Virtual tercios battle... the Prussians!

A multi-player game to test the reliability of the dreaded Spanish tercios, and against whom else than their worst enemies, the Prussians (random choice by my opponent). I went on with the smaller (306 men) versions of the formation, fielding 4 of these and 190-190 men of cavalry on each flank, roughly a total of 1500 soldiers plus command.

The Prussians came up with about the same amount of men, but only 160-160 heavy cavalry on the flanks, and a less well-distributed, bulky body of foot, muskets in the first lines and pikes in the rear, with the intention of bringing on salvoes first, then breaking the Spaniards with the storm of pikes. 

The tercios could support each other too. Now the battle went on in a quite interesting manner, behold:

(Welcome to Kyle Van Helsing, no blogger link on your profile but it must have been the 'Witch hunt' post that brought you here; let me know if you have a blog and I'll link back.)

Virtual tercios

I know, two posts a day, but I was just thinking about how to represent a tercio as a whole in Cossacks for some of my solo games. After some google'ing I found how it was built up. Now the problem is I would need two different type of shooters, musketeers and arquebisiers. Only Swiss have arquebisiers in the game, so that is a no go. I've put another nation's musketeers into the formation, namely Portuguese (who can be mistaken for Spaniards from a distance, so their presence is more plausible). As the 'musketeers' make up the front of the formation, my impression was they needed to be heavier, so the Spanish musketeers with their extra armor took that role.

As bulky as it looks (cannot fit into a whole screen), it maneuvers quite well.

The Cossacks: Back to War tercio is made up of:

• 2x 196 men bodies of pike
• 1x72 and 6x36 bodies of 'arquebisiers'
• 1x72 musketeers,

a total of 752 men, a good half of the original. If you can't 'upgrade' to the 18th century, you usually get stuck at about 3 thousand population limit, which, in a good case, means you can field 3 such tercios, or 2 tercios plus artillery and cavalry, and you still have enough workforce to stop them from starving and let them have enough gold, iron and coal to do their job.

Preparing a new page

As there is an interest about the topic being reflected in the blog's stats I've started to make a page for my games in Cossacks including some tips and links to all screenshot galleries I've submitted so far.

Meanwhile, I had bought a lot of hobby materials including a can of varnish, glue, decor paper, more glue, duct tape, a 'soilwork' brush (this one's used for the heavier jobs such as drybrushing wider areas, splashing varnish on bases etc. and usually gets retired soon) and more glue. There's fun ahead!

Cossacks: Back to War screenshots (again)

A tiny screenshot selection as a filler until I return home and can post more of what I'm painting.

Here, Polish winged hussars striking on Cossacks. Speaking of which, I want to do some winged hussars in larger scale than 1/72 (preferably 28mm as 54s are too big!) but can't decide which ones to order, so many choices!

This ship has 1500+ kills (and gathered a few more later), as I said earlier the AI can be flippin' stupid at times.

Thoughts on Cossacks: Back to War

Single player mode pro vs contra:
-Above all, the units are realistic, and commanding them takes time and effort just as much as if they were real. On the contrary, if one takes a closer look at the following Napoleonic Wars and American Conquest (in which, lately, more European nations could be played), the differences are clearly visible: which can be said in one sentence,

Troops die too easily.

This also stands for the multiplayer mode. 

Another problem is the enemy AI - set to Very hard it doesn't ever take a chance to do a decisive battle, instead marches up and down with huge units and lets them decimated by long-range cannonfire. It also doesn't rely on unit formations - keeps them in groups and squares instead of a battle line, and overall, it isn't innovative enough - same tactics (not even winning tactics) all the time.

Minor bugs in 1.35 patch which I noticed: 

-Dragoons in formed units usually run into the enemy lines when attacking instead of keeping range and firing.

-Grenadiers used to do the same (though they have high melee stats this basically gets them slaughtered all the time, so I used to keep them in reserve with the artillery)

-Also, in single player mode (and it occurs in multi too) the units don't take care for themselves unless in stand ground formation, just get themselves killed all the time when an unnoticed attack occurs

Multiplayer:

We played with a previously agreed amount of troops (usually 1500v1500 as that is the greatest value the game's engine would tolerate), one 'attacker' and one 'defender on plain maps as my bros - my former gaming partners - aren't so good at manouvreing (or how is it spelled). Now I'm planning to change a few things:

-There will be 'fog of war' (e. g. enemy units' movement cannot be seen all the time)

-There won't be 'attacker' and 'defender' role, this improves the versatility and dynamism of the game

-Allowing more artillery on the field (we usually agreed on one battery per army)

A Jackewline War of Independence battle in Cossacks

Cossacks- editor mode. The centre of the map is a small lake, there are hills to SW and NE. 

Participating:

Dorrosean - 1 Guard Regiment, 6 Line Regiments (1 Chasseur, 1 Line, 1 Grenadier battalion), 2 Artillery Battalions, 4 Militia Battalions, 3 Dragoon Regiments, 1 Cuirassier Regiment (cavalry with 2 battalions), 1 Hussar Regiment

Jackewline - 

Red clans - 1 Rgt. of Line Fusiliers, 1 Battalion of Sappers, 1 Battalion of Phoenix-Winged Cavalry

Yellow clans - 1 Rgt + 2 Battalions (reserve) Line Grenadiers, 1 Rgt. Line Fusiliers

Green clans - 1 Battalion of Skirmishers (operating in platoons of 10), 4 Battalions of Fusiliers (2 reserve), 2 Flags of the Fists of Mackowskill (volunteer troops), 1 Battalion of Guard Heavy Cavalry

Blue clans - 1 Rgt. of Mounted Chasseurs, 1 Rgt. of Light Infantry (+ 1 Battalion reserve), 3 batteries of Field Guns, 1 battery of Howitzers divided through the frontline, 1 Rgt. of Cuirassiers (2 battalions), 1 Rgt. of Dragoons (3 battalions)

Frickland (on Jackewline side): 1 Rgt. of Fusiliers, 1 Battalion of FNG Grenadiers

More Cossacks screens

This is eventually a filler-like post as I'm not doing anything interesting till the 15th this month: there will be some major projects again after, containing the mentioned waters, mills, also roads and bridges, and planning to buy some of the sets I couldn't earlier.

My army in a player vs player scenario against my brother - we play via GameRanger. This time I'm Russian, and in need of massive firepower as the musketeers aren't good: so I added mounted dragoons to my infantry.

Screenshot selection for Cossacks - Back to War

I love this game because it is - mostly - realistic... well, not as the following up American Conquest or Napoleonic Wars, but it has a great variety of choices, even editor, where I can play my own little campaigns... The AI is quite dumb though (for a certain scale: like 2-3 AI players set to very hard are still beatable with 1 human player, but with more than 3 they simply overwhelm one).

An army ready to battle is always nicer than an army in a fight - at least because of the less smoke. There are overall three different formations for both cavalry and infantry.

Alright chums, let's do this...

...Leeeeroooooy Jeeeeeenkiiiiins!

Sgt. Leroy Jenkins is not that patient type: when his troops are under fire, he charges!
-Cossacks: Back to War screenshot