Best Ideas to Improve FOG PC

[TheGrayMouser]

Personally a feel a linear command or "battle line " is more realistic than a radius but it is probobly far more complicated and harder to achieve in a turn based hex game, it might be impossible....

Here is one issue of having a battle line that MUST be the same unit type : balance between armies

If i understand the issue of having more command and control , it is to forces armies and players to control troops more realistically, especially pike armies that alll too easily move mini pike blocks hither and thither. However, i think a line command that is useble to only same type units would actually make those very same armies MORE powerful relative to other more diverse forces. What about armies like Pergamene or Pontic or various Middle Age armies like Nueva Castille that have many unit types but in small #'s. They would be forced to buy a lot of leaders whereas a monolithic army of hoplites/ pikes could do with less(and thus have more ap to buy combat troops) and have greater mobility. Also, Why would Hypaspists (medium foot) not be able to be in a battle line with the pikes in Alexanders army?

Tonite i will drink a lot of beer and ponder this, maybe i will be inpsired of a way to make this work within the game system.

[mceochaidh]

Red wine for me; having pasta.

How about any adjacent foot BG if foot BG it is adjacent to is in command? And any adjacent mounted BG if mounted BG it is adjacent to is in command? Have to think more about light troops, not to mention elephants, but my brain is tired.

[kilroy1]

This is an interesting discussion. I agree with much of what has been said here and would like to put in my 2 cents worth...

I used to play the Great Battles of History (GBoH) series of boardgames covering the ancient/medieval period. They had a command system similiar to what is being discussed here, except that individual units had to be ordered to move/shoot by a Leader (using up precious command points) or be ordered to move as part of a "line" with a Line Command.

This is what I suggest based on the comments here and from playing the GBoH games:

1. A unit within the Command Range of a friendly Leader can move its normal Movement Allowance.

2. A Line consists of units of the same type (HF, MF, etc.) that are adjacent to another friendly unit. Exception: LF or LH can have an empty hex between units and still be considered a Line. All units that comprise a line must be within twice the Command Range of a friendly Leader, and at least one of the units must be within that Leader's normal Command Range. If they meet these requirements they can move their normal Movement Allowance.

3. A unit that is within Charge range of an enemy unit can always move its normal Movement Allowance as long is it ends its move in contact with the enemy.

4. A unit that does not meet any of the above conditions has its Movement Allowance reduced by one (but a unit should always be allowed to move at least one hex).

What do you think?


kilroy

[Igorputski]

While I agree with command control I don't agree with static rules of control. IE: Out of control you only get to move 2 hexes, in command you get to move 3. I say the game needs to be more dynamic to be realistic and historically accurate therefore you need a random roll determining the movement out of command control. Some men would care about command control some (barbarian types) would not. This way the game doesn't play so "chesslike" with static and standard move rules. Nobody would be able to fully rely on commmand control static rules. This way some units may run off into the woods and some not. Makes for realism, immersion and those whatif kind of games. So make the game rules Dynamic not static or stale.

[TheGrayMouser]

Hey Kilroy, I like how you gave some explicit detail onto a possible command structure. I was a huge fan of the GMT games as well, both board and PC.
Possible things to think about :
How would double moves come into play?
Also , I think the ranges would have to be drastically altered. I loaded up a 500 ap battle with an inspired leadered to just get a visual feel on what you highlighted. An inspired leader has a natural command radius of 17 hexes (including its own hex) , if in your plan he had an addition 50% range, that is a whopping 25 hexes for units to be in command…. Considering the map is only 40 hexes wide (in many 500 ap games) and 30 deep, well, having that much command and control would allow players to circumvent buying additional leaders , or if you had even just a troop and a field (as many do now anyways) there would be no noticible change in game play / behavior.

Anyways, I was almost convinced but then I saw Igors post and in the end , I am still leaning towrd the free flow / dynamic play he describes. Neither the PC nor TT version of FOW have one essential ingredient in rwgards to command and control: neither has formations which I really think would be needed to even consider limited movement etc. W/o this I fear we would be trying to ram a square peg in to a round hole (or whatver that saying is)

[kilroy1]

Possible things to think about :
How would double moves come into play?

If a unit is eligible for a double move and in Command Range it has its Movement Allowance doubled the same as now, but if it is out of Command Range its Movement Allowance would be reduced by one and then doubled (e.g., a MF's Movement Allowance is reduced from three to two and then doubled to four).

Possible things to think about :
Also , I think the ranges would have to be drastically altered. I loaded up a 500 ap battle with an inspired leadered to just get a visual feel on what you highlighted. An inspired leader has a natural command radius of 17 hexes (including its own hex) , if in your plan he had an addition 50% range, that is a whopping 25 hexes for units to be in command…. Considering the map is only 40 hexes wide (in many 500 ap games) and 30 deep, well, having that much command and control would allow players to circumvent buying additional leaders , or if you had even just a troop and a field (as many do now anyways) there would be no noticible change in game play / behavior.

Good point. If you recall, in the GBoH games leaders had only one or two "Line Commands" to use each turn (and some of the lesser leaders none at all). A leader could use "Command Points" to move individual units, or use his Line Commands to move a line(s) of troops.

What are your thoughts on this:

Inspired Leaders receive two Line Commands per turn, Field Commanders receive one Line Command per turn, and Troop Commanders would not receive any.

A Leader could allow as many friendly units that are in his Command Range to move their full Movement Allowance as in #1 of my previous post

OR

A Leader could issue a Line Command to an eligible "Line" within his Command Range as in #2 of my previous post.

I'm no programmer, but I wouldn't think it would be too difficult to implement. Right click a Leader to bring up the menu and select Line Command (or whatever they wish to call it) and then the computer does the work for you by highlighting any units allowed to move, and then you would confirm which if any line you wished to move (or cancel).

kilroy

[deeter]

In GBoH, Inspired leaders would bet 5 or more activations either for individual units or a few line commands, lesser leaders maybe 3 with TCs getting 1 or 2.

In FoG TT, battle lines would be either foot or mounted with LF able to be part of either. MF and HF can form the same battle line.

Deeter

[kilroy1]

In FoG TT, battle lines would be either foot or mounted with LF able to be part of either. MF and HF can form the same battle line.
Deeter

In FoG TT how many units (BG's, bases) can you have in a single "battle line"?

kilroy

[petergarnett]

GBoH goes into far greater detail on command than FoG. The system varies the command rules according to the army being modelled. I'm skeptical that you can cherry pick the good parts from GBoH & pop into FoG PC.
I love the FoG PC system but we are stuck with 2 design choices which IMO deter better command control rules. Namely every BG is a unit in it's own right, i.e. it manuevers separately, and every leader is pinned to a unit & so moves at that units speed. The TT game doesn't have those limitations.

Much as I would like to see better command control rules the suggestions so far don't convince me that we'd get a great improvement over what we currently have. Units are in command if within range of a leader - so we all buy leaders as light horse who having commanded one area of the battlefield now dash off to the next area & command that. A unit is in command if adjacent to another unit in command - so we now have a long line of MF covering the battlefield & in command because there is a leader somewhere near a part of the line AND I assume that same leader is also commanding lots of other lines as they are in range too.

I would prefer stronger incentives to keeping BG's adjacent & together as a coherent unit. For instance at the start of a battle once he has deployed the BG's allow the player to throw a rope around a group of BG's & define it as a manuever unit - thereafter it has to remain in the same shape, you only have to move it once instead of moving every component BG, and it gains a cohesion test bonus for all it's BG's. It loses all these benefits once a single BG is routed.

[TheGrayMouser]

The more i think about this the more I think Peter is right, although kilroys ideas have some good thoughts behind them.


Peter i like you idea of roping units (presumably at the deploy stage) but the problem is we are dealing with hexes. You could never manevuer a formation say 6 wide two deep in a hex based environment , Think if you wanted t wheel that formation, the hexes dont allow it , unless you want to reprogram the game to accept units "partially" occupying a hex. A two hex wide unit or formation does work but i dont believe mathenatically any larger will.

I am thinking that maybe we should discuss what the issue is before looking for a solution. What is considered wrong with the game as is ? If it is units dont have incentive to keep historical formations and units are too maveuverable then possibly small, incremantal changes are in order and not a command and control system shoehorned in? Let me dwell on this (instead of doing my work here at work )

[kilroy1]

Units are in command if within range of a leader - so we all buy leaders as light horse who having commanded one area of the battlefield now dash off to the next area & command that.

I would prefer stronger incentives to keeping BG's adjacent & together as a coherent unit. For instance at the start of a battle once he has deployed the BG's allow the player to throw a rope around a group of BG's & define it as a manuever unit - thereafter it has to remain in the same shape, you only have to move it once instead of moving every component BG, and it gains a cohesion test bonus for all it's BG's. It loses all these benefits once a single BG is routed.

To "allow the player to throw a rope aound a group of BG's..." is a good idea. How about we then assign a Leader to command that group of BG's and only that group. The Overall Commander would be assigned to a group of BG's as well, but give him the ability to command BG's outside his own group. Then the only Leader dashing around the battlefield would be the Overall Commander, and if he leaves his "group" to help another his would possibly be out of Command Range.

kilroy

[TheGrayMouser]

Ok, here are some thought on how to maybe improve the historical play of the game. Please note to not dwell too much on each item, as they need to be looked upon as a whole. I do think any kind of command and control added to this game would be way to problematic, considering the freeform nature of the DAG battles etc , So hear it is:

1 light foot
issue: ahistorical that they are faster that knights, as fast as cavalry and 4/5 as fast as light cavalry. They can slide around the map with impunity and beeline from one side of a battleline to the next, and if driven off behind their own battle line, they pop right back out the next turn to skirmish again. Worse , 2 light foot can ring around a cavalry unit and position themselves in a way that if the cavalry moves, it will give chase throwing it even further out of position. Yuck (although I have gotten pretty good at doing this , I hate it)

solution : light foot move 3 hexes. This will basically inhibit players(unless they are crazy) to move skirmishes one hex away from the front of any cavalry unit , as even a knight would have a resaonable chance to catch . If driven behind a battle line, lights would not be able to suddenly decide to move all the way to a flank to help out there or slide immedietly back to the front lines. I think the “skirmishing “ part of the batlle would play out more realistically at a more reasonabl pace.

This might be too much , but I would also consider a CMT check to see if any skirmisher will enter the frontal arc hexes of any cavalry unit (not pacs or chariots as skirmishers are in game terms meant to deal w them)

2 medium foot move reduced to 2 why? Way to maneverable and no reason why they should be able to act like a horde of weak cavalry. (also they need to be stripped down relative to light foot)

The offfset to the above to make them still a viable unit : no move penalties in rough terrain or to enter so in effect they always can move 2 hexes. Additionally whether drilled or not , they can move one hex backwards and change facing back to their front. This way archers can fall back and still fire.

Note , there really is no reason why mediums should be “faster” , they often have the same weapons and armour as heavies and the defination of mediums is ambiguous anyhow. Plus some mediums in the TT have the option to be heavy anyway AND I believe in fog TT vesion Two they are discussing reducing the movement rate to be in line w the heavies.

3 rear support problem: the ability to alternate unit, then no unit in the rear like a jagged saw tooth and still get complete rear support for every Bg in the front ( this is the nature of hexes, a unit always will have 2 units in front of it) I have never heard of any battle where every 50 yards the line went from 16 men deep to 32 and so on and so forth.
Solution: rear support is a one per one unit basis. Because of the nature of hexes , which unit that gets the rear support will be adjudicated by the active player when he choses which combat to resolve ist. If two units could potentially get rear support from one rear unit, the ist combat resoved gets it, the other dont .

In addition, for bg’s to provide rear support they Must be of the same quality or greater, no mobs backing Agryspids. Also unit type would come into play only infantry can support infanty , only cavalry , cavalry. Infantry can provide support to battle wagons and pacs but not vice versa.

****finally a biggy imho in order for a unit to provide rear support it MUST have the SAME facing as the unit it is providing support too. No having a rear supporting pike unit facing a flank or even backwards.

** I don’t think many players will like this next one but hear me out as I think important: units in a rear rank cannot move AND change facing the same turn whether drilled or not IF they have units blocking their front 2 hexes. Think about it, if the units are in the front fighting , the rear rankers really should NOT be able to spin around and then move down the rear . This would be an attempt to aleviate the real gamey habit of making “rout channels” when you sense a front line BG is about to fail. Don’t be concerned about units losing movement capabilty even if the front rankes are nowhere near an enemy, you simply need to move the ones in front ist and thus the above “penalty” doesn’t apply.

I put lot of emphasis on rear support but I think it goes beyond the simple cohesion modifier, it also indiretly touches upon the concept of deeper formations and getting utility out of them in a reasonably historic way. I would think it will also encourage some thought to how your formations are composed prior to them comitting to close combat

If rear rankers cannot move AND change face in one turn once units to the front are engaged , you wont get the best of both worlds and get rear support and have rear rankers dart out on the “fly” to protect a flank or what not. If that is a concern then historically should have a secondary reserve line several hexes behind your main line. This is historical and was often done, but how often do you EVER see players have multiple lines of infantry? . Pretty much never as you can ust jam them together 2 , 4 6 deep and when you get close have them “fan out” whichever way you chose…. Zama is an impossibilty in this game.

Rout logic: the ist hex a unit routs into , and it will have a choice of two hexes (assuming it rout directly away from the enemy) with be a 5050 regardless of whether a friendly occypuies or not. Why? to further discourage rout channels being created by players.

Any thoughts? These things I threw out there are presented as a way to encourage more historical play and in an indirect way simulate command and control .

[deeter]

kilroy: In the TT rules, a leader is assigned to control a battle line and everyone in his command radius can be part of the battle line.

TGM: Many of your suggestions are in the TT rules. Support units must be equal or better quality, facing the same way as the supported unit and at least half as strong, They may support from a distance and need not be adjacent. I recall, it's something like within 8 inches and is meant to represent reserves not a thickening of the front line. As for support units sliding along the line, it wouldn't happen on the TT due to the above and greater than one hex unit widths.

Skirmishers on the TT are multi-base BGs and so are not nearly as nimble as on the PC. It seems most people's problems with FoG PC occur where it diverges from the TT rules....

Deeter

[petergarnett]

The more i think about this the more I think Peter is right, although kilroys ideas have some good thoughts behind them.


Peter i like you idea of roping units (presumably at the deploy stage) but the problem is we are dealing with hexes. You could never manevuer a formation say 6 wide two deep in a hex based environment , Think if you wanted t wheel that formation, the hexes dont allow it , unless you want to reprogram the game to accept units "partially" occupying a hex. A two hex wide unit or formation does work but i dont believe mathenatically any larger will.

I am thinking that maybe we should discuss what the issue is before looking for a solution. What is considered wrong with the game as is ? If it is units dont have incentive to keep historical formations and units are too maveuverable then possibly small, incremantal changes are in order and not a command and control system shoehorned in? Let me dwell on this (instead of doing my work here at work )

If you want to have units wheeling then don't rope large units together - you didn't get many phalanx sized units doing this but roman cohorts could due to the smaller size of their tactical maneuver units. Sorry but one of the few things which I dislike about FOG PC is that all BG's are like those cohorts - able to wheel & manuever easily compared to the historical reality that most ancient armies could do little more than line up facing the enemy & advance straight forward.

[TheGrayMouser]

The more i think about this the more I think Peter is right, although kilroys ideas have some good thoughts behind them.


Peter I like you idea of roping units (presumably at the deploy stage) but the problem is we are dealing with hexes. You could never manevuer a formation say 6 wide two deep in a hex based environment , Think if you wanted t wheel that formation, the hexes dont allow it , unless you want to reprogram the game to accept units "partially" occupying a hex. A two hex wide unit or formation does work but i dont believe mathenatically any larger will.

I am thinking that maybe we should discuss what the issue is before looking for a solution. What is considered wrong with the game as is ? If it is units dont have incentive to keep historical formations and units are too maveuverable then possibly small, incremantal changes are in order and not a command and control system shoehorned in? Let me dwell on this (instead of doing my work here at work )

If you want to have units wheeling then don't rope large units together - you didn't get many phalanx sized units doing this but roman cohorts could due to the smaller size of their tactical maneuver units. Sorry but one of the few things which I dislike about FOG PC is that all BG's are like those cohorts - able to wheel & manuever easily compared to the historical reality that most ancient armies could do little more than line up facing the enemy & advance straight forward.

I dont understand your point, and I thought we were on the same page . If you simply dont NEED to rope multiple units but can rope as few as you wish, arnt we back to sqaure one? When i mean wheeling I mean a phalanxs a couplu hundred yards wide probobly could pivot on one of its far ends (not easily maybe) If in the PC game units are "locked" into there original position "relaitve to eachother, the hex based nature means they would only be able to go foward , that is all i meant. Forgive me if I mis-understood you. I completely agree that invidual commando pikes is a part of the game I question, but i dont think a command and control system will work with out a lot of major changes to the game. I to would have liked to see the bg's in th pC game have some resemblance to bases etc but it cant work in a hex environment, unless stacking was introduced and then you might as well scrub the whole game and start over:)

[Xiccarph]

Did not pike troops order themselves the way they did because they were just less effective otherwise and more vulnerable than if they did not? Let the rules reflect that for pike and similar weapons systems, and not apply to those that were not so affected as much (medium) and not apply to lights at all. So pike armed units or long spears or unit relying on large shields in formation count as being disordered if they moved that turn and are out of command. Allow battle groups in a command group to be moved together, simultaneously, and if one them can't make the move it gets detached at that point and becomes disordered. It then becomes in the interest of the commander to keep those units in command that need to be highly coordinated to be successful. Perhaps some variation of this has already been suggested, if so I apologize for adding to the noise.

My two coins-of-low-denomination worth.

[mceochaidh]

Peter said:

Much as I would like to see better command control rules the suggestions so far don't convince me that we'd get a great improvement over what we currently have. Units are in command if within range of a leader - so we all buy leaders as light horse who having commanded one area of the battlefield now dash off to the next area & command that. A unit is in command if adjacent to another unit in command - so we now have a long line of MF covering the battlefield & in command because there is a leader somewhere near a part of the line AND I assume that same leader is also commanding lots of other lines as they are in range too.

I would prefer stronger incentives to keeping BG's adjacent & together as a coherent unit. For instance at the start of a battle once he has deployed the BG's allow the player to throw a rope around a group of BG's & define it as a manuever unit - thereafter it has to remain in the same shape, you only have to move it once instead of moving every component BG, and it gains a cohesion test bonus for all it's BG's. It loses all these benefits once a single BG is routed

.

Peter's comments prompt me to submit the following thoughts:

1) FOG 500 point armies usually have 40 to 60 BGs that now can all act as individual units, moving as they please based on the player's bird's eye view. This is not an historical way to allow movement. To quote Xenophon's account of Leuktra, the "the Spartan King led out his attack before his own army even perceived that he was advancing. His allies on the other end of the battle, if not many of his own Spartans nearby, were not even aware their commander had signaled the charge."

Thucidides describes the Argives at Miletos in 413 suddenly rushing their Milesian enemies across the battlefield, leaving the phalanx of the Athenians in the center of their allied battle line far behind. Victor Hansen speaks at length about the din of battle, the noise and the dust kicked up by the armies marching, thus inhibiting communication. Even later, after probable improvements in command by the Successors and Romans, Polybius' description of Kynoskephelai states the shouts and war cry of both Macedonians and Romans, as well as the general cheering of the noncombatants, created a sense of rampant disorder throughout the battlefield.

I firmly believe some change is needed. My revised thought is to create a variable movement test (call it a VMT) for all BGs not in command range. The closer a BG is to command range, the higher the probability the BG will move its normal move. The BG will always be able to turn or move 1 hex. I think this may be where Igor was going with his post.

2) FOG does not have a true command structure. The CIC usually ends up being an IC, but other than that he is no different than a sub commander. I would make sub commanders like ally commanders and designate which BGs were part of the sub's command. Like an ally commander, the sub could only command his BGs. To move in the direction of the TT game, where all commanders move at the speed of LH, I would give the CiC an option to be a light horse BG. Now some armies have this option and many don't. The CiC would be able to command any BGs in his own army, but not ally BGs.

3) To encourage BGs to move and act together I would make two changes. First, I would conform rear support as closely as possible to the TT rules, as TGM suggested. Supporting BGs should at a minimum be facing in the same direction and be of similar quality (HF must support HF.) Second, I would allow a +1 on cohesion tests if the testing BG has non-fragmented adjacent (non-skirmish) friends of similar quality on BOTH sides, whether they are in combat or not. The first change on rear support will probably result in fewer positives for cohesion tests, the second new plus 1 for adjacent friends will probably result in more positives, but will encourage the movement of BGs together.

[Igorputski]

What is considered wrong with the game as is ?

Well that's pretty easy. I could accept everything else if the AI was worth playing against. Move 2 move 3 I wouldn't care if the ai were challenging as say Shogun 2's new an improved ai of the Total War series. It's stomping my butt on just hard difficulty.

[petergarnett]

TGM "I dont understand your point, and I thought we were on the same page . If you simply dont NEED to rope multiple units but can rope as few as you wish, arnt we back to sqaure one? When i mean wheeling I mean a phalanxs a couplu hundred yards wide probobly could pivot on one of its far ends (not easily maybe) If in the PC game units are "locked" into there original position "relaitve to eachother, the hex based nature means they would only be able to go foward , that is all i meant. Forgive me if I mis-understood you. I completely agree that invidual commando pikes is a part of the game I question, but i dont think a command and control system will work with out a lot of major changes to the game. I to would have liked to see the bg's in th pC game have some resemblance to bases etc but it cant work in a hex environment, unless stacking was introduced and then you might as well scrub the whole game and start over:)"

I think we are absolutely on the same page. I meant that the option to rope/create a larger unit should be the players choice and that therefore if he creates such a large unit he has to bear in mind both it's resultant strengths (bonus to say cohesion test) & weaknesses (limited to simple forward movement for a very wide unit). To avoid those weaknesses in say a roman army leave the BG's as they are or maybe just 2 BG's side by side.

mceochaidh "3) To encourage BGs to move and act together I would make two changes. First, I would conform rear support as closely as possible to the TT rules, as TGM suggested. Supporting BGs should at a minimum be facing in the same direction and be of similar quality (HF must support HF.) Second, I would allow a +1 on cohesion tests if the testing BG has non-fragmented adjacent (non-skirmish) friends of similar quality on BOTH sides, whether they are in combat or not. The first change on rear support will probably result in fewer positives for cohesion tests, the second new plus 1 for adjacent friends will probably result in more positives, but will encourage the movement of BGs together."

With a hex based system it's hard to define adjacent once a melee is on the go. What if I'm next to a friendly BG which has wheeled around my opponents flank - does that still count as adjacent?

[mceochaidh]

Peter,

What I am trying to get to is flank support. If a BG's flanks are both covered in a way that they are not exposed to an enemy charge at the time of the cohesion test, then I think that should be taken into account. Perhaps there should be only a single +1 for support, if either rear support is determined or flank support is determined, however it is defined.

Your "roping idea" sounds like it is closer to the TT "battle line, although I have only read but not played the TT rules. I am not sure I understand how the mechanics would work in terms of moving the entire battle line within the hex based system, but I like the concept. Would you move a center BG and then would the entire formation conform? How would you propose the cohesion bonus would work? A plus 1 for an individual testing BG if the original formation is still intact? Does the entire benefit get removed as soon as there is an anarchy charge or any other movement that changes the formation? Is it dependent upon a commander being close to the formation?