Leaders

[Smirfy]

Watching the demo video it seems to play like a 3d Fields of Glory except without the leaders or am I missing something?

[rbodleyscott]

Watching the demo video it seems to play like a 3d Fields of Glory except without the leaders or am I missing something?

Both games are based on the same series of table-top miniature wargames rules. Field of Glory was based on the tabletop Field of Glory: Ancient/Medieval rules. Pike and Shot is based on the Field of Glory: Renaissance rules.

I was co-author of both those sets of table-top rules, and designer of Pike & Shot. I was not involved in the design of the digital Field of Glory game.

Therefore, different approaches have been used in the design of the two digital games. Not calling Pike & Shot FOG has allowed a more liberal interpretation of the tabletop rules, allowing the combat rules to be tweaked to produce a less granular system than the tabletop rules can allow, and also the addition of features such as troops pursuing off the battlefield (and possibly returning later).

Leaders were not included in Pike and Shot for various reasons, including:
1) The game played well without them, so tacking them on seemed an unnecessary complication of a very clean and simple-to-play system. (Even in digital FOG they don't have nearly as significant a role as they do in tabletop FOG).
2) Because if leaders were given a very significant role, it would be hard to make the AI use them as effectively as the player could. As we had succeeded in developing a very challenging AI we did not want to risk damaging that balance.

[Neoberger]

The game is sensational !!!
A porpose commander. You could do one commander-in-chief for each army. It would not do in the game. Besides that, if the enemy gets close it falls morale of the whole army. Such influence persona to war.

[Smirfy]

Thank you rbodleyscott for the quick and concise reply certainly the best reply I have ever recieved from on a developers board. Valid reasons for the non inclusion of leaders and once the game is released on steam you can be assured I will purchase it. If I may just add I am however sorry that leaders did not make it into the game as personality during this period did have a dominant effect on the battlefield and Im sorry even for the sake of immersion that we do have not Cromwell, Faifax, Waller, Monck, Rupert etc

[rbodleyscott]

once the game is released on steam you can be assured I will purchase it.

It is already available on Steam.

[Micha63]

The game is sensational !!!
A porpose commander. You could do one commander-in-chief for each army. It would not do in the game. Besides that, if the enemy gets close it falls morale of the whole army. Such influence persona to war.

Please dont do that !!! That will force you always to have the commander close to your Units, i hate that from Horse and Musket and John Tiller Games.
A absoulut funkiller.

Please dont do it or only as Option !

[Adebar]

I've got nothing against leaders present on the map. As said above, it could be nice eye candy, a representation of the 'heart of the army' on the field. I would love to see something like that. Such a unit could even play an important role concerning the army's morale (e. g. in case of it's loss).

But I agree: Too much micro management would be out of place.

[Smirfy]

Great its on steam, purchased last night.

[TimW]

First things first, congratulations on producing the game Richard. I've been interested in the period for a very long time and this is the game I've been hoping someone would do for the last 20 years. Well done.

As for leaders, personally I think not having them is a good decision. The 16th century saw, in Europe at least, the start of the shift from generals being active participants medieval-style back to being generals who stood back from the fighting and acted as commanders rather than leaders (with exceptions of course) in charge of professional armies not retinues loyal to a particular individual. Leaders could add complication for little purpose - how do you guess how a particular army would react to the death of a general when there are very few examples to go by?

[Jhykronos]

Looking at the cohesion table in the manual, it seems every unit is assumed to be in the command radius of a leader (cohesion tests pass on a 6 instead of 7). Probably a better implementation than the "leader-units" of FOG digital, I guess. Still, it does prevent the historical "Gustavus is Wounded" battle event... not that any tabletop commander would ever let that happen anyway.

[edb1815]

First things first, congratulations on producing the game Richard. I've been interested in the period for a very long time and this is the game I've been hoping someone would do for the last 20 years. Well done.

As for leaders, personally I think not having them is a good decision. The 16th century saw, in Europe at least, the start of the shift from generals being active participants medieval-style back to being generals who stood back from the fighting and acted as commanders rather than leaders (with exceptions of course) in charge of professional armies not retinues loyal to a particular individual. Leaders could add complication for little purpose - how do you guess how a particular army would react to the death of a general when there are very few examples to go by?

Yes perhaps the start of the shift, but check the ACW, plenty of leaders right in or behind the line KIA. I am used to the table top game, so not having generals will take some getting used to! I get the RBS' reasoning behind not including them, but I do think we'll miss the potential morale effects. There were instances of leaders killed in this period, so the question is what effect did it have on the army as a whole. The most famous example being Gustavus charging off with his cavalry of course. However most of the army did not know he had been killed until after the battle. As you mention though we would not want to judge by the exceptions. Meanwhile I have enjoyed the tutorials so far.

[flatsix518]

"Not calling Pike & Shot FOG has allowed a more liberal interpretation of the tabletop rules, allowing the combat rules to be tweaked to produce a less granular system than the tabletop rules can allow."

This to me is the biggest failing of FoG Digital. Instead of taking advantage of computerization to reduce the steep "stair step" of the FoG TT rules, it actually made them worst, since FoG digital represents all units as four-stand units. It creates very fluky and freakish luck swings in the digital game.

Pike & Shot is brilliant in execution:

1) I feels like a table top game. (Looks like one too...)
2) Softened and normalized the combat results of the original TT game.
3) Has a pretty sophisticated AI -- challenging at this point to play against. May change as we humans get smarter.

I agree with not representing commanders in the game. I don't believe they would add much value. In FoG Digital competitive play, most strong players ran a single, inspired C-in-C -- I'm sure in Pike & Shot, there would be a rapid convergence to the "ideal" commander selection and that's all anyone will run...

John
aka flatsix518

[Alma69]

Looks like Ai is holding many things. Why not make some only MP content. SP is good enough anyway.

[Javolenus]

I like the game as it is -- without leaders! I think the player takes on the role of "leader" & has to micromanage everything. Kudos to the devs -- a great game from the get-go!

[gavril]

I like the game as it is -- without leaders! I think the player takes on the role of "leader" & has to micromanage everything. Kudos to the devs -- a great game from the get-go!

I agree with Javolenus...on both counts! The game seems just right as it stands imho.