Kill List

[Mord]

The game already calculates who causes what casualties during every impact and melee round, is there some chance we could get a tally on the unit cards during battle so we could know which units caused the most hurt throughout the scenario? The end of the battle briefing is pretty good but it'd be nice to see something on a unit by unit basis that we could either examine as we play or view on the map at the end of the battle. I guess it could be as basic as keeping track of foot and cav kills. Something like this:



Or it could cover siege engines and elephants too. Whatever makes sense. It wouldn't have to be called "Kills" it could be called "Victories" or whatever else sounds good. This is one of those immersive little features that so many wargames leave out. It was/is always one of my favorite parts of the after-battle postmortem in Combat Mission (old and new) and Medieval II (which really went into depth), seeing which units fought the hardest causing the most damage and gaining the most glory. We have a way to know how many were lost via man count on the cards, it would be killer to know what our guys (and the enemy) accomplished, as well.



Mord.

[rbodleyscott]

It is something that is on our wishlist.

[Mord]

Awesome! I hope it makes it in eventually. It's such a small detail in the over all scope of most games but one of the most immersive in my opinion. It can really bond you to a unit and adds to the role-playing that goes on in one's mind as you play.

Mord.

[SnuggleBunnies]

I actually would NOT want a feature such as this, for 2 reasons:

1) The emphasis in the game, as historically, is on breaking the enemy's will to fight. Killing the enemy is secondary to causing them to flee. A unit with few kills may have been far more vital to victory than one that inflicted many casualties - the cavalry unit that broke the enemy in a flank attack, or the the light archers that, in a volley that inflicted several killed and a dozen wounded on an enemy unit, disrupted it at the crucial time. The vital task is causing the enemy to stop fighting - sometimes by killing them, sometimes by wounding them, and mostly by making them run away.
2) The idea of tracking casualties inflicted - how would this even be done, practically? In the confusion of battle, who can tell when a foe is injured by an arrow, and when it sticks into his armor? When a man stumbles away stunned, is he just briefly dazed, or mortally wounded? When a ragged enemy unit is at half strength, is that because half the men were killed, or some are hiding out somewhere, or otherwise scattered? To have a precise number of enemy killed and wounded per unit is far more information than would actually be available, and having it available to me would break immersion.

Not that it would be a game breaker or anything to me, but my preference would be not to have this.

[Mord]

Well, you could call it victories (or casualties caused) instead of kills which would keep it vague. You won't know for every unit because some could end up being dispersed or routed off the map. I get what you are saying but it possibly could be made as a setting that could be turned on or off. And I actually like the idea of logging routed units. I'd love to see that as a stat as well.

But isn't it funny that one man's immersion is another one's immersion breaker? Hopefully something can be done that pleases everyone.

Mord.

[sIg3b]

Basically agree with SnuggleBunnies. I like my units reasonably generic. Don´t really want to get distracted by useless facts about their history.

[Mord]

How the hell is that gonna distract you? LOL.

Mord.

[sIg3b]

How the hell is that gonna distract you? LOL.

Mord.

Any irrelevant info on the unit card is distracting; isn´t that obvious?

[Mord]

I don't know. I don't find it irrelevant.

Mord.

[SnuggleBunnies]

It's irrelevant in the sense that everything else on the unit card is vital information on how the unit functions and its current status, while a kill count would serve no such functional purpose.

[Mord]

Well, if you don't like it, you don't like it but if it's added as an option I don't see a problem. LOL. But if one line of text at the bottom of a unit card is distracting in a IGUGO game...c'mon? Look at my picture, is it really gonna jam a brain up? This isn't a clickfest game. But anyway, that's just an example, there's many ways it could be done. I am at least willing to compromise theoretically on them making it optional.

Mord.

[cromlechi]

Dont see any useful purpose in this either. A units performance is far more nuanced than kill count and so many factors that would make comparison pointless such as terrain the unit fought on for most of the game.

[MVP7]

I wouldn't mind counter like this, although I don't think it describes the unit's performance in any meaningful way as casualties are a very small factor in the real performance of the unit. In some cases large number of inflicted casualties might actually mean ineffective use of the unit.

More importantly, I think it would be waste of space on the unit card: I'd rather see if the unit is in open or defending obstacle; if it's disordered under disruption; if the flank is exposed; or if the unit has already used free rotation. Arbitrary casualty counter is the last thing on the list of additional information that would be useful to see on the unit card.

[rbodleyscott]

I wouldn't mind counter like this, although I don't think it describes the unit's performance in any meaningful way as casualties are a very small factor in the real performance of the unit. In some cases large number of inflicted casualties might actually mean ineffective use of the unit.

More importantly, I think it would be waste of space on the unit card: I'd rather see if the unit is in open or defending obstacle; if it's disordered under disruption; if the flank is exposed; or if the unit has already used free rotation. Arbitrary casualty counter is the last thing on the list of additional information that would be useful to see on the unit card.

There isn't really room for it on the card anyway - some unit types already take up all the space. If we do do something like this, it will probably be in an end-battle report.

[Mord]

It wouldn't matter to me where it is. The unit card was just an example, something I figured would be easy as far as presentation. I should've been more clear. Another idea could be a pop-up like the combat log, You click on the unit at the end of the battle and it could list routed, casualties caused, etc. If it's more detailed that's fine, the more info the better. I personally LOVE statistics like this when I play wargames. As far as the arguments that it isn't realistic or breaks immersion etc. Well, so what, it's a GAME. The last time I checked you couldn't fly all over an ancient battlefield, know exactly how many men were in an enemy or friendly unit at a given time, what their morale state was, what their POAs were, and what their chances were for causing casualties or routing, while knowing exactly how many were hurt when combat did occur.

Mord.

[Hanny]

Well you could export it to a spread sheet, ( you can do it already yourself from the combat log no?) and then present that data in post battle briefing, along with ho w many points of replacemnts your up of down, or course the info text will say the Army is in need of fresh levies from home/allies etc, rather than display it during the battle, it could also tell you when a unit goes up in quality from winning.

[MVP7]

Mord's suggestion is starting to sound more and more like Combat Mission . List of kills definitely tells a lot more in those games than it would in FoG2 and having similar post-battle stats would be nice. There's of course no reason not to track kills among other things but on its own it's pretty much the least meaningful metric that could be tracked in FoG2. There are much better stats that could be tracked and would paint a bit more comprehensive picture of what the unit has achieved and endured:

Number of...
Charges initiated
Charges received
Flank/Rear charges initiated
Flank/Rear charges received
Turns in melee
Cohesion tests inflicted
Cohesion drops inflicted
Routed enemy units
Cohesion tests suffered
Cohesion tests failed
Shots fired
Shots received
Men lost/Enemies killed on impact
Men lost/Enemies killed in melee
Men lost/Enemies killed with missiles
Men lost/Enemies killed in pursuit

[Mord]

Now you're talking! I'd be fine with all of that. It gives depth to the post-game. I love that kind of stuff. Whatever helps tell the tale of a unit after the battle. I know most of the dudes on here are about tournaments — getting ranks — they enjoy the competitiveness and all that but I enjoy immersing myself in the stories that play out on the battlefield and stats like you suggest further that. It brings me closer to the men and their history in THE history. All my most favorite games are the ones that create stories for me whether they intend to or not. Even with the abstractions I find FoG II running away with my imagination all the time. I don't think having more of that would be a bad thing. But I'll take what I can get!

Great ideas, MVP7! +100!

Mord.

P.S. And yeah, I am the kinda guy that will cruise the end-game battlefield in CM studying the hit decals on knocked out tanks. LOL. I even made a forensic mod to highlight the holes better.

[MVP7]

Combat Missions are definitely some of the best games at generating stories and the list of kills is a must-have feature there (and the vehicle hit decals took way to long to include ). My favorite story (from BfN) is an US infantry sergeant that lost his entire squad to and MG-42 while crossing a road in an attempt to flank a possible enemy position. The now lone sergeant spotted an entire platoon of bunched up German infantry through the bocage less than 20 meters away, immediately emptied his Thompson in one burst and tossed every grenade he had, killing and wounding half of the enemy platoon and making the rest surrender.

[Mord]

Awesome story! That's the main reasons I play WEGO, I would've watched that 50 times. I always get a kick out of reading vignettes like that. It's one of those actions that really makes historical wargaming shine. Where you forget that you are playing a game and just get sucked into that moment, that time, that place and live it.

And man, I can remember pining away for hit decals what felt like forever. It's amazing how immersive they end up being just looking at them and imagining where the shell went in and what kind of damage it did etc. Such a simple addition that added tons of atmosphere.

FoG II gives me that same feeling of excitement. I only see myself stop playing when they create a version so killer that it makes what we have now obsolete, like BN did to the original CMs. I didn't expect FoG II to grab me like it did so it makes it all the more cool. It's really nice to be wowed again.


Mord.