Anarchy charges poll . . .

[Athos1660]

I'd really like to test such a nice mod.

But I am afraid that charges without orders, refusal to charge or refusal to move at all might become more frustrating than fun in the long run.

If I were to make a mod about charge and melee, I'd keep the trigger of charges as in the Vanilla game (ie systematic and 'with order' only) but I would try to use those 'tests' as a way to add diversity/randomness to the charge and the melee. The game already handles it and I don't know whether a mod could make it any better...

Maybe the charge and the following melees would activate, each turn, tests about several parameters of the fight : troop quality, strength, capabilities, % of additional casualties, additional +1 or -1 modifier... ? Tests could also apply to moves (AP). Most of the time, infantry would have 10 AP at the beginning of a turn, but rarely only 6, 8...

I don't know whether it is moddable. Nor do I know if it would be of any interest.

The idea would be that a unit would always obey the player, but according to its random capabilities at a given time. That randomness in my pov would remain limited in effect, compared to the Vanilla game.

[Athos1660]

(double post)

[stockwellpete]

I voted yes to this poll because I'd really like to test such a big mod.

But I am afraid that charges without orders, refusal to charge or refusal to move at all might become more frustrating than fun in the long run.

I don't think we want anarchy necessarily happening in every battle. Good players should be able to learn to minimise the risk of it happening. I think we do want it to happen more in battles where leaders start dropping to reflect command and control problems for armies whose leadership is being downgraded. That will be the balance to try and get right and it will only come with extensive testing. If players are generally getting frustrated with anarchy in the game then we will not have got the balance right.

[TheGrayMouser]

First, a unit only tested not to anarchy if you tried to move it in a way that wasn’t charging an enemy, then it would test. At the end of the turn it would then test any unit that you didn’t move.

oh so it was something that happened during your move turn? on units you ordered to move, but not with a charge move, while within charge range of an enemy? or right after during the auto resolving for units you did not move at all?

that is quite different from what I have been implementing, which involves rolling for anarchy charges in the pre-turn stage after existing melees have resolved for units within charge range of an enemy.

Yes, the final form in FOG 1 was that if you selected a shock unit and tried to do anything except charge a valid target, it would then test. At the end of the turn, if you just didnt move a shock unit that had valid targets , it would then test and if fail auto charge...

[TheGrayMouser]

Never was a fan of the anarchy rules, most of the time it just seems idiotic and frustrating and made me enjoy the game less.

If this must happen, why not go the whole hog and give entire commands over to the AI and just pick one command for the player to control.

you might be sort of joking/sarcastic, but while testing this mod I was thinking it would be interesting to create an even more anarchic/realistic mod where you can only move your forces forward as a group for the first few turns, and once they are within charging distance the ai takes over and you just kind of watch, with the exception of whatever units you kept in reserve (not close enough to be made to auto charge). In such a scenario the battle tactics would revolve around getting your army into the right position generally in the first place, and deploying what reserves you can afford at the right moment later, but the rest is not micromanaged.

might be terrible, might be great, but it would be interesting to try.

That might be too extrene !! I had a similar idea in a thread about corner sitters and the chronic "race for the flank" that EVERYONE does the first couple of turns, that was met with astounding silence. The idea was that at deployment you can only face toward the enemy, and then for the first 2-3 turns you can ONLY move forward, no facing changes. It was really primarily to prevent the race for a map corner/map edges...

Hey Ianiow, I get what you are saying, ideally "anarchy" would happen at the "command level" where a leader might need to pass and if not HE would charge and then units in his command in the area would follow.... The problem is then players would do horribly gamey things like put leaders into the cheapest units possible and hide them behind the lines etc..... We might even have a reversion the the silliest player tactic ever in FOG1, which was to face your heavy troops friggin BACKWARDS ( I cant remember if this was do to anarchy charges or something else...) Thank goodness the reason, whatever it was was patched out. I swear, players looking to play the rules to the hilt just for a win are likely the biggest detriment games like this have!!

[Schweetness101]

That might be too extrene !! I had a similar idea in a thread about corner sitters and the chronic "race for the flank" that EVERYONE does the first couple of turns, that was met with astounding silence. The idea was that at deployment you can only face toward the enemy, and then for the first 2-3 turns you can ONLY move forward, no facing changes. It was really primarily to prevent the race for a map corner/map edges...

I understand the motivation behind the idea. Standard map size open battle fog games have an 'operational' level of war component, ie the choosing of the battlefield component, to a small degree at the beginning of each battle, because you have just enough time and room to choose the terrain you would like to fight on. You could eliminate that in the way you describe, or in the way a lot of scenario battles do where you just start the battle lines out almost facing each other rather than with 12 squares of separation. I think on the whole that would make the game less interesting, but it is useful for battle recreations and maybe you could test an mp game with it to see if it's interesting.

[desicat]

I voted yes to this poll because I'd really like to test such a big mod.

But I am afraid that charges without orders, refusal to charge or refusal to move at all might become more frustrating than fun in the long run.

I don't think we want anarchy necessarily happening in every battle. Good players should be able to learn to minimise the risk of it happening. I think we do want it to happen more in battles where leaders start dropping to reflect command and control problems for armies whose leadership is being downgraded. That will be the balance to try and get right and it will only come with extensive testing. If players are generally getting frustrated with anarchy in the game then we will not have got the balance right.

Roman infantry and Macedonian Pikes should never fall for an Anarchy charge, Warbands should be susceptible. Picked/Superior Warbands should experience less Anarchy, and the proximity of a General should also have an impact. Anarchy susceptible units should cost less, as they are less reliable. Unit experience should also play a role. Anarchy can add flavor, but it should be in small doses.

Of course Cavalry is full of hotheads who think orders are for others......

[travling_canuck]

One thing not noted as well is that troops that charge without orders could burst thru friends in their way of reaching the enemy, there by disordering them (the troops burst thru not the charger)
So knights behind defensive spears or crossbowmen, not a good idea

If you put a bunch of dirty peasants between the flower of your realm and the enemy leadership, you're just asking for trouble. There's ransoms to be won, and your knights aren't going to sit back and let their social inferiors collect the best prizes from amongst the enemy aristocracy. But I'm getting ahead of myself, or at least ahead of FOG2, chronologically.

The motivation of troops was important to their behaviour on the field. FOG2's scope is so mind-boggling large in terms of the number of societies it covers, it'd be very difficult to do them all justice, or to create one-size fits all rules that would properly capture the motivation and incentives of each troop type in each society. Even without reaching the feudal era, the games rules have to cover citizen-soldiers fighting for their city state, warriors fighting for glory and loot, professionals fighting not for immediate reward but an eventual reward of land, enlisted soldiers fighting mostly in order to live long enough to be released from service, etc.

FOG2 does a pretty good job of washing those differences away into categorization by troop quality. Part of the way it does so, however, is by giving players a great deal of control over each unit in their army. This also helps make FOG2 more of a contest of skill.

If you're going to try and model anarchy, I'd suggest trying to tie it, as much as you can, to the nature of the troops in that particular army. Then it becomes part of the flavour of that army. While it's true that even experienced professional troops could occasionally be overcome by blood-lust or bad judgment, a 1-in-100 event that disrupts your lines has the potential to be more annoying than fun. On the other hand, if you're leading a loosely confederated group of warriors, many of who are youngsters eager to prove themselves "men" and all of whom are counting on the spoils of victory to improve their family's and their clan's wealth, then I think it's far more interesting to be put in the position of the leader of these men if you know they'll be looking to charge into battle as soon as they can.

To put it another way, properly done I think that anarchy rules have the potential to create even more game play variety from one army to another, but it won't be easy to do with generic rule changes, and generic rules have the potential to be annoying if they allow for small percentage chance events that are too remote for a player to reasonably account for in their planning.

[Schweetness101]

To put it another way, properly done I think that anarchy rules have the potential to create even more game play variety from one army to another, but it won't be easy to do with generic rule changes, and generic rules have the potential to be annoying if they allow for small percentage chance events that are too remote for a player to reasonably account for in their planning.

yeah I think I agree with this, the anarchy charges should be for units with a pretty decent to high chance of performing them (warbands, warriors, lancers, etc...) and with some modifiers for: being within command range, their or their target's morale state, terrain, unit type matchup etc...Like you said it would be annoying if 1/100 times veteran legions just went berzerk. It should be a game mechanic the player can plan for.

At first you might think it should be shock troops generically, but really legions (high quality, heavy impact foot), Pikes and offensive spearmen like hoplites, although 'shock troops', don't really seem in all or most cases like the types of units that would charge with wild abandon. So, it would be kind of difficult to come up with the proper list of units liable to anarchy charge, and to categorize them all in a rationale way that exists in game so as not to confuse players. E.g. it would make intuitive sense for example if scutarii were anarchy chargers, but legions were not, but then by game rules you have to justify why some impact foot anarchy charge and some do not, because otherwise what is the difference? quality and armor? should armor determine if a unit anarchy charges?

In some cases lower quality seems to mean higher chance intuitively to anarchy charge (like average warbands or mobs or something), but in other cases it's more like high quality selects for what seems like a unit that should anarchy charge, like really high quality impetuous heavy cavalry lancer units. But, then also a high quality warrior unit like falxmen seems like they should anarchy charge too. It would not seem right if the liable to anarchy charge units were just a random hodgepodge of what feels right, with nothing in game terms that unifies them into a whole.

Perhaps an impetuosity attribute is in order? But, then players have to learn a new attribute, and it has to be displayed somewhere, and arbitrarily assigned to units etc...

Perhaps the aforementioned modifiers might remedy this. Like if impact foot and average or below quality. If warband of any quality. If mounted shock troops of any quality. No pikes or offensive spearmen except raw quality? I dunno.

Maybe it could be very limited, not even just all impact foot, but specifically just warbands, warriors, and mounted shock?

[Mord]

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[stockwellpete]

Right, 21-12 in the voting at the moment, so that shows a lot of interest in this feature. Very encouraging.

[Cunningcairn]

Maybe it could be very limited, not even just all impact foot, but specifically just warbands, warriors, and mounted shock?
[/quote]


Is it possible to give units anarchy ratings as they have armour or quality ratings amongst others and let that determine their propensity to charge without orders? You would then be able to better classify troops that would anarchy charge irrespective of their troop type, armour or whatever.

[stockwellpete]

Is it possible to give units anarchy ratings as they have armour or quality ratings amongst others and let that determine their propensity to charge without orders? You would then be able to better classify troops that would anarchy charge irrespective of their troop type, armour or whatever.

I am sure Richard will know the answer to this, but there certainly seems to be plenty of spare columns in the squads files.

[desicat]

Is it possible to give units anarchy ratings as they have armour or quality ratings amongst others and let that determine their propensity to charge without orders? You would then be able to better classify troops that would anarchy charge irrespective of their troop type, armour or whatever.

I am sure Richard will know the answer to this, but there certainly seems to be plenty of spare columns in the squads files.

This would be nice, a data point to allow the player to make a more informed decision of how to handle/select a certain unit.

[rbodleyscott]

Is it possible to give units anarchy ratings as they have armour or quality ratings amongst others and let that determine their propensity to charge without orders? You would then be able to better classify troops that would anarchy charge irrespective of their troop type, armour or whatever.

I am sure Richard will know the answer to this, but there certainly seems to be plenty of spare columns in the squads files.

There is a finite limit to the total number of unit "attributes". We did hit the maximum before, but Pip enlarged it, so I am not sure how close to the new maximum we currently are. The answer is try it and see.

[TheGrayMouser]

I see a lot of comments of certain troop being excluded from anarchy. Why? Legions, pike and hoplites certainly could be prone to “unauthorized” charges, as history shows. Just like lancers or knights could show extraordinary discipline, as commented on by their Byzantine and Arab foes.

[stockwellpete]

I see a lot of comments of certain troop being excluded from anarchy. Why? Legions, pike and hoplites certainly could be prone to “unauthorized” charges, as history shows. Just like lancers or knights could show extraordinary discipline, as commented on by their Byzantine and Arab foes.

I suppose we need something like a low-medium-high classification for all the unit types in the game and then a few simple modifiers e.g. out of command radius makes charge anarchy more likely, disrupted status makes refusal to move more likely.

[Schweetness101]

I see a lot of comments of certain troop being excluded from anarchy. Why? Legions, pike and hoplites certainly could be prone to “unauthorized” charges, as history shows. Just like lancers or knights could show extraordinary discipline, as commented on by their Byzantine and Arab foes.

I'm not enough of an historian to really say. But, I guess it just seems like a disciplined, well trained pike formation of professional soldiers, knowing that their weakness is in their flanks, would not wildly charge away from their own line before combat has even begun, at least not often enough that it is worth putting in the simulation, especially by comparison with something like warbands.

Now, all units, disciplined or not, are liable to suffering or imposing pushbacks after the battle has already commenced, or pursuits after winning, because you cannot really exercise control over that if you are beginning to win or lose, in the same way you can exercise control over whether to give the order to advance for a disciplined unit that is not yet engaged. At least, that seems about right, but again I am not an historian. We should treat "unauthorized" charges as distinct from "unauthorized" pushbacks or pursuits in the history and in the gameplay.

Also, when it comes to the discussion on avoiding unit homogenization, one way to really increase unit variety would be to only give anarchy charges to a select number of the wildest and most uncontrolled units, like warriors and warbands, or later impetuous elite knights and nobles, so as to distinguish their gameplay style even more from disciplined professional (or weekend-warrior semi pro) armies with legions, pikes and hoplites. That is a gameplay and historical consideration I think.

In fact, I think it could really give warband armies a unique place. Right now, they are really not very well liked because they are like a more liable to break version of impact foot, with more men and so more of a morale bomb for each unit routed. What if they got a little bit of a boost to their combat ability (perhaps got the same heavy foot +1 as everyone else in the open), but in exchange were liable to anarchy charge and open up a flank you didn't want opened up. That would seem to improve the historical simulation and the unit variety in terms of actual gameplay decisions? Like, as a general, I'm thinking, my warband are pretty good in the melee and great on impact, but if I'm not careful in my maneuvering to the right terrain and position before getting within charge range, or I let some units get a bit out of line within charge range of the enemy, I could end up opening flanks all over the place from my men wildly charging without orders. That's just one way to think about it I guess.

Edit: could even do command and control differences, like warband get an even further morale boost from their general being in combat, and maybe a chance to rally even from being in the radius of a general in combat, but a morale malus from their general not being in combat, because of the warrior culture like expectation that the leader is a war chief. I'm kind of making that up, but just giving another example of ways to change player gameplay choice under the umbrella of the type of mods we are talking about. IE, in this case with command changes in the aggregate mod, a more disciplined army is motivated to keep their generals just behind the line giving orders, but a less disciplined tribal army is motivated to get that general into the fray and leading from the front. Just some idle speculation from me here.

[TheGrayMouser]

I see a lot of comments of certain troop being excluded from anarchy. Why? Legions, pike and hoplites certainly could be prone to “unauthorized” charges, as history shows. Just like lancers or knights could show extraordinary discipline, as commented on by their Byzantine and Arab foes.

I'm not enough of an historian to really say. But, I guess it just seems like a disciplined, well trained pike formation of professional soldiers, knowing that their weakness is in their flanks, would not wildly charge away from their own line before combat has even begun, at least not often enough that it is worth putting in the simulation, especially by comparison with something like warbands.

Thats a problem, if you are going by "feelings" and not history... And this is why a committee designing a horse ends up with a three humped camel



Your right though individual units going anarchy, which was one of the primary criticisms of FOG1, regardless of troop "type". If there was a way to have a "command failure" ie a leader fails his test and then his troops charge all as one, that would be much more realistic.

That being said RBS wrote the rules that FOG1 was ported into, and pikes and Romans were included as troops that just might attack without you telling them to...

[stockwellpete]

Also, when it comes to the discussion on avoiding unit homogenization, one way to really increase unit variety would be to only give anarchy charges to a select number of the wildest and most uncontrolled units, like warriors and warbands, or later impetuous elite knights and nobles, so as to distinguish their gameplay style even more from disciplined professional (or weekend-warrior semi pro) armies with legions, pikes and hoplites. That is a gameplay and historical consideration I think.

I mentioned earlier that we might need a low-medium-high chance of anarchy scale covering all unit types in the game. What you are saying here is the other way of doing it by just picking out the most anarchy prone units. I haven't made my mind up yet but I can see the advantages of doing it the way you are suggesting. And then have just a couple of key modifiers, not being in command range being the most important one. I think the best policy is nearly always to simplify, simplify, and simplify again if possible, so that players can clearly understand the reason for a particular aspect to the mod.