Alternative Gameplay Mod v1.3

[Schweetness101]

concerning the double drops, I feel I should clear up one point of confusion. A double drop is when you drop two cohesion levels from a single cause. That does not include auto dropping from a rear flank attack immediately followed by another drop from losing the impact roll itself. Those are actually not 'double drops' as far as the code is concerned, and not something the mod gets rid of above 75% strength. Affected double drops are cases where you lose a single melee or impact combat roll so badly (score after applying modifiers below 3) that you drop twice from that alone.

thought I should mention that in case some people were reading this thinking that you can no longer get two drops from a rear attack on an occupied unit from auto drop + winning impact.

hope that makes sense

[stockwellpete]

Play Test 2 Etruscans 330-280 BC (me) v Romans 340-281 BC (AI) - Legate level, army sizes large, map large
I actually played this the other way round first, but it ended up with my Romans massacring the Etruscans 49-2 (no anarchy in my army, 3 instances in the Etruscan) so I reversed sides for the play test. Fairly flat and open map suiting HF and cavalry, with a few gentle hills at the Roman end. AI is very poor generally dealing with terrain so I was able to occupy some of the hillier ground to get modest POA advantages. It was close fought throughout, but the decisive factor was my cavalry winning on a flank and then coming in behind the Roman army to strike the centre with 2 devastating rear charges. The Etruscans eventually won 53-36.

Some anarchy in the game . . .

Etruscans (me) 2 times
- tried to hold raw hoplite in place until supporting units came up next turn, charged enemy hastate/principes unit
- tried to bypass enemy unit 3 squares away with my cavalry unit but it charged it instead

Romans (AI) 6 times
- 4 charges
- 2 refused orders

[TheGrayMouser]

So I have played some more and was going to log my findings but after reading the posts since my last check in, I'm not sure why I should.

With all due respect, your ( Stockwelle and scwhweetness) posts in here not only suggest, but outright state that the 'add ons' are your own two's particular wants and interests for changing the game. This is fine, its your mod after all.
But Im in agreement with Swuul here, you need to be more honest with what you want from the community. To test you personal mod changes? That it works? Convince us that we like it?

Despite the feedback on the addons, and earlier posts indicating that the anarchy mod was simply spliced to the aggregate mod and the addons could be could be removed or adjusted as needed based on discussions, you both have doubled down on them. Clearly they are going to stay, and again no problem, its your mod!

IMHO if you are looking for a broad base of interest for MP and single players, you will have it with the anarchy portion and then rational and modest additions to command and control. The other stuff is unbalancing, and there are inconsistancies with the very premises the base game are built on. And no, the mod isnt complex or too grognardy. The anarchy portion is only complex due to the arbitrary designation of what units anarchy more or less... The other changes make the game simpler or are just "different" an example being that commanders only influencing their own group is actually way more intuitive than vanilla!

Cheers and good luck guys.

[Schweetness101]

So I have played some more and was going to log my findings but after reading the posts since my last check in, I'm not sure why I should.

With all due respect, your ( Stockwelle and scwhweetness) posts in here not only suggest, but outright state that the 'add ons' are your own two's particular wants and interests for changing the game. This is fine, its your mod after all.

I mean, any game and any mod for it can only be made from someone's wants and interests...the idea is to share those interests to see if anyone would like to try out an alternative version of the gameplay. Like you said that's fine, but why bring up this point? Please provide your feedback if you've already logged it down somewhere, we value your opinion and are actively making changes based on feedback.

But Im in agreement with Swuul here, you need to be more honest with what you want from the community. To test you personal mod changes? That it works? Convince us that we like it? To test you personal mod changes? That it works? Convince us that we like it?

any of the above and more. To test for bugs or that it works, to see if you like it (I can't convince you of that with writing, the idea is to try it out), to show you what we are trying to do etc...the changes aren't just small corrections but an attempt at an alternative type of gameplay. The changes are not all arbitrary, but instead building towards a holistic alternative gameplay, so we want to try and help people understand that. I think Pete would be better than me at explaining what that holistic alternative is exactly.

I do understand what you are saying, but I don't think you have characterized our responses accurately. I have repeatedly stated that I am open to changing just about anything in the mod, and in particular that the changes to exact flank vs rear charge values, double drops, anarchy and charge refusal modifiers, and victory conditions and more are all up in the air. They are scattershot attempts at correcting certain aspects of the game and moving it in a new direction as discussed. Some will end up helping, and others won't. We're throwing some of these things at the wall to see what sticks and what is bad. Your help in testing can help show what is a good idea and what is not. You'll note in my response to snugglebunnies that I only even wrote in response to 5 of his 10 points because half of them I agreed with enough it required no response, and 2 of the 5 I responded to I also agreed with. Again, Your characterization here of us not taking criticism or feedback into account is just not true. We are taking it into account in great detail, saying why or what we do or do not agree with changing. I'm already half way through a v1.2 that takes into account a huge amount of feedback and makes big changes, including the combat log changes you requested that I have now already made, which I made a top priority because of what a good idea I thought it was.

The only person whose feedback you might say was sort of rejected outright was Swuul's because it was, frankly, but with all due respect, very evidently coming from someone who had not tried out the mod, was confused about what it even does, and came to a conclusion that was not just incorrect, but the opposite of what the mod does. Could be a translation issue, not sure. If you are reading this Swuul, I encourage you to actually try out the mod and find that it is far from empowering cheap armies. If anything, so far it is making high quality, low quantity armies OP. Please, actually try it, and don't just proclaim that that cannot be true in theory.

Despite the feedback on the addons, and earlier posts indicating that the anarchy mod was simply spliced to the aggregate mod and the addons could be could be removed or adjusted as needed based on discussions, you both have doubled down on them. Clearly they are going to stay, and again no problem, its your mod!

I can't quite understand what you are writing here, but we did not 'double down' on all changes, some things we said we want to change again or change back, others we argued for because we put them in for good reasons, and wanted to discuss those reasons so that people weren't confused. They are not "clearly going to stay". Making an argument in favor of a change does not mean it must stay, it is just us trying to explain the changes. Many of them are quite fundamental and it is important to explain why they are being made.

IMHO if you are looking for a broad base of interest for MP and single players, you will have it with the anarchy portion and then rational and modest additions to command and control.

this could very well be true, but the idea is to balance anarchy changes by integrating them with a number of changes across the board, and to make some fundamental gameplay alterations to things which we thought needed correcting and in line with an alternative gameplay vision here. The anarchy mod on its own with a few CC changes would be unbalanced too. That is why we need testing and community help to balance things in these early versions.

The other stuff is unbalancing, and there are inconsistancies with the very premises the base game are built on.

please explain what you are referring to here so we can fix it. What are the premises that base game is built on that you are referring to?

The anarchy portion is only complex due to the arbitrary designation of what units anarchy more or less... The other changes make the game simpler or are just "different" an example being that commanders only influencing their own group is actually way more intuitive than vanilla!

so you like some changes, but not others, can you be more specific please? And, do you not think anarchy should be unit type dependent? How would you do it? I am not being sarcastic, I genuinely want to know. For awhile we were actually considering just having units that can anarchy and units that cannot, and no unit specific modifiers otherwise, and we could consider that again.

Cheers and good luck guys.

thanks! and please drop that feedback on us.

[Quivis]

I’ve played two SP games using your mod. Rome vs Greeks (medium size) and Charthage vs Gallic (v. large). To be honest it didn’t play that differently from the vanilla game (apart from flank charges). It’s probably because during these two games, I’ve only witnessed one refusal to charge and no anarchy charges at all.

[Schweetness101]

I’ve played two SP games using your mod. Rome vs Greeks (medium size) and Charthage vs Gallic (v. large). To be honest it didn’t play that differently from the vanilla game (apart from flank charges). It’s probably because during these two games, I’ve only witnessed one refusal to charge and no anarchy charges at all.

thanks for testing it out! What other feedback do you have? what things would you change? would you like to try an MP game?

We are still considering whether to really up the anarchy % to make it a more important part of gameplay. I think we probably will soon. One thing is, that if you never leave a unit in a position to charge (within charge range) but don't charge with it, ie you just do the charges yourself as soon as you can, then you will likely not notice anarchy charges. Which faction did you play as? Legions, hoplites and about half of carthaginian units are not very anarchy prone. Did carthage bring warbands or scutarii? Were the gauls ai controlled?

[stockwellpete]

So I have played some more and was going to log my findings but after reading the posts since my last check in, I'm not sure why I should.

Suit yourself.

With all due respect, your ( Stockwelle and scwhweetness) posts in here not only suggest, but outright state that the 'add ons' are your own two's particular wants and interests for changing the game. This is fine, its your mod after all. But Im in agreement with Swuul here, you need to be more honest with what you want from the community. To test you personal mod changes? That it works? Convince us that we like it?

For goodness sake, you are the second person that has accused me and Schweetness101 of being dishonest. We are just trying to develop a mod with some interesting new features that may appeal to some players, particularly those that have been with this game since its inception. If you are not interested then just ignore us. This mod has happened at a time when there has been a hiatus in the game's development (Empires has come out and is doing extremely well) and there has been a coronavirus pandemic that means a lot of us (myself included) have been living under lockdown with a lot of spare time on our hands. We could have just developed the mod privately between the two of us, but we both know that it wouldn't have been as good without the comments, suggestions and criticisms of the wider playing community. Yes, we have definite parameters that we are working to - command and control, melee re-balancing and a general "tidying up" to make the battles more coherent, but all the feedback is considered and we are grateful for it.

Despite the feedback on the addons, and earlier posts indicating that the anarchy mod was simply spliced to the aggregate mod and the addons could be could be removed or adjusted as needed based on discussions, you both have doubled down on them. Clearly they are going to stay, and again no problem, its your mod!

We are right at the beginning of making this mod. If there is a compelling reason to remove or amend something drastically then we will do so. At a certain point, we will both have to take a good long look at what we have done and see whether anything needs to be jettisoned. But that is not now. We haven't actually doubled down on anything, but we are not going to remove something straight away that we have spent many hours on just because one or two people don't like it. You can expect us to defend our ideas rigorously, but if we find we do not have good answers for something then we will take it out of the mod. This is a project that is going to take many months and we are not going to be bounced into doing things prematurely no matter how many times we are accused of dishonesty, or whatever.

IMHO if you are looking for a broad base of interest for MP and single players, you will have it with the anarchy portion and then rational and modest additions to command and control. The other stuff is unbalancing, and there are inconsistancies with the very premises the base game are built on. And no, the mod isnt complex or too grognardy. The anarchy portion is only complex due to the arbitrary designation of what units anarchy more or less... The other changes make the game simpler or are just "different" an example being that commanders only influencing their own group is actually way more intuitive than vanilla! Cheers and good luck guys.

We now have permission from Richard to release the anarchy rules as a standalone download (as some players have already requested) although it might be better to wait until we have added a number of v2 changes that will give it greater nuance. So we have responded quickly to those requests already. And we will continue with the development of a broader "alternative gameplay mod" that we hope some players will find provides an occasional diverting alternative to the main game.

[stockwellpete]

I’ve played two SP games using your mod. Rome vs Greeks (medium size) and Charthage vs Gallic (v. large). To be honest it didn’t play that differently from the vanilla game (apart from flank charges). It’s probably because during these two games, I’ve only witnessed one refusal to charge and no anarchy charges at all.

We haven't got the anarchy quite right yet. The key thing for v1 anarchy is to get the game mechanisms working correctly and Schweetness has done that. There are different scales we can use and the modifiers can be tweaked for v2 anarchy and that is just a matter of a couple of hours work. Personally, I am beginning to think that the "out of command" modifier needs a bit more amplification and the low anarchy band of troop types are a bit too anarchy prone. Schweetness has a really good idea for treating anarchy as something that can corrode the command and control structure of a contingent during a battle and that should make quite a difference in certain situations. Of course, the low anarchy in your games might be due to the way you play the game. If you are a very direct player who times his approaches to the enemy line very well then anarchy will be much lower than for a player who hesitates and shuffles about in close proximity to the enemy.

[Quivis]

I’ve played two SP games using your mod. Rome vs Greeks (medium size) and Charthage vs Gallic (v. large). To be honest it didn’t play that differently from the vanilla game (apart from flank charges). It’s probably because during these two games, I’ve only witnessed one refusal to charge and no anarchy charges at all.

thanks for testing it out! What other feedback do you have? what things would you change? would you like to try an MP game?

We are still considering whether to really up the anarchy % to make it a more important part of gameplay. I think we probably will soon. One thing is, that if you never leave a unit in a position to charge (within charge range) but don't charge with it, ie you just do the charges yourself as soon as you can, then you will likely not notice anarchy charges. Which faction did you play as? Legions, hoplites and about half of carthaginian units are not very anarchy prone. Did carthage bring warbands or scutarii? Were the gauls ai controlled?

Both games were quick battles, so there was a variety of units picked by the computer (including warbands and scutarii). I played as Rome and Charthage.
Regarding my personal opinion, I would be definitely interested in more anarchy prone gameplay. It’s difficult to tell how anarchy prone game should be, but to start I believe that during the whole battle, at least 1/4 of units should be subject to anarchy charge or charge refusal. Anarchy charge is after all also a situation when my unit decides to charge a different unit than I wanted them to charge (not only situations when units are too impatient to wait for an order). I also think it should be more difficult to control units after you decided to engage, i.e.: if I decide to charge the enemy and the enemy flees, my unit should be more inclined to attack a different enemy unit that is fighting next to them. It would better simulate heat of the battle during which two lines clashes.

[MikeC_81]

I do understand what you are saying, but I don't think you have characterized our responses accurately. I have repeatedly stated that I am open to changing just about anything in the mod, and in particular that the changes to exact flank vs rear charge values, double drops, anarchy and charge refusal modifiers, and victory conditions and more are all up in the air.

If this is true, then you are going about this backwards imo. If you are still willing to add or remove parts of this mod then you are trying to open-source the design of this mod to the general public and that never ends well. As annoying as RBS can be sometimes when he digs his heels in on certain issues, I can 100% understand why because features of the ruleset are built on top of, and interact with one another to fashion the final gameplay that is experienced. Small changes can lead to cascading effects that cause the game to drift far away from the original intent. You, Pete, and whoever is really into this alternate gameplay mod really need to sit down and hammer out exactly what you are dissatisfied about Vanilla in the broad sense, figure out exactly how you want to fix it, and feature lock it before coming back to the community. You have to believe in the changes you have made at your core and then heavily playtest it internally with a few select armies, maybe no more than 3 or 4, and balance within that small group to the point where you are comfortable that your design goals have been achieved.

Once that is done you can release the mod, with the select armies you have balanced for that mod, as a proof of concept clearly indicating what you found unsatisfying about vanilla battles, how battles are supposed to play out differently in your mod in a broad sense, and exactly how each change you have made contributed to that goal. Then you can recruit testers at large who can then tell you whether you have succeeded in your goals or not and whether they find the alternative gameplay preferable, or not. If you have a sufficient player base at this point to continue with the mod then you can go on to discussing balance and point cost alterations as that can now be fitted within the framework of how your game is supposed to play, independent of design concerns to fit in the rest of the armies.

Otherwise, everyone who tries it is going to nitpick at some element of the design since no one is every happy with everything in a game system and no one ever agrees on exactly which feature is right or wrong. I personally am unhappy with many of the things that Vanilla does but they are not the same that Pete might be dissatisfied with (well we know that for a fact), or what you might be unhappy with or what Mouser and Snuggles might be unhappy with. You just end up with a smorgasboard of individuals offering their own take on what should or should not be changed with you left as the hapless referee of who is right or wrong and no one is left happy.

Ask yourself how you want your mod battles to play out. Ask yourself whether these changes succeed in moving the gameplay towards your end goal. Enable those changes, playtest heavily yourselves to find out if there are unforeseen catastrophes that result from the rule changes and then release it to us in that finished proof of concept form. Once you do that, I'll happily sit down and play with those armies and give good feedback on whether you accomplished your goals or not and whether I would prefer your version or not. Personally I am not really motivated to put in games when the mod designers themselves are unsure of what features should and should not be there and are fuzzy about the final end state. And I think that is what some of the feedback is trying to say.

[Schweetness101]

I do understand what you are saying, but I don't think you have characterized our responses accurately. I have repeatedly stated that I am open to changing just about anything in the mod, and in particular that the changes to exact flank vs rear charge values, double drops, anarchy and charge refusal modifiers, and victory conditions and more are all up in the air.

If this is true, then you are going about this backwards imo...

you are probably right about that. We (at least Pete anyway, and I mostly get it) do have a vision for where this is going, so we should probably just as you say keep developing until it is closer to that idea before asking for more testing of the changes as a whole (except bug testing which is useful throughout development, but not very fun for the average user lol).

One thing I think should be added here, or in the OP, is a more lengthy conversation in the abstract about what the mod is trying to accomplish, rather than just the laundry list of existing changes. I think Pete and I have discussed that with each other so much that we lose sight of the fact that others are not in on what we are even doing and why. Pete, could you give us a paragraph or two explaining the very general direction the mod is going in? What the end state is and why? Something like the overall distinction in gameplay feel we are going for in the final product. Because, most things in the mod, even the small changes, do move towards a final goal, and are not just arbitrary independent frankenstein additions, but perhaps not in a way that is obvious enough to new user yet. I notice them because I made the changes and look for them while playing, but I think for a normal user they may go in without reading the changelist and just get a bit confused.

I personally am unhappy with many of the things that Vanilla does...

would you be willing to share?

[stockwellpete]

Fair comment, Mike.

It is just me and Schweetness, no-one else. We have tried to develop our ideas openly on the forum at this stage (i.e. right at the beginning of the process) so that we can benefit from suggestions that other players may have. It just helps us to get our bearings really. I do think we have some fairly definite ideas about the direction we want the mod to go in and some of the features in v1 of the alternative gameplay mod look very much like they are here to stay at the moment - removal of automatic cohesion drops for flank attacks, smaller command radii for generals, sub-generals only giving command to their starting contingents, anarchy rules, quicker dispersal of units and so on. Although all of these have some wriggle-room in terms of how we eventually implement them. In both our opinions they definitely improve the game in the direction that we want it to go. If someone can come up with a killer argument why a certain feature shouldn't be there then obviously we will listen to it. It is worth pointing out that there has been a lot of discussion and development work done on pike and MF re-balancing (I was not involved in any of this) that may eventually find its way into the mod as well.

Maybe we will eventually be able to cohere a small group of players around us to intensively test the mod. But, for the time being, I think we shall probably carry on like this, because the discussion is definitely helping us to focus on things - and the mod is progressing at an extremely rapid rate.

[stockwellpete]

Pete, could you give us a paragraph or two explaining the very general direction the mod is going in? What the end state is and why? Something like the overall distinction in gameplay feel we are going for in the final product.

Hell, I thought you were in charge!

The motive for me in getting involved in this mod was that I became frustrated with a number of features in the game to the point that I stopped playing it. Most importantly, I found that too many of the battles I played ended up with units scattered all over the place and it was impossible for me to describe simply to myself what had exactly happened. And then there were particular game features that I felt were fairly ludicrous from a historical point of view e.g. flank attacks in the centre of melees, cavalry units pursuing defeated enemies out of larger melees that were still in the balance, and battles being decided by units rallying on map edges far away from where the critical action was taking place. Contrary to what some players have suggested, my main interest is developing these ideas is for the medieval scenarios that I intend to write in the next couple of years (I wrote 125+ for FOG1) and not for the FOG2DL, which will remain a vanilla tournament.

So the idea of the mod is to address these issues, make melees more cohesive and hopefully a bit more historically realistic. If you imagine that the game sits on a continuum with "Game" at one end and "Simulation" at the other then the idea is to push it a little bit more out of the middle towards the "Simulation" end. I believe this can be done without damaging gameplay and enjoyment. We have identified "command and control" as a particularly underdeveloped part of FOG2 (even compared to what was in FOG1) and so things like adjusted command radii, sub-generals commanding just their own starting contingents and the anarchy rules are all intended to fill that gap. A second area is what we are calling "melee re-balancing" which includes such things as removal of automatic cohesion drops for flank attacks, faster cavalry combat resolution, pursuers not ignoring ZOC's, quicker dispersal of routed units and so on. These measures should make infantry battles more attritional - and they are particularly designed to keep cavalry melees together more, thereby speeding up overall cavalry combat resolution and allowing for more decisive outcomes on the wings that will be more likely to result in genuine flank attacks on the centre of an army.

[Nosy_Rat]

Disclaimer: I haven't really played the mod yet, but I watched some of SnuggleBunnies' videos if that counts

So there's some feedback:

Refusals to Charge: *these are generally set at 25% chance to refuse each unless otherwise specified
There is also now a chance for certain units to refuse orders to charge **A unit that refuses to charge suffers anarchy and not only does it not charge, it refuses to move for the remainder of the player turn.
1) Light Foot charging any enemy other than other Light Foot (unless that enemy is severely disordered, or at all disordered light horse).
2) Light Horse charging any enemy other than other Light Horse and Light Foot.
3) Disrupted troops charging anyone (+25). Especially non disrupted enemies (extra +10 chance to refuse)
4) Troops ordered to charge at very significant combat disadvantage
5) mounted ordered to charge non fragmented spears or pikes, or foot in protective terrain

The above refusal to charge is altered or superseded by:
1) the charge would be a flank attack (decrease chance to refuse), and if it would be an auto drop flank there is zero percent chance to refuse

Why not just limit it to point 4, everything else is basically various instances of the same case? Also, too many rules create some weird situations where, for example, Klibanophoroi (84 points, "mounted") could refuse to charge Raw defensive spearmen (24 points, "non fragmented spears or pikes").

Additional Changes in this Mod:

1) changed victory conditions to be 50% everywhere
2) assigns lights to a general on deployment
3) remove chance to double drop if at at least 75% strength (does not affect auto drop + drop from losing impact, but double drops from losing a single impact or melee very badly)
4) turned initial pursuit chance to 0 for cavalry that have non ZoCable enemies adjacent to them and within 90 degrees of their front facing, whether those enemies are in combat or not

2) Not a big deal, but makes it harder to use group move as a) you often don't want to move skirmishers in the same direction as you line troops, and b) it would disable group move for the whole command as soon as skirmishers get in range of enemy.
3) I'd rather tie double-drops to the relative POA of engaged units or combat chances if that is possible, so that it wouldn't happen in the fight between two equal units (no more warbands fragmenting while charging each other), but would still happent if one side has big advantage (legion charging massed archers). With 75% rule it means that even the most garbage mob unit is basically guaranteed to hold any unit in place for 3 turns thus allowing you to flank it as it would still be engaged on your next turn.

Change List from Aggregate Mod:

1) Non-light Infantry units charged by non light cavalry this turn a) lose their secondary (NOT Primary) ZoCs this turn only and b) lose 6 AP for the next turn (their turn to move) preventing ZoC trap of cavalry.
2) Adds extra -1 to ct for non light cav vs non light cav on impact and in melee
3) Adds 33% more casualties in non light cav vs non light cav on impact and in melee
4) set the number of turns being pursued while routing before you disperse to 2, from 4 (plus the initial routing turn, so really to 3 from 5)
5) altered continue pursuit chances for cavalry (not to initial pursuit, but for follow up pursuit turns after first turn of pursuit):
-stop chances for cavalry now base 60 (up from base 50) *where stop chance is percent chance to stop this turn
-raised to 70 against other mounted if both same type of mounted
-if pursuer is light and fleer is non light then stop chance is only 50 (vanilla)
-if pursuer is non-light and fleer is light then stop chance is all the way up at 90
6) flank angle mod changes:
-90 degree flank attacks are +50 vs unoccupied and +100 with no autodrop vs occupied, the rear attacks are same as vanilla (+50 and +200 and autodrop respectively)
7) Reduced victory condition auto win down to 50% from 60% ***updated original link so this works ***actually still doesn't work lol, but in upcoming 1.3 it should
8 ) reduced all general command radii to 4
9) removed positive effects of general unless it is the CinC or an SG and you are on the SG's team, ie SG are now like allied generals for the units under their command
10) increased threshold for remaining men in pursued, broken fleeing unit for auto disperse from 1/20 of starting strength to 1/10 of starting strength
11) set odds of testing to rally to 0 if not in range of general's command, keeping in mind you are now only in range of general's command if it is your SG or the CinC, and that general is not in combat, and their radii now are all only 4 (this is a pretty massive nerf to rallying and will probably need to be adjusted back a bit, perhaps with changes to radii, perhaps by simply increasing or decreasing odds to rally if in or outside of command radius, rather than simply making in impossible outside of the command radius, etc...)
12) changed CheckPursuersSwitchTarget() to call the new Pursuit_ChanceOfCharging() rather than the old AI_ChanceOfCharging, which basically just increases the chance that a pursuing unit will derail its pursuit to charge a non routed enemy. helps to make cav pursuers in particular less slippery.

1) What's the logic behind point A? AP reduction from charge feels realy artificial, but if you like it, while limit it to only cavalry charges? Probalby a repelled warband charge wouldn't cause any less confusion.
2) and 3) I don't really see why it's needed, but again, why limit it to only non-light cav?
4) and 5) Actually pretty good buff to cavalry, but aren't long pursuits kinda historic (maybe those happen often enough in the mod, though)? Also "raised to 70 against other mounted if both same type of mounted" just doesn't make sense, sorry. While would light spear cavalry be less eager to pursuit some cataphracts?
6) While I kinda get the idea of removing mid-line flank attack as far as I've seen in Snuggle's videos it creates even more weird moves, like single units advancing without support or whole chunks of battle line turning their flanks to enemy. It really needs an overhaul, imo.
11) Actually quite like it, edge-of-the-map rallies are just too random.

[Schweetness101]

Disclaimer: I haven't really played the mod yet, but I watched some of SnuggleBunnies' videos if that counts

So there's some feedback:

...

thanks for the feedback!

I think you may be right about refusals to charge, and that combat disadvantage is really the only thing that needs to be taken into account. Rules 1 and 2 are from FOG1, and I kind of like them and understand the idea, like that light troops aren't really confident about charging non lights in general, but that could be sort of covered by combat disadvantage as well. Would you keep the exception for flank attacks? IE the lowest quality non-light cav should never refuse to charge say engaged praetorian guard in the rear if it would get them an auto drop?

yes, assigning lights to general on deployment does have the somewhat annoying consequence that you potentially lose a turn or two of group move. Without assigning them to a general though they may end up never being able to rally or get the extra CC, unless they are near the CinC specifically, because of new command rules, which I think would be the greater of two evils.

I like the double drop idea tied to relative POA/combat advantage and not unit strength. Perhaps if combat advantage is within +-25 then don't double drop (+25/-25 combat advantage is the threshold for what the game considers significant advantage/disadvantage), something like that.

the logic behind the 1) A and B cav charging ZoC and AP loss stuff is to prevent non light infantry from ZoC trapping cavalry, so that's why it's only for cavalry charges. Basically, it lets non light cav charge a non light infantry that is ZoC trapping it, fall back 2 squares, and then afterwards the inf cannot advance far enough to zoc trap the cav anymore, and then cav can get away to the side (not get around typically, but at least away). The secondary ZoC loss stuff similarly helps to prevent a single non light infantry from zoc blocking multiple cav. If one cav charges it then the other can get around through the infantry's secondary ZoC, even if that first cav falls back. I should actually make a little video showing what this does exactly so that it's not so confusing to read. Probably, a repelled warband wouldn't cause less confusion, but this rule is sort of a more gamey rule to help prevent the ZoC trapping of non light cav by non light infantry, just because currently in game getting flank attacks all the way around the enemy line is so difficult because 2-3 cheap spears can ZoC block off the entire flank. It is a weird and experimental type of thing, but we've found we like the effect so far. It has some unintended consequences like using non light cav charges to just slow non light infantry movement in general, but that's not necessarily a terrible effect, and if you wanted to use it that way it would require that you sacrifice non-light cav charging unoccupied non light infantry to get it, which will mean losing a lot of non light cav, so it doesn't seem to be a situation that would be abused to advantage. Needs testing though (it probably is not getting much testing currently because people don't know what it is).

2 and 3 are about speeding up non light cav engagements so that the cav vs cav fight on the flanks resolves fast enough for them to get around before the main infantry combat is already over, which currently doesn't typically happen. For other unit types, if anything we might slow down non light vs non light infantry combat for example, to try and address the issue from both ends as it were. I found that to be a good effect with the pikes in the pike mod. Ultimately, the idea being that cavalry flanks are large, multi unit maneuvers resulting from winning on one flank and turning towards the middle, instead of one offs from single units slipping behind the enemy mid line from a pursuit or single angled flank opened mid line.

4 and 5, long pursuits definitely are historic, and pursuits are still happening in the mod, we just felt for gameplay and tactics purposes that they typically go on too long in Vanilla. It's more of a rebalance to them. Sometimes historically cavalry would just pursue all the way away like you said, but typically historically they seem to come back at least in time to get a flank in on the main line if they can, that being the purpose of sending them around in the first place, whereas in Vanilla they almost always pursue for so long that the battle is over before they come back. This one is also in keeping with the idea of keeping the battles a bit tidier and less spread out, and enabling large coordinated multi unit flanks (as opposed to now where victorious cav as a rule, and not as the exception, run off for so long that they are not useful after their first victory).

I think you may have mixed up the pursuit continuing chances, because the way it is written (both here and in the code) is kind of a confusing double negative. Those are chances to stop pursuing each turn (and this is while pursuing routers, not evaders). That is, a cav unit has a base 60 chance to stop pursuing a router on any given turn, but a somewhat lower chance to stop than that (50) if the opponent is slower than them (they are light and the opponent is not), because they can catch them and inflict damage, and a much higher chance to stop pursuing if their opponent is faster than them (ie cataphracts aren't going to chase light cav turn after turn when they can see quite clearly that they won't catch them).

For 6 it definitely needs more testing, but I haven't found on the whole it changes things too wildly or encourages single units advancing, especially not more than one tile where your rear would also be exposed. You do still get a -100 POA on being flanked while engaged. Which part of the video were you referring to?

thanks again! would you like to try an mp game?

[Schweetness101]

to help with any confusion here are some quick videos that show what the secondary zoc/ap loss does to non-light infantry units charged by non-light cav in the mod:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmyom5X ... e=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjqfAOB ... e=youtu.be

[Nosy_Rat]

Would you keep the exception for flank attacks? IE the lowest quality non-light cav should never refuse to charge say engaged praetorian guard in the rear if it would get them an auto drop?

Probably yes, as light cav doesn't really risk much in this scenario as they would just fallback after attack anyway.

the logic behind the 1) A and B cav charging ZoC and AP loss stuff is to prevent non light infantry from ZoC trapping cavalry, so that's why it's only for cavalry charges. Basically, it lets non light cav charge a non light infantry that is ZoC trapping it, fall back 2 squares, and then afterwards the inf cannot advance far enough to zoc trap the cav anymore, and then cav can get away to the side (not get around typically, but at least away). The secondary ZoC loss stuff similarly helps to prevent a single non light infantry from zoc blocking multiple cav. If one cav charges it then the other can get around through the infantry's secondary ZoC, even if that first cav falls back. I should actually make a little video showing what this does exactly so that it's not so confusing to read. Probably, a repelled warband wouldn't cause less confusion, but this rule is sort of a more gamey rule to help prevent the ZoC trapping of non light cav by non light infantry, just because currently in game getting flank attacks all the way around the enemy line is so difficult because 2-3 cheap spears can ZoC block off the entire flank. It is a weird and experimental type of thing, but we've found we like the effect so far. It has some unintended consequences like using non light cav charges to just slow non light infantry movement in general, but that's not necessarily a terrible effect, and if you wanted to use it that way it would require that you sacrifice non-light cav charging unoccupied non light infantry to get it, which will mean losing a lot of non light cav, so it doesn't seem to be a situation that would be abused to advantage. Needs testing though (it probably is not getting much testing currently because people don't know what it is).

It really feels gamey. And you probably need at least to mention it in ingame charge tooltip, akin to "Flank charge, cohesion would drop".

2 and 3 are about speeding up non light cav engagements so that the cav vs cav fight on the flanks resolves fast enough for them to get around before the main infantry combat is already over, which currently doesn't typically happen. For other unit types, if anything we might slow down non light vs non light infantry combat for example, to try and address the issue from both ends as it were. I found that to be a good effect with the pikes in the pike mod. Ultimately, the idea being that cavalry flanks are large, multi unit maneuvers resulting from winning on one flank and turning towards the middle, instead of one offs from single units slipping behind the enemy mid line from a pursuit or single angled flank opened mid line.

Oh yeah, I got it, I just don't think it's necessary. "Large, multi unit maneuvers resulting from winning on one flank" are definitely happenening quite often in my experience.

whereas in Vanilla they almost always pursue for so long that the battle is over before they come back. This one is also in keeping with the idea of keeping the battles a bit tidier and less spread out, and enabling large coordinated multi unit flanks (as opposed to now where victorious cav as a rule, and not as the exception, run off for so long that they are not useful after their first victory).

It's interesting how we have really different experience here, I'd say that usually no more than 1/3 of cavalry gets carried away too much in pursuit.

I think you may have mixed up the pursuit continuing chances, because the way it is written (both here and in the code) is kind of a confusing double negative. Those are chances to stop pursuing each turn (and this is while pursuing routers, not evaders). That is, a cav unit has a base 60 chance to stop pursuing a router on any given turn, but a somewhat lower chance to stop than that (50) if the opponent is slower than them (they are light and the opponent is not), because they can catch them and inflict damage, and a much higher chance to stop pursuing if their opponent is faster than them (ie cataphracts aren't going to chase light cav turn after turn when they can see quite clearly that they won't catch them).

I got confused here, sorry. But it's still probably better to tie pursuit chance to unit speed instead of type if that's possible, as there are still some weird cases with camelry (those are different type to cavalry, I think?) and chariots.

For 6 it definitely needs more testing, but I haven't found on the whole it changes things too wildly or encourages single units advancing, especially not more than one tile where your rear would also be exposed. You do still get a -100 POA on being flanked while engaged. Which part of the video were you referring to?

thanks again! would you like to try an mp game?

Sure.

[Schweetness101]

...

I cannot see your pictures. Maybe use imgur?

for the tooltip, would this be on looking at charging a non light cav into a non light inf? ie the tooltip would say 'if you charge this unit you will impose loss of ap and secondary zoc?' Or something like from the other direction 'your unit has suffered ap/zoc loss from cav charge'?

I mean 'Large, multi unit maneuvers resulting from winning on one flank' of cavalry specifically. It's quite easy to do that already in vanilla with non light inf massed on a flank, but cavalry are typically prevented from doing so with ZoC traps and/or by virtue of the fact that by the time the cavalry vs cavalry combat has resolved, the infantry combat has as well. Although like you said it is interesting how different players have really different experiences.

That is a good idea to tie stop chances to base unit ap and not to type, because type here is just a proxy for base ap that is not always accurate. That way you get all the right comparisons with light and non light cav, cataphracts, chariots, camels etc...I will look into implementing it that way.

I'll host a game for us? You can see what you think of the pursuit changes then lol

[TheGrayMouser]

So I have played some more and was going to log my findings but after reading the posts since my last check in, I'm not sure why I should.

Suit yourself.

With all due respect, your ( Stockwelle and scwhweetness) posts in here not only suggest, but outright state that the 'add ons' are your own two's particular wants and interests for changing the game. This is fine, its your mod after all. But Im in agreement with Swuul here, you need to be more honest with what you want from the community. To test you personal mod changes? That it works? Convince us that we like it?

For goodness sake, you are the second person that has accused me and Schweetness101 of being dishonest. We are just trying to develop a mod with some interesting new features that may appeal to some players, particularly those that have been with this game since its inception. If you are not interested then just ignore us. This mod has happened at a time when there has been a hiatus in the game's development (Empires has come out and is doing extremely well) and there has been a coronavirus pandemic that means a lot of us (myself included) have been living under lockdown with a lot of spare time on our hands. We could have just developed the mod privately between the two of us, but we both know that it wouldn't have been as good without the comments, suggestions and criticisms of the wider playing community. Yes, we have definite parameters that we are working to - command and control, melee re-balancing and a general "tidying up" to make the battles more coherent, but all the feedback is considered and we are grateful for it.

Despite the feedback on the addons, and earlier posts indicating that the anarchy mod was simply spliced to the aggregate mod and the addons could be could be removed or adjusted as needed based on discussions, you both have doubled down on them. Clearly they are going to stay, and again no problem, its your mod!

We are right at the beginning of making this mod. If there is a compelling reason to remove or amend something drastically then we will do so. At a certain point, we will both have to take a good long look at what we have done and see whether anything needs to be jettisoned. But that is not now. We haven't actually doubled down on anything, but we are not going to remove something straight away that we have spent many hours on just because one or two people don't like it. You can expect us to defend our ideas rigorously, but if we find we do not have good answers for something then we will take it out of the mod. This is a project that is going to take many months and we are not going to be bounced into doing things prematurely no matter how many times we are accused of dishonesty, or whatever.

IMHO if you are looking for a broad base of interest for MP and single players, you will have it with the anarchy portion and then rational and modest additions to command and control. The other stuff is unbalancing, and there are inconsistancies with the very premises the base game are built on. And no, the mod isnt complex or too grognardy. The anarchy portion is only complex due to the arbitrary designation of what units anarchy more or less... The other changes make the game simpler or are just "different" an example being that commanders only influencing their own group is actually way more intuitive than vanilla! Cheers and good luck guys.

We now have permission from Richard to release the anarchy rules as a standalone download (as some players have already requested) although it might be better to wait until we have added a number of v2 changes that will give it greater nuance. So we have responded quickly to those requests already. And we will continue with the development of a broader "alternative gameplay mod" that we hope some players will find provides an occasional diverting alternative to the main game.

Hey Pete, schweetness did not seek to be offended by my post, why are you? Truly, why would you want someone testing your mod to keep coming on here and posting the reasons they don’t like a feature or it won’t work , over and over? You just confirmed, yet again, you will rigorously defend your changes, but I think I have noted some “compelling”reasons why some of the addons are not good. My quoted post was basically asking permission from you two to try to pursuade you again with more data, because if not granted I would basically at that point just be trolling. Get it? Geez! Btw my one of my first posts mirrors what Mike_c said, mod it the way YOU want it, and then release it.

[MikeC_81]

would you be willing to share?

Things that irk me or strike me as 'off' in the game. Warning, incoming wall of text.

I am fairly unhappy with how arcadey skirmishers feel right now. They slip and slide all over the battlefield like slippery eel whenever they want, yet can sometimes stubbornly hold up troops for critical turns when locked in close combat with formed units. This combined with their insane movement speed often makes skirmish heavy armies feel like fighting formless octopus while they shoot, flee, turn around and shoot again behaving like a hive mind is in telepathic control of them.

Not sure if you were around for this but some time ago there was a change to the pushback mechanic which made them occur less frequently and now it feels like less predictable too. I felt the change rewarded far too much "point and shoot" with your elite units whereas before there was the chance that they could push back opposing troops and expose themselves to second-line reserve attacks to their flanks. This punished attacks if you didn't have follow on units ready to guard the flanks of a unit pushing through an enemy line in Heavy Infantry shoving matches. I feel there is less reward in terms of building depth in your line after this change as there aare fewer opportunities to reward deploying in depth rather than trying to go wide all the time.

Random rallies to me are not the critical issue you guys make it out to be but it is fairly annoying to have shattered units run for 4 turns to Timbuktu, all of a sudden rally and swing the army score and simply prolong a won/lost game. These units often rally far from the action and quite often are unlikely to ever rally back up to a usable state to be sent back into the fight anyway if you were losing, to begin with. Then there is also a small percentage of games where it is a blood bath between two sides where distant rallies essentially hand the game entirely over to RNG as both sides eye each other with scattered and depleted units knowing that a random rally could mean that they regain a margin of error with respect to escape the 60% army loss break limit. Random rallies also tend to benefit low-cost spam armies more than smaller elite armies.

To some extent, the terrain generator is stupid sometimes. It can generate maps where huge blobs of forest and mountains choke off huge parts of the map and would not be a place where anyone would fight a battle. Maybe it is there to "simulate" ambushes or armies caught in awkward positions but really, its just annoying to me. I am here to play a game, not reenact a slaughter were army A got caught in army B's wheelhouse terrain. No amount of "creative play" will remove the fact that Heavy Foot and Cavalry are basically unusable in rough terrain or Forests. I remember tournament DBA stories where players who aggressively placed terrain on the board to screw their opponents just had them sit on the backline and not move the entire game.



There are also a lot of things I don't agree with about your mod or maybe straight up don't understand the need for. It really does feel like a random smattering of changes that were originally intended as tweaks to Vanilla to address a number of very specific issues that were then dumped into a blender and the served up with "anarchy" changes on its plate.

Like I don't understand what this cavalry combat resolution is supposed to accomplish. It is fine in Vanilla. Why are infantry all of a sudden losing their next turn if they get charged by cav? Why is cav made to chase less when that was like *the defining feature* of their behavior according to what limited information we have throughout this time period? I mean if we know anything at all about combat in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, it was that you can always count on the Cav to bugger off and chase like rabid dogs. The no double drop rule is clear in its intention when double drops were rare.

The most egregious change to me is the flank angle change. The entire premise of this game is built literally on auto-cohesion loss when charged in the flank while engaged. This entire game revolves around this dance where the expensive but better units try to use their PoAs to break opponents before their opponent manages to maneuver their more numerous army for a series of flank charges. How well can you maneuver your elite troops to do the most damage before the other side can stretch you out? How well can you gauge the timing for inferior troops to hold off elites while you make the flanking move? How good are you at RNG risk mitigation should either your elite troops fail to break their opponents on time, or your inferior troops fail to hold your opponent's elites in check?

This mechanic, along with how good you are at the geometry of physically moving troops around the grid to make the best use of ZoCs, is literally the two foundational blocks on how this game is meant to operate and you have just decided to straight-up tear one of them out. In its place, you have put in the anarchy "no charge" and "random charge" system which is, imo, one of the worst design features to come out any game (sorry for being harsh). The act of layering results after a player action behind multiple levels of RNG is inevitably unsatisfying for someone like me who is looking for skill-based results in a game. We already have two levels of RNG after a player initiates combat. The odds to win, followed by the odds to break morale for the loser if there is one. After this, the action is passed back to the player who then can react to that particular event with whatever resources he left at his disposal (reserves etc). There is a constant feedback between player action and an uncertain result.

With anarchy as it is implemented along with coming random charge features, you are loading a ton of RNG behind each player action and indeed potentially gating off entire sequences of play that maybe have been planned out. EX. A player can maneuver a unit into a desirable matchup only to have it not charge. A ZoC that the player had anticipated to be gone is now still intact potentially ruining a litany of subsequent moves. Maybe he was clever enough and the geometry was flexible enough to allow a second unit to come in an try to strip the ZoC but it would be a suboptimal move as that was a flanking unit. What happens if that unit refuses to charge as well? Maybe the entire strategy built up over several turns during movement to contact is now irrevocably shattered and none of these prior moves now make any sense at all given the new circumstances entirely outside his control. A reserve unit that was carefully husbanded meant to plug critical gaps in the line now might now randomly not charge to help a beleaguered friendly unit. A unit on the far end of a refused flank might all of a sudden break ranks to attack and compromise the entire position.

Removing player agency by overloading it with RNG sucks. In every game of every type. It sucked when WHFB decided that units don't just charge a fixed amount anymore but had to roll a die to find out how far it actually could charge AFTER you made the charge declaration. It sucks in Magic the Gathering when they inflated the cost for creature kill spells so high that the creatures could kill you before you had enough mana to actually cast the spell. It sucks in World of Warcraft when my character's haste proc happens when I don't need it but never procs when the boss is doing some insane raid-wide damage mechanic that I am struggling to heal through.

Maybe that is the entire point of your mod? To throw enough RNG at the game to stop it from being the game of footies and ZoCs that it currently is? But then why did you eliminate double drops if you want more RNG? Did introduce the flank angle mod knowing that so many potential random troop movements could leave a lot of units with vulnerable flanks? I just don't know what your mod is trying to achieve and how the changes are supposed to come together make that a reality.