Jan III Sobieski scenario

[AGRICOLA]

Right city, interesting siege, wrong war!

[Cyrion]

2 out of 3 ain't bad...

[GhostOfDisco]

I've got the OoBs for the initial Polish, Lithuanian and Russian armies, though I'm not sure how to disperse them. I've got some idea, though I'm not exactly sure...

One thing that's been bothering me is the Polish-Cossack-Tartar War. According to Wikipedia, the war was already going on by the time the scenario starts (January 1667), as Peter Doroshenko had supposedly sworn loyalty to the Ottoman Sultan the year before. Some other sources, however, claim that Doroshenko didn't begin to fight the Poles and/or cross the Dneiper until late 1667 or even '68. I was planning on having a mix of Cossack and Tartar cavalry, under the control of the Crimean Tartar civ, fight Poland at the beginning of the scenario, but I'm not sure where it should be . I know Sobieski was able to stop their advance at the battle of Podhajce, sometime during 1667 or something (I think) and get an armisitice, but that's deeper into the Kingdom of Poland than is the Ukraine. So I'm not sure where they should start out with, or whether the army should even belong to the Crimean civilization, or be owned by the "Barbarians."

Speaking of the Crimean Tartars, did that have any "bases" in the Ukraine, so to speak? I've already got their four main cities on the map, but those are all bottled in the Crimean Peninsula, and it seems to me that they had to have some "mainland" places from whece they started their raids; otherwise it would seem somewhat easy to "bottle" them in.

I also came across some more information - the Polish Renaissance map page now has a detailed map of Livonia, including what it's roads were (I presume) during the Polish-Swedish War of the early 17th century. (Smaller version here) The site says that eventually battles and stuff will be there, but I'm wondering about the roads - are those the roads of the time period, or what they are now (if you wanted to, say, tour the battlefields nowadays or something.)

I also found this article on the siege of Kamieniec Podolski in 1672. Unfortunately, the article seems a good bit hard to follow, probably because it is an English translation of a Turkish article, I think.

For your visual enjoyment, here's a Polish militia unit. He's not much, but there's one in every city, and it's better than leaving your cities defenseless:

[GhostOfDisco]

Well,I think I got the Scanian war trigger figured out - if Brandenberg retakes the small town of Fehrbellin from Sweden, than barbarian Danes emerge in Scania.

This reflects the fact that Denmark invaded Sweden only once the myth of Swedish "invincibility" had been shattered at Fehrbellin (as if the Swedes being kicked out of Poland didn't matter :roll: ) and means I don't have to force Sweden and Brandenberg into a war - the invasion will only come if they fight, and only once.

On another note, I know that I've been criticized for giving the player too many units in 2013: A Union Divided (which still has yet to be completed, BTW) so I've tried to limit the number of units each civ has. Not counting the immobile militia each Polish city has, the combined Polish/Lithuanian army comes to a total of 48 units. How does that sound? I've already calculated how many units will be in the Russian field army and what kind of units they'll be (56, IIRC), but not sure how exactly to distribute them (aside from the imitation pacerni and hussars, which are in their respective historical sectors.)

On the Turkish army: that's a lot of units! I'm wondering if I can combine some: I know that the Kapu kulu sipahi and their toprakli equivalent can have the same unit slot, as they are both sipahi , but that still leaves a lot of different unit slots. Of course, I've got 25 units slots left as of right now, and if I exclude things like the gunners, cebeci, and other units that probably wouldn't be represented in the game, fills in 11 slots, not counting the Ottoman cannon, Turkish camp and generic fort unit I might make (which would take the place of the Icareli border fort gunners, I presume.)

I've ordered the Vienna book from Osprey, but I'd still like those scans if you can manage them, McMonkey!

Also, I've also mentioned this scenario on the forums of "Fire and Sword," a 17th century Central/Eastern European mod for "Rome: Total War." Unfortunately, most of the site is in Russian, which I know not a word of. Still, I've used some of their unit pics to help make my own guys!

Pictured below here is a Cossack and his "mask." Since the Cossacks can be generated when you enter a goody hut, and thus there be Cossacks on different sides, I though it'd be good to have said "free-booters" dressed in the color of the civilization they're working for. I have yet to actually make the sprites (I'll probably have to look at Catfish's page again) and I'm not sure on all the details (is the "national color" the upper or lower one?) but here it is:

[curtsibling]

Nice work...!

I would like also to get into using sprite masks!

[GhostOfDisco]

Thanks!

So when can I expect those cities?

[McMonkey]

48 starting units seems like a good number to me. Large enough to launch attacks but not overwhelming for the player to move on turn one.

Glad you decided to order the book, its a really good read and the illustrations are top notch. Lots or really good tapestries!

The mask thing looks very interesting!

Here is an Austrian Infantryman by Peter Dennis:

[McMonkey]

An Ottoman Tufekci infantryman and archer by Peter Dennis:

[McMonkey]

An Ottoman azab infantryman by Peter Dennis:

[McMonkey]

And an action shot of the siege. This did not scan quite as well as the black and white ones!

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, here's my crack at an Austrian infantryman:

[GhostOfDisco]

And here's a revised Imperial musketeer, accompanied by an Azab and a Danish soldier:

[McMonkey]

Good work! The Austrian fills the gap between the TYW units and the Great Northern War ones! The Azab infantryman looks archaic in comparison but spot on!

[Jerec]

Fine art indeed!

[GhostOfDisco]

Did some testing with some unit placement yesterday; I split the Lithuanian army between Dyneburg and Vilnius, concentrated the Polish army in Kamieniec, and placed a Tartar force of raiders and Cossacks (representing Dorshenko's Cossacks and their Tartar allies outside of Zhitomer. I then did some playtesting, and, well thing's didn't go as expected - the Tartars asked for peace on the very first turn! Of course, I have the Great Wall wonder (Fortress of Kamieniec - I thought it was the best way to represent the fortress' strategic importance in the region), so that may have been a factor. My plan is to at least have some Polish/Tartar hacking going on at first , however, I was also hoping to be able to negotiate with the Khan eventually, as 1)that happened historically (Sobieski, I believe, was once part of a delegation to the Crimea) and 2)the Khanate, while allied with the Ottomans, is still an independent nation.

I dunno. I'll think of something (though I still appreciate any advice in this regard). And here's some unit pics: Brandenburg and Danish infantry, in the "new" style, compared with their Great Northern War-esque former equivalents: