For King or Country - The English civil war

[Yoda Twin]

looks absolutely marvelous

[AlphaDelta]

Oh hell yes, the iconic looking soldier of the English Civil war, at least to me. Looks supoib.

It's going to be really interesting to have to adapt to the dominance of gunpowder in this era, albeit with the Pike and Horsemen being scissors and rock to the gun's paper.

My original belief was that pike/musket/cavalry warfare was a paper scissors stone style of battle. Musketeers beat pikes, pikes beat cavalry, cavalry beat musketeers. I have since found out that this is not really true; pikemen did keep the musketeers safe from cavalry charges, but more importantly musketeers kept the pikemen safe from cavalry. It's incredibly similar to how the Crusader states employed a large contingent of crossbow armed infantry to defend the spear formations from Turkic horse archers.

Originally pikemen were dominant on the European fields of battle. This didn't last for long. The wheel lock pistol and the reiter carosel system that allowed pistol armed cavalry to come in close to the pikes, fire their pistols and carbines and then wheel away to reload changed the balance. Once gaps appeared in the pike formation the cavalry could charge in and slaughter the remaining men.

The pikemen were for a while defenceless against these tactics. So the pike formations started including harquebusiers to defend the formation from mounted shot and pistol armed cavalry. Later they employed musketeers that could hit cavalry far outside of pistol and carbine range. The result was that cavalry once again lost it's dominant stance of the battlefield and a new era of heavy infantry began.

It's interesting that a lot of the military leaders of the time were reading literature from the Roman and Greek era. The Dutch began to develop a system that mirrored the Roman triplex acies. Individual groups would be made consisting of pikes and muskets. Something similar to this:

M=Musketeer
P=Pikemen

MPM		MPM		MPM		MPM		MPM
	MPM		MPM		MPM		MPM

This allowed each unit to operate independantly. I hope I can simulate this kind of formation.

Cheers

[Yoda Twin]

Sounds like combats going to get really interesting

[Ahiga]

My original belief was that pike/musket/cavalry warfare was a paper scissors stone style of battle. Musketeers beat pikes, pikes beat cavalry, cavalry beat musketeers. I have since found out that this is not really true; pikemen did keep the musketeers safe from cavalry charges, but more importantly musketeers kept the pikemen safe from cavalry. It's incredibly similar to how the Crusader states employed a large contingent of crossbow armed infantry to defend the spear formations from Turkic horse archers.

Originally pikemen were dominant on the European fields of battle. This didn't last for long. The wheel lock pistol and the reiter carosel system that allowed pistol armed cavalry to come in close to the pikes, fire their pistols and carbines and then wheel away to reload changed the balance. Once gaps appeared in the pike formation the cavalry could charge in and slaughter the remaining men.

The pikemen were for a while defenceless against these tactics. So the pike formations started including harquebusiers to defend the formation from mounted shot and pistol armed cavalry. Later they employed musketeers that could hit cavalry far outside of pistol and carbine range. The result was that cavalry once again lost it's dominant stance of the battlefield and a new era of heavy infantry began.

It's interesting that a lot of the military leaders of the time were reading literature from the Roman and Greek era. The Dutch began to develop a system that mirrored the Roman triplex acies. Individual groups would be made consisting of pikes and muskets. Something similar to this:

M=Musketeer
P=Pikemen

MPM        MPM        MPM        MPM        MPM
    MPM        MPM        MPM        MPM

This allowed each unit to operate independantly. I hope I can simulate this kind of formation.

Cheers

Interesting revelation, this certainly wasn't yet the period of gunpowder supremacy and cavalry seem to have wanted to hold onto the throne of the battlefield a little while longer. That reminds me of a question I'd have - What if any military difference is there between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists? Does one have better cavalry and the other better musketeers? Or was it really neck and neck?

[AlphaDelta]

That reminds me of a question I'd have - What if any military difference is there between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists? Does one have better cavalry and the other better musketeers? Or was it really neck and neck?

Practically nothing. Parliament fielded a marginally greater number of heavily armoured cuirassiers. Infantry was much the same on either side. I think it generally came down to the quality of the regiment, how well it was trained, what experience it had, how it was equipped and most importantly, who led it.

I haven't been working on units tonight, instead I started to produce a map:



Excuse the crapness of the coastlines and the estuaries. I only started working on this tonight and it's my first attempt at Total war mapping.

Cheers

[mastaace]

the guy is just crazy. Seriously! i have never seen anybody combining quality and quantity in such speed.

respect

[Comrade the Colonel]

Nice job, continue the good work

[Yoda Twin]

Sweet first map AD, may I ask which part of England this is?

[IVIarkI2I]

Great mod very nice models and speed progress just Awesome

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Looks like to be a pretty good sized map, AD.

@ Yoda Twin, it's that peninsula off the southwest..no idea what it's called.

[Der Angelsachse]

Sweet first map AD, may I ask which part of England this is?

Well I spy Plymouth and Taunton, so that's Devon part of the West Country.

[mastaace]

yeah, cornwall

[AlphaDelta]

Thanks. The map is slowly coming along. The regions map is finished and all major rivers have been placed. The ground types map is about 80% finished. The next major job will be to configure all of the settlements.



This is the regions map. The map in the top right is England from vanilla med 2.

Cheers

[AlphaDelta]

Just a quick status update:

All settlements are now placed on the map and divided between the two factions.
GrnEyedDvl's 12 turns per year script has now been implemented.
The ground types map is closer to completion
Lots of headaches have come and gone.

Cheers

Cromwell stands guard over london.



Ignore the flags of course.

[Der Angelsachse]

Amazing general model.

God i'm getting really excited about this. You sir, are a genius! Thanks a lot for doing this.

[AlphaDelta]

Thanks again. If anyone wants to lend a hand but feels they dont know how, I have a request.

Could someone find and post pictures of standards/banners/flags for Parliament, Charles I, Cromwell, Essex, fairfax and any other leader possible. It would be a great help.

Cheers

[Der Angelsachse]

That I can do

Collection of Royalist Foot regiments
http://tmg110.tripod.com/british9.htm

Prince Rupert's Blew Coates
Colonel's standard

Lt Colonel John Russell's standard

Sgt Major's standard


Parliament Foot
http://tmg110.tripod.com/british8.htm

Update:

Earl of Essex Regiment of Foot
http://www.warflag.com/flags/ecw/essex_essex2.shtml

Colonel Edward Aldrich's Regiment of Foot
http://www.warflag.com/flags/ecw/essex_aldrich.shtml

I'm sure there are more out there, i'll keep looking.

[B. Ward]

Man, I wish I could work at your speed AD. You are truly an amazing modder. Always a pleasure to see your work. I'll give you more rep when I'm able to.

[Comrade the Colonel]

nice progress! You are fast! At this rate the mod would probably be released very soon hopefully

[~Paine~]

Looks brilliant so far. Keep up the good work!