Raw Pike Supermen

[Old_Warrior]

Playing Dreux with a good opponent - his Raw pike unit is fighting TWO Swiss Pike units (Superior of course). The Raw pike unit has taken 600 .. count em ... 600 losses and just now Disrupted.

If you guys tell me that this is not a problem you need to really be honest with yourselves.

No, the Raw pike unit is not on a hill, behind fortifications. It is out in the OPEN. Its not a flank attack either. Just an outnumbered Raw unit fighting off two Superior units long enough so the rest of the army can tear them apart.

I saw this in Field of Glory too ... great units with numbers being held off by Light Infantry stuck at the water's edge. Just wonder why this kind of stuff is not caught in playtesting. My team would have reported this kind of thing and it would have been fixed.

[KiwiWarlord]

Just lucky I think Old Warrior, the Raw Boys have passed their Moral Checks.
I have seen the opposite many times.

[Old_Warrior]

Its beyond belief. Luck or no luck. They were getting hit for 70+ men per melee. I just find it hard to believe that Raw troops would hold that well.

Same thing happened in a variant scenario I played - Newark. Raw Pike (both sides) took a lot of losses before folding.

[Paul59]

Yes, nothing unexpected ever happens in the real world.

BTW, congratulations to Leicester City fans for their club winning the Premiership this season.

[SnuggleBunnies]

So if I disagree with you, I'm being dishonest, and your team (what team?) would have caught something obviously terrible like this... okay.

[TheGrayMouser]

Just wonder why this kind of stuff is not caught in playtesting. My team would have reported this kind of thing and it would have been fixed.

Possibly beta testers understand there job is to find obvious bugs and question if what they are seeing is design/intent. When the answers provided by the developer are logical and make sense in the context of the game as a whole, one can accept and move on, or play something more to your liking .
There is nothing in this example that "wasn't "caught" or needed to be fixed.
Not 100% sure of the statistics but the actual differences in quality are not as steep or distinct in P&S as say in FOG, Troops quality "names" ie 'raw" etc can be a range of quality poinst , the actual real POA advantage can be seen if you play with the full verbose.

[jomni]

If everything happened without randomness or with no chance surprise unexpected events, the game becomes less interesting. It becomes rock papers scissors.

[Old_Warrior]

Here is the same unit (again) taking 70+ hits in each of the two attacks. This new from the latest turn.



All I hear here are defenses for a system that IS broken.

For the past two melee phases I have hit the unit for 280+ losses. Any of you that actually believe that a Raw pike unit could stand up to two Swiss pike units - I have some swampland in Florida to sell you.

Note that the unit Disrupted in the turn before last. The replay shows TWO melee phases - so actually it Disrupted three melee phases ago - took about 200+ more losses and is still only disrupted.

Meanwhile, in one game I just aborted, in one of the cavalry melees (two Gendarme units in equal combat) one of the cavalry units takes 23 losses and FRAGMENTS without ever having DISRUPTED!

Sorry guys, the system has issues. Any of you that are happy with this are living in a dream historical world.

[Old_Warrior]

Yes, nothing unexpected ever happens in the real world.

BTW, congratulations to Leicester City fans for their club winning the Premiership this season.

Please - dont get the thread off topic.

Yes, you would NEVER see a Raw pike unit hold off two Swiss pike units in historical "real world" combat.

[Doyley50]

Were you there by any chance?

[Paul59]

I have some swampland in Florida to sell you.

Please don't get the thread off topic. This is not the place to discuss your real estate deals!

Or was that comment an insult to the developers and fans here?

[Old_Warrior]

No game is perfect and I realize that. But when I pointed out similar issues to the FoG team they responded in a positive way. It was not the club mentality.

Field of Glory has issues - its why the were looking to do a major update on the program and later put out FoG2.

So are you saying that I have no voice when I buy a product. I should just knuckle under to the establishment? Do you like to buy products that are not working correctly? Who does?

[Paul59]

Of course you can. But as someone said in another thread, I think it is the way you have phrased your posts that has caused some resentment. I can only speak for myself, but even though I agree with some of the points you have raised over the last few weeks, I have not felt like supporting you, because the way you have made them has seemed like you are attacking the community here.

I know the developer has been away for a while, but hopefully he can answer your issues soon.


Cheers

[Old_Warrior]

Well I sure didnt start out being caustic, right? Look at my earlier posts. You lose that round.

I came out very supportive early. Its only when I had played over 20+ games that I noticed the same trends happening.

Folks came on to me when I was negative in a very caustic manner. Like "go jump in a lake" we like our game and its not going to change.

How do you think I felt about THAT?

This is the only forum I know where the product can do no wrong in the entire gaming community. And early on I was very constructive on my criticism. Since the "old boys network" has basically stuck me in a corner .. fine. You just lost at least 40 sales. Folks were sitting on the fence wondering how I liked the game. Now they will not buy. Enjoy your gun club.

[jomni]

There must be an explanation somewhere. Or you can just send your save to Richard.

We can test this situation in the editor and see the probabilities. I'll give it a go and post results here.
How many rounds of combat did they last in your case?

From reading the manual, I can deduce the following.
1. They are Raw quality so they lose the combat round more often than not. That's already a given and we know that they have no chance of winning and making the Swiss Pikes rout. It's only a matter of how long they can last before routing themselves.
2. Raw troops cannot get a roll of 6 so they need to re-roll.
3. They are mixed foot so they get a +1 bonus during cohesion tests.
4. They are a large formation of 2000 men which adds to more staying power. My observation is that they are taking casualties of 100 men per round in that setup. This is may not trigger the other cohesion roll penalties for instantaneous significant close combat damage. It takes a while for them to get the 25% and 50% cohesion roll penalties too.
5. You only roll one cohesion test per phase. Meaning, only one cohesion roll is done even when there are two combat resolutions. You can get two cohesion rolls at the time when the two pike units charge at different times.

Bottom line is that quantity is a quality of it's own. Due to their large and deep formation, they stay in the battle until casualty thresholds (cohesion penalties and autobreak) are reached and not go running immediately. So it takes a while for these sort of formations. As per doctrine, not all of the 2000 men fight at the same time. I think only up to a max of 600 men per side is considered in the game. So a lot are just standing in the rear ranks as reserves. If you also look at the casualties they deal against the Swiss pikes, they hardy do any. So they are still not an effective crack force of supermen. They lose the match up 100% of the time. They are just stubborn.

So far my tests have showed that the Raw Early Pike and Shot troops do get broken after losing 200, 300, 400, 500 men. There is no bell curve and the probabilities seem to be even. I will publish my results once I compile everything.

[Paul59]

Well I sure didnt start out being caustic, right? Look at my earlier posts. You lose that round.

I came out very supportive early. Its only when I had played over 20+ games that I noticed the same trends happening.

Folks came on to me when I was negative in a very caustic manner. Like "go jump in a lake" we like our game and its not going to change.

How do you think I felt about THAT?

This is the only forum I know where the product can do no wrong in the entire gaming community. And early on I was very constructive on my criticism. Since the "old boys network" has basically stuck me in a corner .. fine. You just lost at least 40 sales. Folks were sitting on the fence wondering how I liked the game. Now they will not buy. Enjoy your gun club.

For the record, I was not trying to "win a round" against you with my last post, I was trying to extend an olive branch and let you to realise where things may have gone wrong.

Obviously I was wasting my time.

[rbodleyscott]

I think this thread has probably gone on long enough. It seems to be becoming a flame war.

This aspect of the game is working as intended. Some people want things to be highly deterministic, so better quality troops always beat lower quality troops very quickly. Others accept that in real life sometimes troops that on paper would be expected to collapse quickly in fact put up a reasonable fight (before eventually collapsing).

Jomni has outlined the situation. I would add that post-Bicocca the Swiss suffered a decline in confidence, and are not rated as highly as they are prior to that date. Nevertheless, there is essentially no chance of the Raw Keil actually winning in this situation, the only question is how long they last before they collapse.

The unit in question will probably autobreak within the next two rounds of melee.

The original poster has his point of view, and others disagree with him. If several people disagree with someone it does not mean that they are a "club". This thread has descended into rancour, so is being closed.