The power of dices

[Scutarii]

The problem is that follow every combat in detail is impossible in the enemy turn, i think that show dices over the units is interesting, before show casualties shown dices results is interesting and add stops in combat waiting for a click to continue could be great.

Quality... well, it have an impact in the game, try to fight with poor legionaries, they do worst than average... if dices want it but in melee is very very strange see poor HF or MF do an extreme good job but curious for poor slinger and bow units i see them do a better job than average and even superior (i never see superior creta bow units killing 73 soldiers in one shot but i see it one time per battle at least when i fight against or with armies with poor slingers/bow units) shoting to the same type of HF unit.

And for jabelin in close combat... well, in the game are 2 different combat types, shoot and melee, in shoot light infantry rules (well only them can shoot except some medium/heavy mounted units) but in melee many times they win against close combat troops (phalanx are protected and lights usually not except some roman units) using much better close combat weapons, equipment and of course training, i dont understand how a jabelin unit surprised in open field in close combat can do more casualties to a heavy unit... or they can launch their jabelins/rocks/arrows as they are shooting a modern weapon??? shotgun??? hehehe not understand me bad but in the game melee is melee and if i engage enemy light units with HF i expect dont suffer as i was in range combat

[76mm]

"Melee" isn't necessarily two units coming to hand-to-hand combat - it includes the use of point-blank/very short range missiles. Many light troops fought at short ranges - a few dozen paces at most, often it seems by sending a group forward to skirmish while their "main body" was a bit further away - getting it's breath back, re-arming etc.

Perhaps, but if they are at a couple dozen paces range, then the light troops should be able to disengage. The fact that they are locked in melee suggests to me that they are regarded as being engaged in hand to hand combat.

While some degree of abstraction is certainly necessary, I think that LF should be able to disengage from HF (and maybe MF?) similar to how cavalry can disengage. Do the TT rules allow this?

[petergarnett]

Scutarii - watch out for defining success / failure in terms of casualties. If a missile BG get a hit on a BG of 1500 men & inflicts 1% that will show as 100 men. If it gets a hit on a BG of 300 men it inflicts (say 1% again) 30 men. However the results are the same - both targets lose 1%. There is no difference IMO.

[Scutarii]

I know this, but dont like it, dont understand why a close combat unit suffer more in their terrain than a range combat unit, if LF evade to prevent fight VS superior units why so often LF inflict more casualties to HF??? for me the casualties system for PC version of FoG is bad, the % need more modificators or less extreme results because isnt strange see units with all bonus in their side defeated with heavy casualties by D units attacked by flank for example, add D and F status as limits in the % of casualties that an unit can inflict is interesting to avoid unrealistic results for me the best result for a D unit is inflict same or even small casualties to enemy not defeat they heavy then any bonus as quality can increse the % but not in 10 points.

[Morbio]

Oddly enough I'm going to partially agree with Scutarii for a few moments. I say 'oddly enough' because generally I'm aligned with the view that the game (mostly) works well and that I'm sure it has been play-tested to death to devise the best combat mechanics to reflect the type of results that were seen historically.

The bit which seems odd though, and Scutarii implies this, is in a game that tries to reflect perceived historical accuracy, doesn't it seem strange when 1500 armoured men attack 300 unarmoured men and both sides take 1%, ie. 150 deaths (not 100 - Peter ) to the 1500 and only 30 to the 300.

Now, I appreciate that this is just a by-product of the game mechanics, but I suggest that most people would find that hard to believe. We are suggesting that every other LF skirmisher killed an opponent that is better armed, better armoured and better at fighting in melee as a collective group, whereas those better equipped, massively ourtnumbering troops could only kill 30. I think not

I think a lot, but not all, of these discussions would disappear if the actual numbers of casualties were not shown. If the result simply appeared as "1%", "1%" then it would pass most people by.... obviously a few people if they thought about it would still see the anomaly, but it wouldn't be staring them in the face.

Going back to my overall position on this point, I think the game generally works well, and I don't get worked up about it, simply because I chose not to think about the details of individual fights.

[Scutarii]

Hahaha I corrupt Morbio and move him to the dark side of the force hehehehe

After this joke i only can say that Slitherine can add an option to play battles with a more "predictible" system, for example in HPS games you can play with melee and fire resolutions more standar evading extreme results and is possible add this to FoG dont fixed for me the main problem with FoG but at least reduce the extreme results with an easy solution or at least i think that

PD: another question is in hte game LF uses some type of magic potion as Asterix and Obelix

[TheGrayMouser]

Well I cant answer for the design decision, although I think it works fine but if you need a historical explanation to cover the abstraction I'll give it a go: Imagine that a LF unit is not a solid body of men but an amorphous mass of men darting about. When that HF units slams into it and engages in combat , imagine that only 20 or so LF were actually not nimble enough to dart away and were cut down. The rest are still within the hex running fwrd and throwing darts, javelns ,whatever at point blank range and darting back out of reach of the heavies that are still in formation....Perhaps some of the heavies break ranks and run into the LF hex and then are cut down by additional ranged fire...basically a swirling mess within that hex, which could account for the seemingly heavier casualties the heavy unit takes.

[SRW1962]

Well I cant answer for the design decision, although I think it works fine but if you need a historical explanation to cover the abstraction I'll give it a go: Imagine that a LF unit is not a solid body of men but an amorphous mass of men darting about. When that HF units slams into it and engages in combat , imagine that only 20 or so LF were actually not nimble enough to dart away and were cut down. The rest are still within the hex running fwrd and throwing darts, javelns ,whatever at point blank range and darting back out of reach of the heavies that are still in formation....Perhaps some of the heavies break ranks and run into the LF hex and then are cut down by additional ranged fire...basically a swirling mess within that hex, which could account for the seemingly heavier casualties the heavy unit takes.

This is a great point that you are making here, but unfortunately I have already made the same point and so has at least one other person in this thread, but it seems to fall on deaf ears time and again. As for the game mechanics governing chance, Iain has already stated at least once that it will not change as its a fundamental part of the game. I think its simply a case that no matter what evidence or argument is put forward to defend the random factor it won't be enough to persuade some people who think that it is flawed in some way.

[TheGrayMouser]

Oops didnt realize i was flogging a dead camel..... Of course with over 10 pages in this thread ist hard to keep up to date!

[petergarnett]

Flogging camels is part of the advanced combat system - you're just confusing people now

[Scutarii]

Well, the problem isnt find an explanation to the strange results, the problem is i have wargame with tables, bonus, malus and other things and i see so often extreme results and is like have all the bonus that you can have in a melee isnt strange see you defeated as you find a Panzer Division and sorry, but this is my point of view, i like the luck factor but not when this factor is the most important and my experience is this i dont say that for "destroy" the game

[petergarnett]

One of my average protected MF has just won against a superior armoured legion HF - he rolled 2,2,3,4 for 1 hit and I rolled 3,5,5,6 for 3 hits which was great but is not a typical result. The other combat with same type BG's saw me lose as I expected (my 1 hit to his 2 hits).

If his legion had been elite it would have rerolled the 2's.

To me this is an acceptable amount of luck. Why should I have better expectations than this - I'm in the role of army commander not squad leader.

Sadly he passed his cohesion test (1st combat) whilst I failed mine (on the 2nd combat)

[omarquatar]

Well I cant answer for the design decision, although I think it works fine but if you need a historical explanation to cover the abstraction I'll give it a go: Imagine that a LF unit is not a solid body of men but an amorphous mass of men darting about. When that HF units slams into it and engages in combat , imagine that only 20 or so LF were actually not nimble enough to dart away and were cut down. The rest are still within the hex running fwrd and throwing darts, javelns ,whatever at point blank range and darting back out of reach of the heavies that are still in formation....Perhaps some of the heavies break ranks and run into the LF hex and then are cut down by additional ranged fire...basically a swirling mess within that hex, which could account for the seemingly heavier casualties the heavy unit takes.

from what hollywood movie did you take this scene? is it elves against orcs?

[Toby42]

Talk about a "Subject" being beat to death!!!!

[omarquatar]

Scutarii - watch out for defining success / failure in terms of casualties. If a missile BG get a hit on a BG of 1500 men & inflicts 1% that will show as 100 men. If it gets a hit on a BG of 300 men it inflicts (say 1% again) 30 men. However the results are the same - both targets lose 1%. There is no difference IMO.

what if we define success in terms of degree of demoralisation inflicted on the enemy?
now it has just happened again, a unit of cretan archers cornered against a rock after evading routed a companion cavalry BG...
only, this time the archers were mine and companions the enemy's, so now i think the combat system is first class
but a bit strange it is...

[SRW1962]

The point has already been made that casualties should be ignored really as its easy to fixate on them, but I would also say that percentage casualties should also be ignored until you have lost 25% or more as its ONLY then that a unit suffers in combat etc. Obviously Disruption and Fragmentation cannot be ignored as they both give penalties to the unit suffering from them, albeit temporarily if the unit rallies.

I have been doing some test games in response to questions raised about LF vs Cat or HF legions and I have run each comabt example 100 times now logging EVERY detail so I can analyse the results. Now, despite doing this I still think that there will be some people who will ignore this and still quote example a or b or x, but here is something I found from testing out superior roman HF vs average LF javelins (this in response to someone in a thread saying they charged 1 LF javelin with 3 superior HF legions and lost the impact in all 3 cases).

100 Superior HF Legions vs 100 Average LF Javelins = 100 wins for the Legions

0 of which were won after initial impact although 30-40% LF Fragmented, 30-40% LF Disrupted, 20-30% no result either way, 0-5% HF Disrupted

40-50% LF Routed after 1st melee round, 30-40% LF Fragmented, 20-30% LF Disrupted, 0-5% HF Disrupted

70-90% LF Routed after 2nd melee round, 10-30% LF Fragmented, 0-5% HF Disrupted

100% of the LF Routed after the 3rd melee round, 0-5% HF Disrupted

Now, I could have given EXACT percentages, but I didn't because I did this as ten test games each with ten combats and used the averages of these to come by the end result, also if I put an exact result and someone else ran the same simulation it would probaly be out by a couple of percent here and there anyway. With regards to the HF being disrupted it was to be fair only one unit in 100 that actually did so, so for all I know this may never happen again or it may happen more often, so 0-5% seems reasonable to me.

As for casualties, extreme examples of HF losses were as little as 14 and as much as 273 but the average HF losses were between 42 - 67 for the entire conflict. Again I must stress (like others before me), that casualties should really be ignored.

[TheGrayMouser]

Well I cant answer for the design decision, although I think it works fine but if you need a historical explanation to cover the abstraction I'll give it a go: Imagine that a LF unit is not a solid body of men but an amorphous mass of men darting about. When that HF units slams into it and engages in combat , imagine that only 20 or so LF were actually not nimble enough to dart away and were cut down. The rest are still within the hex running fwrd and throwing darts, javelns ,whatever at point blank range and darting back out of reach of the heavies that are still in formation....Perhaps some of the heavies break ranks and run into the LF hex and then are cut down by additional ranged fire...basically a swirling mess within that hex, which could account for the seemingly heavier casualties the heavy unit takes.

from what hollywood movie did you take this scene? is it elves against orcs?

From Spartacus of course, but I cant figure out why there are no flaming roller pin units available for the DAG slave armies.

But lets be real any conjecture of what actual combat was like during the ancient period is just that, unless you have a time machine and can witenss first hand

[omarquatar]

(this in response to someone in a thread saying they charged 1 LF javelin with 3 superior HF legions and lost the impact in all 3 cases).

100 Superior HF Legions vs 100 Average LF Javelins = 100 wins for the Legions

0 of which were won after initial impact although 30-40% LF Fragmented, 30-40% LF Disrupted, 20-30% no result either way, 0-5% HF Disrupted

that crap was me and i can confirm what i have written.
your results confirm it too, as you give "20-30% no results either way and 0-5% HF disrupted".
so it is perfectly possible to attack 1 LF with 3 veteran legions sequentially and to achieve nothing, if you have bad dice for 3 consecutive times.
it's possible, but it doesn't sound right to me

[Paisley]

Yes, about 2.7% of the time that will happen (30% x 30% x 30%). That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

[SRW1962]

(this in response to someone in a thread saying they charged 1 LF javelin with 3 superior HF legions and lost the impact in all 3 cases).

100 Superior HF Legions vs 100 Average LF Javelins = 100 wins for the Legions

0 of which were won after initial impact although 30-40% LF Fragmented, 30-40% LF Disrupted, 20-30% no result either way, 0-5% HF Disrupted

that crap was me and i can confirm what i have written.
your results confirm it too, as you give "20-30% no results either way and 0-5% HF disrupted".
so it is perfectly possible to attack 1 LF with 3 veteran legions sequentially and to achieve nothing, if you have bad dice for 3 consecutive times.
it's possible, but it doesn't sound right to me

You are right, it could happen, the impact can fail to deliver any real result, but by time the first round is over those 3 HF must have destroyed that LF unit, and even if there had only been 1 HF unit the result would have been the same within a couple of rounds or so anyway. So on balance, it seems that having failed in 3 initital impacts to deliver the killing blow against those LF it was an extreme case of bad luck, one which will happen about 3 times in every 100 as Paisley has quite rightly calculated.

Its simply one of those fabled wargaming events that if it happens agaisnt you its a bugger and if it goes for you its something to boast about for years to come, and we have all had them, whether it be in TT, PC or board games they happen.