Battle Fatigue and general ideas

[Archaeologist1970]

I am wondering why there is no battle fatigue built into to the melee engine? Seems silly for units to just keep banging away at each other turn after turn. Seems like there should be some penalty for just charging round after round at units. Would be a nice tactic to try and get your opponent to charge after your skirmishers in the the front line, have them evade, and then punish them with a counter charge. Fatigue of smaller units versus larger units as back lines replace tired troops in the front from reserves.

Also, what about giving generals some battle abilities, like give out a free 45 degree turn once a battle or a extra rally attempt, or have a unit fall back in good order. Make them only available if the general is not engaged in combat. Thas way there is a trade off for the big bonus vs him seeing the battle and trying to adjust things. Its ancients so, I don't expect modern abilities, but generals did more than just stand in the back and look pretty.

[jomni]

Fatigue of smaller units versus larger units as back lines replace tired troops in the front from reserves.

Already in the game but not explicitly modelled.

In continuing combat (melee), a unit with lower combat strength will be
overlapped, so the higher combat strength unit fights with extra strength
equivalent to half the difference between the units’ actual combat strengths.

However, because of the limitation on the maximum number of men that
can fight, a full strength 960-man pike unit does not count for this purpose
as having higher combat strength than a full strength 480-man cohort. In
practice it will still get some combat strength bonus because after both units
have suffered losses, the pike phalanx will still have 480 men available to
fight, but the cohort won’t.

Also Roman tactic of rotating troops is already implied in their quality rating. The typical Roman foot unit is rated as Superior instead of Average.

[Archaeologist1970]

Im not really talking about overlap of different sized units but more a fatigue factor so that units cant charge round after round or evade round after round.

[rbodleyscott]

Im not really talking about overlap of different sized units but more a fatigue factor so that units cant charge round after round or evade round after round.

We have experience of fatigue rules in previous Tabletop Wargames rules (notably Wargames Research Group 7th edition rules). Although on the face of it realistic, they had a distorting effect on the way the game was played in practice. There is absolutely no logic to applying fatigue to evaders, but not to chargers. WRG 7th edition rightly applied it to both, but the effect was to make skirmishers more effective, not less effective. In short, the experiment was not a success. Subsequent popular tabletop Ancient rules (DBA, DBM, FOG, ADLG) have abandoned fatigue rules as detracting from the game overall.

FOG2 is based on FOG tabletop rules and follows this convention.

As jomni says, in practice units do deteriorate over time without needing explicit fatigue rules, and skirmishers become much less effective when their ammunition is low.

If fatigue rules were added at this stage, the whole game would need to be rebalanced. Contrary to what learning players may think, skirmishers are in fact currently very well balanced overall, as experienced players have testified. It is just a matter of knowing how to respond to them and when to ignore them. Repeatedly charging them is not the answer - as the Crusaders found at the Horns of Hattin, the Roman cavalry found at Carrhae, and innumerable other armies found throughout Ancient/Medieval history.

[Archaeologist1970]

That's a fair enough explanation for me. It is a game after all and not a simulation. Maybe a easy balance would be that units cannot charge consecutively. It would open up a whole new mini tactic as the battle lines draw near to each other. I think generals need to be rethought. Too much unused possibilities for them to be fun that are not used. Many thanks for taking the time to answer.