Raphia . . . One-third of it

[Chris]

Gentlemen,

Tactica II, with a few scenario special rules, were used to stage a refight of just a portion of the large battle of Raphia.

An open invitation for review and constructive comments is hereby extended . . .

https://nopaintingrequired.blogspot.com/search/label/Raphia%20Revisited



Cheers & thanks in advance for your time,
Chris

p.s. Fingers crossed that on final review, I caught most of the grammar and spelling errors and made sure to get rid of the "full stops" when directing readers to a link.

p.p.s. On perhaps a slightly related note, I wonder if anyone has tried to write a battle report using AI? I have heard quite a bit about AI in the news of late, especially as it relates to school/education and kids writing essays.

[Erpingham]

p.p.s. On perhaps a slightly related note, I wonder if anyone has tried to write a battle report using AI? I have heard quite a bit about AI in the news of late, especially as it relates to school/education and kids writing essays.

A massive topic all on its own. 

For an interesting discussion of the problem in the academic area, I recommend this post on Bret Devereaux's blog.   https://acoup.blog/2023/02/17/collections-on-chatgpt/

[Chris]

Agreed. It appears that I'm quite late to this "party," but still.

Thanks for the link to BD's blog. Will have to study it at length later in the day or week.

Given the estimated size of this topic (one that will be with us for a very long time I imagine, as AI continues to evolve), I wonder if it might be worthy of treatment or at least an editorial mention in future issues of Slingshot?

Cheers,
Chris

[Erpingham]

I wonder if it might be worthy of treatment or at least an editorial mention in future issues of Slingshot?

I suspect Dave's revised editorial guidance will cover it.  In the meantime, he has the power to challenge or refuse anything he considers dodgy.

[Jon Freitag]

Anthony, thanks for posting the link to Devereaux's post.  Very interesting and useful too. "technofetishistic egotism" is a new one to me.

Having spent the latter part of my career developing machine learning and natural language processing algorithms for complex business applications, the topic and science are fascinating.  There are many, many pitfalls encountered along the way, though, to which creators (and users) must be cognizant.

Without diving much into the mathematics and theory of these technologies, Devereaux presents a very compelling assessment of the problem of relying on such shortcuts.

[Jon Freitag]

Chris, another Herculean effort to meld wargaming, rules, and history into a compelling narrative.  Truly an impressive effort.  Fascinating to see you armed with Tactica II in one hand and Polybius (and Slingshot and others) in the other hand.  I really enjoy your analytical methods' approach in these historical refights.  So many topics to respond to so I will pick a couple only.

I am somewhat surprised that the issue cropping up from elephant retreats had not been addressed with solid clarifications in either Tactica I or II.  Surely, there must be errata, clarifications, or FAQ somewhere for this ruleset.  I know how I would rule in this case.

On the poor review of your WI article by a TMPer is hardly a surprise.  To each their own, I suppose but a critique in such an uneven and unflattering manner speaks much more about the reviewer than the piece being reviewed.  I would likely dismiss it as an attention-getting vent from the safety of cyberspace.  My response would likely include, "OK. I take your points.  Now, please point me to your works." 

Your essay has tempted me to pull one of my wargames of Raphia off the shelf and give it a go armed with your detailed battle account.  Any post that makes me think about wargaming, rules, and reconciling our wargaming with history is a good post.

Thank you. 

[CarlL]

WOW Chris!!

Did I get this right... you had a ten feet long table and that was just the two opposing wings deployed??!!

Now I can understand why you might not attempt the whole battle!!

Great article, Chris.

I dont think I have enough Hellenistic (tin) troops to fill 10 feet of table in either my 25mm or 15mm versions.

Raphia has always been a fascinating battle of Hellenistic Titans. After completing two plastic / metal 25mm armies in 1970s, I fought this as a tabletop battle as you do with WRG (4th edition, I think!) then much later with DBA and later again with Armati1. It is always good to see different ways a battle can be represented and played as a game. I must make more effort to get to a SoA Battle Day.
CarlL

[Chris]

Cheers Carl,

Thanks for taking the time and for commenting. Appreciated.

The actual length of the larger table (not often used) is 10.5 feet. For the Raphia experiment, I did not make use of the entire length, but did have "troops" spread out across about 7 feet of it.

It was not reverse engineering per se, but I started with the idea of focusing on the wings, or the elephant battle on this one wing, and then tried to figure out how I could go about it.

I responded to "General" Jon that I would like to entertain another try at Raphia at some point before this year ends. Ideally, I would stage the entire battle, and for the sake of continued experimentation, I would employ a different set of rules. Perhaps I would even buy another set.

Thanks again for taking the time to read and remark.

Chris