Jan III Sobieski scenario

[GhostOfDisco]

A bit of an update: my positions for Pressburg and Gyor.

Yes, they are a little off from what they were in McMonkey's original map, but they seem more accurate and, even more importantly, Kara always attacks the Austrian frontier with this arrangement.

[GhostOfDisco]

Below is a download of a bare-bones (i.e. no special sound or graphics) version of the scenario (you will probably need to do some tweaking to the events and rules due to the no sound files). Included in it are the latest save-game I've got so far and the various other text files that will help add "flavor" to the game.

Some questions I would like answered:

• With what units should I "normally" garrison the Ottoman cities? That had a variety of vassals and other such things, so places like the Romanian states are easily handled, but what about Hungary and the Balkans (some things make it look like there's a Hungarian vassal of the Porte, other things point to the Turks ruling Hungary directly - and with what troops?)
• Did I place the RANDOMIZE modifier in the right place?
• How should I reward the player for winning the Battle of Vienna (i.e. destroying the Turkish Camp?) I'm thinking of a Wonder (named "Sobieski's Victory) that would either be activated or built with said event, but not sure what. What would you suggest?
• Mobilizing armies every spring. Right now, I've got it that when each of the AI civs gets the "Mobilize Armies" tech, they'll get a number of free units in certain cities of theirs. Subsequently, I'll have then get the tech every spring or so (and, after the creation of their units, will then "lose" that technology until next spring.) But, doing all those GIVETECHNOLOGY events for all those civs might take up too much space, and I've thought about moving the start of the game back to the spring and have the armies be generated on every 12th turn. But Doroshenko only started against the Poles in August of 1667, so I'm in a bit of a quandary here. What do you think?
• I've thought about having the Apollo Program be some kind of very significant internal reform Sobieski might have done (although he didn't). What could it be, what would the components be, and how should it be done?
• How do I keep the custom leader titles when converting the save-game thing to a scenario? Every time I make a scn, with or without changing the dates, the leaders always revert to the default titles. How do I fix this?

Also, keep in mind a lot of the text in the Events hasn't been modified, even though it needs to be. So, what do you think? You advice will be greatly appreciated!

[GhostOfDisco]

After nearly a month...

So ... nobody's played it?

It's a working copy of the scenario - the only thing missing is the graphics. Of course, said graphics will be in the finished scenario, but I need feedback to continue development!

[Elensar]

I'll give it a shot. Lets see how this goes.

Edit: Um, though where is the scenario file? Do I have to download something posted earlier in this thread?

[curtsibling]

A few observations:

*Nice big map! Crying out to be conquered!

*Are the goody huts intentional? New cities are spawned from them!

*Increase the width of the diplomatic (F3) screen. (game.txt)

*Give the Poles a red CIV-colour, to make them stand out on the mini-map.

*I'd place some low-level improvements in cities over size 5. Markets, etc.

*I like the fact that you can get decent amounts of troops from huts!

*A few more troops in border cities would be nice...

*On capturing a Turk city, I was offered 'Cossackness', 'Islam' and 'Refrigeration', as options!

*I will help you with a tech-tree if you want, when I get back from the USA...?

Will report more, but I can say that this has BIG potential...A giant in the making!

Stick with it, dude - It is a real classic to be!

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Elensar
I'll give it a shot. Lets see how this goes.

Edit: Um, though where is the scenario file? Do I have to download something posted earlier in this thread?

It's just a SAV file just now - Plenty to see and do, though!

[Elensar]

Righto.

There sure are a lot of units in Kamieniec. A virtual horde (I'm not sure that's the intended reaction or not, but that's mine).

I'll echo most of what Curt has to say here.

Not so fond of giant maps and conquest of them (though it looks like a good representation of the area, at least as far as I know).

The feeling of having a "horde" bothers me. Its not impossible to manage, but having to send twenty units out (one at a time) is somewhat frustrating. I'm too much of a perfectionist (in the Civ faction sense) to like the feel.

But if this is historically valid, by all means keep it.

More as actual play occurs.

[GhostOfDisco]

Originally posted by curtsibling
*Nice big map! Crying out to be conquered!

Thanks!

*Are the goody huts intentional? New cities are spawned from them!

Well, My plan is for the goody huts to be in "Cossack" territory, allowing you to get loyal Cossacks, Tartar auxiliaries, fight renegade Cossacks, and the like.

*Give the Poles a red CIV-colour, to make them stand out on the mini-map.

Done and done. As you can see from the flag preview pic earlier in the thread, the Poles' color is red!

*A few more troops in border cities would be nice...

True. Though I've wondered about just what kind of troops they should be. For Ottoman cities, should they be Turfecki, Janissaries, or Azabs (I heard that Azabs weren't paid unless on campaign, which probably means they weren't good for garrison duty.) And with Ottoman and Hapsburg Hungary - should the garrisons there be Hungarians, or the civs' "native" units?

Though I definitely need to make the garrison at Konigsburg larger - it's an objective (Sobieski once plotted to take East Prussia as a fief to create a hereditary dynasty) and it seems to be taken much too easily...

*On capturing a Turk city, I was offered 'Cossackness', 'Islam' and 'Refrigeration', as options!

When I try to convert it into a scenario, I make sure to "prevent tech from conquest,." However, I have yet to solve the problem of keeping the custom titles when converting to scenario format.

*I will help you with a tech-tree if you want, when I get back from the USA...?

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Will report more, but I can say that this has BIG potential...A giant in the making!

Stick with it, dude - It is a real classic to be!

Thanks - I will!

The feeling of having a "horde" bothers me. Its not impossible to manage, but having to send twenty units out (one at a time) is somewhat frustrating. I'm too much of a perfectionist (in the Civ faction sense) to like the feel.

Well, I'm not really sure what the troop positions were circa August 1667, but I do know that the battle at which Sobieski defeated the Tartar-Cossack force was at Podhacje (sp?), which lies between Lwow and Kamieniec, so I decided to "split the difference" between the two cities. In the finished scenario, the Tartars will move before you do (at least on the first turn), so that might allieviate the "horde" factor a bit.

How would you suggest I distribute the troops? (Not a snarky comment, just wondering what you think...)

[Elensar]

Hm. Depending on which direction Sobieski was coming from, concentrate them there.

But if its unclear, this would be fine.

As stated, its a "I don't like the feel of it". If this is necessary and historically accurate, then by all means keep it. But if there's a way to tone it down without sacrificing what is necessary for play and historical accuracy, I would suggest that. Some people like the feeling of a great horde at their command, I don't, but its a matter of personal foibles rather than good or bad scenario design. Stick with what works.

I hope that not too many of them are killed off though. Poland is in for some very "interesting times" even with all the soldiers it can get.

I may not be a horde player, but I look forward to matching or beating Jan Sobieski's accomplishments.

[GhostOfDisco]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of deployment would feel "right" for you?

[Elensar]

Hm.

Less than a dozen ideally, probably more than half a dozen.

Mind, as stated I'm a person of Perfectionism, and this scenario is more of "conquest", so I would (if you use this as a model) err on the higher end.

Twenty would still feel like a horde.

How big (in real world terms) was Sobieski's army, give or take?

As a very rough figure, and "artillery" would be counted as +1 to these (leaders are also not counted)...

100 or less: 1 unit.
100-500: 2 units at most.
500-1000: 2 units, 3 at most
1000-2000: 3 units
4000-5000: 5 units.
6000-9000: 6 units
10000-15000: 7 or 8
15000-20000: 9
25000-30000: 10 or 11
30000-40000: 11 or 12
40000-50000: 12 or 13
50000-60000: 13 or 14.
70000+: 15+

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, the Polish army in August of 1667 (when the scenario begins), including both the Crown force and the force Sobieski raised with his own money would be about 22,000, which would amount to 9-10 units.

The problem how to proportion the troops historically. Here's some of the stats of the Polish military at the time:
Infantry (including dragoons) 50-60%, Cavalry 40-50%
Infantry:
"Foreign" infantry 73%
Polish-Hungarian "Haiduk" infantry 5%
Dragoons 22%
Calavary:
Hussars 5-7%
Light Cavalry unknown, though they are said to have formed a high percentage of post Deluge/Muscovite War cavalry
Pacerni unknown, though they were quite numerous and by Sobieski's reign were marked for 60% of the cavalry
Which gives the Polish army only one dragoon unit and not even a single hussar. If however, we double that unit-per-thousands ratio, that would give us 10 cavalry and 10 infantry (more or less) and allowing for an army like this:
7 Infantry (3 Musket, 4 Pike)
1 Haiduk
2 Dragoons
1 Hussar
3 Pacerni
4 Light Cavalry
That might be doable. I'll copy your rate, maybe make some modifications, and see what I can do.

Though a 14-unit army might work. With 7 infantry and 7 cavalry, we'd end up with:
3 Pacerni
3 Light Cavalry
1 Hussar ({[22,000/1500 soldiers per unit]/2}*.07=a number that can be rounded up to 1 )
5 Infantry
2 Dragoons
1 Haiduk *for the heck of it

I'll have to approximate the Lithuanian forces some time...

I did some work on the scen today; removing all the goody huts outside Cossack/Ukranian territory and bolterin up some of Eastern Prussia; since said region is one of the major objectives, I thought there should be some challenge to take it:

[Elensar]

Twenty or so all totalled should do nicely, if that's the entire (or most of the) Polish mobile (as distinct from garrisons/militia that the player doesn't need to worry about) army. 14 would preferable for "horde" reasons, but the numbers (per unit type) looks better with 20. Trying to reduce it too low to properly represent what Sobieski had available just to appease one player's perversity would be absurd.

As always, err on the side of history is my base advice for all historical scenarios. If I didn't find this interesting, I wouldn't be bothered by having "too many"units, so stick with the good parts, don't break them. : )

The screenshot looks good. And beautiful.

Out of curiosity, is the player intended to make frequent (but of course not too frequent) use of the Sobieseki unit, or to keep him back in safety so he doesn't get killed?

[curtsibling]

Looking great - The Polish troops had best beware the giant grub of doom below Konigsberg!

Cannot wait for this one...!

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, Elensar's posting about unit size and relating to populace, and my modifications, has led me to adopt a "rule of thumb" of 1 unit per every 1,500 soldiers. In doing so, I have had to reduce the size of the Polish/Lithuanian forces a great deal, as well as that of Moscow; however Moscow still does have a sizable force (at least twice that of Poland!) and, historically, the Poles did not have a large army at the outset of the scen, nor afterwards as a matter of fact. (You, of course, may change that. )

Still, I need to work on the other civ's armies. I think I've know where the Imperial and Brandenberg armies are supposed to be, but I'm wondering if I should garrison the Swedish cities with regular infantry or some type of militia "garrison" unit, and I'm still not sure who will guard most of the Ottoman cities.

Attached below are some new Muscovite unit pics. The first one is a Russian musketeer; I got the idea from looking at the 1650s pikeman and dressing this guy accordingly (not sure whether or not the musketeers of this time wore breastplates, but it does prevent him from being too similar to the Streletsi. ) The second is a reitar; I replaced the hat with a helmet, as I read that the Russian cavalry in this period wore both helmets and breastplates, although the hat gave the guy a certain "Russianness" that I worry the helmet takes away.

The third guy is a Russian dragoon. At long last I have finally found a reference pic that refers to troops of this era. (Not the best, but better than nothing.) My foremost concern is that the dragoon, with the cut of his outfit and the fact that he is wearing read, might resemble his Polish counterpart too much (something which, in a real battle, could greatly confuse things. ) I might make him more brown or something, I am not sure. What do you think?

(Also, has anybody managed to successfully convert the .sav into a scenario while keeping the custom titles? If so, how did you do it?)