Competition scoring and swarm armies

[madaxeman]

Would it be a sensible halfway house in the "unbeatable swarm" argument to tweak the 25-0 scoring system so that 20-0 scores were worked out on a maximum army size of say 14-16 BG's (at 800AP), but the +5 for total defeat still only applied if you actually broke the opponent for real?

I don't know the ins and outs of the 25-0 system in detail, but broadly speaking if the max size was set at say 16*, if a 20+ unit swarm lost 8 units and killed none it would then lose the game 20-0 instead of maybe 16-4. And if it broke the opponent whilst losing 8 units it would record a 15-10 win instead of a 18-7 (?)

Then the "offensive", army beating capabilities of a swarm approach wouldn't be overly penalised however their ability to rack up points (and deny them to their opponents) even when taking a right pasting would be greatly reduced ?

Any thoughts?

Tim
(* 16 is a random number plucked out of the air and bears no relationship whatsoever to the slightly lower 15-unit size of the MLMB Dom Rom army I'm currently using)

[dave_r]

This could be a real problem to those armies that don't have an option but to be this big - Nubian, Bedouin or Numidian spring to mind - these are chock full of rubbish and to artificially cap them at 16 would be harsh.

[nikgaukroger]

I'd prefer to just rewrite the Dominate list to avoid the problem - in fact I'd like to rewrite most of Legions Triumphant

[timmy1]

Nik

How would you like to rewrite 'Legions Triumphant' - as 'lephants Trumpeting perhaps?

Oh sorry, you mean army lists being rewritten. Provided that Osprey have published the final companion beforehand, I can't see much objection to a V2 of the LT companion. In keeping with it's history as a rulset, I would like to ensure that some rebasing is required, for example Equites Ill becoming Cv. At the same time to make it more historical allow the Illyrian list having the option to only fight in mountains...

Hopefully it will come out sans the dreadfully inaccurate Angus McBride art work, be half the weight, and hopefully cost less. If not some people will be well miffed at paying GBP 12.99 for V2.

It could then come out at the same time as the teleport is fixed in V2 of the rules...

[ethan]

I'd prefer to just rewrite the Dominate list to avoid the problem - in fact I'd like to rewrite most of Legions Triumphant

I agree. Perhaps even a simple rule limiting the number of 4 element (and 2 element) BGs.

For any given troop type - If allowed by the army lists to form BGs of more than four elements no more than two BGs containing only four elements may purchased, all other must contain at least six elements. If allowed by the army list to form two element BGs no more than one such BG may be taken.

So for things like Ottoman Qapakulu you can have one BG of either 2, 4 or 6 elements. Romans can have two four element BGs but no more than that.

Or just rewrite the offending lists to give a minimum BG size of 6...

[lawrenceg]

I don't know the ins and outs of the 25-0 system in detail, but broadly speaking if the max size was set at say 16*, if a 20+ unit swarm lost 8 units and killed none it would then lose the game 20-0 instead of maybe 16-4. And if it broke the opponent whilst losing 8 units it would record a 15-10 win instead of a 18-7 (?)

The 25-0 system gives a point for each 10% of the way to an army break that you lose (or don't lose).

So if your army needs 16 AP to break it, and you suffered 8 AP, you lost 8/16 = 50% and you didn't lose the other 50%. So you and your opponent each get 5 VP for the state of your army. Then the other 10 points are doled out according to the state of his army. THen there is a 5 VP bonus ofr an army rout.

I would like to know if large numbers of BG really are correlated with lower losses of AP and less chance of an army break. It might simply be that opponents feel they have done well because they have killed a large number of BG and it seems as though the opposition is unbeatable because they had a lot of BG remaining. If they had 20 BG and you kill 8, they have a lot left so it seems you have a long way to go. If they had 10 and you kill 4 then you feel you are pretty close to a win because you need only 1 more. The VP is the same for both.

Put another way, if you see then opponent has a lot of BG and you fail to beat him, there is a tendency to attribute your failure to his large number of BG as the obvious causal factor when in fact it could be something else.

[babyshark]

Put another way, if you see then opponent has a lot of BG and you fail to beat him, there is a tendency to attribute your failure to his large number of BG as the obvious causal factor when in fact it could be something else.

Hear, hear!

Marc

[jlopez]

I don't know the ins and outs of the 25-0 system in detail, but broadly speaking if the max size was set at say 16*, if a 20+ unit swarm lost 8 units and killed none it would then lose the game 20-0 instead of maybe 16-4. And if it broke the opponent whilst losing 8 units it would record a 15-10 win instead of a 18-7 (?)

The 25-0 system gives a point for each 10% of the way to an army break that you lose (or don't lose).

So if your army needs 16 AP to break it, and you suffered 8 AP, you lost 8/16 = 50% and you didn't lose the other 50%. So you and your opponent each get 5 VP for the state of your army. Then the other 10 points are doled out according to the state of his army. THen there is a 5 VP bonus ofr an army rout.

I would like to know if large numbers of BG really are correlated with lower losses of AP and less chance of an army break. It might simply be that opponents feel they have done well because they have killed a large number of BG and it seems as though the opposition is unbeatable because they had a lot of BG remaining. If they had 20 BG and you kill 8, they have a lot left so it seems you have a long way to go. If they had 10 and you kill 4 then you feel you are pretty close to a win because you need only 1 more. The VP is the same for both.

Put another way, if you see then opponent has a lot of BG and you fail to beat him, there is a tendency to attribute your failure to his large number of BG as the obvious causal factor when in fact it could be something else.

I faced a 20 BG Ottoman Turk at Britcon and I just managed to beat him in 3,5 hours. That was with 60 longbowmen, a bit of luck and an opponent who never ceased to have a go. By the last round Shaun had 11 fragmented BGs. He could easily have played for a draw as I was nowhere near pushing him off the board but to his credit kept going for a win.

Huge armies are a problem. I know, I used a 23 BG Later Achaemenid Persian (all poor except the LH and LF) once and in none of the four games I played was I ever anywhere near losing. I just don't know how to solve this problem fairly without increasing playing time or forcing faster playing.

Julian

[dave_r]

I played a 19 BG Bedouin army on Monday. OK it was a club game, it had (I think) 10 BG's of Unprotected, Cav, Averge, Lancer, Sword, 6 BG's of LH, Average, Lancer, Swd and three BG's of average LF Bow.

Completely massacred the entire army within 2.5 hours.

Didn't have a huge number of bounds, but it is very possible to do.

[batesmotel]

I played a 19 BG Bedouin army on Monday. OK it was a club game, it had (I think) 10 BG's of Unprotected, Cav, Averge, Lancer, Sword, 6 BG's of LH, Average, Lancer, Swd and three BG's of average LF Bow.

Completely massacred the entire army within 2.5 hours.

Didn't have a huge number of bounds, but it is very possible to do.

So, do you find unprotected, Cav, Average, Lancers more useful than Unprotected, Cav, Average, Bow, Sword ? (Recalling another thread about the latter being hard to figure out how to use.)

Chris

[dave_r]

So, do you find unprotected, Cav, Average, Lancers more useful than Unprotected, Cav, Average, Bow, Sword Wink ? (Recalling another thread about the latter being hard to figure out how to use.)

No - because they are undrilled shock troops and can't evade

Like I say - I wasn't using the unprotected chaps they were on the receiving end. Ask Spike - he is still bitter about it

[lawrenceg]

I faced a 20 BG Ottoman Turk at Britcon and I just managed to beat him in 3,5 hours. That was with 60 longbowmen, a bit of luck and an opponent who never ceased to have a go. By the last round Shaun had 11 fragmented BGs. He could easily have played for a draw as I was nowhere near pushing him off the board but to his credit kept going for a win.

Huge armies are a problem. I know, I used a 23 BG Later Achaemenid Persian (all poor except the LH and LF) once and in none of the four games I played was I ever anywhere near losing. I just don't know how to solve this problem fairly without increasing playing time or forcing faster playing.

Julian

Julian's not being anywhere near losing could be because he is a good player. Likewise his Ottoman opponent at BRITCON must have been a pretty good player if he still had chances to win at the end.


On scoring systems, my opinion is that if a player thinks he will either lose or draw, and a draw scores more than a loss, then no amount of bonus points for a win will make him increase his risk of getting a loss instead of a draw.

If a player thinks he has a realistic prospect of a win then he will try to win, even for a small points bonus.

If a loss gets more points than a draw then you incentivise player collusion or "draw chicken".

To encourage good aggressive games you need:

To have a loss and a losing draw score the same AND have that score depend only on how much damage you do to the enemy.
A winning draw must score more than a losing draw.
Whatever the state of play, it must always be possible to improve your score by winning.
A win should not score a great deal more than just failing to win (otherwise you incentivise "death-or-glory" 1 dimensional army formats).
Ideally, a large margin in a win or winning draw should give more points than a small margin.

[jlopez]

I faced a 20 BG Ottoman Turk at Britcon and I just managed to beat him in 3,5 hours. That was with 60 longbowmen, a bit of luck and an opponent who never ceased to have a go. By the last round Shaun had 11 fragmented BGs. He could easily have played for a draw as I was nowhere near pushing him off the board but to his credit kept going for a win.

Huge armies are a problem. I know, I used a 23 BG Later Achaemenid Persian (all poor except the LH and LF) once and in none of the four games I played was I ever anywhere near losing. I just don't know how to solve this problem fairly without increasing playing time or forcing faster playing.

Julian

Julian's not being anywhere near losing could be because he is a good player. Likewise his Ottoman opponent at BRITCON must have been a pretty good player if he still had chances to win at the end.


On scoring systems, my opinion is that if a player thinks he will either lose or draw, and a draw scores more than a loss, then no amount of bonus points for a win will make him increase his risk of getting a loss instead of a draw.

If a player thinks he has a realistic prospect of a win then he will try to win, even for a small points bonus.

If a loss gets more points than a draw then you incentivise player collusion or "draw chicken".

To encourage good aggressive games you need:

To have a loss and a losing draw score the same AND have that score depend only on how much damage you do to the enemy.
A winning draw must score more than a losing draw.
Whatever the state of play, it must always be possible to improve your score by winning.
A win should not score a great deal more than just failing to win (otherwise you incentivise "death-or-glory" 1 dimensional army formats).
Ideally, a large margin in a win or winning draw should give more points than a small margin.

In my case the fact the Persian army was entirely made up of poor l.spear cavalry (40 bases I think) and skirmishers had more to do with it than skill. Those troops which couldn't evade were tucked well out of the way and the basic tactic was to evade from anything nasty and then charge it in the flank. Given the size of the army I could even afford to sacrifice the odd BG to draw out enemy BGs into flank charge situations. In three and a half hours it was a very difficult verging on impossible army to break and to be honest no challenge at all to use which is one of the reasons I haven't used it again.

Julian

[lawrenceg]

In my case the fact the Persian army was entirely made up of poor l.spear cavalry (40 bases I think) and skirmishers had more to do with it than skill. Those troops which couldn't evade were tucked well out of the way and the basic tactic was to evade from anything nasty and then charge it in the flank. Given the size of the army I could even afford to sacrifice the odd BG to draw out enemy BGs into flank charge situations. In three and a half hours it was a very difficult verging on impossible army to break and to be honest no challenge at all to use which is one of the reasons I haven't used it again.

Julian

And you are sure that if the army was the same number of bases of the same things but in larger BGs it would not have worked?

[grahambriggs]

I faced a 20 BG Ottoman Turk at Britcon and I just managed to beat him in 3,5 hours. That was with 60 longbowmen, a bit of luck and an opponent who never ceased to have a go. By the last round Shaun had 11 fragmented BGs. He could easily have played for a draw as I was nowhere near pushing him off the board but to his credit kept going for a win.

Huge armies are a problem. I know, I used a 23 BG Later Achaemenid Persian (all poor except the LH and LF) once and in none of the four games I played was I ever anywhere near losing. I just don't know how to solve this problem fairly without increasing playing time or forcing faster playing.

Julian

I fought the same army with my Merovingians. I took 13AP off of it for the loss of not much. While not enough to break the army it was quite satisfying - especially catching horse archers with HF warband . I imaging though had I been in contention it would have been frustrating.

[lawrenceg]

On scoring systems, my opinion is that if a player thinks he will either lose or draw, and a draw scores more than a loss, then no amount of bonus points for a win will make him increase his risk of getting a loss instead of a draw.

If a player thinks he has a realistic prospect of a win then he will try to win, even for a small points bonus.

If a loss gets more points than a draw then you incentivise player collusion or "draw chicken".

To encourage good aggressive games you need:

To have a loss and a losing draw score the same AND have that score depend only on how much damage you do to the enemy.
A winning draw must score more than a losing draw.
Whatever the state of play, it must always be possible to improve your score by winning.
A win should not score a great deal more than just failing to win (otherwise you incentivise "death-or-glory" 1 dimensional army formats).
Ideally, a large margin in a win or winning draw should give more points than a small margin.

I think the following might do it.

BGW = battlegroups in winner's army
BGL = battlefgroups in loser's army
APW = attrition points lost from winner's army
APL = attrition points lost from loser's army

Loss or losing draw: loser points = 10*APW/BGW

Equal draw (treat both as losing draw)

Winning draw: winner points = 20*APL/BGL - 10*APW/BGW

Win: winner points = 25 - 10* APW/BGW

Mutual destruction: both players 11 points.

[paulcummins]

sounds ok, though I would like to see a big bonus for the mutual destruct - 15 each sounds about right

its so rare as to be almost unheard of, but is very cool when it happens

[nikgaukroger]

sounds ok, though I would like to see a big bonus for the mutual destruct - 15 each sounds about right

its so rare as to be almost unheard of, but is very cool when it happens

make the bonus enough and you'll see more of them

Cynic, moi

[lawrenceg]

sounds ok, though I would like to see a big bonus for the mutual destruct - 15 each sounds about right

its so rare as to be almost unheard of, but is very cool when it happens

make the bonus enough and you'll see more of them

Cynic, moi

Plus a mutual destruction should not score more points than the narrowest of wins.

[paulcummins]

what does a mutual break score now

15 each i guess

10 for the opponents army
5 for breaking it
0 for having nothing left of yours