First impressions

[Lupus]

Hi,

I noticed several issues while playing around a little.

1) It seems to be impossible to play hypothetical, anachronistic battles like RoR Carthaginians vs. SoA French, as the D.A.G. lists are separate. That's was a feature described in the SoA announcment (although I probably won't use it)

2) Several split lists have gaps like the HYW English (Britain), where the mid-section from 1350-1415 is missing.

3) In some lists men-at-arms that can be used mounted or dismounted are already distinguished in the D.A.G. list, but in some lists the units can mount/dismount on the field. Example: Early HYW English (cont.): Gascon men-at-arms can be dismounted at setup, but there are also Gascon dismounted men-at-arms available at "shopping" time. The whole thing seems highly inconsitent.

4) English knights can not dismount, although they should be able to. See TT companion pg. 10, where there are classfied as men-at-arms (along other men-at-arms). Pg. 9 states, that all English men-at-arms are able to dismount.

5) Tooltip for the icons on the "shopping" lists would ne nice.

6) Feature request. Add a button on the D.A.G. creation page, so that a player can directly go to battle with his/her new army without the need to first save, go back to the main menu, choose the appropiate new game list and then start. GUI ergonomy is currently not good at this point.

7) Feature request: Add winter terrain.

8 ) The "image-folder" dropdownlist in the Scenario editor gets unwieldy because of its length. Better split in parts, based on exansion pack.

More later....

Having played a game, yet

Cheers

L

[Lupus]

So, now I started actually a battle. Early HYW English vs. Early Frogs ahem, French.



As you can see in the screenshot, my billmen are not able to interpenetrate my longbowmen. According to SoA pg 9, this should be possible. Without this rule, large amounts of English longbowmen are hardly usable, because a longbowmen line would be a major obstacle for all melee troops. Also, as they canot fire above the heads of their comrades, they are pretty useless.

Rgds

L

[keithmartinsmith]

Currently we do not intend to allow English Billmen to freely interpenetrate English longbowmen.
Keith

[RyanDG]

Currently we do not intend to allow English Billmen to freely interpenetrate English longbowmen.
Keith

This disappoints me quite a bit. Can men at arms interpenetrate the longbowmen? Or are you stopping all interpenetration? This is going to cause some issues in some historical match-ups (ie vs. any knight heavy french army).

If you don't mind me asking was this a conscious decision or a program limitation?

[Lupus]

As I mentioned, the a decision to not allow interpenetration makes armies with a high amount of longbow men (and the expansion is called "Storm of Arrows", isn't it) unplayable, as you either cannot position the longbowmen behind the melee units, as they cannot fire on the enemy across their comrades. Bit cannot place before the men-at-arms and billmen, as the would hinder them reaching the enemy and thus be trapped between the melee troops of both sides...

[Paisley]

Historically the longbowmen deployed to the flanks of the men-at-arms, often being echeloned forward, but I can recall of no instance off-hand where they formed a screen and precious few where they shot over anything, let alone friendly troops (at St. Albans there was indirect fire over buildings as I recall).

[Lupus]

From a historical point of view, I agree, but not from a game-engine one. For example take the HYW English starter army.

When playing the tabletop game, you would have 3 BGs of men-at-arms and 4 BGs of bowmen, so a "classic" deployment (Agincourt-like) would be something like LB, MAA, LB, MAA, LB, MAA, LB. The bowmen BGs would 6 or 8 bases, the men-at-arms only 4, which gives them a much narrower front, leaving wider corridors for the "storm of arrows".

In the PC version you end up with with 6 BGs of men-at-arms and 14 BGs of longbowmen. Because you have no BGs that consist of bases and you play on a hexfield, the archers will end up with no targets pretty soon, when the men-at-arms move forward, as the LOS corrdidors for the archers narrow down.

Only my five cents, pennies, eurocents,.. (choose as appropriate)

[RyanDG]

Historically the longbowmen deployed to the flanks of the men-at-arms, often being echeloned forward, but I can recall of no instance off-hand where they formed a screen and precious few where they shot over anything, let alone friendly troops (at St. Albans there was indirect fire over buildings as I recall).

Maybe not during the HYW period, but during the War of the Roses there is definitely at least one example of a longbow screen.


And as Lupus mentioned above -- ideally on the table top, you are right -- the positioning of the long bowmen and men at arms/bill men would be in pretty much a XOXOX type positing. However due to the nature of the way the hex systems are going to work (with individual unit movement and hex determined firing targets), the effectiveness of the long bowmen is going to be cut down quite a bit... I am not beta testing (didn't pre-order until today), but I'm having a hard time seeing where long bowmen would approach their effectiveness on the table top without the interpenetration offering a bit of a 'boost' due to what is going to be lost from the hex system.

I could be wrong -- and will be the first to admit if I am -- but without the normal bg set up you see on the table top, without interpenetration, I really see some issues being developed from historical opponents.

[Scutarii]

Well, my 2 cents:

-As Lupus says is interesting have at least the option to deploy your army in the table to see what you need or what you dont need, call it "view your army".

-Is not possible have a RoR army VS a SoA army.

-in some armies only can select one unit type as command unit, dont remember where i see this need see it again but think that was in german army where cant select pike units as command units.

-Medium archer/crossbow units are totally inefective in shoot, only light units can do a decent job, why a 1.000 archers unit if kill half or less than a 500 unit???.

-Where are the archers stakes??? units mark with PD dont have stakes.

-Many of the unit images are recicled from RoR, jabelin units for example.

-I play a battle with germans VS navarrese and as german i see how the line of crossbow stops navarrese cavalry charge and how my pike units can do it


I find SoA interesting and a good addition to FoG but in the actual status find that 21 as release day is optimist... SoA is to green now, well, many parts of FoG and RoR are green, think that need some time to work in the game before see the next army list, that is my opinion.

[SRW1962]

"Scutarii" wrote: Well, my 2 cents:

-As Lupus says is interesting have at least the option to deploy your army in the table to see what you need or what you dont need, call it "view your army".

Great Idea!

-Is not possible have a RoR army VS a SoA army.

Not at the moment, but I would imagine it will be the case after release.

-in some armies only can select one unit type as command unit, dont remember where i see this need see it again but think that was in german army where cant select pike units as command units.

Will have to check this one out.

-Medium archer/crossbow units are totally inefective in shoot, only light units can do a decent job, why a 1.000 archers unit if kill half or less than a 500 unit???.

Totally disagree, having totally destroyed with ease a few French armies with HYW English Longbows.

-Where are the archers stakes??? units mark with PD dont have stakes.

You need to right click on the unit to bring up the option to deploy stakes.

-Many of the unit images are recicled from RoR, jabelin units for example.

Agree with this and hope it will be fixed.

-I play a battle with germans VS navarrese and as german i see how the line of crossbow stops navarrese cavalry charge and how my pike units can do it

Would have to play this one a few times to be able to comment.


I find SoA interesting and a good addition to FoG but in the actual status find that 21 as release day is optimist... SoA is to green now, well, many parts of FoG and RoR are green, think that need some time to work in the game before see the next army list, that is my opinion.

Agree in part with this.

[SRW1962]

As I mentioned, the a decision to not allow interpenetration makes armies with a high amount of longbow men (and the expansion is called "Storm of Arrows", isn't it) unplayable, as you either cannot position the longbowmen behind the melee units, as they cannot fire on the enemy across their comrades. Bit cannot place before the men-at-arms and billmen, as the would hinder them reaching the enemy and thus be trapped between the melee troops of both sides...

I have played as HYW English vs Medieval French a fair few times and found that the Longbows are brilliant both with firing and melee against the French knights/army. I actually thought it was way too easy to beat them and hope that uneven points matches can be a feature so that the French have more of a chance.

Incidentally I arranged my 400pt army as follows:

LB-LB-LB-MA-LB-LB-MA-LB-LB-LB-MA-LB-LB-MA-LB-LB-LB-MA-LB-LB-MA-LB-LB-LB

Stakes deployed before the battle started and awaited the French onslaught.

[IainMcNeil]

I just had 1 French Knight rides down 2 archers, 2 dismounted nights and is now beating up 2 disrupted archers and he's still at 85% and undisrupted....

I thought ganging up on him was a good idea. The best laid plans....

[SRW1962]

If you are the French, then well done Sir!

If however, you are as I suspect the English, then you seriously are having a bad day! Did you forget to plant stakes?:D

[SRW1962]

Just finished a game as the French vs the Late HYW English.

The English were truly pitiful. My French knights rode all over them (okay the fools forgot to deploy stakes), and the English knights were no match for the magnificance of the French nobility.

So, having played as both sides in the HYW I can say this: The French will destroy the English more often than not if the English Archers do not deploy stakes and the French rely on their knights to do their stuff. The French will be beaten more often than not if the English keep it simple and setup, deploy stakes and shoot holy hell out of the French.

Now for the early period....

[Tancred_ssl]

Hello all,

Well played a couple of small battles using English forces against - Scots, Burgundians, French and also as Free Company against Milanese and can say my initial concerns around the apparent weakness of the longbowmen were largely unfounded. I was expecting them to cause more disruption than they did but overall they performed fairly well when mixed with dismounted men at arms etc. Those bloody dice worked against me on more than one ocassion - but by setting my flank in bad terrain or using echelon with Men at arms at the apex they beat each army in turn - However not sure if I'd get away with most of it with a human player.

One observation I would make is the unit scales are way off for this period. a 400 point army has almost as many "men" as the biggest War of the Roses battle. I apprecit ethis is a minor point though.

I did get one crash which I will try to replicate. Late period English verses French early Ordannence. - PLEASE NOTE not a crash but a freeze game on Turn 15 - and have just had the same happen using different armies. During computer turn - can look around scroll, link into help but the French just won't take their turn!!

Anyhow am still enjoying this immensely! I mean testing it thoroughly.............I put more detail into a new thread to avoid clogging this one up

[IainMcNeil]

Thanks for the feedback - if you get any crash at all can you tell us exactly when it happened and the error message you saw as it will greatly help track it down.

[grumblefish]

-Is not possible have a RoR army VS a SoA army.

Not at the moment, but I would imagine it will be the case after release.

I sincerely hope so! Is there an official word on this, at any rate? I was extremely disappointed when I found out I couldn't set the two against each other. Right now this is my number one complaint.

Also, I found a minor error. If you take the early german army, you get an error message if you try and dismount the general. Apparently it can't find the graphics file or something.

[petergarnett]

I believe that they are working on a fix currently to allow RoR v SoA battles.

[Examinondas]

-Many of the unit images are recicled from RoR, jabelin units for example.

Agree with this and hope it will be fixed.

While I think most unit images are ok, there are a few reused ones that I don't like:

- In the Venetian Condotta army, the MF Javelinmen use the (ugly!) model that was introduced in RoR for generic eastern MF (the guys in a grey tunic with beard and one javelin in each hand). IMHO, it doesn't fit in the medieval period.

- In the same army, there is a Turkish LH horse archer that uses a Parthian horse archer model that again I find out of place.

Another weird model (but in this case the model is new) is the one used for the Spanish Jinetes. I will just say that the model is labeled as turcoman in the scenario editor