Unit Scale - Is It Set Too High?

[SRW1962]

When playing FOG PC in DAG games and also in many of the scenarios available the unit scale is set at the default scale of 1500/1000/500 which seems at the outset to be quite fine, but when you think about it and compare it to the ground scale it really does seem to be way too high for teh amount of men that could conceivably fit into the area encompassed by a hex.

First of all it seems that to make an argument for the unit scale it would be helpful to establish a ground scale and as this is not formally given it will have to be arrived at means of taking the ranges of missile weapons used within the game, this being quite easy to establish really. In another topic entitled 'What Is The FOG Scale?' in the scenario design section of the forum some of us debated this question of ground scale and most of us (myself included) concluded that it must be about 50 yards to a hex, this idea was (for me at least) knocked off its feet when someone suggested an alternative range scale for weapons which not only made sense with bow range being 300 yards max and javelin range being 75 yards but put the ground scale at around 75 yards to a hex. So, if 75 yards is the correct frontage of a hex then how well does the idea of 1500 closely packed troops fit in with the ground scale?

Well, to answer this we need to determine how many actual close formation men could be packed into a 75 yard frontage and on the face of it this would appear to be 75 which allows 1 yard frontage per man, which does seem very reasonable. That means that the 1500 total can be divided by 75 to arrive at 20 ranks of men, which does seem excessively deep as a formation in normal circumstances. Most formations were around the 8 rank deep mark, with some being less deep (6 for Mid-Republican Roman Hastati & Princepes) and some formations being slightly deeper at 10 or 12 ranks, but again 8 ranks does seem very reasonable. There are of course the pike armies in much deeper formations usually or even hoplite units of up to 64 ranks deep but these very deep formations can easily be formed by extra ranks of units in supporting hexes so are therefore easily accom*--modated in all of this.

So, clearly it can be seen that 1500 men in 20 ranks doesn't really fit in with the ground scale, but what does? Well, going back to the 75 yard hex frontage and allowing 75 men to cover that frontage we simply multiply this by a more reasonable 8 ranks of men which results in a unit size of 600 men, which again seems very reasonable and is about 40% of the size of the original unit. But what about other types of unit? Well by applying the same sort of logic and making them 40% of their original size it would result in the units being 600/400/200 which fits very nicely into round numbers. As for elephants, chariots and artillery which are all set at 20 each at the moment they could simply be halved to make them 10 each which again fits in rather neatly.

What about Army Lists, Scenarios etc how do they fit in with the scales? Lets take a look at what we have now which is the 1500/100/500 scale for units, this on the face of it seems to work well for big battles such as Zama, Cannae, Gaugamela and the like, but how well does it work for smaller but no less important battles such as Hastings, Marathon, Agincourt etc and even DAG games using the army lists provided?

To look at this in some sort of detail I have made a table with a breakdown of the numbers involved in each battle and the number of FOG units in brackets besides them.

BATTLE

Zama 202 BC - Rome HF = 20,000 (13) MF = 5,000 (5) LF = 4,000 (8) CV = 2,000 (2) LH = 4600 (9)
Carthage HF = 20,000 (13) MF = 10,000 (10) LF = 3,000 (6) CV =2,000 (2) LH = 3,000 (6) EL = 80 (4)

Cannae 216 BC - Rome HF = 65,000 (43) LF = 13,000 (26) CV = 6,000 (6)
Carthage HF = 8,000 (5) MF = 25,000 (25) LF = 12,000 (24) CV = 6,000 (6) LH = 4,000 (8)

Gaugamela 331 BC - Macedon HF = 22,000 (14) MF = 14,000 (14) LF = 3,000 (6) CV = 5,000 (5) LH = 2,000 (4)
Persia HF = 4,000 (3) MF = 50,000 (50) LF = 2,000 (4) CV = 22,000 (22) LH = 12,000 (24) EL = 15 (1) CH = 200 (10)

Hastings 1066 AD - Norman HF = 4,000 (3) LF = 1,000 (2) CV = 3,000 (3)
Saxon HF = 9,000 (6) LF = 500 (1)

Marathon 490 BC - Greece HF = 9,600 (6)
Persia HF = 5,000 (5) MF = 15,000 (15) CV = 2,500 (3)

Agincourt 1415 AD - France HF = 12,000 (8) MF = 5,000 (5) CV = 8,000 (8)
England HF = 1500 (1) MF = 5,000 (5)

Firstly, please refrain from commenting upon the breakdowns of the armies and numbers involved as I know only too well that these are open to interpretation and also bear in my this is not the point of the thread to debate the numbers and breakdowns involved in these battles. As can be seen above the numbers do vary wildly in terms of size but not in terms of historical importance, having said that all of these battles could be played with the current unit scale but some with a less than satisfactory look and feel to them. If the other scale of 600/400/200 were applied then the first 3 battles would be very large (especially Cannae) but the last 3 battles would actually be a more reasonable size, but none of these battles would actually be unplayable, the larger games would simply be really grand affairs as quite rightly befits their size. As for the battlefield sizes the biggest is probably Gaugamela with a 3 mile frontage, which in terms of hex's would be approximately 70 whilst being currently too large for the largest map currently allowed in the scenario editor would be achievable if the maximum map size were increased (and who wouldn't want that?).

To finish this I would like to turn to the DAG lists and run a few numbers by you, firstly at teh current levels when the new Immortal Fire package comes out it will obviously include Alexanders Macedonians and if the lists follow the current pattern of halving the amount of elements used in the TT lists (unless changed after reading this) then the Macedonians will be able to field 9,000 Hypaspists which is triple the amount the real army ever fielded and there are many, many more such anomalies in the lists due to rescaling them from the TT lists (which worked fine in terms of numbers). Finally who doesn't field modest sized DAG armies that were well above the actual sizes that could ever have been achieved by the historical prototype, I know my 400pt MId-Republican Roman Army is at least the size of the Zama army above and using the same list I can actually field the army for Cannae (apart from the cavalry as for some reason there is not enough allowed) from what is essentially supposed to be a competition set of lists which were never intended to replicate such large battles.

Anyway, I would like to hear from others who may have an opinion on this and I feel that there may be many who may have alternative or totally different opinions to what I have put forward, as from this there may well be a consensus as to what if anything could be done. For my part I would like to see user defined troop scales in the DAG and open ended lists in the DAG with no troops limits for historical/campaign use.

[batesmotel]

The unit size listed for BGs in the game has no effect on the game and its primary effect seems to be to cause confusion. I think it would be better to just drop it altogether rather than to tweak the default numbers displayed. Unfortunately the poll doesn't include an option to ignore or drop the unit sizes. In the cases of scenarios, it would make much more sense for the designer to include brief notes on the size of the forces involved or an overall description of how he scaled the forces used in the scenario rather than sticking a meaningless (in game terms) size on each BG.

Chris

[gabeeg]

I agree with batesmotel...it would be the simplest, easiest solution.

[SRW1962]

Duly noted and the new option is in place

[TheGrayMouser]

Well I am not confused(at least about this ) and I would like the option to keep the # men in the unit to be editable as the player chooses( at least in the editor) I am ok w the defaults as well
An option in the dag battles to scale it? I guess that would be nice, but not necesary.

Remember as well, the future time line post indicates at some point they will add a copy and paste function in the editor making changing a units attributes very easy....

[76mm]

My understanding is that the numbers are completely pointless, so how would editable numbers affect multiplayer? If it would not effect MP, then why bother to allow people to edit unit strengths?

[Morbio]

The option I'd vote for isn't there, i.e. The unit size is unimportant.

In the nicest possible way I really don't care what the unit sizes or the hex sizes represent. While I have a passing interest in the history I play the game for the fun of the battle. So, whether a hex is 50 yards or 75 yards, or whether a unit is 1500 or 600 doesn't matter. The most important thing is that the units respond logically / realistically.

I would say that your argument for change is well-reasoned and I wish you well in your quest

[SRW1962]

It isn't so much a quest really as curiousity to see what others felt about the numbers, I know that they really don't matter so much (and I do ignore them myself) as I form up my legions etc as I see fit with no regard at all to the fact according to the unit strengths they are about 3 or 4 times larger than they should be. I would probably say that its more from the point of view of campaigns and scenario design that it is more irritating, DAG games that are not part of a campaign setup really don't matter at all unless you are really fussy about such things. It would be nice to be able to edit the DAG unit numbers and troop limits for campaign games though.

[Jhykronos]

In my own scenarios, I have generally edited the numbers to something other than the default assumption of 1500/1000/500.

I think the worst thing about the default "unit scale" isn't so much that it is insane in light of the ground scale (most games, especially miniatures games, have to make fairly big compromises here), but that the relative scales for "heavy" and "light" troops are radically different, something that is emphatically NOT the case in the tabletop game. A properly scaled Manipular Roman legion should not be getting 3 times as many velite units as hastatii, at least not in any sane scenario.

[CaptainHuge]

Does the fact that Heavy Infantry have 1500 men and Medium 1000 have any affect on how long they stay around in combat? If not, then the number of men per battle group doesn't seem to affect game play much. Isn't casualty removal based on percentages? It seems to me that the strengths in manpower are just for show. Another place where the various strength may play a part would be calculating the allowed ratio of units in a DAG game. Does anyone know if the ratios are based on actual troop strengths or just general proportions of battle groups?

My vote would be to leave the figures in, if only to add flavour to units i.e. having 5,000 cavalry sweep around an opponent's flank.

[keyth]

I voted not at all because IMHO they only have relevance in historical battles, and then only for flavour. In DAG games I ignore them completely.

[Scutarii]

for me if you add numbers as inmersion in the game try to adapt then to army pack, for me best option is have listed 2 type of armies, one with standar sizes and other with smaller sizes