatigue? The time it takes each unit to drive another off?

Beyond that you've got the stuff I've labelled in my head "advanced". Wind speed, things like the sun getting in the archers eyes, the effect of morale and organisation on performance... there's quite a lot here.

I'll give it some thought, but for the moment I'm chucking ideas out as I think of them.

[Stuckenschmidt]

Speaking of the Vietnam Wargame. Anyone interested in a second iteration?

[DoomBunny]

Napalm?

[Stuckenschmidt]

Napalm?

A bit.

[NapoleonComple]

Sounds interesting.

[MastahCheef117]

We could possibly run this in the way of a Total War game. Give each side a certain amount of "units" (with slightly variable troop numbers per unit at the whim of that team's commanders) and each different unit, based on their history, background, effectiveness, and unit type, will have several different statistics, like melee attack, melee defense, range, morale, etc... fighting constantly will increase fatigue, but resting for a phase or two will allow them to regain their breath (though not fully).

It could possibly be a good layout or start. We can adapt and modify from there.