Fun Time but Also Curious About Something

[TancredII]

Past couple of days I have been playing FOG Sword and Scimitar and have won both battles I played. It's a really fun game. I've long played miniatures games so I thought I might give this one a try even though I've never played FOG in miniatures, I have seen some games at conventions.

Anyhow, despite my enjoyment of the game, I do have one head scratching bit to bring up, more out of curiousity than anything else. I know my medieval and Crusade history pretty well and most of the game play seems fairly realistic except this one thing:

The AI Early Fatamid Army had these foot archers, not spearmen attached, they were not superior troops, just armed with bows. OK, fine. But everytime I meleed them with - armored Crusader spearmen, Holy Order spearmen(bodyguard of my army CO), and even superior mounted knights they would inflict heavy casualties on my guys and barely lose anyone.
One particular attack I hit them from three sides with two foot spear units and the Holy Order spearmen. Grand total of losses in the melee was 74 for me and 14 for them.

Ok, how are these bog common guys armed only with bows mangling hand to hand troops? Seems like a glitch to me. Anyone else ran into this sort of thing?

Otherwise things went pretty well and had a great time.

[ZeaBed]

I've never fought a game that included the Early Fatamid Army, but somehow I'm not surprised. You, sir, indeed have a point. I hope the new version of FoG fixes this, whenever the commercial version comes out.

[MikeMarchant]

One thing to take into account is that FoG allows for far too much luck in the game, and ridiculous results occur far too often. This is something that an awful lot players would like reined in.

Best Wishes

Mike

[Praeter]

I wonder if the tabletop game quite different in terms of mechanics - just wondering if tabletop gamers have the same gripes or not as well? It can seem random at times, but I don't find it spoils things too much - it shouldn't be too predictable.

[gudin]

What you described can happen, but should be extremely rare. I have played both the table top and digital many times, and I agree, it does seem that the dice rolls in the digital game seem a lot less random than actual dice. No idea why. Basically, if someone charges a bow unit with a spear unit, the bow unit will get more dice on impact, but the same number after in combat (Melee). (they get all the dice for the bases being in contact, but the bows get an extra for second rank of support shooters tossing arrows at the guys charging them on the way in). However, what you need to actually hit should benefit the spearmen in melee, dramatically. On impact, if the spears are "defensive" they get no bonus (but neither do the bows), so each side "hits" on a 4-6. The bonus dice for the support shooters may hit on a 5-6 or just on a 6 if the attackers are armored. How these "hits" correspond to the casualties in the game, I am not quite sure, but the bows would get maybe 50% more dice, though those extra dice will be less effective. If they roll nothing but 6s, they will get a lot of hits on you.

After the first charge, the bows should die horribly in melee. You likely have a plus for armor and a plus for the spear, while the bows likely have nothing. (Some bowmen, like Jannisaries and Longbowmen often have sword which may help, but only if the spears are disrupted). Also in melee, numbers matter, whereas they don't matter as much in impact. (In impact three separate spear units charging would all get the same chance, and the bows effectively fight them all evenly. Once in melee the bows should die.

That said, the dice do seem weird. I have played a bunch of games against the dacians lately, and their naked heavy weapon guys tend to not get hit by my bows, while their average protected impact foot won about 70% of the time against my superior armored impact foot, which should not happen. Seems like a bug, but it is not a bug that makes much sense to me. On the tabletop, there have been games where the dice were insane, but not as often as in digital. (I once charged average protected defensive spearmen into successive superior impact foot armored roman legions and beat them all, by rolling embarrassingly good dice. The Roman player was somewhat flustered, but such occurrences are very rare.

One huge HUGE difference with the table top game are many, many fewer units. This does not simply mean you scale it down, this means the armies on the table top are far less fluid and mobile. MF in tabletop are pretty much dead meat unless they stay in bad going, or are something like Dailami. Add that to the substantially greater maneuverability of individual units in the digital version means the feel of the game is completely different. Beyond that, though, the mechanics are supposed to be the same.

Hope that helps.