Campaign Backlog

Campaign battle set in Spain

I aim to complete one campaign move each week.   And over the previous six years I have pretty well achieved that timetable, with breaks for holidays.

However this week I have had to impose a campaign pause in order to clear a backlog of battles to be wargamed.   It is only the second time that I can remember having to do so.

The aim of the campaign is to provide battles to wargame.  I have designed it to do so, without causing this type of problem.   However the direction of the campaign is in the hands of the twelve commanders and they decide where and when battles will be fought.

I have recently made drastic changes to the campaign, which has resulted in this backlog.

First I changed the tactical map so that the towns were further apart north to south.   This makes command and control more difficult, but it also is more likely to provide more smaller battles.

Second I changed the victory conditions for each campaign phase.  Previously a commander had to take, and hold, the city in the centre of the map.  But he also had to defeat the enemy army.   This resulted in the more cautious commanders taking a long time to concentrate their army and then moving very slowly to battle.

The new victory conditions are to take and hold the city for five campaign days.   This rewards the more aggressive player who makes a dash for the city.  It also makes it dangerous to take too long to prepare the attack.   Because if it then fails there is not time for a long recovery and to plan a second attack.

I have also set the number of days for each campaign phase to ten, with the option to extend it to twelve.   Previously there was no limit.

The result is a spate of battles to be wargamed.   And because four of the six campaign phases started at the same time, the initial battles all happen on the same day.

All six campaign phases run to the same timetable.   It is possible to have one or two days between the six phases, but no more than that.   The campaign diary, which includes daily updates on each campaign phase, is published three days after completion of that campaign day.   This ensures that by the time the detailed map is published on the diary blog the information will be three days late.   But it does mean that all six phases have to work to the same timetable.

Still, better to have too many battles to wargame than none at all.

Campaign Map of Spain

Completed the strategic map of Spain, and started working on the map of France.

Although very useful for the campaign, I am not very happy with the coast outline.
I am looking at  ways of important an outline map of Europe and showing the names of the major campaign cities.   It would only be used on the blog, as the squares are necessary for the campaign.

Campaign Map of Germany

This week I completed the strategic map of Germany.

Each square on this map is both one days march (if on a road) and a wargames table.

So there are nine squares on this map to one square on the grand strategic map of Europe which was the subject of last week’s blog.   The centre square is the city which would be the campaign objective.   Each of the other eight squares would have a town.   All of these towns are shown on the campaign master map, but would make the map look too cluttered on the blog.

Again this is a purely practical map.   It is not designed to look pretty, nor indeed to look much like Germany.  As in the map of Europe, this map is produced for campaign movement.   Large areas of Germany have been left out.   The coast outline is similar to the actual coastline, but again last sections have been left out.

The cities are more or less in relation to each other.   The towns (not shown on this map) are correct, in relation to the city they surround.

Rivers are reasonably correct, but again have been altered to suit the overall concept of the map.

Hills are designed to make the campaign terrain more interesting, rather than to show actual terrain.

The project for next week is the strategic map of Spain.

Campaign Map of Europe

My latest project is to make new maps for the campaign.

Map making has never been my strongest ability, though using Profantasy to produce the maps helps.   I have always used a AA Road Atlas of Europe to plan my maps.   I drew a grid over the maps each square representing one days march.   This was then the basis for all the subsequent maps.

However the maps themselves had to be hand drawn, using Profantasy.  And I have always been poor at drawing.  I am ok with the straight lines, but lack any artistic skills at all.

So distances on my existing maps are more or less correct.   This leaves large areas not suitable for campaigning, and thus unnecessary for a campaign map.

So I am now making maps designed for the campaign. 

The map above is the grand strategic map for the campaign.   Each square is a campaign area. 

In the campaign each square will provide a mini campaign, similar in scope to the Waterloo campaign.

The map is not very pretty, but it is very practical.

Wargames Building Project

Having completed the windmills for Spain and Portugal we wanted one to feature in our battles set in Germany.

Jan was not sure what to use for the sails.   There are no model or hobby shops here in our part of Spain, but we did visit a lot of hardware and material shops looking for inspiration.  She finally settled on this hessian material.   It looks much better than I thought it would.

Jan makes the buildings, I paint them.   I am not very artistic, and often find wood difficult.   So I was apprehensive how a wooden windmill would look.   I must confess I am quite pleased with the final outcome.