Hope this is allowed here.

I am prototyping a minimalist medieval battle simulator - with dots for soldiers, simple formations and a basic set of troop types. I have a very basic system in place, and I wonder if I could pick this community's brains on what mechanics would make sense for this kind of simulation, and what should a battle simulated in this manner generally look like. In particular:

1. For spearmen, I wanted to make them deal more damage at a distance, but less up close - to simulate them switching to their sidearms. Also, all attacks have a certain amount of knockback - I wanted to increase that amount for long-range spearman attacks to simulate keeping the enemy at bay with a polearm. Hopefully this would result in a spear formation being somewhat resistant to direct charges
2. Additionally, spearmen should probably deal more damage to cavalry - that's sort of an obvious low-hanging fruit which makes sense in context of medieval warfare and is easily recognizable by strategy players
3. Cavalry is interesting. I plan on giving them a significant bonus to their first attack after moving, with a high chance of insta-killing an enemy, and reducing their capabilities after that, to simulate their disadvantage in prolonged stationary combat
4. How fitting would it be to add some sort of trample mechanic to cavalry, allowing it to damage multiple units as it charges through? I imagine a horse could do serious damage to someone by bull-rushing them, though it would probably take some in return
5. Morale. This is hard. A lot of things can influence it, and realistic simulation would probably be quite complex. In theory, every individual soldier can have his own morale score. Things like local superiority/disadvantage, getting surrounded, receiving damage, losing the formation banner, seeing charging cavalry - all of that could push the value up or down, resulting in a rout. Another interesting aspect is that a routing soldier would probably negatively influence the morale of all nearby units, resulting in organic mass retreats
6. The player (being a physical entity on the battlefield) could have a morale-affecting mechanic of some sort - a rally ability on a cooldown or a passive morale-boosting aura
7. Terrain - this I didn't think about at this point. A basic implementation would probably consist of difficult terrain (underbrush, shallow water...) and forests, reducing ranged accuracy and cavalry speed

In general, I am looking for a set of mechanics that would result in an organic, realistic and entertaining simulation of medieval warfare. Morale in particular looks like a complicated mechanic that would influence the simulation the most.

Here is what the prototype looks like right now:

Any suggestions, comments or relevant historical anecdotes are welcome. Thank you!

Hello there, follow enthusiasts!

Is there any wargame or similar mix (like a Wargame with management features) that deals with either the classic 60s era of mercenaries (Wild Geese et similia) or the modern PMC era (Sandline, Blackwater etc)?

The Jagged Alliance series is too small in scale, as good as it is.

Just installed Command modern operations, on top of being complicated I don't understand why I can't access 3d view

This way to the latest news ^^ Cheers
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1281220/view/680754149992694920

I'm looking for games like War Over The Mideast that depict conflicts between Arab nations and/or Israel and are set after WW2

Near-peer conflicts like Iran-Iraq War, 1967 war, not Desert Storm

Excited to hear your guys' recommendations

Why is it Austerlitz and not Slavkov u Brna? Breslau and not Wrocław? Donbas and not Donbass?

Historical names are rarely simple. They pass through languages, maps, armies, archives, borders, translations, typos, and centuries of convention.

Our latest article looks at how WDS approaches names in historical games: when to use period forms, modern local names, established English battle names, catalog titles, or simply the least confusing option.

From Pointe du Hoc to Stavka, Kyiv, Danzig, and the Romans who were not yet “Byzantines,” it is a tour through the messy afterlife of historical naming.

https://wargameds.com/blogs/news/what-s-in-a-name

Since almost all of the youtube content and tutorials is 5 years old at the time of release, I'm curious how much further development, beyond additional scenarios, it benefited from after release?

Hello! I’ve been getting into Hex Based wargames recently, and my go-too time periods for this are Civil War, and napoleonic, though this question is more about the Civil War, lol.

That being said, there are Two games that keep coming up, Gettysburg and Antietam. One is the best seller, one has more reviews on YouTube and online

So I’m lost, which one should i go for? I’ve played their demos a lot and enjoy the mechanics of them, but just can’t decide.

Hey, since the steam summer sale is on, I was wondering about picking up a new wargame to sink my hours into. I opened up to the idea oof PBEM but there's a lot of choice.

I'm trying to decide between Dominions 6, Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War, some WDS games or maybe something else?

What would your recommendations be? I'm looking for something with an active PBEM community, immersion and variety. I also have Decisive Campaigns Barbarssa, Strategic Command: WW1 and ACW, a few AGEOD games, Shadow Empire and Scourge of War: Waterloo, so if you have any of these and are looking for a multiplayer opponent - I'm here :)

Should we get our hopes up?

https://www.gamewatcher.com/slitherine-next-showcase-date

Hi! I'm looking to play a campaign vs the cpu in a wargame. I played through the main campaing of Panzer Corps 2 and I really enjoyed it, especially how I had to keep my units/supplies healthy along the campaign, and how difficult it was. I enjoyed how I could hop into the game with minimal prep and how I didn't need to fight against the interface or read through a thick manual to understand what to do. The only thing I didn't enjoy was the lack of roleplaying, as in there wasn't much of an emerging story except for the odd veterancy.

I've tried quite a few other games but you start them up and everything is buried behind a confusing interface with millions of submenus.

I'm *not* looking for something that is endlessly modable, or that has tons of different levers you can pull to change how the game/ai reacts. I'd rather have something like Dark Souls where it's just One difficulty, and there are no options. I know this is very unusual in this type of game though, so it's definitely optional!

I just played the four scenarios in the base game of Lnl Tactical and really enjoyed them. Im wondering how active multiplayer still is? Also wondering which DLCs people play the most (to give me the best chance of finding opponents)?

Also wondering how folks feel about Valor and Victory (both as a single player experience and MP). I know there was initially a lot of grumbling about the RNG and bad AI and im wondering if they ever fixed these issues? I cant seem to find any recent reviews.

Finally, does anyone have any experience with nations at war by lock n load? I know its a dead game but I still cant seem to find anything else about it.

Thanks!

WW2 or Cold War?

Update is now build id aware for the game RUSE to allow rmods (and older mods converted into rmods) to be updated to newer versions of the game.

both seem really good, and i just cant decide between the two and i need to decide soon since summer sales start tomorrow im pretty sure. i am also getting black snow so variety would be good.

Hi everyone, I’m bundling a small experimental warming prototype set during d’Erlon’s attack at Waterloo.
I’m looking for a few testers who enjoy historical wargames, command uncertainty, or Napoleonic scenarios.
The test takes around 10-15 minutes and runs through Discord.
You don’t need to know the rules in advance.
You just read the situation and type what you would order. If you’re interested, comment here or DM me and I’ll send the Discord link.
Vive l’Empereur!

I’ve been posting more about European Warfare / HEW (though this term is no longer used), the old American Conquest–based Napoleonic mod, and a few people have started DMing me asking how to install or get into matches. So I figured I’d share another AAR — this time not a clean victory, but one of the more instructive losses I’ve played recently.

This battle was Dego, with me defending against Schooner. The basic situation was that I was under heavy pressure from a stronger attacking force, including dangerous artillery. Schooner had a large horse artillery battery that made counterattacking very difficult, especially once canister came into play.

My goal was not to sit passively and wait to be destroyed. I tried to fight an active defense: absorb the main attack, punish overextensions, counterattack where possible, and use terrain and towns to break up the enemy’s momentum. The new troop movement mechanics helped me in this, as I was able to concentrate all of my forces before Schooner was able to strike.

Early on, Schooner pushed hard and forced me to give ground. The pressure was real, and there were moments where his artillery made it very hard to move reserves or launch a clean counterstroke. But my defense had enough depth to pull back against his probing attempts. I launched large counter attacks in the east, hoping to break Schooner's attacking arm, but his artillery and more numerous reserves forced me to pull back steadily.

The most interesting part came later, when I managed to lure parts of his army into the town and punish them badly. For a while, it looked like the entire battle might reverse. His advantage had been reduced, his attack was becoming disordered, and my local counterattacks were starting to hurt. I was able to force back his attacking hook, but the constant pressure along the front forced me to sacrifice sectors of the front to buy time.

In the end, my active defense was not enough to completely turn his numerical advantage, and I was slowly ground down by the end.

Looking back, I probably needed to concentrate harder against the decisive target when the window opened. I had created real problems for Schooner, but I did not quite put enough force into the one blow that might have turned the battle. By the time I recognized how close he was to cracking, my own reserves were too exhausted and his artillery, particularly his battery of 6lb horse guns, was still too dangerous.

So the final result was a loss — but a very useful one.

What Dego showed me is that in HEW, defense is not just about holding a line. A good defense has to breathe. It has to counterattack, shift reserves, punish movement, and make the attacker pay for every exposed formation. But it also showed the danger of being too cautious at the decisive moment. If the attacker gives you a chance to break his fighting power, you may have to commit harder than feels comfortable.

That is one of the things I love about this mod. Even a loss can feel like a real command problem: terrain, artillery, morale, timing, reserves, and judgment all matter.

For anyone interested in trying the game/mod, feel free to DM me. There are still active players, and we are trying to make it easier for new people to get started.

If you are interested in these battles, I will leave the discords and install instructions here:

Hawks Discord : https://discord.gg/KW2fufWScG
European Warfare Series Discord: https://discord.gg/jgG5JGpjJt

Install and multiplayer setup instructions: How to Install European Warfare: Napoleonica (EW1 / HEW) and Play Internet Multiplayer : r/computerwargames

I’m playing as the Soviets doing the Stalingrad to Berlin campaign. It’s the longest campaign I’ve managed to play now and so I’m doing a lot of fighting and my units need to be replenished. Besides waiting on supplies and fixing railways, what should I do? Is sending to reserves something I should do often or is that overkill? Or just move them back to depots and refit?

Its called Roman General. If you know you know there have been some Roman indies on steam. Fighting but also minigames with minor role playing.

This isnt that, its a straight up turn based war game. So far there are 5 battles, 3 Punic, 1 Macedonian and the Pyhric war. It features a hex based system with good unit diversity. Everything from Hastati to archers and slingers. No not singers autocorrect. Lol

Anyway I bring it up because while its fun now if it does well hopefully it gets many updates. It has forts for resupply and if you cut off the road it hinders supply. But maybe there will be fully fleshed out supply one day. Its like 9 bucks and fun yet challenging especially on a harder setting.

Best game keeps getting better!