The Rally Point

[cromlechi]

I like the idea of scenario based competition. A well balanced scenario can be thought provoking as it gives you the opportunity to explore different 'solutions' in a strategic sense. The problem with some of the DAG games is that they are often decided before the first move because of mismatched armies on certain types of maps, this leads to the game being decided (for otherwise even players) on the initiative.

[ulysisgrunt]

Can you "massage" the foot hand gun factors to make them more deadly; or at least an extra negative on the moral check?
Danny Weitz

[stockwellpete]

Can you "massage" the foot hand gun factors to make them more deadly; or at least an extra negative on the moral check?
Danny Weitz

I don't know if that is possible, Danny - and I certainly don't know how to do it. The firearms are underpowered in my 16thC scenarios but the changes I have made do make them quite distinctive from the standard handgunners in the late medieval period.

[ericdoman1]

Sounds very good to me. You have spent a lot of time building a number of scenarios so putting them to more use is an excellent idea.

Also I would imagine you know quite a lot about the High Medieval period so that could be the themed event with reference to campaigns

I played a few games of DBR a long time ago and shot troops were mf. In the FOG-ren period there is no real distinction between armoured troops, I think. I am not sure if you could have half hf pike and half mf hg. Thing is they would be very brittle against knightly charges. So you would have pike bgs with hg lf support? Are you able to increase hg range to 2 hexes or more so they become shot.

If you go to www.madaxeman.com. You will be able to see the FOG Ren Wiki (as well as ancient). Both are for the tabletop versions but may give you some additional insight into the period.

If a lot of players were very interested in this. Maybe Slitherine, Richard Bodley Scott may look at designing a FOG-Ren digital game, which would be nice:)

[stockwellpete]

It is not possible to alter the range of firearms units at the moment so that is why they have to stay as LF. In experiments with arquebusiers as MF they hardly got a shot in and were easy prey for just about everybody. I am not sure now what the future is for FOG as development seems to have come to a halt (looking at the beta forum it seems that way anyway) but support for a Renaissance version would be huge, I believe, and a campaign editor would be very popular too.

I need to talk to Mark and Jonathan first but maybe we will run a short poll towards the end of this season about what we offer in the themed event next time. I also have a War of the Roses themed event that could be used, although that might be a bit parochial for some tastes - and I daresay I could quickly knock-up a more general late medieval "pike-inspired" event based on the existing format too.

[stockwellpete]

Are there any issues arising from Season 2 that players would like to discuss?

[Jonathan4290]

Only thing I really want to address for next season is dividing the unruly-large Classical Antiquity into two sections: Classical (Immortal Fire, Rise of Rome mostly) and Dark Ages (Legions Triumphant mostly).

CA is the most popular section (60 players) and could easily be broken down into the more historically sensical sections. I've already spoken with Pete and his wish is to get 4 divisions (A-D) for each section. I personally think we can hit this goal. With the amount of new players we gained last season, many of them will be playing all sections available so we should have no problem filling 4 historical sections, while also giving the league clear space to grow. This also means more league games for the players who cannot play enough games, thus keeping them interested.

Thoughts?

[stockwellpete]

From Yuknoom

"As a newbie it would be cheeky of me to suggest something of a sweeping change- but could some thought be given to limiting the number of pikes one can bring?

Whether facing Medieval Germans, Alexandrians, Seleucids, or whatever, finding oneself facing a board width line of pike, with just a few supporting units, is always annoying. I'm not saying they can't be beaten, of course, but the games are dull, and (with the exception of the Low Countries) historically simply bogus.
Indeed I would make an exception for the Low Countries because, unlike the others, you don't have a lot of other options. The opponent can select an anti-pike force to face it, unlike the others where the opponent has the option of brining a monolithic pike wall or something more versatile."

[stockwellpete]

From Londo

"I'm wondering if we need to do a bit more about the top armies in HMA, specifically Latin Greece (Achaia) and Med Cypriot (and perhaps also Catalan Company, the various Central Byz armies, and Med Crown of Aragon).

High BP totals and Catalans/Almugs are part of the problem. I had a couple of ideas to deal with this:

(a) Reduce max BP in HMA drastically, to maybe 40, 35, or even 30. (A side-benefit of this would be encouraging players to take more knights. It's remarkable how many players just take the minimum knights their army list allows, maybe 2 or 3, in an era dominated by the knight!)

(b) A rule that if you have an army with Catalans or Almugs in one season, you cannot take any army with them in the following season."

[voskarp]

Only thing I really want to address for next season is dividing the unruly-large Classical Antiquity into two sections: Classical (Immortal Fire, Rise of Rome mostly) and Dark Ages (Legions Triumphant mostly).

CA is the most popular section (60 players) and could easily be broken down into the more historically sensical sections. I've already spoken with Pete and his wish is to get 4 divisions (A-D) for each section. I personally think we can hit this goal. With the amount of new players we gained last season, many of them will be playing all sections available so we should have no problem filling 4 historical sections, while also giving the league clear space to grow. This also means more league games for the players who cannot play enough games, thus keeping them interested.

Thoughts?

I think there should be a pre pike CA [(Early) Greek Antiquity] and a legionary/phalanx CA [Alexandrian & Roman (Late) Antiquity].

Probably the same for Middle ages too [Early - (Dark Ages), High- (def. spear) and Late - (pikes)].

[Londo]

I would argue in the opposite direction to Jonathan4290 and Voskarp!

If it were up to me, I would merge EMA and HMA into one mega Middle Ages section, and keep CA as it is. Of course, history flies out the window with big sections - in CA you can have Huns fighting Spartans - but the enjoyment value goes up, in my opinion.

With the big CA we have now, you get a "rock-scissors-paper" dynamic where no one army type is dominant. The more you restrict it, the more you lose this dynamic. For example, if you had, as voskarp suggests, a "legionary/phalanx CA [Alexandrian & Roman]" sub-section, you'd see a lot of mirror-image games of almost-identical pike armies fighting each other. There'd be a few Roman armies in the mix, but not much else. It would be rather boring.

If you had one big Middle Ages section, combining EMA and HMA, you'd have a very diverse set of armies, which would be entertaining - elephants versus knights, dailami versus pikes, longbows versus ghilmans, and so on.

And those frakking Latin Greeks and Medieval Cypriots might perhaps find that there are some opponents they can't bulldoze quite so easily. (Bitter, moi?)

[Jonathan4290]

Maybe there's some players out there who want to see a return of the Super League where all eras of armies are permitted?

I think at the very least we can agree we need another section to accommodate the growing community while hitting the 40 players Pete wants for each section.

[stockwellpete]

My very strong view is to keep things as they are for Season 3. Although the splitting of Classical Antiquity into two sections (to include Imperial) is something that I would be in favour of at some point in the future, I had envisaged it occurring after the game had been re-launched with the new Unity coding. We did get 6 divisions for Classical Antiquity in Season 2 but I am not at all certain that we will get 6 divisions for Season 3. If we do not get the timing of the split correct then we could end up struggling to fill 3 divisions, let alone 4, in the newly designated Classical and Imperial sections.

The other issue is that recruitment for Season 3 is going to open in less than a week's time so there really is not much time now to implement any major change. I will be away from Thursday so I will not have the opportunity to do anything more this week other then set up the recruitment threads for Season 3.

[paulmcneil]

How do I join the league?

[stockwellpete]

How do I join the league?

Invitations will be going out in about a week's time, Paul.

[stockwellpete]

I want to open up a discussion about what the FOG Digital League might offer players in Season 4. Please contribute your thoughts. I do have a number of ideas that might be of interest. They are . . .

i) Splitting Classical Antiquity into two time periods - Classical Antiquity and Later Antiquity - that correspond roughly to the old time periods that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LOEG) used to offer.

ii) Theming the High Middle Ages section so that in alternate seasons divisions are specifically based on only one geographical region. So armies might only be western European (Storm of Arrows), eastern European/Central Asian (Eternal Empire), or Middle Eastern (Swords and Scimitars). The purpose of this would be to provide more historical match-ups. A variation of this idea would be to say that Division A would be, say, Storm of Arrows, Division B would be Swords and Scimitars and so on. It would also be possible to further restrict the choice of armies within the geographical regions to absolutely ensure there were many historical match-ups.

This idea could also be extended to the other historical sections in due course. The key thing would be to offer a wider range of competitive play than the FOGDL offers now.

iii) Asking pantherboy whether his "Roman system" that was planned for LOEG might be used occasionally in the FOGDL.

That will do for starters. Are there any more suggestions that should be considered?

[paulmcneil]

Why not do something simple, like taking the top 2 players from each table within period, and having them play off in a super league to find the top overall, like the FA cup? Bragging rights till the next contest, and open to the top performers in each table irrespective of their theoretical ability overall.

[Cunningcairn]

I like Pete's proposals of splitting the Classical Antiquity into two periods and alternating the High Middle Ages between regions/books every season.

rgrds
Martin

[voskarp]

...

ii) Theming the High Middle Ages section so that in alternate seasons divisions are specifically based on only one geographical region. So armies might only be western European (Storm of Arrows), eastern European/Central Asian (Eternal Empire), or Middle Eastern (Swords and Scimitars). The purpose of this would be to provide more historical match-ups. A variation of this idea would be to say that Division A would be, say, Storm of Arrows, Division B would be Swords and Scimitars and so on. It would also be possible to further restrict the choice of armies within the geographical regions to absolutely ensure there were many historical match-ups.

...

I find the first suggestion acceptable and the second terrible since it would force players in to books that they may not enjoy (or even have).

I find a split into High and Late Middle Ages better, or East and West as second choice.

If the number of sections will be too many, alternating each season would work, I think.

[stockwellpete]

Why not do something simple, like taking the top 2 players from each table within period, and having them play off in a super league to find the top overall, like the FA cup? Bragging rights till the next contest, and open to the top performers in each table irrespective of their theoretical ability overall.

I would not be in favour of this idea, Paul. The whole point of a league format is that the best players quickly gravitate towards the top division so we already know who the best players are. Asking Divsion E and F players to play Division A players at the end of the season would only result in a series of one-sided matches (with the occasional surprise result maybe) - it would not be an exciting competition, in my view. At the moment Sharkall is number one and ericdoman1 is number two - not too far behind them are a group of players that include klayeckles, ianiow and Londo. This is borne out by the FOG Digital ratings which can be found here . . .

viewtopic.php?f=247&t=49723

Also, to create another league at the end of the season would mean extending the league well beyond the 10 weeks that is allowed now. Over the past few seasons we have deliberately reduced the duration of the tournament (from 13 to 10 weeks) in order to create more space in the calendar for other competitions - and to give the organisers of FOGDL a bit of a rest!