It can be tough to get the combat table right so I am using a python script to calculate results. With this, I can adjust different parameters to find the balance I feel is appropriate.
Although I don’t have every single possible combination coded into the script, the most important and frequently-used values can be adjusted, such as leader bonuses, fortification column shifts and so on. There was also an interesting decision I had to make: what happens when the opposing forces are equal (1:1)? I suppose it could go either way in a scenario like this, but keeping the overall campaign in mind, I have decided that for the attacker, this will be a rather risky attempt. For now, I lean more towards the usual 3:1 odds or higher to make it quite probable to win. However, this is something I still need to pay attention to just to make sure the game is ultimately imitating real life results well enough.
By running at least a thousand tests each time, I should get a good overview how the combat table works.
The output shown are from one of my today’s tests and are at best indicative. I am changing the table constantly trying to find the right balance. It’s not an easy task as I have so many variables to take into account.
With the python script, it’s very easy to adjust parameters here and there and see immediate results.
The script was originally created a year ago and just updating it to correspond today’s odds calculation method was a major task. I was hoping to focus on other topics instead of this, but it’s important to have it running accurately as it’s an invaluable tool before extensive playtesting.
I only learned about this game convention a couple of weeks ago, as someone I know mentioned he is going there and there might a table available (hint, hint). So, a couple of emails later I had a space reserved for game demos at Tracon Hitpoint 2023 (https://2023.hitpoint.tracon.fi/). While it may not be a big event, or focusing on wargames, I had a great time through the weekend although I drove back and forth a couple of hours on both days in dreary November weather.
Frankly, I haven’t publicly demoed a game before, so the first day breezed by trying to do the whole set up while explaining various aspects of the game to anyone who happened to walk by 🙂 I was quite pleasantly surprised to have lengthy discussions about the project. There may not have been that many people being interested in the game, but those who took some time really wanted to know how this game functions and what my plans are. This time, quality over quantity (sorry, Stalin)!
The mistake I made on the first day was trying to set up the whole game. It took me most of the day to just get going all the while explaining some aspect of the project. 1758 Fort Carillon is not a small game. It will have a fairly sizable map and quite a few counters (exact amount is still TBD). That is how it is, and that is how I want it to be. Actually, one of the first things that came up was that the over-sized map was really good and well-liked. With potentially a high number of counters on the map, more room means a better play experience which was brought up by several people. The map I laid out was one that was printed at a print shop and came out physically much larger than expected. But, this may have been a blessing after all – it is easier to play and looks really nice (sorry if you don’t have the space!!).
On Saturday, the “game session” didn’t get far. I barely managed to play a full turn as I was demoing small aspects of the game and answering questions. Sadly, that was the busy day and Sunday was very quiet. I did get a few really interested guys to spend some extended time at the table and ask tons of questions about the background of the project, the historical setting, and of course, the game itself.
Big changes are hard to make this late in development but small tweaks definitely are welcome. There could be a good idea here or there that would enhance some aspect by making it smoother, easier, faster, or just … better. Sunday went by swiftly too, and I left with a great deal of notes to finetune the project, one way or the other. First priority, as always, is to ensure the rulebook is clear, complete, and accurate (which it still is not). Once it is good enough, I will upload it to the website.
Smaller tutorials or even full scenarios were requested due to the sheer size of the campaign – I had considered one as a tutorial but this could be expanded to ensure there are faster scenarios and not just the big campaign which will take more than an evening. Now I am starting to see the logic behind the Strategy & Tactics game (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/113369/ticonderoga-battles-lake-george-1755-1758) which came with several small scenarios as well.
I have now some samples for the almost “final” counter art – everything I have used so far has been, well, my “own creation” using whatever tools I have been able to use. Applications range from simple Microsoft Paint to Inkscape with its amazing countersheet extension. Recently, I also started to use the Adobe Illustrator because that’s what the pros use… The artist is slowly working on getting the production-quality art created for manufacturing – not really a small task.
Here I have a few examples of what they would look like. Just a small note: I have not looked at the colors of the uniforms and units closely, thus they may be a bit off still.
Good things are worth waiting for! Amazing day behind, got several art updates which I am sampling here. Things will change and blahblah, but the art-side of the project is definitely starting to shape up.
Cover art sample
It’s just beautiful! Everything I was thinking of, and even more!
Counter art sample
I am starting to think I need bigger counters to enjoy these properly!
The highway between two colonial empires, the Hudson River – Lake George – Lake Champlain corridor, was a hugely important waterway during the French and Indian War. It essentially connected two superpowers to each other in the time and place where the most practical means of transportation was by water.
Some seven years later in 1749, the Finnish (*) naturalist, Peter (Pehr) Kalm, traveled on the same ship with the captain St. Onge himself. Starting 1756, Saintonge also started to travel down to Fort Carillon to carry supplies to the French garrison busy building the new fort designed to block the British advance towards north and Canada (New France).
* We can have an endless debate about Finland being part of Sweden at the time, but for us Finns, Turku is and was Finland.
As the ship was showing its age and lacking in capacity, a new ship was finished in 1757. Vigilante – a sixty-ton topsail schooner armed with ten four pound cannon – took over most of the duties of Saintonge, commanded by Joseph Payant. As far as I have seen, there are no pictures remaining of these vessels, but we can draw some conclusions from other known ships in the same time period.
A model of a contemporary schooner at Fort Ticonderoga today.
A diorama at the fort depicting ships in the 18th century, but post the 1758 battle.
The game, 1758 Fort Carillon, will have some optional French vessels available, ranging from “Jacaubites” gunboats, known also as “Jacobs”. These were bateaux with cannon. There will be two ships, Saintonge and Vigilante, of which the latter may be of great importance to the French. Vigilante has some serious firepower and can disrupt the British advance across the lake to encircle the French positions. Neither ship is mentioned in historical records of the battle, but they definitely were on Lake Champlain at the time, thus can be included.
Today I had a chance to meet new people and spend some three hours walking through the current design of “1758 Fort Carillon” with Hannu from U&P Games (a small local game studio backed by some serious gamers). His game designs include Helsinki 1918 and W1815.
Essentially, I introduced my project and explained the basic setting and the key rules. French and Indian War really is not a big topic over here in Finland, but I am doing my best to change that, so we went through some basics of the period in history. Next we proceeded to discuss in detail the basic game mechanics and features. Three hours went by quite quickly.
The session gave me once again some great ideas how make this project better: what could be improved or implemented slightly differently (better). There are generally two objectives that I have in this project: 1) historical accuracy and 2) smooth game play. I assume these are the guiding lights for pretty much all designers of historical wargames. Now, these objectives do not indicate this will be a quick game – could be quite the contrary. I haven’t logged any real estimate for the length of the game yet, but we will plan for some group testing with other wargamers.
My homework from today includes testing some small changes to combat – especially when attacking entrenched positions, how to add a bit of fog of war (this really is a tough nut to crack), and how to actually implement some randomness I have had in mind for a long time.
[Disclaimer: All rules and game play examples are from pre-production version and will likely change one way or the other!]
One of the major challenges I have had in the design of the Fort Carillon has been the time scale and overall dynamics of the troop movements. I can’t do one, two or even four hour phases (“turns”) as the game would bog down with the large number of counters. After all, this is more of a campaign than a one-day engagement. My first design was based on three day phases (AM, noon, and PM) with the night phase for mostly recovery. Over time, this came down to two day phases with a full night phase that also includes an imaginatively named maintenance phase for doing, well, maintenance. This covers topics such as “planning” for the upcoming assaults (instead of plain attacks), checking the supply or morale, and so forth. Nothing major really, but resetting a few counters and adjusting a couple of others.
Initially, I had rather abundant movement points available. It didn’t take too long to realize guys would be all over the place pretty quick. Not very historical, unless you have a handful of rangers scouting the fort or something. Movement point allowances gradually decreased in search of the balance between the reality of moving a great army in the middle of a primeval forest, and the capabilities of irregular troops such as light infantry and the natives.
All this included skirmishing – reconnoitering the enemy ahead of the main army, or on the opposite side, acting as the rearguard of retreating troops. How do you cautiously move and maybe even briefly clash with the enemy? This is where the skirmish mode steps in. Not all irregulars can use it, because I decided to exclude the “normal” British Provincials. Also, from the regulars, only those designated as light infantry or grenadiers can skirmish (Troupes de la Marine are designated as regulars, so they’re not eligible).
Skirmishing cuts the movement points to half but doubles the Zone of Control. Also, a couple of actions become available: retreat and ambush. Expanding the ZoC implies the unit is scattered and moves in smaller groups forcing the enemy to advance cautiously or face the consequences of being ambushed. Enemy units’ movement point cost is thus doubled in the ZoC but they can move through the ZoC-2 without being forced to stop (if you enter EZoC-1, you must stop and attack). After the enemy unit has completed its move, the defending skirmisher is able retreat up to four hexes as essentially they would be slowing down the advancing enemy. That may not always be enough to get away, so don’t stay too close the opponent. This will take place AFTER the enemy completed its own move.
The example below depicts where ZoCs extend to. They do not cross double-elevations, but a single elevation or a stream does not block ZoC. (Apparently, I used a La Marine unit below, but they cannot use the Skirmish mode. Let’s imagine it is a Canadian militia unit instead.)
Of course, the fun starts with the ambushes. For now, I have limited them to a total of four per side per day instead of allowing every skirmish unit to attempt one. This forces some planning ahead and I am also worried the game would be full of ambush die rolls. An ambush is not possible if the enemy is also in skirmish mode.
Below is a practical example. Let’s say, its the British who go next.
[OUCH, just noticed I have the British Indians versus the British provincials in the below example. I’ll have to fix it!]
The red-green Mohawks are in Skirmish mode, so the ZoC extends for two hexes and overlaps with Bagley’s 2nd Mass. Regiment which is disrupted and on the same side of the river. This means the provincials have to take a morale / panic roll as the Mohawks are smelling blood and creep ever closer for some scalps. If the Indians had moved next to Bagley’s regiment AND could not force the provincials to retreat via the morale check, the Indians would have to attack. Disrupted units fight with half strength, and the Indians get a significant bonus against disrupted infantry, so it could mean big trouble for the New Englanders!
On the bottom left, Preble’s 3rd Mass. Regiment is a little different story. Although disrupted, they are across the river (Bernetz Brook) and are thus immune to the Indian ZoC. Perhaps Superintendent of Indian Affairs and a former British Army general, William Johnson, would join the Mohawks with the other Indian groups to lead an attack across the ford?
We had to stay in Turku, in southwestern Finland, for several days as we were sheltering from a storm in our boat. Among other places I had a chance to visit the Turku Castle again after many years – what a magnificent medieval castle! It is not only a never-ending walk to go through the whole place but it also has some interesting historical pieces in addition to the jaw-dropping dioramas of the long construction of the castle.
Construction started in the 13th century and its only “combat” was in 1318 when the Novgorodians sacked Turku…
A grapeshot below? That thing flying at you must have been a terrible sight!
It was one heck of a walk I have to admit, endless corridors with a lot of low ceilings.
I wrapped up my “Montcalm’s plan” testing at the end of the second day – this was a good run. I filled in a lot of the missing pieces such as ambushes and special rules for the Indians (I use mostly the terms found in historical [British] documents). As always, a game session lead to making updates to the counters as well… for the 2000th time.
The badly beaten Connecticut regiment was stuck in the tight land corridor between Lake Champlain and the Rattlesnake Mountain. Although supported by the New Hampshire regiment in its over one year old appearance (probably the oldest counter I still have – and it was supposed to be “brown”), the already disrupted provincials panicked once enemy Indians were seen lurking in the forest. This was a long-missing piece in the rules and I hope its now done. Disrupted infantry is easy prey for those brutal natives who seek scalps and plunder – the weaker the enemy, the better!
By just moving close to the disrupted unit and with a fine die roll, the Granite Staters were annihilated… First by panicking them and forcing to flee – straight into the ZoC of the other French-Canadian troops on the other side.
As Major William Eyre, the leader of the 44th Regiment, commented after the chaotic first evening (July 6th) and the skirmish with the French-Canadian troops returning from their scout : “Two or three hundred Indians surrounding us that night” would have routed the British army. Btw, he would have been the most senior engineer in the campaign, but had chosen to remain with the regiment possibly due to either being in bad terms with General Abercromby or simply planning for a better pension should something bad happen to him, or both. Alas, he was the chief engineer of the infamous Fort William Henry…
Although I am sailing for some time, there is no break in development. I am reading more books to understand even better 18th century warfare. Already ran out of reading material so my son had to bring additional books as he visited us 🙂
Any extra freetime I have is used in cleaning up the rulebook.
PS. “Vanhat tykit” means “old guns” in Finnish. What a find from a second-hand bookshop!
