Slitherine

peterrjohnston wrote:

dave_r wrote:Erm, maybe Britcon as the largest event would be a good place not to trial it!

carry out trial in smaller competitions first then move onto the big boys.

Here's a serious question for you Dave. Have you recently, in 800AP singles, ever used an army with 11 or 12 BGs?

Yes, frequently. My New Kingdom Egyptian's are performing very well thank you.

dave_r wrote:

peterrjohnston wrote:

dave_r wrote:Erm, maybe Britcon as the largest event would be a good place not to trial it!

carry out trial in smaller competitions first then move onto the big boys.

Here's a serious question for you Dave. Have you recently, in 800AP singles, ever used an army with 11 or 12 BGs?

Yes, frequently. My New Kingdom Egyptian's are performing very well thank you.

Check out earlier in this thread Peter.

Last year Britcon's early period was won by a 12 BG army and the later period by a 13 BG one.

But as people keep on insisting the 'problem' if there is one is not at the top of the pile

I think that you may be correct in that there is some advantage to armies with lots of BGs but from looking at the results of the major UK comps it does not seem to normally be large armies that win most of the time.

No the cmpetitions are won by top players and top players nearly always go for armies that are extremely manouverable. i.e Ottoman, Dom Rom etc This thread is not about the few players who win competitions it's about the vast majority of players who reside in the bottom or middle and the trend towards large bg armies at this level. [/quote]

MatthewP wrote:

I think that you may be correct in that there is some advantage to armies with lots of BGs but from looking at the results of the major UK comps it does not seem to normally be large armies that win most of the time.

No the cmpetitions are won by top players and top players nearly always go for armies that are extremely manouverable. i.e Ottoman, Dom Rom etc This thread is not about the few players who win competitions it's about the vast majority of players who reside in the bottom or middle and the trend towards large bg armies at this level.

Exactly.

As I have said more than once in this thread I have not spent much if any time in the middle of 800 point comps. Other people seem to keep knocking things back to which armies win comps and as I have also said more than once there is no clear indication that a lot of BGs gives you a significant edge to winning comps.

Peter has come up with an interesting stat that large armies rarely lose 25-0. I suppose the next question should be do these same armies regualrly win 25-0? Lots of BGs has got to make it more likely IMO that one will be lost along the way.

It does seem that there is evidence that armies with a lot of BGs are harder to beat in mid table. But is there also evidence that in mid table these same armies win more than their fair share of games?

There is a reasonable amount of data that can be looked at but what is it that we should be looking for?

dave_r wrote: Yes, frequently. My New Kingdom Egyptian's are performing very well thank you.

To be clear, I mean in competition, which is what this whole discussion is about, not club games. And so?

peterrjohnston wrote:

dave_r wrote: Yes, frequently. My New Kingdom Egyptian's are performing very well thank you.

To be clear, I mean in competition, which is what this whole discussion is about, not club games. And so?

Well, there aren't that many singles competitions about in the UK. In the last three years I have only played six I think. And they have all been themed (Although three of these were at Britcon, which is only slightly themed).

I have used

Skythian x 2
Bosporan
Parthian
Lydian
SHNC
Medieval French (650 pts)

I like using Horse Archer armies. I used them in DBM as well. It is not possible to make a Skythian, Parthian or Bosporan army at 12 BG's - the troops available simply don't allow it.

The Medieval French was 9 and the Lydian was 13

hammy wrote: Well if you check the same ranking site you will find that as per the results there I have only played in one 800 point comp as well

I have agreed that my personal experience is that I have no issue with armies having lots of BGs. That said so far I have always had 14 BGs in my 800 point armies so perhaps I am a 'swarm' player.

I should be clear, and I'm sure you realise, I wasn't knocking your result(s). Merely pointing out that extrapolating from one experience in a competition isn't the whole picture. For example, Phil stated at the start of this discussion that realistically in a competition game, there is no way he could beat, as in a +5 win, a Dom Roman swarm in the hands of a competent player. I would agree with him, but again that's a personal viewpoint. We need all the scores...

hammy wrote: I think that you may be correct in that there is some advantage to armies with lots of BGs but from looking at the results of the major UK comps it does not seem to normally be large armies that win most of the time.

They do seem to win a significant number. But again it's disingenuous to concentrate on one result/player from however many are in a competition. Competitions are not there to provide a pleasurable gaming experience solely for the winner.

hammy wrote: There is a reasonable amount of data that can be looked at but what is it that we should be looking for?

That's easy.

Starting from the assumption the rules writers intended the game to be balanced (at their suggested 10 to 15 BGs) - what you lose in BG numbers is counter-balanced by the better capabilities of the BGs, eg drilled vs undrilled, superior vs average, etc etc.

So the question is, assuming this to be the case, is the current scoring system distorting this balance?

Based on the Italian results, I would argue it is. But I would also like to see more results from outside Italy before making a conclusion that it's a general case. Anecdotal evidence suggests it may well be, but... anecdotal evidence is like sociology, and I'm an engineer


I would argue that the reason is simple. The current scoring system is a percentage based system which disproportionally rewards gains and losses for armies with more BGs, and this reward is over-riding the trade-offs in AP costs in the rules.

To make that clearer by example, when a 18 BG army faces a 12 BG army, the gain for routing an enemy BG is greater for the 18 BG army. This is compounded by the fact that the loss for losing a BG is less for the 18 BG army. There is no penalty for using more BGs (and arguably you gain with more opportunity for flank attacks, etc).

Personally I think the problem would go if we moved to a scoring system that wasn't percentage based, and the more I think about it the less I think Richard's proposal would work, although it would arguably help, ie it does have a penalty built in.

Of course, the original assumption might be wrong, but I don't want to go down that route...

peterrjohnston wrote:I would argue that the reason is simple. The current scoring system is a percentage based system which disproportionally rewards gains and losses for armies with more BGs, and this reward is over-riding the trade-offs in AP costs in the rules.

To make that clearer by example, when a 18 BG army faces a 12 BG army, the gain for routing an enemy BG is greater for the 18 BG army. This is compounded by the fact that the loss for losing a BG is less for the 18 BG army. There is no penalty for using more BGs (and arguably you gain with more opportunity for flank attacks, etc).

Well, IMO there is a penalty for using more BGs and that is that the BGs you end up with are far more brittle so it is far more likely that you will lose some of them along the way hence my question as to how many 25-0 wins or really high scoring wins swarm armies achieve.

Personally I think the problem would go if we moved to a scoring system that wasn't percentage based, and the more I think about it the less I think Richard's proposal would work, although it would arguably help, ie it does have a penalty built in.

Well I favour not changing the rules but massively simplifying the scoring system so that you lose 1 VP per AP you take to a maximum of 10. That way there is no scoring advantage for a swarm although there may be a game advantage

Of course, the original assumption might be wrong, but I don't want to go down that route...

I am not convinced that number of BGs is everything but it does seem that there is a perception on the part of some non top players that lots of BGs is a good thing.

peterrjohnston wrote:I should be clear, and I'm sure you realise, I wasn't knocking your result(s). Merely pointing out that extrapolating from one experience in a competition isn't the whole picture. For example, Phil stated at the start of this discussion that realistically in a competition game, there is no way he could beat, as in a +5 win, a Dom Roman swarm in the hands of a competent player. I would agree with him, but again that's a personal viewpoint. We need all the scores...

I was trying to think back to see if how many times I have had my army broken in FoG singles tournaments and then it dawned on me.....

At present I have played 28 tournament singles games and my army has never been broken. OK, I have lost my army on a fair number of occasions in doubles games but we are talking singles here.

I would therfore contend that top players rarely lose their armies regardless of how many BGs there are.

FWIW of those 28 games I have managed to break my opponent 15 times and only scored fewer than 10 points 3 times. The closest I have come to losing my army in a singles game was a 2-18 'draw' when using my traditional 14 BGs If my army broke on 13 AP I would still never have lost my army and I think that at least one of my non wins would have converted to a win.

I've played 15 tournaments, so maybe 70 games in all.

The two tourneys where I've taken a 15BG MLMBDR I've won once and come 2nd in the other, being broken in only one game out of 12.

In all the rest of the comps I've played in, I've taken armies with between 12 and 14 BG's and almost never managed to scrape beyond half way up the table, usually losing around half my total games outright.

I'm totally convinced that army size makes no difference whatsoever, and as a result I plan to use MLMBDR in every tourney from now on.

peterrjohnston wrote: Based on the Italian results, I would argue it is. But I would also like to see more results from outside Italy before making a conclusion that it's a general case. Anecdotal evidence suggests it may well be, but... anecdotal evidence is like sociology, and I'm an engineer

This is a social hobby, therefore, the anecdotal evidence is actually rather important as it reflects peoples perceptions of how much enjoyment they are getting - and we take part in a hobby for enjoyment. I've generally felt that approaching gaming issues from an empirical science perspective is generally not a good thing, and you need to come at them from a social science point of view and deal with the soft information as more important than the hard information.

I'd also note, as an aside, that any issue there may be on this is nothing to do with the top few places in comps, it is about the experience of the 75% (say) below that. If they have a perception of a problem then it is sensible to take that seriously. Tim's point above is a good one - an otherwise middling player can improve their performance merely by taking more BGs rather than actually improving his game (OK, I'm not sure that was exactly his point but it is what he has said).

nikgaukroger wrote: Tim's point above is a good one - an otherwise middling player can improve their performance merely by taking more BGs rather than actually improving his game (OK, I'm not sure that was exactly his point but it is what he has said).

That was exactly my point - well spotted!

madaxeman wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote: Tim's point above is a good one - an otherwise middling player can improve their performance merely by taking more BGs rather than actually improving his game (OK, I'm not sure that was exactly his point but it is what he has said).

That was exactly my point - well spotted!

I appreciate that this is a very valid point but bearing in mind that there is not going to be a change to the army lists for a fair while or a change to the rules in the immediate future how does this get 'fixed'?

I suggested the flat 1 AP = 1 VP maximum 10 scoring idea and other than Dave Ruddock nobody seems to have commented on it. There are two reasons I like this idea, one is it removes most of any percieved scoring benefit from swarms and the other is that it is far simpler to work out a score.

The other proposals are rules changes and are less likely IMO to be considered by tournament organisers.

nikgaukroger wrote:

peterrjohnston wrote: Based on the Italian results, I would argue it is. But I would also like to see more results from outside Italy before making a conclusion that it's a general case. Anecdotal evidence suggests it may well be, but... anecdotal evidence is like sociology, and I'm an engineer

This is a social hobby, therefore, the anecdotal evidence is actually rather important as it reflects peoples perceptions of how much enjoyment they are getting - and we take part in a hobby for enjoyment. I've generally felt that approaching gaming issues from an empirical science perspective is generally not a good thing, and you need to come at them from a social science point of view and deal with the soft information as more important than the hard information.

I'd also note, as an aside, that any issue there may be on this is nothing to do with the top few places in comps, it is about the experience of the 75% (say) below that. If they have a perception of a problem then it is sensible to take that seriously. Tim's point above is a good one - an otherwise middling player can improve their performance merely by taking more BGs rather than actually improving his game (OK, I'm not sure that was exactly his point but it is what he has said).

This is what I have being saying its not to do with if the top players can handle large BG armies or if they don't take them or do.

This is about what people in the middle of the hobby feel right or wrong is a perception of a problum when facing large BG armies.

To sweep it away by saying its no problum cause they don't win tournements is not the answer for the majority of players who do feel there is a problum.

I don't know what the answer is but this will grow to be a bigger problum if left to go on.

Hammy's idea has the value of simplicity so should be considre first. The other option is 1 AP = 1VP with a maximum of 1 per 20 minutes (or part there of) of game time.

hammy wrote:

madaxeman wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote: Tim's point above is a good one - an otherwise middling player can improve their performance merely by taking more BGs rather than actually improving his game (OK, I'm not sure that was exactly his point but it is what he has said).

That was exactly my point - well spotted!

I appreciate that this is a very valid point but bearing in mind that there is not going to be a change to the army lists for a fair while or a change to the rules in the immediate future how does this get 'fixed'?

I suggested the flat 1 AP = 1 VP maximum 10 scoring idea and other than Dave Ruddock nobody seems to have commented on it. There are two reasons I like this idea, one is it removes most of any percieved scoring benefit from swarms and the other is that it is far simpler to work out a score.

The other proposals are rules changes and are less likely IMO to be considered by tournament organisers.

Right what we would need is a tournement that would agree to this and have a range of armies now why not as its a smallish event as Dave R thought one would need what about the next round of Northern Doubles. As its a nice friendly event I am sure there would'nt be a great shout saying not to do it. This would at least give evidence as to wheather it would work in bigger events.

Hi guys

Just adding my two-penneth.

I think to add it for the next round of the Northern Doubles would be unfair as army lists have already been submitted.

I know it is only 650 points but how about adding it for Game 09 in Manchester Hammy?

Rob

Robert241167 wrote:Hi guys

Just adding my two-penneth.

I think to add it for the next round of the Northern Doubles would be unfair as army lists have already been submitted.

I know it is only 650 points but how about adding it for Game 09 in Manchester Hammy?

Rob

But would'nt it be better that way.

Then you get a outlook of what peoiple take to a normal event all being it 900 points and all.

A difference in the way points are done in the doubles went smouthly when it changed from 32-0 to 25-0 I am sure it would do so again.

hammy wrote:

madaxeman wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote: Tim's point above is a good one - an otherwise middling player can improve their performance merely by taking more BGs rather than actually improving his game (OK, I'm not sure that was exactly his point but it is what he has said).

That was exactly my point - well spotted!

I appreciate that this is a very valid point but bearing in mind that there is not going to be a change to the army lists for a fair while or a change to the rules in the immediate future how does this get 'fixed'?

By deciding before each tournament I enter whether I'm a/ trying to "win" or b/ there to wheel out some newly painted stuff and shove it around the table either side of a night of beer and curry. And living with the consequences