The Rally Point

[Turk1964]

There are some valid points coming out here and its great to see players opinions .Klay has probably the most valid point though in the use of massed poor LF ,which cost very little and boost the army bps . This is a common tactic with the Seleucids and Bosporans where you have good quality troops and can field over 20 poor lf. Firstly to slow done your opponent and shoot the hell out of a flank to weaken it . Then send in the Heavies to pin the centre and smash the weakened flank . Then use your Cavalry to rear attack the centre and route the enemy. How ever a restriction on lf to 10 would no doubt make a better game especially when facing an opponent who is very good with the massed poor LF tactic.

[stockwellpete]

Haven't looked but there was a table that showed % wins of armies. PB chose armies that had a terrible % win ratio and either won with them or came 2nd or 3rd. I am not in his league but I made the point of trying some different armies this time, it seems that my choices have not gone down to well though:). If PB, hidde, Sharkall, davouthojo, CheAhn and miversson were involved in all divisions. I would have been very fortunate to have won one.

The ideas that the committee are presenting about army modification here have nothing to do with your success this season, Eric. We have been discussing these issues for some time now, well before the competition started, in fact.

The more I think about it and having investigated it a bit more the max of 10 lf/lh is not good. Based on the fact that it will reduce the numbers of armies. Maybe push it to 15 or possibly 20. Voskarp suggested 1/3 to 1/2 of army. I think that is a good idea. I do agree completely that lf, historically were a very small part of an army. I would imagine when there were skirmishes before a battle you would probably deploy your best troops from various commands who were good at skirmishing and then they go back to their mf, cav etc unit. However we are not using a true historical game here. For the game to have certain changes made you will need to change it's software and that is not possible for this version of the game. Either or I enjoy playing so I do not mind if the majority wishes to make some radicallish? changes.

This paragraph sums up the issue really. As I have said before, what we are trying to do is to make players use the skirmisher units as skirmishers - having "massed skirmisher armies", where 50% of the army are skirmishers, is just ridiculous in historical terms and that option is not going to be available to players in Season 2. As a committee we feel we are entitled to "tweak" the rules to make it more interesting and challenging. If it is the case that most players think 50/10 is too severe then we can quite happily move to 50/12 or 50/15 so that skirmishers can comprise a maximum of 25% or 30% of an army - although this is still a very high proportion of the army in my opinion. Skirmishers did not win battles in the ancient and medieval world and they shouldn't be able to win battles in FOG either.

[stockwellpete]

. . . eliminating the poor skirmishers entirerly really wouldnt hurt the game, and would dramatically reduce the value of some of these "super" armies. the poor MF archers are also prone to the same tactic, but they are somewhat vulnerable, lacking evasion. i could see a limit of no more than 50% of ALL MF being poor quality (this would limit the kern hordes and such).

These are interesting ideas, Klay. I think we need to look at some of these "super armies" in more detail to see how these suggestions might affect them. If you could come up with a couple of army lists in the next few days then that would be helpful (like I have done with the Hatrans).

I STRONGLY don't like the limit of 10 skirmishers. if i'm facing a heavy horse archer army, i may need more screening troops to protect against arrows. I'd rather make them more real (not poor) so they are actually part of the action. also, the skirmish battles are quite interesting...i'm still learning the neuances of how to use them effectively. and they add significant interest and tactical opptions (like cutting off the retreat of horse cav). If we cut down to 10 the skirmishers, we will really reduce the tactical nuances of the game!!!

But really armies would not be able to deploy foot skirmishers against horse archers - they would just get ridden down. And skirmish battles may be interesting but they are not remotely realistic in the game as skirmishers can hop about all over the place like ninjas, so I do not really accept your point here. I think it is more correct to say that cutting the skirmishers to 10 will alter the tactical nuances of the game rather than reduce them.

[stockwellpete]

The committee has had a good old discussion this morning about the various issues that have been raised and we have a new proposal for you all to consider. We have tried to incorporate the points made by batesmotel (regarding LH), klayeckles ("poor" LF), zumHeuriger (exemptions), and ericdoman1 and macsen (numbers).

The new proposal is as follows . . .

i) Light Horse will be excluded from the restrictions completely

ii) we will keep the "50/10" restriction for Light Foot only

iii) a maximum of 5 "poor" Light Foot can be chosen in the 10 Light Foot allowed

iv) exemptions will be given for any army that breaks the 10x Light Foot limit because of DAG requirements (that is, if the DAG requires an army to have 12x Light Foot then that will be the maximum number allowed)

We hope this will address most of the concerns that have been raised so far. It will still deal with the related issues of "horde" and "massed skirmisher" armies and it will be easy to explain to players - "you may pick up to 10xLF and up to 5 of them can be "poor". We will probably open up a new poll on these ideas at the weekend. Thanks for all your input so far, it is very much appreciated.

[batesmotel]

With a maximum of 10 LF overall, does it really make sense to have a separate limit on poor LF? I don't see 10 LF in general as a huge bulking out of an army that can't exceed 50 BGs and the point cost difference between 5 average and 5 poor LF isn't enough to make a bug difference in the size of the army. Why not just simplify things and either make the restriction on the number of LF overall or the number of poor LF rather than having two limits?

As a second thought, if the two separate limits are kept, then an army which can only buy poor LF should be able to get a full 10 poor LF. (I'm not sure there are any but the early Hoplites and some medieval armies might qualify.)

Chris

[stockwellpete]

If you can come up with specific army builds, Chris, then we can look at it further but I think the new formulation will work OK for most armies.

[ericdoman1]

The Committee. Yep that looks better.

Possibly a max of 10 poor mf, as they may be used to bolster army sizes and or 50% max of poor mf to average and superiors.

I think restrictions on some super armies, eg the Jewish Revolt Later and Josephus, will probably lead to them not being used. Reducing that army size to 50 and 10 lf has restricted it already and nope I do not intend to use it, maybe, perhaps LOL.

Restrictions and Compulsory allies will also lead to players having a pretty good idea of these army compositions and so leading to no real surprises.

You are getting there though so well done.

[stockwellpete]

The Committee. Yep that looks better.

Possibly a max of 10 poor mf, as they may be used to bolster army sizes and or 50% max of poor mf to average and superiors.

Yes, Klay mentioned this as well. My feeling is that significant numbers of "poor" MF in an army is more authentic than loads of LF as these soldiers represent the lightly armed peasantry who were periodically mobilised into ancient and medieval armies. And because they cannot evade like LF then their presence on the battlefield makes more tactical demands on the player who is using them. So at the moment I am not convinced that we need restrictions on them as well.

I think restrictions on some super armies, eg the Jewish Revolt Later and Josephus, will probably lead to them not being used. Reducing that army size to 50 and 10 lf has restricted it already and nope I do not intend to use it, maybe, perhaps. LOL Restrictions and Compulsory allies will also lead to players having a pretty good idea of these army compositions and so leading to no real surprises.

We have been very careful about the restrictions we have placed on the "super armies" and we have done quite a bit of play-testing. All we have done (hopefully) is just to take the edge off them a little bit so players can use them in Season 2 (we have not allocated them at all in Season 1). They are still very powerful and dangerous armies but players will have to think a little bit harder about how to get the most of them now.

You are getting there though so well done.

Thank you. As Mark (Turk1964) said earlier, we are really pleased with the response from players to the first "Talking Point" - and we think we are moving steadily towards a solution that will generally satisfy most of the players who participate in the FOG Digital League.

[stockwellpete]

With a maximum of 10 LF overall, does it really make sense to have a separate limit on poor LF? I don't see 10 LF in general as a huge bulking out of an army that can't exceed 50 BGs and the point cost difference between 5 average and 5 poor LF isn't enough to make a bug difference in the size of the army. Why not just simplify things and either make the restriction on the number of LF overall or the number of poor LF rather than having two limits?

As a second thought, if the two separate limits are kept, then an army which can only buy poor LF should be able to get a full 10 poor LF. (I'm not sure there are any but the early Hoplites and some medieval armies might qualify.)

If we look at the Medieval Portuguese army for a moment. If we were to allow 10x "poor" LF archers then a possible build could be . . .

Portuguese field commander (knights)
6x knights
4x "average" crossbows
10x "poor" LF archers
2x ginetes (LH)
2x mounted crossbowmen (LH)
4x spearmen
4x javelinmen
English ally troop commander (knights)
2x knights
1x men-at-arms
1x lesser men-at-arms
4x longbowmen (with stakes)

This army would be 40 units and would include 14 skirmishers (10xLF and 4xLH) which would comprise 35% of the total, which to my way of thinking is very high. But if you said that only 5x "poor" LF could be chosen (and not 10x) then the player could use those 15 army points remaining to buy 3x "average" LF archers. Then the army would only be 38 units and would include just 12 skirmishers (8xLF and 4x LH) which would comprise 31.5% of the army. So restricting armies to just 5x "poor" LF units does help to lower the proportion towards more realistic levels in this example at least.

[batesmotel]

While having the double restriction does change the Portuguese army size and composition percentage slightly, does that really justify the additional complication? I don't think I would find one list versus the other harder to fight against. In a really close game a couple breakpoints can make a difference but I don't think it is significant enough in general to warrant the extra complication in setting up an army.

Chris

[stockwellpete]

While having the double restriction does change the Portuguese army size and composition percentage slightly, does that really justify the additional complication? I don't think I would find one list versus the other harder to fight against. In a really close game a couple breakpoints can make a difference but I don't think it is significant enough in general to warrant the extra complication in setting up an army.

I don't think it is all that complicated for experienced war gamers, Chris. But having 10 "poor" LF in 40 unit armies (approx) is too much of a concession to the "massed skirmisher" army problem for me. I can live with 5 "poor" LF, but the next best alternative for me would to be to adopt Klay's full position and ban "poor" LF completely from the tournament.

[batesmotel]

While having the double restriction does change the Portuguese army size and composition percentage slightly, does that really justify the additional complication? I don't think I would find one list versus the other harder to fight against. In a really close game a couple breakpoints can make a difference but I don't think it is significant enough in general to warrant the extra complication in setting up an army.

I don't think it is all that complicated for experienced war gamers, Chris. But having 10 "poor" LF in 40 unit armies (approx) is too much of a concession to the "massed skirmisher" army problem for me. I can live with 5 "poor" LF, but the next best alternative for me would to be to adopt Klay's full position and ban "poor" LF completely from the tournament.

It isn't intellectually challenging to have count all poor LF and the total LF separately but it is a pain in the butt to keep track of the numbers while also trying to use all of your points for the army. Do you really think an army with 10 poor LF is unacceptable or significantly harder to beat than one with 5 average LF for the name number of points???

Chris

[stockwellpete]

Do you really think an army with 10 poor LF is unacceptable or significantly harder to beat than one with 5 average LF for the name number of points???

An army with 10x "poor" LF is less acceptable to me than one with 5. I don't think it is authentic to have armies consisting of around 25% inexperienced skirmishers - that just is not realistic at all. I actually think 12.5% is pushing it really as skirmishers were often quite experienced soldiers rather than novices - so Klay's idea of no "poor" LF has quite a lot going for it. The attritional effect of 10 "poor" LF over a battle of 15/16 turns is probably the same as the effect of 5 or 6 "average" LF, but the extra units means that a player will be able to get greater value from his other troops as his/her break point total will be higher. This is not insignificant in close contests.

[batesmotel]

Are the committee restrictions on armies intended to be based on playability or on authenticity? For the latter, I think that armies should be limited by what the DAG army lists allow, not what the committee thinks is authentic.

As far as authenticity goes, the troops depicted as poor skirmishers are not necessarily skirmishers as their primary role in reality. In Greek armies before the Peloponnesian War and even more so before the Persian Wars, hoplites and to a limited degree a few cavalry were the "professional" troops. Professional skirmishers were virtually unknown until they started to become significant as peltasts in the Peloponnesian war. The LF portrayed as poor LF in the early Hoplite list represent personal servants and camp servants pressed into service as skirmishers on the day of battle, not their primary role in the army. While they may well be experienced with a sling or just with throwing stones as herders protecting their flocks, these skirmishers are classified as poor more because of a lack of enthusiasm for being there rather than because they don't know how to shoot. I believe that Herodotus lists the Spartans at Plataea as having several times as many Helots (probably mostly as servants) than there were Spartan hoplites.

Chris

[klayeckles]

The Committee. Yep that looks better.

Possibly a max of 10 poor mf, as they may be used to bolster army sizes and or 50% max of poor mf to average and superiors.

I think restrictions on some super armies, eg the Jewish Revolt Later and Josephus, will probably lead to them not being used. Reducing that army size to 50 and 10 lf has restricted it already and nope I do not intend to use it, maybe, perhaps LOL.

Restrictions and Compulsory allies will also lead to players having a pretty good idea of these army compositions and so leading to no real surprises.

You are getting there though so well done.

egad... we agree again! if we limit LF..then there is still the "bulking" issue of Poor MF-bow...there are sveral of the super armies that are allowed large amounts of LF or MF poor bow. for 45 pts i can buy 15 units to bring me up to 50...guarenteed if we don't limit poor MF we will see large numbers of them in the super armies.

I can see maybe 15 LF as a limit...but folks armies routinely covered their entire armies with a screening force...true they didn't play a pivotal roll in the battle tipically, but the prooblem is more a function of the mechanics of how the game determines the army break levels, where it doesn't differenciate between a cheap light troop and a superior heavy. but a game is a game, and never reality...so let's make sure we don't create a system of faceless juggernauts slamming into each other... LF have subtle influences on many tactics, like forcing where the opponent moves if he charges, or restricting flanking efforts and turning abilities (by forcing a unit to charge in order to move forward). as you limit the number of LF you will shave away some of the tactical neuance that makes it fun to play...the most important effort.

Thanks for the effort here everyone. as a proposal i'd suggest:
15LF max
50 army max
no more than 5 units of any type can be poor rated (a type is LF, LH, MF,HF etc)

[stockwellpete]

egad... we agree again! if we limit LF..then there is still the "bulking" issue of Poor MF-bow...there are sveral of the super armies that are allowed large amounts of LF or MF poor bow. for 45 pts i can buy 15 units to bring me up to 50...guarenteed if we don't limit poor MF we will see large numbers of them in the super armies.

I don't really see the "poor" MF soldiers as a problem though, Klay. We have set the army limit at 50 units to deal with the "horde" issue - and if some "super armies" do end up have significant numbers of "poor" MF bow then they will have to protect them during the battle to avoid losing a lot of break points.

I can see maybe 15 LF as a limit...but folks armies routinely covered their entire armies with a screening force...true they didn't play a pivotal roll in the battle tipically, but the prooblem is more a function of the mechanics of how the game determines the army break levels, where it doesn't differenciate between a cheap light troop and a superior heavy. but a game is a game, and never reality...so let's make sure we don't create a system of faceless juggernauts slamming into each other... LF have subtle influences on many tactics, like forcing where the opponent moves if he charges, or restricting flanking efforts and turning abilities (by forcing a unit to charge in order to move forward). as you limit the number of LF you will shave away some of the tactical neuance that makes it fun to play...the most important effort.

The problem is that in this game skirmishers stay as skirmishers throughout the battle - so for 15/16 turns there they are, hopping about like ninjas with an inexhaustible supply of missiles. And when you have 15-20 of them in the "massed skirmisher" armies firing away at the enemy until they collapse (because the skirmishers can evade out of danger), then that is frankly bonkers. Although there may have been large numbers of skirmishers deployed in many battles for the reasons you have given, once the main bodies of the two armies were about to clash then the skirmishers were withdrawn - and if they participated after this in the battle it would often be fighting as MF in larger formations. By this stage their main screening function had been completed.

In another war game I have, skirmishers can be detached from the main units to deploy in lines to act as screens - and then later on when they need to be withdrawn they are re-integrated back into the main unit again. I think that is a much more realistic way of dealing with the issue. Whether we will ever see anything similar in FOG is very unlikely, I would guess.

Thanks for the effort here everyone. as a proposal i'd suggest:
15LF max
50 army max
no more than 5 units of any type can be poor rated (a type is LF, LH, MF,HF etc)

15 LF is far too many for me and it would still allow for the "massed skirmisher" armies that the committee are not going to allow for Season 2.

So our position remains at . . .
10xLF maximum
50 unit army maximum
no more than 5 x "poor" LF

[stockwellpete]

Are the committee restrictions on armies intended to be based on playability or on authenticity?

Both.

For the latter, I think that armies should be limited by what the DAG army lists allow, not what the committee thinks is authentic.

We disagree.

[macsen]

I'm with Klay on this one. I see the problem with poor lights adding BP, just never do it myself. I exactly agree though with the use of lights, it's what I use them for hence my opposition to the ten limit, although if horse are excluded it may be OK but would still limit their tactical use. The poor medium foot are easy to hide from your opponent so I see them as a bigger problem even if they aren't ninja's. As to shooting your opponent to death with poor lights, or lights period, it can be done but to use an example it took me 8 turns with 6 average lights to rout 1 unit, so really not much chance of winning this way. Mostly though they are good for disrupting units but command and rear support nullifies that.

[Jonathan4290]

I rarely find padding with poor MF very helpful. Playing as the Huns in CA this past season, I thought it was good I had to take 4 x poor MF bow but they were always steamrolled eventually, costing me twice the BPs they padded. LF however are infinitely much harder to catch.

I voted against the initial 50/10 rule for the reasons that have been leveled against it thus far. However, I think by exempting LH, and specifying that only 5 of the 10 allowed LF are poor, we have a much more reasonable restriction. In a 400pt game, 10 x LF is still a significant portion of any army, and will only affect the game in the extreme instances the rule is trying to curb. If LF were "meant" to be used excessively, the DAG lists would've made them compulsory rather than saying you can have anywheres from 0-20 of them. I recognize there are subtleties to using LF that I am still learning; however, buying 20 poor LF to sit behind your lines and pad the scoring system I wouldn't really include in the subtleties of their tactical use.

If we're prevented from getting a solid consensus on this based on details of numbers (arguments range between 10-15 LF), why not have a limit of 12 x LF, 6 of which can be poor, for this next season. We can try it out and reassess after this season to increase/decrease as needed.

[klayeckles]

all sounds good...just look for super armies with poor bow camping in the hills or woods....

case in pt:
catalan company:
6 Knts
4 lancers
11 sup. MF
6 HF
10 poor LF (ls/bow)
5 poor MF bow
5 poor MF ls
----
47...50 very attainable.
not sure tht's a super army, but i bet we will see it! (eric is this uber or not?)

uberklay