Slitherine

We have 3 or 4 ideas for terrain that would link into most of this. More news soon.

S

Open Spaces

This sort of follows from the earlier comment that steppes are always clear but wooded, hilly etc are not predominantly so. One aspect of the former is that an open space, if it is removed, leaves - an open area, which is what it was trying to achieve in the first place. I suggest two changes:

When rolling against an open space, the non-placing player ADDS 1.
If the modified result is a 7, the piece is not just removed, but is replaced by an equal sized piece of brush or broken ground.

azrael86 wrote:Open Spaces

This sort of follows from the earlier comment that steppes are always clear but wooded, hilly etc are not predominantly so. One aspect of the former is that an open space, if it is removed, leaves - an open area, which is what it was trying to achieve in the first place. I suggest two changes:

When rolling against an open space, the non-placing player ADDS 1.
If the modified result is a 7, the piece is not just removed, but is replaced by an equal sized piece of brush or broken ground.

Since battlefields would be mostly open spaces this is daft. And open spaces are placed first so if you remove them a different terrain piece could go down in that space later. This is the ooh my MF are going to get mauled in the open, there should be loads of terrain thought again. Well there wasn't. And there shouldn't be.

philqw78 wrote:Since battlefields would be mostly open spaces this is daft. And open spaces are placed first so if you remove them a different terrain piece could go down in that space later. This is the ooh my MF are going to get mauled in the open, there should be loads of terrain thought again. Well there wasn't. And there shouldn't be.

Not half as daft as the idea that the Welsh/Swiss/Afghans would invade Mongolia, which is what the current system implies. And no, it won't be lots of terrain: In steppe, you are guaranteed two OS's. So the worst case would be

P1 choice - 2xOS, 1x brush
P2 1 brush, 3 broken

. so assuming it all fits, and that P2 manages to roll sixes to convert both noncomp OS's, the battlefield is still 2/3rds open terrain.

As opposed to the reverse, where the terrain lands on the open spaces and you get 95% open which happens quite a lot.

azrael86 wrote:Open Spaces

This sort of follows from the earlier comment that steppes are always clear but wooded, hilly etc are not predominantly so. One aspect of the former is that an open space, if it is removed, leaves - an open area, which is what it was trying to achieve in the first place. I suggest two changes:

When rolling against an open space, the non-placing player ADDS 1.
If the modified result is a 7, the piece is not just removed, but is replaced by an equal sized piece of brush or broken ground.

I don't understand what this change is trying to achieve. Presumably gum up steppes with terrain. While I feel there is an issue that steppe based armies find it too easy to fight on the steppe (hence I favour selecting terrain only from the PBI losers list) once the decision is made to fight on the steppe it seems quite feasonable to me that there would be very little terrain.

Also, it would create a fiddly little rule; only for open spaces and then only if you roll a 6. Minutiae like this make rules much more difficult to learn.

I still prefer the option for players to be able to 'buy' initiative at, say, 15 points per plus, to a maximum of +4 overall.

timmy1 wrote:I still prefer the option for players to be able to 'buy' initiative at, say, 15 points per plus, to a maximum of +4 overall.

Can I buy negative initiative?

grahambriggs wrote:hence I favour selecting terrain only from the PBI losers list

IMO a nice simple solution - why go for anything more complex?

Yes, you can ourchase minus initiative at the same cost. i.e. 15 points per plus or minus on the initiative, bounded by the net 0 to +4 range currently in place.

azrael86 wrote:

philqw78 wrote:Since battlefields would be mostly open spaces this is daft. And open spaces are placed first so if you remove them a different terrain piece could go down in that space later. This is the ooh my MF are going to get mauled in the open, there should be loads of terrain thought again. Well there wasn't. And there shouldn't be.

Not half as daft as the idea that the Welsh/Swiss/Afghans would invade Mongolia, which is what the current system implies. And no, it won't be lots of terrain: In steppe, you are guaranteed two OS's. So the worst case would be

P1 choice - 2xOS, 1x brush
P2 1 brush, 3 broken

. so assuming it all fits, and that P2 manages to roll sixes to convert both noncomp OS's, the battlefield is still 2/3rds open terrain.

As opposed to the reverse, where the terrain lands on the open spaces and you get 95% open which happens quite a lot.

In practice, the horsey player with initiative chooses 1 broken ground, 1 gentle hill with brush on it, 1 brush and the gully and makes them all minimum size. The other player could take three broken ground, which is next to useless against shooty cavalry as it slows heavy foot as much as cavalry and has no effect on LH. Cavary can sit ouside and shoot in anyway.

At a minimum, 88% of the table is open ground, assuming all the terrain stays on, and most of the non-open ground is broken ground. Only 2% is rough terrain, and that has been tucked away somewhere as innocuous as possible by the horsey player

nikgaukroger wrote:

grahambriggs wrote:hence I favour selecting terrain only from the PBI losers list

IMO a nice simple solution - why go for anything more complex?

Because foot armies that un/luckily win the initiative will then complain that they must fight in steppe. Some armies only contain steppe.

philqw78 wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote:

grahambriggs wrote:hence I favour selecting terrain only from the PBI losers list

IMO a nice simple solution - why go for anything more complex?

Because foot armies that un/luckily win the initiative will then complain that they must fight in steppe. Some armies only contain steppe.

Maybe that should be thought before invading the steppes. Although some large armies of infantry had no problems in going into the desert, see Gaugamela, Carrhae or the Crusaders.

robertthebruce wrote: Maybe that should be thought before invading the steppes. Although some large armies of infantry had no problems in going into the desert, see Gaugamela, Carrhae or the Crusaders.

But the game set up is a competitive terrain system or for one off games, so should be as fair as possible to both sides. Competive games are not historical, why use a terrain system that bows to any historicity. My army came from the steppe and your army came from the jungles of south america so we must fight in terrain type of Steppe or Jungle does not work.

Judge Phil wtote

Because foot armies that un/luckily win the initiative will then complain that they must fight in steppe. Some armies only contain steppe

Actually being on steppe with initiative wouldn't be to bad for an army wanting terrain as the big problem currently is the minimising of the terrain piece size. A MF army could have 3 full sized rough pieces (2 brush and a gully).

Paul

elysiumsolutions@fsmail.n wrote:Judge Phil wtote

Because foot armies that un/luckily win the initiative will then complain that they must fight in steppe. Some armies only contain steppe

Actually being on steppe with initiative wouldn't be to bad for an army wanting terrain as the big problem currently is the minimising of the terrain piece size. A MF army could have 3 full sized rough pieces (2 brush and a gully).

Paul

But 1 minimum, 1 Maximum and 2 normal size open spaces will go down before them.

philqw78 wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote:

grahambriggs wrote:hence I favour selecting terrain only from the PBI losers list

IMO a nice simple solution - why go for anything more complex?

Because foot armies that un/luckily win the initiative will then complain that they must fight in steppe. Some armies only contain steppe.

Relatively few only contain steppe. And you're arguing that it's better that the PBI0 foot army will moan if they win PBI on a 6-1 against the PBI4 steppe only army, and that that is worse for them than the current situation where they almost always lose the PBI and fight on steppe? I don't think so.

Inspired commanders (Alexander, Genghis Khan, Attila, Hannibal, Pyrrhus) usually fought away from home as they were on the offensive. It's a nonsense that they get to choose from their home terrain for battles.

I think there could be some mileage in considering whether the plusses for mounted bases should still count if the winner just got to choose from the loser's terrain types. The strategic offensive/defensive was rarely a case of who had the most horses. In the Macedonian and Roman wars with Persia who invaded who seemed to more related to which side saw a weakness and was propared to exploit it. That would give steppe armies a reasonable chance of fighting at home, especially if commanded by lesser generals.

So I think it might be good to have PBI being affected by generals only, with the winner picking from defenders terrain.

philqw78 wrote:

robertthebruce wrote: Maybe that should be thought before invading the steppes. Although some large armies of infantry had no problems in going into the desert, see Gaugamela, Carrhae or the Crusaders.

But the game set up is a competitive terrain system or for one off games, so should be as fair as possible to both sides. Competive games are not historical, why use a terrain system that bows to any historicity. My army came from the steppe and your army came from the jungles of south america so we must fight in terrain type of Steppe or Jungle does not work.

This is a desing philosophy issue, the spirit of the game is keeping historical accuracy, between historical opponents at least. You can´t sacrifice this to fix a problem between not historical enemies.

Speculate about how could be the battles between a steppe army and south americans is an unproductive debate.


If you are concerned about the competitive results, you have to note, that there is a lot of people who don´t play tournaments, like me for example. I'm not very comfortable playing with a Teutonic army in a open steppes against a Mongol Invasion.


I think that the desing team always given priority to the historical flavour to the competitive aspect. I hope that FOGv2 stays that way.

robertthebruce wrote: This is a desing philosophy issue, the spirit of the game is keeping historical accuracy, between historical opponents at least. You can´t sacrifice this to fix a problem between not historical enemies.
Speculate about how could be the battles between a steppe army and south americans is an unproductive debate.
If you are concerned about the competitive results, you have to note, that there is a lot of people who don´t play tournaments, like me for example. I'm not very comfortable playing with a Teutonic army in a open steppes against a Mongol Invasion.
I think that the desing team always given priority to the historical flavour to the competitive aspect. I hope that FOGv2 stays that way.

And I'm sure the Mongols are not happy fighting in the woodlands of Poland and Germany. And even in themed events historical opponents rarely meet. In fact you are more likely to get games between the 2 most competetive lists, so civil wars that never happened.
But the terrain set up IS for competetive games. The same as the points system. Not historical games. If you want historical accuracy use battlefields that were used in history and Orders of battle that were used in history. If you want a fair competetive game use a system that gives both sides a chance of terrain they want/need. And I am certainly not saying that is the one in use now.
My Urartian would change greatly if PBI winner (read attacker) had to choose from its terrain list. Its awful for a mounted army

philqw78 wrote:

robertthebruce wrote: This is a desing philosophy issue, the spirit of the game is keeping historical accuracy, between historical opponents at least. You can´t sacrifice this to fix a problem between not historical enemies.
Speculate about how could be the battles between a steppe army and south americans is an unproductive debate.
If you are concerned about the competitive results, you have to note, that there is a lot of people who don´t play tournaments, like me for example. I'm not very comfortable playing with a Teutonic army in a open steppes against a Mongol Invasion.
I think that the desing team always given priority to the historical flavour to the competitive aspect. I hope that FOGv2 stays that way.

And I'm sure the Mongols are not happy fighting in the woodlands of Poland and Germany. And even in themed events historical opponents rarely meet. In fact you are more likely to get games between the 2 most competetive lists, so civil wars that never happened.
But the terrain set up IS for competetive games. The same as the points system. Not historical games. If you want historical accuracy use battlefields that were used in history and Orders of battle that were used in history. If you want a fair competetive game use a system that gives both sides a chance of terrain they want/need. And I am certainly not saying that is the one in use now.
My Urartian would change greatly if PBI winner (read attacker) had to choose from its terrain list. Its awful for a mounted army

If a Mongol army, want invade Poland or Germany, they have to fight in woodlands, I´m sure of that.

Page 138 of the Rules:

Pre-Battle Initiative.

From the dawn of time, successful generals have endeavoured to bring the enemy to battle in a place of their choosing.....

I did not found the words "Competitive game" in the text.

So make it a straight unmodified die roll to determine which player chooses the terrain type (from either list as at present). This gives all players/armies an equal chance of getting the terrain type they want - what could be fairer than that.