Banging Your Heart Against Some Mad Bugger’s Wall

Tags

Cold War, communism, Germany, Pink Floyd

It can be bemusing to think about the tiniest of decisions and how they change the course of the world.

Thirty-years-plus-one-week ago today, the government of East Germany was struggling with the changes rocking the communist world. Mikhail Gorbachev had been trying to salvage communist rule through reform programs, which he intended to pacify the currents pushing against the Soviet system. As freedoms were granted, however, the wave of protests seem to build on them. The East German government determined that a new travel policy which seemingly offered fewer restrictions on movement between the two Germanies, without making any practical changes, would mollify critics.

On November 9th, a press conference was held to announce the new policy. For almost an hour, a party functionary droned on about the process that led up to the changes. It finally culminated in a description of a new policy, supposedly to making it easier to obtain travel permits. Realizing that there was finally something of substance, a reporter asked if this meant East Germans would be allowed to travel. Thrown off from his script, the spokesman said that it would be possible for every citizen to emigrate. He then attempted to clarify his statement by reading from the briefing, which detailed an application process. He was interrupted by another question, “When does that go into force?” Still struggling with the written statement, the party spokesman replied “Das tritt nach meiner Kenntnis…” (as far as I know), reading the words “immediately” and “without delay” from his papers.

Without ever intending to, the government of East Germany had apparently declared unrestricted travel to the West. East Germans, hearing the statement broadcast, rushed to the checkpoints to see if the border crossing were, in fact, to be “immediately” opened. At the Bornholmer Straße border crossing, it fell to the passport control officer supervising the night shift to decide what to do with the masses. He had watched the press release and realized its implications, calling his superiors to receive appropriate orders. From up the chain of command, he was told that nothing had changed and it was business as usual. Facing the crowds, he knew that it was far from “usual” and demanded orders. He was finally told that he was allow the noisiest of the protestors to cross into the West but that their passports should be stamped for “no return.”

As the guards began letting people through, some wished simply to cross into West Berlin for the sake of doing it, intending simply to go an come back. One married couple did just that and then were told they were barred from returning. They had actually left behind their children, at home and asleep in the East, and begged for mercy. At that point, the supervisor decided that it would be best to simply allow two-way transit, and the border was effectively opened, at 11:30 PM on Thursday, November 9th.

Over the following days, people would freely cross the border and, in a festival-like atmosphere, the citizens of the two Germanies began physically dismantling the Berlin Wall. Within a year, East and West Germanies were no more, reunified into a single country. In less that a year-and-a-half, the Soviet Union itself would collapse. All because of a botched phrase at a press conference and an on-the-spot decision to disobey orders.

Do You Still Think You Can Control Them?

Tags

actor's age, Cabaret, Germany, great depression, karl marx, netflix, stephen king, Weimar Republic

I don’t care for musicals.

I’m not enamoured with Broadway productions and generally avoid the films that are based upon them. Perhaps part of my problem was being inundated with a particular form of the genre when I was young. An unnerving number of Disney films, and thus “kid fare,” were made as musicals in the 1960s and 70s. At the same time, many of the “classics” of Broadway theater seemed to be making their way onto film at the time. At some point, I just could take no more.

Cabaret, therefore, never made it onto my lists of films I wanted to see. In some ways, it promised to be not only a “typical” early 1970s musical but might have been considered the archetypal Broadway musical. Doesn’t every Broadway actor, male or female, aspire to be Liza Minnelli? How many productions must imitate Joel Gray’s over-emoting? Perhaps my avoidance of the whole lot means that I over-weight some of these vague impressions I’ve developed on little evidence. So while I don’t know how influential Cabaret actually is on what came after it, it sure seems to me like a road map for how to perform show tunes on the stage and on the screen.

It took a one/two punch for me to finally decide to watch it. First, I read a review in the Wall St. Journal of a summer staging of Cabaret at, of all places, the Ogunquit Playhouse in the Maine resort town (for we who don’t indulge in expensive vacations, it is the fictional home of Frannie Goldsmith and Harold Lauder in The Stand). The Ogunquit production of the musical is based on the Sam Mendes 1993 London revival, which I also haven’t seen, but it was described as a “lewd, pitch-black production.” Punch number two is that Netflix removed Cabaret from streaming at the end of September. Finally, as I was wavering (a bunch of interesting stuff disappeared September 30th, all vying for my viewing attention), someone posted the beer hall clip from the film. The scene features a young Nazi leading revelers young and old in singing Tomorrow Belongs to Me. The social media post drew a connection between the teen-aged “Hitler Youth” and celebrity du jour Greta Thunberg. I had to watch now.

First of all, even when I wasn’t enjoying the film, I was admiring it. It is a technical masterpiece. It is no accident that it earned five technical Academy Awards (cinematography, art direction, sound, film editing, and score). Watching the camera work in the night-club scenes would make many of today’s directors wish they could go back to film school. This is not to say that the film was unenjoyable, just that some parts were better than others. One out-of-place example has Fritz Wepper, playing the secretly Jewish confidence man Fritz Wendel, acting the Borsch-belt fool opposite the elegant and straight Marisa Berenson’s teenage* heiress Natalia Landauer. It’s not that its bad; it is just not consistently engaging.

In contrast to most musicals of the time, characters don’t spontaneously break out into song as a way of expressing themselves. Musical numbers are either in the context of a night-club performance or background music played on a Victrola. The one standout, Tomorrow Belongs to Me, is all the more powerful a scene in that it does have characters standing up and spontaneously singing, although still in a plausible context (I’ve been known to start singing in beer halls at the slightest provocation, myself).

The source material of this film, the various Broadway musicals, and a 1950s musical/film interpretation called I Am a Camera, is a collection of short stories called Goodbye to Berlin** by English author Christopher Isherwood. Isherwood wrote the stories based, roughly, on his time in Berlin in the early 1930s and published them in 1939. It was a contemporary account lived, written, and published all before the full and horrible impact of the Nazi takeover of Germany was realized. George Orwell contemporaneously described the work as “brilliant sketches of a society in decay.***” I’ll come back to this analysis after working my way backwards through time.

The urgency of this story in the contemporary is obvious and, although less obviously, universal. From the left, we see a story about recognizing or, perhaps, failing to recognize evil as it is growing strong. I’m going to assume, without any evidence whatsoever, that the minds behind the Ogunquit staging see their performance as a tale about Trump’s America and the need to, as Michael York’s Brian Roberts rather unproductive does, punch a Nazi. On the right, folks hear the shrill, absolutest ragings issuing from the mouths of babes echoed in the strains of Tomorrow Belongs to Me. Check the young lady at 2:07 for some righteous anger.

The context of 1972 is probably similarly obvious. Several years after the Stonewall Riots, the movement for gay rights was changing into one demanding open acceptance and normalcy within larger society. This heralded a new integration and, perhaps, power for the gay community but would also provoke a backlash. In 1972, that backlash could be easily compared to the early support for Nazism; perhaps harmless enough as it existed but capable of growing into something terrible.

What’s not entirely obvious to me is Orwell’s point in 1939 (assuming he made it contemporaneously with the book’s publication). Surely the “society in decay” refers to the emerging Nazism, which had clearly become and uncontrollable force by 1939. Could it also refer to the decadence and hedonism of the early-30s Berlin? Is there a connection between the collapse of traditional morality and the rise of authoritarianism? Besides the red armbands and petty thuggery, what early warning signs do we see in Cabaret that would foreshadow the coming storm. What warning signs might we be seeing right now, today?

Das eine Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als Farce

Watching the film in 2019 invokes very different reactions that it would have in 1972. In terms of actual “adult content,” it is on-the-whole rather mild. There is no outright depiction sexual acts. There is a level of casual nudity that, while it was becoming acceptable in the early 70s, is a tad bold by today’s standards. At the same time, the implied sexual content is perhaps more intense than expected. Homosexuality and bisexuality, while not portrayed on the screen, are key elements of the plot. Sexual congress results in an unplanned pregnancy which prompts an abortion. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching Glee and other times it’s A Clockwork Orange.

While the topless scenes may have seemed simply artistic in the 70s, the sexual undercurrents were not considered mainstream. The film initially received an X rating (albeit at a time before X was synonymous with pornography) in the U.S. and the U.K., although these ratings were later revised.

Anger over the content was not restricted to those who were concerned about its subversion of traditional morals. Tomorrow Belongs to Me caused quite a stir as people objected to the glorified use of a “Nazi song” in the film. In point of fact, the song was an original composition, as were all the music numbers, by John Kander and Fred Ebb. Both composers are Jewish. Yet, the misconception and anger were enough to have the song cut from the film when it was first shown in West Berlin. As with the rating reconsideration, however, the deleted number was later restored.

Another Kander/Ebb song also drew anger from the left. If You Could See Her begins a scene with an extremely large woman on a scale and Joel Gray expounds:
“I know what you’re thinking. You wonder why I chose her […] If you could see her thru my eyes, you wouldn’t wonder at all.” The woman then turns around and is revealed to be a chimpanzee. Gray’s character continues to sing of her hidden virtues, finally ending with the line, “But if you could see her thru my eyes, she wouldn’t look Jewish at all!”

This last twist, again, upset many at the time, seeing it as an expression of antisemitism. It’s a comparison that echos in modern controversies where any juxtaposition of animals and ethnic minorities is bound to be called out as hate speech, regardless of intent. Furthermore, the contemporary explanation (in Wikipedia) says that the song “reveals the growing acceptance of anti-Semitism.” Apparently, the inability of an audience to discern satire from contempt remains unchanged from the 30s through the 70s into the twenty-teens.

It seems to me that our collective inability to recognize subtlety – whether in art, literature, or even the daily news – will continue to define us. The importance of this work (encompassing everything from the short stories, the films, and the theatrical productions) is its portrayal of an early and outsider’s view of the rise of one of the most destructive forces of the 20th century. In reading it, we wonder if we could have anticipated the violence and death that sprung from Nazism. We wonder if we will spot it the next time arises. However, if we’re all only looking out for anti-homosexual bigotry coming from blonde kids wearing red armbands, I think we’ve missed the point.

*The actors and actresses are all their mid-to-late 20s or early 30s, which seems consistent with the source material. An exception is the character of Natalia, who in the original book is a teenager.

**Published, also, in a combined volume with the novel Mr Norris Changes Trains and called The Berlin Stories. This more extensive packaging also seems to be the cheaper option, if you happen to be looking to read it for yourself.

***This publishers blurb is quoted in all the sale-oriented reviews but, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, without context.

Leeefffft FACE!

Tags

Germany, Moment of Battle, Pike and Shot, Sweden, Thirty Years War, wargames

The focus of Moment of Battle on the Roman Legion as a linchpin of Western Civilization doesn’t end at the Battle of Yarmouk. While the battlefields of Medieval Europe were ruled by the heavy horse, the preeminence of infantry returned in the late Middle Ages.

Amidst the contributions to the, shall we say, Renaissance of the infantry formations, the military innovations of Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus were many. Moment of Battle emphasizes his study and use of ancient Roman drill and his application of those lessons to the combined pike and shot formations of his time. He wasn’t the first to study and learn from Roman military writings; a rediscovery and appreciation of classical scholarship being a hallmark of the Renaissance. Furthermore, modern analysis suggest that he may occasionally be given too much credit personally – that the innovation is due to the Swedish system rather than the brilliance of a single mind. Also, his combined pike, musket, and cannon formations are best seen as part of a steady innovation following the introduction of hand-held firearms to the battlefield. Be all that as it may, the extent of his innovation should not be downplayed. The likes of von Clausewitz, Napoleon, and George Patton have all cited him of one of history’s great military innovators.

In the book, one particular innovation is highlighted. The Swedes found and translated the Roman parade drill. It took a flash of insight, however, to understand that the Roman two-beat commands were necessarily given by drawing out the first as a preparatory phase with the execution falling on the second (e.g. Attennnn – SHUN, Riiiight – FACE). It tells how the work the Swedish command update the Roman system to their time has survived, pretty much intact, to the militaries of the present day. From Gustavus Adolphus’ time onward, nations either learned from his example or would be conquered by those who did.

The other reason the Battle of Breitenfeld is included as one of the Twenty Clashes is that the authors credit Gustavus Adolphus as having saved the Reformation as a geopolitical force. Before the Swedish intervention, the Hapsburgs were on the verge of eliminating all non-Catholic rulers from Germany. That, in turn, may have been the beginning of the end of any Protestant power in continental Europe (although we also just witnessed the triumph of Elizabeth’s Protestant England over Spain, establishing the religious movement in Western reaches of Europe).

Some nice research went into the Sweden’s High Noon campaign.

Breitenfeld is part of the 30 Years’ War stock campaign and, as such, I’ve played it before. Since that time, however, a user has made a mini-campaign of three battles featuring Sweden called Sweden’s High Noon. Once again, it provides an opportunity for a compare and contrast between scenario styles.

Sweden’s High Noon is a scenario of the style I’ve talked about before in Field of Glory (in all its various incarnations). I’ll use the developer’s own description to explain:

It uses a special events-based design language characterized by cut-to-the-chase initial setups, accessory counters, artillery & light troops abstraction, distance for activation time trade-off, reduced weapons range (arquebuses standing in for muskets) & movement rate (subjected to command & control and historical battle behaviour in lieu of pure physical capability), and most obvious of all, map overlays (impassible) that serve to channel units into their proper, historical sphere of action. It aims at placing the players within strict historical parameters.

In other words, the game engine is twisted and bent to attempt to reproduce the historical outcome in the most accurate and detailed way possible. Unfortunately, while this may have been an interesting exercise for the scenario designer, it’s not so great on the player. At least, not for me.

Your forces are directed down narrow channels with movement restricted until it is the right time to move.

The first negative result is how that interesting period art that makes the map is wrecked by the impassible terrain that is striped across the map; there to prevent the wrong forces from engaging the wrong opponent and the wrong time. It also means you can’t look at the “board” and conceive of a strategy, because normal movement might not be available to you. Perhaps if you had a good idea about how the actual battle took place, you might be able to anticipate, as well as follow along, with how the events release your forces into play. And while it is nice to see the detail in recreating the historical forces as they were positioned that day, that benefit of that detail is all but offset by the fact that the designer has had to substitute out the historical unit types because they didn’t perform to his liking. There something missing when you command the forces of Gustavus Adolphus only to not have access to Sweden’s unique combined-arms formations.

I did play through the scenario and I lost, but I also got little out of the experience. I was initially excited to see a user-made scenario for this battle (because I had already played the 30 Years’ War version). I recalled eventually winning that scenario after one or two false starts, so I was hoping for something different – I wanted to look at the battle again in light of my Moment of Battle read but I’d rather not just play a scenario that I’d already found beatable. At this point though, I felt I had no choice but to return to that original.

By contrast, a wide open field and the massive tercio formations at the Catholic center give you the battle you want to see.

Reloading the original version, I was rewarded with a view of the battlefield looking just how I thought it should look. One of the best things, aesthetically, about Pike and Shot is the animation of gunpowder units. The sound (which I’ve modded) and animated puffs of smoke (pictured just above) really give a visceral appreciation for the period. Most of what I’ve read comparing Pike and Shot with Field of Glory II in graphics term talk about how Field of Glory represents an upgrade. In general they are right, but I still think I favor the look of Pike and Shot and this is one of the reasons.

Now, the first time I played this, when Pike and Shot was new to me, I knew absolutely nothing about Breitenfeld. I did know that the allied Saxon forces would be controlled by the computer and realized they would be reluctant allies, but I did not realize the extent of that reluctance. My first play through started with an attempt to shore up a left flank that had no chance of holding.

Moment of Battle suggests that perhaps Gustavus Adolphus knew full well that his allies would be utterly unreliable. That left flank would have provided a juicy target, drawing in the Count of Tilly to attack it with his best Catholic forces. Those attackers would then unprepared for how quickly the Swedish forces could turn and move against them. So in a sense, the total failure of the Protestant left flank may have been a key to Swedish victory in the overall battle.

The centers engage and I conduct a left flanking maneuver.

Refighting the battle with this theory in mind, I wanted to reproduce this mindset. Unfortunately, it seemed like I did worse than when I knew nothing about the strategy (although that might just be because I don’t remember how badly I lost the first time). My intention was to lend little support to my Saxon allies and save my strength for smashing Tilly’s own left wing, where he had his weaker forces. The problem it, in the calculations of Pike and Shot, the fleeing Saxons count against the Swedish score and break level. By the time I had managed to engage the Catholic center, I was starting to lose good Swedish forces on my left. My army broke before I could gain the advantage.

With this timing in mind, replayed the scenario. In fact, I played twice more, losing all three times. Each time I came a little closer. In my last try, screenshot above, I managed to hang the battle right in the balance, where it sat for several turns in a row. In the end, the numbers still tipped against me.

Again, I think of the inadequacy of the strategy game when it comes to simulating the iconic battles of history. After accounting for captured prisoners and desertions, the result was a lopsided victory in favor of the Swedes. Breitenfeld also introduced Sweden as the military power to reckon with for the foreseeable future as well as saving Protestantism as a national religion and as a major political factor for centuries to come. The totality of the victory, says Moment of Battle, was the inability of the Catholics to anticipate the speed and cohesion of the new Swedish pike and shot formations. Reproducing would mean a) giving the Swedish units transformational capabilities and b) making the German player forget that the units work that way. Neither of these fit into a gaming solution. Units differ from each other by degree. To somehow say that the Catholic formations cannot react to flanking maneuvers or that the Catholic commander must ignore the threat on his flank (Tilly shifted his entire force to the right which left him open to to the Swede’s battle-winning flanking maneuver) would hardly fit into any game. Without crippling the Catholic player, the forces are, in fact, fairly evenly matched and it would be almost impossible to reproduce the historical result.

One quickly sees what would tempt one to build a scenario such that the Breitenfeld battle in Sweden’s High Noon. It’s not clear, though, why one would want to play it.

Unaufgeklärt

Tags

1984, Back to the Future, Dark, Germany, netflix, Stranger Things, timelines

Much as with The Accursed Kings, I feel cheapened by the way I found the TV series Dark. It was recommended by a Facebook friend as a new Stranger Things. Albeit, he said, a more “adult” version.

The similarities are there. Even if that worm hadn’t been put in your ear, if you were a fan of Stranger Things, you would probably immediately start to make a connection. Dark is a show set in the 1980s*, with a number of the main characters in their teens and younger. The show has them attempting to unravel the mysteries of and then save themselves from some kind of supernatural happening caused, or perhaps controlled by, a nearby government facility. Finally, of course, they were both created as Netflix Original Series.

To view this new show that way is to cheapen it (and to cheapen myself, having only been drawn in with the gimmick). Dark is no knock-off of Stranger Things. Beyond the similarities stated above, it is a very different story and experience. Dark is a German-language series created entirely for Netflix distribution. Fortunately, when it came to the language, forewarned is forearmed. Netflix supports user-selected combinations of language and subtitles, so I was able to reconfigure my options right at the beginning to use the original dialog subtitled in English. I firmly believe that re-dubbing film in different languages detracts from the original’s quality. I want to hear what the actors are actually saying, not substitute actors reading some translators lines, none of whom are the original artists.

Dark a show with solid acting, well done mystery elements, and plausible science fiction. I was also particularly pleased with the soundtrack. The way the show uses songs helps to orient the viewer relative to the time-travel aspects as well as occasionally hinting at deeper meanings in the plot. It is also a nice mix of classic American/British 80s music with (perhaps equally well known, if you are German) German language songs. This is a well put together series from end to end. I’d be pressed to identify any weak links.

One last bit of similarity between the shows. November 12th, in each of the years of Dark‘s story, is the key and final date of the supernatural occurrences**. In Stranger Things, the climactic shows of season 1 all take place on November 12th, albeit in 1984. In Back to the Future, November 12th (1956 this time) is the date of the dance and the night that the town clock is struck by lightning. The connection hadn’t occurred to me before, but it seems to me that both shows were deliberately referencing the Back to the Future timeline with the dates, if not (more roughly) the years. The “present” of Back to the Future (1985) sits midway between the two presents of those series.

I’m sure its obvious, but I’m glad I watched this one. As much as I complain about the Stranger Things -based marketing, I have to admit that without some kind of hook, I would probably would not have chosen to take a chance on a German-language show, particularly when it is Netflix streaming -only. In the early days of Netflix original content, they had an extremely high batting average, but these days I’ve come to see the “Netflix Original” tag as a somewhat negative indicator. Without the ability to look up ratings and reviews on other sites (and, for me, the Netflix DVD rankings still seem to be the most accurate indicator), you’re stuck going out on a limb.

This time the climb was worth it.

*By even trying to discuss this, I risk ruining several of the “reveals” of the show. Don’t read on if you’re planning on a viewing experience that remains uncorrupted. The show starts out in 2019 and for some time, while there is reference to happenings in 1986, remain set firmly on that date. There are children who have gone missing in the here and now of 2019, despite the foreshadowing of links to the past. Eventually the show makes the better case is that 1986 is the “present” and 2019 is the “future” (of course it is, right? It’s only 2018!).

**Yes, I’m trying to be deliberately vague.

My Gypsy Road Can’t Take Me Home

Tags

CMANO, Cold War, Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations, Germany, global thermonuclear war, Russian, World War III

Part 2 of a 3 part post. See Part 1 here.

Having failed to find any historical meat to chew on in my strategic-level games, I will instead look at two different CMANO scenarios set in 1961 and 1962. These specifically deal with nuclear weapons. The first of the two scenarios takes place during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and involves positioning a nuclear armed submarine. Think of it as a CMANO-as-subsim scenario. The second is an imagining of a World War III nuclear scenario, circa 1962. It is an equivalent of the WarGames first strike/defense scenario, except set in a time when strategic bombers were still the core of the both sides’ nuclear capabilities.

A little CMANO aside, first. Matrix/Slitherine has been regularly updating the core program along with their DLC mini-game releases. That’s a good thing. What’s not a good thing is that every time I try to update, I manage to mess up my installation. It all seems to trace back to the fact I have two versions installed from my original disk. There’s the version as it first was delivered. Then there is a second version, the Wargame of the Year edition, which was a (free) upgrade from the publisher. It is that second installation that seems to be the operative one, and yet it is the first installation that seems to have a hold on Windows’ fiddly bits. Ultimately, I have always been able to go to the Slitherine website, download the updates directly, and manually correct the mess I’ve made with the auto-update program. Probably, if I remembered everything that went wrong, I’d also remember not to get into the same problem the next time. But by the time I’m ready to update again, I’m sure I will have forgotten what happened this time.

That IS an improvement!

So back to that first scenario, called Regulus, after the nuclear weapon featured therein.  It isn’t quite the “subsim” that I alluded to above. In the scenario, you actually command three different boats: one, the Growler, armed with Regulus nuclear missiles and two GUPPY class (1960s versions of the World War II Tench class), armed with torpedoes. The three need to maneuver through Soviet-patrolled waters in order to threaten Soviet land targets (with the nukes) and Soviet launch platforms (with torpedoes, one presumes) in the international, but isolatable, waters near the Kuril Islands. So commanding three subs simultaneously is not exactly subsim territory, it is still a game of slinking along blind and listening for signs of threats from the enemy.

Still playing, as I am, Bioshock, I can see some real contrasts between these two game styles. I consider both Bioshock and CMANO to be great games; the state-of-the-art for their genre. However, those genres are very different.

As I said in that earlier article, one of the tricks of the First Person Shooter genre is to take a linear game and present it in a way so that it feels non-linear. Bioshock does a good job with this. The world is fairly open, you can ride around in the underwater Metro going visiting any of the locations that you’ve discovered so far. However, the story moves you forward through the locations and through key events that are structured and preprogrammed. To put it another way, you are free to go backwards to previous levels in any way that you choose to do so, but you cannot skip ahead. The game has various artifices, a broken transport system or a locked door, that help to keep you on track without necessarily seeming like it does so. In this way, you are at almost any time facing exactly the environment that the developer intends for you to face. He has prepared you in both (player) knowledge and (in game) capabilities for the challenge you are about to face.

Contrast that with a military simulation. In the game engine as a whole (distinct, for the moment, from scenario design) you want the player to be free to take nearly any action. The program’s job is to simulate the “world’s” reaction to the player’s moves. The more varied its response, the more unpredictable (while still remaining effective), the better the simulation for most purposes. Of course, that unpredictability can be programmed in from the start – think of scenarios with triggered scripts – but the best of CMANO‘s genre stand out in their ability to handle the widest variety of situations and hold up throughout gameplay, whatever the player decides to do.

When it comes to the generic “sandbox” style wargames, the onus for a good battle will tend to fall onto the scenario designer. If the game can take an arbitrary pair of adversaries and reasonably handle one of them under a multitude of conditions, then obviously that initial setup might well be a bad one. One side or the other could have an edge that makes the game unwinnable (or unlosable). The forces could be so far out of contact that the game times-out before they get a chance to fight. Or perhaps it is just the that choices that you are required to make, while all reasonable, aren’t particularly fun within the parameters of how the game plays. Good scenario design is required to balance all these things that could go wrong in the hope that it will all go right.

Again, focusing on the sandbox games, the developers often depend on the the user community to develop such scenarios in order to fulfill the value proposition of their game, a proposition for which quality control becomes nearly impossible. So for a game like CMANO, there are a handful of scenarios (plus DLC add-ons) from the developers themselves. With those the customer might expect a certain quality. But developer-designed scenarios can’t possibly, of course, cover the whole range of the capabilities of the engine. So for a particular era I’m interested in (say, a war going nuclear circa 1961-2), I probably have to rely some hobbyist about whom I don’t know anything and who probably didn’t have me in mind when he made his scenario. Will it be too easy? Too hard? Focus on parameters different that the ones I’m interested in?

One example, I recall a CMANO scenario I played years ago where the key to it was organized around choosing the initial load-out for your attack aircraft. Perhaps an interesting question to some. But what if you don’t know and aren’t particularly interested in solving that puzzle? Does it leave the scenario unplayable do you? And when do you find out – how many times through the scenario might you play before you realize you are doing it all wrong(ly).

Approaching one of the possible passages through the Kuril Islands through to the Sea of Okhotsk. It’s going to take the better part of the day to approach the “hot” zone.

Going back to the top. Let’s say you’re playing a shooter that wants to choose between one of three approaches. That choice is probably presented, you take it, some cuts scenes might explain your choice, and then you’re in the action. It is also unlikely that, by making the wrong choice, you automatically lose the game. But it any case, you would expect the decision to take you right back into the action. Compare and contrast with the Regulus scenario. As the commander, you need to choose between several different passages where Russian patrols and minefields may lurk. Some are less heavily guarded and others have more natural advantages (e.g. deeper water or wider channels). So which do you take? What if many of the answers are outright wrong?

Suppose, too, that you’re not really up on the technology of this period. How easy or hard is it going to be to avoid detection? Is there a speed/depth combination that will outright kill you every time? And its not simply a case of knowing the technology (as big a hurdle as that might be itself). How “alert” is the enemy? How many assets are deployed looking for you? What kind of research, experience, pre-planning does it take to know what choices to make?

In the Regulus scenario, the way the choices are presented are by placing you far enough out, away from the action, that you can freely choose how you want to approach. So far so good. How could it be done any other way? CMANO simulates the details and that means approach. The problem comes is that your are at least a day away from whatever action might take place. So even running at 1 minute = 1 hour, that still a minimum of a half-hour of doing absolutely nothing except staring at the screen and waiting for something to happen. It’s made worse by the fact that you (or at least I) don’t know where that “action zone” is. And if things start happening while you’re running at 1 minute = 1 hour, you can suffer a whole lot of losses before you find the pause button*.

The reason I wanted to dig into this scenario in the first place is I remember when I saw the actual USS Growler. It is currently  (I think) on display in Manhattan along side the USS Intrepid floating museum. The boat has a Regulus missile on the deck. The Regulus is a design based on the German V1 rocket and was the first ship-based nuclear missle deployed by the U.S. Navy. I recall the protests in the early 1980s that brought the cruise missile technology into the public eye and, up until I saw the Growler, I associated the technology only with “modern” weapons. Just seeing the technology on display got me thinking about the differences between the nuclear age of the 1960s versus the nuclear age of the 1980s.

How about another genre comparison? Since my reinstall of Patrician 3, I’ve been playing it way too much. I’m in some 71 hours in less than two months can be explained, perhaps, because Patrician is a good go-to game when I want to engage in a kind of low-stress but non-trivial game/time waster. As I said, it is quite addictive, for what it is, which is basically a dynamic spreadsheet. It takes some time to learn the layout of land – where to buy, where to sell, and what are fundamentally good prices for each. After that, you’re engaged in a a repetitive cycle of small decisions that gradually build up your wealth and prestige. Each time you feed a town that has run out of meat or improve mood of the poor, it feels like a little bit of victory. It doesn’t take any deep analysis to make good decisions, and the nature of those good decisions are wide open. There are certain goods that I use to make most of my money, and others that I only trade to fill demand. Those decisions I can adapt to my own style while other players are equally (if not more) successful with a different set of choices. Regrets, I’ve had a few. But small mistakes are easily absorbed by all the good decisions you make.

Forward 950 years. For Regulus, it is the opposite. It seems that even one or two mistakes will spell the end of the game. Since you can’t make mistakes and learn from them, without restarting the scenario, you need to learn about the “right” way to do things (really) before attempting the scenario. If you don’t, you fail, and really have no way of knowing why.

An hour or so into the game, this is the first feedback of any sort I’ve received. Game Over, Man.

In the above screenshot, taken from my 3rd attempt at the scenario, I’m attempting to run my submarines deep through a channel between the islands. After painstakingly waiting for them to move into position, they are finally approaching the choke point. So far, I have no contact with any enemy. No sonar search, no depth charge patterns, no engine noises of the enemy moving about above. Then my first message appears – Boom! you’re dead. The scenario does not give any significant feedback about what went right and what went wrong. Likewise, while there is occasionally forum discussion on user-made scenarios, there is also often not.

With this one, I find it not fun and not educational. I think all my issues could have been solved, however, with a nice “debriefing” at the end. Making it dynamic (here’s what you did wrong) might be beyond the capabilities of the CMANO scenario creator, but at a minimum a set of hints about what you need to do right would be helpful. If indeed it is a scenario about how effective the anti-submarine warfare of the OPFOR was and, for even a good strategy, a bad “die roll” can kill you, then make that explicit. If there is a right way to detect when you are in danger of being detected, explain that.

During the development of this scenario, one user explained how he won. He waited for the hot war to start and then began nuking airbases, wiping out the capabilities of his enemy. I suppose that once you’re giving the “weapons free,” anything is fair target, but I would think I should be taking seriously the operational instructions which designate specific targets. Using nuclear cruise missiles as defensive, tactical weapons not only seems like bad form, but a quick way to end civilization as we know it.

(on to Part 3).

*As an aside, at some point (after I finished with this scenario) I finally realized that the Enter Key will shift you back to real time, which does give you a fairly good way to halt time compression in an emergency.

Wolves of the First Reich

Tags

Crusader Kings, Crusader Kings 2, crusades, Field of Glory, Field of Glory - Unity, Germany, Holy Roman Empire, Neuchâtel, Oath of Fealty, Unity, Wolves from the Sea

The main reason I bought Field of Glory when I did was because Slitherine was preparing an additional module called Wolves from the Sea. That module is focused on the Viking Age armies and battles, expanding from the late-Roman Empire offered in earlier modules. At that time, I was indulging in the History Channel’s Vikings series, and was seeking wargaming tie-ins with that period. Outside of Medieval: Total War with some Viking oriented mods, I could not find a serious treatment of this at a tactical level.

Field of Glory, at that time, was going through some difficulties. The game was originally released in 2009, which isn’t all that long ago by the standards of many of the games I’ve been playing. Nevertheless, a couple of years after its initial release, there were issues. The original developer was no longer supporting the game, but it it remained popular enough and Slitherine was continuing to release new modules. I have this vague memory that there was a hard-core user who had taken on the original source code, but that would require searching back through the forums, which I won’t do. Whether a false start was abandoned, or never really took off in the first place, Slitherine ultimately decided that the source code (in Real Basic) was not maintainable.

By around 2012 another group of developers came up with a plan to port the system to the Unity gaming engine. The release of the Wolves from the Sea became tied to that project – that is, the new module would be released to run on the updated base game. Then the years began to go by and neither the new version nor the new module were available to the paying public.

I had been eyeing the product since it’s original release. I was deterred by lackluster reviews (particularly as a single-player experience) and one design flaw. I was persuaded by a particular criticism concerning the use of hexes versus squares – for the linear battles of the Roman era, the use of hexes for the map just seemed to throw things off.

Then a couple of years ago, I was (as I said) searching for a serious, tactical Viking game. That imminent Wolves of the Sea release popped up again. The situation at the time was that the Unity project was well under way and was trying to reproduce faithfully the original Field of Glory experience. That Unity version (Fog(U)) was available for download for FoG players in a beta form. I read that the beta included a (beta) Wolves of the Sea module. I decided that the combination was enough to put me over the edge and I bought the original FoG, discounted as part of that year’s Christmas sale.

By the time I got everything installed and working and was able to try out the combinations, the availability of the free Wolves of the Sea was no longer part of the package. The Unity version was available, but only to play modules that were duly purchased for the original game. Furthermore, the state of Fog(U) at the time was buggy enough that the best experience was to play in the original engine. And so I stuck with the old engine. Any experience up to this point focuses on that version.

The long delay in release bled much of the steam out of FoG(U)‘s engine. The delay certainly halted the momentum of frequent expansion modules, which of course will blunt enthusiasm for a game. Furthermore, as the development remained focused on getting a non-buggy reproduction of the original Field of Glory, but in the new engine, that meant work was not going into the improvements to the engine – the whole raison d’être for upgrading the engine in the first place. Finally, by the time FoG was released and moving forward again, Field of Glory II was in development. At least for me, FoGII looks to deliver much of the promise that FoG doesn’t fulfill.

Once again, however, it is time for the Slitherine/Matrix Games Christmas sale, and this time it finds me again dwelling on medieval fighting. As before, I am looking at the period leading up to the ascendancy of Charles V to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. This time, however, I decided to go way, way back to the chronological predecessor of Europa Univeralis. That is, Crusader Kings 2 ($10 in the Steam Christmas sale, I might add).

Crusader Kings was a follow-on to Europa Universalis, but its predecessor in terms of historical chronology. CK2 can start as early as the beginning of Charlemagne’s rule and lasts until where Europa Universalis takes over. There are several start dates scattered throughout that period. I was actually a little surprised that there aren’t mods out there to capture other snapshots of history. Maybe the sheer amount of work to research the name of every count, duke, king and emperor for a given date dissuades anyone who might decide to try.

I was hoping to target the ascendancy of the House of Hapsburg from mere control of a county to the control of the empire. Roughly, the mid 1270s. Within CK2, their main scenarios taking place around this time start at 1220 (titled Age of the Mongols) and at 1337 (focusing on the Hundred Years War). I went this time with the 1220 date. Further, I decided the emperor himself was a shaky play. The game warns that the Holy Roman Emperor is a “difficult” faction to play. Historically, the Hohenstaufens were a decade or so from being eliminated as a political power. Instead, I searched for a lesser title in the Empire that the game ranked as a little easier. I ended up settling on Ulrich III, Count of Neuenburg (or Neuchâtel from the French side of the border), who in CK2 is given a ducal title.

It is another lesson in the illusion of detail within the Paradox engine. So much is modeled within the engine, it is sometimes a shock when things are not. From 1152, the house of Zähringen had been granted a duke-level title (Rector) over the former Kingdom of Arles or Kingdom of Burgundy. That dynasty ended with the death of Berthold V, and the duchy was divided rather than assumed. At the start of the game, Ulrich III held county titles to Neuchâtel, Fenis, Aarberg, and Strassberg, as well as lower level titles. Bern, by contrast, become a Reichsfrei, a free imperial city beholden only to the Emperor himself. CK2 discourages flat hierarchies and, for example, an Emperor directly controlling a city would cause problems for the algorithms that are their to penalize the unwillingness to delegate. Although technically Ulrich was not a duke, within the game it probably makes sense to set it up as such.

Besides being ranked as “average” difficulty, this duchy for the Kingdom of Burgundy has some other appeal. Historically, the lands became part of the Hapsburg holdings, and so fit in with the theme I’m trying to follow. Also, I can perhaps aspire to uniting the French and German Burgundian holdings into a single, perhaps independent, Kingdom and elevating my faction to the global stage.

Unlike EU, CK2 does not have the driving set of historical events behind it. While the first decade or so of game play has a chance of resembling history, the game is most likely to rapidly veer off from the historical path. So it was in my game. Initially, the game begins with an active call for the Fifth Crusade and I so sent off some of my soldiers. My armies were soon overwhelmed the vast Muslim armies and I was forced to disband my crusading force before the war’s end, leaving them to return from Jerusalem on their own. And that end was not a successful one for Christianity, either, with the crusade ending in failure. Shortly thereafter, Ulrich’s death resulted in a lot of bellyaching from the other counts in his domain and several small wars were required to keep them all in line. By the time another (the Sixth) Crusade was called, I was in debt and suffering from depleted manpower as a result of my own succession struggles and so I did not participate.

As to the Emperor Frederick II, despite his German titles he considered himself to be a Roman Emperor in the historical sense. His focus was on uniting Sicily and Italy to Europe so as to recreate the reach of ancient Rome. Indeed, in the game, Frederick finds himself fighting wars in Naples as he deals with Italian rulers reluctant to conform to his plans.

The departure comes in the mid-1230s. Historically, Frederick was friendly with France, helping them to quell a succession war over Champagne (although the intervention probably had more to do with the succession fights in Germany than the actual politics in France). In the game, however, Frederick challenges France over territory in the low countries. Sensing an opportunity to further ingratiate myself to the emperor, I sent my soldiers to help in his fight.

It’s hard to read, but a French army of just over 20,000 is attempting to lift the Imperial siege with its roughly 23,000 soldiers. The timely arrival of my own Burgundians tilted the numbers to Germany.

In the above screenshot, the king of France has fielded an army of over 20,000 men and is leading it to lift the siege of the contested province. My own army, of some 4,000, has just arrived from the south putting the besiegers at a slight advantage.

Give Me Unity or Give Me Death

This battle is close enough to make it interesting as a tactical fight. So back to Field of Glory – Unity and my new Christmas purchases (namely the Oath of Fealty module). First order of business is creating the above army in Field of Glory‘s Digital Army Generator.

As I began building the armies, I see that one of the criticisms I had of Field of Glory has been corrected in this version. Specifically, I complained that the only choice in the random skirmish mode was to create two evenly-matched armies. The FoG(U) interface now matches up two entirely pre-built armies, one for each side. So I can construct exactly the match-up that I desire. The downside to that is, unlike Pike and Shot (and, indeed, the original FoG), you cannot leave the computer opponent to generate their own army given the number of points. It became an easy shortcut in the other games to a) not have to build an enemy army in addition to building your own and b) give some random variation – you couldn’t know exactly what you’ll face. However, in using the engine to match up specific armies (either historic or generated by a strategic engine), you are probably given the makeup in advance, so it really isn’t that much of a loss.

In this case, I did not dwell on the detail. While CK2 breaks down the armies into different troop types, I did not try to match what was in CK2 with what I created in FoG(U). In fact, an army of 23,000+ men is about double the size of the armies that come with the modules, and so the choices when filling out the large army become limited (without some off-line modification of the army data.) In most cases, I’m not sure the detail is all that important, but I’ll put some more effort into it another time. In this case, I was able to narrow in on a suitable match-up very quickly. The experience was much more like the positive Pike and Shot games than my previous FoG games.

We move forward to battle across an open field. On the third turn, our skirmishers meet. I’m not sure why the setup forced me to have only a single unit of skirmishers ahead of my army, but I make do with what I have.

The interface for FoG(U) largely reproduces that of FoG. You can see some upgraded look-and-feel in the main menu and some of the quirkiness of the original unit interaction has been improved. In other cases, though, it seems to have regressed. In the above screenshot, note the brown box in the lower left. It’s title is a “=>”. I don’t know what that means here but, in fact, there is some ample use of animated ASCII graphics to convey information, particular combat details. Some of the screens look more like a error log dump than a circa-2015 user interface. For some other features that seemed better the old way, I do wonder if that’s just because I got used to the old way.

I ran into a couple of bugs, but nothing too significant. The worst of them were when I tried to run the game in full screen mode. In full screen certain UI functions were just not working. Those problems seemed to go away when I windowed the game. However, for the window size that I’m using, the design doesn’t seem to account for the Windows tool bar. This means that the last line of the unit reports (brown boxes, again) is obscured and unreadable. While slightly sloppy looking, it isn’t show-stopping. Between this an other minor issues I’ve come across, there is nothing that says I should prefer to use FoG when both are available – with one exception. As far as I can tell (and I haven’t tried very hard yet), the user-made scenarios for FoG don’t automatically carry forward to Fog(U).  I am assuming that to play the scenarios which I’ve downloaded, I’ve got to load them in the version for which they are made.

The lines are becoming fully engaged. We’ve run off each others skirmishers, which is a big advantage to me as I only had the one unit.

Having created French and German armies of approximately the right size, I loaded them on to a battlefield. The field of battle is picked randomly from pre-built choices. I honestly don’t know if FoG did it differently, but clearly there is no such thing as a randomly-generated terrain in this version. Once begun, the battle should not be in doubt. Unless the AI has made huge progress since the earlier version, I’ll always have an advantage over the computer in an even fight. And this fight isn’t even. The Empire is starting with a sizable 15% force advantage.

I’ve broken the enemy’s left and center. I would probably lose my own left in the process, but the enemy army is about to collapse before that can happen.

The enemy is fairly aggressive, perhaps more so than I remember from FoG. Having run off my lone skirmisher, they hit my main lines and hard. In many cases, though, I have heavy foot defending against assaults from lighter units and skirmishers. My little men aren’t about to be chased off and give more than they take. On top of that, of course, I just have more men on the field. The early momentum continues to build inevitably towards…

A substantial victory. Probably a forgone conclusion given my initial advantage in numbers.

… victory.

The fact that the Germans were victorious, as well as the size of the victory, is consistent with the results back in Crusader Kings. But I’m not sure if that says anything useful given the circumstance.

In contrast to earlier versions of the Paradox engines, and even EU4, the Crusader Kings 2 engine works to simulate the battle at a higher fidelity. I’ll dwell on this more in a future post, but it does question the desirability of fighting a battle off-line in a “tactical” engine when the battle tactics are portrayed for you right on-screen. Furthermore, the CK2 detailed battle is generating the results needed for the operational layer of the game. As units break away from the fight, distinctions are made between casualties, desertions, and just broken morale such that when the losing army retires from the field, it has some substantial portion of its force ready to reform and perhaps fight again. Can a table-top style simulation of that battle add anything that would justify changing these results?

The Battle of Cambrai. This is going to cause 680 years from now when historians want to talk about the First World War battle.

In the end, either way you look at it, the Holy Roman Empire was victorious in battle and picked up a county from France. History is off and running down an alternate path.

Kollektivschuld

Tags

bad blurb, Germany, Phoenix, World War II

Just before it came off of Netflix, I caught the 2015 German-language film Phoenix.

When I watch a move or read a book, I try to avoid reading the cover blurb or its online equivalent. First, the blurbs tend to give away plot points that are intended to be discovered through the consumption of the media. Spoilers, as we all call them. Secondly, those blurbs often seem to be written by someone who never actually watched the entire film. They are superficial conclusions drawn from, perhaps, bits and pieces of the work. Mystifyingly, many of the blurbs indulge in both sins simultaneously.

Such is the case with Pheonix. The blurb summarizes the plot by, basically, revealing the film’s ending. It left me waiting for a “reveal” that the film was trying to slowly illuminate over its course. Thus my experience was that it plodded towards an inevitable conclusion, which probably shouldn’t have seemed all that inevitable. Furthermore, by identifying the “reveal” as the narrative throughout the movie, it completely mischaracterizes the motivation of the main character.

But what can I do? When a movie is being pulled off of Netflix streaming, I often have no idea whether it is something I’d like to watch or not. I try to use the viewer rankings (still available for DVD rentals, although removed from the streamed offerings) and reviews, which tend to be a little more careful about spoilers. But just because the film is considered good doesn’t mean I’ll be in the mood for the subject matter, so the Netflix synopsis becomes a necessary part of the decision in whether or not to let a film drift away unviewed.

This may be one I would have just as well off forgoing. My opinion of the film, of course, irreversibly tainted by the bad blurb. Would it have still felt so slow to move forward without the plot having been spoiled? I can’t say for sure, but I except it would. The film got some great professional reviews, but I felt it was trying to be artistic for artistry’s sake and profound because, you know, Holocaust. Maybe I’m being a bit to critical, but I feel like it is getting a good chunk of its credit via its pretentiousness.

One Netflix reviewer suggested that this is a (poor) remake of the 1965 film Return from the Ashes, a film I’ve never seen or even heard about before. However, the synopsis of that film does seem to bear out the suggestion. Indeed, there seems to be more there, there. Specifically, the older film ends with the story completely resolved, with the villains having been arrested or worse. In Phoenix, we’re left to imagine the ending. Perhaps even the beginning – the motivations of the characters are heavily implied but never confirmed.

It’s a strange way to structure a film and, while not a terrible experience, not a great one either.

Ball Walking

Tags

Germany, renaissance

I think I should start ball-walking as a matter of course, at least at those times when I’m not wearing soles.

 

O Tannenberg, o Tannenberg

Tags

A Storm of Arrows, Christmas music, Field of Glory, Germany, Lithuania, Pike and Shot, Poland

When looking for the defining events of 15th Century Germany, one stands out.

The Battle of Grunwald, or the (First) Battle of Tannenberg, or the Battle of Žalgiris – all depending, I suppose, on whether you are Polish, German, or Lithuanian-  is not only one of the most important 15th century battles for Poland and Lithuania, but (for them) one of the most important in history. In Poland, Lithuania, and (to some extent) Ukraine, it is a triumphal example of a population throwing off its foreign oppressors. The victory marks the peak of power of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which by mid-century was (at nearly 1 million square kilometers) the largest state in Europe. To the Germans, it came to represent a defeat by the forces of chaos over Western, Christian values. Thus, in the narrative of the 20th century, the Second Battle of Tannenberg was deliberately woven into the historical facts (and fantasies) to portray the Hindenburg’s victory over the Russians in August of 1914 as a continuation of a conflict of civilizations from 504 years earlier.

The battlefield was between the German villages of Grünfelde, Tannenberg (Sztambark in old Polish or Stębark today), and Ludwigsdorf. In Poland, the victory over the Prussian Crusaders was foretold by St. Bridget (of Sweden, not Ireland) and thus, shortly after the victory, King Władysław II Jagiełło ordered that a cloister and church be built near the battlefield and dedicated to the saint. He said it should be at the place called Greenfield. He was speaking in Latin; Grunenvelt. As time went on, the Polish historians assumed that he was speaking German and meant to say Grünwald, and thus the town became Greenwood rather than Greenfield. The Lithuanian, Žalgiris, also assumes this version of the name. The Germans avoided all such confusion by associating the battle with Tanneberg rather than Grünfelde.

So in honor of the release of the new Field of Glory II, I fired up my Field of Glory and the user-made scenario for the Battle of Tannenberg.

The Teutonic Knights engage some ‘Lithuanian Negative Points’ in the opening stages of battle.

My experience reminded me once again why a Field of Glory II will be so welcomed.

The complaints here are many and interconnected, but focusing the blame for them proves difficult. The scenario I played was user-made and some of these problems were added at the discretion of the scenario designer. I hate to be too critical of a fellow player and enthusiast. He created a scenario (many, actually, over the years) to share with the rest of us, and that deserves my thanks. The decisions are well documented, and I’ve seen it both in Field of Glory and in Pike and Shot, as a way to force the game’s AI to make certain historical decisions. In that light, the criticism may be due the game engine itself, if it is unable to do what users desire without the creation of odd terrain and nonsensical units.

The reason I bought Field of Glory, after years of hesitation, was because I had grown frustrated with (this should sound familiar) the Medieval: Total War modelling of the battles within its timeframe. I was particularly interested, at that time, in Viking Age battles. Field of Glory did not have a module out for that era, but had one in the works – I think it was in a form of beta when I was looking. Instead I picked up the expansion module A Storm of Arrows, covering Western Europe during the latter part of the Medieval period, a period that has the same Total War issues.

Some general background. Field of Glory is a computer version of the table-top rules of the same name. For those who play, fidelity to the tabletop version seems paramount. From comments, I suspect many have purchased this product for use when playing a miniatures game simply isn’t practical. This allows one to play without setting up a table, with armies which are not in your collection, or remotely with someone anywhere in the world. Of lesser importance is the fact that you can play alone against the computer opponent.

The original game, and each add-on module, ships with a number of historical battles. For A Storm of Arrows there are six such battles, from Scotland, the Hundred Years War, and the English Civil War. The modules also contain army setups for the various nationalities of the time period. The point of this is that players can create a variable yet historically plausible battle using a point system that tries to balance the advantages evenly between the two players. In this expansion package, there are dozens of “army lists.”  Beyond that, Field of Glory has an editor that allows a user to create a map and place armies and that tool is not limited by the modules purchased. As an example, whatever module might be appropriate for a “Tannenberg” scenario, there is no need to purchase it in order to create or to play a user-made scenario for this battle.

What it does mean is that you are reliant on the community to model your favorite historical battle, hopefully doing so to your liking. This problem is further exacerbated by a change in the way Dropbox hosts files. The Field of Glory system was released in 2010 (or thereabouts) and much of the scenario development took place years ago. Earlier in 2017, the file link system for Dropbox was changed and many of the stored files are no longer reachable. For a newer player looking for battles today, it can be hit-or-miss as to whether you can still find them.

So back to that Tannenberg scenario… My first and biggest complaint is that it didn’t give me a good sense of “re-living” the battle. Between the unreal looking terrain, the artificial units, and the channels created to delay units entry on to the battle, it was difficult to connect to the actual battle.

A Google Earth view of the battlefield, taken from the monuments. Somehow it is hard to reconcile this with the great field of triangular ponds, as presented in the game.

Part of the confusion is that the scenario doesn’t attempt to simulate the entire battle. It is designed to capture a particular moment of it – right at the time when history could have been changed. The scenario author describes his design in a forum thread. Essentially, the scenario starts after the attack on the German left has been chased off and the commander of the Teutonic knights is about to capitalize on his position by leading a charge into the Polish line. As described by the designer, if the charge succeeds, he wins, but if the assault begins to peter out, eventually the enemy numbers will overwhelm and carry the day.

The center of the German assault. It just doesn’t feel like a center.

As I alluded to at the beginning, this style of scenario bothers me. I don’t find it enjoyable to play a game that doesn’t “look real,” because the terrain or the units have been so heavily modified. The “hacks” bother me while playing, and it makes it that much harder to “relive” the battle in question.

In this case I did, apparently, break the enemy center with sufficient alacrity to carry the day. But with the context of that obscured, it wasn’t a very satisfying win.

Compare and contrast with another user’s scenario design for the same battle.

Now this battlefield and army array feels just about right.

This scenario takes the traditional design route of trying to recreate the armies, formations, and terrain to match the historical situation. For me, it comes out as a much better experience.

It also produces, again as far as my uneducated eye can tell, results in line with historical expectation. In playing this scenario, I did have the advantage of “lessons learned” in my previous attempt, and that probably impacted how I approached this one. As the scenario opens, the computer player’s Lithuanian attack comes as historically happened – on my left flank. I rapidly dispersed it without inflicting any significant losses (or taking any, for that matter). One deviation from reality is that I advanced my entire line so as not to expose my left flank to an enveloping counter-attack from the enemy center. Part of me wanted to hold back and let the Poles take the initiative again, but I wasn’t sure they would. Computer AIs are notoriously weak when forced to coordinate an attack.

Coming right down to the wire, both armies are about to break. On both sides, our right flank has caved, and it is just a matter of who loses heart.

As a result, I fought much of the battle too far forward, over river obstacles and in within the trees. Other than that, the result seemed passably historic. I was overwhelmed on my right and I failed to break the enemy center.

Unlike Pike and Shot, this game does not try to translate the final positions into a casualties screen. What is shown, rather, is simply the point loss, which could be killed, injured, retreated, fled, or surrendered. The heavy losses suffered by the Teutonic Knights may well have been mirrored in this battle, if the end game were played out. As my lines collapsed and my forces were swept up by the enemy, my losses would surely escalate. As a result, any objective evaluation of historicity based on casualties is probably out of reach. This did, however, feel like a nice representation of the battle and, incidentally, a well balanced challenge for the (German) player.

This also got me back to thinking about one of my main criticisms of the game, as far as its usefulness to me. That criticism is how I am hemmed in by the “points” system from using the random scenario function to create a historically-based scenarios. Or perhaps, as I was looking at before, creating battles encountered within a strategic system. In fact, the solution I came up with in Pike and Shot, which is to edit the armies which are fed into the part of the program that randomly generate battles, may also work in Field of Glory. The one additional caveat seems to be that, whereas Pike and Shot allows the points of each army to be selected, Field of Glory requires that the points of the two armies match. What this means is that the player side of a battle can have fewer points (by leaving points on the table when creating the army) than the computer opponent, but not more.

All-in-all, fighting this battle has renewed my opinion of Field of Glory a tad as a quick simulator for historical battles (assuming the right person has stepped up and made a good scenario for it) and perhaps for what-if battles, at least for the Medieval time frame. I may have to come back to it.

Ni Saint, ni Romain, ni Empire

Tags

Disciples, Germany, grammar, Heroes of Might and Magic, Holy Roman Empire, Legends of Eisenwald, Max Muller, Sigismund, Thomas Carlyle, Voltaire

The Holy Roman Empire confounds one who wants an easy narrative of Medieval history. To the west of Germany, the fifteenth century saw nation building and the assembly of the world empires that would dominate the globe, well, until today really. A potential monarch could lay claim to a title and, with the right combination of bribery, warfare, and politics, become God’s designated rule of an empire. The ending of the Hundred Years’ War saw the consolidation of England and France into unified empires and in Spain, the Moors were expelled and the kingdoms united.

But what about Germany?

There was still warfare, bribery, treachery, and politics; and history is still the story of the rise and fall of dynasties, but the the story seems so much more complicated. The electoral nature of Germany’s kingdom adds a layer upon Feudalism that resulted in one modern European nation that remained a confederation of independent states, almost until the start of the First World War.

Voltaire’s remark was made much later than the fifteenth century and the reign of Sigismund, but the observation was not unique to his time.

Speaking of quotations, the one posted early from Sigismund earns some further commentary. When I googled the phrase to make sure I had my Latin right, I encountered a number of possible translations for the famous phrase. The most common one, and as far as I can tell, the one accepted as definitive, is “I am King of the Romans and above Grammar.” It is written this way in Thomas Carlyle‘s History of Freidrich II of Prussia.

But in the internet age, where anyone can be a medieval scholar, the translations and interpretations of the phrase are many and varied. One of the more common mistranslations, for example, seems to mistake the origination of the phrase for a similar story involving Roman Emperor Tiberius, and assumes that “rex Romanus” is the Roman emperor. But among those variations, one stuck in my head. The translation read “I am King of the Romans and above Grammarians.” I haven’t taken a Latin class since 8th grade, but I don’t really see how you can get there from the actual Latin quotation (which was included with the translation, and matched Carlyle’s version verbatim). Further, given that the “source” material includes the phrase in both English and Latin, it is difficult to try to legitimately read a different meaning into the text.

However, a bit later I came across another telling of the same story, from a version nearly contemporary to Carlyle’s (1858). A book, The Science of Language, published in 1899 was created from from the lectures of Max Müller from 1861 and 1863. Müller tells the Tiberius story, “Caesar, thou canst give the Roman citizenship to men, but not to words” as well as a different version of the Sigismund one. In his version, the original mistake (with the Emperor calling to eradicate the Hussite heresy);

Videte Patres, ut eradicetis schismam Hussitarum.

and the correction;

Serenissime Rex, schisma est generis neutri.

are given in Latin. The remainder of the story is told in English. Sigismund asks the interrupting monk (apparently a Bohemian schoolmaster),

‘How do you know it?’

The old Bohemian schoolmaster replied, “Alexander Gallus says so.’

‘And who is Alexander Gallus?’ the emperor rejoined.

The monk replied, ‘He was a monk.’

‘Well,’ said the emperor, ‘and I am emperor of Rome; and my word, I trust, will be as good as the word of any monk.’

The story is generally told as one of hubris. The King who believes that, by decree, he can change the rules of language to match his own whim. The other lesson in the retelling is an example of the the modern understanding that the rules of language are driven by their usage, and not the other way around. That is, a dressing down of Grammar Nazis.

Müller‘s telling actually sounds a little more realistic than the “the rules of grammar don’t apply to kings” version of Carlyle. The king is not, necessarily, arguing the grammar but rather arguing the the standing of a mere monk, expert or not, to correct a king. In Müller‘s lecture, he goes on to suggest that Sigismund’s line was delivered for the laughs that it generated. In other words, his criticism, although directed at “Alexander Gallus,” was really for the lowly schoolteacher who thought he should interrupt a king.

For a man who was king for half a century (crowned King of Hungary in 1387), isn’t it ironic that perhaps his most memorable act was a grammar argument with a teacher?

…and it’s not even the real HRE

Set around this same place and time is the game Legends of Eisenwald, or at least sort of. Or maybe not. It is hard to nail down, exactly.

The game has the trappings of the 15th century Holy Roman Empire in terms of architecture, weapons, and armor. The location is a mix of real place names and made-up (but plausible) names in a anywhere-and-nowhere map of something that could be located in eastern part of Germany. Likewise the year of the game is left vague. Mentioned is the “fall of the Teutonic Knights” which could refer to either the Peace of Thorn (1411) or the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), or even something else entirely. Likewise, the personalities are fictional, depicting some minor nobles and knights within some obscure Duchy. A number of battles preceding the 1411 date are mentioned as a background for some of the characters, but the game narrative also makes a passing reference to the Battle of Brunkeburg (1471). While this potentially nails down the timeline to the the last quarter of the 15th century, it could also be a simple mistake (or even part of that real-place-names in made-up-locations).

Glancing through some of the developer blogs, the goal was to put effort into providing a historically-correct look and feel into the game. It is not, however, meant to be a simulation of history or of medieval combat. The developers, themselves, describe it as reality as the people of that time would have perceived reality. Thus, the blessing of priests and the healing of herbalists are truly effective in battle. Sorcerers and witches may channel the powers of evil or cause the dead to rise.

The graphics are a nice, and believable, depiction of 15th century Germany.

The game is by no means breaking new ground. It borrows heavily from the fantasy strategy games of years past. It is a product of a small development team in Belarus and is their second game. Their first effort was called Discord Times and was released in 2004. They describe Legends of Eisenwald as both an evolution and a rethinking of that earlier game.

Reviews of the game almost always mention Heroes of Might and Magic as the comparison for this game. In part, that is because HOMM itself was originally to be a hybrid strategy game derived from an RPG and that role-playing focus is clearly a part of Legends. The comparison may also come from the fact that Discord Times looks very much like a Heroes 2 game.

To me, however, the first comparison for this game is Disciples (particularly Disciples 2). While the battle is a hex grid, and thus comparable to the later games of the HOMM series, functionally it is a lot closer to the Disciples model. While the figures, which unlike HOMM represent individual characters, can move around the battle map, movement is restricted. If there is an enemy in front of you, you are often required to attack that present threat rather than maneuver about the field. Likewise, it seems that, given two possible foes, you are required to deal with the more threatening (the guy with the ax or the spear) rather than the easy target (the archer or the healer). It is therefore similar to Disciples, which freezes the positions of all its units, but with a bit more tactical nuance.

My fellas will quickly dispatch this group of bandits.

That includes additional complexities. The facing of the characters is meaningful when it comes to calculating damage. There is also a fatigue factor – the effect of a healer’s spell is dependent on the remaining “spiritual” strength of that healer. Ranged weapons’ effectiveness is dependent on the range. All of these complexities, however, seem mitigated by the tool tips that tell you how much damage each unit will do. A player can calculate each factor and craft the perfect strategy based on the units involved, or just hover-choose whatever looks like it will be effective. Those results, like Disciples, seem to be a fixed quantity. I don’t see the use of “die rolling” in this game. Variation seems to depend purely on the choices the player makes, rather than having him hope that “critical hit” will pull him through a sticky situation.

The character and army management screens are very much like Disciples II, and then some.

The strategic level, also, has improved upon the good old days of Heroes III and Disciples II. I have not kept up on the state of the art, so I can’t say what is innovative in this particular game versus other twenty-teens offerings, but the state-of-the-art has certainly come along well. The strategic map is very attractive with nice 3D animated terrain, which can be displayed without bringing my aging computer to its knees. The “fog of war” concept has been greatly improved. Instead of blacking out areas of the map the player hasn’t been, the game uses a clever combination of the mini-map and main map. Anything the player doesn’t know is there will not show up on either map. Once something is spotted on the main map, you can see parts of it, but if you haven’t come close enough to identify it, it will still remain hidden on the mini-map. Getting close enough to identify it places the name on both the main and the mini-map. The mini-map also tracks moving characters and colors them according to disposition, but again only if you can see them. It probably sounds complicated as I describe it, but it has a very natural feel. I can enjoy the view of the 3D terrain and do occasionally have to hunt through it for hidden artifacts, but for the most part I can just watch for the approach of the little red icons on the mini-map and thus avoid being surprised by my enemies.

The game also cycles through day and night, and that transition can be important in terms of game play. The aforementioned line of sight changes depending on whether the sun is up. Also, certain enemies (and, perhaps, friends) only come out at night. The “clock” can be paused, so that time only passes while your character is executing an action, or it can be left on continuous, so that the hours while away as you stare at the screen. It does seem a bit strange that you never sleep. An occasional event aside, you have no down time. Day and night, you move about the map, fighting and conversing and then hitting up a church for some healing whenever you get worn down.

This is obviously not any kind of medieval battle simulator. In fact, even more so than its spiritual ancestors, the game functions as much or more as a role-playing game than as a “strategy” game. Taking your “army” into battle occupies much of your game time, but the questions of battle strategy and tactics don’t seem to be the main drivers in the game’s narrative. Instead, the key to advancing is the completing quests, usually involving more than just “defeat all the enemies.”

The marketing blurb calls the game “an adventure game with tactical battles, RPG and strategy elements.” The more I play it, the more I understand and appreciate that description. Despite the trappings of strategy and tactics, the purpose of the game is the story narrative. I’m not going to analyze how much the story branches – that is, if I chose not to ally with a particular character, could that dramatically change where the story goes? Or, do you simply get some minor side paths leading you back to the story’s main road? Gut feel says the latter because otherwise the player is going to miss out on the game’s content.

All in all, this is an unexpected, in more ways the one, addition to my game playing. It really combines tactics, history, graphics, and an engaging story to combine the familiar into something fresh and new.