New Scoring Issue

[MJT]

This may have been addressed during the development of the game system (but I couldn't find any posts):
I have some concerns about the scoring system where the loss of a 4 element BG of poor slingers counts as the same value as the loss of my 8 element elite legionary BG.
Have I missed something in the rules?
Marcus

[philqw78]

Three or four reasons, I'll make them up as I go along

Nobody likes dying.

Its a bit of a game thing I think. Otherwise people would use lots of small cheap crap units to clog stuff up and not care if it gets ridden down.

Also no BG's care about the LF running except other lights, everybody cares about the Legio (if within 3 MU).

An army is defeated once it has lost half its attrition points. Each unit has a job in the battle, once half of those jobs can't be done its time to give up.

[carlos]

It's a game... and there were battles where the crap troops getting butchered undermined the resolve of the better ones anyway. If that really bugs you, you can do attrition points as per the cost of each BG, and when you reach 400 points in losses (in 800 points), then the army goes. That doesn't take into account the points spent on commanders, so maybe it should be 350 or so for 800 point games. Of course that creates a few gamey army setups where somebody only fights with 349 points worth of troops...

[hammy]

Most of the more recent sets of ancients rules and many other rules have a similar system to work out when an army is beaten.

In DBM the majority of troops were valued the same for break point and when 1/3 of your break point was lost a command broke. As a result you saw armies with 12 rubbish spearmen and 6 really good knights plus a peasant. DBMM uses a more complex system and it is possible to use the elite troops to padd out the rubbish so that if you have a command of 12 warband, 2 cavalry a general and some baggage then even if all the warband die the command is still pretty much OK.

Flames of war forces each platoon in your force to test when it takes a loss and after the loss it is below 1//2 strength. Once your army drops below 1/2 you have to test every turn or run.

They are all similar, all game mechanisms and in general all work. A BG of 4 (more likely 6) slingers can be useful but you still can't ignore it's loss.

In Armati only key troops count for losses so if you have an army with a mass of skirmishers they can all die and it doesn't upset the rest of your army at all. I believe that as a result a lot of Armati players started using armies with hardly any key troops and masses of lights.

[carlos]

I have some concerns about the scoring system where the loss of a 4 element BG of poor slingers counts as the same value as the loss of my 8 element elite legionary BG.

And also this is not true. Losing a BG of 4 poor slingers probably doesn't mean a hole in your battleline or a flank hanging open, whereas losing 8 elite legionaries means your fighting power in that area of the battlefield is compromised and you will probably lose a lot more BGs in that area. So they are worth the same attrition points but definitely not worth the same for the overall health of your army.

[pyruse]

It's also a lot easier for skirmishers than for heavy troops to get out of trouble and go and skulk somewhere at the back - unless you are careless you should seldom lose a unit of skirmishers, at least until your whole army starts to disintegrate.

[ars_belli]

This thread illustrates one of the things I enjoy most about FoG. The player is rewarded for considering how individual units work within the framework of an entire army, rather than as separate and independent operators.

Cheers,
Scott

[philqw78]

yes making skirmishers as valuable, attrition wise, as front line get stuck in troops makes you use them like skirmishers, shoot and scoot.

[Seldon]

I couldn't agree more wiht philqw78 and other similar comments along the same lines. At first when I saw it this seem strange for me, now after playing many times I feel that if it was not like this people would do strange thinks with skirmishers ( which I seen a thousand times in other games, "er.. I lost my skirmishers, who cares , that why they are there " ) ...

if they would change this so that skirmishers are less important when you loose them then I would expect them to take away the option to CMT to stay and fight against other troops... as it is right now, you can try it but it is very bad for you so you will only do it when desperate..

1 vote for keeping it as is... ( even if it at first I was not sure )

I guess it is another perk of the extensive playtesting the system has had...

kudos

Francisco

[shall]

Real generals looked after all their troops.

Much more importantly its a matter of game design to generate realistic use.

Too many rulesets are dominated falsely by skirmishers because they are disposable. search for skirmishers on her and you mioght fidn quite a ong posting from me about it. It talks about the 5 proper uses of skirmishers. Allowing them to be 1 AP would dtract from the incentive to use them so.

To give just a single wild example - if 1 AP each then if 4 poor javelinemn worth all of 8 poinbts charged by 12 warband worth 84 one would try to stand with the javelinmen and die to force a pursuit, which leads to 7th type issues where the game is driven by baiting heavies with skirmishers adn killing them whn they ar exposed as a result. Such a game is not realsitic as a wargame IMHO. We want to make you act and feel like generals.

Skimishers used well should not be at huge risk as they can get away if they have supporting troops. e.g. put them in front of your tough troops and they are a suitable irritant and safe. So their 2AP should be much safer that main battle troops unless you are a swarm vs a swarm.

The equal value principle leads to the right balance, behvavour and feel given the above. And top down correct feel has always been the primary objective with FOG.

Si

[flameberge]

Real generals looked after all their troops.

Much more importantly its a matter of game design to generate realistic use.

Too many rulesets are dominated falsely by skirmishers because they are disposable. search for skirmishers on her and you mioght fidn quite a ong posting from me about it. It talks about the 5 proper uses of skirmishers. Allowing them to be 1 AP would dtract from the incentive to use them so.

To give just a single wild example - if 1 AP each then if 4 poor javelinemn worth all of 8 poinbts charged by 12 warband worth 84 one would try to stand with the javelinmen and die to force a pursuit, which leads to 7th type issues where the game is driven by baiting heavies with skirmishers adn killing them whn they ar exposed as a result. Such a game is not realsitic as a wargame IMHO. We want to make you act and feel like generals.

Skimishers used well should not be at huge risk as they can get away if they have supporting troops. e.g. put them in front of your tough troops and they are a suitable irritant and safe. So their 2AP should be much safer that main battle troops unless you are a swarm vs a swarm.

The equal value principle leads to the right balance, behvavour and feel given the above. And top down correct feel has always been the primary objective with FOG.

Si

At first I thought I might agree that skirmishers aren't as important but I never even dreamed of a player intentionally getting them killed just to get a warband to chase them. That is the kind of thinking a rules designer has to think of because there are people out there who do garbage like that. While me and most of the people I wargame with don't do things like that if it wouldn't make realistic sense even if the rules allow you to many people do. If you want a rule system that you can play with strangers and in tournaments with people who might only care about winning no matter in what ridiculous way they have to do it you need rules like this to keep from ruining the game.

[ScipioTerra]

Kudos are highly deserved for this wonderful design element. I am very glad that it is there.