De Bellis and Armati Thoughts
This is an advance letter to let you know I'll be sending two articles shortly. I also have a table which some may find interesting. I wrote a program some years ago when I was learning DBA to calculate odds of recoiling and doubling. It's for straight up rolling, but people can easily adjust figures to calculate modifiers in DBM.
I also read your article about medieval command in The Courier. It was excellent! We just had a similar discussion on the net. I don't understand why people thing that ancient and medieval generals did no more than array their troops and lead the charge. This is one of the main reasons I don't think as much of Armati. It allows the general to wander about the battlefield, but aside from adding pluses in combat, he can't do much to maneuver the army. While DB allows better command control, the general is stuck in his element. I'd really like to see a cooperative effort between these two games to make one. Arty has many excellent ideas. And, I would rather be able to shoot all missile troops instead of just bows.
Dusty
DBM Computing
Please find enclosed my subscription. I'm enjoying Saga. Keep up the good work. I promise to write that promised follow-up article about using the Huns under DBM soon.
My current project is writing a series of programs to support DBM/DBR games. There are two basic programs--one for DBM and the other for DBR--which allow a player to enter and store their army order of battle on a computer. The program will calculate unit points, command and army demoralization levels, and EEs automatically, as well as performing some basic checks for baggage and command structure. You can print lists, produce variants, and reorder lists using simple drag-and-drop operations. The programs are PC based (sorry to all you Mac users, but I'm unlikely to get around to producing a Mac version).
The basic programs are available as public domain software. That means they are free! And yes, the free version is fully functional with no strings attached (except that I continue to retain intellectual copyright so that you cannot then sell it on to others). I've uploaded the programs to Ed Allen's DBM Web page (http://tetrad.stanford.edu/dbm.html).
There is a FTP hypertext link on [Ed Allen's] page. Clicking on it will take you to a section which has a zipped (compressed) copy of my program which you can download. The zipped file is called: DBMW.ZIP for the DBM version and DBRW.ZIP for the DBR version. You will need to unzip it after you download it.
I'm also working on an update. The DBM upgrade will be ready by December 1995 and the DBR version by March 1996. The upgrade version will allow a player to enter a WRG army book 'reference' list. The reference list can be used to check your army for adherence to compulsories and maximums. The reference list can also be used to create or update your order of battle 'army list' by clicking and dragging a unit from the reference list and dropping it on your army order of battle. The upgrade will also allow you to create new troop types, should you wish to do so.
The minimum system requirements are an IBM-compatible PC with a 386 processor, Windows 3.1 or better, VGA monitor, and mouse. The following are recommended: 20MHz 386 or better, 4MB RAM or better, and approximately 1MB of hard disk space required for the hard drive installation for each version.
There will be a charge for the upgrade version of the program of US$20 (although if you choose to take the DBR upgrade either at the same time or later, it is charged at US$15). This includes postage, an accompanying manual, and disks. The upgrade version is only available directly from myself. I request that checks are in sterling, but I can cope with US$ cash or the equivalent in some other major currency if you prefer.
Neil Hammond (nhammond@atlas.co.uk)