[1648 AAR] Thirty Years' War

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Thirty Years' War

This is only going to be a preview or review of the new mod, "1648 - Dreissig Jahre Krieg" (or Dreissigjaehrige Krieg), which was released at Christmas. I confess, I will only be updating irregularly. As the mod covers events in the same period as my Times full of Distemper AAR, even overlapping with many of my historical characters, it was tempting to try out a few campaigns and read about the war. It was also tempting to see what's new in the sense that Gigantus, and possibly others involved in the mod, had also made For King and Country. Finally it might be interesting for others to get a sneak preview, considering the mod is currently only available in German. I will not give too much away. In any case, there seem to be sweeping changes underway, so when the mod is finally released in English, it may be very different.

The mod, like For King and Country, is a total conversion of M2TW for the period of pike-and-shot warfare. Unfortunately there are no pike and shot formations available for the computer player yet, which in my view is the main significant defect. Having said that, pike-and-shot formations do not work so well even in FKoC because of the brainless battle AI, even after rescripting it to death. The 1648 battle AI is currently being worked over and there is also much more work in progress. Short campaigns are not yet implemented, though you can script the victory conditions yourself, which I discovered to be a great thing, as you can take the campaign as far as you want. The modding team are planning a first, to place cannons on walls, which sounds exciting. They have implemented I believe for the first time grape-shot for M2TW cannons and the mortars produce some amazing (and amazingly devastating) pyrotechnics. For this release, the modding team incorporated several spawned historical battles (which are not yet fully implemented in the campaign script but work and are very immersive) and some other unexpected events, many of which are also a first and make this an incredible mod. It is clear a stupendous amount of work has gone into it, considering it costs nothing to play it, but for now one needs to know some German.

In the last couple of months I started out three campaigns for about 30-50 turns. Wuerttemberg was quiet and managed to stay out of the way of trouble. It is an unusual campaign considering that you start with only two settlements and that the two regions involved are vast (I am not sure I ever got to the end of one of them). Wuerttemberg proper is packed with castles, which is bound to make it impregnable, if you can manage to get through the early part of the campaign.

The Netherlands (Utrecht Union) is probably the most rewarding campaign imaginable. The faction starts with the most settlements for any Protestant faction and controls the Rhine and the North Sea coast. It was indeed the main real winner in this war, emerging as the dominant economic power in Europe and the campaign seemed to go according to plan in that same direction. War-wise the Dutch in the 50 turns of this campaign only got some trouble from the Spanish, who for the most part skulked away, even though they had large armies and could have been more aggressive.

I got slightly further with a third campaign, with the Pfalzgraftschaft-am-Rhein faction (Rhine Palatinate), that was at the time ruled by Frederic V, the father of Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, their mother Countess Elizabeth being a sister of Charles I of England. Moreover, William Waller and Ralph Hopton (from my FKoC AAR) served once together in her Lifeguard. Not least, it was the faction that caused this war, and it is centrally located, and so clearly an interesting faction to play. I will post a small number of updates, covering this short campaign, which has a goal of capturing a total of 30 settlements out of the 198 available on the map. This is possible without interfering too much with most other factions, and therefore possibly historically conservative. I hope one day to have the time to write a proper AAR using this mod.


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[MT2W FKoC AAR] Times full of Distemper
Reviewed by robinzx at the Critic's Quill, Issue 31

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Building up involves many unusual new types of buildings that can be built in any settlement, i.e. castles are like in Brittania only as forts. You can build military installations anywhere, just as with buildings that improve the trade, tax income and order of settlements. Health is also important as the wars caused continual outbreaks of the plague and for this reason there are buildings imrpoving the health of a settlement. There are similarities with FKoC in all these respects, although the buldings are different. Income is on the comfortable side, at least for the easier levels, which apparently might change after the next patch. This, however, makes all factions wealthy, which is ok as it means all factions are on an equal footing and able to build decent armies, if only the game machine had a better AI to do that.

So the modding team came up with what I thought was a brilliant solution: to use the campaign script to spawn decent armies! And what armies are better to spawn than hordes themselves? I had my first experience of one after taking Trier, a rebel settlement. The event spawned a horde and I thought I was going to lose Trier next turn – but the horde moved off east, then fell off the radar till they turned up outside one of my castles. The castle, being garrisoned by a single company of free men, was quickly lost but it costed the Trier horde two of their generals, courtesy of the suicidal battle AI. The horde, however, abandoned the castle and turned back west to Trabach, a rebel settlement, laying siege to it. As they were on the borders of the Palatinate, and the capital Heidelberg was only a few turns away, alarms rang throughout our lands and no cash was spared in raising an army that was taken by Kurprinz Volker to a position that blocked the road to Heidelbebrg, the faction capital, to protect it from an attack.Trabach finally fell to the Trier faction leader, Bischof Philipp Christoph, and one stack stayed in it, though it went rebel. The other two, rather than head for Heidelberg, which was what I had been expecting, turned south and went through a mountain pass and a forest in the direction of Kaiserslautern, the wealthiest and most prized settlement in Rhineland. The Palatinate armies hurried that way but what with the forests in the way and the speed the enemy moved, they were hopelessly out of range when the Trier army knocked on the doors of Kaiserslautern. These were the walls of Rockenhausen, the last castle before the city. Fortunately, the garrison had been strengthened in the eleventh hour by militia from other nearby castles, totalling 1300 men. But the castle had no heavy swordsmen and no pikemen, just halberdier militia of different sorts and a company of Italian pistoliers. By comparison, Bischoff Phlipp Christoph, the Trier faction leader, had brought with him elite pikemen, heavy two-handed swordsmen, musketeers and a large train of artillery, and still had more than double the numbers of the castle garrison in men. Of course Rockenhausen was doomed.

Trier attacked Rockenhausen simultaneously with both armies in the night. The walls were completely demolished by their artillery and the garrison succumbed after a very bloody fight, where the Rhineland peasants sold their skin dearly. Trier lost all their remaining generals, including their faction leader, the Bishop of Trier, and 400 men, among them much elite cavalry and even many of the elite Trier Guards. Others appear to have deserted. At that point, being left without generals, those who did not desert went rebel and even abandoned Rockenhausen. They settled down in the nearby fields and the governor of Kaiserslautern, Sigmund von Hoogstraten, advanced with part of the Kaiserslautern garrison and sneaked into the abandoned castle some mercenaries. Johann II von Pfalz-Zweibruecken in the meantime had taken Trabach and was heading to Kaiserslautern in all speed. From Heidelberg and Mainz (which has fallen to the Rhine Palatinate faction) were coming further armies under Kurprinz Volker and Karl Ludwig von der Pfalz, the two princes. Whatever was left of the Trier army found now the tables turned against them and, vastly outnumbered, were destroyed in battle. And that was how Kaiserslautern was saved, and with it perhaps the campaign.

That was the most dangerous moment of the campaign. But there was danger elsewhere as well. The Rhine Palatinate had lands also in the region of Amberg in Bavaria. While the faction leader Pfalzgraff Friedrich V and his main general Christian Prince of Anhalt, were rushing over from Bohemia (a land almost as vast and as empty as Siberia), the Bavarians made several incursions towards Amberg with armies of considerble quality. These were delayed by the three generals in the region and primarily by Christian von Affenstein (Christian of the Monkey Stone). He was not the only general with a funny name. He was upped one in that regard by Dodo von Innhausen und Knyphausen, Dodo of the Inns and Pubs, a real historical character whose dominions were actually called that – Inns and Pubs. At first I thought it was a joke by the 1648 modding team but no. Probably the Count’s family were very good humoured. Dodo of the Inns and Pubs had taken Hildesheim, a rebel settlement in the North of Germany, and there he languished making a racket in the world of silver mining and enjoying the better things in life, being surrounded by our steadfast and completely trustworthy Protestant allies.

But Christian von Affenstein was much less fortunate, being instead constantly surrounded by large Bavarian armies and having no reprieve from war.

He took, lost and retook Ingolstadt, then was attacked by two large Bavarian armies simultaneously. He retreated but on their turn the Bavarian armies attacked again, both of them at once. The result was a massacre. Despite the quality of Christian von Affenstein’s army, most of it was lost in the battle. The Bavarians were turned back in subsequent battles but that was not the end of the Bavarian tide.

At last Pfalzgraff Friedrich, our great leader, and Christian von Anhalt, the Palatinate army marshal, arrived with their largish and good quality army from Bohemia, reversing the trend. First they captured the castle of Furth in Wald in a surprise attack. Then they defeated a Bavarian army that had ventured near Amberg, only to find it too heavily garrisoned.

Next they turned south and took Deggendorf castle, then they headed for the Bavarian town of Zwiesel, where battle was joined outside its walls. The Bavarians attacked with three stacks of religious fanatics and endless trains of suppply wagons that as the Rhineland artillery hit them went amok and started plowing across the battlelines. There was utter chaos, made all the more chaotic by the mindless charging of the religious fanatics this way and that and every so often into the points of our pikes. The enemy general was taken prisoner but ransom was refused. So the Bavarians were left finally without a general north of the Danube and at last the situation was reversed. Soon they lost their remaining footholds on that side of the river.

Bavaria was finally on the defense and Count Tilly failed to save Regensburg. He was skinned alive after the city fell, in virtual revenge for the horrors of Magdeburg. Indeed the situation was reversed to such an extent that the Palatinate army crossed the Danube with the only opposition being the Bavarian ships guarding the river. Bavaria seemed defenseless and several castles were abandoned and taken without a fight. Finally, a request for a truce arrived. I considered it – what would you do at this point – but I rejected it, because I was thinking I wanted to finish this campaign and Bavaria was practically the only enemy. Most other factions were either neutral or allies, thanks to the unceasing efforts of our very able diplomats. Of the three enemies, the Palatinate armies only took empty castles from the Hapsburgs, so the only real enemies were Bavaria and the Catholic League and there were very few remaining settlements accessible besides Munich. There was also the risk that, if you make peace with the enemy, your own friends may abandon you. And you may still have to face the same enemy when the truce expires. Last but not least, my knowledge of German is not at a level adequate for having complicated message exchanges on the terms of a truce or a treaty. The response from the Bavarians was “Remember it was your decision. You may come to regret it”. Indeed.

Within a turn, the Bavarian economy shot to 1 million gulden! A huge army of several stacks was spawned outside Munich and the battle hardened and erstwhile confident Christian von Affenstein had to retreat in great haste to save his skin.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Christian von Affenstein locked himself in the castle of Vatterstetten as spies were sent forth to ascertain the strength of the Bavarian armies. Panic bells rang across our lands and several generals marched into Bavaria: Christian von Anhalt marched all the way back from Salzburg in Austria with most of his army. Two others Christoffel von Ostfriessland and Ferdinand von Rummel, an old hand that had helped keep the Bavarian invasion at bay in 1622, raised reinforcements and rashed them to Vatterstetten to save Christian von Affenstein. But although two large armies appeared once before the castle, Vatterstetten was never besieged. Indeed, what had seemed like a mighty Bavarian force turned out to be something of a disappointment. Our spies worked out that the computer player had managed little more with that one million than to set up a pilgrimage. Those several stacks were not an army but swarms of pilgrims accompanied by supply wagons. There were also no generals among them. At this point in the campaign I had decided that pilgrims are far too battleworthy so I nerfed them (I also nerfed the mortars by the way, by decreasing their range). Christian von Affenstein hired some mercenary swordsmen and sent them to see the pilgrims on their way to the Holly Lands, letting them know there was an army coming to lay siege on Munich and they need to disperse or move on. Which I understand was accomplished, hopefully without the shedding of a single drop of virtual blood, if the religious folk had ears to listen.

All is ready for the siege of Munich



Siege of Munich


Rebel Bavarians outside Dachau, after the fall of Munich


Death to the rebels.


The end to the Bavarian rebellion.

Rebel former Bavarian ships blocking the Danube. The Rhine Palatinate ships on the right will take care of opening the river for commerce.

The Bavarians did little other than build some more ships with the extra cash. Yet the Danube had been crossed half a year ago. There was hardly any point in building ships to protect Munich when the Rhine Palatinate armies were at the gates and the Bavarians had no real land army at hand. They obviously got their recruiting priorities in a twist. Besides, that one million gulden stayed in the bank and their remaining armies stayed away from Munich, in the area of Dachau. No decent pike and shot armies ever turned up - and those pitiful armies that did, consisted mainly of peasants and were brushed aside. So Munich was besieged in the summer of 1623 and the Bavarians finally became first rebels and then good Protestants. This upset their allies and even the Swiss, who were Protestants themselves, so that the Pfalzgrafschaft am Rhein diplomats had to stay on their toes and keep them happy, because with that victory some kind of Total Peace had descended upon Germany. There were minor conflicts elsewhere, almost everyone seemed to be at war with someone, but there were no changes in the map one could see within Germany at least. This I surmised by spending much the Rhine Palatinate state income on getting map information from our various allies and friendly neutrals (practically everyone that is).

It would have been possible at this stage to buy four settlements from our allies and finish the campaign but it would have been an inglorious end.

At that point I lifted the fog of war to see if indeed peace had decended everywhere and that proved how wrong I was. The French had completely overrun all Habsburg dominions on the side of France, that I knew already. But what was shocking was that the Ottomans, horror of horrors, had practically overrun most of Austria. Their armies had reached the Alps.

Black is the Rhine Palatinate, orange is the Protestant Union, reddish brown at the bottom are the Swiss, light grey the Habsburg faction (Austria-Spain), Blue is France and bright red at the bottom righthand corner is Turkey. Ottoman armies were invading all neighbouring grey regions. November 1623.

The Austrians only possessed two regions and seemed to have lost Vienna to the Turks. There was no Austrian army in sight other than a couple of token garrisons. I doubted that the Kaiser was still alive. Indeed an announcement was made that Pfalzgraf Friedrich V would become Kaiser, if he so wished, and that everything was ready in Frankfurt for his enrthronement. Being a noble lord, he resolved to be enthroned in Vienna, because the Ottomans’ insult could not stand in the face of Christendom.

With the capture of Munich, the treasury had swollen with gulden (though not one million sadly, not sure where that money went). There was nevertheless enough to raise strong garrisons to avoid further misadventures such as that with Trier. Even better, with the heartlands thus secured, there was still enough money to raise an 8000 strong army to take revenge on the Turks.

Overall situation



Military strength

The problem, indeed was not the money but the distances. It took about a year to get all the required generals to Salzburg and to build up Salzburg to the point where it could become a military base. Then it took that army another year almost to get halfway through the Alps. There our spies had identified a strong Turkish army, four stacks of brainwashed former Christian children and some Arab horsemen, all with a few chevrons of experience. Judging their strength to about 3000, the Rhine Palatinate army of 8000 seemed adequate. It was headed of course by Christian von Anhalt, with the cavalry under the newly appointed General of the Knights, Christian von Affenstein, and the artillery under Jan von Freystadt. A few other generals commanded the very numerous reserves. Perhaps this army was larger than necessary but the Rhine Palatinate had no military bases in Austria and no opportunity to replenish any losses. The Turkish cavalry was also highly vaunted, so our great leader could take no risks.

It was Christmas 1624. The Ottomans were in for a surprise.

A little Christmas present for the Ottomans.

[Posantio of Umbria]

Very cool to see an AAR from the 1648 mod! Have some rep

I'm looking forward to read about your scuffle with the Ottomans

I like the mod, had a go with the Utrecht Union for 50 odd turns until a persistent CTD got in my way. I agree with you on the AI use of Pike and shot to be somewhat underwhelming and I'm glad to hear that it's being attended to by the mod-team. However, I think you could be mistaken about 1648 being the first mod to have grapeshot for cannon, Call of Warhammer is the first to have that AFAIK.

[Radzeer]

That's a mod I know little about, so I will follow this story. Good luck!

[Schrödinger]

Kick-ass screenshots and an interesting historical period, I shall be following keep up the detailed writing too

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Very cool to see an AAR from the 1648 mod! Have some rep

I'm looking forward to read about your scuffle with the Ottomans

I like the mod, had a go with the Utrecht Union for 50 odd turns until a persistent CTD got in my way. I agree with you on the AI use of Pike and shot to be somewhat underwhelming and I'm glad to hear that it's being attended to by the mod-team. However, I think you could be mistaken about 1648 being the first mod to have grapeshot for cannon, Call of Warhammer is the first to have that AFAIK.

It's probably only going to be 2-3 more posts. Just fleeting notes about the campaign and gameplay. I have not time for another major AAR at the moment. Besides the mod is still suffering from some bugs. Yes, the Utrecht campaign was impossible to continue beyond turn 50 because of a CTD. It was strange. There is nothing on the campaign script for turn 50. Thanks for noticing my grapeshot error, apologies to the Call of Warhammer people - maybe they were the first to invent M2TW grapeshot.

Kick-ass screenshots and an interesting historical period, I shall be following keep up the detailed writing too

Thanks for your kind comments. I've been sucked into this period when not expecting it - and with a big project in my hands (my other AAR). But it's fun discovering new stuff.

That's a mod I know little about, so I will follow this story. Good luck!

Thanks Radzeer. It will be short story.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Great start Looking forward more

Can't wait to try out this mod (waiting for the English version )

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

O Ye Olde thick Pancake
The World shall end in May.

So it was announced - that the end of the world was near. That is inconvenient. Indeed it turned out there was a bug in the campaign script at turn 100 that would make the Rhine Palatinate campaign to end. There was no save game compatible fix, so time was of the essence if our great leader was to be crowned emperor in Vienna.

Before I go ahead with more of the campaign, I will go over a couple of hacks, fixes and tweaks you may fancy. Gigantus has come up with a solution to the Rhine Palatinate campaign currently ending on turn 100, which he posted in the appropriate TWC thread (post #2054). You would need to add those lines in the campaign script before you start a campaign.

The infinitely revolving cursor, which very rarely happens, is probably a memory problem and can be solved by switching over to another program doing some work, maybe saving some stuff, then come back. With a bit of luck the cursor will have stopped revolving. It is best to keep your contruction cues short, preferably no more than 3 items on cue, to avoid this problem.

The historical battles will cause your campaign to crash, so save the campaign before you play them, and afterwards go back to the saved version and refuse to play them on the battlefield. Or if you would not be interested in checking out those nice battles, just refuse straight up.

Rebel units that were once members of a faction, rather than spawned, cause battles to crash, as do sometimes enemy defending units entering the area of walls in sieges. You can autoresolve.

You may have noticed that of the four videoclips, the three show defeats. Either the campaign AI did everything it could to avoid the likelihood of unfavourable battles or was defeated too often too unceremoniously on the battlefield, or both. The battle AI is a greater pain than usual because it was not even made to fight pike and shot formations. You would think as it is so hopeless it should not make a difference if it encountered pike and shot formations or an army of sheep - but it turned out it is actually possible for the AI to underperform its usual self!

See some videos I made with the medieval AI pitted against pike and shot formations here #34, here #36 and here #37.

Creative Assembly have a function to group units on the battlefield but it is not clear if and how the AI uses it. They also have a function for units to guard their ground but again the AI does not seem to use that. If only ways could be found for the AI to use these two commands, some bad AI behaviour could be improved. I hope someone at Creative Assembly could spend a couple of days going over the code. Maybe it is not too hard to work it out. I would pay the salary for a couple of days for someone to do that. Such knowledge would make pike and shot warfare possible – and not only. Imagine stopping the computer player from stupidly re-arranging his units at the start of the battle only to come back to the original arrangement. AI generals too, by staying at the rear of their army, the way they were set up, would have a better chance of surviving the battle – as long as they do not attack when all has been lost. The musketeers run off way ahead of their pikemen. And the campaign AI also has its faults, being as it is unable to build up large sized well balanced armies with all the extra cash it gets and to keep the best generals out of cities at risk of being besieged. Much of the code is there, it just needs some additional few lines, some checks here and there and a few commands that are or should be already available in the original code.

Fanatics and mortars are too effective and one can easily win battles with them rather than with pike and shot units. Fanatics (including Eiferer) are effectively a superior unit to many (all?) shot units. You can nerf the fanatics by decreasing their morale and charge bonuses. You can nerf the mortars by decreasing their range from 300 to 200 or 150, which is more realistic. Maybe also decrease their ammunition from 30 to 15 or less.

After many tests I have tweaked some other numbers in the EDU to bring some balance to the battles. I tested these tweaks in the battles that will follow -I played them with and without the tweaks and the battles were harder with the tweaks. You may be interested – I made pikemen and musketeers move at the same speed by adding a

move_speed_mod 0.9

line in the export_describe_unit file for all of them above the “formation” entry. This tends to stop them from becoming hopelessly separated. Muskets at that time were almost as heavy as pikes anyway (there are many examples at the Sigmaringen castle museum in Germany). I also increased the range of muskets by 20 m for those that were between 60-70 m. These two changes counterbalance the might of the artillery.

To help the AI, change the code for the artillery so that it is placed in front rather than behind the infantry. As we know, cannon will not fire if there are certain friendly units in the way. That is great, however, not if the AI cannot bring their artillery in front of their infantry. In any case, the AI musketeers charge ahead like madmen so what is the worry with placing the artillery further ahead?

Where it says
;; put the artillery and handlers behind everyone

for the normal and easy triple line formations, you can instead use this code in the descr_formations_ai

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

begin_block 19
unit_type handler 1.0
unit_type siege 1.0
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 3 0.0 15.0
inter_unit_spacing 1.0
priority 1.0
end_block

;;; special general block
begin_block 20
min_units 1
max_units 1
unit_type general_unit 1.0
unit_density close
block_formation line
block_relative_pos 19 0 -40.0
inter_unit_spacing 1.0
priority 1.0
end_block

main_line 5

end_formation

It puts artillery at the front of the army and the general behind and so in principle out of harm’s way and covering the artillery, though in reality the battle AI has its way of screwing up everything.

You can also tweak the battle AI a bit, if you are so inclined. If you make the cavalry have a higher melee attack value vs cavalry than vs pikemen (85 or higher vs cavalry, 1 vs spearmen), it will make it avoid pikemen and attack your cavalry whenever it has the choice. It is more realistic and more interesting that way.

Most Ottoman units are not ready in one way or another. This was clearly a project that had only started when the mod was publicly released last Christmas. For this reason they are not available for custom battles. There are only a few functional Ottoman skins, all from vanilla. The campaign script only uses the few units that function with one exception: the Peyk Turkish units seem unable to move on the battlefield and can cause my computer to crash. It seems to be caused by their secondary weapon. You can replace their code with this one in export_descr_unit

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

type Peyk
dictionary Peyk ; Halberd Militia
category infantry
class heavy
voice_type Heavy
banner faction main_infantry
banner holy crusade
soldier ME_Halberd_Militia, 48, 0, 1.2
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, free_upkeep_unit, no_custom
formation 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 7, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, axe, 25, 1
;stat_pri_ex 0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr ap, spear_bonus_4
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1
;stat_sec_ex 0, 0, 0
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 5, 3, 0, metal
;stat_armour_ex 5, 7, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 1
stat_ground 1, 1, 0, -1
stat_mental 5, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 510, 150, 75, 55, 510, 4, 120
armour_ug_levels 2, 3
armour_ug_models ME_Halberd_Militia, ME_Halberd_Militia_ug1
ownership slave, osmanen
era 0 osmanen
era 1 osmanen
era 2 osmanen
;unit_info 7, 0, 1
recruit_priority_offset 0

If you like to have many different faces for your priests, merchants and diplomats (or even for your generals), Gigantus has published recently a tutorial: Creating a World – Character portraits, creation and use. Any additional portraits should be made before the start of the campaign, otherwise they cannot be used. Some additional portraits partially following this guide, usable but looking a bit strange in battles, are in my post #2495.

An excellent online history of the Thirty Years War in English.

That’s all for now as far as little tweaks and fixes go. I may add to this post anything else relevant I remember.

[Robin de Bodemloze]

Interesting AAR. Will be following - I wish I knew what the German said though

[Schrödinger]

THE END OF THE WORLD APPROACHES (I think)

A star will fall to the earth, like first the star in the firmament (a comet?) like that which fell first at the birth of Christ and now threatens to fall on us. Ye sinners! Repent the sinful life. Judgement Day is approaching and everyone on Earth will wail, lament and gnash their teeth.

Every few decades appears one of the so-called big comets, visible in the sky through our journey of the solar system. Religious men trumpet their version, or commit like the 1995 Mass Suicide (not sure what this is about). But with envy we enlightened men must concede that religious fanatics have a simpler worldview and they cannot deal with problem solving - God will suffice for them.

__________

I have paraphrased a bit there, German isn't good for literal translations and anyone with a better grasp of the language feel free to correct me...

Geoffrey, although that update was a bit technical and I have never played a pike-and-shot mod, I can see that it seems like headway is being made with getting the medieval AI to work, which is very impressive indeed, for it is a stubborn beast.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

The End of the World!

Great to see some 'technical' aspects of this mod

Keep it up

[Gigantus]

I am not sure, but I think the grape shot thingy is from here. Not sure if CoW had it before that.The tutorial is a result from the beginning of work on 1648 and has been released at that time.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Great start Looking forward more

Can't wait to try out this mod (waiting for the English version )

The language barrier can be a problem especially I think in selecting construction projects. But if you automanage everything, it may be playable without a knowledge of German.

Interesting AAR. Will be following - I wish I knew what the German said though

Sometimes I also wish the same thing.

THE END OF THE WORLD APPROACHES (I think)

A star will fall to the earth, like first the star in the firmament (a comet?) like that which fell first at the birth of Christ and now threatens to fall on us. Ye sinners! Repent the sinful life. Judgement Day is approaching and everyone on Earth will wail, lament and gnash their teeth.

Every few decades appears one of the so-called big comets, visible in the sky through our journey of the solar system. Religious men trumpet their version, or commit like the 1995 Mass Suicide (not sure what this is about). But with envy we enlightened men must concede that religious fanatics have a simpler worldview and they cannot deal with problem solving - God will suffice for them.

__________

I have paraphrased a bit there, German isn't good for literal translations and anyone with a better grasp of the language feel free to correct me...

Geoffrey, although that update was a bit technical and I have never played a pike-and-shot mod, I can see that it seems like headway is being made with getting the medieval AI to work, which is very impressive indeed, for it is a stubborn beast.

That was an excellent translation, thanks to Schroedinger. As for the battle AI, I wish I could say that headway is being made. Perhaps the historical Battle of Hastings has the key. It is a very difficult battle and that correlates with the battle AI not being used. However, so far, I have not managed to get some similar effect with the "firm" command. Other changes are difficult to make without the game crashing during startup.

The End of the World!
Great to see some 'technical' aspects of this mod
Keep it up

There are now and then some depressing news, that wine was not good this year or that there were coastal floods. The End of the World, however, can really mess things up.

I am not sure, but I think the grape shot thingy is from here. Not sure if CoW had it before that.The tutorial is a result from the beginning of work on 1648 and has been released at that time.

So credit for the grape shot should go to Gigantus I'd say. There are actually a few more "firsts" in this game, one of them being the elections of a new Kaiser, which is not faction-dependent. And I am coming next straight onto that subject.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

When the army of the Rhine Palatinate marched into Frankfurt to restore order after it had been ransacked by a rebel army, a glorious announcement had been made that

“Our noble lord had now the throne of Charlemagne and the key to the city of Frankfurt in his hand. A new banner shall be raised, the banner of the Empire and a new emperor will sit on the German throne. The god Mars is smiling as a new phoenix rises from the embers of the old world.”

Now one should think that meant our great leader would be crowned emperor, having in his possession not only the throne of Charlemagne but also the imperial sceptre.

But he was a wise leader and on introspection asked his advisers to pour over the old codices and find out the rules about who can be elected an emperor. Indeed it turned out after much reading of the code that though our noble leader had the key to the German throne, there were seven doors leading to the throne room and so he needed not one but seven keys. Of which, the good news was, that we had in our possession already three, the bad news being that we therefore needed the other four. And the cities that had those keys refused to sell them to our diplomats for all the money in the world. Our Protestant allies must have obviously heard that the world was coming to an end and for good measure decided that money meant nothing compared to the risky consequences of being excommunicated by the Pope at such an importune time. So our great leader threw down his golden crown and decided he would cast all his four elector votes (the RhinePalatinate, the Bishopric of Trier, the Mainz and Bavarian votes that he now possessed) in favour of the current emperor Maximilian of Habsburg, who as it turned out, was still alive and holed up with the pitiful remnants of his army in a nameless town in Moravia. It makes little sense, but these were strange times indeed.

Battle of Villach

Besides, why should one worry about an earthly kingdom when the Kingdom of Heaven was almost upon us? So our army marshal, Christian von Anhalt, poured his energies on the real issue at hand and marched onward and upward through the Alps and upon the Ottomans.

Their general Hasan Deringli must have gotten a bit of a rude awakening the day when he came out of his tent to see our 8000-strong army camped all around him. The Ottomans had been caught napping with their army scattered across the Alps from Villach to Bleiburg and beyond. Hasan Deringli had the advance guard and promptly retreated - but not fast enough. Christian von Anhalt fell upon him with Jan von Freystadt commanding the reserves and the General of the Knights Christian von Affenstein blocking the Turks’ retreat. Our Army Marshal deployed his men in his usual style of two strong tertios on either side of the field artillery with mortars providing back up support. With the additional artillery under von Freystedt, and with the Turks lacking entirely in artillery, this was going to be an unstoppable onslaught. Yet, the Turks rather than flee as fast as their legs would carry them, marched against our army. They must have heard that the world was coming to the end and must have been worrying about getting stuck in a long cue at the Gates of Paradise. Their strategic plan involved an uncoordinated frontal attack over open ground against our solid tertios supported by 45 artillery pieces.

Whatever the reason behind such a plan, the time of reckoning had come and it remained to be seen just how dangerous the highly vaunted Turkish cavalry was.

The Turkish horsemen indeed made it through that wall of fire to our pike formations and there they perished.

As for their footsoldiers, they were blown quickly to Kingdom Come by our cannon. It was a one-sided battle, if there ever was one, and the surprising thing was that there were casualties among our men. But not only did the Turks have a uniform three copper chevrons of experience, their musketeers proved superior to ours in being able to spread out to minimise the impact of our cannon and musket fire. The Turkish cavalry, however, was the main cause for worry. They were much faster than any of our cavalry and had they skirmishers, they could have become a headache. But as they had only lancers and we had plenty of pikemen, victory was assured.

The great news travelled around the world and the French joined everyone else in drinking to the health of our great leader, even while they were the only allies the Ottomans had.

And just in case this might sound strange, our diplomats had given them warning of the news to come, and subsidised the merry-making.

Battle of Klagenfurt

Our spies had identified a second Ottoman army near Klagenfurt. They had camped there for several months, uninterested in the town, spending their time in idle pursuits, mainly chasing sheep as they were out of provisions - and admiring the scenery.

As for their army magician, he was too busy searching for food to warn his general that the Germans were almost upon his army.

Christian von Affenstein fell quickly upon the Ottomans with the Rhine Palatinate cavalry.

The Otttoman cavalry had not even realised that they were being confronted by an enemy army until they were actually charged - and were quickly routed. But the Turks had a card up their sleeve – a clever strategy that involved the Peyk pikemen causing the battle to crash whenever our cavalry came near them. So until a remedy could be found to their cunning trick, Christian von Affenstein had to stay out of the action so that our artillery could deal death upon the peyk pikemen from afar.

The Ottoman general Kitbugha Gazi took advantage of that and snatched the opportunity to attack our solid tertios in an uncoordinated frontal attack up an enormous steep cliff under an opposition from 30 artillery pieces, even though the Ottomans were supposed to be defending. He actually had the even more brilliant idea to do that in the middle of a heavy storm. Most of the Ottoman infantry barely made it halfway up the cliff.

The Ottomans on the mountains of Mordor

As for the Turkish cavalry, it seemed to slide back down the slippery precipice every time their exhausted horses reached the points of our pikes. Perhaps there are no mountains in Turkey, and probably it never rains in the desert.

Combined with the heavy clouds, the smoke and fire from our mortars turned the mountainside into a vision of the mountains of Mordor.

The Ottoman Peyk footsoldiers steady in their task of doing nothing until it was time to either crash the battle or die in that hope.

It was hardly a wonder that that army of brainwashed Christian children perished almost to a man - may the Lord of Heavens have mercy on their souls.

So Klagenfurt was now at our mercy as Haluk of Bardasir, the nearest Ottoman general, helplessly gazed upon our mighty army from beyond the Alpine mountaintops.

If I remember correctly, I had started the campaign at normal/hard (hard for battles). Also these two battles were fought before I made some of the changes I suggested in my previous post. With two stacks down and three more to go, you start to feel sorry for the AI. You also feel that you need a better balance for the battles. Since the AI was not made to have the common sense of bringing those armies together, the three remaining Ottoman stacks needed to be brought together by a cheat. And since the AI did not have the sense to support that army with artillery, that also had to be done with a cheat. And since the Turks had brought too few horsemen along, some more were given to them by another cheat. Because if this was the dawn of the Apocalypse, the Turks needed a half-decent army for Armagedon.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Battle of Bleiburg

Jan von Freystedt stayed to lay siege to Klagenfurt as the other five commanders marched on with 7000 men to meet the Ottomans. The original estimate of about 3000 Ottomans had now been much exceeded by the new reinforcements and the appearance of another Ottoman general, Lajin Ruestem. The Turks, despite their previous losses, still had some 3500 men, mostly cavalry and Janissary infantry, as well as some 30 pieces of artillery. Their army had a uniform 3 copper chevrons of experience and although the German army was twice as large, on paper the two armies were valued as approximately equal.

The three Ottoman generals, Janbulat Murat, Haluk of Bardasir and Lajin Ruestem, deployed their army on a fairly flat area in the eastern Alps, east of Bleiburg. This was going to be the greatest battle of the campaign, the Mother of All Battles this war had seen. Perhaps you thought you’d never come to witness this but as we gazed upon the very Dawn of the Apocalypse, this could surely be no other than

the battle of

Armagedon

One of the many things that are nice about this mod is that you can always find some flat area for a battle that is suitable for armies meant to deploy and march in rank and file, something that cannot be said for vanilla Europe. The two adversaries deployed their men for this battle in a relatively flat region in the lower part of the Alps.

The Turks had deployed in a flat area between some mountains with their best army under Janbulat Murat at the centre. In addition to heavy artillery and some mortars, that had a slightly longer range than the German mortars, Janbulat Murat commanded a company of heavily armoured sipahi cavalry. To his left was Lajin Ruestem and to his right Haluk of Bardasir.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Opposite Haluk of Bardasir was our General of the Knights, Christian von Affenstein, with a full stack of Cuirassiers, equivalent to two regiments (1057 men). The rest of the army was under the direct command of our Field Marshal Christian von Anhalt. The reserves were commanded by Johann Kasimir von Veere at the centre and Franz Ferdinand von Rummel on the right. On each of these two sectors, two tertios had set up at the front with most of the artillery behind them on higher ground up the slope of the mountainside. Grenadiers and musketeers supported the pike blocks of the four tertios. Behind the artillery stood several companies of pikemen on reserve. A small group of 160 Cuirassiers was also on reserve under Hauptman Wolfgang, ready on the first opportunity to swing around the back of the Ottoman centre and take the Turkish cannon.

Unfortunately, 8 large stacks proved a little too much for the game engine to fit into one battlefield. Christian von Affenstein’s cavalry bumped into Bardasir’s army as soon at they entrered play on the left and similarly Christian von Anhalt and Lajin Ruestem entered on the other side of the battlefield almost already engaged in melee. Although it would have been possible to fight the battle as a single battle, there would have been such chaos and so little control of the armies, being engaged in battle as soon as they crossed the map edge, that I opted in the end to break it down to three separate battles: Christian von Anhalt and Franz Ferdinand von Rummel against Lajin Ruestem on the right, Christian von Affenstein vs Haluk of Bardasir on the left and, finally, Christian von Anhalt no 2 with Johann Kasimir von Veere and Hauptman Wolfgang vs Janbulat Murat at the centre.

The right wing

Lajin Ruestem attacked uphill in one of those suicidal attacks already seen in the previous battles.

View of the battlefield from the position of the reserves

Most of the Janissary musketeers died in the artillery barrage unleashed upon them.

The Ottomans attempted to bring their field cannon closer under close support from Janissary halberdiers but the curve of the mountainside blocked their line of sight.

After a lot of hesitation and back and forth movements, rather than withdraw and wait for our attack, they moved their cannon further forward into the range of our mortars, amply indicated by the dead Janissary musketeers littering the ground. That spelled the end of Lajin Rustem’s artillery.

So the remaining Janissaries charged up the mountain side without artillery support, taking a quick shortcut to Paradise without even making it to our pikemen. At that point, the Ottoman cavalry charged up the mountainside and attacked the flanks of the two tertios but the pikemen and cavalry there repelled both attacks. So the Ottoman attack on our right came to nothing.

The left wing

Christian von Affenstein with his bodyguard

Christian von Affenstein attacked with most of our cavalry in one body on the left wing.

The Ottoman horsemen on that side were repulsed and were chased off the field by part of our cavalry. Then those troopers turned around and attacked the Turkish cannon from the rear.

The Ottoman infantry had surged forward to meet our cavalry and so the cannon crews had been left unsupported and were put to flight by that charge.

The Ottoman cavalry on the left of the Ottoman right wing made the only successful move, counter charging our cavalry and checking their advance for a short time.

Just then, Haluk of Bardasir decided to join the fray with his bodyguard. After a first charge he disengaged, perhaps in order to charge a second time.

But before reforming, his bodyguard was charged in the flank by Christian von Affenstein’s bodyguard.

Christian von Affenstein charged ahead of his bodyguard into the Ottoman cavalry striking at Haluk of Bardasir and bloodying him, while killing also one of his bodyguards who stood by him (minute 8:00 of the videoclip, and picture directly above).

Haluk of Bardasir immediately broke and fled the field, leaving his infantry at the mercy of our cavalry. The right wing of the Turkish army was subsequently overran and quickly destroyed (pre and post-tweak scenes from this battle are shown in the videoclip).

The centre

The battle was more hotly contested (after the many tweaks) at the centre.

Here the Ottomans attacked again first with their infantry but only after a period of bombardment of our lines by their cannon.

Their infantry was repulsed with the help of our grenadiers - but came back in a second attack,

this time supported by all the Turkish cavalry,

including the feared (if somewhat nerfed) sipahis.

While the two sides were engaged in melee, our musketeers fired at the Ottomans from the higher ground behind the pikemen.

Grenadiers mixed with the pikemen hurled grenades at the heavier Turkish troops. Our artillery hit the Ottoman rear but the Ottoman artillery answered in kind and pounded our own rear.

You would not like to be where 1648 mod cannon fire is landing, as for example in what looks like a mini-nuclear explosion amidst our lines in the picture above. At last the Ottomans were providing something of a challenge and casualties began to mount. With the Ottoman cavalry away from their cannon, a golden opportunity presented Hauptman Wolfgang to swing to the enemy rear with his 160 Cuirassiers and take the Ottoman cannon. For some weird reason, Hauptman Wolfgang was ignoring the attack command and was staying on defense just inside one of the corners of the battlefield. All the while, the Ottoman artillery pounded our lines causing mounting losses among our men. Hauptman Wolfgang was up for the firing squad.

The reserves were ordered forward and joined the two invincible tertios at the centre in a counterattack against the Turks.

With the Sipahis occupied in a last ditch attempt to hold back our army, Christian von Anhalt galloped down the mountainside with his bodyguard and took the Ottoman mortars.

Next he turned towards the heavy cannon and was about to charge them when the Sipahis, having retreated to the rear, fell upon the flank of his bodyguard (minute 10:00 of the last videoclip). Fortunately our general was at the very front and survived that charge. Indeed the Sipahis were so heavy that they almost missed their charge when the German horsemen charged ahead of them to take the cannon. Christian von Anhalt took the heavy cannon and was galopping off when the Sipahis turned around preparing to charge his bodyguard a second time. Just then Johann Kasimir von Veere appeared at the rear of the Sipahis with his bodyguard. His appearance could have not been better timed. The Sipahis, surrounded by the bodyguards of the two generals, did not charge.

Instead, they broke and fled the battlefield together with their general. Soon the remainder of the Ottoman army joined their flight and Christian von Anhalt pictured above with his bodyguard saw them off the battlefield as the Mother of All Battles ended in a triumph for the German arms.

That entire Ottoman army had been practically completely destroyed, although all three Turkish generals survived. German casualties totalled about 1200 men.

And so ended the greatest battle the world was ever to see.

- N.B. If the page is slow to load, I will hide the battle images in spoilers. Please let me know.

[Schrödinger]

Epic =D wonderful writing and the mod does really look awesome, especially the campaign map screen and this one:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Loaded fine for me, keep it up

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

2 great updates That battle really was Aptly named

I have to say I did have a little chuckle at some of your comments

And the loading was fine for me

Looking forward to the next installment Bringing us one step closer to the end of the world

[Aikanár]

Very nice! + 1 follower

[Robin de Bodemloze]

Great chapter! Glad to see you're picking up some new fans