The Rally Point

[macsen]

gents...another option would be to do an Early Classic, and a Broad Classic.
as i really like the spear era, and options for combined arms (pontic, macedon etc) vs. heavy spear or hvy impact. there's an aweful lot of classic interest, so i think you'd fill em both, and address both perspectives.
klay

I like this idea to.

[stockwellpete]

gents...another option would be to do an Early Classic, and a Broad Classic.
as i really like the spear era, and options for combined arms (pontic, macedon etc) vs. heavy spear or hvy impact. there's an aweful lot of classic interest, so i think you'd fill em both, and address both perspectives.
klay

I like this idea to.

The problem I have with this idea is that some armies would be available twice, which is a bit anomalous compared to everything else the tournament offers. I am going to run a poll about putting restrictions on the lancer armies in the proposed Later Antiquity section to ensure more equal match-ups.

[stockwellpete]

This poll is now closed. The voting was 23-6 in favour of splitting the Classical Antiquity section into two parts in future and this will be organised for Season 4 (starting October 1st).

[stockwellpete]

This poll is now closed and the voting is 14-4 in favour of using scenarios again in the themed event. A new series of scenarios will be chosen for Season 4 which starts on October 1st.

[stockwellpete]

This poll is now closed and it finished 17-5 in favour of the FOGDL offering more historical match-ups. This will be arranged for Season 4 which begins on October 1st.

[stockwellpete]

These are the battles that will be used for each of the themes.

i) Late Antiquity theme - Frigidus 394, Vienna 487, River Ulcea 488, Verona 489, Adda 490 and Chalons 451.

ii) War of the Roses theme - Northampton 1460, Mortimers Cross 1461, Towton 1461, Barnet 1471, Tewkesbury 1471 and Bosworth Field 1485.

iii) Ottoman theme - Bapheus 1302, Dimbos 1303, Pelekanon 1329, Nicopolis 1396, Ankara 1402 and Varna 1444, (Kosovo Field 1389 has already been used in a tournament).

iv) Anglo-French theme - Tinchebrai 1106, Bouvines 1214, Crecy 1346, Poitiers 1356, Agincourt 1415 and Verneuil 1424.

v) Rebellion theme - Crug Mawr 1136, Lewes 1264, Boroughbridge 1322, Shrewsbury 1403, Bramham Moor 1408 and Brunkeberg 1471.

vi) Anglo-Scottish theme - Standard 1138, Stirling Bridge 1297, Bannockburn 1314, Halidon Hill 1333, Neville's Cross 1346 and Homildon Hill 1402.

[stockwellpete]

This poll will close at midday (UK time) on Sunday 14th September.

[stockwellpete]

I have noticed something today and then I have done some tests to verify it. You may remember a while ago that I wrote 50 new maps to be used in the FOG Digital League and they were added to the game by cothyso. A number of players have noticed that these new maps rarely appeared in the choice of four the player winning the initiative is given at the start of battle. What players were offered were the same old tired maps, often with terrain dotted round the edges and a big empty space in the middle. These maps definitely favour HF and knights/cavalry and make life very difficult for MF armies.

What I have spent an hour doing as an experiment is this - using the solo DAG games facility, I picked the same MF army (EAP Plataea) to fight a civil war type battle and I varied the terrain density from game to game (just going to the deployment phase then shutting the game down). What I found was that when I picked "mixed terrain" I just got the old maps, but when I picked "very crowded" I started to get some of the newer maps in the four I could choose from.

I do remember being told by Keith from HexWar that the game classified the maps - "open", "very open", "mixed", "crowded" and "very crowded" according to the proportion of hexes that had certain terrain features in them (scrub, broken ground, woods etc) and it seems that the maps I have done recently mostly fall in the "very crowded" category. Although I would say that there is plenty of open space in nearly all of them.

So what we could do - and it would depend on whether players are fed up with the old maps or not - is make a stipulation this season that your terrain choice should be more limited, say "mixed", "crowded" or "very crowded", or even just "crowded" and "very crowded", so that these newer maps came into play more often.

What do you all think? There is plenty of time to make this change for Season 4 and it might make for some more interesting matches. I will leave this discussion open until Sunday and then see where we are with it - and then maybe we can have a poll if players think it might be worth making a change.

[stockwellpete]

This is becoming weirdly compelling.

If, in my DAG solo matches, choose "very crowded" and win the initiative I can guarantee that 2 of the 4 maps will be from my newly designed batch of 50. If I choose "crowded", I may only get one of my new maps, or none of them.

I reckon if we said that players could only choose "mixed", "crowded" or "very crowded" in Season 4 then we would see a lot more of the newer maps come into play. Even when picking "very crowded" and winning the initiative I am still getting 2 "very open" maps to use - and most of my new maps have open spaces in them anyway.

What do people think?

[MikeMarchant]

The map issue is an odd one. When playing online, even when choosing very crowded the battlefield still seems to be very open. Any variation would be welcome and the stipulation of taking crowded+ maps sounds like a good idea.


Best Wishes

Mike Marchant

[Jonathan4290]

At the absolute very least, we could ban picking very open without offending anyone.

[stockwellpete]

At the absolute very least, we could ban picking very open without offending anyone.

Yes, that would probably be a step in the right direction. Even if you made everyone choose "very crowded" every time (there is no way to enforce this though) you will still get maps with wide open spaces in your choice of four. Some of the older maps are diabolical really and were obviously constructed in a hurry with very little thought. It is what puts me off playing the game now more than anything else and that is why I designed 50 new maps.

[PeterGuest]

can't someone simply delete the old maps so they don't appear? the new ones would be more likely to crop up that way too

[stockwellpete]

can't someone simply delete the old maps so they don't appear? the new ones would be more likely to crop up that way too

That would be the easiest solution but there is actually no development support now for the current version of the game. When the new version comes out we need to raise the issue of maps then.

[stockwellpete]

This poll is now closed. The themed event will be Anglo-French in Season 4.

[stockwellpete]

I don't sense any great momentum for a change around this issue so things will not alter for Season 4.

[Cunningcairn]

I think the poll you mentioned in your first post is a good idea.

[Yuknoom]

I know this is out of place here, but for what its worth the Highlanders, in 3 divisions under 3 commanders, appear now to be 14-3. (And one of the generals is me, so it ain't the general. ) So can we get super-army status yet?
Though I dont know how you can be a super army with no S troops, no armour, no mounted, and only 2 skirmishers.

[stockwellpete]

I have been in the "lab" for the last few days and I have come up with this idea that could be introduced into future seasons of the FOGDL. Its purpose is to further increase the number of historical match-ups a player will have in a season. I am not proposing to use it for every section in a season, but it could be utilised for one or two sections each season if players generally like the idea.

We can have a bit of a discussion first and then later I will run a poll to gauge the reaction to the idea.

So - we have 10 players in a division and each player has nine matches. Instead of choosing a specific army each player will play nine separate historical match-ups. The matches themselves can be organised in any order but the schedule must be strictly adhered to in all other respects. Here is an example of how High Middle Ages might work with the new idea . . .

Round 1 Medieval Castilians v Medieval Crown of Aragon
Player A v Player B
C v D
E v I
F v G
H v J

Round 2 Anglo-Irish (early) v Medieval Irish (early)
A v C
B v D
E v J
F v H
G v I

Round 3 WotR Lancastrians v WotR Yorkists
A v D
B v C
E v H
F v I
G v J

Round 4
HYW English Continental (early) v Medieval French
A v E
B v F
C v G
D v J
H v I

Round 5
Scots In Britain (early) v Later Scots Isles Highlanders
A v F
B v E
C v H
D v G
I v J

Round 6
Medieval Danish v Later Medieval Swedish
A v G
B v H
C v I
D vE
F v J

Round 7
Venetian Condotta (no Swiss) v Florentine Condotta (no Swiss)
A v H
B v G
C v J
D v I
E v F

Round 8
HYW English in Britain (later) v Scots in Britain (later)
A v I
B v J
C v E
D v F
G v H

Round 9
Ordonnance Burgundian v Swiss, Burgundian War (limited pikemen, must take Lorraine allies)
A v J
B v I
C v F
D v H
E v G

I have ideas for increasing the range of army books to be used in each section so maybe I could provide Eternal Empire alternatives for each round as well. But let's see what people think about the basic idea first. If you think there are problems with it by all means fire away and we can discuss ways in which it might be improved.

[voskarp]

I think it's a good idea to have one of the sections like this and rotate every season.

I must say though, that I do mainly like to have a "team", that you play and improve (...or not!) every match. The way you made High Middle Ages with a more limited set of choices this season was interesting, and opened up for choosing armies that you hadn't picked otherwise.