Broken Rules

[hammy]

To me all this rules broken is begining to sound like I'm on the MM site all confusion about rule changes.

Possibly but to be honest there aren't many issues and IMO only one that really needs fixing (interpenetration getting lots of extra move).

The 'problem' occured in perhaps three or four games at Britcon and was probably only singificant in terms of game score in at most a couple.

For the moment if we can actually let the authors have a chance to mull things over then we might get an answer. Remember that two thirds of the author team are very busy working on new rules at present (FoG:R and FoG:N) and the other one has just started a new job and is getting married next weekend.

The simple solution for now is just not to take the p*ss and simply limit interpenetrations to being from front to back during the movement phase.

[batesmotel]

...
You seem to have missed the point here. The horse archer player is the one that places the road and river. Then any constricting terrain that the other player tries to put will be lost if required to touch a side edge - as it won't fit and can't be placed on top. Basically it is a way to prevent Leonidas from using his tactic.

Would it solve the problem if terrain was allowed to be placed against the "center-ward" bank of a river like it is against a coast on a table edge? Maybe only if this would still put the edge of the terrain within 6 MU of the table edge?

Chris

[MatteoPasi]

Problem
Threatened BG with the capability to evade near the table edge evade off table for the loss of only 1AP. If they stayed on table they would most likely cost their owner 2AP for being routed. This makes large skirmish armies very difficult to beat, and after evading they are lost to the battle anyway.

Whats the Solution, is it a problem?

If a player try to evade out of the table THE OPPOSITE choose if the unit exit the table (1 point) OR stay at the end of the table (and maybe 2 points)

Like it ?

[MatteoPasi]

Please read "opposite" like "opponent"

Mat

[MatteoPasi]

Perceived Problem
Player chooses a road and river and places them at table edge to reduce the amount of terrain that can be placed on the table by the opponent. (I don't think there is anything wrong with this personally, obviously lots of others do)

Whats the Solution?

Allow roads and Rivers to have terrain placed Over / Under them.
Gino
SMAC

Under its better and it make sense (think about a real river: lots of wood aside it)
Matteo

[david53]

Problem
Threatened BG with the capability to evade near the table edge evade off table for the loss of only 1AP. If they stayed on table they would most likely cost their owner 2AP for being routed. This makes large skirmish armies very difficult to beat, and after evading they are lost to the battle anyway.

Whats the Solution, is it a problem?

If a player try to evade out of the table THE OPPOSITE choose if the unit exit the table (1 point) OR stay at the end of the table (and maybe 2 points)

Like it ?

Its in the rules you can evade of the table if charged says it in black and white so I may just go on doing it of course you don't have to charge and they would'nt have to evade.

[timmy1]

In the latest Slingshot Chris Webber as a Thracian lover complains that foot light troops that shoot are disadvantaged under FoG. In regards to the BG evading off table is 1 AP rules, maybe we change the victory rules to say that LH BG evading off table count as 2 VP. Nice and simple (and realistic). However players will then moan about LH armies fighting to the death in a totally unrealistic and ahistoric fashion...

[kal5056]

In the latest Slingshot Chris Webber as a Thracian lover complains that foot light troops that shoot are disadvantaged under FoG. In regards to the BG evading off table is 1 AP rules, maybe we change the victory rules to say that LH BG evading off table count as 2 VP. Nice and simple (and realistic). However players will then moan about LH armies fighting to the death in a totally unrealistic and ahistoric fashion...

I could agree with a mechanism that counted an evaded Battle Group off the board as 2 AP's if we agree that although not lost the pursuing BG would be out of the battle as well as they are in reality following the ones they chased off. (No AP lost just out of the battle keeping the lights away)

Gino
SMAC

[madaxeman]

What needs to be asked is all these changes people are suggesting are they to make the rules better or make their own army better. So what you can't catch a LH BG on the steppes with your medium foot killers would it have happened in real life no, then i think the writers have it correct.

For me, having a debate on this forum is mostly all about finding out whether viewpoints we form playing at our clubs and local groups are widely held, or if these opinions are held by "just our club" - not about trying to skew the rules for a particular army (after all, the BHGS trophies aren't that nice !).

Taking "LH" it is clear from the volume of discussion that there are a lot of people at MAWS who don't think LH are a problem, however from the volume and balance of posts so far I would suggest that the "MAWS" view is a minority view as a lot of other people playing at different groups across the UK and the rest of the world do appear to regard various aspects of the LH related rules as being currently out of kilter.

Any topic where there is a similar consensus on something being out of balance is one I'm happy to contribute to as constructively as possible, whether I personally agree with it or not.

[jlopez]

Sorry if it's been covered in previous posts...

We are going to try to solve the issue of armies with lots of BGs and uncatchable skirmish armies at the Barcelona competition in November using the Blitz system. Haven´t finalized the details yet but roughly speaking it should work as follows:

1. Blitz starts automatically if after two hours the players haven't completed 8 turns or forgotten to keep track of turns played. The umpire can also impose blitz at any time as he sees fit. Blitz runs until time runs out or one army breaks.
2. Once Blitz has started, the active player has 2 minutes to declare charges and move them, his opponent has 1 minute to move his evades. During the movement phase the active player has 5 minutes to move his entire army. Once a player's time limit is up, no more units can be moved and any units declared as evading instead stand to receive the charge. Time to be checked by non-active player.

Our objectives are to:

1. Prevent players from timing out their adversaries either as deliberate tactic or simply because they are slow, indecisive players.
2. Generally speaking give everyone (even HF vs LH) the chance to obtain a decisive result.
3. Make excessively large armies harder to manage once blitz starts.

This blitz system will be combined with yellow/red cards used by the umpire to "guide" players along the path of virtuous gaming. If subtle prompts don't persuade players to stop time-wasting, deliberately annoying their opponent or umpire (especially the umpire, yours truly in this case) or any other reprehensible behaviour they'll get a yellow card (one per game) as an official warning. After that they can earn an unlimited number of red cards per game. Each yellow card will cause 1 point to be deducted from the final competition result, 5 points for red cards.

I don't expect to have to use the card system as I'm hoping the mere threat will be enough to convince the odd difficult/over competitive player to have fun for a change.

Comments welcome as we haven't finalized the details yet.

Julian

[paulburton]

Someone once proposed something similar for DBM to get around the slow play problem (either time wasting or carefully testing all move options before committing). Other suggestions involved chess clocks (say 1h40 for each player in a 3 hour game to balance play). Blitz type play has its attractions and will lead to many more military blunders (thus enhancing historical accuracy).

Light horse opponents are tricky - however they hav trouble forcing a result on you as well. My fights against Ben Jones' Mongols tended to end in draws in his favour as Romans are tough to break (unless you deploy the 'Hospitaller option' in Ilkhanids -which he was only using until the proper Mongol Conquest list came out). I managed a winning draw against some Late Achaemenids with my Principate Romans (Slow progress though and note to self - never ever let Average Equites stand an fight superior bow, sword, armoured cavalry even if both are in one rank).

One way to discourage light horse/skirmisher armies is not to play their game. If they cannot win wither then these armies will also lose popularity in favour of soemthing balancing shot and shock.

[shall]

An excellent stream to pull together the small amount of gut-wrenching tension into 1 concise stream...

As authors I think I can safely say we feel pretty good about the way the rules have stood up over 18 month. Very handy to have major items there for us to react too.

What I suggest is that we leave it running as s stream for another 3-4 days and then at the end of next week perhaps we can create THE LIST , and certainly we can take a good look at them for the future.

Cheers

Si

[SDnz]

I agree about the extra move for 2 bgs by moving through each other should not be allowed. However its well known on the forum and I have never used it or seen it used.

I am a LH player about half the time so I do have a bias. This thread has less than 20 people debating it, how many acitve and casual players are actually playing the game, surely this is a small sample of people based on who actively posts and feels passionately about the issues. This is a bit like putting out a postal survery and believing the results represent the majority of opinion.

The competition results do not demonstrate a clear bias towards skirmish armies or swarm winning. Pete Dalby with 12 bgs has won IWF and Britcon with his 2 LH swarm. Its my opinion being one of the less than 20 people who feel passionately enough to respond that we need to be cautious in any change as the long term effects will be subsequently debated in 12 months with new people wanting changes. I certainly hope we do not go back to a ruleset which caters for 2 long lines of troops that just face off and charge.

[spike]

What needs to be asked is all these changes people are suggesting are they to make the rules better or make their own army better. So what you can't catch a LH BG on the steppes with your medium foot killers would it have happened in real life no, then i think the writers have it correct.

For me, having a debate on this forum is mostly all about finding out whether viewpoints we form playing at our clubs and local groups are widely held, or if these opinions are held by "just our club" - not about trying to skew the rules for a particular army (after all, the BHGS trophies aren't that nice !).

Taking "LH" it is clear from the volume of discussion that there are a lot of people at MAWS who don't think LH are a problem, however from the volume and balance of posts so far I would suggest that the "MAWS" view is a minority view as a lot of other people playing at different groups across the UK and the rest of the world do appear to regard various aspects of the LH related rules as being currently out of kilter.

Any topic where there is a similar consensus on something being out of balance is one I'm happy to contribute to as constructively as possible, whether I personally agree with it or not.

Tim

I disagree that the effectivness of LH are out of kilter and I think you will find that the "MAWS" view as you have called it, can't be dismissed as a minority, I go as far as saying you are wrong- many others share and have expressed a similar view. I have already posted, if LH were rubbish then the game would be less well balanced and a poorer playing experiance. FoG is richer, more complex, requires patience, and to win, it helps if you have a reasonable amount of luck. In my opinion it is better than the alternatives. I agree that some small amendment in certain areas, need to be looked at and small amendments could have quite a large effect.

Whilst your view may be a valid complaint about some aspects of large numbers of maonovreable LH, you have already proven to yourself (in Rome and at Britcon) they are not undefeatable, it takes some skill. Conversely it takes skill to operate LH, like your nemasis Dave R. MAWS members (ok mostly Dave and Dave) are fans of LH, whilst you are not, so your anti LH bias is as bad as their pro LH bias, I prefer a moderate view- LH are OK, but won't win you a game on their own most of the time.

Lastly Simon and Terry are looking as amendments, to redress some of the inbalance which players have observed over the past 18 months since FoG as officialy published, lets see what they have to add.

Spike

[sagji]

One thought on the LH evading off problem.
If the chargers reach the table edge they have the option to pursue off table - in which case they count as if they evaded off table (1AP) but the pursued BG counts as destroyed. If they don't take the option then they stop as per the current rules.

[dave_r]

2. Once Blitz has started, the active player has 2 minutes to declare charges and move them, his opponent has 1 minute to move his evades. During the movement phase the active player has 5 minutes to move his entire army. Once a player's time limit is up, no more units can be moved and any units declared as evading instead stand to receive the charge. Time to be checked by non-active player.

This won't work - 1 minute is nowhere near enough to move multiple evades. Especially if they are complicated. If you have 10 evades then are you expected to complete each one in six second? If they are complicated you simply call the umpire and the time must be stopped anyway?

I suggest you have a minute to declare charges and a minute to respond, but then have as much time as needed to actually move the toys. This could also be abused by allowing units to stand that normally under the rules would be forced to evade.

I would suggest if you are trying this then you also limit the JAP phase to 1 minute as well.

[Guglielmo]

Hi,
For those not familiar with 'new Latin', herebelow we were discussing on how to solve the interpenetration problem in the forthcoming tournaments in Italy.
Relevant points:
1) The only real problem with FoG is the super-long-interpenetration.
2) We will wait for any official ruling from the rules authors.
3) Should this not be issued before the next comp, I suggested to allow normal move interpenetrations only if the active BG could clear completely the passive one (no pun!). Otherwise it would stop on the near side.
Drastic but simple.
4) Other problems here mentioned do no seem too serious to us.
That is:
- Lh armies seem not too powerful and players have found ways to counter them.
- Swarm Romans have not been used here in tournament as yet. I have played some friendlies with them and verified that you need a very good player to handle them. Probably Graham E. would win even if using Ottomans or others.
- The road is an issue only from the point of view of realism. It would seem 'normal' to let roads go over any terrain placed before or after them. That is why roads existed for.
- The overall impression is that the game is balanced enough and doesn't need any further touch-up. I have personally a couple of ideas about things that could be improved without altering anything, but for the moment it's better to keep silent about them.
Rgds/GM



"L'interpenetrazione non può superare il movimento normale di quell'unità in quel tipo di terreno. Se l'unità non riesce a passare completamente dall'altra parte dovrà fermarsi a contatto col lato più prossimo."
1- Per quello che si capisce anche gli autori vorrebbero intervenire solo per le mosse normali;
2- Sarebbero escluse solo rotte ed evasioni, che d'altronde in buona parte sono difficili da architettare in modo così preciso;
3- Fortunatamente gli Elefanti non evadono e così almeno il Dumbo volante ce lo risparmiamo!
Una volta che Andrea, sentiti tutti, avrà deciso proporrei di informare anche il forum in inglese della posizione ufficiale della Federazione Italiana.

[madaxeman]

Whilst your view may be a valid complaint about some aspects of large numbers of maonovreable LH, you have already proven to yourself (in Rome and at Britcon) they are not undefeatable, it takes some skill.

I guess my issue is that I haven't beaten one of these armies, and I currently can't see how it possible to beat a competently generalled one of them at 800 AP on a 6x4 with anything other than lots and lots of time, an army specifically designed with the express intention of taking on a LH army. I've had far less experience against Swarms, but in retrospect after my game against Graham at Britcon I suspect exactly the same is also true of "swarm" armies too.

Looking back, in DBM I used to get resolutions in pretty much every game I played (one way) irrespective of the army I used or was facing, so maybe this is why it seems odd to me that maybe this is one of those things that is different, and in FoG some matchups or army choices simply do create games where one side or the other cannot expect to break the opponent and the bottom line is that I just need to get used to that...?

(added bit - looking back I've played 42 games of 800 AP FoG in competitions, and have had a decisive result in 32 of them - which is about twice the norm if you take it at the 38% from Britcon 09. In doubles, its 16 games and 8 decisive results - but 3 indecisives were in the very fist beta comp at Usk. So maybe I am expecting too much?)

[nikgaukroger]

Alternatively, play on narrower tables.

..or with more points ?

The solution favoured, as we know, by the discerning

[nikgaukroger]

OK, FWIW here are the things I think could usefully be tackled - one is rather speculative :


1. Interpenetration. Open to masssive abuse as has been stated. My favoured solution is to simply not allow it unless the whole BG can move beyond the BG it is passing through - dead simples. IIRC it is what we've put in FoG:R FWIW.

2. Evading off table loses 2AP. Again simples, removes a pointless annoyance and nothing more complex is needed.

3. Drilled foot turn and move option - the thing that really makes Dom Rom so effective, and aids HYW Englist/WotR as well. Not quite sure what to do here but the possibility that the move part of the move and turn should be limited to 1/2 normal move in the going they are in springs to mind. I have also ponderd whether all troops, Drilled and Undrilled, should need an 8 to pass a CMT; after all drilled get to do things that Undrilled can't so also passing on a lower score is something of a double bonus - double whammy's are avoided so why not double bonuses?

4. I'd drop MF move to 3MU and LF to 4MU - with an option on LH dropping to 6MU as well. For those concerned about such things would impact on LH and swarm armies.

5. Whilst it hasn't really bothered me quite a few people are clearly not happy with the pre-battle stage - I think I'd consider allowing the player who loses the initiative roll to pick terrain first. Mind you I'd also consider not have any initiative modifiers on the roll and leaving it as a straight dice roll - but not in conjunction with the other suggestion