Game 10

I'll give him an expense budget and tell him part of his mission is to select suitable Italian wine for import into Scotland...oh and to burn down Rome...

Tell him that Italian wines are better than whisky. When he finds out he's been lied to, he'll burn down Rome on his own initiative!

Looks like the Dutch Observer to the peace talks is going to get some help to carry the Oil & Matches If we can all send some form of pyromaniac Diplomatic character to Rome then we will really improve our chances of burning it down.

Jason can your ambassador please bring a few spare boxes of matches, oil soaked rags, kindle Oh yes & some of what those Indian tribes in the Americas call FIRE WATER!

What the feck?!

Who's extracting the urine by sending that 'character' to attend the Rome talks! And then another one turns up. Stroll on. Then just when you think Rodrigo won't be heard from again, up he pops and there's riots in Barcelona (saying that mind, it'd be grand to read about the young Prince of Wales, again, and all his mischief).

Rozwi best pull it's finger out and write something exciting for the next newspaper ... the Honour score doesn't go up by itself

Nope, the less we hear about foul Jacobite rebels, trying to overthrow the legitimate governments of England and Scotland, the better, thank you very much!

Any more pro-Jacobite talk from you and I'm cutting off the Rozwi's whisky supply!

Jason wrote:Nope, the less we hear about foul Jacobite rebels, trying to overthrow the legitimate governments of England and Scotland, the better, thank you very much!

Any more pro-Jacobite talk from you and I'm cutting off the Rozwi's whisky supply!

Perhaps the Rozwi would like some nice French Brandy instead?

Well if they can't have the decent stuff, I guess they might have to do with brandy...that or brackish water (is there a difference?)

Rozwi will gladly be the middleman for the importation of Scottish whisky or French brandy to Tribal South Africa.

Any help improving Rozwi's Economic Health and income will be much appreciated, so if anyone reading this has something to sell and wants to get in touch in the game...

The picture of the fort under the supplement explaining about the fort ( long since lost on a tablet I never backed up ) is Fort Niagara . I always wondered if that building was it , but if you look at the site and it has a website , you can see it was a lot bigger a place and more like a fort that I was expecting .

Forgot to do this when the turn landed. Not much happened in Africa last turn.


The Rozwi Indaba - The Voice of Africa

March 1702

MAUNG
The district around Maung  has been brought under
Rozwi administrative control, with the local
Ovambo chief swearing allegiance and loyalty before
the Changamire. The chief, Iazrus Ovambo, surrendered
his youngest son Kagumbo Ovambo as a hostage. The
son, it is said, is to be sent to Khami as a hostage and
shall be guarded at the royal kraal, but nothing has yet
been done to arrange his safe transfer there.

"There is always something new out of Africa"

The Chinese have sent a nice troupe of acrobats to Paris. Perhaps the Rozwi would like to do something similar?

It'd have to be to either Portugal, the UDP, or Scotland though. Rozwi doesn't have diplomatic ties with other countries at this moment in game time - though Portugal's diplomat is still lost in the wilderness, somewhere, and now the position isn't currently played he'll probably never be seen again.

Was looking at the photos of the Zulus dispatched to London in the 1850s, last night, and the photography taken of them to display to those not able to witness first-hand. Obviously this is something that could be played on in Glory.

Rozwi.

Didn’t know Portugal dropped. He was a first timer and seemed to be enjoying it. Do you know why he dropped.?

Was it the long time between turns.?

I don't unfortunately.

I'm only aware of the availability of Portugal due to another TGOK player contacting me in a PM, asking for a general summing up of Portugal since turn one (based on what I've read in the papers, and contact with Mozambique) and what the position in SE Africa was like, so he could decide on whether to join Game 10 as Portugal. As it happened he didn't, and currently plays in one of the other games.

As far as I know, since he told me on Facebook in the LGDR group, Portugal's former player played LGDR/TGOK previously and also was playing Swashbuckler. Possibly still is involved in the other games.

J Flower wrote:Hope the new Dutch representative to the peace talks gets his chance to burn & pillage Rome. Would certainly liven up the peace talks, or are they just playing for time until the troops are in position?

Still think what is shocking about the talks in Rome is not that the statesmen of Europe are sitting down with a Dutch Envoy who looks like a ex-Pirate.

But that they are sitting in the same room as Cardinal Portocarrero and Federico Garcia Lorca who by any reasonable standard have been involved in High Treason and a blantent attempt to usurpe the rights of the legitimate heir's using a very very illegitimate heir.

Guess its handy to have Portocarrero & Lorca ready to hand so the first action of the new King of Spain (to order the execution of the traitors) can be swiftly actioned.

When designing an army , one of my problems is that I imagine an army a la Waterloo rather than something nearer the War of the Three Kingdoms and Cromwell . Just swap matchlocks for flintlocks and I'm there . What other ways is an army in game 10 now nearer Cromwell than Napoleon ?

Oh and get rid of pikes , though I know the Swedes liked them still

Thelittleemperor wrote:When designing an army , one of my problems is that I imagine an army a la Waterloo rather than something nearer the War of the Three Kingdoms and Cromwell . Just swap matchlocks for flintlocks and I'm there . What other ways is an army in game 10 now nearer Cromwell than Napoleon ?

Your Artillery is a lot less advanced & not as mobile, has a lower rate of fire & no pre-packed charges, crude elevation & aiming. Artillery & Field Engineering in general are only just starting to move away from be civilians employed by the military.

Light or irregular troops are looked down upon by most of the "Professional" military as being undisciplined & liable to desert at a moments notice. Light troops are used for reconnaissance & the war of the pickets, but are deemed more a liability than a help on the battlefield( not to say they weren't successfully employed, just not often)

Also tactical flexibility is limited, basically form up in lines with Cavalry on the flanks & away you go. In a similar way to the line ahead in Naval matters, the tactics on land have become to a certain extent formalised, breaking these Traditional methods are a risk, if you fail then you will take all the blame, if you succeed( aka Marlborough) then you are a hero.

In terms of weaponry once Flintlocks are there, then you have reached the peak of infantry weaponry for the next 100 years, yes you can tamper with little things, iron ramrods, conical touch holes, etc. But the basic design is there. Also worth noting in a debate in Parliament during the Napoleonic wars there was a serious attempt to reintroduce the Longbow as a weapon for the British army!

Pikes maybe out of date, but Russian militia were still armed with them at Borodino, so it is still a better than nothing weapon, basically it became redundant with the introduction of the socket bayonet, which gave every Musketeer a pike like weapon. But if you want a cheap militia then pikes are still an option.

Artillery is still limited to fire at the "point blank", basically that means when the projectile is fired, it travels in a slight upwards curve as it drops back down it crosses a line drawn from the muzzle of the cannon, this is the point blank, at around 1,000 yds ( 900m) ricochet fire is only just starting to come in during siege warfare. Canister is in it's infancy, problems with the balls fusing together due to the heat generated on firing still had to be overcome.

Hope this gives you a few pointers into the differences, maybe others will disagree. Or add their own pointers.

It does indeed . Thanks for your time on that .

Rather than focus on tactical changes or changes in weapon's already very well covered by Jason above I would argue that the major difference between the French Revolutionary Wars and earlier conflicts was in the size of the deployed forces and in how wars were financed.

Partly this is down to population growth and the early stages of what is sometimes known as the Industrial revolution which vastly increased the supply of artillery, uniforms, muskets, gunpowder etc but basically, the French Revolution replaced the Wars between Kings and often limited royal budgets with wars between peoples and the total resorces of the Country being mobilized to field forces vastly larger than before.

Two major results of the increase in size of Armies and especially in the amount of artillery deployed on how conflicts were fought was that:

1) The ability of fortresses to hold up a campaign was substantially reduced since for example a French single corp (often the size of the whole Army in earlier periods) could reduce a fortress by siege or screen the fortress while other corps carried on the campaign.

Thus the campaigns of Marlbough & Louis XIV are dominated by sieges and the much fewer in number open field battles normally happened due to attempts to relieve or block a a siege. But in the 1790-1815 period the emphasis switched to meeting and defeating the opponents field armies in the open. Thus in the Waterloos campaign the defenders of the low countries from the French fought four open field battles fairly close in time. While in earlier wars campaigns in Flanders had revolved round the attack and defence of various key fortress cities with the defenders digging in behind their defences and working on the basis that if they could hold out for a long enough period of time financial exhustion would force a peace.

Feel a classic example of how campaigns changed is if you compare the fanatic Austrian defence of Vienna in 1683 to how in 1809 very strong Austrian forces just abandoned Vienna to the French and prepared to meet the French on the other side of the Danube in the battles of Aspen-Essling and Wagram.

2) The greater size of Armies and increased production of artillery resulted in a far greater the role for artillery in battles. This is not to deny the importance of Artillery to the armies of Louis XIV, Cromwell & Marlborough but I would say it changes from being a vital support service to the full equal of Infantry & Cavalry arms and a key battle winning weapon.

That fact that Napoleon was a Gunner and the fact that the French Imperial Guard Artillery was one of the most feared and high status units on the battlefield rather neatly highlights the rise in the importance of Artillery.

Oddly the rise of massed armies ment that in some ways the armies of 1815 went full circle and were closer to practice to 1650 than 1700.
Following the 1650 the development of European armies placed emphasis on well trained regulars, ordered fire and ordered supply by systems of depots and supply lines rather than plunder and living off the land.

But following the revolution many armies esp the French went back to living off the land and highly trained regular units were faced not only with a hordes of skirmishers and massed Artillery which was new (but following existing developments). But also with load's of poorly trained but motivated "levy" troops willing to close with cold steel in a way in a way which was more ESW than WSS.

Following the French lead most armies went for quantity over quality which resulted Infantry no longer being able to hold off Cavalry in Line and having to use very deep formations like Squares and the Austrian Battlelion mass to defend against Cavalry. This return to deep formations in the 1790-1815 period made artillery even more dangerous.

Naturally the English (excluding English paid Allied Armies) went against most of the European trends. Warfare in the British Isles was never dominated by ordered Siege Warfare as it developed in Europe mostly because we never had many first rate fortresses and the thousands of guns deployed on European fortresses went to the English Navy instead. The New Model Army had a good siege train which made short work of Royalist Strongholds following the defeat of the main Royalist Armies but the willingness of Cromwell men to go in for storm and general anarchy when taking cities horrified its French Allies and was closer to how the Wellington's English Army in Spain acted than Marlborough's allied army.

The English then retained a small regular army in the Napoleonic Wars while everyone else went in for huge forces filled out by conscription.

What I have found in game is that with the annual influx of recruits and a lot more income than the historic goverments most players grow their artillery and army to a point were they look fairly Napoleonic and the Napoleonic Corp system is also fairly common. But oddly the emphasis on Siege fighting rather than seeking out the opponents Field Armies remains as strong as ever.

In this they would seem to be at the stage of the Austrians in 1800 in that they have a nice new army with lots of guns and a new style corp organization but they remain intent on collecting Italian Fortresses and slowly pushing the French out of Italy.

Thanks very much . I will read these answers again and again no doubt . I think I saw in your answer , about the English going against the trend etc the reason why I'm surprised to see that a well defended Castle , for want of a better word , was defended by tens of men and the besiegers would bring up reinforcements and it amounted to single digit numbers of cannon and a couple of hundred men ..of course that's a very sweeping account but I'm surprised at how little each side could get away with .

In game as game as Stuart has pointed out, I also feel that the fiscal & manpower restraints are not as severe as the historical reality, that said it makes the game much more playable & enjoyable, But it means we end up diverging from the historical Norm. Also as players on a sub-concious level we also trend towards a Napoleonic version, because there are more historical reference books to the period vs the 1700's, in a similar way in game Prussia is often based on Frederich the Great (1740+) rather than his father & Grandfather Frederich I who were the historical characters in our period of play. We as players quite rightly cherry pick the best bits out of the historical narrative & put them to our advantage in game which is also true of our development of the armed forces in game, we all want to have the best trained, best trained ,technologically advanced armies & do our best to get there.

That said , I must admit I am curious as to Roys experiment with the African tribes, his total block on Modern technology for his tribesmen is an interesting & to date seemingly enjoyable diversion from the trend, certainly puts a divergent twist on things.

With Rozwi, I've copied the trend of using the model of a C19th army - the Zulu forces, as outlined by Shaka's doctrines and practices.

Furthering the military thoughts of Shaka (and not the other Zulu rulers) I've eschewed the use of firearms, as most of the enemies Rozwi will face aren't armed with them and its cheaper just to use a stick with a pointy bit of metal on the end.

That all said, I'm making it up as I go along when it comes to the Rozwi cavalry arm. Light cavalry are too useful not to make use of, so I'm not going to ignore them. Also, the tactics and stratagems employed are not necessarily Zulu but whatever will work, as I didn't want to limit myself or be too predictable if facing a real opponent. The current size of the Rozwi military is probably larger than historically it would have been - at present, 20,000 warriors - and, if needed and funding cut elsewhere, it could be increased by tens of thousands of more troops.

Rozwi has in place:
* Army Doctrines for Foot and Cavalry.
* A drawn plan illustrating for the GM how military forces will deploy for battle - with written details of how they will then attack, with 'arrow' indicators showing the sweeping moves suggested in the tactics.
* Excellently Trained tribal warrior armies, with light cavalry support and non-combatant logistical elements to search for water sources and camp grounds.

The only thing Rozwi doesn't have, is an non-player-controlled Tribal enemy field army to fight against - As the nearest Ovambo force (that we know of!) is in SW Africa and our invasion is located in what would be best described as central south Africa, in the Okavango Delta.

Ref what to do with your Cavalry - the other option esp for non western European powers like Ottomans, Indians and Manchu is to go "backwards" and base your Cavalry on earlier models. Such as Royal Mamlukes & earlier period Mongol and Turkish Cavalry equiped with light lance, bow and either sword, axe or hammer.

Horse Archery has rather fallen out of fashion by 1700 but a mounted archer has a huge advantage in both range and rate of fire over mounted firearms plus it does not scare your horse.

If you leave aside the time spent training a archer the only real disadvantage of archery over 1700 firearms is that it lacks armour penetration. But by 1700 not that many people have much armour.

Faced with Tribal Spearmen who need to close to be effective I suspect mounted archery could be very effective esp if the tribal warbands got so wound up that they charge and hit nothing. Such disordered foot can then be taken in the flank by Lancers and generally cut up.

Here's hoping for Changamire Dombo II to make the leap to 4th in the Honour table this coming turn. I'm determined to knock the Polish Steward off top spot before the end of 1702!