Scenario Design Center | Spotlights

**-Introducing the Musket & Pike Series-**

The Renaissance covers a fascinating century of warfare, from the close of the Medieval era to the eve of the Thirty Years War. The period starts with the French invasion of Italy in 1494 and the armies are still largely Medieval in weaponry and organization.


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While firearms and artillery are present on the battlefield they have yet to secure a dominant tactical role. However, by the close of the sixteenth century, traditional missile weapons such as the longbow and crossbow had been supplanted by arquebuses, muskets and pistols, while the proportion of firearms to pike had greatly increased since 1500.

The pike, once the primary infantry weapon for many armies - and often a decisive battle-winner in the hands of professional Swiss and Landsknecht mercenaries - was, by the close of the period retained primarily as a protection against cavalry, a role it continued to perform for another century until the invention of the bayonet made it redundant.


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A wide sampling of battles from small to large actions.

60 unique maps ranging in size from 480 hexes to 76,800 hexes providing ample ground for scenario designers to create their own actions.

Note that the game disk as shipped does not include a 3d mode, however this is available in all patch downloads off of the HPS Simulations' site.


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Additional Features:

This title is the first in a new series of games by John Tiller and his team called "Musket & Pike". Fans of the other pre-twentieth century games offered by Mr. Tiller will feel a sense of familiarity in this new engine, but there are also quite a few differences from anything put forth before, including a vastly expanded style of OOB that allows for many attributes to be set on a unit by unit basis instead of globally, such as:

movement allowance
victory point value
melee bonus value
armoured value
26 different weapon types, plus a new weapon.dat file allowing customization

Multiple additions to the PDT file for weapon flags including:

soft & hard targets
reduced melee effectiveness
indirect fire ability
single use
requires set up (e.g. artillery units)
no defensive fire ability
earthworks, trenches & abatis
ability to reflect army coalitions of 8 to 7, with a maximum of 3 to 2 armies facing off in any given OOB

In addition to the stand alone scenarios players may also choose to play the "campaign" format where they will play a series of scenarios centered around a particular figure. As long as this person survives each scenario they continue on to the next battle, but if he is lost the campaign game will end. For players who enjoy "sandbox" features of wargaming a wide array of editors is included - scenario editor, OOB editor, parameter data editor, DAT editor and sub-map editor. 7 "full" maps are included for use with the sub-map editor, which allows "chopping up" of a map to create a new smaller one to represent certain actions. These maps range in size from 76 x 58 hexes up to 778 x 240 hexes (the entire Port Stanley peninsula) - ample ground to make many custom scenarios.

Play modes include A/I, Hot Seat, PBEM, LAN & Internet play. A Scenario Editor is also included so existing scenarios can be altered or new ones created.
The Renaissance has 2D zoom in and zoom out modes and a large Units.bmp file to represent the vast array of forces covered in this title.

Credits

Project Coordinator: Rich Hamilton
Scenario Designer: Rich White
Scenario Maps: Rich White & Atle Jensen
Playtesters: Steve Trauth, Kevin Killeen, Doug Fuller, Andrew Moss, Gary McClellan, & Ken Miller