Interesting statistic

[TheGrayMouser]

Perhaps a better term than "horde" which has other connotations, should be spam arnies then...

Deeter

What?!, I typed all that (and i hate typing ) so you could make such a laconic comment

[batesmotel]

This is a tough one, what is the definition of a horde and how does it apply with in the game
Afer all, the hordiest "horde" of them all (soon to be eleased wiith SaS) , the Mongols, wasnt a horde at all but a very large and well organised army, with sub formation from corps to "platoons"

Ironically, the vast # 's of levied troops in many of the Eastern nations (ie Seluecids) almost qualify them as hordes yet i dont think anyone wants to see those armies get larger ( and ironically they tend to be mid to small in bp's when players field them) , unless they are forced to take compulsary poor quality troops... (btw , where are the chained together slave pikes in the selucid list anyways? )

Most horde armies in the historic sense really wernt that large anyways relative to their opponents (gauls, galatians) and i dont think these armies are really too big in dag battles anyways

In game terms the true Hordes seem to be the british isle lists, whether it be irish, anglo'-Irish etc etc
These armies you would actually expect to be smaller than most of the opponents (how many Islanders were there anyways?) yet they can field HUGE armies in the dags ( and those mediums kerns , that blend in perfectly with light kerns , can cause signicant pain)

Perhaps reducing the quality of many of the spam units , or making some compulsary low quality units would help out ... Not just for those lists but many of the lists

I enjoy SOA as much as any of the other expansions but one thing that always bothered me is , where are all the low quality levies? No lists are forced to take along the feudal chaff but for the most part have lists of profesional "average" troops or , more likly Swiss merc's....

In the end , having bp caps etc seems like good ideas but it is such against the mold that Slitherine has made for this game , i doudt it would ever be considered.....

To be honest I don't recall any historical references to slave pikes for the Seleucids, let alone slave chained together. Freed slaves for Pontic armies and Egyptian levies raised for Ptolemaic armies I do recall and the lists do allow for poor pikes there. (And I've used them with reasonable success in both lists.) some players certainly seem to buy mob some of the time to booster break points. So you do see poor troops both in FoG PC and FoG TT. Probably less so in higher point games since at that point there are often the points to buy the better quality troops.

Chris

[TheGrayMouser]

Perhaps slave Pikes chained together with Commissars behind them was an exageration, the point i am making is many of the decaying Succesor states utilised a lot of low quality levies, they werent the mean lean superior pike/lancer armies that are in the lists ( after all, why would the Selucids resort to a gimmick like Scythed chariots, 500 hundred years after they were obsolete if their cavalry or heavy infantry arm was so good?) Sure, some lists allow a few poor quality heavy or medium troops, but noone buys them especially when for the same points you can but usefull light foot bows... The only army that i know that has COMPULSIARY poor heavies is the Phyrric in Italy list....

In the end just throwing aound the idea on how to deal with drastically larger BP armies.... I do think many lists / matchups would be more fun if more poor quality troops were more common or could be usefull in #'s but also a liability ,(especially for the SOA lists) However if it came down to further restricting options players have or like it is, Id rather have it like it is... That is why we need a open ended dag army generator

[ericdoman1]

The suggestion I made about having < or upto certain size armies is a good one I think. Possibly armies can only use min compulsory poor troops. For example I use the Med Irish and Bosporans both generally with a stack of poor troops. I can reach 60 + with the Bosporans and the Irish larger in 500pts (a bit of geekishness, Deeter nothing to do with your Bactrians, the largest army that can be fielded for 500 pts is the Med Irish early, possibly later). Anyway making my poor troops become average would reduce the size accordingly. I have seriously contemplated the thought becasue poor missile troops, do bolster army size but do hardly any damage when shooting. I would imagine the pc game uses the TT version for combat, poor troops have to reroll 6s for verything.

Even so you can have Gallic armies, Thracian and Ilyrian armies that can be high 60s. I don't think you could classify them as horde.

Thing is guys those games I have won with the "horde" (lots of cheap troops) armies, well doesn't really feel right now. Again capping the size of armies ie < or only using compulsory poor troops may well be the change required and using TT version of movement/CMT if software allows it.

[Xiggy]

One of the horde issues, is the only people that play them are very good generals. So it is hard to figure out if there really is a problem. If I play a horde army, I will lose badly. I played the Gupda Indian and have lost the few times I have played it. But I am a mediocre general. Mshund, Pantherboy, erdoman1, and devouthojo are very good generals. It takes quite a bit of skill to maneuver the bows, medium foot etc and not get run over. I dont think many of us can do that.

I guess the swiss being unbeatable discussion is now officially dead, since these horde armies crush them assuming decent terrain. (Big assumption)

[deeter]

Xiggy makes a good point about very good players and horde armies. I don't wish to be offensive, but I wonder why very good players don't like regular armies with all their liabilities?

Deeter

[cothyso]

I like regular armies, and I play mostly them. In fact, I don't even remember ever playing with a horde army. As I've said before, I prefer quality over quantity.

[ericdoman1]

Thanks for the compliment but I am a complete amatuer when it comes to comparing me with mschund and pantherboy. I have used Post_Seleucid but that could be regarded as a horde army (new definition lots of cheap troops), you can have 12 poor lf. First time I joined the LOEG I used Early Pontic prob 44 bps on average.

I used the Irish only because when playing with the Welsh I kept getting battered by them. Finally S&S must be close to being released, wonder what the new patch will be.

I need some company, some Catalan company and army I enjoyed using in DBM.

Suggested this to Andersm wouldn't it be good if the divisions were smaller (or maybe not). The first placed person has to use the army that came last, 2nd placed person, 2nd from last etc. Then compare scores overall?

[TheGrayMouser]

Xiggy makes a good point about very good players and horde armies. I don't wish to be offensive, but I wonder why very good players don't like regular armies with all their liabilities?

Deeter

I dont think that is offensive, although it could lead to bad vibes if posters arnt carefull.

My own personal experiances with the dudes named above is this:

PB: hadnt played him ever and then played maybe 5-6 open DAG battles a month or so ago and he slapped me silly with all kinds of armies. Ironically, many moons ago i remember a lot of players thinking the Illyrians were a worthless army and then PB conquered half the world in the LW campaign game, lol.

the Krieghund: I have likly played more games against him than any other player, maybe beating him 2 out of 10 times (and that might be optimism on my part!) and we always fought with a wide range of armies.

Eric the self professed "Amateur" (who is destryoing armies left and right): Again, played quite a few DAG 's with him as well and I see no pattern of only taking hordie armies.

Maybe the ? shoud be why do very good players take certain armies in competive situations? Well the answer seems obvious. Take the best army available based on your experience and strengths in using such an army, nothing more or less. I think with some reflection, most players also do likewise.

[cothyso]

I can play with any army, as all of them have their strengths and weaknesses, and most of the time I am picking them purely on out-of-gameplay (sentimental if you want to) reasons. There's no such thing as ultimate DAG army, and I'm sure the developers would fix it pretty fast if the thing wouldl ever occur.

In the current LoEG series 3 I've enlisted trough the latest (if not even the last), so I had to pick up the leftovers. And my leftover already crushed 5 armies, with 2 more on the way, or so it seems. In the end, an army is as good as the player commanding it.

Just for the record, I would strongly supports armies being drawn by lots at the beginning of a tournament, in this way, no one could say someone picked up god knows which godlike army, or that the first comers were favoured in front of the late comers. Or even let the armies be picked up in the reverse order of ranking in a division, with eventually the first 5 or so players having their armies picked up by randomly from the leftovers.

I would also add a handicap system (see point 2.2b), modifying the VP accordingly to the rank/total points difference. That would benefit all the players, providing the weakest/inexperienced ones with a little help, and making things more interesting for the killing machines, giving everyone a fair chance to get to the top of the tournament, and even win it. I think this would boot up the interest in tournaments much more than the current tournament system. Yet again, that would need a ranking ladder, thing which seems to not be wished to be implemented by the developers. But it could be done in LoEG at least, even if only as an experiment.

[Xiggy]

I think some of the good generals pick armies based on how the map system works. I think most of them have a good feel for the kinds of terrain that will be generated and all the hord armies have troops that fight in any terrain well. The RoR gauls are a great mix of HF, MF, LF Chariots and usable mounted. They even have some decent moral troops. The illyrians have some hoplites that can lock a line in place. The later jewish have enough pikes to lock you line and withstand mounted charges. They they have cheep troops to tire your guys out and beat them eventually since spears cause a lot of casualities. One of my parthian losses I killed 31 units. My army has only 37 units in it.

Most of us kind of clump our armies and give rear support. From watching and losing to some of the horde armies, you only give selective support and envelope flanks, trying to not take chain moral hits when units rout. That is not easy to do.

I really hope they have a record match feature soon. Watching what any of the great generals do with their armies would help my play a lot. It is a shame you could not download certain complete battle from the website. It would raise all of our play.