Just purchased FoG; will post some initial impressions in another thread when I've had a closer look.
I can't see any mention of scale which, given it's origins in minis, is a bit surprising. What size, or range of sizes, does a hex represent and how long is a turn?
Scale?
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jamespcrowley
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TheGrayMouser
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I have thought about as well, and it appears that time, hex size, range of missle units , all have varying levels of abstractions.
For example most pike units have 1500 men, and if you assume 16 ranks of men then you have roughly a 95 men frontage. With maybe a 1 to 1.5 yard frontage per man you could estimate a hex might be aproximately 100-150 yard across??
However , if you apply this same logic to the range of say, a bow armed unit, you get a range of (5 hex range) 500-750 yards!! ie 2-3 x greater than possible.
I guess its safe to say that these things (per design) were not meant to be discreetly represented.
Taking into account all the other abstractions my guess is that a turn length could represent anywhere from 10-20 minutes My understanding is toe to toe fighting between heavily armed foot soldiers would generally never last more 20 -30 minutes or so and and in game , most melee combat is generally resolved (ie one side breaks) in 2-3 turns
The important thing for me is that the game play flows nicley and feels like an "ancient" battle. (much more so than say The Great Battles series, although they were good games too, in their day)
Oh yes, would love to see the option in the editor to be able to change the ranges for missle troops on an individual unit basis. The place holder is already there, just the changes dont "stick"
This would allow scenario designers a little more flexibilty and allow players who need/want hex size and range of missles to be proportional.
For me it not too big a deal, as I am ok w the abstraction, but it definetely might bother some folks.
For example most pike units have 1500 men, and if you assume 16 ranks of men then you have roughly a 95 men frontage. With maybe a 1 to 1.5 yard frontage per man you could estimate a hex might be aproximately 100-150 yard across??
However , if you apply this same logic to the range of say, a bow armed unit, you get a range of (5 hex range) 500-750 yards!! ie 2-3 x greater than possible.
I guess its safe to say that these things (per design) were not meant to be discreetly represented.
Taking into account all the other abstractions my guess is that a turn length could represent anywhere from 10-20 minutes My understanding is toe to toe fighting between heavily armed foot soldiers would generally never last more 20 -30 minutes or so and and in game , most melee combat is generally resolved (ie one side breaks) in 2-3 turns
The important thing for me is that the game play flows nicley and feels like an "ancient" battle. (much more so than say The Great Battles series, although they were good games too, in their day)
Oh yes, would love to see the option in the editor to be able to change the ranges for missle troops on an individual unit basis. The place holder is already there, just the changes dont "stick"
This would allow scenario designers a little more flexibilty and allow players who need/want hex size and range of missles to be proportional.
For me it not too big a deal, as I am ok w the abstraction, but it definetely might bother some folks.
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CharlesRobinson
- Sergeant Major - Armoured Train
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Table Top Version
The table top version also glosses over these - the idea being that each stand represents the amount of men you need for the battle you are representing. The game is designed to be played with any scale but with to standard base sizes and the ranges have more to do with the standard table size of 4 foot by 6 foot. The computer game does a lot of the same thing. The one thing the computer does add is the number of troops per stand (1500, 1000, 500, and 20) but these can be changed so that you can fight at different scales and represent different battles. The computer version seems to be about half the size of the table top version of the game. I prefer the table top size (since this is what the PC game is supposed to represent) so my oun scenerios that I design has about twice as many figures (I keep the same ranges for all missile troops just as the table top game does). I do prefer the table top ranges for command though which are 5, 8, and 12 instead of the computers 3, 5, and 8. In contrast, the 600pt starter armies for the table top run 40 to 80 stand per army and the PC games seems to be about half that. I prefer the table top scale myself and have started to redo some of the secenrios in that scale, but researching the battle first and changing the maps and units protrayed as needed. It really comes down to personal taste and it is one of the things that I love about this product - it is like the Burger King commercial - I can have it my way. 