Skirmishers faster than horses

[Archaeologist1970]

Awww, someone didnt apply themselves in school and resents people with advanced education.. how cute. Apparently it us also my job to provide you with sources on everything rather then you do the research yourself and form opinions. I fight in medeval martial arts and wear armor and have been on the ground fighting. Fatigue does happen even if your closed mind dosnt want it to because you can't calculate it out like a chess piece.

[MikeC_81]

That's funny, my profs weren't so kind as to let me tell them to find their own sources when I turned in my papers. Guess I didn't find the right profs

[hjc]

Sorry, as someone with an advanced education I couldn't help myself, given the irony. I think I've been lenient

Awww, someone didnt didn't apply themselves in school and resents people with advanced education [sic] .. how cute. Apparently it us is also my job to provide you with sources on everything rather then than you do the research yourself and form opinions. I fight in medeval medieval - (note, yes there are two alternative spellings for medieval, but yours is not one of them) - martial arts and wear armor and have been on the ground fighting. Fatigue does happen even if your closed mind dosnt doesn't want it to because you can't calculate it out like a chess piece.

I agree that fatigue is a real thing, I've also worn armour and swung a sword. No argument there. But fatigue isn't in the rules, FoG isn't intended to be a 100% realistic simulation, so perhaps you need to look into table top gaming where you can find a set of rules that will suit you and how you think it should play out. Or you could write your own rules.

People don't necessarily want to "calculate it out like a chess piece" or even a chess game, but for most of us FoG II is an excellent ancients game. We accept it's not for everyone. Change it to suit a minority, and you lose the majority. You can probably see where that leads.

[shawkhan2]

Much of this discussion depends on the time scale involved in a turn. Boxers are the most finely tuned athletes imaginable, yet rounds last only three minutes before a rest period.
I believe the FOGII turns represent something like fifteen minutes. Active combat would last only a couple minutes at a time before resting, Movement rates take this into account. For fatigue to be a relevant factor. we would have to assume that turns represent three minutes or less which I do not believe to be true.

[MikeC_81]

I guess you subscribe to the pulse model of combat then which is my best guess as to how ancients fought as well. Without frequent pauses in action one finds it hard to imagine that the Romans were able to swap lines of men as described in the sources for example in which lasted for hours.

Like your boxing example, MMA athletes often get gassed in hand to hand combat after three 5 minute rounds and thats without wearing gear. Alas we will never really know.

In any case, to demand fatigue be put in the game to deal with an edge case like skirmishers vs cavalry in a few unique circumstances is odd to say the least.

[Archaeologist1970]

I dont remember demanding anything. I just think it's a missed opportunity. What about fighting in weather elements. You think fighting in the middle eastern desert is the same as in England? I think fatigue should be a manageable resource that generals should have to watch. It also is the reason for keeping a reserve force. Fatigue dosnt have to be a huge drain on action in the game. Maybe it just accumulates the more consecutive rounds fought and resets when a unit rests for a turn.

[stockwellpete]

I dont remember demanding anything. I just think it's a missed opportunity. What about fighting in weather elements. You think fighting in the middle eastern desert is the same as in England? I think fatigue should be a manageable resource that generals should have to watch. It also is the reason for keeping a reserve force. Fatigue dosnt have to be a huge drain on action in the game. Maybe it just accumulates the more consecutive rounds fought and resets when a unit rests for a turn.

I do feel your arguments have merit, but I remember being told by Iain many years ago that Slitherine was reluctant to add layer upon layer of complexity on to their games when I was arguing the toss about some medieval aspect of the game. So, while it would be good to have weather and fatigue rules they would have to be done in a fairly unobtrusive way so that the game was not made too complicated for people who don't want to spend too much time understanding all the rules. So perhaps this is part of the issue. It still doesn't excuse unlimited pushbacks though.

What if units pushed back for a second (or third) time automatically routed?

[SnuggleBunnies]

The thing is, the game is modeled top-down. In Richard's extensive wargaming experience, fatigue systems did not end up working well.

Furthermore, from my point of view, fatigue is just one of many bottom up systems missing from the game. What about the effects of disease or starvation on an army? What about the psychological benefits to an army of advancing? What about the fact that withdrawing in the face of the enemy was often detrimental to moral, even leading to an army's rout before battle, whereas in game you merely take a cohesion check if in charge range? What about the fact that, in reality, units would be of varying strengths, and of varying frontages? What about the direction of the wind and its effects on arrows? etc, etc, etc, there are easily more I could list.

When it comes down to it, not every factor can meaningfully be taken into account in a consistent, balanced manner that players can interpret.

[TimDee58]

I totally concur with the above post