FOGAM3

[philqw78]

But what about making it more of a thinking game in as many phases as possible. Currently once you have move there is very little else to think about. Should I put my general into combat. Which BG should I attempt to bolster. The rest is decided by the rules

[marty]

Should I wack slow or fast??

[terrys]

But what about making it more of a thinking game in as many phases as possible. Currently once you have move there is very little else to think about. Should I put my general into combat. Which BG should I attempt to bolster. The rest is decided by the rules

Once combat is joined there was actually very little you could do to affect it.
Moving up support troops was about the only thing you could do - in preparation for victory or defeat !

[madaxeman]

But what about making it more of a thinking game in as many phases as possible. Currently once you have move there is very little else to think about. Should I put my general into combat. Which BG should I attempt to bolster. The rest is decided by the rules

Once combat is joined there was actually very little you could do to affect it.
Moving up support troops was about the only thing you could do - in preparation for victory or defeat !

There is also the ability to choose which order post-combat tests take place in, which can be an important decision to take. I guess this is in principle similar to the DBx sets where there there is the additional choice of "which order do I want combats to take place in?", and "do I want to follow up?", as it affects/limits potential consequences immediately post-combat. In element-based rulesets you will also get more units, more combats, and so more (smaller-consequence) decisions.

[hazelbark]

FOGAM was designed to last about 3 1/2 hours - long enough to complate a game in an evening.
In club games that's normally enough for most games to reach a conclusion.
In competition games we get a result about 50% of the time - Mainly because as soon as things start to go wrong a player will start avoiding contact rather than lose his whole army.

During early testing we've found that the changes being proposed has made the game play much faster, with most games being over in about 2 1/2 hours.
Of course these are test games where players are not avoiding battle, but it does seem that V3 will play much faster.

Terry, with respect.
I don't believe the improved time counts as much among your play testers partially for the reasons you state, but also I would guess your play testers come from the FOG aficionados (who I would be counted among) that tended to play faster and probably had generally faster more decisive games than the average FOG player. I think your measure of time will be when you and the play testers are ready (now is too soon) to say on the competition circuit a game will have a dramatically lower time limit.

Another thought is I would secretly assign 1-2 play testers the express job of trying to time out a game without telling their opponent, to see if that works. As that willfulness is part of the problem that some rules make easier or harder.

[hazelbark]

There is also the ability to choose which order post-combat tests take place in, which can be an important decision to take. I guess this is in principle similar to the DBx sets where there there is the additional choice of "which order do I want combats to take place in?", and "do I want to follow up?", as it affects/limits potential consequences immediately post-combat. In element-based rulesets you will also get more units, more combats, and so more (smaller-consequence) decisions.

You have to be careful of the "illusion of choice" that slows down the game and can only be exploited by 1% of the gamers. DBM suffered form 1,000,000 choices of which 950,000 were very bad, 49,980 were unwise but occasionally passable, leaving only very few wise options. This favored the stronger players and could slow down the game. Now it was too each individual whether this was enjoyable.

[terrys]

I fully appreciate that the game speed can be massively different during Beta testing than during competition games.
I've always taken all of these claims with a vast pinch of salt - so I can only say that currently its only an impression that V3 will play faster.
What we are attempting to do with V3 is to reduce the number of options (tricks) that players can utilise specifically to slow the game down.
There are 2 main ways we hope to achieve this.
1) Create a battlefield with less extreme terrain: i.e. tables will be less likely to have no terrain and equally less likely to be covered in terrain. This will stop us ending up facing a cavalry/Light Horse army that you can't catch or a Medium Foot army in terrain that you can't fight.
2) Reduce the number and effectiveness of skirmishers (LF and LH) that are currently only used to bump up the army size with little risk of being lost.
Skirmishers will always have a role, we'll be trying to limit that role to something more historical.

When considering the 'illusion of choice' The real choice should be all about committing the right troops in the right place at the right time.
All other choices are minor in comparison.

[hazelbark]

I think those are wise goals.
I think you need to add another. Because achieving those two goals is about stabilizing the patient. But a good many players have moved on. Success has to be defined as the ability to draw people back.
One of the major things you need to do is expand the variety of armies worth putting on the table by mid field players, including:
1) Chariot based armies. Its not just chariots but their main BGs. Possibly weakening armor value will help, but less terrain may not.
2) Asian armies particularly elephant ones in India and SE Asia. The current Chola list being unplayable is an example.
3) Mainstay European armies of the feudal and medieval variety.
4) Nutter Barbarians from Gauls to Visigoths have to be fun, or the won't hit the table. It is unclear if they can even beat themselves when run solo in V 1.

To have an event of 4 dozen which you have had in the UK and even the thickest of players know not to bring, Hannibal, Vercingertorix, Ashurbanipal, Edward I or Samurai is a problem. There are large tracts of the army books that are completely pointless unless in a narrow theme. That does not let many flowers bloom, which is what you need to revive the game.

[Vespasian28]

It will contain much more substantial changes than did V2 (which could/should have been handled by a PDF download)

Bit early yet but does this mean the rulebook will be available as a printed copy or only downloadable? If the latter, FOG is a pretty big rulebook to have as a PDF. Most other rulesets I have as a PDF are a lot smaller and with fewer illustrations; which might be the case with V3 if Osprey no longer involved.

or a Medium Foot army in terrain that you can't fight.

Again, not my experience with MF armies. You can get some of it into terrain if you are lucky enough but you could equally switch the statement to "or a Heavy Foot army in the open you can't fight" if you are the guy with the MF army.

[terrys]

One of the major things you need to do is expand the variety of armies worth putting on the table by mid field players, including:
1) Chariot based armies. Its not just chariots but their main BGs. Possibly weakening armor value will help, but less terrain may not.
2) Asian armies particularly elephant ones in India and SE Asia. The current Chola list being unplayable is an example.
3) Mainstay European armies of the feudal and medieval variety.
4) Nutter Barbarians from Gauls to Visigoths have to be fun, or the won't hit the table. It is unclear if they can even beat themselves when run solo in V 1.

Bringing more different armies to the table is definitely one of our big objectives.
1) LCH are improved. Less terrain helps chariots in general. There are other changes that help some of the weaker units, but we haven't really tested Biblical armies as yet - will happen soon though.
2) I've used Khmer intermittently over the last few years, and found them a good fun army to use (maybe not good enough to win a comp). I've seen Indians and Burmese win comps though. Chola is a different problem. The unprotected bow MF are OK - in their place. The MF with sword only are a different problem. They need to survive the impact phase to stand a chance. Again, we'll need to test the current proposals with these armies to make sure they are viable.
3) The main problem with these armies is that the Heavy Foot can't affect the battle. These are now much more likely to get into the battle, and all those defensive spearmen won't be ridden down by knights quite as easily. We've also made changes to some of the rules for crossbows which could help.
4) Warband armies - either MF or HF - have been vastly improved. Any of these armies should be frightening to face (or use).

We have 2 difficult objectives:
a) Bring more armies into the mix
b) Keep all currently used armies in the mix.

[terrys]

Bit early yet but does this mean the rulebook will be available as a printed copy or only downloadable? If the latter, FOG is a pretty big rulebook to have as a PDF. Most other rulesets I have as a PDF are a lot smaller and with fewer illustrations; which might be the case with V3 if Osprey no longer involved.

We're looking at having it as a printed copy. Still early yet though.

Again, not my experience with MF armies. You can get some of it into terrain if you are lucky enough but you could equally switch the statement to "or a Heavy Foot army in the open you can't fight" if you are the guy with the MF army.

Most MF armies are perfectly viable in the open. They are less likely to fight in Steppe, so there will normally be some terrain they use. I don't see most of the current big MF armies losing much. (Chinese/Japanese, Norse/Irish, Dailami, Aztec etc)
Out intention is to keep all currently used armies playable.

[timmy1]

Terry

Was really please to read

'
We have 2 difficult objectives:
a) Bring more armies into the mix
b) Keep all currently used armies in the mix.
'

Easy to say, not so easy to implement. If you manage that, for me at least it will be a success.

[philqw78]

There is also the ability to choose which order post-combat tests take place in, which can be an important decision to take. I guess this is in principle similar to the DBx sets where there there is the additional choice of "which order do I want combats to take place in?", and "do I want to follow up?", as it affects/limits potential consequences immediately post-combat. In element-based rulesets you will also get more units, more combats, and so more (smaller-consequence) decisions.

Choosing the order of Cohesion tests matters rarely in a game, and that is all you could come up with before going on to rules that do involve the player in more phases of the game

Once combat is joined there was actually very little you could do to affect it.
Moving up support troops was about the only thing you could do - in preparation for victory or defeat !

And that IMO is a major failing in the game. We are Gamers using a Game based around historic battles. There are many things that can be done at BG level that could increase involvement through more phases. The JAP is prime for use.

Allow Mountd to attempt not to break off from foot they normally would break off from. Roll a CMT if they fail they do break off and they drop a level

In the Enemy's turn
Allow mounted to attempt to break off from troops they would normally not break off from.
and
Allow foot to attempt to break off from foot
Roll a CMT, if they fail they stick and drop a level if they pass they move back 2 MU, no more no less, if they can't unlucky. Add a modifier to CMT for move distance, fastest enemy in contact move minus your move +1 or 2. cavalry could break off from Knights, Impact foot could break off from Pikes to, probably, immediatley charge again

Exploitaion
Allow those troops that destroyed all their opponents in melee or pursuit a (exploitation) move in the JAP.
Allow those who were outdistanced in pursuit to make a simple 'other' move upon passing a CMT

[mungocallow]

Would love to beta test if possible

[hazelbark]

[quote="philqw78]

And that IMO is a major failing in the game. We are Gamers using a Game based around historic battles. There are many things that can be done at BG level that could increase involvement through more phases. The JAP is prime for use.

In the Enemy's turn
Allow mounted to attempt to break off from troops they would normally not break off from.
and
Allow foot to attempt to break off from foot
Roll a CMT, if they fail they stick and drop a level if they pass they move back 2 MU, no more no less, if they can't unlucky. Add a modifier to CMT for move distance, fastest enemy in contact move minus your move +1 or 2. cavalry could break off from Knights, Impact foot could break off from Pikes to, probably, immediatley charge again

Exploitaion
Allow those troops that destroyed all their opponents in melee or pursuit a (exploitation) move in the JAP.
Allow those who were outdistanced in pursuit to make a simple 'other' move upon passing a CMT

Interesting ideas. I think the penalty is likely to severe to make much use, but the idea of making the game more interesting is a valid one.
There are a host of interesting ideas, but there needs to be more than a few tweaks to have a point.

[johno]

Great to hear that development has started - are you still looking for playtesters?

I was involved in the playtests for v1 and v2, it would be nice to make the full set!

johno

[philqw78]

Interesting ideas. I think the penalty is likely to severe to make much use,

There are both great rewards and penalties, except for exploitation which has no down side unless you own the broken troops

[vexillia]

Can I make a plea for later on in the development cycle? Not for now but file for later.

I've been playing FOG R for years now. I can't escape the feeling that this variant was developed based on the charts and tables at the end of rules. Once this was working then the main text was created by editing the existing FOG AM body text to match without taking the opportunity to improve the text. This resulted in a fragmented main text with many items spread throughout the rules. Try finding things using the the index if you don't believe me.

My plea: please leave yourself time to re-write the main text as a coherent and consistent document. As I said not for now but later.

[philqw78]

Should I wack slow or fast??

Was this directed at me?

[timmy1]

Martin

You can blame the poor quality of the FoGR index squarely on my shoulders. I have a corrected version but was not given permission by Slitherine to post it, else I would have.

Regards
Tim