ALAMO: RELOADED · THE HISTORY

Behind the battle.

The siege happened. The modern arsenal is our plot twist. Historic maps and portraits guide the fort, landscape and faces; they leave gaps that this game fills with reconstruction.

The defenders

William Barret Travis

McArdle’s familiar posthumous likeness. His exact face cannot be authenticated from this painting. The game places him with the north-wall defenders.

Texas State Library context

David Crockett

Chester Harding, 1834, painted during Crockett’s lifetime. Brown swept hair, sideburns and a long oval face guide the sculpt. His game position is the palisade.

Smithsonian portrait · CC0

James Bowie

The only known lifetime oil portrait described by the Texas State Preservation Board; artist attribution is uncertain. Bowie is ill on a cot in the low barracks, rather than fighting on the wall.

Texas State Preservation Board

The three main faces have separate proportions and modeled hair informed by these portraits, using a corrected, portrait-inspired skin material with open eyes. They are approximate artistic likenesses. Bonham, Losoya, Jameson, Dickinson and Esparza are also named; their varied generic faces are not claimed as verified likenesses. The Alamo’s defender roster is reconstructed: no complete last-day muster survives.

The landscape

The San Antonio River and town lie west of the mission. The acequia runs beside the eastern compound; ponding or swampy ground lies east/northeast, with a grove farther east. These features are described by the Alamo’s review of the Berlandier and Labastida maps. A modest southeastern rise evokes Powder House Hill shown on the American Battlefield Trust map. Heights, exact river bends, tree positions and town lots are interpreted. Modern ornamental gardens and a surrounding mountain range are excluded.

Columns and artillery

The March 5 assault orders organize four columns and a reserve. They support compact assault formations, not identical rectangles. The game adds staggered files, smaller group gaps and wider starting areas; their spacing in metres is a gameplay choice.

The Alamo Trust records 18 serviceable defender cannon. The eight Mexican pieces follow Gregg Dimmick’s published analysis of Filisola: two each of 8-, 6- and 4-pounders, plus two howitzers. This is an evidence-informed reconstruction, not an undisputed inventory. Individual battery locations and gun barrel shapes remain interpreted.

Mexican guns have eight crew, five at the piece and three at supply positions; defender guns have five. An NPS description of later field artillery drill supports the eight-person division of labor as a comparison, not an exact 1836 Alamo crew roster. Reload and accuracy normalize to a full crew so the extra bodies do not make the guns magically faster or more accurate.

The 2,000 attackers, 189 defenders, 60 ladders, modern player weapons, morning barrage, leadership flight and morale thresholds are adjustable scenario rules. See the in-game field guide for controls and combat rules.