Slitherine

It doesn't happen too often because the MP population here is pretty good but sometimes you will get the gamey camper. I recently played someone that was using the edges of the map to guard his flank. It's horribly unrealistic and extremely gamey. He sat there with a wall of Roman shield and refused to move one inch, and I refused to attack such a tactic. Players like this annoy me, luckily they aren't many.

Is there anything that can even be done about using the map edge like that?

Attack the other flank

Seriously though, most armies are not so big that you can stretch from literally one edge to another.

There was no other flank. It was guarded by map edges. He made a wall around his camp and sat there.

I don't like camping but I will when facing a horde army which relys on superior numbers to turn your flank. The counter, I suppose, is to induce anarchy charges. On the TT, units suffer a -1 on tests for being within six MU from the map edge.

Deeter

Stilicho wrote:He made a wall around his camp and sat there.

I guess he was "camping" out? Every time I try a similar tactic (as my last game against Blathergut where I was well outnumbered) my troops have anarchy attacks and leave their well planned defensive positions. Have you tried taunting the opposing troops with your LF? It always appears to work.

stilicho, maybe I would have more sympathy for you if not for your rather expansive definition of "camping". I played you once, and moved my right flank forward as fast as possible while keeping my left stationary, to refuse that flank. I might have even tied my left flank into some kind of terrain feature...and you then accused me of camping...sorry I don't move all my little men straight up the field the way you'd like...

You can camp all you want but if you use the map edges as a flank there should be a penalty.

well using map edges is rather gamey, and I generally try to avoid it, with two exceptions:

1) with 1000 pt armies you are pretty much map-edge-to-map edge with most armies;
2) when posting challenges, I always name my selected army, and if knowing my army, the person accepting the challenge picks an army which is an obvious "mis-match", I will the map edge to compensate (this is pretty rare).

But also, I don't really see this as a huge problem--after all, many of the maps have terrain features which act, at least to some degree, as the edge of the map--shouldn't players be able to use this terrain?

As to true camping, where the army literally surrounds the camp and doesn't move, this is certainly irritating, but I've only encountered that a couple times in all the games I've played.

You're right it's not a huge deal but if it's penalized in TT then it would be nice if it was the same here.

hmm, but how does the penalty work? If I attack you by the map edge, wouldn't both of us be penalized, so it would be a wash?

And there is no penalty for players that in 500 points army do a deployment in line map edge to map edge??? if an horde army do it i can play with edges to refuse enemy double flank and for example search enemy camp with a single LF unit is for me more and more noe with the 10% value for an enemy camp.

Camping... well, if i dont want fight in a part of the battlefield i dont fight because enemy not allways do all you want, you know, here all fight in the best terrain for our armies and stalemate is another game result, i prefer search the melee and dont camp but i dont send my troops to a clear trap becuase somebody call me camper when he do the same waiting me in a bad terrain for my troops

have look in here: fighting against an army 20% bigger than mine (49 vs 40) which on top of all retreated on higher ground and digged-in itself in there, refusing to leave the position.

I've fought many games like this. Having your enemy fortifying himself into a position, it's actually to your advantage, as you don't have to chase him across the map (which IS the most frustrating thing for me) and it gives you the initiative.

Take your time, study his position and position your troops to exploit his weaknesses. If he doesn't have any (which is kinds impossible), provoke them to him.

And DO NOT do like I've did in that battle, storming that position against the above advices (well, unless you know what you're doing)

Hello,
(I'm the camper that Slilicho is talking about)
I understand your frustation to cannot overlap my wings with your outnumbered gauls (46 again my 33 romans), but i think that it is not a gamey issue to use terrain.
Perhaps could you use boxed tactics (that are certainly not historical at all) in this situation ?

claymore wrote:

Stilicho wrote:He made a wall around his camp and sat there.

I guess he was "camping" out? Every time I try a similar tactic (as my last game against Blathergut where I was well outnumbered) my troops have anarchy attacks and leave their well planned defensive positions. Have you tried taunting the opposing troops with your LF? It always appears to work.

Never saw an entire pike army + its lancers sitting on a hill!!!

Was an interesting one, though!

It's not gamey to use the edges. You can see that as up against terrain unsuitable for troops. Most ancient battles were anchored on some features. Or you could see it as the positions both armies have taken up. Rarely was one army's forces sent skittling over and around the other's flank like is possible in the game.

In the end, some positions and movements in FoG PC will give a 'good game' (entirely dependent upon your own preferences and biases) and some won't. The TT sees less of this because the troops tend to be able to cover most (but not always) of the ground and the distance between the front lines is only 2-4 turns, where in FoG PC it can take forever to get to the opponent. (Am seeing this in the latest Beta tournament round...the map is huge and we will spend most of the game just walking around.)

I have no problem with "camping" - as cothyso notes, it is usually easy to crack a passive defence. Active defence is much harder.
There were lots of historic battles when the strategic situation put the burden of attack on one player.

As long as you chalk a loss up to learning, not damaging your self-worth, why not take on the most challenging setup and try to solve the puzzle?

If there is no possibility of a fun game, then agree with your opponent, resign and restart.

Well, box tactic is strong but only with a not planed attack, attack the weak point means that all rout units leave battlefield in 2-3 turns... attacker has the advantage of iniciative BUT in this game tactical features are to low, a single unit can counterattack and take enemy´s back too easy if attacker fails opening the box is dead... or not, you know, dices are like women, a mistery inside another mistery

PD: romans usually fight against bigger armies in attack or defense BUT here quality of training have a great impact because soldier by soldier are similar but in bigger formations a professional army is superior to hordes in tactical features but in the game this isnt covered.

Well, heres maybe a simple solution ( keep in mind i dont think anchoring a flank on a map edge is necasarily cheesy or poor gaming, but it certainly isnt "realistic") Now if they would make some maps that have a river in the north to south direction, that is another thing

Why not make say 5-7 hexes undeployable from the 2 vertical map edges?

TheGrayMouser wrote: Why not make say 5-7 hexes undeployable from the 2 vertical map edges?

Dont see how that would really fix anything, they would have plenty of time to scoot over to the edge if that's where they want to be.

there's another solution which I intend to implement into the wargame I'm working on: auto-generated terrain. the game will generate terrain features around the movement of the troops (if they are moving outside the initial map boundary)