charles vasey - 12:14pm Apr 18, 2000 PST (#1858 of 1891) 
History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect. We can know
the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly
recapture what it was to know the beginning only. 

LES CROISADES 
Nicolas Stratigos for Vae Victis 

There can be nothing more difficult to get right than operational combat
in an era where very few armies were fielded. This is additionally a
very long era. Most states before the massed armies of (say) Louis XIV
fielded a couple of field armies at the most, either by reason of army
size or because the ruler wished to keep them under his eye and that of
one trusted liegeman (often a relative). Even the Sun King tended to
field one main army per theatre. Come the massed army eras one begins to
have fronts and the game mechanism can begin to move towards a
ZOC-driven system. But in the Middle Ages we are undoubtedly in the era
of few armies. 

In this game the Crusaders usually consist of the small mesnies of the
Prince of Antioch and Count of Tripoli, and a couple of major forces in
the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In both scenarios King Guy has a good army,
supported in the first by Latin nobles under Balian of Ibelin. In the
second one can have the luxury of two additional armies, one under
Philippe Augustus, and the other under Coeur de Lion. Similarly, the
Saracens have a number of small armies representing the Ayyubid rulers
of major cities, together with a large force under Saladin and one in
Egypt under whoever is current ruler. 

A game in which two stacks stalk two stacks is a difficult one to pull
off without some care. If combat is too easily achieved then the game
can in a few turns lose both major armies of one side. This is the
nature of combat in that period, especially combat against a light
cavalry army such as that fielded by Saladin. However, unless the two
players can do something to improve their position, to get the edge,
they are left with the choice of staring glumly at each other or
engaging in indirect castle sieging behind the cover of the main army.
In the historical campaigns each day and each move was undertaken with
the aim of improving the position. Supply features (far too minor for
the game’s scale - a spring for example) were skirmished over, in the
hope of instigating a foolish attack. And if this minor feature was lost
the entire army might choose to withdraw a hex or so and begin the
process again. Both sides might raid each other to try to sting the
other, or simply to get supplies. Reading the articles by John
Gillingham on William the Bastard, Coeur de Lion, and William Marshal,
le meilleur chevalier du monde the plan seems clear cut but heavy with
nuance. If your enemy is moving forward into your territory he will want
to spread out to draw supply (and destroy your countryside), your
presence in a concentration will leave him open to a formed
counter-attack. Simple really, except that you also need to draw supply
so that you too are open to the need to disperse. Who will be the one to
win this battle of wits and belts, will a strategically placed magazine
or river give you the supply edge? Before attacking your castles the
enemy (if Philip of Flanders is to be believed in Jordan Fantosme) seek
to ravage the surrounding territory making it difficult for your castles
and relief armies to be supplied. Except of course that the besieger
will also be unsupplied from those directions and will eventually push
into a zone of castles cut off from supply by his own foragers. A
frequent defensive response was to ravage ones’ own lands to engender
besieger supply problems, yet was not that exactly the besieger’s
Cunning Plan? So the same solutions apply to both sides and each
strength is a weakness, it ain’t what you do, its the way that you do
it! 

charles vasey - 12:14pm Apr 18, 2000 PST (#1859 of 1891) 
History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect. We can know
the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly
recapture what it was to know the beginning only. 

The difference between two sides are thus to be judged in the
micro-details, something far detached from the ten mile hex situation.
Can all this be rolled up into the combat dice? Not really, because both
sides would know just how well they were doing in the micro-war (mostly
from the morale of their own men) and in many cases would withdraw from
battle or avoid it. Indeed, many medieval kings regarded running away as
an entirely sensible course. So combat is the exception rather than the
rule and cannot therefore encapsulate the nuances of manoeuvring. The
interception dice might be a better way, but the factors involved
frequently come down to Leadership Ratings and a die-roll. I think we
may need some card/chit systems whereby each side has some advance
knowledge of the issues in question. 

All of which is an awfully long way to point out the problems inherent
in this game. Essentially one takes a risk on battle (of which more
later) where neither side has any advantage (despite the fact that a
prepared position was usually the stronger one, see Kelly de Vries’
book) or nibbles away at towns and castles daring your opponent to
attack (and knowing, if he does, that some of your troops will be too
busy watching the walls to fight). It is a bit too bald for its own
good. 

The map is (unlike Belisare its forerunner) hex based and I do not think
this an improvement. It is very clear with the fertile coastal littoral,
the drier lands and hills up to the Jordan and then over. The cities are
not marked for either faction and you will need a few markers to keep
track of who owns what. Apart from the coastal towns and the great Arab
cities of the inner plain (Damascus, Homs etc.) there are a few castles,
Tiberius and Jerusalem. 

The counters are splendid, each leader has a “bust” plus coat of arms.
The Ayyubid arms are (I assume) made up but splendid for all that. Those
of les croises are remarkable (only the French Royal colours having a
problem at the printers). The leaders are rated for strategic and
tactical value. In the latter only Coeur de Lion and Philip of Flanders
have any strength, together with Saladin. The units have spectacular
little icons. Each counter has three bits of information: strength,
missile capability, and morale class. Crusader units tend to a bit
smaller than the Ayyubids, and the latter have more missile units but
usually lower morale. The atmosphere is excellent. Unfortunately the
organisation sheet has the names of the commander inside his box, so
covered by his troops, Messer Theophile have that man mutilated. 

charles vasey - 12:15pm Apr 18, 2000 PST (#1860 of 1891) 
History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect. We can know
the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly
recapture what it was to know the beginning only. 

Events in the game are driven by Action points, these useful military
currency units can help you to move, fight, siege or build fieldworks.
Usually the Saracens will have more such points and this can permit them
to use their strength to pick off the Christian strongholds eventually
forcing the main Crusader army to commit to the risk of combat. This is
pretty much as it should be, although as neither side can recover
destroyed units any major losses will hamstring any subsequent offences.
All the more important then not to lose a battle, easier said than done
I fear. 

Combat occurs when units intercept, and a moving unit can try this a
number of times in his turn, but only once on a particular target.
Forces will encounter each other about 50% of the time, when faced by
particularly good leaders they may even blunder into an ambush (from
which they always retreat). Both sides may always agree to a battle.
Once combat is triggered the forces line up, firstly both sides engage
in missile combat. Typically, the Saracens will be able to put down a
greater volume of fire (most of their foot and cavalry are armed with
bows). The Crusaders have their crossbows, but the technological
advantage of these weapons over the less penetrative Muslim weapons is
not reflected. If there are five or more losses from missile fire there
is a risk that the Crusader chevalier units will charge in disorder (in
which case they fight the entire battle without support from their foot
or sergeants). After losses are extracted (in terms of eliminated SPs at
about a 6% rate at the heavy end of the chart although die modifiers can
bulk that up spectacularly) and any discipline test is passed by the
Crusader chevalier units there is another combat round (hand-to-hand)
with all units participating, but multipliers for heavy foot and
cavalry. These modifiers usually favour the Crusaders. Further losses
are removed and one side may have to take a morale test. This latter
point is an odd one, it is really closer to a fatigue test as the better
the morale class (Knights of the Military Orders are A class, Muslim
javelin men are D class) the better its chance of being disorganised.
Exsqueeze me, better chance! Yes, my only rationalisation is that the
designer regards the game as one in which the better units try hardest
and weaken fastest. The natural result might be to compose your army of
complete rabble because each point of peons is more likely to stay in
combat than a point of elites. And once disorganised units are out of
the wild hunt for the rest of the battle. Of course, the modifiers will
still mean that Crusader chevalier units are worth three times (for
example) their face value but since they may vanish on a score of 7 or
more for standard knights whereas rabble hang around until an 9 is
scored you can see the problem. Class A knights add to the dice
modifiers (superior discipline) so making it more likely that their side
wins and forces the other guy to dice. Whatever the basis once you start
to lose your best troops are likely to ride off the field leaving the
commons to be slaughtered. It feels odd, so odd that I keep wondering if
I have mistranslated it, but it has certain logic and quite a lot of
historical support. You can see the Christian commanders trying to hold
their men in hand, if they can survive the arrows and unleash the charge
on time they may cause the Ayyubids to weaken and collapse, but so too
could be their fate. To lose before an Arab army is to suffer terrible
losses amongst the foot. The feeling of always being on the back-foot is
always with the Christians, not that the Muslims do not take a beating
every so often, it is that they usually survive rather better. 

charles vasey - 12:15pm Apr 18, 2000 PST (#1861 of 1891) 
History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect. We can know
the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly
recapture what it was to know the beginning only. 

All this is a fine but bloody form of random combat. Big forces should
wear down and destroy smaller ones, and the usual response of a Muslim
army in the circumstances - avoid combat by running away - is not
possible, however they may do this after one round of combat subject to
pursuit losses. Crusader armies lacking mobility operated in tight
formations akin to a marching square. They cannot retreat and because
cavalry (especially light cavalry) is favoured in pursuit combat they
will suffer more at the hands of the Muslims. However, both sides had
adopted combat methods that gave the defender an edge (or so my reading
of Smail and Marshal indicates) and I do not see this inherent in the
game, but then as I noted at the beginning of this piece the
micro-details of combat in a macro-level game are difficult to simulate.
This hole in the heart of this game spoiled it for us, but its general
structure is sensible with good siege, supply and naval rules. Towns
will hold out a long time but you can build siege works and make
assaults to speed things up. However, the losses in early assaults
(without large siege modifiers) can be high so that you need time to
winkle the opponent. As supply is derived from controlled towns within
three hexes any siege campaign needs to unfold logically with a series
of overlapping sieges pushing out a supply line. Where enough forces
exist a pincer strategy will not only press the opponent back, but will
mean that his supply options are weakened. 

I must confess I do not quite know how the combat detail could be
handled to give a satisfactory effect. But then if Hannibal can be
lauded for a system where Hannibal can frequently bring Fabius to battle
then who am I to criticise Les Croisades for such minor failing? Faster
than The Crusades by Richard Berg, with a certain simplicity in its
strategic opportunities this is a game to get on with and play. It will
be bloody and the gore will lead you to alternate between aggression and
circumspect siege and cover strategies. The latter will be closer to the
real thing. As ever its physical finish ravishes the senses. The
tactical system has the feeling of those long battles fought under the
sun, but the strategic feel is not all it might be. Well worth fiddling
with though. I have translations if needed. 

Finis