I looked through the terrain cards and it seems like streams can only run from long edge to long edge. So a normal game will never have a stream run entirely across an army's front.
A coast terrain piece can only be placed along the short edge. So a normal game will also never involve a stream connecting to a coast.
My first question is: I am interpreting these two things correctly? Secondly, I am curious about how this design came about. My guess is that allowing rivers that run between the battle lines could more easily result in a stalemate.
Streams and Coast - design philosophy?
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Texus Maximus
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David Kuijt
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Re: Streams and Coast - design philosophy?
Historical examples of a battle right at a river crossing did occur, but they were quite rare. The crossing of the Medway in the initial invasion of Britain by the Romans is one such battle. Much more common were battles where one side held the river and the other side looked across for several days and then tried something clever to cross a bunch of their troops elsewhere and then the battle was actually fought with the river on one side. Examples are Mohi (Mongols v. Hungarians), Orewin Bridge (English v. Welsh), Hydaspes (Alexander v. Porus), and many many more.
The basic thing is this: having a linear river across the middle of the map creates a very static game where neither side is motivated to attack. An army with lots of difficult terrain troops will want to fight in the river and not go out into open terrain beyond it; any other army will want to fight just outside the river and crush the enemy coming out of it. That's a whole lot of advantage for sitting back.
There are lots of situations where both sides were motivated NOT to fight in history. And in the vast majority of them, not-at-all-strangely, both sides did NOT fight -- they fought a little later, elsewhere, when something changed.
Given that, and the fact that linear barrier river battles cause a lot of unsatisfactory (and often very slow) games, and the further fact that linear barrier river battles are quite rare in history (for good and sufficient reasons), we decided not to attempt to force anyone to fight linear barrier river battles in the terrain deck.
But nothing stops you from putting down any terrain you like when replicating historical battles. Some battles happened in really bizarre terrain that no reasonable system will create -- Stamford Bridge, for example, or Stirling Bridge, just to pick two examples from York and Scotland within 300 years of each other. TRIUMPH! works great to fight historical battles with unequal sides, unequal victory conditions, and unusual terrain -- our Qadesh battle scenario at Historicon is a really fun example. Go for it!
The basic thing is this: having a linear river across the middle of the map creates a very static game where neither side is motivated to attack. An army with lots of difficult terrain troops will want to fight in the river and not go out into open terrain beyond it; any other army will want to fight just outside the river and crush the enemy coming out of it. That's a whole lot of advantage for sitting back.
There are lots of situations where both sides were motivated NOT to fight in history. And in the vast majority of them, not-at-all-strangely, both sides did NOT fight -- they fought a little later, elsewhere, when something changed.
Given that, and the fact that linear barrier river battles cause a lot of unsatisfactory (and often very slow) games, and the further fact that linear barrier river battles are quite rare in history (for good and sufficient reasons), we decided not to attempt to force anyone to fight linear barrier river battles in the terrain deck.
But nothing stops you from putting down any terrain you like when replicating historical battles. Some battles happened in really bizarre terrain that no reasonable system will create -- Stamford Bridge, for example, or Stirling Bridge, just to pick two examples from York and Scotland within 300 years of each other. TRIUMPH! works great to fight historical battles with unequal sides, unequal victory conditions, and unusual terrain -- our Qadesh battle scenario at Historicon is a really fun example. Go for it!
DK