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Field of Glory II: 1000AD - Campaign in development

Turns will work a little different in this campaign:

The YEARLY TURN CYCLE will work the following way:

TURN 1: WINTER -- time for diplomacy/alliances and tax/revenue collection (garrisons and fleets in harbour will still need to be maintained)

TURN 2: SPRING -- the mustering -- revenue is collected, new FIELD ARMIES are created, FLEETS activated (but be careful, they need to be maintained during the campaigning season, so don't overspend, even though you will have tow turns or more of revenue available)

TURN 3 - 5: SUMMER/FALL -- the campaigning season -- 3 turns of maneuvering field armies, fleets, battles and sieges.

TURN 6: AUTUMN/FALL -- the disbandment of armies --- field armies are disbanded and go into winter quarters... and fleets get tied up in harbour. (Field armies can be kept in the field over WINTER -- to maintain a lengthy siege for instance , but will cost double points to maintain and might incur random casualties from disease and starvation)
 
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Testing and development of this campaign concept continuing...

Current playtest -- we are in the first Campaign Season Turn of the SECOND YEAR.

(keep in mind all orders are issued simultaneously and played out by the Tourneymeister)

Quick recap so far of YEAR 1:

RED (England/Anglo-Saxons) -- managed to invade and capture Scotland after a season of heavy fighting and a short siege to subdue resistance and built a fleet at the end of the campaigning season.

Dark BLUE: (Denmark/Vikings) -- added Svealand to their domain after it surrendered rather than fight (neutral domains level of resistance is determined with a combination of die roll and their garrison strength) ... they then used their fleet dominating the Baltic to invade and capture Livonia.

YELLOW (German Kingdom) -- dues to its vulnerable central position, strengthened it's garrisons and focused on capturing Bohemia.

Light BLUE (France): Built a strong army and moved in to capture rich province of Lorraine and fortify it (much to the chagrin of the Germans)

ORANGE (Muslim Al Andalus) -- focused on naval domination of the western Med and the capture of Morocco and Tunisia (which proved a very costly battle)

Dark GREEN (Norman Kingdom of Sicily) -- deployed their fleet to cover Sicily on the Ionian Sea flank, upgraded their garrisons especially in Sicily and captured Tuscany ... but then lost their Fleet to a naval battle against the Byzantine Fleet.

Light GREEN (Fatamid Egypt) -- deployed their navy to secure the Levant and captured and garrisoned Cyprus

PURPLE (Byzantine Emprire) -- the richest of the factions, but also with the most to do and cover... upgraded their garrisons, built an extra fleet -- captured Crete and fought off and destroyed the Norman Fleet in the Ionian Sea

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Into YEAR TWO:

At end of YEAR ONE at the FALL TURN, all armies are disbanded and fleets return to harbour...

During the WINTER TURN, taxes are collected and alliances formed or broken....

SPRING MUSTERING ... armies are built and navies re-activated and the campaign resumes:

RED (England, Anglo-Saxons) -- the fleet built at the end of the last year is deployed and moved to the Irish Sea, with an army ready to invade Ireland. (the Irish with a ONE strength garrison can either muster a one-off army of five to nine strength points, or even surrender outright on a roll of 1)

Dark BLUE (Vikings) -- deployed their Baltic fleet and invade Pomerania with a newly reformed army (the Pomeranians have managed to muster a 7 strength point army, battle ensues) . Also, a raiding force is being deployed in Norway and a new fleet being built there in preparation for some plunedring raids (a special capability only the Viking/Norse kingdom will have)

Light BLUE (France): French are building a new fleet in Flanders to secure the Channel and also built a large 12 strength point to invade and capture Burgundy from Francia. The Burgundians muster a 10 SP army)

YELLOW (Germany): irked at the French capture of Lorraine, the Germans take a chance and manage to muster a 10 SP army and invade and besiege Lorraine (it will take an additional two campaigning seasons of siege to break down the 2 SP French garrison there) -- with French field army mustered in Francia, the Germans correctly assumed that they were going to either attack Burgundy or Normandy.

ORANGE (Al Andalus): Deployed both their fleets to secure the westen med, they struck at Navarre -- the Navarrese put up one hell of a fight in the hilly terrain and while being defeated, they cost the Al Analusian forces losses of 2 SP's out of their original 10 SP strong army. In the next turn, the Al Andalus force can build a garrison in Navarre and thereby take ownership, or strip off points from the field army to do so.


Dark GREEN (Norman Sicily) -- so far building a new fleet in Calabria in the Adriatic shore and muster a 9 SP army in Calabria -- either to fend off a possible Byzantine invasion or possibly invade Serbia. (or contest Byzantian naval control of the Ionian)

PURPLE (Byzantium) -- deployed its two fleets (built a new one in Year one -- started the campaign with a fleet available) into the Ionian and Levant to secure Crete and possibly also avert Fatamid designs on the island as well -- the Crete garrison was also strengthened to 2. The main field army of 10 SP's was mustered in Thrace and invaded Macedonia which is held by the Bulgars -- the Bulgars defended with a 8 SP army and while defeated, gave the Byzantines a bloody nose, losing 2 SP's of their 10 strength army.

Light GREEN (Fatamids): Decided, in the face of Byzantine naval dominance, to keep their fleet in harbour in Egypt and muster a 12 strength point army in Palestine and attack the rich and powerful Muslim Emirate of Mosul -- this backfired a bit, as Mosul managed to muster a 15 SP army (Mosul has a 3 strength neutral garrison, so can raise a once-off army of 9 - 15 SP's) -- battle is still to be resolved.
The Fatamid army can retreat, but then is considered disorganised/demoralised and will spend next turn rebuilding/reorganising.

Note on Naval battles:

Resolved with a simple 6 sided dice roll.

1: Fleet A retires to nearest friendly harbour/coast damaged

2 & 3: Fleet A sunk

4 & 5: Fleet B sunk

6: Fleet B retires to nearest friendly harbour/coast damaged

BATTLES in FOG II:

The idea is for players to fight the battles of their own faction/kingdom and also randomly assigned battles of neutral territories against their opponents (the idea is inflicting as much grief and casualties on your rivals as possible to make their progress and lives as difficult as possible while even sometimes winning some of these battles)

If two player factions meet in battle, the obviously the faction players fight their respective battles.

CASUALTIES:

Casualties are determined by the final results screen and applied as a percentage of the strength points of the Field Army counter (rounded up or down) -- this can look a little different to the ROUTED % figure as sometimes units may not be routed, but are very damaged casualty-wise.

Last note on map:
That little icon of ship and double-sided arrow on borders of the North African desert regions mean that you cannot advance with a field army from say Tunisia into Tripolitania without control of the adjacent sea region to carry supplies and fresh water etc...
 
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@Rico - Would you consider non-faction players for commanding AI battle armies?
That is, if someone choose not to play a colored nation, could they still participate as a battlefield commander of a non-colored army?
That certainly could an option.

There is actually not that much to do for each faction player each turn .
 
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To be fair I think if we use human players for otherwise AI battles we need to do it all the time.
I do like the idea though. Maybe encourage some other players to play the game?
There's no AI battles ... all battles will be played human vs human.

It's either dedicated players who command the non-faction armies, or faction players take turns in playing the neutral armies in battles against their other faction players.
 
This seems really interesting, are factions going to be commanded by a single player or a team?
 
This seems really interesting, are factions going to be commanded by a single player or a team?

Depends on player availability - the amount each faction has to do each turn isn’t that much - possibly handle one to max three battles.
The resources are quite limited for so no vast wide ranging campaigns - it’s meant to an extent to mirror limitations of early medieval warfare.
 
Okay -- we are in the 2nd Campaign Season Turn of Year 3 of the campaign... Kingdoms are growing (well, some of them) ... the plot thickens.

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The REDS have managed to conquer all of the British Isles, overrunning an Irish-Viking coalition in Ireland ... and have prepared an invasion of Norway ... the RED fleet dominating the North Sea, defeating a BLUE fleet previous turn, now facing the BLUE's second fleet sallying forth -- if REDS win this naval battle, they can land their army in Norway and besiege the garrison. Just in case, the Anglo-Saxons have another fleet under construction in England.
But all's not well on the Green Isle ... the Irish and their Irish-Viking allies have risen in revolt and are besieging the Anglo-Saxon Garrison there... what to do?

The Dark BLUE Vikings have expanded well ... creating a Baltic empire taking Livonia and Pomerania. Deciding that the Germans were getting too powerful after they captured Lorraine from the French in the previous campaign year, the Dark BLUE forces invade Saxony, defeat the YELLOW German army in an epic battle and now besiege the Saxon garrisons.
Unfortunately, multiple threats now face the Vikings, as the Anglo-Saxons are preparing to invade Norway and the Kievan Rus are raiding Livonia (which will cost a loss in income)

The YELLOW Germans have withdrawn their battered army (reduced to 6 SP's) to Franconia after their defeat by the Viking army, and have mustered reinforcements to rebuild their army back up to 10 SP's to relieve Saxony in the next Campaign Turn (even reducing their Lorraine Garrison from 3 to 2 to be able to afford this.

The Light BLUE French are in a battered state, having lost Lorraine to the Germans after a phyrric victory in Burgundy in the previous year. With the Germans distracted by the Viking invasion, they managed to capture the battered yet rich Duchy of Burgundy which hadn't recovered from the losses in the previous year. But now face a possible invasion from the Al Andalus Spain...

ORANGE Al Andalus have had a good run so far -- naval domination of the western Med and having conquered Navarre in the previous year, and may take advantage of a weakened France...
A sneak amphibious invasion of Norman-controlled Sardinia & Corsica while the cash-strapped Norman Kingdom of Sicily is distracted elsewhere facing off against the Byzantines... the Garrison of Sardinia should fall by end of this turn.

Dark GREEN Norman Kingdom of Sicily has not had a good run ... after naval defeats and an aborted invasion of Serbia last year, the Normans have decided on consolidating Italy by invading and capturing Lombardy -- the field battle is won and Lombardy is now under siege... to save money, the Norman fleet is in harbour in Calabria -- but looks like not much can be done about the Muslim invasion of Sardinia...

The PURPLE Byzantines have had a bad previous year in losing two naval battles against the Light GREEN Fatamids for control of the Levant Sea ... (Byzantines lost one fleet and had one damaged) .
On land, Byzantine forces have consolidated their hold on Macedonia the previous year, and this year their field army has captured Cappadocia after a bruising battle vs the ruling Armenians there.
The Byzantine general has decided to immediately attack the weakened Fatamid army besieging Cilicia ... battle to ensue...

The Light GREEN Fatamids have dominated the eastern Med and the Levant (essential for their hold on Cyprus), beating off two Byzantine fleets ... although another naval encounter is looming as both sides have two fleets poised for battle.
Last year, the Fatamids captured the rich and powerful Emirate of Mosul and this year invaded Cilicia, defeating the Muslim Arab rulers there after a bruising battle there that reduced their invading army from 11 to 8 SP's ... and now, while besieging the Cilicia garrison, the Byzantine army from Cappadocia is attacking...

I'll post soon how the economics of income, maintaining armies, garrisons and fleets... building armies etc...

At the same time ... they have to look over their backs at the restive Dailami Empire in Persia...

So, at this point ... Muslim domination of the Mediterranean ... Norman Italy/Sicily and France struggling ... Anglo-Saxon England doing well and the Viking Kingdom of Denmark dominating the north...
 
Okay -- we are in the 2nd Campaign Season Turn of Year 3 of the campaign... Kingdoms are growing (well, some of them) ... the plot thickens.


LLefC75.jpg



The REDS have managed to conquer all of the British Isles, overrunning an Irish-Viking coalition in Ireland ... and have prepared an invasion of Norway ... the RED fleet dominating the North Sea, defeating a BLUE fleet previous turn, now facing the BLUE's second fleet sallying forth -- if REDS win this naval battle, they can land their army in Norway and besiege the garrison. Just in case, the Anglo-Saxons have another fleet under construction in England.
But all's not well on the Green Isle ... the Irish and their Irish-Viking allies have risen in revolt and are besieging the Anglo-Saxon Garrison there... what to do?

The Dark BLUE Vikings have expanded well ... creating a Baltic empire taking Livonia and Pomerania. Deciding that the Germans were getting too powerful after they captured Lorraine from the French in the previous campaign year, the Dark BLUE forces invade Saxony, defeat the YELLOW German army in an epic battle and now besiege the Saxon garrisons.
Unfortunately, multiple threats now face the Vikings, as the Anglo-Saxons are preparing to invade Norway and the Kievan Rus are raiding Livonia (which will cost a loss in income)

The YELLOW Germans have withdrawn their battered army (reduced to 6 SP's) to Franconia after their defeat by the Viking army, and have mustered reinforcements to rebuild their army back up to 10 SP's to relieve Saxony in the next Campaign Turn (even reducing their Lorraine Garrison from 3 to 2 to be able to afford this.

The Light BLUE French are in a battered state, having lost Lorraine to the Germans after a phyrric victory in Burgundy in the previous year. With the Germans distracted by the Viking invasion, they managed to capture the battered yet rich Duchy of Burgundy which hadn't recovered from the losses in the previous year. But now face a possible invasion from the Al Andalus Spain...

ORANGE Al Andalus have had a good run so far -- naval domination of the western Med and having conquered Navarre in the previous year, and may take advantage of a weakened France...
A sneak amphibious invasion of Norman-controlled Sardinia & Corsica while the cash-strapped Norman Kingdom of Sicily is distracted elsewhere facing off against the Byzantines... the Garrison of Sardinia should fall by end of this turn.

Dark GREEN Norman Kingdom of Sicily has not had a good run ... after naval defeats and an aborted invasion of Serbia last year, the Normans have decided on consolidating Italy by invading and capturing Lombardy -- the field battle is won and Lombardy is now under siege... to save money, the Norman fleet is in harbour in Calabria -- but looks like not much can be done about the Muslim invasion of Sardinia...

The PURPLE Byzantines have had a bad previous year in losing two naval battles against the Light GREEN Fatamids for control of the Levant Sea ... (Byzantines lost one fleet and had one damaged) .
On land, Byzantine forces have consolidated their hold on Macedonia the previous year, and this year their field army has captured Cappadocia after a bruising battle vs the ruling Armenians there.
The Byzantine general has decided to immediately attack the weakened Fatamid army besieging Cilicia ... battle to ensue...

The Light GREEN Fatamids have dominated the eastern Med and the Levant (essential for their hold on Cyprus), beating off two Byzantine fleets ... although another naval encounter is looming as both sides have two fleets poised for battle.
Last year, the Fatamids captured the rich and powerful Emirate of Mosul and this year invaded Cilicia, defeating the Muslim Arab rulers there after a bruising battle there that reduced their invading army from 11 to 8 SP's ... and now, while besieging the Cilicia garrison, the Byzantine army from Cappadocia is attacking...

I'll post soon how the economics of income, maintaining armies, garrisons and fleets... building armies etc...

At the same time ... they have to look over their backs at the restive Dailami Empire in Persia...

So, at this point ... Muslim domination of the Mediterranean ... Norman Italy/Sicily and France struggling ... Anglo-Saxon England doing well and the Viking Kingdom of Denmark dominating the north...

------------------------------------------------

PS: The Anglo-Saxon fleet in the North Sea is defeated and sunk by the Viking second fleet ... the invasion of Norway is off for the moment.

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Some more updates from the campaign testing battlefields... @Nelson1812 is helping out with some of the battles...

French decided to invade Navarre to pre-empt a Muslim Andalusian invasion of the last northern Spanish enclave of Leon.

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The French win the battle very convincingly... but casualties can still be heavy even amongst the non-routed units.

( @Nelson1812 completely outmaneuvered and clobbered me in this one... well fought, Sir.)


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Andalusians lost 60% of their force -- so their army counter drops from 12 strength points SP's) to 5 (and they are disorganised as well for losing 50% or more of their force -- so can't attack or move into hostile regions)

French lost 14% of their manpower -- this drops their SP points from 13 to 11

I take the original SP points and multiply by remaining percentage and round up or down.

French: 13 x 86% = 11.18 -- rounded down to 11.

Andalusians: 12 x 40% = 4.8 -- rounded up to 5.

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Andalusian army retreats and French army besieges the garrison in Navarre -- it will take next two remaining turns of summer campaign season to break them down.

(or longer -- there is a siege die roll that extends defenders holding out longer or besiegers suffering losses from disease or bad supplies)

(Six sided die)
Die roll 1: Besiegers lose an SP due to disease and defender sorties
Die roll 6: Garrison does not lose 1 SP and extends successful defence of siege by one more turn

Attackers don't want to continue siege into the winter months... very costly.

French now have option to split their army in next turn and pursue and besiege Navarre at same time.
To maintain a siege without garrison losing SP's, the besieging field army needs to have DOUBLE the SP's of the garrison.
To maintain a siege where the garrison loses an SP every turn (if things go well), then the besieging field army needs to have TRIPLE the SP's of the garrison.

If you advance without having a secure supply base behind you, you will need to try and live off the land, and there will be penalties of possible SP losses.

The ORANGE Al Andalus faction will have to rebuild and reorganise their army (they probably will have about 4 SP's worth of points available to do it), but for every side it applies that if you have to rebuild an army with more than 3 SP's being replaced (not additional reinforcements to a full strength army), the next battle this army fights it will have it's forces picked by AUTO-SELECT in the FOG II battle.

Reason for this is the loss in trained, experienced men from the spring muster and have to scrape together whatever forces you can.

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There are two more battles to fight this Campaign Season turn:

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1. The Pecheneg steppe tribes have invaded Bulgaria and the Bulgarians have only managed to muster a weak army to stop them (if the Pechenegs win, then they might move on to ravage the Byzantine province of Thrace.)

2. The Norman Kingdom in Italy has consolidated its hold over Italy and Sicily (but recently lost Sardinia/Corsica) and now is invading Carinthia -- controlled by the Croatians.

Battle 1: Pechenegs 1100 points vs Bulgars 700 points

Battle 2: Normans 900 points vs Croatians 700 points

The job of the Bulgars would be to dent the Pecheneg army on it's way to Byzantium... not too many of their soldiers answered the call to muster quickly enough...

Key for the smaller, non-faction armies is to inflict as much casualties on the faction armies as possible.

Non-faction army battles will be fought either by dedicated players who are not part of any factions, or faction players assigned who don't have any other battles going that turn.

For the above, I flipped a coin and @Nelson1812 is playing the Bulgars and Normans.

Interestingly, higher points doesn't necessarily mean numerically bigger armies, just resources to buy higher number expensive nigh-quality units.


Bigger picture in this turn so far...

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Byzantines have struck back at the Fatamids ... their navies taking control of the Levant Sea and are invading and besieging Cyprus.

The Fatamids are mustering armies and navies for a possible counter strike.

In the north, the Germans have defeated and expelled the Viking army from Saxony and a smaller German force is now besieging the Viking army in Pomerania.

The Anglo-Saxon army has defeated the combined Irish & Viking rebellion in Ireland.

At start of next Campaign Season turn I will explain how economies and incomes work in this campaign.

Hope this hasn't grown completely out of hand and we manage to find players for it when it's ready ... :ROFLMAO:

I find, when I play it, it's quite simple ... when I try and explain it... oh, boy...
 
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@Rico - It looks like there is a lot to setting up battles in this campaign, especially with different sized armies between players. How do you plan to do that?

It's quite easy to do ... when you set up a battle -- on the screen where you pick the armies, you click on ADVANCED OPTIONS button at bottom of screen and then using the controls on the right, adjust the FORCE POINTS sizes of both armies.

Simple, really. Whoever sets up the challenge will size the armies to match the parameters of the counters on the map.

1 Strength point in a FIELD ARMY is equivalent to 100 points in the FOG II battle, with largest possible size army 20 SP's or 2000 Force Points on the FOG II battlefield.

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Here follows a walk through of how sequence of play and use of income and points works... I am using the Muslim Spain, Al-Andalus as my example faction.

Campaign starts in the WINTER turn of YEAR 1 -- no battles or campaigning this turn, as armies are disbanded or in winter quarters and fleets in harbour .

It's the season for raising taxes and income and some behind-the-scenes diplomacy or skullduggery... and planning for the campaign season ahead.

Here we see map cut out with Spain at centre ... have moved relevant charts etc into this sector of the map for reference.

1000 AD economics explanation 1.jpg

The faction starts with 0 carry over income ... it gets 16 points income from its core provinces; 4 each for Granade & Toledo and 8 for the capital province Cordoba.

I'll call the income points "Gold" from now on for ease of use.

Al Andalus starts out with one Fleet in harbour and 4 Garrison strength points (SP's) -- they cost 1 Gold each to maintain, so that leaves 11 Gold to carry over into the next turn, the SPRING Mustering.
 
At the start of the SPRING mustering season ... the Al Andalus faction financial situation is the following:

1000 AD economics explanation 2.jpg

11 Gold carried over from WINTER turn ... plus 16 Gold income for this turn, minus the 5 Gold needed to maintain the garrisons and the fleet in harbour.

That leave 22 Gold to start the campaign with.

1000 AD economics explanation 3.jpg

The faction decides to perform the following actions and builds:

1. Muster a 9 SP field army in Granada (with an eye on attacking and conquering the neutral province of Navarre. -- costs 18 gold

2. Launch the fleet to control the Western Med -- costs 2 Gold

We can see the Norman Sicily Kingdom have deployed their fleet into the Tyrhennian Sea and the light blue French have mustered a 8 SP army in Francia (hopefully they will be kept busy by the Germans.)
 
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