Looking for game for Punic Wars and Gallic Warfare

[Al Amos]

The beauty of Paul's engine is YOU can design scenario to fit YOUR taste. Put cohorts as the basic unit in Gallic and later eras, fine by me. That helps you play larger battles, too. If you want to have centuries as the basic unit which is my preference with two in the Punic game per maniple and six in the cohort in Gallic Wars, you can. Both can be fun.

Enjoy the flexiblity of the engine, and create cohort level scenarios for all of us to enjoy.

"that guy named Al" - I endorse maniples and cohorts to be contructed as a group with centuries as the basic combat counter and a leader counter(s), too. This allows players to order groups to react to tactical situations, and also allows the engine to simulate the 'rotation' in and out of melee by having two centuries in a stack where both counters can melee each phase, at the tactical level. It is my preference, and as valid as anyone elses. I also endorse cohors to be the basic counter for the larger battles. So, please use this quote in the future when telling others my preferences. It is the correct one. Thanks! :-)

I also endorse the validity of YOUR preferences, and encourage you to make scenarios with those preferences, and from YOUR viewpoints. Please don't use my veiws to limit your enjoyment of the game, make your own. Upload them here so others can see your take on history and enjoy the scenarios you create. Don't use this difference of opinion as a stumbling block or excuse to quit playing, make scenarios the way you like them.

Looking forward to see some scenario you make. :-)

al

[RADO]

The beauty of Paul's engine is YOU can design scenario to fit YOUR taste. Put cohorts as the basic unit in Gallic and later eras, fine by me. That helps you play larger battles, too. If you want to have centuries as the basic unit which is my preference with two in the Punic game per maniple and six in the cohort in Gallic Wars, you can. Both can be fun.

Enjoy the flexiblity of the engine, and create cohort level scenarios for all of us to enjoy.

"that guy named Al" - I endorse maniples and cohorts to be contructed as a group with centuries as the basic combat counter and a leader counter(s), too. This allows players to order groups to react to tactical situations, and also allows the engine to simulate the 'rotation' in and out of melee by having two centuries in a stack where both counters can melee each phase, at the tactical level. It is my preference, and as valid as anyone elses. I also endorse cohors to be the basic counter for the larger battles. So, please use this quote in the future when telling others my preferences. It is the correct one. Thanks! :-)

I also endorse the validity of YOUR preferences, and encourage you to make scenarios with those preferences, and from YOUR viewpoints. Please don't use my veiws to limit your enjoyment of the game, make your own. Upload them here so others can see your take on history and enjoy the scenarios you create. Don't use this difference of opinion as a stumbling block or excuse to quit playing, make scenarios the way you like them.

Looking forward to see some scenario you make. :-)

al

Hi Al! The platform & engine preclude me from doing so, but we have been all through this before. I don't see rehashing it all over again here.

You like the game and that's great. Have fun with it.

[Al Amos]

"The platform & engine preclude me from doing so"

How so? I've not seen any stop signs. The ground scale does allow a cohort to fit into a single hex, at field strength. Your choice. Work around percieved limits to get what you like, or give up. Individual choice. Good luck finding the 'perfect' game. :-)

al

[RADO]

"The platform & engine preclude me from doing so"

How so? I've not seen any stop signs. The ground scale does allow a cohort to fit into a single hex, at field strength. Your choice. Work around percieved limits to get what you like, or give up. Individual choice. Good luck finding the 'perfect' game. :-)

al

Ok, here we go again.

A hex is 20 meters or 20 yards. At the time of Caesar, a cohort of 480 men occupied a frontage of about sixty meters (eight ranks deep), and it acted as a single entity, not as separate maniples occupying three hexes.

So yes, you can put 480 men in a single hex but the frontage in the game is only 20 meters and should be three times that for a standard Roman deployment. With 480 men in a single hex in the game you have a cohort 20 men wide and 24 ranks deep (sort of like Varro at Cannae). If you deploy the "maniples" in the game over three hexes wide you have the correct frontage but now you are operating as three independent units and that was not the case in the Roman army of the time and not how it operated.

So as I said before, the game is great for the period it was initially designed for and that is representing the style of warfare of the Manipular Roman legion. That organization ceased to be used when Scipio Africanus reorganized the legion after the fall of New Carthage (yes, I said Scipio - It was not Marius. Marius made some significant changes in eligibility for citizens to enter the army, but the organizational change was made under Scipio Africanus).

Back to you!

:)

[Al Amos]

Use centuries.

But thanks for the reply. I wanted others to see it is your disagreement with the ground scale, not an actual engine flaw. So it's basically, you think chocolate ice cream should taste differently than Paul does. You think the engine can't represent the legion the way you want it to, no problem there at all. The game engine itself works well, and the scenarios are enjoyable, and do represent a historical viewpoint, just not yours.

al

[RADO]

Use centuries.

But thanks for the reply. I wanted others to see it is your disagreement with the ground scale, not an actual engine flaw. So it's basically, you think chocolate ice cream should taste differently than Paul does. You think the engine can't represent the legion the way you want it to, no problem there at all. The game engine itself works well, and the scenarios are enjoyable, and do represent a historical viewpoint, just not yours.

al

Al,

If I said it was chocolate you would say it's vanilla. If i said it was blue, you would say that it's green. If i said it looked and smelled like crap you would say it's a steak. As usual, you argue a point for the sake of arguing, either without any understanding of the issue or simply to be obstinate. From your statement above I wonder if you have ever studied the two periods in question.

The engine cannot represent the legion the way it fought in Caesar's time; period. Not only is the ground scale an issue as you point out but you cannot form cohorts the way they were organized and employed. The game was not set up that way. Paul even states himself that the game was set up for the Punic wars. The Roman legion of the Punic wars and Caesar's time were two completely different animals.

Like I said; if you like the game, which obviously you do then fine; play it and have fun, but in no way is it representative of warfare of the period it is intended to represent. If you feel it is, then you are sadly misinformed.

[TJD]

Al,

If I said it was chocolate you would say it's vanilla. If i said it was blue, you would say that it's green. If i said it looked and smelled like crap you would say it's a steak. As usual, you argue a point for the sake of arguing, either without any understanding of the issue or simply to be obstinate. From your statement above I wonder if you have ever studied the two periods in question.

Rado, this is the lowest sort of ad hominem reply. Al is argumentative. He's obstinate. And he's never studied! Sakes. You forgot to mention that he's from Oklahoma.

You need to apologize, and after you do that, you need to go away for a long time. I'm ashamed of you. Al's a good guy. All you've done is give us a fine little example of projection.

Tim

[RADO]

Al,

If I said it was chocolate you would say it's vanilla. If i said it was blue, you would say that it's green. If i said it looked and smelled like crap you would say it's a steak. As usual, you argue a point for the sake of arguing, either without any understanding of the issue or simply to be obstinate. From your statement above I wonder if you have ever studied the two periods in question.

Rado, this is the lowest sort of ad hominem reply. Al is argumentative. He's obstinate. And he's never studied! Sakes. You forgot to mention that he's from Oklahoma.

You need to apologize, and after you do that, you need to go away for a long time. I'm ashamed of you. Al's a good guy. All you've done is give us a fine little example of projection.

Tim

Just calling it like it is. Why don't you just go away to that other website you were trying to promote here?

For those desiring a bit of information on the subject, here is a link that is a pretty good secondary source for the Roman army organization of the periods under discussion. It's not complete but it is very well done and a good introduction into the period, with source information:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Ro...ubdivision

Here is another link to all sorts of source material; free online:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html

Have fun!

[TJD]

Just calling it like it is.

Oh, Rado, you know that's not true. You're trying to win a point by slandering a good guy. You can't say those things about Al. It's shameful.

Now man up and apologize. I'm sure you have it in you.

Tim

[Al Amos]

Good links went to them before.... had some seventy links before a computer meltdown :-(

Cohort in Ceasar's time consisted of six centuries. No overall leader to it, just six centuries working together, kind of like a 'group' in Paul's game engine. It works, a player can deploy the cohort over two, three or six hexes depending upon the tactical situation. If they are strong enough I prefer deploying in three hexes with two centuries each. That gives a nice one-two punch in melee during the phases. The phases, and the ability of both centuries (or three if stacked that way) meleeing shows (abstractly...but then we don't really know how they really did it) of how the Romans rotated units to the front (presumably during the many lulls during a battle.) To allow the cohort (group) to move within the confines of the engine a leader must be added. I add three leaders representing the six centurians and asst ldrs found in a cohort. This gives the group a bit of reslience compared to a Gallic group (tribe) with only a single leader per 5-7 combat units. Its a fair representation.

As Ceasar's campaigns continued his number of legions increased but the strength of those legions shrank. So for larger battles with several legions, I recommend having single counter cohorts. At say 360men that would represent six -60 man centuries, a bit weak, but workable. The formation within the hex could be imagined as being six wide, four files per century (In the game each rank is considered to be 24 files) with 15 ranks deep. Or, you could envision three centuries wide with two centuries deep. In that case each century would be eight files wide and 7 or 8 ranks deep. The posterier centuries would be behind the Prior centuries, and we could imagine an internal rotation during each phase.

So the game engine can support the legion if using centuries formed in maniples or in cohorts. It's not perfect, no game is, but it is fun and a good representation of history .... since we don't know exactly what happened back then... but battles fought with this engine do end up with similar results we read about from the historical battles.

I read, I learn, I grow.

al