The problem of custom battles

[oriel]

The problem of custom battles is that the opposing forces begin too far away from each other, consequently any element of surprise is lost and allows an opponent to re-adjust his forces accordingly (due to most units being visible). This encourages bizarre tactics - moving all of ones bowmen en masse for instance from one part of the battlefield to another.
This in my opinion did not happen in real life. Visibility would be much more diminished, a General would not know very much about what he was facing - consequently he would use "sensible tactics" in anticipation of the unknown-ie a balanced set-up
cavalry on both wings etc etc.

The advantage of an epic battle is the diminished distance between opponents, consequently allowing less pre-clash manouevrability.

[SimonLancaster]

In custom battles it is not so easy to move troops over from one flank to another. It takes time as the battlefield is quite big. You can hide units in woods and marshes.

Wouldn’t most generals do fairly extensive scouting and know the composition of the enemy army and where most of the enemy troops were?

[oriel]

Hmm..Scouting... I am not an expert on Ancient warfare, but i have read extensively about the Seven Years War-1756-1763
and although scouting was extensive it usualy only gave a General a very rough idea of where the enemy was, not much more.
I have read many pre-battle reports and on numerous occasions they (the scouts) vastly over-estimated particular forces- as much as 5 fold or more-and as to their consistency virtualy nothing. A good example is the Battle of Leuthen in 1757, whereby
the Prussians attacked in oblique order and overwhelmed the Austrian right flank whilst managing to conceal their numbers
and deployment. In fact until the last minute the Austrian general was of the opinion that his right wing was going to be attacked and actualy began to transfer further units to this flank. The withholding Prussian left wing was "only" concealed
behind a gentle slope. This sort of battle would be almost impossible to re-produce in "field of glory" Due to the clear visibility
of both side's forces.
Perhaps it would be better if overall visibility was blended out and only showing the front lines and nothing behind. I think many wargamers vastly overestimate the capabilities of an army and its Generals. A point in particular is the ease an army
can wheel in most wargames rules - even barbarian armies in Phil Barker's Dba. I have adopted Dba to a gridded board.
The "diadvantage" of a gridded board is that it makes it very difficukt to wheel a number of units in cohesion-which in my
opinion reflects real warfare.
It would really interest me how a wargamer would cope in a real battle if he went back in time-i suspect in many cases he
would become a cropper, due to his over-estimation of what he could do.

[oriel]

Correction: the Austrian left flank was overwhelmed not their right flank.

[rbodleyscott]

The problem of custom battles is that the opposing forces begin too far away from each other, consequently any element of surprise is lost and allows an opponent to re-adjust his forces accordingly (due to most units being visible). This encourages bizarre tactics - moving all of ones bowmen en masse for instance from one part of the battlefield to another.
This in my opinion did not happen in real life. Visibility would be much more diminished, a General would not know very much about what he was facing - consequently he would use "sensible tactics" in anticipation of the unknown-ie a balanced set-up
cavalry on both wings etc etc.

The advantage of an epic battle is the diminished distance between opponents, consequently allowing less pre-clash manouevrability.

You can move the armies closer together in Custom Battles by clicking on "Show Advanced Settings" and reducing the map height. The default map height is 32. The minimum permitted height (to allow room for the armies to deploy) is 26, which leaves only 2 squares between the opposing deployment areas for light troops.

[SuitedQueens]

So as I wrote in countless other posts classical tactics like oblique order don't exactly work in this game for the reason you described above. Your best bet is to guess right during development phase. Cover 60-70% of frontage and advance with all your forces. This setup and wedge formation punishes lazy wide line deployment the best. Don't forget to mirror your opponent movement during advancement. Start thinking when you are about 5-6 squares away. That the point when you execute development plans, your opponent committed and have hard time countering. Players tend to overrate terrain, so don't expect them to figure out that they can turn around and move back while readjusting their formation to buy as much time as needed.

[SimonLancaster]

Correction: the Austrian left flank was overwhelmed not their right flank.

I just read a little bit about Leuthen. It was foggy at the start of the battle so that helped the Prussians. Also, the Prussian troops used by Frederick to overwhelm the Austrian left flank were hidden behind some small hills.

I think that Leuthen might be more of an exception to the rule. It seems that the battlefield made it easier to conceal troops. If you consider famous battles like Waterloo, the approach of the Prussian reinforcements was noted for quite some time before they even got involved in the battle.

We are also using examples from a much later historical period. In the Ancient period, battles were smaller and probably often on good ground.

I remember that there is one Epic Battle in FoG 2 with the Romans fighting the Britons, I think. The battle is going on and then suddenly some reinforcements pop out of the woods. It completely surprises you. This hardly happens in any of the Epic Battles. Maybe it is something that you would like to see more of!

[BMAXIMUS]

I'm not sure it's a problem (at least for me) to allows player to have "original" tactics. After all that is the point of the game, isn't it ? To try different tactics as long as their implementation is realistic.
If you push the "in real life" argument to its limit, then we should not be allowed to use tactics (obliques and so on) before they've been invented or even know from the faction and epic battle would be reduced to be played as they happened.
Also restriciting "redeployment as you suggest will just result in people having to second guess the opponent deployment and having bizarre deployment vs bizarre tactics. I find it already hard enough to selection my forces (which is why I mostly do epic battles)

[fogman]

‘Original tactics’ are simply not reproducible in this kind of game system where forces are broken into a large number of distinct units and there is no control and command and no taking into account of combat doctrines. Take Ilipa. Scipio had deployed his army with a refused centre that fixed the Carthaginian centre while his stronger wings assaulted the weaker Carthaginian wings. The Carthaginian centre was paralysed, unable to move to help either flanks. That would not be a problem in the game as the ability to move laterally is given and redeploying in the face of the enemy is not fraught with dangers or just impossible as in reality.

Tactics are reduced to the ‘gamey’ types, some may even approximate reality. As a matter of fact most players would find it not very ‘fun’ to play if game plays were more restrictive and sales would be too low if this was some sort of ‘grognard’ game (for instance Scott Hamilton’s Tigers on the Prowl, Panthers in the Shadows in the 90s). I mean many people find it fun to pitch scot-irish against byzantines in the same way it’s fun to have orcs against dwarves.

[Schweetness101]

‘Original tactics’ are simply not reproducible in this kind of game system where forces are broken into a large number of distinct units and there is no control and command and no taking into account of combat doctrines...Tactics are reduced to the ‘gamey’ types, some may even approximate reality. As a matter of fact most players would find it not very ‘fun’ to play if game plays were more restrictive and sales would be too low if this was some sort of ‘grognard’ game...

I'm sympathetic to this, and also find that many aspects of the ruleset motivate these 'gamey' tactics with too much granular control. Some things I've experimented with in mods I think mitigate these issues a bit:

-anarchy charges
-charge refusals
-edits to flank rules
-adjacency/shieldwall bonuses for some non-light infantry types
-reducing unit line of sight by half
-units only receive command from the CinC or their specific Sub-General, and can only rally in command, motivating keeping units together in a smaller number of large formations

Those are in the Dark Ages Britain mod here: viewtopic.php?f=492&t=106417

I've also tried getting units to block line of sight to other units behind them, the way terrain does, but I'm not sure it's possible to do as a mod, or at least I couldn't figure that one out. I did a few changes that kind of made it work, but it was extremely non-performant. RBS may know how that could be implemented? I think doing that + reduced line of sight + less permissive line of sight angles around terrain could be an interesting experiment.

On the other end, I've experimented a bit locally (not in the above mod) with adding an almost 'operational' level of war to the game by giving units double AP for the first X turns, or while they are still able to group move, if on very large maps to simulate the tail end of the marching phase, which when combined with the large map and more limited line of sight, allows you to more plausibly setup an ambush or concealed flank somewhere that the other player cannot find, although it would also really drag the game out. I didn't put that double AP for the first X turns/while still able to group move in the mod though, just experimented locally, as it was buggy.

I also added the ability in the mod for some Anglo-Saxon Fyrd units to mount in deployment, and dismount once in combat, as kind of part and parcel of that operational level of war idea, so that the vs Vikings matchup gives the Anglo-Saxons some of that edge in terms of on land mobility that was an important part of their warfare in the period. It's interesting anyway, as the Anglo-Saxons can use it to seize better ground faster on a larger map, but potentially exploitable as you could use the mounted versions as cavalry (although to mitigate that issue I made the mounted versions very poor in combat with almost no capabilities, so they are really strictly for mobility, maybe it would be best if they could not even charge on horseback though).

[rbodleyscott]

I've also tried getting units to block line of sight to other units behind them, the way terrain does, but I'm not sure it's possible to do as a mod, or at least I couldn't figure that one out. I did a few changes that kind of made it work, but it was extremely non-performant. RBS may know how that could be implemented? I think doing that + reduced line of sight + less permissive line of sight angles around terrain could be an interesting experiment.

It could probably be done with scripts, but at the cost of a huge performance hit. LOS calculations are currently done in the engine, which is a lot more efficient than scripts. Scripts further restrict overhead shooting, but that is a much narrower case, and hence does not hit performance nearly as much as trying to do all LOS in scripts would.

[stockwellpete]

The problem of custom battles is that the opposing forces begin too far away from each other, consequently any element of surprise is lost and allows an opponent to re-adjust his forces accordingly (due to most units being visible). This encourages bizarre tactics - moving all of ones bowmen en masse for instance from one part of the battlefield to another.
This in my opinion did not happen in real life. Visibility would be much more diminished, a General would not know very much about what he was facing - consequently he would use "sensible tactics" in anticipation of the unknown-ie a balanced set-up
cavalry on both wings etc etc.

The advantage of an epic battle is the diminished distance between opponents, consequently allowing less pre-clash manouevrability.

100% agree with this. The command radii for generals is too big. In the Alternative Gameplay Mod provided by Schweetness, the radii was reduced to 4 squares so units could not move over to the other flank without very serious penalties. Often armies were coalitions anyway and troops were not usually transferable to other commanders.

[Athos1660]

I encourage anybody to try Custom battles increasing height so that there is a Fog of War during the first turns. Height can goes up to 64 !

(Still miss woods in the middle of map like in P&S though )

[kronenblatt]

I encourage anybody to try Custom battles increasing height so that there is a Fog of War during the first turns. Height can goes up to 64 !

(Still miss woods in the middle of map like in P&S though )

That's a very interesting and appealing suggestion: will try it out soon!

[Athos1660]

Testing 64x64 is also interesting. You can deploy on almost the full width of the map, still get FoW on the first few turns, can divide your army into 2/3 'groups' and use the relief and woods to move hidden on the sides. I have played just one game that way atm so I can't say whether it is that great but it is certainly worth a try.

[stockwellpete]

I do think the game would benefit from players not being able to see the map until after they have picked their armies. If you watch some of the full AAR's that are available on YouTube you will hear players, at the start, saying things like, "there is a large area of rough on my left flank so I need to buy irregular foot and/or bowmen to occupy that area." This is plainly ludicrous. In the mod that I helped Schweetness with, we did tone down the effects of rough ground so that HF "units" were more likely to march straight through it and accept any modest penalty (unless it was a very large area), rather than have these regular bizarre army selections and re-deployments.

Obviously any historical wargame sits on a continuum with "game" at one end and "simulation" at the other. In my opinion, FOG is about one-third of the way along from the "game" end and there are several possibilities to move it towards "simulation". I don't think these would compromise enjoyment very much at all and maybe they would increase the longevity of the game? FOG2 Ancients is about 4 years old now, after all. Many of the things that I am thinking of were included in FOG1 such as anarchy, camps, pre-battle map determination, linkage of troop types during army selection and so on. Others, like a much more developed command and control ruleset, are contained in the Alternative Gameplay and Dark Ages mods. I would not implement the old FOG1 features in the same way as they were done in the original game as some of them were really very clunky, but I think they are suggestive of areas where the game might be developed further.

[Athos1660]

There is Auto force selection. (A great feature imo.)

I don't know where is FoG2 on the continuum game-simulation. But I do think that, on the continuum Fantasy-History, it is very close to History (and objectivity which is not an easy thing when one deals with wars and international history).

[SimonLancaster]

I can understand wanting more fog of war during battles. That seems reasonable. But, not seeing the map before deployment seems a bit much to me. Generals would surely have scouts. In my area of expertise, the Napoleonic period, Wellington even specifically selected the battlefield for Waterloo. I have read of many other accounts, even in the Ancient period, of generals selecting a particular area to give battle.

Altering the command and control mechanism and the effects of rough ground I would be open to!

[SnuggleBunnies]

I do think the game would benefit from players not being able to see the map until after they have picked their armies. If you watch some of the full AAR's that are available on YouTube you will hear players, at the start, saying things like, "there is a large area of rough on my left flank so I need to buy irregular foot and/or bowmen to occupy that area." This is plainly ludicrous. In the mod that I helped Schweetness with, we did tone down the effects of rough ground so that HF "units" were more likely to march straight through it and accept any modest penalty (unless it was a very large area), rather than have these regular bizarre army selections and re-deployments.

Obviously any historical wargame sits on a continuum with "game" at one end and "simulation" at the other. In my opinion, FOG is about one-third of the way along from the "game" end and there are several possibilities to move it towards "simulation". I don't think these would compromise enjoyment very much at all and maybe they would increase the longevity of the game? FOG2 Ancients is about 4 years old now, after all. Many of the things that I am thinking of were included in FOG1 such as anarchy, camps, pre-battle map determination, linkage of troop types during army selection and so on. Others, like a much more developed command and control ruleset, are contained in the Alternative Gameplay and Dark Ages mods. I would not implement the old FOG1 features in the same way as they were done in the original game as some of them were really very clunky, but I think they are suggestive of areas where the game might be developed further.

I agree that players being able to see the map beforehand is weird, though I think you should know the map type. A couple problems with a blanket ban on seeing though -
1) In mirror matches, how would you get this to work?
2) It would lead to more lopsided matches when someone just screws up or gets hammered by the map generation. I personally wouldn't mind this, but I think a lot of people would.

Anarchy I enjoy, the command and control changes in Alt Mod I'm neutral on. What I would very much like is if allied contingents only got bonuses from their subgeneral, so you'd be strongly encouraged to deploy allies in a separate wing, instead of spread throughout the army. However, this was rejected during beta because it was thought most people would hate the restrictiveness. Note that this system *was* implemented somewhat in Sengoku Jidai, where the command groups were automatically generated, with mixed armament command groups to reflect the adhoc feudal nature of army mustering in Sengoku Japan. Chinese/Korean armies had basically an infantry commander and then 2-3 cavalry commanders, again outside of the player's control.

On the spectrum of "game" to "simulation" I think you have... unrealistic expectations about what is actually marketable. FoG I'd say is about 3/4 towards the financially viable simulation end of that spectrum, and while there are aspects I'd like nudged further in that direction, if you just browse the steam forum/reviews you'll see that what we already have is really hard for a lot of people to accept. So mods are probably the way to go for more radical changes.

[stockwellpete]

I can understand wanting more fog of war during battles. That seems reasonable. But, not seeing the map before deployment seems a bit much to me. Generals would surely have scouts. In my area of expertise, the Napoleonic period, Wellington even specifically selected the battlefield for Waterloo. I have read of many other accounts, even in the Ancient period, of generals selecting a particular area to give battle.

Altering the command and control mechanism and the effects of rough ground I would be open to!

I don't know if you played FOG1 at all, but the pre-battle system was interesting. You picked your army first; then there was a map selection process that included your general's capability, the amount of cavalry/light horse in your army and then a d6 roll. If you won this roll (the general and cavalry generated modifiers) then you were shown a screen with 4 maps on it. You could see the main features of these maps, but not all the detail, and then you chose one of them. Your opponent then went first. You could opt to have "fog of war" and "double moves" switched on.

So that system does the answer the "scouting" issue quite well. A few LH in your army selection could give you a +1 modifier that was decisive in the d6 roll. I imagine that there would be quite a bit of work involved in reproducing something similar to this for FOG2, not least because the maps in FOG2 are so much better than what we had in FOG1. Whether a simpler, different type of system could do the same thing for FOG2, I don't know, but this pre-battle feature is something that I miss from FOG1.