From the declaration of war by the French National Assembly against ‘the King of Hungary and Bohemia’ on April 20th 1792 to the climax of the Hundred Days at Waterloo on June 18th twenty three years later, Europe was convulsed by war. Perhaps no other war in history has captured the imagination of the wargamers much as these Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. English Computer Wargames offer you all the excitement and thrill of gaming these and other wars of the Era, without the headache of complex calculation and manual record keeping, in their suite of Programmes, Hard Pounding |
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| The suite consists of two programmes, Hard
Pounding, the Battle programme and Hard Marching, the Campaign and Army Generation programme, both included on the disc. In Hard Marching, the army creation routines
allow you to build up army files easily and quickly, which will later be used to fight
battles. There are 160 different armies to choose from, consisting 1920 different troop
types. There are, for example, 15 different British Armies and 21 French ones, each with
upto 18 troop types. When creating an army you may name the officers yourself, or have
them named automatically by the computer. There are over a million different names in over
30 different languages. Likewise you can name the units yourself or have the computer do
it for you. As an example of the possibilities, we have created a unit from the list; Brunswick
1814-30: Musketiere Bataillon Nr.5. commanded by Major Walther von Plettenberg. 525 experienced, regular infantry in 4 companies, equipped with Tower Pattern Musket and Bayonet Or from the more exotic, Fon Kingdom 1800-30: Assin Belewa’s Ahosi Gan-u-nlan, commanded by Chief Assin Belewa. 109 Experienced female soldier infantry in a single company, equipped with Blunderbuss and war-axe. |
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Load up the Battle
Programme. Mayhem ensues !! Some troops will obey
their orders and advance towards the enemy while other seem reticent and cling to the base
line and others yet will insist on advancing without orders. In addition to the usual advance,
hold, engage orders, troops can be ordered to stand in reserve or arrive on the
battlefield after a pre-determined delay and pre battle bombardments can be undertaken.
Throughout these processes, the experience and training of the troops and the character of
their commanders will play a key role, much to the frustration of players commanding
irregular or poorly trained armies. As battle progresses, the two sides come to close volleys; canister scours the field, sabres clash on breastplates and the trumpeting of elephants rises above the roar of cannon. Every time they are shot at or charged, or attempt to charge, morale tests are taken entirely automatically. There are no table for you to pore over, no mathematical calculations to do; all that is done by the computer. All you have to do is give the orders, measure the ranges and move the figures. Casualties are given and taken, officers killed or wounded, guns and colours are captured. Ammunition is expended, and counted by the round. Victors and vanquished will all tire as the battle wears on. |
| If you are not entirely happy with the unit in its’ standard form, then you can modify its’ strength, experience, commitment, officer or weaponry. There are over 160 different small arms and 100 different artillery pieces amongst the weapons available. These easily created units are automatically organised into Divisions and Brigades, and you can add Corps organisation and re-organise your Brigades etc. as you wish. Each officer, whether at Corps/Army level or right down to battalion commanders, has his own particular character, which will effect his behaviour on the battlefield and on campaign. Officer characteristics reflect observed National Characteristics. Thus French Armies will tend to have largely good officers, whilst Spanish ones will tend to be of poorer quality. British officers meanwhile will tend to be of infinitely variable and unpredictable merit. | After the fray you can re-load the Campaign
Programme and pass the armies through a post battle update. Here the victorious
will recover some of their battle losses and gain confidence, steadiness and command
control. The losers will lose even more men as untended wounded die and the dispirited
desert. They will lose confidence, but generally become steadier and better disciplined.
The fresh green recruits of yesterday will begin their transformation to gnarled veteran. Here, in the general update routine you can have them rest up in camp and recover from battle. Here you can have them march about the countryside and lay siege to places and desert and die from attrition ... or die of all sorts of horrible diseases. In this programme you can also add in replacements, train your men and re-equip them with the latest weapons. You can award medals to the brave and successful and Court Marshal the cowardly and disobedient. All in all you can do pretty well all you need to re-fight the campaigns of history or create whole new conflicts of your own. |
Automated Morale Testing At the end of each move, each Brigade commander will review his troops and take his own morale test, and on upto the Army commander himself. When one player, or his troops have had enough the carnage will come to an end. You can then survey the casualties and morale states of the armies and once again save the armies to disc. The game actually does this automatically every turn just in case of Acts of God like power cuts, or someone stepping on the plug... or the pub opening. |
