Designing a "Battle of Agincourt"-based battle (Queen At Arms)

[Rosstin]

QUEEN AT ARMS WILL BE ON KICKSTARTER, AUGUST 15TH! JUST A FEW MORE DAYS!

Original thread: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ting-Missions)

Question: What advantages can an army gain by striking first, assuming that the enemy knows the attack is coming? Assuming that we're in an Agincourt-style battle, with a narrow passage between a wood and a hill through which the armies will clash, and the enemy is on home-turf, with weaponry of that time period.

Spoiler: Map!

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The heroes have a strike team of a master mage, a team of engineers with black powder and specialized weaponry, a unit of medics (with ~WWI medical technology), a ~100 man cavalry, as well as a few thousand men-at-arms and longbowmen.



Somehow I've lost track of the last thread that Mr. Mask, Brother Oni, Serenity and I were using, so I'm posting a new one. "Queen At Arms" is a visual novel, a sort of cross between Fire Emblem and Telltale's Walking Dead, if you will. You make decisions and your soldiers live or die based on them. The forum, and more specifically Oni and Mask, have been helping us design battles to be technically accurate.



Our new writer, Diana, created an excellent possibility tree for this battle that we're using to organize Chapter 3. I feel like I owe you guys a demo of what we have so far by now, so here's the Chapter 1 Demo. It's large because we haven't compressed the assets yet, ~350 megabytes.



I should have a playable thingie in Twine for people to try out on Monday.

[The Oni]

Sweet! As a fellow game designer I would be more than happy to playtest the hell out of this. Keep me posted.

[Rosstin]

Sweet! As a fellow game designer I would be more than happy to playtest the hell out of this. Keep me posted.

Check out the Chapter 1 Demo!

The first chapter still needs a lot of work. In particular, I'm not happy with the excessive length, the pacing, and the number of decisions. But the graphics and content, I'm very happy with. I'm looking forward to coming back to it soon, after we get to the end of content (a month or so of development.)

Be patient and at least play up to the first battle with the wolves, or the big battle at the end which is even cooler. I'm really proud of those. When we do our second pass, we're going to have more action and content and decisions in the very beginning (and it will be shorter) so it won't feel like you go more than a few minutes without an interesting decision.

Any additional advice you have would be highly valued! We're going to Kickstart soon (I hope to raise around ~$2k to recoup dev costs) and anything we can do to have a better demo would be truly excellent.

[Mr. Mask]

It's terrible and I hate it.


Now that my inner critic has had its say, I'll play the demo and tell you what I think.



Not just the thread. I looked through my posts, and there is a gap where posts in it should be. I think it has been entirely deleted. Hopefully the same does not happen here (I'm not sure why they would delete the thread without warning, may be confusion from the new site or the spam threads).



By the way, I saw King's Ascent mentioned on your site and played it. It was very good. The tone mechanics, feel, and story were exceptional among flash games (reminds me of some of the other great ones out there).

[Rosstin]

It's terrible and I hate it.

Now that my inner critic has had its say, I'll play the demo and tell you what I think.

Not just the thread. I looked through my posts, and there is a gap where posts in it should be. I think it has been entirely deleted. Hopefully the same does not happen here (I'm not sure why they would delete the thread without warning, may be confusion from the new site or the spam threads).

By the way, I saw King's Ascent mentioned on your site and played it. It was very good. The tone mechanics, feel, and story were exceptional among flash games (reminds me of some of the other great ones out there).

Thanks Mask! I wondered about the deletion, but I figured they would have said something. There must be a place on this forum for a thread like this. We're creating content and collaborating. I can't imagine they would have deleted our thread without warning. It's a shame, there was so much good content there. Why not just move it?

I have a new question by the way:

Question: What advantages can an army gain by striking first, assuming that the enemy knows the attack is coming? Assuming that we're in an Agincourt-style battle, with a narrow passage between a hill and a forest through which the armies will clash, and the enemy is on home-turf, with weaponry of that time period.

The heroes have a strike team of a master mage, a team of engineers with black powder and specialized weaponry, a unit of medics (with ~WWI medical technology), a ~100 man cavalry, as well as a few thousand men-at-arms and longbowmen.

Gonna draw a map for the battle now, which I haven't done yet.

[Mr. Mask]

The thread deletion was probably an accident, when the moderator was deleting spam thread en masse. We should consider PMing a mod to see if the thread can be recovered.


Generally the defender has all the advantages. If your firepower greatly outweighs your defence it can be different. With nuclear war, striking the enemy first can make a big difference--but since they can see you launching your nukes launching and fire back before yours hit, there isn't much way of hitting first. A cavalry charge is another example of much greater attack than defence capability.

Normally the main advantage of attacking first is surprising your enemy or attacking when they aren't ready for you. Other than that, you normally attack when your side has significant advantage (specially if they're dug in on familiar ground).

With the master mage, you might rig an attack spell, first to fire has the advantage. Gunpowder weapons are similar, but you aren't likely to be able to get bombs or the like over before their counter offence, and I suppose you don't have guns or firespears. The cavalry can try to hit their cavalry in a charge, but usually the enemy cavalry will be arranged to counter-charge or fall back to where your cavalry aren't willing to go.

If the battle is taking place in a narrow stretch between trees, then your tactical options are quite limited, which makes attack a much harder proposition.

One thing to note is your men's morale can make a difference. Morale can suffer if you sit there and let the enemy take shots at you for a long time. If morale is high, and attacking isn't a tactical blunder, then an attack to take advantage of your men's high spirits mightn't be a terrible idea.

[Slipperychicken]

I recall that the English won Agincourt partly because the French impetuously charged their entire country's nobility through the mud like they were bad AI, keeping their crossbows so far back that they were useless. And by the time they realized a head-on charge was a bad idea, their command structure was annihilated and their forces in disarray.

I wonder if our heroes could set bombs in the mud like they were land-mines.

[Mr. Mask]

Forgot another potential advantage. The context of an attack or defence can make a huge difference. If for example the enemy force's morale is reeling from some misfortune, it may be best to attack before their morale recovers.

[Rosstin]

One thing to note is your men's morale can make a difference. Morale can suffer if you sit there and let the enemy take shots at you for a long time. If morale is high, and attacking isn't a tactical blunder, then an attack to take advantage of your men's high spirits mightn't be a terrible idea.

I like this! This is an excellent idea.

That's basically consistent with what I was thinking, in terms of striking first being suboptimal. The Sylgardian (enemy) forces certainly aren't going to attack first, though.

I recall that the English won Agincourt partly because the French impetuously charged their entire country's nobility through the mud like they were bad AI, keeping their crossbows so far back that they were useless. And by the time they realized a head-on charge was a bad idea, their command structure was annihilated and their forces in disarray.

I wonder if our heroes could set bombs in the mud like they were land-mines.

The problem for the heroes is getting the enemy to attack first.. there's one solution for the player, which is to capture the enemy commander before the battle, and to parade her in front of her troops in chains. This enrages the enemy so much that they foolishly attack (like the French.) Otherwise, there's no way that the Sylgardians (enemy) are going to make the first move. YOU'RE the aggressor on their turf, they have no reason to attack; they're defending their home. I'm open to other suggestions for things that can force the Sylgardians to attack. Currently, if the players wait too long, the Sylgardians get reinforcements and then advance, but I have this as a negative for the player (the increase in the Sylgardians number of troops offsets your advantage, plus I guess your troop morale may be lessened.)

[Rosstin]

I also drew a map!

KEY because my handwriting is terrible:

• Heroes are in the upper-left.
• Rocklin Hill is in the upper-right, a rocky hillock. There are boulders here which can be blown down onto enemy troops, but enemy archers are hiding behind the boulders. If you send the mechanists against them alone, they'll be slain. But if you send the mechanists with some soldiers, they'll slay the archers and blow down the rocks.
• Hardlin Forest is in the lower-left. The forest was killed by a tree-blight, so all the trees are dry dead wood, highly flammable. There are enemy archers hidden in the wood.
• The enemy is in the lower-right. They stalwartly refuse to attack. If you wait for them too long, reinforcements arrive and THEN they advance. This might still work out for you if you prepared the battlefield effectively.

[Mr. Mask]

All sounds good.


A lot of options for forcing an attack.

There are political ways of doing it. When the Germans held part of France in the Great War, politicians called for the army to attack. And so, many men were lost.... over a few miles of land no one really needed. Men have been put to death in battle so generals could report gaining a few yards of ground on a battle line. Generals may offer battle solely because it looks good. Politics are the enemy of a soldier.

Holding something key, whether political/symbolic or practical, will similarly force an attack. If you hold the route supplies come to the enemy or one of their important castles, they need to dislodge you. If you hold a central castle of their kingdom effecting communications, and it's causing the internal structure to break apart, they have to get rid of you. If the war has dragged on and they're at their economic or morale's wit's end, they need to beat you before they call it quits or collapse. Same for if the army is running low on supplies but doesn't want to retreat without giving battle. Most of those don't apply, but some might be able to partially.

You can also tempt the enemy into attacking. Feign weakness, disorder, low spirits, bait them. If your enemy is quick to anger, seek to anger them. If you have Slygardian prisoners you could torture them in front of the army, gift them their heads or use them as decorations. You could force prisoners to fight as cannon fodder on the front of your line with their noses cut off. Honestly, I feel you'd be better to try and recruit prisoners, particularly if you already have Slygardians (this does increase their authority in numbers, on the off side). Doing weird stuff to captured Slygardians will lower your own Slygardians' morale.

If you did capture an enemy commander, you can use them as bait or try to use them in negotiations. For this, you'll want a good second in command who will take charge and prevent negotiations going too far.... but at the same time, they'll want to drag out the negotiations, make it seem like you're getting somewhere--until their reinforcements arrive. An enemy commander will also know plenty about their troops, so you can probably torture a lot of useful information out of them. I will mention that you do get some people who really can resist giving information (if they care more about the soldiers and their country/honour than the pain you can inflict), so torturing them doesn't have to give you a lot or even any good information. If you're going to have more than one major figure you can torture, making so that one gives you useful information but the other doesn't might be good for variety. With using the commander for bait, you could parade them, or even go so far as to torture them in front of the enemy army or send them the commander's head, if you really wanted to anger them (each method has its advantages and drawbacks). You could consider having a variable for how tempted the Slygardians are to attack which can be built up, and if it reaches a certain point they attack (and they're mad... which means higher morale).

[Slipperychicken]

YOU'RE the aggressor on their turf, they have no reason to attack; they're defending their home. I'm open to other suggestions for things that can force the Sylgardians to attack. Currently, if the players wait too long, the Sylgardians get reinforcements and then advance, but I have this as a negative for the player (the increase in the Sylgardians number of troops offsets your advantage, plus I guess your troop morale may be lessened.)

Henry actually made the first move, advancing his longbows to provoke a French cavalry charge (said charge might have worked if it wasn't for English stake-walls, or if the French reacted before the longbowmen could replace their stake-walls), starting the fight before the French reinforcements could arrive. Also, the French had a 5-to-1 advantage, and their leadership ignored their generals warnings, preferring to charge straight in. Also, the French largely discounted the longbowmen as peasants who would be no match for the heavily-armored nobles.


Also, I've heard it said that the "peasants" resolve was improved by some of their disadvantages: they wouldn't surrender because, if captured, they couldn't get a ransom, and would be simply killed (the "cut off two fingers" thing was what happened if they were lucky). Additionally, I've heard that English forces' hunger (which wasn't quite full-blown starvation) meant they fought more viciously than normal.

[Rosstin]

In 100% unrelated news, I discovered that someone with 138k followers retweeted the tagline of one of my previous games, Queer Catboy Love Triangle Disaster:

"Beau, a gay catboy, is trying to date two boys at once. Can Beau earn back the love of Shane or Colt, or will he die forever alone?"

It got re-retweeted 24 times!

https://twitter.com/dexbonus/status/449781215583682561

Refuge in audacityyyyy!

[ngilop]

Im tired as heck so take what im about to say with a grain of salt if it ends up making no sense.

But look up the Battle of Lake Trasimene where Hannibal abosulety wrecked the roman army, only suffering a minor casulaities while destroying half the roman forces and rome of the only army that could effectivelly check his rampage across the land .

the BIGGEST bonus one gets for attack first, and if its a good and solid attack is the crushing blow it does to the opposing army's morale. the black powder weapons could be a HUGE decivise component of the heroes invasion army. if morale holds it would force the opposing to have to attack to prevent the heroes from basically just pot shotting the army to death.

[Rosstin]

Hm, I really like the idea of a sneak attack somehow using black powder. Maybe it could involve those boulders... I think I might use that!

I was toying with the idea of a sneak attack somehow happening with the cliff or forest somehow. I think that could be an interesting advantage for first-attacking (but only if the player is clever somehow.)

That ties into what Mask said about atomic weapons, too.

[Brother Oni]

It might have been time for a new thread anyway. Having a look at the demo now.

The old thread still exists in Google's web cache though, if there's information you'd like to recover from it: link.

[Rosstin]

The mods said it was deleted by accident and are restoring it.

[Mr. Mask]

Playing through the demo now. Will write down my thoughts as they come, updating this post or writing more as necessary. So as to not spoil it for others, I will put this is spoiler tags.

Spoiler: Teh Spoilerth

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Training Ground

My thoughts playing this scene: "Boy... I'm going to end up doing ten billion push ups."

There was a bug where when I typed in my name and pressed enter, it appeared to quick-save instead of continuing. It started working again after a moment. Just thought I'd mention in case other have had this.

The process feels a bit odd to me. He's probably the nicest instructor I've ever seen. That's not to say it's a bad thing, the Ortheran bootcamps don't necessarily conform to modern military standard. It feels a lot more informal, which can work.

The main character's apparent lack of confidence and place is good. It seems a little extreme to me, the kind of thing that would make your life hell from then on, and makes them seem a bit incompetent. I don't mind this, but I can see some being irritated by it.

With the option to glare at the officer or stare at the ground, I think you need a third option: "Stare ahead." Looking at the ground or staring at an officer can be asking for trouble, staring directly ahead is the best way to try and avoid it. I tried both options. I expected I'd get smacked down or shouted at either way, but looking down was the right choice. When I think about it, this can also work well for the setting. In the more informal structure, they want a more informal show of pecking order. An officer looks at you, you look down.

Originally, I was thinking the glaring at him option would be better, since I figured I was going to be punished either way so I would be better to show I was here to fight. That's not to say it should be that way or that anything is wrong. Just, noting which choices I thought were best seems like it may be useful to you, since it can give you a glimpse into my decision making process and what tells I picked up on.

EDIT: Realized you can earn some respect with the soldiers for glaring, and an affection point with your bro (at th cost of a respect point). Nice touch. Sorry for not noticing it earlier.

Will play on further.

Spoiler: 2

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Played up to where I see the mage character.

I'm really enjoying the game. The music, art, writing, tone, it draws me in. There are a couple of typos I noticed. "James pulls a blueprint out of the pike of papers," for example. There are also lines where I would change a word or two, as an editor. These are very minor concerns, though.

Only issue I've had in this section is the choice to look at the blueprint or ignore it. The way the choice looks, it seems I have the option to ignore James and get back to my duties, or to spend time looking at the blueprint in fear of reprisal. However, the second option seems to be whether I look at the blueprint closely, or stand there not paying attention.

I recommend changing the second option to something like, "Look around the room for the, 'something special to drink'." Still not perfect, maybe a bit too obvious as to which is the optimal choice (at least from my thinking).

Spoiler: 3

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I want to say that I like the optional scenes in the game. The fact I can skip that conversation with the soldiers feels more immersive than it ought to. I don't usually play VNs, but this is fun.

Spoiler: 4

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I tried the wolf fight. I liked it. The decisions were logical. Some might consider it a bit hard for a tutorial fight, but I think it's just right (not hard to start again or save before the fight). Now I'm trying out options with the bloody shirt to see where it makes a difference.

Spoiler: 5

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....Using the king's portrait as a dartboard? I can see that happening. And it's hilarious.

Sort of expected a joke on how this was going to get them executed. "Well, we'll both be in the gallows tomorrow... but why the heck not?"

Alastor is probably my favourite character. I like the others though. James and Lucius are cool.

Spoiler: 6

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Changed my mind... Spy Master Fox ALL THE WAY! I feel like I've met a kindred spirit in him.

Similarly, I don't think there are enough times I can replay his scene where you first meet him. It is too glorious.

No, really. I've edited this last spoiler box at least three times now. I have to say how much I love this scene and its possibilities. It does a good job of being fabulous and great without diluting the serious tone of the game.

By the way, Prince Alastor's name appears over his text box before you know he's Prince Alastor. I think that might happen with a couple of other characters too.

Spoiler: 7

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Couple of points with the duel with the soldier.

The combat knife should probably be called a dagger. Combat knife is a bit modern for the setting, and speaks of a modern culture where knives for defence and survival aren't considered ordinary knives. If you intentionally want to go for that it's fine. I'll mention an alternate name might fit the setting (not saying it will, might be better as it is), battle knife, fighting knife, combat dagger, or just combat knife.

I'm not sure if I get respect points later with the soldiers for being covered with wolf blood or winning the duel, but I will mention I expected I would (that stuff tends to get military respect). How you win or lose could effect your respect. Trying to catch the blade with your hands, it ought to become a joke around camp and lose you respect (at the same time, everyone knows you now, so the respect penalty isn't much). Winning by feigning an injury might negate the respect bonus, winning with fake magic or howling would earn you respect, and winning with good tactics would and no tricks would get you the most respect. I'm not saying you have to do this, and I hope my tone doesn't communicate that. Just talking about my perspective on it in hopes it will help.
EDIT: I noticed you can use the crossbow. That's a nice touch. For that, I personally wouldn't give any penalty to respect with the men for pulling the crossbow, since you didn't shoot it at the guy. You don't really earn respect either.

With the fight, I can picture players being confused when Berin and Nicholas aren't happy with your performance regardless of which actions they try. I could tell that your character's swordsmanship is meant to be sloppy, out of practice. Still, I feel making the right tactical choices in the duel should alter their reactions slightly more. Something to the lines, "Your tactics were good, but your execution was dangerously poor. A better swordsman would have slain you."

I kind of feel that a bigger deal should be made about the option to try and stick a knife in a fellow soldier during a training exercise. A -1 respect penalty from the soldiers seems a reasonable idea to me.

By the way, I discovered you can go back and make different choices without loading the game. If you just scroll the text back (with the mouse wheel, like most VNs) you can get back to branching decisions and pick a new one. Normally you can't in VNs. Honestly, I think this is a good thing, saves me time saving and loading. Just thought I should point this out to you. While it is convenient, it does have the effect of taking some weight from the experience (ince it's so easy to try all options). On the far end of weighting, you could consider savepoints or the like--I think we briefly discussed that possibility before. With the type of game it is, with tough decisions, it makes me feel the weight of the decisions is important. However, I'm probably underestimating the value of convenience and overestimating how this will effect player experience (most people won't realize you can use the mouse wheel to go over past text).

[Rosstin]

Mask, this is excellent feedback! Thank you! Some of the best we've gotten so far!

[Rosstin]

Like The Gargoyles, our old thread will LIVE AGAIN: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ting-Missions)

I think we'll continue using this one, but I'm grateful to be able to reference the old one still.

[Mr. Mask]

Glad the feedback is useful. I've played through quite a bit of the demo, but haven't commented on large sections since there aren't really any problems. There are areas you could polish harder, but that's about it.

I'll continue to give feedback in hopes I will be consistently useful by doing so.


I'll mention that I'm unsure about James' use of dude. Personally, I'd consider similar expressions with a more archaic tone like, "brother." There are probably better ones, but I feel too fatigued to think of examples.

[Mr. Mask]

Spoiler: 8

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You use the word, "horseflesh," when describing how you're killing reindeer with your pikes.

Reindeer don't really have the strength of a warmount, but the reindeer of your setting could be significantly bigger/stronger/sturdier quite reasonably.

Finished the demo. I thought it was very good. Liked the battle in it. Looking forward to more.

That battle on twine you're working on will be interesting to look at.

[Rosstin]

I look forward to implementing some of your feedback. ^_^ I already made a couple changes.

Today I'm going to try and push the Agincourt Battle forward as much as possible. Mainly I'll be tying to tie together the ends in Diana's excellent framework.

[Mr. Mask]

Looking forward to it.

Having gotten to see the game in action and see it perform so well, I'm in high spirits to see more. Being able to see where my input has helped with a good game is very cheering.

I'll probably play through the demo again when you've updated it once or twice. Might be able to work out some other helpful feedback.

[Rosstin]

Your contributions really have been immensely valuable. I can't think you enough.

This is moving along really nicely. I was able to consolidate Diana's work and it's all coming together.

I did this as the options for a "first strike"

We've decided to take the offensive.

n "Striking immediately is unexpected, and may give us an advantage if we do exactly the right thing."
n "However, we can only launch a single unexpected attack before the element of surprise is lost, and we can't execute these plans simultaneously without a means of synchronizing movement."

((If you developed SIGNAL ARROWS with the James/Rubus combo, you can execute multiple plans at once and really own this phase))

[[Send a phalanx of Knights to run through the ranks of the enemy (probably bad-- they're prepared for this. -10VP).|firstmoveknights]]
[[Send Fox's assassins to take out high-value targets (+5 VP if you don't torture Lor, +20 VP if you did.)|firstmoveassassins]]
[[Send Rubus in as a surprise attacker (really dumb move! +20VP but Rubus dies)|firstmoverubus]]
<<if $adamus eq "loyal" or $adamus eq "traitor">>
[[Send Rubus's pet mage in as a surprise attacker (only if you have converted him-- he survives because he's familiar with the enemy) +25VP|firstmoveadamus]]<<endif>>
[[Send a wagon full of black powder towards the enemy and detonate it with fire arrows (doesn't work, it's way too obvious) +0VP|firstmovewagonexplosives]]

[Mr. Mask]

With the signal arrows, how would they work? To need magic they give an impression of impressive nature. Normal signal arrows aren't complicated.

One thing I suggest is that they give a signal that only your own side can recognize. Normally, if you were sending up signal arrows, the enemy spies and scouts would catch wind, and the enemy would go on alert and make surprise plans ineffective. So, if they were signals you can recognize but they can't, that works out well.


With the knights, you'd take losses if they were prepared for it, but you may still inflict an amount of damage which could bring you closer to victory. If they attacked after one of the other events like the Rubus blasting stuff, the enemy may be disorganized enough that their attack will cause a lot more damage.

That's an idea... the order you perform the plans in could change the effectiveness of them. If you send the gunpowder in first, the enemy is more alert to knights charging in, but they might also be distracted from Fox sneaking into their camp to assassinate. If major figures are assassinated, it makes it easier for mages to inflict damage without their spells being countered or specialists sniping them. If the mage has caused chaos in the camp, it makes it easier to send a wagon of gunpowder in or a bunch of knights. If the gunpowder has blown a hole in the formation, that would probably make it easier for the knights too. could have an achievement for lining the plan up perfectly, like a Mission Impossible op. A couple of lines of dialogue about you being seen as a master planner would also make players feel great.

Of course, the math has to work with the victory points. If they got 500 VP from this, that'd probably be way too much VP, and it wouldn't really matter since they were 300 points over the best result. So, I suggest the VP points gained scales down with each plan you enact. Normally knights charging would give you 10 VP and you would lose many valuable knights. However, if it is the second plan you enact, it only gives you 5 VP, if it's the third plan it gives 3VP, and if it's the fourth to last it gives 1VP. If you enact it directly after the mages or gunpowder, it gives +2 VP and lowers the number of losses among the knights. This way, enacting all the plans together in the correct sequence will give you a lot of VP still, but it won't be ten times as much as if you had only used one plan.

To make things more interesting if you miss out on the signal arrows, I suggest allowing the player to be able to enact two plans if they don't have them (as opposed to all plans). You could even allow them to attempt to perform more than two plans, but with bad consequences since the element of surprise is fully lost by the third plan (each plan you enact after the second will penalize you).

If you have the signal arrows, your generals might still be nervous about enacting multiple plans. Usually generals offer good advice, but they do tend to be cautious (which is a very good idea in war). I mean, if you perform the plans in the wrong order, throw in the cavalry after an unsuccessful gunpowder cart, send in the assassins when the mage has put the camp on alert, you could end up taking some nasty losses for little to no gain.


I don't intend this to sound like a forceful suggestion. It isn't. I thought It would describe the thought in detail in case it is helpful. Working out the dialogue to hint at this stuff could be something of a migraine; writing often is.

[Rosstin]

No, these are great suggestions! Thank you!

The math is definitely going to get complicated. From a game design perspective, I can tell it's going to be extremely difficult to "nail it" in terms of getting the numbers right. I'm just going to have to do my best and then do some observational playtesting later.

I'm still kind of hoping to turn Victory Points into troop deaths or something later, so I can make them transparent to the player. Making them into deaths might be a bit schmaltzy but it's very direct and clear. Still thinking to see if I can come up with a better noun for them, or explanation of what they are in-universe. I was thinking "percentage chance of victory as estimated by our tactician" or something, but that's even worse than troop deaths. Ah well... a "later" problem.

[Rosstin]

New art! Meet our illustrious villains, the leaders of the Sylgardian forces. (Plus a random soldier, named Fred, who just happened to be there when the portrait was taken.)

[Rosstin]

Okay, new question:

What's a typical makeup of a medieval army? I'm trying to figure out the number of troops the enemy would have in the Ch2 Blanchetaque battle. I'm sure I don't have the numbers quite right. The protagonist's army consists of about 9000 men counting all kinds. The Sylgardians (enemy), however, at the point of the Ch2 Blanchetaque battle has just come back from a sneak attack, where they had a fairly low number of men. Excellent timing, strategy, and tactics had allowed them a victory. Now, at the bridge, they've gained slightly more men well retreating but still don't have a force to match the Ortheran (hero) army.

• Sylgardian Soldiers are rank-and-file men and women. Their armor is a bit thrown together. They fight passionately to defend their homeland but aren't very well-trained or prepared for war. They lost a lot of good soldiers to Kendrick's army as well, through Kendrick's recruiting process. Unlike Orthera, Sylgard is pretty equal-opportunity; there are both men and women who fight as soldiers. In this battle, there are a few thousand soldiers.
• Sylgardian Knights are Sylgardian noblemen and women. Commander Lorimette was one of them before the war. They're skilled in mounted combat and have good armor-- typical Knights. There are only about 100 knights.
• Sylgardian Longbowmen are akin to English longbowmen. Their attacks play a big role in battles. There are 100-300 longbowmen, very highly skilled. They use whistle arrows, which make a terrible noise.

[Mr. Mask]

Glad that my suggestions are in line with reality and aren't ambitious dreams to be hammered by Zeus-like figures. Hopefully that will extend to my own design.

With the math, do it first in its simplest forms with the end results. So, rather than working out the VP for every given sequence of actions and then trying to balance it, first work out how many VP you want them to gain for the best possible way of winning. Then, work out the least VP they can possibly get with losing, and the least they can gain without losing. After doing that, it'll help give you a baseline level of balance, and something to aim for/from. It will also simplify your options and variables so you need to test less frequently and shoot in the dark less.

Estimated, projected, or expected casualties could work for names. A comment specific to how good the victory will be could also add to it. "Our estimates are of 600 casualties. It is an affordable loss, the enemy should lose scores more." Having the estimates casualties sometimes be slightly or very inaccurate could be interesting. "Your absurd plan didn't kill everything like we expected! That guy over there? He's still alive, somehow."


All they need is a cleric and they can apply for a labour card from the league of evil opposites (they can't have an opposite of Fox, he's one of a kind). Good job on the characters. That art doesn't look easy to make, and it looks very good up close (a lot of art falls apart with closeups). It'd be amusing if you had one of the soldiers using the generic soldier art as a major character.