The power of dices

[Scutarii]

Well, i like Fog and RoR and find in them great games BUT dont like the dices, i think that in the game more than 50% of the game are the dices and dont like it, dont like see pike units with 25% of casualties changing from D to R in a single attack but when i attack with 81% chance of victory a D unit many times cant at least increase it status to F, dont like see average skirmish units attacking F superior pike units and WINNING ALL THE TIME when i do the same and is rare see the same!!! and better dont talk about rally, is patetic see how my units R in the range of a medium general routed all the time when enemy R units OUT of commander range usually recover to F status...

I never play a table game but i have years playing wargames and this is the first that i find that luck is all, tactics, troops, initial deployment... nothing is more important than dices and think that this rest to the game important things as a little of playability because i start to think that attack with out any sense is better than try to think a little because usually you have more options playing like this.

PD: this game is like throw a coin luck is all

[RyanDG]

Well, i like Fog and RoR and find in them great games BUT dont like the dices, i think that in the game more than 50% of the game are the dices and dont like it, dont like see pike units with 25% of casualties changing from D to R in a single attack but when i attack with 81% chance of victory a D unit many times cant at least increase it status to F, dont like see average skirmish units attacking F superior pike units and WINNING ALL THE TIME when i do the same and is rare see the same!!! and better dont talk about rally, is patetic see how my units R in the range of a medium general routed all the time when enemy R units OUT of commander range usually recover to F status...

I never play a table game but i have years playing wargames and this is the first that i find that luck is all, tactics, troops, initial deployment... nothing is more important than dices and think that this rest to the game important things as a little of playability because i start to think that attack with out any sense is better than try to think a little because usually you have more options playing like this.

PD: this game is like throw a coin luck is all

Battlefield generals never had complete control over their soldiers, and generally speaking, after pointing them in the general direction of the enemy (or setting up flanking maneuvers) most orders ended up getting jumbled and tough to actually control once the flow of battle began. While ideally, chance should be kept to a minimum, without a degree of chance in the game, it would be both slightly ahistorical and non-interesting over the course of an extend play session. To address some specific points though -

For your first point of Pike with 25% casualties changing from D to R in a single attack - once a pike has been disrupted or disordered, a lot of their combat advantage begins getting degraded. A unit with already 25% casualties is already going to begin suffering from some morale breakdown, so all it would normally take would be a good 'hit' to really cause that unit to rout altogether. This isn't necessarily an issue of chance, but rather the idea that once in hand to hand melee combat, Pike's had a hard time (historically) being able to withstand the loss of a tight unit formation. They were extremely powerful if you could keep the battle lines in a nice clear order, but once breaks began forming (and casualties began mounting) the pikes themselves had a tough time reacting as well as foot soldiers who weren't as burdened by their armaments. This also addresses your second point about a skirmishers being able to break up Fragmented Pike. Once a Pike reaches that stage, if the skirmisher attacks with appropriate support, they have a decent chance of being able to route the unit (think of the unit being held in the front by a solid foot... the pike is engaged in combat from that side... if you send any unit to the flank or rear - even if it is a weaker unit - the Pike's reaction is going to be slow...).

Why you don't seem to have the luck when you attempt these maneuvers may have a lot more questions than information you are giving. Closeness to commanders, camps, support, cohesion of your own units while attacking vs your enemy units, terrain, unit support on flanks... All of these factors control the outcome more than the dice in my opinion. And as long as you are using the troops to the best of the troops abilities (highlighting their skills while attempting to minimize their weaknesses), the dice will always work themselves out in the long run (short term results may vary - but you'll find that these are anomalies more than anything - and even historically anomalies like these will occur in the record). If the dice are just going bad for you (as in really bad) in the short term, you may want to consider playing with an army for a while that can support short term dice failure a lot easier (the Romans are probably the easiest to recover from a string of bad rolls imo). This isn't a long term solution for you at all, but just a simple suggestion as a way to play with an army for a while and see just how little (in the big picture that is) the dice really affects the outcome vs battle strategy.

Hopefully you don't give up on the game because of the dice!

[Scutarii]

Ok, a little example of dices power.

Late macedonian cavalry unit, superior, 15% of casualties in the range of a command unit, charge to a scutarii unit in D status not in range of a command unit, more than 25% of casualties, result of the charge, cavalry 181 casualties scutarii 15 casualties, things like this made me think that dices have more than 50% of influence in the final result and is funny when you win and when you loss one or 2 times but find results like this all the time is frustrating because dices win the day not enemy troops and yes, i asume that luck is a part of every game BUT in wargames tactics and troops can say something and see how allways dices destroy my armies isnt funny, as late cartago late romans literelly destroys me, ok, best infantry troops + good dices cant say nothing BUT in the last game i was winning by 15 points (exactly the difference between my army rout level and enemy rout level) but dices dont like it and start to see enemy R units out of commander range recovering to F when my troops with in the commander range routing all the time and D jabelin units attacked by mi ready jabelin units wining all the time in melee combats.

Sorry but when in a game luck is all find it frustrating not funny.

PD: why D or F units use the same dices than ready units??? i think that the problem is that with a "6" even the worst unit can win to better units, one or two times ok, but when you loss full battles isnt a good thing.

[Lysimachos]

Though not totally agreeing with Scutarii, whose statement are a bit emphasizing the problem, we should admit that in the game dices have a role that's excessive. Not always, but surely a lot more than acceptable, wise tactical maneuvres, where your best troops lead by an inspired good commander have engaged lower class enemy units, end up in an unpredictable failure.
I agree that in battle nobody has a complete control of the events, but when you're able to put the fight with all the odds in your favour, it's quite frustrating to see everything going bad.
Drilled and well positioned soldiers didn't gave a chance to lesser opponent on the real battlefields (ask Alexander or Ceasar)!
The problem should be easily resolved rebalancing the number of dices each unit has to roll in a determined situation so to give greater chances of winning to the superior units and thus rewarding the tactical maneuvering that conducts them to oppose weaker battlegroups.

[omarquatar]

i said the same in the forum after my first play, but it seemed the great majority was happy with the role of luck in the game, which is in my opinion its worst fault in an otherwise brilliant system

[Scutarii]

Well, all i say is that for me isnt "logic" use the same dice for a unit ready than for a D or F unit, for example D units only can use a 1 to 4 dice or similar as Lysimachos says, if you do a good army, a good plan and then dices says, "you loose" 1st time ok, 2nd time psss 3rd bye bye tactic game, wellcome random game

[Paisley]

I must say I disagree. I think once you know the strengths of your units with regard to terrain and a variety of combat situations and opposing units, you can actually take the random factor into account pretty well. I am consistently beaten by better players and/or armies better suited to the encounter, not by bad dice. The random factor may be a bit higher than in some other games but as Caesar said -

Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces.

[Scutarii]

Well, if Caesar says this dont use bonus or malus in the game, leave luck as the only factor in the game

Dont say that a "luck" factor is bad but in FoG as you say is more important than other things that are in the player hand.

And say "the other player play better or have a better army" well, i know very well what i suffer in the battlefield and see rallied units in the enemy army OUT of commander range and mine in the range of commander not rallied isnt an army of tactic choice, well, is a tactic and army choice because if a select 2 commanders to have my army in range all the time and dont receive bonus is break my tactic and army with dices.

[Mercutio]

I tend to agree that luck is a factor, but in this game luck seems a bit out of proportion. Perhaps if you were given the option of 2 units attacking at the same time so you get both their die rolls vs the one defending dice roll, that would help.

Also, perhaps having the die be 1 - 10 instead of 1 - 6 with the loses spread out more so it isn't 200 or 2 in casualties, but a wider range of casualties would help. This would mean that luck, good or bad, can still occur. It just won't be so lopsided all the time.

[petergarnett]

I agree with Paisley's comments above - it takes time to learn this sytem & understand how missile, impact & melee combats work. The number of attacks (dice) varies for many reasons & once you understand them it gets a lot easier to to have luck on your side.
Well at least it took me a long time to learn!

[deadtorius]

Personally I find the virtual die rolls to be well way out there. You attack you take your chances, you defend same, either way its really wonky.
the 1-6 die rolls is from the TT rules as you use 6 sided dice there. Combats are exactly the same only we get to roll actual dice. personally I find my TT pikes always outperform their virtual counterparts and I have to not think of FOG PC as being the same as the TT game or I get hammered expecting similar results.
However it is still a fun game and I do enjoy it, even with all its unexpected and weird results (I actually think the game does not like me as I seem to end up with all the 1's)

[petergarnett]

You don't have all the 1's - at least half come to me.

[deeter]

The number of dice is not an issue. It is the way the results translate into causalites that brings the wild swings in fortune.

Deeter

[IainMcNeil]

If we gave you feedback about the dice rolls it might make you see why things were happening? E.g. we show you on screen 1-4 dice representing your combat rolls for each side and if then re-rolls rather than just the casualty outcome?

It would slow down combat resolution somewhat but might be quite rewarding.

Thoughts?

[RyanDG]

If we gave you feedback about the dice rolls it might make you see why things were happening? E.g. we show you on screen 1-4 dice representing your combat rolls for each side and if then re-rolls rather than just the casualty outcome?

It would slow down combat resolution somewhat but might be quite rewarding.

Thoughts?

What about this and a general combat log that we can save and the option to turn off dice if you like? That's one thing/option I would really like to be able to see. (In addition to being able to save full battle replays for matches - but that's another issue altogether).

[76mm]

I agree with Scutarii. I've been playing wargames for more than 30 years, including board games with dice, and generally the combat results are stacked toward the middle--maybe a draw, a "one stage" loss, with outliers one one side or the other gets whacked.

In this game, at least with the pike units I usually play with, it is almost a certainly that one side or the other will take a 12-15% loss, you just have no idea which side. Pike units are often disrupted either on contact or within a turn, and it is downhill from there. As I've mentioned in a previous thread, my understanding of most ancient battles is that about 90% of the casualties occur when one side breaks and the fleeing troops are slaughtered--victorious armies seem to have suffered ludicrously low casualties. In this game, both sides suffer crushing casualties even prior to one side breaking.

I won't even get into combat in any kind of terrain such as woods or hills. Maybe I just don't get it, but combat in these environments seem completely random and illogical. In woods, I've had archers (in open) rout pikes (in woods), cavalry (in open) easily rout medium inf (in woods), etc.

Another point is that the "victory percentage" indicated is often wildly off base. I think in other threads it is said that this percentage doesn't refer to victory, but chance of obtaining hits, or something, but this needs to be relabeled or clarified because currently it is hard to give much credence to these figures.

I am swamped at work now but would like to run some tests when and if I get a breather...

[rbodleyscott]

As I've mentioned in a previous thread, my understanding of most ancient battles is that about 90% of the casualties occur when one side breaks and the fleeing troops are slaughtered--victorious armies seem to have suffered ludicrously low casualties. In this game, both sides suffer crushing casualties even prior to one side breaking

I would not get too hung up on the stated casualties. Think of a unit at 75% strength as being at 75% of its fresh fighting capability - including the effects of fatigue as well as actual casualties.

[Blathergut]

and willingness to be in that position at that time...

[Blathergut]

oh..and RBS et al...just again a thanks from across the pond for a game system we have thoroughly enjoyed every time we've played

[Blathergut]

If we gave you feedback about the dice rolls it might make you see why things were happening? E.g. we show you on screen 1-4 dice representing your combat rolls for each side and if then re-rolls rather than just the casualty outcome?

It would slow down combat resolution somewhat but might be quite rewarding.

Thoughts?

YES, please!!!

The game runs quick...a slight slow down wouldn't be too bad...and since each combat is distinct, you'd have a moment, if you wanted, to look over those results.