Slitherine

Thanks, mario

I find cold beer is a truly international concept. We may differ some on the size of a pint, the definition of "cold", and whether or not rice is a grain fit for the brewer's art, but cold beer seems to work for almost everyone.

I'

m Italian and perhaps, I hope, I don't understand english perfectly because your answer, at first glance, sounds like "I am more educated than you, so I don't reply to your argumentations because you must trust to my opinion". I can assure that in Italy we have very good University and to become an Engineer you need to study a lot of Math. It's true that now, after 20 years from my graduate I forget many formulas, and even many theorems, but I think I could understand also a little of your knowledge, and not only a "believe me, it works so..." (More, I'm Italian and I really don't know what SST is for).

Last, I'm an historical player and I really don't use this tactic even if proved good, because it's historically rubbish. I'm only concerned about game mechanisms.

Sorry Mario if it came across that way, but all of yours sounded like "let me baffle you all with science" to prove something is right that is wrong and ahs been done to death years. The phase "hole in the rules" is rather pvocative given that. Maybe it was a language thing.

Certainly I am a bit grumpy today so everybody watch out

FWIW you are partially there with your stats but have not taken the final step to do the comparison fully. You are guestomating that your initial simple version will still be reflected in the full version if you did it correctly. But you will find that you will reverse your conslusions is you do a full Stacked Statistics Technique. This is a good way to analyse FOG where you set out the tree of results for each event and the statistical odds of what matter at each stage.

If you want to do it try

IMPACT

% odds split for tie, loss with -1, loss with -2 for both sides - 5 possible outcomes
CMT split for each - so 3 splits with odds of PASS, SINGLE FAIL, DOUBLE FAIL - 3 possible oucomes
% odds of a death roll reduction each time for each of the CMTs - pass fail - 2 possible outcomes (usually)

By NOW YOU HAVE 30 different potential streams to to begin step 2 which is MELEE1

Same thing for each stream but taking account of outcomes so far

You will now have
% odds for tie, loss, etc

After which you have several hundred outcomes you need to amalgamate back to the answer

Generally best run to conclusion which on average is about 2.3 Melee rounds.

Si

shall wrote:Sorry Mario if it came across that way, but all of yours sounded like "let me baffle you all with science" to prove something is right that is wrong and ahs been done to death years. The phase "hole in the rules" is rather pvocative given that. Maybe it was a language thing.

Certainly I am a bit grumpy today so everybody watch out

Excuse me, but your English is a little hard for me. If your post is to apologize, of course I accept your excuse and I send you mine, if my language appeared arrogant. As I said in a previous post, I'm not a flamer, I hate that kind of guys, but I'm Italian. My English is not bad, I have some English friends and I can support a talk with them, but it's far from perfect. So you need to have a little of patience with me, because I can say something in a way that doesn't appear polite, but very rarely I have that intention (and anyway not when I start a thread ). When I have titled my post "A Hole in the Rules" I added a question mark, because this was only a my supposition. Still I'm convinced that there is better chance to fight impact in column, but I don't want to baffle anybody with science, about which I have some knowledge, but it's not my primary work (I design electrical plant and at present my relation with statistic is just about calculation of chance of lightning on building). Anyway, as I told before, likely I will never use this tactic because I play only in campaign game and I don't want to make unhistorical move just to gain an advantage (if it exists).

Mario

possum wrote:Thanks, mario

I find cold beer is a truly international concept. We may differ some on the size of a pint, the definition of "cold", and whether or not rice is a grain fit for the brewer's art, but cold beer seems to work for almost everyone.

Tomorrow we (me and my friends) will go out for a beer in a pub. It's a pub I have never visited. It seems it is a "Scottish Pub". Not sure about what it could be (but tomorrow at this hour I will know it).

Mario.

I remember discussing the charge in column being an advantage during early beta testing. Whatever the statistical analysis, after two years of play, it is something rarely seen.

Hi Mario

Yes its a sorry from me for kicking back so hard.

Having a bad day at the office .. and its Sunday.

If you think it works though give it a try ... ideally saving it for when you are palying me

best wishes

Si

shall wrote:Hi Mario

Yes its a sorry from me for kicking back so hard.

Having a bad day at the office .. and its Sunday.

If you think it works though give it a try ... ideally saving it for when you are palying me

best wishes

Si

I know what this means... I work as a professional, so I'm my boss. This means I have the worst boss you could imagine because I never can say a lie

Mario

I've been thinking about this myself recently, along the lines of the fact that elephants are better attacking in column if they are better in melee than impact against their opponents.
Going back to the original example in this thread, with an isolated combat of 6 spearmen vs 6 impact foot. I wouldn't put the spearmen in a 1 wide column, but in a 2 wide, three deep formation. This lessens the number of dice at impact but means there will be no overlaps in melee. This must be better for the spearmen that going in 3 wide and 2 deep.

Elephants only count the front rank base for assessing hits per base. One hit is automatically a test at -1. Add to that the problem of being shot while in column and taking a 1 per 2 test on any hit.

If you are getting isolated combats, I would suggest you are not playing very well. FoG combat is very much about overlaps and keeping a line together. Spearmen three deep to be able to take hits is reasonable.

If a column is hit by a three wide BG, the column can only feed in to one side and will be overlapped for melee, the equivalent of being a factor down. A competent opponent may also be able to set battle groups at angles and block expansions.

The proof of the 'column theory' will be games being won using it. Until then I don't think there is any problem. In two years of competition, I have yet to see an army attack in columns.

I'm not suggesting that elephants go round in a column the whole game. The turn before you are going to contact the enemy foot, each BG attempts to go into column. Less bases at impact so less dice when the POAs are not so good, but you expand in melee. It doesn't matter if it's an isolated BG or not. It works for a whole line of elephants, or one BG of elephants in a battle line.
The same applies for a line of spearmen hitting a line of impact foot. You contract each BG by one file as you move to within charge range, then expand after impact combat.

Polkovnik wrote:I'm not suggesting that elephants go round in a column the whole game. The turn before you are going to contact the enemy foot, each BG attempts to go into column. Less bases at impact so less dice when the POAs are not so good, but you expand in melee. It doesn't matter if it's an isolated BG or not. It works for a whole line of elephants, or one BG of elephants in a battle line.
The same applies for a line of spearmen hitting a line of impact foot. You contract each BG by one file as you move to within charge range, then expand after impact combat.

One risk you run if you contract just before impact is that your opponent will manage to maneuver a BG into a possition where you can't then expand in the melee phase. If my opponent contracted to a column and I could find a way to keep him in the column you can be sure I would try to do it.

marioslaz wrote:I have a doubt if a tactic I thinked it's legal. If it's so, it seems to me a hole in the rule, because it can product an advantage not historically justify. The tactic is about to reduce effect of impact troops against melee troops. For example, I will consider a type of troops who I know very well because it's my favourite historical era: Roman legions and Greek hoplites. In this example I will use for semplicity 2 BG of 6 bases each, both for hoplites and hastati/princeps; this is just for semplicity and I don't regard to real BG dimension in army list, also because you can think to this example as a portion of a larger clash (i.e. more BGs involved).

In historical battle each BG would deploy in a formation 2 bases deep and they clash at impact phase with 2 dice for each front base and with a POA for Roman player (impact foot), without regard to which is charging. Hoplites are likely to loose impact and this can produce a drop of 1 level in their cohesion due to the test. If they don't drop they will be STEADY in next melee and they will have a POA, otherwise hastati will have POA due to their ability of swordsmen. It's clear that the key is the impact phase and if hoplites can reduce the effect of it they will gain a benefit. So examine the effect of enter in melee in column formation (1 base width ans 6 bases deep). Romans and Greeks throw only 2 dice, Romans hit with 4 and Greeks with 5. Of course the chance Romans win the impact is still greater than Greeks one, but there is a difference in cohesion test. In fact the chance of "At least 2 or more hits received than inflicted" drop from 20% to only 10% (it's interesting that the chance is near the same for a 4 dice and 6 dice roll, so there is no difference to fight impact with 2 or 3 bases width).

I don't want to annoy you with tables of chances, but this is the tactic that, if legal, produce the better chance to hoplites:

• fight impact in column
• in next manoeuvre phase expand of 1 file
• in next turn manoeuvre phase expand of another file

I can assure that, if hoplites can pass first cohesion test, this tactic produce a better chance to hoplites. More, fighting impact with just 1 bases width reduces defeat chance from 53,7% to 44,4%; it reduces also the chance to win, from 27,2% to 19,4%, but improves chance of a tie from 19,1% to 35,8%, and if you follow my reasoning you can agree that a tie is an half win for hoplites. (I used comma to separate decimal because I'm Italian and we use so; sorry).

Mario

If someone wants to use this tactics against me, I will be pleased to shot on his column with my LF.
Only one hit needed to have a test, and disrupting the spearmen on fire rather than impact is even better for the impact phase.

frederic wrote:If someone wants to use this tactics against me, I will be pleased to shot on his column with my LF.
Only one hit needed to have a test, and disrupting the spearmen on fire rather than impact is even better for the impact phase.

I heard this song one hundred times, but do you real think if I will use this tactic (and, again, I don't think I will ever use it because I like historical game and not tournament) I will start my advance in column? I can demonstrate you that it's enough if I put in column spearmen between 6 and 9 UM from impact foot line. And I can do this with an advance of 3 UM (simple move) so my units end at a distance of 3-6 UM from impact. How many times do you think you can fire with your skirmishers?

Mario.

One risk you run if you contract just before impact is that your opponent will manage to maneuver a BG into a possition where you can't then expand in the melee phase. If my opponent contracted to a column and I could find a way to keep him in the column you can be sure I would try to do it.

If I have a battle line of spear (say 4 BGs of 6 each) and you have have battle line of legionaries (again 4 BGs of 6 or 3 of 8 ) lined up opposite, say 8 inches away, what could you do to stop me doing this tactic ?

frederic wrote:If someone wants to use this tactics against me, I will be pleased to shot on his column with my LF.
Only one hit needed to have a test, and disrupting the spearmen on fire rather than impact is even better for the impact phase.

And anyway I suggest you a fast revision of basic math, since 1HP2B need 2 hits against a column, since column count as 3 bases (p. 135) and so 1 hit is just 1HP3B. This means that, if you have skirmishers to put on my front and I have not, you can, perhaps, make one shot before melee starts where with 3 dice you need to get 2 hits.

Mario

hammy wrote:One risk you run if you contract just before impact is that your opponent will manage to maneuver a BG into a possition where you can't then expand in the melee phase. If my opponent contracted to a column and I could find a way to keep him in the column you can be sure I would try to do it.

This sounds great, but how can you do this? Can you make an example of a legal move by which you can achieve this result?

Mario.

frederic wrote:
If someone wants to use this tactics against me, I will be pleased to shot on his column with my LF.
Only one hit needed to have a test, and disrupting the spearmen on fire rather than impact is even better for the impact phase.

And anyway I suggest you a fast revision of basic math, since 1HP2B need 2 hits against a column, since column count as 3 bases (p. 135) and so 1 hit is just 1HP3B. This means that, if you have skirmishers to put on my front and I have not, you can, perhaps, make one shot before melee starts where with 3 dice you need to get 2 hits.

Mario

Mario

He is correct. You only need 1 hit to force a test. 2 hits to force a test at an additional -1.

As for forming column and Hammy point. Hammy is a very good player. I promise you even if you form column 3MU away from him he will find a way to mess up your future expansions. FWIW I have seen an army attack in column. I advanced myself to block expansions and a column of 6 Spartans ended up fighting 2 dice vs 6 until it broke. A second one was even worse as I advance a column of Romans through a 2 wide gap. When the column of spears charged they got intercepted in the flank. It was a very short game.

FOG is designed so that you will win games through good strategic masterplans not through fiddly little local manouvres. As authors the issue you raise was one of the first ones we hammered out repeatedly to be sure, and our testing has proved correct given the evidence to date. FWIW this is one of the reasons that you can only expand in 1 direction, forethough about exaclty this issue as if you could expand out in 2 directions then it could be an issue in real game play. Restricting bases counting to the first 3 ranks for HBP and limiting the expansions to one side are two very conscious mechanisms by which your worry is resolved. It was right at the heart of the original creation of the IMPACT and MELEE separation which is IMHO one of the best features of FOG in modelling real troops and their behaviour.

It is not as if you are the first person to think this might be the case, so feel it was a good spot and sensible worry. In fact, I suspect most of those replying at some point thought the same thing and took a little while to realise that the subtle mechanics devalue this unrealstic concept and put the empahsis on being a real general rather than a geometist. Surely a good thing about the rules.

Simon

marioslaz wrote:

hammy wrote:One risk you run if you contract just before impact is that your opponent will manage to maneuver a BG into a possition where you can't then expand in the melee phase. If my opponent contracted to a column and I could find a way to keep him in the column you can be sure I would try to do it.

This sounds great, but how can you do this? Can you make an example of a legal move by which you can achieve this result?

Mario.

It needs a second BG but any additional BG can do it so if you column up and I happen to have say a BG of LF around then I can pop them through the line to take a shot at you (which may cause a test) and place them in such a way that there may well not be space for you to expand from column.

shall wrote: Mario

He is correct. You only need 1 hit to force a test. 2 hits to force a test at an additional -1.

Sorry, I read the wrong row... I apologizes fort this. But still you have the chance to fire on my spearmen not if you are a good player, but if I'm a poorly one . Note: this could be true on point of view of tournament purpose, because I never played in tournament and my last DBx game was near 5 years ago.

shall wrote:As for forming column and Hammy point. Hammy is a very good player. I promise you even if you form column 3MU away from him he will find a way to mess up your future expansions. FWIW I have seen an army attack in column. I advanced myself to block expansions and a column of 6 Spartans ended up fighting 2 dice vs 6 until it broke. A second one was even worse as I advance a column of Romans through a 2 wide gap. When the column of spears charged they got intercepted in the flank. It was a very short game.

First: it seems to me you and other always focus on "advancing in column". This is not what I meant. You advance in line, then when you are at a distance very short (from 6 to 9 MU) you can decide to make a move (simple for drilled troops) to advance 3 MU and contract 2 file to form in column and ending at 3 to 6 MU from enemy line. Of corse your decision can be influenced by many factors.

Second: you say that hammy can mess up my future expansion, but if this proved true (and a little diagram here can help, since sometimes I cannot follow completely your reasoning, perhaps due to my non perfect English) this will be a cure worst than the illness (sorry, I translated literally the Italian phrase "Il male è peggio della cura" that is near, but not equal to, from the frying pan to fire) because this will take us to a even more unrealistic situation. Situation I described can be vaguely (ok, very vaguely) bring back to a formation in a battle described by Xenophont in Anabasi of Ciro. I can accept that tournament play has not to do with history, but if the game turn to a totally unrealistic one, we might as well to return to DBx (I played over 5 years ago a game in tournament style with a DBM player and I'm still shocked )

Third: I started this threads for curiosity to know if it was legal the tactic I described and if it was correct my suspect that this can conduct to an improvement of chance to win for spearmen against impact foot, not to struck in pathetic discussion with people who feel a genius because repeat the same sentence he hears from someone else. Excuse me for this outburst, I'm normally a patient person (I must tolerate a wife and 2 sons ) but I still think that netetiquette impose us to read previous post before writing one, this at least has always been my behaviour, so I'm very bored to read a tenth of posts near equal.

shall wrote:FOG is designed so that you will win games through good strategic masterplans not through fiddly little local manouvres. As authors the issue you raise was one of the first ones we hammered out repeatedly to be sure, and our testing has proved correct given the evidence to date. FWIW this is one of the reasons that you can only expand in 1 direction, forethough about exaclty this issue as if you could expand out in 2 directions then it could be an issue in real game play. Restricting bases counting to the first 3 ranks for HBP and limiting the expansions to one side are two very conscious mechanisms by which your worry is resolved. It was right at the heart of the original creation of the IMPACT and MELEE separation which is IMHO one of the best features of FOG in modelling real troops and their behaviour.

I real like FOG. I played it since 4-5 months and I'm starting a campaign game. This doesn't mean that FOG cannot have some problems. Anyway, the real difference is the way you play your game. Me and friends are historical player, so we don't search to find a trick to elude rules, so when we play our games look quite historical battles, and this will goes on even if we will find some holes (if any) in the rules because we disregard a such behaviour. Again, my thread is just for academic discussion, not to demonstrate how much strong player I am. What's more, chances we meet on table are near zero (never say never, of course) because I leave Italy just to go to visit exciting places, not to close in a room to play in a tournament.

shall wrote:It is not as if you are the first person to think this might be the case, so feel it was a good spot and sensible worry. In fact, I suspect most of those replying at some point thought the same thing and took a little while to realise that the subtle mechanics devalue this unrealstic concept and put the empahsis on being a real general rather than a geometist. Surely a good thing about the rules.
Simon

Don't dislike geometrist! Miltiades and Xenophont could take offence

Mario.

hammy wrote:It needs a second BG but any additional BG can do it so if you column up and I happen to have say a BG of LF around then I can pop them through the line to take a shot at you (which may cause a test) and place them in such a way that there may well not be space for you to expand from column.

In Italy we say: "Se mio nonna avesse avuto le ruote sarebbe stata una carriola" (it's hard but I try a translation: "If my grandma had wheels she would has been a wheelbarrow" ). It means that when you start a reasoning on vague bases, you can obtain whatever you want. Your reasoning bases on assumption you know what I'm starting to do and you have ready and at hand all the countermeasure to oppose to it, and that goes without saying I shouldn't have anything else at hand to oppose your tactic, so I walk as a sacrifical lamb toward my torment.

Mario