Slitherine

hammy wrote:

peterrjohnston wrote:All I did was to use a quick method to check on whether or not the series had trends. If low BG armies don’t win a lot one would expect a downward trend (i.e. for something like a monotonically decreasing function or one that’s nearly so) with the score even if the distribution / function isn’t linear – which is what we see with your data (for the low BG serices) but less so with hammy’s data.

Some interesting analysis but I should point out that on the Britcon data FoG4 is 25mm and only 650 points. As a result you cannot compare the FoG4 results with the others.

I didn't write that!!!

peterrjohnston wrote:

hammy wrote:

peterrjohnston wrote:All I did was to use a quick method to check on whether or not the series had trends. If low BG armies don’t win a lot one would expect a downward trend (i.e. for something like a monotonically decreasing function or one that’s nearly so) with the score even if the distribution / function isn’t linear – which is what we see with your data (for the low BG serices) but less so with hammy’s data.

Some interesting analysis but I should point out that on the Britcon data FoG4 is 25mm and only 650 points. As a result you cannot compare the FoG4 results with the others.

I didn't write that!!!

I thought you did, sorry.

The point is still valid though.

Why don't the comp organisers put a cap on the number of BGs an army can have to either 15 of 16?
Taking the very simple view, all the suggestions good or bad are tweaking with the rules but as the rules are designed to give a "relatively" even fight between armies with 10 to 15 BG in three to three and half hours just cap the army size. People using swarm armies are in fact stretching to rules past their design parameters so comp organisers should just pull the army size back into spec.

BlackPrince wrote:Why don't the comp organisers put a cap on the number of BGs an army can have to either 15 of 16?
Taking the very simple view, all the suggestions good or bad are tweaking with the rules but as the rules are designed to give a "relatively" even fight between armies with 10 to 15 BG in three to three and half hours just cap the army size. People using swarm armies are in fact stretching to rules past their design parameters so comp organisers should just pull the army size back into spec.

One of the proposals I sent to the design team to deal with over large armies full of uncatchable rubbish was the following:

"The total number of BGs in the army is limited to the command capacity of the army. An IC adds 6 units to the maximum limit of BGs, an FC 5 units and a TC 3 units. So, an army with 4 TCs could field a maximum of 12 BGs distributed freely between the TCs. The maximum number of BGs is 19 if commanded by an IC, two FCs and a TC."

jlopez wrote:
"The total number of BGs in the army is limited to the command capacity of the army. An IC adds 6 units to the maximum limit of BGs, an FC 5 units and a TC 3 units. So, an army with 4 TCs could field a maximum of 12 BGs distributed freely between the TCs. The maximum number of BGs is 19 if commanded by an IC, two FCs and a TC."

Not sure this impacts anything substantial

Well the Christian Nubians have 16 BGs an IC and 3 TC. So you would only reduce them 1.

There was a version of the Dom Rome that was 16 BG and IC and 3 TC, I believe. So again a reduction of 1.

Not sure thhis linkage does much except it probalby punishes the armies that would like to have an IC, 2 TC and 14BGs.

Yes there are some gooffy armies with 22 poor BGs or such, but they are not the threat right now.

philqw78 wrote:

azrael86 wrote:Surely toy soldiers cost broadly the same anywhere, there is this thing called the Internet as I understand it.

But food doesn't, accommodation doesn't so wages are different. So as a percentage of wage lead soldiers cost more. If you are in Spain you could pay a Spaniard to paint them, for less than Mr Crozier by a long way I dare say. (but they wouldn't be as good)

Oi!

BlackPrince wrote:Why don't the comp organisers put a cap on the number of BGs an army can have to either 15 of 16?
Taking the very simple view, all the suggestions good or bad are tweaking with the rules but as the rules are designed to give a "relatively" even fight between armies with 10 to 15 BG in three to three and half hours just cap the army size. People using swarm armies are in fact stretching to rules past their design parameters so comp organisers should just pull the army size back into spec.

It is quite clear IMO from the various results of late that there is to some extent a law of diminishing returns. An army with more BG is not automatically better than one with fewer. Yes the armies that did well in the early period at Britcon had a fair number of BG but they did not have the most by a fair way. In the later period the top armies had fewer than the average number of BGs.

I don't see that putting a cap on BGs is going to make a lot of difference really.

At some point you can have too many BGs and run out of commanders who can effectively command them. If you upgrade to an FC, you get better command and control but you also probably lose at least one BG and an IC upgrade may cost you two BGs putting you back into more of a normal army size.

Just my thoughts.

Christopher Anders

berthier wrote:At some point you can have too many BGs and run out of commanders who can effectively command them. If you upgrade to an FC, you get better command and control but you also probably lose at least one BG and an IC upgrade may cost you two BGs putting you back into more of a normal army size.

One option would be to make any BG that makes a move outside the command radius of a commander take a CMT to do so :O I suspect this would be a little too onerous but it would certainly limite the firework effect.

As the ancients and late armies where in separate comps so the winning 12 BG army did not fight the winning ancient army of 16 Bgs so I not sure just because a 12 BG won the late comp it proves in open comps a 12 Bg army has the same chance of winning as 16+ BG army with equal skilled players. But after reading the thread the reason I suggested a cap on BG numbers was not to address any potential advantage in winning a game but to stop a large number of BGs limiting how badly you are going to lose a game by.

BlackPrince wrote:As the ancients and late armies where in separate comps so the winning 12 BG army did not fight the winning ancient army of 16 Bgs so I not sure just because a 12 BG won the late comp it proves in open comps a 12 Bg army has the same chance of winning as 16+ BG army with equal skilled players.

The army that won FoG late had 13 BGs and along the way to first place it fought and broke two armies of 15 BG.
The army that came second had 12 BGs, along the way was broken in the first game by a 16 BG army (belonging to the player who finished 3rd) and broke armies of 14 and 16 BG.

But after reading the thread the reason I suggested a cap on BG numbers was not to address any potential advantage in winning a game but to stop a large number of BGs limiting how badly you are going to lose a game by.

I suppose it depends on what you want from a game. I never set out at the start of a game with the aim of not losing. If everything goes wrong I will do my damndest to not lose my army but that is not a consideration of army design. I think (but may be wrong) that I have never had my army broken in a FoG singles tournament, I came close in Helsinki but from memory that was the only one.

At present in the UK at least we still have what I think is a healthy proportion of completed games i.e. just over 50%. Some people may consider this to be too many 'draws' but I think that many more than that will have a lot of players twiddling their thumbs waiting for the next round.

make everybody pass CMT on 8 - removes double advantage to Drilled (ie can do more easier) and makes the command radius more important

hammy wrote: Some interesting analysis but I should point out that on the Britcon data FoG4 is 25mm and only 650 points. As a result you cannot compare the FoG4 results with the others.

peterjohnston wrote:I didn't write that!!!

I thought you did, sorry.

The point is still valid though.

I did, hammy....and your point is valid. I had overlooked that. I'd also point out that the distribution of BG sizes across FoG1-3 is such that one can't compare across any of the FoG groups, which only shows how challenging it is to use tournament data to test the theory that numbers of BG has a signficant influence on tournment results.

peterrjohnston wrote:

shadowdragon wrote: Just trying to frighten the troops. As you can see above, I didn’t.

I suspect we're having a private conversation here.

shadowdragon wrote: Anyway, it only confirmed my suspicion that a lot of posters have their minds made up and look for evidence to confirm their bias…which was my (secret or not so secret) hypothesis.

If I have time, I'll look at the Italian results in more detail, rather the quick and dirty analysis I did. Particularly something akin to what you were looking at above. Unfortunately, as you say, I don't think anyone will take a blind bit of notice, nor, indeed, care. Like a far more important problem in today's world, the sceptical viewpoint is very attractive as it avoids having to think about the difficult problem of what should be done. Which can be summarised as shooting the messenger

Yes, given the lack of response while I was away on a business trip....a private conversation.

Looking at your graphs, I suspect that you probably do have the data that would support the view that armies of 11 BG and smaller in an 800 point competition are at a disadvantage. It would be interesting to know if certain types of armies are more common in the 11 BG or smaller group, so that we secondary hyptothesis that the small size (<= 11 BG) and the disadvantage is due to the army type or if it's the choice to have larger BG.

I think I am in favor of the "charging per BG" rule change here.

I think if done right it can arrange to bump up games to slightly higher AP levels and but some brakes on total numbers of BGs, it also introduces more "interesting choices" in army design as you can go for high maneuver or perhaps a bigger army overall.

I am thinking of something like 10AP per BG with 950AP armies instead of 800AP armies. If you are playing a 15BG army you get the same army you have at 800AP, the 12 BG army gets as 30AP "bonus."

One concern with this approach is elephants which are forced into smaller BGs for other reasons, perhaps they could cost 0 or 5 AP per BG, giving a small bonus to their effectiveness (artillery might be similar).

The current V2.0 proposal is that you can have as many BGs in your army as you like but only a maximum of Total Army Points/50 BGs (rounded down) can count towards the army break point.

So at 800 points the maximum break point is 16. You can have 22 BGs (for example) but your army will still break when it hits 16 attrition points. A 14 BG army would still break on 14 attrition points.

Competitition scoring would be altered accordingly.

We also have a number of other proposed rule changes that will make swarm tactics less viable.

So at 800 points the maximum break point is 16. You can have 22 BGs (for example) but your army will still break when it hits 16 attrition points. A 14 BG army would still break on 14 attrition points.

I think this is an exteremly elegant solution - thanks Richard.

Encouragingly there is nothing to stop competition organisers introducing this now if they wished to.

petedalby wrote:

So at 800 points the maximum break point is 16. You can have 22 BGs (for example) but your army will still break when it hits 16 attrition points. A 14 BG army would still break on 14 attrition points.

I think this is an exteremly elegant solution - thanks Richard.

Encouragingly there is nothing to stop competition organisers introducing this now if they wished to.

This could be introduced now, but it would take decades on how to agree to alter the scoring system....

dave_r wrote:
This could be introduced now, but it would take decades on how to agree to alter the scoring system....

Decades to get YOU to agree to _______.

Dan

Lets start with a proposal - if Hammy and Dave both disagree with it - adopt it immediately... Repeat as required.