Busy week(s) behind and finally I had a little time to catch-up with the notes I took during the playtest session recently. Artillery table happened to be on top of the pile, so I took a deep dive into it.
Simplify, simplify, simplify.
Buzzwords, surely, but as I am designing a boardgame and not a computer game, I took the axe and cut off a bunch of columns and charts from the artillery procedure. In my humble opinion (IMHO), it wasn’t overly complicated, but definitely needed a touch up. Now the overcharging of cannons, and brass vs. iron are gone. Gone. You can put all the powder you want into that barrel, but whether it is brass or iron, it’ll blow up. Yes, the barrels break differently, but perhaps – as I have no artillery ammunition modeled here – in the scale of the game, this would’ve been just a bit too much. If I can bring it back in a manner that makes sense, I am more than happy to do it.
These 18th centurity artillery pieces weren’t exactly science (Treatise of Artillery, anyone?) so beyond ~one kilometer range, you’re happy to come even close to the target. Definitely, the 40-50% of fired shots or shells are within X meters of the target, but again, I don’t have Pentium to calculate those little variables here.
I also made the cruel decision to drop the penalty of using captured artillery. The reason was simple: French already were using captured British artillery, so if they got their hands on additional pieces, they really should not suffer a penalty… A cannon is a cannon, so let’s keep it simple.
Arty range is now capped out a 8 hexes and roughly one mile (enough to reach the Rattlesnake Mountain from the fort, or vice versa). That should be all right, because in order to be effective, you need to hit the target first and these things were shooting all over the place at long range. Besides, the chart is a bit easier to read now 🙂
Light artillery impact table is also gone for now. I need to think about it as I am not sure how effective something like the Royal 5½-inch howitzer (or mortar) was. Modelling these little things will take a few additional cycles during the summer months.
So, in the above table, the idea is that you can combine arty pieces with similar characteristics into a single fire mission. The type (direct or indirect fire), size (light or medium/heavy), and the appropriate range band (similarly colored range) have to match. More pieces together means more punch, but only when they can work together.
