Medium Foot Rebalance Discussion

[pompeytheflatulent]

Take closer look at the screenshots. In both games it was the Gallic infantry wing that broke through and won the game. Since on the cavalry wing the Gaul could tie down 78 point and 61 point Roman Legions with 44 point cavalry and 36 point chariots, on the infantry wing the Gauls could afford to throw superior warbands against above average legions, regular warbands against italian foot, 2-on-1 flanks, and even more cavalry to exploit the breakthrough.

That's just player's mistake, though, not a sign of Roman inferiority to Gauls. Romans could've easily shifted their superior troops to face off against warbands before getting into such precarious postion.

Wasn't an option in this case, the Roman superior troops would have spent the entire battle staring at loose order warbands camped in the rough ground as the Roman left got rolled up.

[Nosy_Rat]

Take closer look at the screenshots. In both games it was the Gallic infantry wing that broke through and won the game. Since on the cavalry wing the Gaul could tie down 78 point and 61 point Roman Legions with 44 point cavalry and 36 point chariots, on the infantry wing the Gauls could afford to throw superior warbands against above average legions, regular warbands against italian foot, 2-on-1 flanks, and even more cavalry to exploit the breakthrough.

That's just player's mistake, though, not a sign of Roman inferiority to Gauls. Romans could've easily shifted their superior troops to face off against warbands before getting into such precarious postion.

Wasn't an option in this case, the Roman superior troops would have spent the entire battle staring at loose order warbands camped in the rough ground as the Roman left got rolled up.

I'm not sure how is that supposed to prove me wrong? If you find yourself in position where your superior troops are locked by MF in rough ground, you made a mistake. If your superior troops are facing cavalry. while enemy is using theirs to actually attack, you made a mistake. If you didn't anticipate what troops enemy may effectevily use against you and didn't plan your force accordingly, you made a mistake.

Location of rough ground is known at the deployment and it's pretty easy to assess whether enemy will get there or not - do not place your superior heavy foot there. Position of enemy superior warbands is known as soon as the deployment is over - there's plenty of time to shift your troops around if you wish, nobody is forcing you to advance at full speed. That's like tactics 101.

If Roman played makes such mistakes, he could lose to any army (I actually once lost ot Slave Revolt, lol), but it doesn't mean anything about the comparative power of the armies.

[nyczar]

This has been a debate I have observed and engaged in for some time now; in in-game chat and in other threads about cheap med infantry lists winning , and winning in a way that is out of line with history. To some extent I think the issue is caused by the lack of a strategic layer in the game. As SnuggleBunnies alluded to in his comment on Rome's victory over the Samnites. In other words, maybe history is won by societies first and arms second. Another thing that I think contributes to the debate is the anachronistic nature of the match ups. We get frustrated by a match up and look to history to justify why the match up should be different.

The primary problem I have with this debate is that the win loss data that is used as a premise is flawed. There is no segmentation by divisions (skill). My hypothesis, which I will not researched but hope one of you will, is that the "dominance" of lists made of of less trained and less well armored troops (cheaper) fades as the skill level of the enemy general increases. For me, I felt this issue was largely answered when Dklanda won with a heavy list in one of the A Divisions, I dont recall which. In the context of digital league anachronistic match ups, skill in choosing your list for division play, skill in list selection, skill in deployment, and skill in the tactical use of ZOC are the decisive factors. Let me also not forget in-game vision as well, which I am using here to mean the ability to see when to ask for a map re-roll. I have lost every game for which I have agree to a map re-roll (note to self to stop being a gentleman).

As many of you may, or may not, have observed, I've been playing the Scots since season one. Against an inexperience player, the Scots will win, always, as facing them requires specific tactics (to Snuggles' point). I played them in "C" and "B" with success and then hit the wall of "A" division play. I choose the Kingdom of Soissons list one season in Late Antiquity "A" to mix things up (and specifically did so because of the unsegmented data) and I had a losing season with them because my skill was not up to the task (and the "A" or "B" level sucks for experimenting).

I love my Scots so much I have begged a player more skilled than I to play them to prove they can be an A level winning list, but he refused citing the weakness of their infantry. Every list has weakness and skill is the most decisive factor. I will happily change my mind if someone wants to segment the data to account for skill.

I am a high "B" low "A" player and when facing skill plus the medium list numbers, I do indeed generally lose. Not always, but generally. But so it goes, I'm not as skilled as them ...yet.

While I dont think anyone is intending this, if I follow my own logic, then any nerfing of the medium lists is really a nerfing of the most skillful players. The only way to really move this debate forward from opinion to evidence based, is to look at segmented data. How have medium list performed by skill level with digital league divisions serving as a proxy for skill? With 7 seasons in the books, this should yield meaningful insights that can help tilt this debate to a grounded conclusion. If the most skillful players are always, or most of the time (>80%), winning with Medium lists, then a nerf is in order and a cost increase sounds to me to be the best solution. If not, then I, and players like me, need to work harder to protect my flanks and maintain an adequate reserve. You could also look at the winning of each division level to see what is there.

And BTW, if a tourney is made for heavy list play only, I am in for a good scum without all the maneuvering!

[desicat]

nyczar - well stated. ^^^^^

[pompeytheflatulent]

@ nyczar: Do you mean the Scots-Irish? Or the medieval Scots with the supersized Pictish spearmen and huscarls?

[nyczar]

@ nyczar: Do you mean the Scots-Irish? Or the medieval Scots with the supersized Pictish spearmen and huscarls?

Scots-Irish 50BC-476AD as I recall.

[pompeytheflatulent]

@ nyczar: Do you mean the Scots-Irish? Or the medieval Scots with the supersized Pictish spearmen and huscarls?

Scots-Irish 50BC-476AD as I recall.

Would you be interested in a mirrored game of Scots-Irish vs Kingdom of Soissons? The last time I played Soissons was many months ago, and Schweetness crashed that game with his maxing out number of games allowed schtick. I would like a refresher on just exactly what makes them so good before they get hit by the nerf hammer forever.

[klayeckles]

folks...i've been watching the debate here...a couple points...
1) First off, making historical commentary on how roman armies (and others) are too weak and so forth...forget not that the romans very rarely engaged in POT LUCK battles. typically they, and other historically superior armies (Led by superior generals) would pick the time, location, and nature of the battle... and converting such battles to the current pt system would likely see the romans vastly outspending their opponents.
2) numbers do kill IN THE HANDS OF A VERY SKILLED OPPONENT. AND....a skilled player will recognize the numerical advantage and use the terrain and his set up to form a coherent strategy. Nosy rat is right on...usually the differences can be mitigated via good generalship. so my view is it has nothing to do with the MF vs HF....it has to do with NUMBERS. if you have the romans...Take the raw legions if you are worried about numbers!
3) MF happen to often be very numerous spam lists, but it isn't the MF aspect that makes them so worrisome (though when you clearly outnumber your opponent it is also nice to rule the rough terrain as well). I would choose to outnumber my opponent every time vs. have a MF advantage over her.


so in summary, as a GAME...outnumbering your opponent (and having very good idea on how to use the numerical advantage (+++++++++) ) is the biggest issue, and spam lists that have large quantities of cheap troops often consist of MF. I would suggest thinking about that.

kibitzing: The current game mechanics make MF slightly fragile in open against HF...only if they lose the round and need a cohesion check...so mathematically, they only lose half the time in a battle round, and then they only have a 1 pip malus on the check when they lose, so that's like 50% of 16%. does that really accurately reflect the differential in their abilities? (i'm thinking of a scutari in the open against a warband...the warband does have an advantage...but it is pretty minor considering the cost differential and MF terrain advantages.) RBS...i just wonder if MF ought to suffer a tiny malus in the combat itself...say something like a 20% armour differential to account for the numbers issue (i.e. i swing 50 swords and you only swing 40 should i do slightly better as long as i'm not tripping over myself?)

That said...having bargain basement priced troops on your list to support your tougher troops is what makes some lists so desirable. there will never be a magic bullet that makes all lists equivalent in all conditions against all other lists of all other ages in the hands of all players...best solution is to have some house rules or restrictions on some tournaments. the KO tournament is starting to show us which armies are clearly favored by the top players that know how to use them...in FOG 1 we did have a "super army" list that was sometimes used to limit army choices.

[Morbio]

folks...i've been watching the debate here...a couple points...
1) First off, making historical commentary on how roman armies (and others) are too weak and so forth...forget not that the romans very rarely engaged in POT LUCK battles. typically they, and other historically superior armies (Led by superior generals) would pick the time, location, and nature of the battle... and converting such battles to the current pt system would likely see the romans vastly outspending their opponents.
2) numbers do kill IN THE HANDS OF A VERY SKILLED OPPONENT. AND....a skilled player will recognize the numerical advantage and use the terrain and his set up to form a coherent strategy. Nosy rat is right on...usually the differences can be mitigated via good generalship. so my view is it has nothing to do with the MF vs HF....it has to do with NUMBERS. if you have the romans...Take the raw legions if you are worried about numbers!
3) MF happen to often be very numerous spam lists, but it isn't the MF aspect that makes them so worrisome (though when you clearly outnumber your opponent it is also nice to rule the rough terrain as well). I would choose to outnumber my opponent every time vs. have a MF advantage over her.


so in summary, as a GAME...outnumbering your opponent (and having very good idea on how to use the numerical advantage (+++++++++) ) is the biggest issue, and spam lists that have large quantities of cheap troops often consist of MF. I would suggest thinking about that.

kibitzing: The current game mechanics make MF slightly fragile in open against HF...only if they lose the round and need a cohesion check...so mathematically, they only lose half the time in a battle round, and then they only have a 1 pip malus on the check when they lose, so that's like 50% of 16%. does that really accurately reflect the differential in their abilities? (i'm thinking of a scutari in the open against a warband...the warband does have an advantage...but it is pretty minor considering the cost differential and MF terrain advantages.) RBS...i just wonder if MF ought to suffer a tiny malus in the combat itself...say something like a 20% armour differential to account for the numbers issue (i.e. i swing 50 swords and you only swing 40 should i do slightly better as long as i'm not tripping over myself?)

That said...having bargain basement priced troops on your list to support your tougher troops is what makes some lists so desirable. there will never be a magic bullet that makes all lists equivalent in all conditions against all other lists of all other ages in the hands of all players...best solution is to have some house rules or restrictions on some tournaments. the KO tournament is starting to show us which armies are clearly favored by the top players that know how to use them...in FOG 1 we did have a "super army" list that was sometimes used to limit army choices.

I also wonder if the comparisons with history are fair. I suspect the Romans went into many battles with as many troops, or possibly more, and those troops were disciplined and well equipped, so they won a lot of battles. As Mike C said, they also had almost limitless troops in comparison to the small kingdoms and tribes they fought, so if they lost one engagement they would win the next.... and then the reputation was built and that was probably a help too.

Similarly the great generals of the great nations also picked their battles, which involved avoiding really bad terrain... of course, there are some bad generals who didn't, but I suspect they didn't fight too many battles.

FOG tries to make 'an even battle', which probably was rare in history. It also allows widely varied terrain, some of which is a problem for some army types, So I think it is unfair to expect the the game results to reflect history.

[Schweetness101]

I don't think he means introducing a new light rough ground, and keeping the old normal rough ground, but across the board changing the generic rough ground terrain to be slightly rather than moderately disordering, and keeping everything else (forests, marshes, difficult slopes, different kinds of streams, etc...) the same.

I take it this would mean you only get severe or even moderate disruption in those latter, rarer cases, and the much more common (really ubiquitous) rough ground is sort of downgraded in it's effects.

Yes, that's right. That's what I mean.

and just across the board heavy foot? any exceptions for raw or undrilled or warband anything like that? And keep heavy cavalry non cataphracts at moderate disorder in rough terrain?

EDIT:
here it is:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/83ght6pw3lqq ... -pRja?dl=0
just across the board heavy foot are now slightly disordered in rough terrain. There should be no other changes

[SnuggleBunnies]

I still think that if any adjustment was to be tried, trying to have MF pay, either full or 50% cost for maneuverability, or a base addition of, say, 3 points to all unit costs could be worth trying - at the risk of messing up some other aspect of balance, of course.

But as Nosy_Rat, klayeckles, Mike_C, and nyczar have so eloquently said, there is a lot that goes into this and the problem (if such it is) has been greatly overstated in this thread. I think it is significant that many Div A players have clustered their opinions on the side of either slight or no changes being needed.

I also agree that no balance system will be perfect, and there are quite a few historically successful armies that don't get mentioned here that do or don't do well under the current game system. FoG II has never been a game where you can take any army against any army and expect to do well so long as the points are equal. Furthermore, I think many historical examples don't actually support the case for the more drastic changes advocated here - societies mobilized for war, and wars were won by strategy or logistics, or blind luck (which IMO never gets enough credit in military histories), or sheer numbers, as often if not more than brilliance or innovation on the battlefield. Saying the Macedonians should be better because Alexander did so well... I mean, Alexander's army may well have been a 'higher points' force than those opposing him! Or Alexander was a Division A player against a DIvision C player!

[Schweetness101]

I agree with many of the responses here that there is a lot of context to historical battles, like logistics and strategy, superior numbers and leadership, greater economic strength, choosing your terrain, luck, treachery etc...that makes a direct comparison from historical victors to FOG2DL victors a bit specious.

I agree with nyczar that we've used the data in a somewhat improper way. Perhaps there is a straightforward way to segment out division A and B w-d-l numbers by army list to check the choices and outcomes of armies used by more experienced players?

There is also the issue of considerable skill disparities even within a division, and one excellent player choosing the same army 3-4 season in a row and doing well might really throw the numbers off. Also, one 'ringer' player like fikabo or pompey who are basically division A talented but hadn't competed in FOG2DL before may be throwing off statistics by giving their chosen armies perfect records in lower divisions.

I've posted the above slight disorder mod link, perhaps I should post a few more that test

1) making medium foot pay for maneuverability
2) increasing base cost of all units

in isolation?

If I do, then the increase for 1 should be 6? 3?

and the increase for 2 should be 8? 10?

[pompeytheflatulent]

I've played games with more robust command and control systems, where the sub-generals are all rated differently according to their abilities. For example a better general might have more commands to use in a turn to micromanage individual units, while crappier generals would have to make more use of commands like 'group move' and 'group attack'. There was one game I can't remember the name of where sections of Alexander's army would get to move twice in a row against the Persians on a really good initiative roll. But in FoG II there is none of that, only a extremely rudimentary command and control system that provide free 45 degree turns that occasionally allow the battle-winning flank charge to be made one turn earlier. Every unit, be they raw, irregular foot, or whatever, moves like part of the hive mind in perfect unison as if they all have radios and GPS that always works in all terrain and weather conditions. Should that be factored into unit pricing? What about the fact that 480 limitanei will consume about the same amount of supplies as 480 legio palatina? Should that be factored into unit pricing? Or is it simply easier to hand wave it away and say: "that's outside the scope of this game" ?

On a separate note, I'm not convinced that the culprit lies in medium foot being what they are. Most of my experience don't even involve medium foot to that great of an extent. They mostly come down to something like 'quantity beats quality more times than not, as long as the commander knows how to use that quantity and the map is somewhat cooperative'. Zone of control rules and automatic cohesion drops don't care about whether the unit involved is pricey or cheap.

[melm]

Another point flashes in my mind is that

It is too easy to control/command a large army in FOGII, as player is acting like God hovering over the battlefield. But it's not so easy in real life history.

We don't have order delay in FOGII. In your turn, you order each unit move, they move, even the farthest unit from C-in-C will listen. Of course in this way, number becomes big advantage. However, in history, number may even cause confusion. In the game, no such thing. Every unit is displined, knowing where to go, never collides with their comrades. The only undisplinary comes from pursuing. You think the Roman legionary is displined? Well, Brythonic Foot has almost the same level of displinary. They never fail to take your order. They never take your order and go to the wrong direction. They never repell the enemy and then start to loot.

Perhaps we should accept the meta that large army is strong army because of God-like players and because this is a game, not a simulator.

[Nijis]

It is too easy to control/command a large army in FOGII, as player is acting like God hovering over the battlefield. But it's not so easy in real life history.

We don't have order delay in FOGII. In your turn, you order each unit move, they move, even the farthest unit from C-in-C will listen. Of course in this way, number becomes big advantage. However, in history, number may even cause confusion. In the game, no such thing. Every unit is displined, knowing where to go, never collides with their comrades. The only undisplinary comes from pursuing. You think the Roman legionary is displined? Well, Brythonic Foot has almost the same level of displinary. They never fail to take your order. They never take your order and go to the wrong direction. They never repell the enemy and then start to loot.

This is a very good point. It's also I think a reasonable justification for withdrawing the automatic maneuverability currently enjoyed by medium foot. Even undrilled hoplites and shield walls probably have more experience of responding to commands than the average medium foot in the game.

[stockwellpete]

The primary problem I have with this debate is that the win loss data that is used as a premise is flawed. There is no segmentation by divisions (skill). My hypothesis, which I will not researched but hope one of you will, is that the "dominance" of lists made of of less trained and less well armored troops (cheaper) fades as the skill level of the enemy general increases. For me, I felt this issue was largely answered when Dklanda won with a heavy list in one of the A Divisions, I dont recall which. In the context of digital league anachronistic match ups, skill in choosing your list for division play, skill in list selection, skill in deployment, and skill in the tactical use of ZOC are the decisive factors.

The army statistics for the FOG2DL are just intended as a rough guide for players, particularly newer players, to help them choose their army if they are struggling a bit to come up with the required 4 selections. The list gives a general idea of which armies have done well and which might be difficult to use. The more battles an army has fought the more reliable are those statistics, because it is much more likely that the army has been used by players with different abilities. This is the most that I have ever claimed for the list and I don't think there is any real need for the data to be segmented by the skill levels of the players.

Edit: having said that, the list has been quite good at identifying armies that might need further consideration e.g. the Indians and Indo-Greeks after Season 1 and the Romano-British and Kingdom of Soissons after Season 7. There have been a few other nerfs as well.

In terms of anachronistic match-ups, these do occur very often, of course, but the league is divided into four distinct time periods at the moment so you don't get bizarre match-ups like Romans v Vikings, or whatever.

[stockwellpete]

and just across the board heavy foot? any exceptions for raw or undrilled or warband anything like that? And keep heavy cavalry non cataphracts at moderate disorder in rough terrain?

Don't know that either. I haven't thought it all through yet.

EDIT:
here it is:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/83ght6pw3lqq ... -pRja?dl=0
just across the board heavy foot are now slightly disordered in rough terrain. There should be no other changes

OK, thanks. What is this? Single player? I have got it to my DropBox, now where do I put it please?

[stockwellpete]

In other words, maybe history is won by societies first and arms second.

Yes, I think this is the correct way to understand things with the caveat that a powerful society can only come into being if its military forces are generally successful. That wouldn't be the only factor (geographical location, economy, trade links etc) but it would certainly be one of the factors. If you look at the results achieved by the Roman armies in the FOG2DL so far (W-D-L) . . .

Roman (490-341BC) 17-6-15
Roman (340-281BC) 5-0-10
Roman (280-220BC) 2-0-1
Roman (219-200BC) 30-1-34
Roman (199-106BC) 86-16-60
Roman (105-25BC) 70-6-86
Roman (24 BC-196 AD) 27-5-22
Roman (197-284AD) 26-3-56
Roman (313-378AD) 30-9-36
Roman (379-424AD) 7-3-8
Roman (425-492AD) 29-1-18

. . . then you can detect a certain unevenness in the outcomes. For some of the armies the samples are too small to draw any conclusions at all, other than to say that players have not found these particular armies very appealing. But if you look at the middle block of the armies listed, where each army has been used at least 50 times (making it more likely that players of different skill levels have used them) then I would say that the 219-200BC,105-25BC and 197-284AD armies are underperforming a bit and are worth looking at in a bit more detail. That doesn't necessarily mean a change is warranted (it may be that they have had a preponderance of weaker players choosing them).

On the other hand the results for the 199-106BC and 24BC-196AD are about what I would expect for a Roman army of that time. Solid, but not unbeatable. The army that stands out like a sore thumb to me though (admittedly on a smaller sample) is the last one 425-492AD, which probably has the best % stats of the lot. Presumably this has something to do with a "Chalons effect", given that the Roman empire in the west was collapsing at the time? Again, I think they are worth a closer look to see what has happened.

As I have said, the point of the army statistics is to help players make their army choices, so someone relatively new to the game and the league who fancied trying out a Roman army can see that maybe the best place to start is probably with the 199-106BC or 425-492AD armies.

[Schweetness101]

and just across the board heavy foot? any exceptions for raw or undrilled or warband anything like that? And keep heavy cavalry non cataphracts at moderate disorder in rough terrain?

Don't know that either. I haven't thought it all through yet.

EDIT:
here it is:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/83ght6pw3lqq ... -pRja?dl=0
just across the board heavy foot are now slightly disordered in rough terrain. There should be no other changes

OK, thanks. What is this? Single player? I have got it to my DropBox, now where do I put it please?

extract the folder to:

C:\Users\YourName\Documents\My Games\FieldOfGlory2\CAMPAIGNS

to be able to launch the mod in custom battles

and if you copy the folder over to:

C:\Users\Name\Documents\My Games\FieldOfGlory2\MULTIPLAYER

you should be able to use it in multiplayer games

[stockwellpete]

Do people think that the command radius for the various generals are too big? Does this encourage spamming cheap units to a certain extent? Currently, command radii for troop, field and great commanders are 4, 8 and 12 squares respectively. This means a troop commander controls an area of 69 squares, while a field commander controls a whopping 249 squares. When I was playing this game regularly I didn't really think much about my commanders and their command radius until one of them got killed. Perhaps the current radii make things too easy? What if you reduced them by 25% to 3, 6 and 9? That should be ample still, shouldn't it? A field commander would still be controlling an area of 169 squares (13x13 minus the corners being chopped off, so probably minus 24 squares, I guess, which makes 145 squares). If you reduce the command radii it would also make it a tougher decision about using your general in melee - it is usually a no-brainer at the moment.

Schweetness, another mod please!