Scoring System

[stenic]

Call me old fashioned, reward the win so much so that it so much better than a draw. Reward actually breaking the enemy, not holding on to your own troops.

Re-do the current score sheet from the resources page so that the values scored on the matrix table are halved, then change the break enemy army points value to 10.

The issue isn't really swarm armies, it's about players who will accept a draw rather than lose; the swarm army can just facilitate this with the bonus that it may win. In my first game at Expo my Dom Rom Swarm opponent actively went for combat all down the line and could have lost just as easily as I did, I certainly never felt he was playing fnot to lose. Surely it's simple to just make the win reward greater and reduce the draw reward?

Am I missing something?

Steve P

[babyshark]

Is there a way to incorporate the idea underpinning the old Gulf South 15-0 scoring system from the DBM era? For instance, calculate the score in the present manner, but multiply the points taken from the enemy x2. And then add +5 (or +10, or whatever) for breaking the enemy. Which would, I suppose, make it a 35-0 scoring system. Or something like that.

I know that the Brits among us will complain that this is not a zero-sum system, and therefore subject to collusion. Collusion has never been a problem--that I am aware of--in the US; I question whether it would be a problem (as opposed to a potentiality) even in Britain. The 15-0 system worked quite well for DBM.

Hmmm?

Marc

[hammy]

Is there a way to incorporate the idea underpinning the old Gulf South 15-0 scoring system from the DBM era? For instance, calculate the score in the present manner, but multiply the points taken from the enemy x2. And then add +5 (or +10, or whatever) for breaking the enemy. Which would, I suppose, make it a 35-0 scoring system. Or something like that.

I know that the Brits among us will complain that this is not a zero-sum system, and therefore subject to collusion. Collusion has never been a problem--that I am aware of--in the US; I question whether it would be a problem (as opposed to a potentiality) even in Britain. The 15-0 system worked quite well for DBM.

You could easily give double credit for inflicting damage. I am not sure if it would go any way towards addressing what seems to be the complaint i.e. swarm armies are hard to beat though.

One area where a scoring system other than 25-0 would cause issues is with Karsten and Martin's ranking site. That is currently setup to work on the basis that scores will be between 0 and 25.

[philqw78]

One area where a scoring system other than 25-0 would cause issues is with Karsten and Martin's ranking site. That is currently setup to work on the basis that scores will be between 0 and 25.

A mathematical problem that is not beyond me. Martin can't drink but he can add up. So I would trust him to come up with a solution.

[philqw78]

Good point well made. Once you have struck off armies who can't have decent numbers of armoured and/or superior fighters, and/or LH/LF bowmen there are few enough viable armies left already, so once "... and can work at 15+ BG's" gets added to the list it becomes a very small pool indeed

Is this different to any previous game you have played Tim? I can't ever remember Tibetans being any good, but they had a huge empire. But I am fed up with being swarmed. I will take 14 BG to Britcon.

[madaxeman]

Good point well made. Once you have struck off armies who can't have decent numbers of armoured and/or superior fighters, and/or LH/LF bowmen there are few enough viable armies left already, so once "... and can work at 15+ BG's" gets added to the list it becomes a very small pool indeed

Is this different to any previous game you have played Tim? I can't ever remember Tibetans being any good, but they had a huge empire. But I am fed up with being swarmed. I will take 14 BG to Britcon.

All games have "better" army lists and "worse" ones - almost irrespective of historical effectiveness, thats just life really. However looking through many of the FoG books I find that I end up discarding the vast majority of the armies fairly quickly on the basis of the criteria above.

My point was that if more and more people start taking swarms (say, 14+) the list of viable armies will IMO reduce even further.

[expendablecinc]

Others have mentioned that for comps the organiser could use any means of trying to level issues (imagined or real) relating to army size, scoring and other ahistorical list structure.

This year our club league is starter armies only, on a 5 by 4 table. This is a fairly harsh means of ensuring historical army structure and minimising gamey lists.

What I would like to try for a comp or a league is the following:
Players must take a starter army exaclty as listed in the army lists.
Players can supplement this list to make the army points value 800 or less
They can do this by adding battlegroups or increasing the size of existing starter army battlegroups
Nothing from the starter army can be altered

In this way the only players with ICs available are those who historically had access to them.
No masses of Micro BGs ohter than only with the extra 150 or so points available.

Will give it a try I think.

[philqw78]

In this way the only players with ICs available are those who historically had access to them.

One man's TC is another man's IC? The starter lists do not represent reality at all for some armies. Again I cite Tibet, who definately had an inspired leader early in it's history.

[muz177]

I wouldn't like to see any limitations on how people want to take armies - there will always be a rock, paper, scissors of armies which turn up in comps, depending on what is popular, what will beat what is popular, etc. In the example I gave several pages ago, I drew 2 hard to catch armies on day 2, but could easily have drawn two heavy grunt type armies which may have favoured the type of army I had chosen - if I wanted my arabs to be more competitive against the skirmish guys then i could reconfigure my selection.

However, the scoring system shouldn't benefit those with more BG's for all of the reasons previously cited.

There are lots of clever people playing the game - how about we help out by coming up with an alternative victory scoring system which
1 encourages positive play,
2 provides bonus points for breaking an army (need to figure out what that means)
3 provides sufficient breadth to separate players over a 2 day comp
4 continues to allow international rankings to be reasonably indicative

With the concept of army breaks, would it be possible to have the rule that an army with (say) 14 or less BG's ignores any loss of skirmishers in determining points where the army breaks? This would mean that the harder units would have to be targetted.

Alternatively, an army with more than 15 BG's could have the excess over 15 being counted as 3 AP's (ie for an army of 18BG's the first 3 BG's destroyed give the opponent 9 AP's)

Just some thoughts.

Muz

[david53]

There are lots of clever people playing the game - how about we help out by coming up with an alternative victory scoring system which

Maybe being clever and good they don't have a problum with it as it stands.

I can't see it being changed at many events as the top tables don't seem to have this problum.

As Hammy and others have said its only the middle players that think there is a problum.

[philqw78]

I can't see it being changed at many events as the top tables don't seem to have this problum.

As Hammy and others have said its only the middle players that think there is a problum.

But, IMO, they are the important ones. They are most of the players. Competitions would die without them.

[hammy]

I can't see it being changed at many events as the top tables don't seem to have this problum.

As Hammy and others have said its only the middle players that think there is a problum.

But, IMO, they are the important ones. They are most of the players. Competitions would die without them.

Indeed.

The question is have any of the suggestions made so far actually sounded interesting to said 'middle players'

Bearing in mind that it is very unlikely that there will be a change in the army lists and that a change in the rules is probably some way off.

[david53]

I can't see it being changed at many events as the top tables don't seem to have this problum.

As Hammy and others have said its only the middle players that think there is a problum.

But, IMO, they are the important ones. They are most of the players. Competitions would die without them.

Yes I agree with you the middle players are the ones that make up most of the comps yes comps would die without the vast majority of players who know they'll not win the comp but spend good money to turn up still, cause they like FOG.

But for some reason the top players don't seem to have a problum with this swarm thing.

I say again if it was a problum with the top tables it would be debated more and a solution would be found. For whatever reason cause its lower down its less thought off.

This from a player well down the tables.

[grahambriggs]

The top players may or may not have a problem with swarms. But what they will do is adopt tactics to do best against the swarm even if that's a draw. They'll also be happy to accept 3 hours of dull pushing (they play a lot, so what's one game?).

For example, at the BHGS Challenge this year Graham Evans' non-swarm Western Han came up against Simon Hall's Parthian swarm. Graham decided playing for a win was too risky so hunkered up for a draw.

The flip side of the "but the top armies at tounaments are rarely swarms" argument is surely that therefore few top players play vs swarms a lot. It's also true that the swarms played by good/top players are well thought through and have many ways to win. The more average player may take the approach "I'll try and bust a hole with the tough stuff and if that doesn't work everything can run away". That was certainly my plan with Bosporans in my first competition.

[philqw78]

The more average player may take the approach "I'll try and bust a hole with the tough stuff and if that doesn't work everything can run away". That was certainly my plan with Bosporans in my first competition.

So its all your fault Graham. And you are far from average, or is that far from normal?

[grahambriggs]

The more average player may take the approach "I'll try and bust a hole with the tough stuff and if that doesn't work everything can run away". That was certainly my plan with Bosporans in my first competition.

So its all your fault Graham. And you are far from average, or is that far from normal?

I've got better the more I played but I was distinctly average when starting. I did find the grit and mist a good approach at that stage. The skirmishers were usually nimble enough to get out of the daft situations I put them in. The impact foot and lancers were always a threat. It all went horribly wrong against a much better player who hoovered my troops up like fleas