Slitherine

Eques wrote: I like having problems of logistics and control on the battlefield. Makes it more authentic and more pleasing if you surmount them.

Many will remain but the lesson of v1 is these troops are so handicapped that the players who take them leave the game and go play something else.

If somethat that was historically at least viable is not viable then a fix is in order.

hazelbark wrote:

Eques wrote: I like having problems of logistics and control on the battlefield. Makes it more authentic and more pleasing if you surmount them.

Many will remain but the lesson of v1 is these troops are so handicapped that the players who take them leave the game and go play something else.

Yes, like chess.

Even then they would probably complain that the King could only move one square.

I don't think the changes are designed to make the game easier, but to make it fairer.

If somethat that was historically at least viable is not viable then a fix is in order

Whats wrong with that?

Caliph wrote:I don't think the changes are designed to make the game easier, but to make it fairer.



Whats wrong with that?

Well there is something of a grey area with regard to fairness as not all ancient troop types were the same. Indeed, that is what makes it such an interesting period. The whole point of tabletop wargaming is to recreate as much as possible the conditions of an actual ancient battle.

The danger is that in paying too much attention to fairness you risk homogenising all the troop types and turning FoG into a generic, abstract strategy game. For example V2 has practically abolished the double PoA, at a stroke removing a whole layer of nuance and gradation from what is supposed to be a representation of a highly nuanced and diverse military period. In real life the Legions were the absolute Rolls Royce of ancient troop types and they should come across as such in the game.

Another danger is that you are not actually propagating fairness at all, you are just paying too much attention to players who don't personally like having to think their way around a double PoA advantage, which is after all what the points system is there for. Not only do barbarian players grumble about their difficulties with the legions, Roman players in turn grouch about their difficulties with Light Horse. Tough! Just deal with it. Different armies have different strengths and weaknesses. That's the whole point.

What its next step? Abolition of PoAs altogether? Abolition of "elite" because players complain that, er, their average troops keep getting beaten by them?

Another danger is that you are not actually propagating fairness at all, you are just paying too much attention to players who don't personally like having to think their way around a double PoA advantage

Version 2 has come about because the authors, assisted by the experience accrued from hundreds of games, accepted that there were a number of areas in the game that were not functioning as well as they could. One of these was the Roman/Barbarian interaction that was widely perceived to be broken. This was not the whining of a few people who didn't like how their pet army had been treated, but the considered view of a large number of players who actually understand the game. V2 does not remove the double POA, but reduces its occurrence. As it represents the maximum differential within the rules I think it is reasonable that it only applies in extreme circumstances, such as when armoured combat troops are fighting unarmoured peasants. It will still also apply when trops are charged in the flank or rear. However great you may think Romans are, it just doesn't seem right to put barbarian warriors in the same category as unarmoured peasants.

The poor Romans will just have to make do with having a single POA that will still apply even if the Barbarians are uphill or behind fortifications, together with their Superior status. I still suspect that given the choice, most players would rather be on the Roman side of the fight.

The reality is that even without readily available Double POA advantages, the game will retain plenty of nuance and flavour. I have spent the last year playing FogR out of preference as I feel it is a better game than Fog AM V1, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that Double POA advantages are very rare and even single POA is harder to come by. You just have to "deal with it" and work harder to obtain an advantage. I am hopeful that Fog AM V2 will improve the Ancient game and make it more playable for a wider range of armies. Or should I just prepare myself for the collective wailing from the owners of Late Republican Roman armies that their Rolls Royce legions can't just mince up barbarian foot at will?

kevinj wrote:. However great you may think Romans are, it just doesn't seem right to put barbarian warriors in the same category as unarmoured peasants.

The poor Romans will just have to make do with having a single POA that will still apply even if the Barbarians are uphill or behind fortifications, together with their Superior status. I still suspect that given the choice, most players would rather be on the Roman side of the fight.

The reality is that even without readily available Double POA advantages, the game will retain plenty of nuance and flavour. I have spent the last year playing FogR out of preference as I feel it is a better game than Fog AM V1, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that Double POA advantages are very rare and even single POA is harder to come by. You just have to "deal with it" and work harder to obtain an advantage. I am hopeful that Fog AM V2 will improve the Ancient game and make it more playable for a wider range of armies. Or should I just prepare myself for the collective wailing from the owners of Late Republican Roman armies that their Rolls Royce legions can't just mince up barbarian foot at will?

My motive in saying all this is not because I love the Romans. As I said on another thread I am speaking as someone who prefers to play as barbarians (and Persians for that matter). I also said there that if I was playing as barbarians versus Romans (or Persians versus Greeks) and the two were more or less equal in melee I would feel cheated of a proper wargaming experience. I also, in the comment above, criticise Roman players in turn who moan about their difficulties against Light Horse.

It is just a historical fact that the legions were the absolute prime troops of the ancient world and if I am playing an ancient wargame on any side I would want to see that made a point of in the rules (kind of like a mythic rare in Magic the Gathering).

despite (or maybe because of) the fact that Double POA advantages are very rare and even single POA is harder to come by

Like in draughts, then

collective wailing from the owners of Late Republican Roman armies that their Rolls Royce legions can't just mince up barbarian foot at will

Well historically barbarian foot that just threw themselves headlong at the Roman lines did indeed get minced. That's why I would want to see it in the game, not from some Roman bias. But there are other things you can do in the game than throw your infantry straight at fresh, steady legionaries.

I do take your points on board, just putting an alternative argument, that's all.

The subject was side-tracked a little. My original post was in response to players who wanted to make manoeuvring easier. Again I like a game where you don't have perfect control over your troops and do have to overcome logistical problems before you can move them and can't always arrange things exactly how you want them.

From my perspective V.2 suceeds in reinforcing the dominance of pikes as the premier close-combat weapon over Romans and all/most other infantry. Pikes are cheaper, more manuevable, better against elephants, cavalry, and most infantry. Romans are now more vulnerable to elephants, barabrians, and pikes. Why do I say they have they lost out against pikes?

In V.1 Romans were at best equal to pikes (one on one). If pikes were not disrupted by the impact thay normally had the advantage in melee, but if the Romans started to win decisively there was a possibity of gaining a ++ POA. In V.2 it appears the Roman armor will no longer confer this advantage. To me this is a very negative side effect in the effort to reduce cases of ++ POA for armor.

Well Romans rarely won against pikes frontaly.
they won on the flanks and disrupted the pikes like that.

find me a battle where Romans managed to break pikes frontaly without taking the flanks first....

Pydna

Yes at Pydna the Romans lured the phalanx on to rough ground and then slipped into the resultant gaps. They did take the flanks....but the flanks of the individual pikemen within the phalanx, not the flanks of the army.

At Heraclea, the first battle against Pyrrhus, the confrontation between the 2 troop types was a total stalemate, or so Wikipedia tells me.

I suppose the great weakness of the phalanx was its inflexibilty and the ease with which it could be disordered.

Delbruck wrote:From my perspective V.2 suceeds in reinforcing the dominance of pikes as the premier close-combat weapon over Romans and all/most other infantry. Pikes are cheaper, more manuevable, better against elephants, cavalry, and most infantry. Romans are now more vulnerable to elephants, barabrians, and pikes. Why do I say they have they lost out against pikes?

In V.1 Romans were at best equal to pikes (one on one). If pikes were not disrupted by the impact thay normally had the advantage in melee, but if the Romans started to win decisively there was a possibity of gaining a ++ POA. In V.2 it appears the Roman armor will no longer confer this advantage. To me this is a very negative side effect in the effort to reduce cases of ++ POA for armor.

Well pikes lose on the turn and move bit too.

It will be interesting to see.
As a technical point in version 1 Romans could essentially only get to Double POA if the pike were frag'd. So the Armour +sword vs pike interaction appears unchanged in v2.
It may be that romans are less good versus somethings that pikes are not less good versus.

Eques wrote:The whole point of tabletop wargaming is to recreate as much as possible the conditions of an actual ancient battle.

I disagree, first this is not possible and there is no uniform agreement that I am aware of on what actually happened in ancient battles. Second, I suspect such a simulation would be dreadfully dull to play. There is no point creating a mass market game that is not fun to play. Yes, historical accuracy has a place and I enjoy it, but I am not interested in a game that is not enjoyable.

ethan wrote:

Eques wrote:The whole point of tabletop wargaming is to recreate as much as possible the conditions of an actual ancient battle.

I disagree, first this is not possible and there is no uniform agreement that I am aware of on what actually happened in ancient battles. Second, I suspect such a simulation would be dreadfully dull to play. There is no point creating a mass market game that is not fun to play. Yes, historical accuracy has a place and I enjoy it, but I am not interested in a game that is not enjoyable.

there is no uniform agreement that I am aware of on what actually happened in ancient battles

We know that some troops were harder to control and manouvre than others, that Commanders could not just magically shuffle their troops around like a pack of cards. We know that some troops were better than others or at least had different strengths and weaknesses.

For me personally the historical accuracy creates a lot of the enjoyment and a glaring inaccuracy would mar it. After all there are plenty of abstract/fantasy games on the market. I would have thought that yes if you are going to the trouble of painting up and using miniature men and scenery, with accurately scaled distances and movement rates then you are doing that because you are trying to recreate history.

The "art" in making a historical wargame (for me of course) is to find the balance between what we know of history and making the game fun to play. Late Republican Romans vs a Gallic army is a perfect case. The ++ POA the legionaries were getting against the majority of Gallic BGs, while (agruably) a historic result, did not make for a fun game; for either the Gallic player or the Roman. Superior legionaries, armored, drilled, with SSW gives them plenty of advantage in combat but still allows for a "chance" for the poor Gallic warrior at the "new" + POA. It is now up to Vercingetoix to use his greater numbers and good cavalry to "risk it all" against Caesar. Hmmmmmm ... Greater numbers and good cavalry ... Sounds like Alesia maybe.

Another interesting twist to the Gallic (barbarian) vs Roman match is BG size. 8-12 base Gallic BGs vs 4 base Roman BGs can be, and in my case usually is, problamatic for the Romans. 6's for the Roman goes a long way to help them stay around in combat but then you sacrifice flexability by having fewer BGs ... I

FoG-R, which everyone raves about, sets most BG sizes. I can live with that ... but FoG-AM offers the player more options and decision on BG size. Another interesting challange for AM players.

I can't stress the importance of army size and table size. So many of the rules problems go away with smaller tables (and in the case of 28mm, smaller armies). If you read Madaxman's battle reports, and who doesn't ?? ..... Some of the terrain he has to fight over is bordering on stupid, terrain no general would choose to fight on. So maybe there-in lies an area that FoG (both) needs to sort out. We seldom use the terrain rules as written, although I understand the need for these rules in tournaments. Two weeks ago we fought a 650 point Athenian v Spartan hoplite-heavy battle. One flank was a beach, with a couple cool 28mm triremes laying there for looks. The other flank was rocky ground and a temple on a hill. The area between ... the hoplite arena. Historical note, we use 1"=1MU ... not 40mm, all on a 6x4 table. Great game ... except I lost. The Ephors will not be pleased.

Mike B

Eques wrote:For me personally the historical accuracy creates a lot of the enjoyment and a glaring inaccuracy would mar it. After all there are plenty of abstract/fantasy games on the market. I would have thought that yes if you are going to the trouble of painting up and using miniature men and scenery, with accurately scaled distances and movement rates then you are doing that because you are trying to recreate history.

But we don't know what is historically accurate...what is the glaring inaccuracy of changing the Romans combat factors? There simply isn't enough known IMO to make the call one way or the other.

We also are most definitely not playing with accurately scaled distances and movement rates.

what is the glaring inaccuracy of changing the Romans combat factors?

Well my comment about glaring inaccuracy was more a general point about wargaming and what makes it enjoyable.

But the Romans did, time and again, make mincemeat of barbarian (and other) opponents. These opponents were well led, highly motivated and more numerous (think Boudicca and Vercingetorix) but it didn't make any difference, they got totally owned. I feel the V1 Romans was an attempt to reflect this and also to make the point just how much of a premium troop type the Legions were.

I feel that maybe the V2 Romans compromise this reflection of history on the altar of tournament players who do not like too much diversity in the game, are not that interested in history and just want to play a generic strategy game.

I know this is probably unfair but its a feeling I get when I see V2 homogenizing everything.

Admittedly this is all based on gut feeling as I have never played a game with V2 Romans.

Eques wrote:I feel that maybe the V2 Romans compromise this reflection of history on the altar of tournament players who do not like too much diversity in the game

Pretty much every tournament player I know wants more rather than less armies to be competitive....

I am mostly interested in accurate historical representations at grand tactical level. I think that historical wargaming is for that. In that regard I am with Eques opinion. If people prefer "what if" fantasy games between a samurai and a legionary, I wonder to what extent that is historical wargaming at all. I find "fun" and compelling the fact of designing a plan and putting it into practice on the tabletop. Suitable plans should be along the lines of historical ones, which is rarely the case. Some others think that the fun is in moving. There is always this argument that more accuracy means less fun and I strongly disagree (unless people consider that the fun is in just moving). If troops had to check a CMT everytime they are out of command range, the game would increase in its historicalfeeling more than the disputed +PoA and the fun would be in a good design of the plan. That would explain why, as historians explain, after a certain points deployments were not wider but deeper. There was an intrinsic advantage in deeper deployments that the game misses for some troops.

The more I look onto AAR, the less I see something that resembles a grand tactical description of the battle that we can read. Indeed I think that the changes operated in V2 are more on the side of putting more planning onto games than moving, which is positive. For the Roman debate, deleting the automatic +2 makes the game better, because as a Roman you need more planning. I think that what they got wrong is something more about the basic nature of the game and that made Romans betters than their foes, that was their tactical flexibility and their use of reserves. FoG provides the same structure for all armies (all can get the same types of generals and all act alike) and that is a what fails more than getting rid of the +2.

Whereas a I share Eques point of view regarding wargaming, I think that the problems are elsewhere and not in that PoA change. Before all Romans (regardless of period) were superior and armoured. Right now they can consider some alternatives (and more historical, like being protected) which will be positive. I miss more conditional PoA's, though, that would encourage the use of troops as they were historically.

mbsparta wrote:

Another interesting twist to the Gallic (barbarian) vs Roman match is BG size. 8-12 base Gallic BGs vs 4 base Roman BGs can be, and in my case usually is, problamatic for the Romans. 6's for the Roman goes a long way to help them stay around in combat but then you sacrifice flexability by having fewer BGs ... I



Mike B

How about this then?

1) Keep the double PoA.
2) Make legionaries more expensive.
3) Limit the legionary bases per battle group to 4 (historically justified by the fact that we know how many men there were in a legion give or take).
4) Maybe also cut down the maxima for the total legionary bases in the army (I must say even at present its quite difficult to give yourself all the legions you want without quickly running out of points).

But the Romans did, time and again, make mincemeat of barbarian (and other) opponents

I agree but they also lost some battles and do not forget : we only have the roman point of view which , as victor, will inevitably be favourable to them .
It would be interesting to know what the barbarian point of view was ...was the battle such a one sided thing or a more close thing that only better leadership and planning helped to win ?

Byzantines ( or romans as they would call themselves ) also regularly won and lost but here the ennemy was also cultured and left some record of it .

In both cases it was a question of strategy, supply , planning and so on ...something that you cannot always represent in a game .

Roman vs piques will also always be a debate but the romans nearly lost against the piques . If they won it is mostly trough luck and better leadership and less mistakes on the battlefield .

It will be an endless discussion and a game has to be what it is : a game . In a game you need some balance for the fun .

Now I agree, in FOG you rarely see some reserves ...perhaps something like the spent effect as in FOGN might force players to keep some reserves . And same as in FOGN , once a unit breaks, you only have one turn to rally it or it goes away .....