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Peter
Some thoughts on scenario design, balance and objective hexes.
<u>Forces</u>
in most scenarios there must be an element of unbalance between the forces. This may take the form of numeric strength, qualitative strength, more ammunition, more artillery or cavalry, fatigued units, broken command structure, superior weapons (ever thought about a different musket type with weaker capability to simulate fewer rounds fired / minute by less well trained units?). Without this imbalance, the only incentive for one side to attack the other is because they start the scenario in a defeated state and need to defeat the enemy to convert this to a draw or victory.
In these circumstances objective hexes are required to prevent the enemy marching off the map before contact is made and securing their victory. The downside is, that if the forces are approximately equivalent the side that starts the gamne in defeat will probably finish it there as terrain can confer considerable benefits to the defensive units.
One of my favourite, balanced scenarios is Quatre Bras, in which the balance is achieved by the low ammunition and quality of some of the Allied formations, the continual arrival of reinforcements and the terrain available for the Allies to exploit. I try to ignore the objective hex values (especially that for the cross-road) and achieve a victory in spite of that. [It's a personal thing that I dislike objective hexes, with the possible exception of exit hexes in scenarios appropriate to them].
Another thing I like about Quatre Bras is that there is space and time for flanking marches, and for the Allies to withdraw their line when threatened. I am cuurently engaged in a very good game in which we must have reached about Turn 10 with no more than 100 casualties on either side as I try to outmanoeuvre my opponent, and he in turn denies me his flank.
Because of all the variables affecting the battle, the balancing of the forces is largely a matter of trial and error. A good idea might be to look at a comparable size of battle to that which you wish to create, especially one which yielded a close result, and select the strength / approximate composition of the forces on that basis. Even this is not hard and fast as battles such as Austerlitz should not have yielded the devastating result that they did on the basis of terrain or numbers alone.
Deployment or march onto map?
This will depend how many turns you want to spend bringing forces into position and how far apart the forces will be at the start. Perhaps you will have a small part of one force on the map defending against the approaching columns of the enemy (which are on map but far enough away to vary their approach) and reinforcements arrive from off map able to march to where they are required, or to form up for a counter-attack later in the game (a little like Quatre Bras).
It might take the form of a meeting engagement with both sides coming from off-map on a pre-determined route (towards an enemy held objective hex) and gradually feeding successive formations into the fight.
There are many possibilities. The amount of time before all units arrive will be a factor though, arrival times need to be such that the units can make it to the action before the scenario end.
Another way of hampering one side is to use Fixed units. This should be done with care that no enemy can contact the fixed units before they release. Otherwise players will waltz up to them, surround them and eliminate them, Ligny being a classic case. If using fixed units you might try fixing only the Brigade commander, so that the men could march off but would have a devil of a job re-ordering when disordered, without their brigade commander to hand. Be innovative I guess is what I am saying.
On which note, another favourite of mine is to use the golden morale quality bonus (variable in NIR but always +2 in PTW) for low quality units. In this way for example, a standard line infantry batttalion in PTW could be given a Quality of 2, with the golden morale making it up to 4 for the purpose of moarle checks (same as any other line infantry battalion), but the quality of 2 would give them a penalty in melee and when firing, (less well trained than their counter-parts, but no less courageous). There are so many areas to explore.
Tinker with the terrain effects to suit your requirement, meddle with the fire table to tone down the skirmishers and so on.
The only software you need is a text editor for the main.pdt and main.oob files. Notepad, Wordpad etc are not really any use for this. I use Textpad, which used to be available as a free download, I am sure there are many others.
For the scenario itself, you only need the scenario editor to start creating your game.
Mail [url="mailto:markeason@btinternet.com"]Mark[/url] me if you want any specific help (though I am away during the week). Before you know it you will be trying to generate maps, now, that really is a time-sink [:)]
Good luck
Mark
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