Jan III Sobieski scenario

[GhostOfDisco]

Got my Battle of Vienna book yesterday, thought it might help things.

While it unfortunately does not contain pictures of what the Ottoman vassals' troops (such as those of Wallachia or Moldavia) or the troops of Emperor's non-Polish allies look like , it's a good read (I guess) and gave me a lot of information which will be put to good use when I get around to coding the Battle of Vienna events.

Also, from what I've read it looks like I'll definitely have to have some Hungarian units, both infantry and cavalry. I could use the Haiduk and (non-Polish) Hussar units from fairline's ToT Carolus compilation, but I'm not sure. Any pics of Thököly's Hungarian rebels would be wonderful, as well as pics of the Imperial Hungarian forces of this time. (And should I do separate Imperial and Ottoman/rebel Hungarians, or go the sprite-coloring route? I am not sure.)

Attached below are some unit pics I made when inspired by the pictures in the book.

The first guy is an Imperial Dragoon. I decided to do this unit upon reading that the Imperial army did have dragoons (although such a unit seems to have been new for them) and I think I saw a picture of them in a lithograph of the Battle of Párkány. In the bottom right front of the picture there is a number of horseman carrying some sort of weapon held over their shoulders. From the way they are holding these nondescript weapons, and the length of said armaments, I reckoned these troops were dragoons and somewhat modeled them after that. (Basing my model on the dragoons from Casus Belli, that is. ) Also, since the lithograph is black-and-white, I decided to go with the colors of the Austrian infantry (since the dragoons at this time were presumably mounted infantry).

The second guy is an Imperial Curiasser. This unit is taken from depictions of some Imperial cavalry (I think) from a depiction of the Battle of Pressburg in the Vienna book. Realizing that the guys with the tricorner hats were officers . I decided to look at the incomplete depictions of "enlisted" cuirassers in the reference pics (hey, there were wearing curiasses...) and did some conjectures from there. As you can see, he is largely derived from his TYW predecessor, with modifications to the helmet and the arms.

The third guy is non other than Kara Mustafa Pasha himself. As can be plainly seen, he's a modification of fairline's Suleiman the Magnificent, and his look is based on a depiction of him outside Vienna in the aforementioned Osprey book. It took a lot of work to rework and remodel the unit, and I think the turban might be a pixed row too high, but still...

[McMonkey]

Stunning mods, especially KMP! This scenario is going to be a visual feast. The last time I was in Wien I visited the Arsenal Museum where they have some of the Ottoman tents captured after the battle. They also have many excellent manikins wearing armour and uniforms of the period.

Here is a link to the website: Wien Arsenal

I just had a quick look at the site which is a bit limited but you may be able to find some kind of guide book with illustrations or another site with more photos.

[GhostOfDisco]

In my Vienna book, it appears that Kosice and Sathmar belong to Imperial Hungary, rather than its Ottoman counterpart. So, I decided to place it under Imperial control. The problem is that (on my map at least) it seems isolated from the rest of the Imperial lands - the closest city is Ottoman Budapest. So, I decided to make road to the two cities from Pressburg, but I'm not sure how accurate it is.

Does anyone know how eastern Imperial Hungary was connected to the rest of the Hapsburg lands?

[curtsibling]

Hi there. GhostOfDisco!

The cities are coming along nicely - I have the Polish set just about complete!

What I need from you is the civ colour of each faction, who is the Yellow/Blue/Green civ, etc.

Cheers in advance!

[GhostOfDisco]

Polish - Red
Imperial - Yellow
Ottomans - Green
Tartars - Light Blue
Muscovites - "Russian flag" green/drabish
Brandenberg - Gray
Swedes - Medium blue/turquoise

The barbs are black, and since a picture speaks a thousand words...

[curtsibling]

Thanks, Ghost!

I can recolour the cities now to subtly refelct the civ colour - Nothing drastic, but nice!

I think a little peek is in order, to let you see how things are going -

[curtsibling]

Even better than a sneek-peek - Is the finished Polish city set...

More coming - The city-making machine is now up and running!

[McMonkey]

This is definitely going to be one of the best looking scenarios so far. Good work CS

[GhostOfDisco]

Thanks, Curt!

Here's what the cities look like in-game:

[curtsibling]

Looking good! - Those cities are crying out for besieging!

Working on the Austrian Empire now...!

[Jerec]

[McMonkey]

Magnificent. The terrain also looks much better. Combined with the colourful units I think this will be a feast for the eyes comparable to Frederick the Great. I can't wait to immerse myself in some seventeenth century warfare!

[curtsibling]

Just finished another!

Here is the Swede/Brandenberg/Euro city set...

[GhostOfDisco]

Here's some Hungarians I whipped up:

I've got two Hussars, both derived from a depiction of a Hungarian hussar circa 1650. The red guy takes his colors from the depiction itself; the other guy derives his color scheme from a Turks vs. Magyars chess set I found while surfing the web. The third guy is a 17th century Hungarian soldier for whom I referenced this pic. He at least dates from 1620 or so, so he's somewhat of the best reference I got.

Also, I'm not sure, but I'll probably be using the red guys for Thokoly's rebels/Ottoman Hungarians, and the turquoise for the Imperial equivalent. Maybe.

Now if only I could find some Saxon and Franconian infantry pics...

[GhostOfDisco]

Also, here's some of the reference pics I've used: Muscovites using helmets and traditional hats interchangeably and Muscovite Hussars!

[GhostOfDisco]

Here's some more pics I've managed to whip up: Bavarian soldiers!

[GhostOfDisco]

And even more eye candy: a revised village (I've confined the goodie huts to the general Ukraine/Cossack area.)

[GhostOfDisco]

And I've hit a snag...

It seem that when I compile a savegame into a scenario, all the custom titles and such are eliminated! I noticed this in my "base" savegame (the one I work from) when I looked at the diplomacy page - all those Emperors, Electors and such had become simple Kings! I tried compiling a scenario from a savegame whose titles I know were right - same effect!

I thought it may have been the fact I included a "city" text, but don't think that's the case. Could anyone help me with this?

[curtsibling]

I have had that happen too, sometimes!

Make sure there are no missing commas in the LEADER part of the rules file.

PS
More cities are on the way this weekend!

[GhostOfDisco]

Checked. All the commas that need to be there, are there.

I'm thinking of making some of the "generic" govt titles some specific ones for certain govts and genders, and swtiching the needed civs' to said govt and sex. (Making Leopold I a "woman" so that he can have the Female Communist title of "Emperor", for example.)

Now, I know it's just a game, and nobody pays much attention to the pictures and stuff on the diplomacy screens anyways, but I'm still not comfortable with the idea of giving these guys a bunch of sex-change operations...

[McMonkey]

There is a utility where you can swap around the pictures:

Gif Extractor beta 3 by Rune Berge

Its a bit tricky to add brand new images but swapping around the leaders pictures in the diplomacy screen should be easy enough!

[GhostOfDisco]

Wondering if the Hungarians soldiers under Imperial command wore any distinct uniforms, also wondering how to do Thököly's rebellion - it seems to have started out independent, but then came under Turkish patronage. How to simulate that...

Attached are some unit pics. I'm not sure if the Saxon coloring is accurate, but I've read that the Saxons switched to red coats on Augustus II's election to the Polish throne, and since the post-Augustan period has Saxon soldiers in white coats, I've assumed they were white before that period. (Please correct me if I'm wrong. )

Also included is the Imperial/Austrian "freicorps," which might serve as a generic garrison unit for the Imperial civ, much like the Militia for the Poles and the Levy for the Muscovites, but I'm not sure. I don't know if I'm correct as to the headgear, though...

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, I should be mentioning that since I found out all the titles are messed up, I've tried to "redo" things from a file where I know all the titles are right. Thankfully, I had a file where most of the city placement and some of the roads, plus the entirety of the Commonwealth army, was done, so it's not been a complete do-over.

Also, I've noticed in playtest that units with the "treat all as roads" flag will be used by the AI to go north, and thus I've seen the Tartars go attack, say, Nowogrodek and Minsk, among other places. So, I've made swamps and mountains "impassible," as well as making all the units without the "all as roads" flag able to go over said things so that the AI Tartars and Turks will be generally confined to their historic areas of mayhem.

[GhostOfDisco]

More pics! This time, it's Imperial Dragoons!

I've based the first two pics off of what I could reference from the thumbnails of these Allemande plates. Again, it's hard to reference from the small pics the site provides, and I don't really think I want to pay the money for the plates, but I did what I could.

The third dragoon, as you can tell, is dressed in the colors of the Imperial soldier, as was my previous dragoon guy (that I posted earlier.) Not sure if it's correct, but then the Allemande plates seem to indicate that the infantrymen had blue cuffs and such when the Osprey Vienna book clearly indicate the cuffs and such were red, so...

[curtsibling]

Great looking cav!

[GhostOfDisco]

Thanks!

When can I expect the next batch of cities?

[curtsibling]

Pretty soon!
Just got back from Leeds, England yesterday...!

I have just been doing some tasks with my own scen this morning.

I will do the Russian cities next!

[GhostOfDisco]

Been doing some playtesting the Vienna events (or, at least their beginning), and it seems I've run into a problem.

You see, my plan was that at the time the Turkish army assembled in/near Belgrade (or, to be more precise, the hill square west of it), a MOVEUNIT command would send the army to Vienna, and the army would form (more or less) a somewhat straight line towards the Hapsburg capital (with the AI and MOVEUNIT, some verging off the easiest way must be accepted.) The result, however, is this:

"What's the problem," you might ask? Well, the fact is that the Kara Mustapha Pasha unit, instead of going westward toward Vienna, decided to hide in Budapest (still need to rename it Buda!) Why is that important? Because Kara is supposed to destroy the Austrian Frontier unit right outside Vienna (in fact, he is the only unit that can do so.) When that happens, a Turkish Camp unit is spawned in its place, the destruction of which represents the relief force's rout of the besieging Turks (and various other allies). So, ol'Pasha should be moving west and staying South of the Danube, as should the rest of the army, instead of going every which way. (Well, maybe the Tartars, as they historically ravaged the Austrian countyside south of the Danube, and I wanted to reflect that. They do seem to go a bit more south then they did historically, but I might be able to fix that. Although, since the Wallachian and Moldavians troops weren't exactly to happy to serve under the Porte, the fact that manny Wallachian troops seemed to be going south/east does seem to be somewhat logical.

(So, if anyone wants to help me with MOVEUNIT, I'm happy to listen. )

One concept I hope to use is the creation of fresh forces every spring/summer. I get this concept from tecumseh's Frederick the Great scenario, where both Prussia and her enemies get reinforcements once the snow melts. But, the question is, how many units should the AI civs get, and where should they get them. For the Turks, this is easily answered - after all, they always assembled their European forces outside the city of Edirne. Location is simple as well for the forces of Frederick William - given the small size of the Elector's holdings, Berlin would probably be the most logical place to assemble and army (all other things considered, that is.) But what of the Imperials? While the Saxons should generate their smaller army in/around Dresden, should the Austrians assemble outside Vienna? After all, there wasn't much of a force that was actually stationed in Vienna during the seige (although a lot of the Austrian army had been outside fighting the Turks and Hungarians in Pressburg and other places during that time, so...) And what about Sweden? Should their army be generated in Sweden, or should forces spawn in Livonia and/or Straslund, which would be the most likely starting points for any European campaign from that civ. To say nothing of Russia (well, technically Muscovy, from the Polish view at the time ) - they seemed to shift the forces each razraid got depending on where the greatest threat to their borders was - should I simulate that, and how? Or should I just spawn units in Moscow and let the AI take it's course?

Then there comes the space of the events units themselves. From the scenario's beginning during the First Cossack-Tartar War to its end in 1696, there's about 29 or so springs/summer periods were such spawnings occur, and with 6 civs to receive the "Mobilize Armies" tech, 174 different "Give Tech" events (not subtracting those "special years" - i.e. when the Turks invade Kamieniec, assemble at Chocim, try and take Lwow, etc.) To save space, I've decided that each civ will get the same amount of units, in the same places, every year, with the RANDOMIZE feature to hopefully shake things up. My question is, will that take up too much events space?

Thinking about Vienna (in the playtesting I mentioned beforehand, I did manage to fight off the Turks by going through the forces and crossing the Danube from there. Which made me consider the possibility of the Poles taking Hungary for themselves - could it be feasible for the Poles and the relief forces to do so? Sobieski did try to establish a dynasty, to which end being King of Hungary (as well as that of Poland) might help, and the Hungarians might be more willing to be under the rule of a Pole (whose country had relative religious tolerance and some consent of the governed) rather than the absolutist Hapsburgs, plus the historical friendship between Hungary and Poland...)

[techumseh]

GoD, perhaps you should break the moveunit events into smaller pieces, by creating several moveunit "boxes" - moving units in one "box" into the next and so on, until they arrive at the destination. This allows you to control the route more precisely.

Are you using repeating triggers; eg. the moveunit command being repeated everytime any unit is killed? That keeps units moving, as there are many things that will cancel a single moveunit command. See Nemo's tip on the "Cradle of Civilization" site.

Also, you could create a specific moveunit command for an individual unit, ie. the Pasha unit.

I can't help you on where to spawn reinforcements - or in what numbers. That is a question that can only be answered by the designer. I assume that each civ will also be able to build it's own units as well as having them created by events?

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, the route from Buda to Vienna is relatively short, so I'm not sure if multiple MOVEUNIT commands will do the trick.

Maybe if I extend the borders or something... I've copied Nemo's MOVEUNIT guide from The Cradle of Civilization, and I'll try some things...

And yes - in general, each civ will be able to build its own units in addition to the event-spawned ones.

As for army sizes, I know the initial Polish-Lithuanian field forces amount to 48 units (not including hetmans and stationary Militia units), and that historically the army of the Commonwealth was considered small compared to the large standing armies of most European nations...

On another (Polish) note, happy Constitution Day!