Xenophon, range and HQ mechanics

[Balbinus]

Which is probably a more interesting title than this thread merits.

In Xenophon's the Persian Expedition at one point Xenophon and the Greeks are being harassed by Persian archers and slingers.  The Persians have the advantage of range while the Greeks don't really have anyone with missile weapons capable of the same distance effect.  The Greeks charge the Persians, who simply retreat a ways and open fire again.  The Greeks take heavy casualties, the Persians none.

Then the Greeks look to their own ranks and pay some of the Rhodians among them extra to make use of their slings and form a contingent of slingers.  The Rhodian slingers use metal shot rather than stone and thus have a greater range than the Persian archers and slingers.  The Rhodians now start hitting the Persians at ranges which are too far for the Persians to retaliate.

Both sides of the conflict are driven entirely by the effective range of each side's weapons.

In a traditional rpg, say Runequest, this type of conflict would be extremely easy.  In HQ though it seems harder to me.  At first the Greeks literally cannot hurt the Persians, then the Persians literally cannot hurt the Greeks.  The turnabout coming when the Greeks arm themselves with superior equipment.

Could HQ handle this kind of highly mechanistic outcome?  If so, how?

Genuine query by the way, I'm looking at HQ as a potential engine for historical gaming and stuff like this is real history and very dramatic too.

[Brand_Robins]

The subject of missile weapons comes up around Heroquest a lot, and some of the responses I've seen in the past run like this:

1.   The situation you describe is a series of simple contests. Our heroes the Greeks get into a bad situation and lose the first exchange because they don't have a mass combat (ranged) group. They then take a moment to reorganize, figuring that they have a better chance to win if they have some missile troops of their own, and form a group with Mass Combat (Sling) with superior equipment to the Persians (though one could argue this was also because the Greeks had fubared their initial tactics roll...) they then reengage and win.

2.   The situation above is an extended contest in which the Greeks are getting bombed and loosing all their AP as the Persian missile weapon advantage (which the GM gives them a bonus for using smart tactics). The Greeks then do a desperation stake and shift their weapons, neutralizing the bonus and spending a hero point to remember their superior slings, and then go back to slam on the Persians.

The point of both above examples, though it's hidden in the description, is that Heroquest doesn't really handle the difference in range in simulation way. It handles it in a dramatic way. What you'll get from playing Heroquest isn't the tactical reality of the situation; it's the dramatic flow of it – which is interesting when you consider that what you did was tell us the story of a battle.

The interesting thing about missile troops and mass tactics through the ancient and medieval world is that range sometimes won, and sometimes didn't. Sometimes a mostly melee group, like the Romans or Greeks, would come up against a mostly missile group, the Parthians or (in your example) the Persians and get trounced at range. (Cassius got his ass killed in exactly that situation.) Other times, however, the melee troops would close in and kill, or shift to their own type of missile, or make a surprise maneuver, or trap the missile troops, or.... lots of things.

Now don't get me wrong, the tactics of those battles are fascinating, and due respect. However, for many people it isn't the fact that the tensile strength of the Mongol bow was greater than that of the Polish bows that makes the story interesting, it is that the Mongols were on the doorstep of Austria. It is, in short, the story of the fight that holds the attention, the shift and ebb of fortune, the struggle to overcome the strengths and advantage of the other side – and Heroquest represents that side of the equation. Other games focus very successfully on the tactics, Heroquest focuses on the story.

Another point to consider is that we know how Xenophon's battle started and ended because it's a battle in the past, one we've read about. We thus have a tendency to assume that because it went that way it had to go that way (and we have a biased narrator too). We know the Persians had the mobility and range advantage at first and hurt the Greeks with it. We know that the Greeks then gained the range advantage and hurt the Persians with it. We thus assume that it was a battle to see who could get range, and who could use it more effectively. However (and this is important from the narrativist standpoint, I suppose) it was really about what choices the sides made with the resources available to them. If the Greeks had tried a different retreat and advance maneuver they might have been able to get the Persians off guard and close with them (like Caesar did when he was cleaning up the interior of Turkey), or once the Greeks had changed slingers the Persians could have shifted tactics and tried to regain mobility and high ground, or the Persian commander might have fubared his troops and sent them in to close to the Greeks (this happened several times when step peoples like the Huns fought the Romans), and so on and so on.

Just because the battle went that way with those tools doesn't mean it had to go that way, or that when it did the Greeks were guaranteed a victory. The Greeks entered battle and lost advantage, then changed skills and regained advantage. If things had gone differently (if they'd rolled differently on their dice) then the story would have been different because it would have been one of those many times when missile weapon dominance is not what won the battle. That's exactly what a Heroquest extended contest does – it shows you how well your choices and gambles actually pay out in a relativistic way rather than in an absolute one. Unlike other games where the Greeks switching to metal shot has X effect always, in Heroquest the effect that it has depends on how well it is used, how well you roll, how well it fits your strengths, and so on. In Heroquest the Greeks didn't win because metal shot has a 5 yard advantage in range, they won because they made a good choice at a good time and were lucky enough for it to work out.

To sum up: Heroquest doesn't demonstrate the tactics of battle, it lets you tell the story of a battle. It doesn't tell you that the Greek metal ball is superior in all situations to the Persian bow, it lets you play out the way the Greeks made a choice while under fire and reversed the course of battle with good follow through. It is a different mode than most gaming and so leads to a different approach and result. Heroquest tells the unfolding battle story where many other games create mechanical sets that will give the same results as what happened every time. It's about making a story rather than recreating an event. (Which, I admit, isn't always the thing we want from historical games, but which does work well for making your games sound like Ceasar or Xenophon had written them....)

[Donald]

Genuine query by the way, I'm looking at HQ as a potential engine for historical gaming and stuff like this is real history and very dramatic too.

There's a yahoo group where a group of us are discussing rules for a miniatures version of Heroquest. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Glorwar/ While the emphasis is mostly on warfare in Glorantha there's a fair bit of stuff which is applicable to this sort of issue in the archives. Roderick Robinson as done a draft of some rules which are playable if not much tested yet. More input is welcomed, especially from people who are willing to try out the rules.

With regard to the particular issue of missile fire success is not related to the physical number of casualties caused but how well each side has achieves its objectives. So in your example we have firstly a contest with the Persians inflicting caualties while the Greeks stand there. The Greek leader realises eventually the casualties will force him to retreat so charges. That contest becomes one where the archers try to evade while the Greeks try to inflict casualties. When that fails the Greeks realise they have some missilemen of there own who are actually superior to the Persian ones so you have a combat between the two groups of missilemen with the Greeks inflicting more casualties.

[contracycle]

No offense meant, but I'm not much impressed with RR's GlorWar, becuase it seems to me to be an attempt to shoehorn the HQ mechanisms into a very orthodox top-down tabletop battle system.  Instead, I like to solve these problems by considering "eligibility" and "goals".

That is, the systems as writ allow different combatants to have different goals.  Furthemore, what with the Ally rules and so forth, determining who is elligible for a given contest is almost the entire conflict in its own right.

One way to approach these scenarios would be as follows.  Give the Persians a missile ability described as "Hold Off Foe" with a rating. The Greeks are using their movement ability; their goal is "Close To Melee".  In these exchnages, only the Persians have a goal that allows them to  actually inflict casualties.  Once both sides have ranged weapons, it can be conducted in a fairly orthodox manner.  You can also play with the AP totals in these distinct phases of the battle - that is, perhaps the Greeks are using their low ranged weapons ratings atr first, and have low AP, and hence lose the contest in all likelihood.  However, if they were to succesfully Close, they would then be eligible to use their melee skills for AP, and would be able to inflict casualties as an outcome of success.

[epweissengruber]

Could you run it as an extended contest between the Greek (the PCs) and Persian commanders (played by you).
One of the generals uses his "strategic retreat ability" to move his archers.
One of the PCs uses "Military tactics" to come up with a new way of using slingers, helped by the "inspiring oratory" of another, and augmented by the "Chests of precious gems" helped by another.
Perhaps a Theban commander has to overcome political-cultural boundaries in order to get Rhodians to change their traditions.

Which is probably a more interesting title than this thread merits.

In Xenophon's the Persian Expedition at one point Xenophon and the Greeks are being harassed by Persian archers and slingers.  The Persians have the advantage of range while the Greeks don't really have anyone with missile weapons capable of the same distance effect.  The Greeks charge the Persians, who simply retreat a ways and open fire again.  The Greeks take heavy casualties, the Persians none.

Then the Greeks look to their own ranks and pay some of the Rhodians among them extra to make use of their slings and form a contingent of slingers.  The Rhodian slingers use metal shot rather than stone and thus have a greater range than the Persian archers and slingers.  The Rhodians now start hitting the Persians at ranges which are too far for the Persians to retaliate.

Both sides of the conflict are driven entirely by the effective range of each side's weapons.

In a traditional rpg, say Runequest, this type of conflict would be extremely easy.  In HQ though it seems harder to me.  At first the Greeks literally cannot hurt the Persians, then the Persians literally cannot hurt the Greeks.  The turnabout coming when the Greeks arm themselves with superior equipment.

Could HQ handle this kind of highly mechanistic outcome?  If so, how?

Genuine query by the way, I'm looking at HQ as a potential engine for historical gaming and stuff like this is real history and very dramatic too.

[Mike Holmes]

I agree with Contracycle that as a Gamist wargame, Hero Quest doesn't provide much as is, and makes for a much more fun Narrativist engine for the same purposes. But that's the problem - if you want Gamism from it, then a little shoehorning is what's required. I'm interested in seeing the results for what they are. I like both, and would probably use them both for different occasions.

Mike

[soru]

I agree with Contracycle that as a Gamist wargame, Hero Quest doesn't provide much as is

It's also true that there is virtually nothing built into HQ that supports simulationism - left to run by itself, HQ will almost always tell the story of how the more skilled greek infantry defeated the less skilled persian archers, and only occasionally how the archers got lucky and routed the infantry.

If you want to tell stories that sound more plausible to those with some military knowledge, you need that knowledge yourself. This knowledge is then inserted into the game by applying situational modifiers to skills.

As a simple framework, you can use this article by Sandy Petersen:
http://www.poppyware.com/dunham/glorantha/aow.html

From that:

Light Infantry is offensively superior to Heavy Infantry.
Light Cavalry is offensively superior to Heavy Cavalry
Heavy Cavalry is offensively superior to Light Infantry
Light Infantry is defensively superior to Light Cavalry
Heavy Infantry is defensively superior to Heavy Cavalry

In HQ terms, light infantry gets a +10 bonus when attacking heavy infantry, and so on. This is enough to explain why the greeks wanted to form a light infantry unit, even though it would start off at a lower skill than their elite infantry.

There's a couple of other rules/guidelines implicit in that article, for example light infantry and light cavalry normally take much longer to reach a decision, therefore bids from those units will normally be low.

soru

[Balbinus]

It's also true that there is virtually nothing built into HQ that supports simulationism - left to run by itself, HQ will almost always tell the story of how the more skilled greek infantry defeated the less skilled persian archers, and only occasionally how the archers got lucky and routed the infantry.
[/quote]

This surprises me, I found it a very powerful simulationist engine particularly adept at creating believable outcomes.  I use believable intentionally rather than realistic by the way.

I ran a historical game without any narrativist elements in particular and on a fairly straight sim basis, the engine supported that tremendously.  I think maybe it's a more flexible and powerful tool than you're giving it credit for, HQ more than most games I've played takes group expectations and supports them which for me means that with a group focussed on sim play it supports that play.  This may be a subject for another thread though, I'll bow to others on that.

[Mike Holmes]

Actually, Max, I'd totally agree. It's different from some sorts of sims, but it does sim just fine, IMO (or I'd have trouble playing it). What it does not do is Gamism. Any Gamism would have to be completely situational. That is, breaking things down into lots of units, creating interesting terrain, etc. Basically introduce elements of mass, surprise, all that good tactical BS. Because, if one wanted to, you could resolve the entire battle with one roll in HQ. Would simulate things perfectly on the macro level, but there would be no tactical choices. Seew what I'm saying? Any challenge will have to be inserted by you.

Mike

[Donald]

There's a couple of other rules/guidelines implicit in that article, for example light infantry and light cavalry normally take much longer to reach a decision, therefore bids from those units will normally be low.

Also the definitions accepted by Sandy in his review are very specific and the conclusions make sense only in the context of those definitions. For example "light" infantry and cavelry are defined as using missile weapons which make the English longbowmen "light" in spite of the fact that they fought in close order and rarely if ever tried to avoid combat. The article also recognises an in-between form of cavelry - saracens armed and capable of using both missile and close combat weapons although it ignores similar infantry.

Thinking about this, Archer Jones' appears to be a classicist who proposes a theory based on his research into warfare in the Greek/Early Roman period and then tries to shoehorn the rest of the period into that.

[soru]

Actually, Max, I'd totally agree. It's different from some sorts of sims, but it does sim just fine, IMO (or I'd have trouble playing it).

I'd better clarify what i mean then, as I'm not saying it's a bad simulationist game. In the right circumstances, it's the best game I know for simulating almost anything.

But what it doesn't have is any built in rules for simulating any particular thing in any particular way.

Thinking about this, Archer Jones' appears to be a classicist who proposes a theory based on his research into warfare in the Greek/Early Roman period and then tries to shoehorn the rest of the period into that.

For example, if your GM is an ancient military expert who thinks Archer Jones is bunk, and can write an essay on the merits of the pilum versus the scutum, then the game will simulate those views just as well as it simulates Archer's system.

In that way, it resembles actual military sims, which have a lot of structure (and less randomness and no hero points), but ultimately come down to some experienced officer deciding what happens.

It also resembles books, which can be written just as easily by ignoramuses as by experts (though the expert's books are usually considered better). Nothing in the grammar of the english language prevented Battlefield Earth being written.

The only area it falls down is if a narrator tries to run an area in detail which they know very little about, when someone at the table does know more. Trying to run an extended climbing contest with a bunch of people who climb mountains for fun, whereas you once walked up a hill, probably won't work too well.

The way round this is to avoid areas you are not interested in, and read up on areas you are. Author's are often told 'write what you know', similar advice for narrators would be 'play what you know'.

soru

[Mike Holmes]

But what it doesn't have is any built in rules for simulating any particular thing in any particular way.

Well said. HQ is output based sim, not input based. Even that's not correct, precisely. It's relative input based. Meaning that there's one scale and method for all input effects, with many variables being determined in the output.

Which is very cool. But which I agree has problems for a wargame. You're right that the "expert" has to accept that the defined level is the defined level no matter how "off". OTOH, you can always badger the GM into making another input modifier to suit. The problem being, however, that this requires a GM who may seem biased by his choices.

Mike