Slitherine

IMO (and I am not one of the developers of FOG-PC) the PC game overall gives quite historical results, and with each patch the simulation improves.

The reported number of men in a unit makes no difference whatsoever to the way the game works, so does not alter the overall historical realism of the troop interactions.

Because of the underlying mechanisms, there are some logical inconsistencies however the troop numbers are reported. This cannot be reconciled except by completely changing the game's mechanisms - which would be a shame when the present mechanisms work well. However, they are only game mechanisms - the original TT design view was that the overall effect matters more than the nuts and bolts. [In the past, there have been wargames rules that get the nuts and bolts exactly right, but the concentration on a bottom-up approach has made the game less enjoyable and ultimately damaged the overall simulation].

And I submit that the overall effect is getting increasingly realistic with each patch.

Live long and prosper.

Thanks Gersen - I'll pass it on.

We certainly plan to do a lot more community tools and any suggestions are welcome! We need tools that can be automated as we just don't have the manpower to do manually set things up. The list is long but the first priority is to make the games work and so these things always get fitted in when there is time.

You're right about the scenarios - many thanks to all the designers who have sent them in. We have many many more than we can possibly process but we're workng through them steadily and will put more out with each update. We would love to see more Storm of Arrows scenarios submitted too.

Scutarii wrote:see a macedonian army of 500 points changing from 27.000 HF, 6.000 MF, 4.000 HH and 6.000 Lsoldiers to 5.400 HF, 1.800 MF, 1.200 HH and 3.600 Lsoldiers is
because now more than 1/3 of the army are formed by Lsoldiers

A similar proportion (1/3) of the Seleucid army at Magnesia were light.

(3,000 Cretan archers and Trallian slingers, 2,500 Thyrsian archers, 8,000 Cyrtian slingers and Elymaean archers, 1,000 Neocretans, 1,500 Carians and Cilicians, 1,500 Trallian slingers, 4,000 Pisidian, Pamphylian and Lycian javelinmen + assorted light horse, out of an army of 45,000-58,000 foot [including 26,000 pikemen], 12,000 cavalry, 54 elephants, plus camels and scythed chariots)

To represent this army using the old unit numbers, you would need 17 units of pikes and 43 units of LF. I submit that this would not give realistic results, because it would vastly overrepresent the historical effects of the LF at the battle.

The list proportions are right at 300 men per unit (with a huge leeway of variation to allow for historical variation and the whims of non-purists). The shooting ranges are correct for 300 men per unit - this is the key issue.

To allow for the huge armies that took place in the largest of ancient battles (but not of course in many lesser affrays), the number of men per unit would have to be higher, but then the missile ranges would be unhistorically long.

Something has to give somewhere. The main design concern was to get the right proportions in armies, and the right interactions between troop types. It is impossible to have a consistent men-per-unit scale throughout the period covered by the rules/game, because armies varied from a few hundred men to 100,000. The rules are designed to give plausible results for armies that historically ranged from 2,000 men to more than 100,000. Clearly it is impossible for the same set of rules to do this unless players are willing to overlook the absolute men-per-unit scale for battles that don't fall within the 5,000 - 20,000 range approximately.

Hence 300 was suggested as the standard size, because it is the size that which best fits the shooting ranges.

Gersen, the number shows how many MP games you have not viewed. Ones in bold are those you have not viewed - think of it like e-mail. Only games where it ended in your opponents turn would ever be bold.

iainmcneil wrote:Gersen, the number shows how many MP games you have not viewed. Ones in bold are those you have not viewed - think of it like e-mail. Only games where it ended in your opponents turn would ever be bold.

Thanks for looking into it, Iain.

Now I understand and see the logic of what you are saying, but, I habitually view all game ends even when they end up in the results folder. I have just gone through my 7 unviewed games and of them, I remember the parting comments of 6 from my adversaries. I am just wondering if the code is accurate there. No gamebreaker though.

It may not work on games you had already viewed - check it works going forwards.

iainmcneil wrote:Gersen, the number shows how many MP games you have not viewed. Ones in bold are those you have not viewed - think of it like e-mail. Only games where it ended in your opponents turn would ever be bold.

This seems like a change from the previous behavior in this screen. Was it an intentional one? It also makes the number inconsistent with those shown for games in progress where there is no differentiation between ones where it is my move whether I've viewed them or even started making my move or not. This is probably the same bug/feature that I mentioned during beta when Keith put it down to being an old version of the server software for the beta server. I also thought Keith said there weren't any changes being made for this area which I gathered was server software.

Chris

If can represent battles from 2.000 to 100.000 adapt the number IN EVERY UNIT not do a generic number per type or the actual 300 because is worst now than before because now RoR battles by Dag are break, same for IF and if number isnt a problem let player decide dont change this becuase is "better" becuase only for SoA is a good change for others break the game feeling and can show examples but i can talk about WHY skirmishers need be in small units than HF units if now you use 300 for all you can create a unit with 1000 LF because if numbers dont affect results.

For me the new 300 for all is a FAIL in the FoG game and i dont like it, if the problem is SoA and in a near future for the 4th army pack change numbers in every army pack dont do generic for all and if isnt possible is a problem with the game design at least for me something like the change in anarchy charges, you change it in 1.2.5 because is closer to TT game and this means more "historical" but the historical feature breaks the game and for me is the same, see 500 points armies in RoR with 10.000 soldiers is PATETIC and same to see all units with same number of soldiers, i pay for FoG, RoR, SoA and IF can say it

We'll see if we can set a sliding scale where people can choose what the want a unit to represent. It will go on the ever growing wish list!

Thanks for the attention, add this feature is a great improvement, as advice i can say that could be an option as double move when you create a DAG battle, i think that select scale (from... 50 to 500 for example) is enough because LF/LH could have x soldiers, MF/HH 2 times x and for HF 3 times x for artillery and elephants for me is fine, of course it could be more complete but all depends.

Expect see this feature someday

iainmcneil wrote:We'll see if we can set a sliding scale where people can choose what the want a unit to represent. It will go on the ever growing wish list!

I assume this will also scale movement rates and shooting ranges to provide some sembalnce of realism. Overall it would still be better to get rid of the strengths altogether.

Chris

Batesmodel, i allways hear that in FoG PC soldiers numbers dont means NOTHING then if the game dont take this ranges are irrelevant because 50 archers shoot at the same range than 5000, dont talk about ranges and scales when in FoG never take then seriously, if you take it i think that FoG PC need more information and numbers need to count, the main problem here is that now with 300 as standar number of soldiers is an unusefull information what is next??? only % as information??? i dont like it and expect changes in this part of the game because dont like see in RoR and IF fights between 10.000 soldiers armies, i dont buy the TT game i buy the PC game and dont like see PC game constantly annoyed by TT game because as anarchy charges problem shows features working in TT game dont do in PC game

batesmotel wrote:

iainmcneil wrote:We'll see if we can set a sliding scale where people can choose what the want a unit to represent. It will go on the ever growing wish list!

I assume this will also scale movement rates and shooting ranges to provide some sembalnce of realism. Overall it would still be better to get rid of the strengths altogether.

Chris

I've always felt that reporting losses in terms of manpower to be confusing. Percentage lost should be the default IMO & agree with your last sentence Chris. We never talk of men lost in the TT version.

iainmcneil wrote:Gersen, the number shows how many MP games you have not viewed. Ones in bold are those you have not viewed - think of it like e-mail. Only games where it ended in your opponents turn would ever be bold.

I view all of my games, win, lose or draw, that end on my opponents turn. I'll see if this is accurate going forwards, because it isn't now.

Same experience as Morbio. Doesn't seem to work right.

Deeter

iainmcneil wrote:We have some cool new stuff coming soon that is top secret which we think will be huge. It's going in to closed beta very soon.

top secret new stuff

feel free to pm me with a leak

I have a problem to find the new patch. The webpage is saying to me : "Sorry, no download servers available at the moment!"
Please, can you help me ?

Best regards

Yann

Are you using the link in this thread? It should not give that error.

I used the one from News features in the top of this page.
The link from that thread seems work.
Many thanks

Yann

petergarnett wrote:

batesmotel wrote:

iainmcneil wrote:We'll see if we can set a sliding scale where people can choose what the want a unit to represent. It will go on the ever growing wish list!

I assume this will also scale movement rates and shooting ranges to provide some sembalnce of realism. Overall it would still be better to get rid of the strengths altogether.

Chris

I've always felt that reporting losses in terms of manpower to be confusing. Percentage lost should be the default IMO & agree with your last sentence Chris. We never talk of men lost in the TT version.

But this is a PC game where men losses can be catered for far more easily than in a TT game. Its far more enjoyable to see actual casualties than percentages (no problem if the latter remain as an option as now).

In terms or realism (abstract admittedly) I think it was a major error to lose the original 500/1000/1500 BG sizes and go for the commom 300 size. At least they produced army numbers that approximated to their historical counterparts which is surely an important consideration. In a Seleucid v Seleucid battle where previously the numbers would have been around 37-40K a side it now is 12K to 9K. And the slimmed down casualty losses just don't have the same feel.

The best thing would be to reverse the change - failing that have a sliding scale option that would allow different sizes for light/medium/heavies.

The double move change may also need some tweaking. Have only played a few turns with it so far but it allows far too much flexibility for troops allowing them to swiftly move from one flank to the other. That may have happened occasionally historically with cavalry wings but surely not for large bodies of formed medium/heavy infantry in sight of the enemy. Maybe increasing the range limit to 8 or 10 hexes from the enemy would help or scaling down the doubling effect for some troop types.