Rocroi

[Philippe]

Are there any plans to come up with a campaign scenario that might include this battle?

[Leibst]

Yes. As part of an scenario covering the last years of the war. Some people is asking for it and they are right. But i need time to work on that. in fact i have some work already done.

[Philippe]

That's great.

Is the tail end of the Eighty Years War on the radar? Or the Swedish-Polish wars that preceded Swedish intervention in Germany ?

The game has a wonderfully tempting map when it comes to thinking about exapansions.

(I suspect that the English Civil War would need a much bigger map and a host of political rules, which is why I'm not mentioning it).

[Leibst]

TYW has potential indeed for expansions. And we have some material for them. The issue here is time, resources, ...
imo the scale is much better for ECW than 80 YW.
80 YW on one hand is really interesting, no one has ever done nothing for PC, just in boardgame. But if TYW is a niche subject what could be an 80 YW??

[Philippe]

I guess I wasn't thinking of representing the entire Eighty Years War, as interesting as it would be, as much as making the post-1618 Netherlands a potential theatre of war. The idea being to present the Spanish Habsburg player (who probably can't exist under the current game engine) with explicit strategic choices and to highlight the importance of the Val Telline passes.

The only board game representation of the Eighty Years War that I am familiar with is the multi-player version by Phalanx games. Were you thinking of something else ?

[And on an unrelated note, I'm seriously excited because I just ordered the DVD of Alatriste from the New York Public Library].

[Leibst]

For all that i have read and learned about this period the best way of representing all the warfare and the tactics should be with a huge map in wich small places like castles or strongholds could be defended and strategi objetcives as it were historically. Units starting from of company size.
Yes, the boardgame i said is that same.
Regarding Alatriste, the film is a mix of some of the books that i really recomend you. The Rocroi battle represented in the movie is not historical btw. The last survivors of the Spanish Tercio did surrender. But i like the movie and how it represent that spanish era and soldiers.

[vaalen]

The boardgame Europa Universalis, designed by Philippe Thibaut, did have a very interesting scenario for the eighty years war, which was very well done and quite fascinating. But the scale was five year turns, with multiple impulses in each five year period, on a small portion of the European map, so it was a very different scale. Great scenario.

[PhilThib]

The boardgame Europa Universalis, designed by Philippe Thibaut, did have a very interesting scenario for the eighty years war, which was very well done and quite fascinating. But the scale was five year turns, with multiple impulses in each five year period, on a small portion of the European map, so it was a very different scale. Great scenario.

I had forgotten about that one indeed... good find...

[Philippe]

And the Eighty Years War scenario still shows up in the current iteration of Europa Universalis IV (though I lost my enthusiasm for playing that game when the powers that be at Paradox decided to make it impossible to replicate Columbus' voyage of discovery).

A game that I'm very interested in is Ben Hull's Won By The Sword published by GMT, an operational treatment of the most famous campaigns of the Thirty Years War. The first edition got a lot of flack over rules problems, but there's a new edition out now that may have cleaned up the writing (makes one really appreciate Vassal).

[vaalen]

I had forgotten about that one indeed... good find...

The scenarios in that game were wonderful. The seven years war scenario, the one that covered the entire world, was the best game ever done on that conflict. And the Veneto Turkish War, with its combination of naval and land combat, The siege of Vienna, and so many more. Unfortunately, none of those scenarios ever made it to computer form. If only they could...

[vaalen]

And the Eighty Years War scenario still shows up in the current iteration of Europa Universalis IV (though I lost my enthusiasm for playing that game when the powers that be at Paradox decided to make it impossible to replicate Columbus' voyage of discovery).

A game that I'm very interested in is Ben Hull's Won By The Sword published by GMT, an operational treatment of the most famous campaigns of the Thirty Years War. The first edition got a lot of flack over rules problems, but there's a new edition out now that may have cleaned up the writing (makes one really appreciate Vassal).

The eighty years war in EU4 is simply a start date, which you can play as any country in the world. The war between the Dutch and Spanish is not simulated in any detail, except that both nations start out at war. It fails to simulate that particular war with any degree of accuracy.

The scenario in the boardgame, in contrast, really addressed the issues and recreated the feel of the war, with a much larger number of provinces, cities, and fortresses which were very hard to take by siege, just like in the real war. And it was done in a way that was exciting, interesting, and historical.

Won by the Sword was released in an unplayable state, but GMT finally sent out a free update kit that is supposed to have fixed all the problems, and including a number of counters to replace the ones with errors. I expect that the new edition has been fixed. I have not been able to tear myself away from AGEOD games long enough to play the updated game, but Ben Hull is a very talented designer who loves the period, and is a professional soldier, a marine officer who has been deployed to combat zones more than once.

He has also done a series of boardgames covering battles of the period, on a tactical scale, which I have enjoyed very much. They are also published by GMT, and I recommend them to anyone who has an interest in the period.