GamerMan wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 3:20 pm
If we remove the fanfare, it just promotes people watching the score really closely and keeping detailed notes on where routed units left so you can figure out where they rallied with reasonable precision. It would just change it from being unrealistic for everyone, to unrealistic to top players and a needless complication for people who are trying to learn to play well. If you are going to remove the fanfare for rallying, you have to do something to hide the score as well.
Im not sure there is any relationship between top player, new player and the amount of "realism" each category desires. I do think it would be fun to have an optional way of playing without the score being visible!!
I wasn't trying to say that they desire different amounts of realism, but that people playing casually will get realism, but then people who are playing more seriously just have another tax on their attention, because they will still know precisely when and where the units rally, since they will be watching the scores very carefully. we would be in effect, taxing people for wanting realism, and further splintering the game into a "people in the know" and people who aren't serious players. and without doing an real tactical or strategic differentiation, we would be separating the two branches even more.
Anything that gives a player an advantage other than tactical or strategic acumen should be minimized. Things i call a "proficiency tax". After all, my opponent should be the person i'm playing against, not my understanding and attention towards the system that is fighting to obscure me from things it is telling me. Also, I'm not sure a forum poll is representative. After all, a disproportionately high number of players here are tournament players, and they would seem to benefit by giving them yet another advantage against new or inexperienced players.
And in case you don't think it will matter. If an inexperienced player is playing an experienced player. a warband that is routed runs out of sight and rallies. the experienced player hides the now fragmented unit, and the inexperienced player has no idea a unit just rallied, he loses because of it 60 to 58. Flip the scenario, and put the experienced player in the seat, they watch the score and know the ai for routing units. they see the score jump down the moment the unit rallies, and realises what happened. they send a minor cavalry unit over to reroute the still fragmented troop, which they ahve a pretty good idea where it is. that player now wins, not because of any choices they made, but because they knew the system well enough to know that they need to watch the score. So really, making the change and removing the fanfare doesn't make the game more realistic at all, in fact it is now more unrealistic, because some generals now have psychic super powers and the other ones don't yet realise that they have these super powers. If you want to remove the rally fanfare for realism, then something HAS to be done about the score as well so it doesn't reflect the unit rallying.
So really, making the change and removing the fanfare doesn't make the game more realistic at all, in fact it is now more unrealistic, because some generals now have psychic super powers and the other ones don't yet realise that they have these super powers. If you want to remove the rally fanfare for realism, then something HAS to be done about the score as well so it doesn't reflect the unit rallying.
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I hope that I'm not misunderstanding what you are saying. I agree that a recently rallied unit not visible to the troops still fighting in the main battle line should not affect the score nor should there be a fanfare immediately upon rallying out of sight. Only when on it returns to battle and becomes visible to its own troops should there be fanfare and a change in points.
Last edited by Cunningcairn on Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
GamerMan wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31, 2019 7:53 pm
I wasn't trying to say that they desire different amounts of realism, but that people playing casually will get realism, but then people who are playing more seriously just have another tax on their attention, because they will still know precisely when and where the units rally, since they will be watching the scores very carefully. we would be in effect, taxing people for wanting realism, and further splintering the game into a "people in the know" and people who aren't serious players. and without doing an real tactical or strategic differentiation, we would be separating the two branches even more.
Anything that gives a player an advantage other than tactical or strategic acumen should be minimized. Things i call a "proficiency tax". After all, my opponent should be the person i'm playing against, not my understanding and attention towards the system that is fighting to obscure me from things it is telling me. Also, I'm not sure a forum poll is representative. After all, a disproportionately high number of players here are tournament players, and they would seem to benefit by giving them yet another advantage against new or inexperienced players.
And in case you don't think it will matter. If an inexperienced player is playing an experienced player. a warband that is routed runs out of sight and rallies. the experienced player hides the now fragmented unit, and the inexperienced player has no idea a unit just rallied, he loses because of it 60 to 58. Flip the scenario, and put the experienced player in the seat, they watch the score and know the ai for routing units. they see the score jump down the moment the unit rallies, and realises what happened. they send a minor cavalry unit over to reroute the still fragmented troop, which they ahve a pretty good idea where it is. that player now wins, not because of any choices they made, but because they knew the system well enough to know that they need to watch the score. So really, making the change and removing the fanfare doesn't make the game more realistic at all, in fact it is now more unrealistic, because some generals now have psychic super powers and the other ones don't yet realise that they have these super powers. If you want to remove the rally fanfare for realism, then something HAS to be done about the score as well so it doesn't reflect the unit rallying.
I don't think it is that simple, at least not most of the time. The experienced player may know a unit has rallied, but wouldn't necessarily know where, especially if there are a number of routed units and maybe more than one are hidden. He has a choice to send some units to try and find and re-rout the unit or to concentrate his units on the battle at hand. This is the whole point about this to make the event more realistic and force some difficult / interesting decisions.
Cunningcairn wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2019 8:59 pm
A body of men running from battle stop and start to regroup into a "fragmented" body and then immediately decide (through training?) to notify the rest of their army they are okay and might be back to support them at some time? That is totally unrealistic. Also the men left a distance behind fighting are not doing so in silence and are also quite preoccupied with the task at hand and wouldn't know if it was their blokes rallying or the enemy. If you've played football you'd have experienced the "my ball" comment from behind which doesn't really help decision making because you don't know who said it. I understand the ability to communicate with trumpet, drum, bugle etc. but not when you are running in a disorganised group a long way away from the battle. This audible communication would rather occur when the returning, reformed body became visible to its troops still engaged in battle. Someone would then hear the fanfare look around and break into a rendition of The Boys are Back which would lift morale. No-one has discussed what distance the rallying units are from the battle but I'm assuming this is a kilometer plus and would take 5 or more turns to return to combat.
It's really not unrealistic. The fanfare sound is the rally horn used by the designated officer to pull together the men scattered during the rally. That's how the Fragmented body of men stops routing in the first place. As far as signalling the general and the rest of the army, sound via horns was the only practical way of doing so. Sound travels faster than couriers. Many/most armies had the level of organization necessary to relay basic orders through trumpet blasts. Obviously, orders were best issued by the general himself, followed by couriers and flag signals. But all of those methods had limitations of their own; limitations that signalling by horn or trumpet could get around.
What you seem to be advocating for is not allowing routing troops to count for % unless they get within a magic distance of either the CinC or other units, or something. That would be a substantial change in the game and definitely make it more complicated for new/less experience players to understand. And I, personally, don't think it would add anything beneficial to the game outside of a debatable sense of realism.
The existing rally fanfare system works just fine.
Geffalrus wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2019 8:03 pm
What you seem to be advocating for is not allowing routing troops to count for % unless they get within a magic distance of either the CinC or other units, or something. That would be a substantial change in the game and definitely make it more complicated for new/less experience players to understand. And I, personally, don't think it would add anything beneficial to the game outside of a debatable sense of realism.
The existing rally fanfare system works just fine.
The existing fanfare doesn't work that well as is evident from the majority of players wanting a change. There is also nothing complicated or magical about the score changing when rallied troops became visible to their army. It is simpler and more intuitive hence easier to understand than the current system. It makes no sense that troops not visible to their comrades and long distances from the battle should cause a morale boost to their army. I have not suggested that horns are not used to rally the troops I am saying that the rest of the army might not hear these rallying calls due to the distance they are away from the battle and also because they are not visible. Do you think that horns will be heard from any distance or that a forest would not attenuate the sound? What is it about the sudden visibility of rallied troops lifting the morale of their army that you don't like?
Last edited by Cunningcairn on Tue Apr 02, 2019 8:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Geffalrus wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2019 8:03 pm
What you seem to be advocating for is not allowing routing troops to count for % unless they get within a magic distance of either the CinC or other units, or something. That would be a substantial change in the game and definitely make it more complicated for new/less experience players to understand. And I, personally, don't think it would add anything beneficial to the game outside of a debatable sense of realism.
The existing rally fanfare system works just fine.
The existing fanfare doesn't work that well as is evident from the majority of players wanting a change. There is also nothing complicated or magical about the score changing when rallied troops became visible to their army. It is simpler and more intuitive hence easier to understand than the current system. It makes no sense that troops not visible to their comrades and long distances from the battle should cause a morale boost to their army. I have not suggested that horns are not used to rally the troops I am saying that the rest of the army might not hear these rallying calls due to the distance they are away from the battle and also because they are not visible. Do you think that horns will be heard from any distance or that a forest would not attenuate the sound? What is it about the sudden visibility of rallied troops lifting the morale of their army that you don't like?
Last edited by Cunningcairn on Tue Apr 02, 2019 8:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
Cunningcairn wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2019 1:46 am
The existing fanfare doesn't work that well as is evident from the majority of players wanting a change. There is also nothing complicated or magical about the score changing when rallied troops became visible to their army. It is simpler and more intuitive hence easier to understand than the current system. It makes no sense that troops not visible to their comrades and long distances from the battle should cause a morale boost to their army. Do you think that horns will be heard from any distance or that a forest would not attenuate the sound? What is it about the sudden visibility of rallied troops lifting the morale of their army that you don't like?
"Majority" in this case meaning two whole people more. With a total pool less than 50. Hardly representative if you ask me. At best you can say that the sample is evenly split.
I think it's more likely people engaged in melee are able to hear a well known horn signal indicating friendlies returning, than it is for people engaged in a melee to SEE those returning friendlies. Sight lines. Dust. Other bodies of soldiers. Visual identification of other units in an era when telescopic sights were not a thing is far more difficult than auditory identification of horn blasts.
What I don't like about it is that it is vastly more complicated to program for the developer and more complicated for players to understand. For your visual system to work, units need to operate within sight lines of each other, which needs to be tracked and incorporated into the overlay. Then distance needs to be factored. All to allow rallied units to have to be babysit across the map to get within X distance of what? The CinC? One other unit? X number of units? What threshold do you use to represent "now the army has seen the returned units!" It's making a rather simple binary situation of "how many units are routed" into a complicated equation that fewer people will understand.
Cunningcairn wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2019 1:46 am
The existing fanfare doesn't work that well as is evident from the majority of players wanting a change. There is also nothing complicated or magical about the score changing when rallied troops became visible to their army. It is simpler and more intuitive hence easier to understand than the current system. It makes no sense that troops not visible to their comrades and long distances from the battle should cause a morale boost to their army. Do you think that horns will be heard from any distance or that a forest would not attenuate the sound? What is it about the sudden visibility of rallied troops lifting the morale of their army that you don't like?
"Majority" in this case meaning two whole people more. With a total pool less than 50. Hardly representative if you ask me. At best you can say that the sample is evenly split.
I think it's more likely people engaged in melee are able to hear a well known horn signal indicating friendlies returning, than it is for people engaged in a melee to SEE those returning friendlies. Sight lines. Dust. Other bodies of soldiers. Visual identification of other units in an era when telescopic sights were not a thing is far more difficult than auditory identification of horn blasts.
What I don't like about it is that it is vastly more complicated to program for the developer and more complicated for players to understand. For your visual system to work, units need to operate within sight lines of each other, which needs to be tracked and incorporated into the overlay. Then distance needs to be factored. All to allow rallied units to have to be babysit across the map to get within X distance of what? The CinC? One other unit? X number of units? What threshold do you use to represent "now the army has seen the returned units!" It's making a rather simple binary situation of "how many units are routed" into a complicated equation that fewer people will understand.
And a forum poll is not exactly a random sample of players, or even a random sample of online players. However, while i'm against changing the fanfare, i would not be disappointed if the routed percentage didn't reveal when a unit rallied from routing while hidden, but i don't know the best way to implement such a change. i still think the clear worst option is to not play the fanfare but still have the percentages change
Cunningcairn wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2019 1:46 am
The existing fanfare doesn't work that well as is evident from the majority of players wanting a change. There is also nothing complicated or magical about the score changing when rallied troops became visible to their army. It is simpler and more intuitive hence easier to understand than the current system. It makes no sense that troops not visible to their comrades and long distances from the battle should cause a morale boost to their army. Do you think that horns will be heard from any distance or that a forest would not attenuate the sound? What is it about the sudden visibility of rallied troops lifting the morale of their army that you don't like?
"Majority" in this case meaning two whole people more. With a total pool less than 50. Hardly representative if you ask me. At best you can say that the sample is evenly split.
Majority means a greater number be that one or one million.
I think it's more likely people engaged in melee are able to hear a well known horn signal indicating friendlies returning, than it is for people engaged in a melee to SEE those returning friendlies. Sight lines. Dust. Other bodies of soldiers. Visual identification of other units in an era when telescopic sights were not a thing is far more difficult than auditory identification of horn blasts.
Visibilty in FOG does not assume telescopic sights and a friendly or unfriendly horn sounds the same. My understanding is that in FOG it is assumed that battle events are passed between troops by word of mouth. Therefore the closest friendly soul engaged in combat sees a friendly unit approaching and starts spreading the word. This is far more realistic than that same friendly soul hearing what he thinks might be a horn and forming an opinion on what that might mean and then starting what might end up as a catastrophic Chinese whisper.
What I don't like about it is that it is vastly more complicated to program for the developer and more complicated for players to understand.
It is simpler I think for players to understand and if it is too difficult for the programmers it won't happen.
For your visual system to work, units need to operate within sight lines of each other, which needs to be tracked and incorporated into the overlay. Then distance needs to be factored.
That is why computers and programmers are so great for this type of game.
All to allow rallied units to have to be babysit across the map to get within X distance of what? The CinC? One other unit? X number of units? What threshold do you use to represent "now the army has seen the returned units!" It's making a rather simple binary situation of "how many units are routed" into a complicated equation that fewer people will understand.
We haven't even discussed the detail of how this would work and already you are finding fault with it. This community has a vast number of people who could give insight into how that could work if they thought it viable. You also seem to have a persistent disregard for the intelligence of the FOG players. They will understand! The only thing I don't know is if they like the idea.
Last edited by Cunningcairn on Tue Apr 02, 2019 8:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
I prefer things as they are, as sight lines etc. would be too complex, and I don't want players to feel like they have to watch those rout % like a hawk. As a compromise, perhaps rallies to Disrupted and Steady could be hidden if out of sight. It wouldn't really make logical sense, but that way a player could see why rout% changed without being able to subsequently track which way the unit maneuvered.
My main concern in any case was the revealed Fall Back command, which seems to be getting dealt with.
jomni wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 7:20 am
Such a close match between for and against
Yes much closer than a first round clash between 2 lines of warband
[Donning moderator hat]
Posting off-topic posts to push your personal agenda is spamming and against the forum rules. Posting a smiley after it does not mitigate that, it just becomes a form of trolling.
jomni wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 7:20 am
Such a close match between for and against
Yes much closer than a first round clash between 2 lines of warband
[Donning moderator hat]
Posting off-topic posts to push your personal agenda is spamming and against the forum rules. Posting a smiley after it does not mitigate that, it just becomes a form of trolling.
Desist.
I'm terribly sorry but I really thought it was funny. Must just be my sense of humour. Fear not though as I will obey your request.
As a new FOG player, I would have had more difficulty understanding "routing" percentage if it did not match exactly the units I know routed.
I am very much against "routing percentage" changing "mid-turn" just because hidden units are seen, as it is not really realistic (it is not because your opponent see your friends coming that you are less likely to rout as an army, it is because you know they have their back.
I would play the sound plus a message "An unseen enemy unit rallied" for people with audition issues - only from Routed to Fragmented.
Neither are realistic, but one option is user friendly
Ring any bells?
