Over the past several dev logs, we've teased a "What If?" scenario that we planned to include in the Early Access release of The Glorious Cause.
We described it as something of an Alamo-style scenario, where two large armies collided in an all-out Gettysburg like pitched battle, with the American player's chances of victory somewhere in the low single digits.
That scenario was called The Full Weight of Empire.
The premise followed the historical path of the Second Battle of Trenton, but with one major caveat: in this alternate version of history, Washington doesn't slip around the British flank during the night and march toward Princeton.
Instead, he stays. And fights.
The battle would include not only the British and Hessian forces already operating around Trenton and the British garrisons throughout New Jersey, but thousands of additional troops available to General William Howe, Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America, in and around New York.
Basically, Washington would be daring the British Empire to throw everything it had at him.
It sounded awesome on paper.
Then our Quality Assurance tester played it a few times.
His feedback was pretty straightforward:
The Americans have virtually no chance of winning.
We went back and forth on this because, technically, that was the point. The Full Weight of Empire was supposed to be an almost impossibly difficult pitched battle where only the most innovative tactics, careful use of terrain, and deliberate actions could bring the Americans victory.
But he made a good argument.
A scenario can be brutally difficult and still be fun. But if the overwhelming majority of players feel like they're doomed before the battle even begins, a lot of people simply aren't going to enjoy playing it.
So we made a decision.
Rather than abandon all the work we had already done, we reworked the Order of Battle and brought the scenario back in line with the historical forces that fought around Trenton on January 2, 1777.
So officially, our third scenario is now the Second Battle of Trenton.
If you're unfamiliar with the battle, here's a quick summary:
The Second Battle of Trenton, was fought on January 2, 1777 and is part of The Ten Crucial Days of The American Revolution, where General George Washington’s Continental Army faced a large British and Hessian force under Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis at Trenton, New Jersey. The battle began with The British Army marching south toward Trenton. As the battle started, American troops conducted a series of delaying actions along the British approach, buying Washington valuable time to establish a defensive position behind Assunpink Creek. Late that afternoon and evening, Cornwallis launched repeated assaults against the American position near the bridge over the creek, but the Continental troops held their ground and inflicted significant casualties. Believing Washington trapped against the Delaware River, Cornwallis postponed further attacks until morning, however, Washington famously left campfires burning and quietly marched most of his army around the British flank during the night. Instead of waiting to be attacked, he moved toward Princeton, where the Americans would fight and win another important battle the following day, completing one of the most remarkable campaigns of the American Revolution.
And so thats was the surprise 'What If' battle', but lets cover how these two battles:
The Second Battle of Trenton
and
The Battle of Princeton.
Became a immense effort unto themselves to produce.
We wanted to feature these battles because they were part of The Ten Crucial Days of The American Revolution. These battles led by the incredible leadership of George Washington ensured the survival of The American Revolution.
Coming immediately after Washington's victory at Trenton on December 26, they helped transform what had looked like a collapsing rebellion into an army and a cause that had suddenly demonstrated it could survive, but also be able to defeat the best trained soldiers in the world.
When we decided to produce these two battles, we originally thought the process would be similar to the development of our original Battle of Trenton scenario.
Build a redesigned battlefield to accommodate our new 2.5D map system, research the Order of Battle, position the units, test it, balance it, and move on.
Yeah... that isn't exactly what happened. (lol)
What we stepped into was something far more immense than I originally expected.
When I first approached these battles, I honestly thought the most difficult part would be the historical research, so I started buying books, a lot of books. I watched documentaries (including the newly released Ken Burns The American Revolution), studied many historical and modern day maps of each battlefield, watched some amazing animated battle videos like The Battle of Princeton by American Battlefield Trust.
I was even able to track down an out-of-print copy of the American Battlefield Trust's Battle Maps of the American Revolution, Volume 3, which became incredibly useful when analyzing battlefield terrain, troop locations, movements, and the overall progression of these engagements.
Then, a few months later, I discovered why it had gone out of print.
They were working on a Revised + Expanded Second Edition for America's 250th anniversary. So apparently I'll be spending another $20. (lol)
If you also want a copy you can pick it up here:
Battle Maps of the American Revolution — Revised + Expanded Second Edition
For every battle we've produced, one of my biggest goals has been getting the number of soldiers assigned to each historical unit as accurate as reasonably possible. This was very important to me to represent the exact figures of each unit starting with the strength of the unit, its combat effectiveness, morale, organization, overall health of the unit. The problem is that finding those figures proved to be a daunting task, probably because the battle happened almost 250 years ago. And I doubt there was a historian that went unit to unit asking each soldier their morale, organization, and health level (lol).
No single surviving record is 100% definitive. Different historians give different numbers. Units suffered from sickness, desertion, detached personnel, stragglers, and casualties. Some sources count men present, others count men fit for duty, and others provide estimates.
So our solution was simple:
Use as many reputable sources as possible and do the best we can with the resources we had at hand.
We've relied on some incredible books, including 1776 by David McCullough, A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution by Craig L. Symonds, Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer, and A Guide to the Battles of the American Revolution by Theodore P. Savas and J. David Dameron.
We also dug through an enormous amount of material available online, including publications and historical documents preserved by the United States Army. There is an incredible amount of military history available through Army archives for free, and whoever has been responsible for digitizing and preserving that material, Thank You So Much for doing so.
We've also used resources from organizations and websites like
and many others.
We even reached out to historians, professors, authors, and others who have studied the campaign. But in the end it always came back: No two sources gave exactly the same numbers.
So eventually you reach a point where you have to compare the evidence, make the most historically defensible decision you can, and move forward.
We did the best we possibly could, and that's really all anyone can do when reconstructing battlefields from 250 years ago.
But getting the historical Order of Battle (OOB) as accurate as possible turned out to be only the beginning. Because once we started developing Princeton and the Second Battle of Trenton, we realized just how much entirely new game logic these battles required.
We didn't just need another battlefield, add some of the units we already developed. No we quickly discovered we needed entirely new types of soldiers.
Alongside our existing Continental infantry, we now needed to develop and properly differentiate units such as:
American Riflemen
American Militia
British Line Infantry
British Light Infantry
British Grenadiers
British Dragoons
and possibly the most important, Artillery.
And every one of those units created another series of questions.
The Dragoons, for example, required an entirely new mechanic allowing them to dismount and remount. Mounted Dragoons gain considerably more mobility, allowing them to rapidly move across the battlefield, scout, reinforce threatened positions, or exploit an opening. But being mounted also makes them a much larger target. Dismount them and suddenly they can use terrain differently, hold a flank, take advantage of cover, and present a smaller target to enemy musket and rifle fire, but they sacrifice much of the mobility that makes cavalry so useful in the first place. All of these actions had to be incorporated into a game that back in January featured only 1 type of combat unit, Infantry.
All of this meant creating new GUI controls for multiple units, new movement logic, new combat modifiers, new AI considerations and logic for each and every unit.
Then came Artillery. Artillery is a completely different animal, since the Infantry Combat formulas we developed would not apply to Artillery. So we had to build from the ground up new Artillery logic, from movement during winter conditions, how solid shot differed from canister, to a whole new logic system for Counter Battery Fire. Add in other factors like terrain height, Line of Sight, etc. and well it became a quite a challenge to accurately and historically resemble how Artillery behaved on the battlefield.
And then came the questions. Lots and lots of questions.
"How many Movement Points should a Militia unit expend moving through snow versus Continental Infantry?"
"How much should woods slow different units?" As Riflemen were more akin to faster movement in wooded areas than Line Infantry
"What movement penalty should Artillery absorb as they climb toward higher elevation?" and "How would that differ than movement in Summer conditions?"
We can go on and on, but you get the idea. We spent weeks, months, discussing, researching, testing, changing, and retesting these systems.
There's another problem that comes with making a historical wargame:
Historical accuracy isn't enough.
You can design the most historically accurate combat simulation imaginable, but if playing it is more frustrating, most people aren't going to have much fun playing it.
On the other hand, if you simplify everything where there isn't much differentiation between units and everything feels the same, then what's the point of making a historical wargame?
That has been the balancing act throughout the development of The Glorious Cause.
We want to convey why Riflemen are dangerous and why British Light Infantry behaves differently from British Line Infantry.
We want you to think about whether those Dragoons should remain mounted or dismount and hold that position.
We want elevation, woods, roads, snow, formations, morale, experience, weapons, ammunition, and leadership to actually matter. But we also want you to enjoy playing the game.
After months of work, I think we've finally reached the balance we've been looking for.
And once we had the units, weapons, terrain, movement, and combat systems behaving the way we wanted everything else fell into place.
And that opened an entirely new chapter in the development of The Glorious Cause...
Stay Tuned for more updates.