Slitherine

In our last game, a 12 BG of average protected pikemen, 4 deep, charged into a 6 BG of average protected offensive spearmen.

Despite being on a + the pikemen contrived to do 2 less hits than the spearmen. Adding insult to injury they then went fragmented when they failed their CT. In the melee phase they lost again and promptly routed when they failed their next CT.

In game terms 96 AP of pike were taken out by 42 AP of undrilled hoplites. Historically pretty unlikely? The pikes had steady friends on both flanks, but did not have rear support and no general.

Reflecting on this result we recalled that most extreme results in our games have been caused by a double drop in Cohesion - often when other things around them were going well. Basically just poor dice. I wonder how many others have experienced this?

To reduce these extreme swings we'd suggest the following change: "Drop two cohesion levels if testing for close combat in which BG received at least 2 more hits than inflicted and if testing for seeing friends break or general lost."

This is likely to prolong combats - no bad thing?

What do you think?

Pete

It's a good question as to how often or if at all such things should happen. I did some rough calculations on this particular one and there is a 7% chance that 6 dice at + will lose by 2 hits against 6 dice at -. To also have a double drop (assuming no general and no extrenal factors) is a 28% chance so you have a 1.7% chance of this occuring.

That is just over half as likely as a 6-1 in DBM. I am not sure what the chance in DBM of the pike bying in one or even two combats would be but my gut feel puts three files of pike as about as likely to take one death as for this double drop.

Perhaps it is a bit too likely in AoW but if you reduce chances even further then when it does happen (and it will) there will be even more grumbling.

Hammy

Yes about a 2% chance I make it - wondered who would be the first lucky taker. Nice one Pete.

We are goning to ask the testers at Usk lots of qustions about game balance and claibration. We'll include it in the list.

My personal view is that a 2% chance of a disaster for the pikes isn't bad. In DBM I once lost 3 out of 5 KN(S) to Ax(S) in the open. Coupl f recoils and kaboom on the rest. Unhistrical on average but I am sure somebody somewhere had a mare and it made for more fun than being 100% sure you were going to win.

Si

Pikemen are too powerful in DBM at the moment, they are dominating the 25mm competitions, so much so that I have stopped using a Swiss ally with my Germans as people go into draw mode. I don't think that any troop type should be 'bomb proof'. I personally much prefer to lose a game due to my inability to throw dice, than 'banging ny head against a wall' because it never happened in history. Besides it would make the game boring

Don M

On a slightly related issue, is "double drop" something Superir troops are too well protected against?

Being able to re-roll 1's is extremely significant when trying to avoid DD situations which we found in our last game were usually caused by a 2d6 score of 2/3 or 4, ie where one of the dice is almost certainly a "1".

I know these troops are supposed to be good, but is this a statistical anomaly that has been missed ?

madaxeman wrote:On a slightly related issue, is "double drop" something Superir troops are too well protected against?

Being able to re-roll 1's is extremely significant when trying to avoid DD situations which we found in our last game were usually caused by a 2d6 score of 2/3 or 4, ie where one of the dice is almost certainly a "1".

I know these troops are supposed to be good, but is this a statistical anomaly that has been missed ?

We are certainly aware of the statistical effect. A benefit of quality indeed. Whether excessive or not is open to discussion.

We had a similar situation (Heavy Chariots charging four deep pikes, break in melee after a double drop in impact due to very bad rolling), and others not so drastic but frequent enough (cavalry charging spearmen). With cavalry it even feels right: charge, and either you are lucky in impact or you hopefully break off, rally and try again (as long as you do not drop much cohesion or suffer serious base losses). Without a double drop looming over them foot would not respect mounted as much as they historically did.

It is more unlikely (depending on the numbers involved and qualities) than losing a General in a winning melee, something we have also seen and tends to break your stride as well.

However I agree that it is putting me off spending big points on non-projectile average quality BGs. Right now superior is the way to go if melee is likely.

Jos?©

All good balance points we can kick around at Usk adn then expand to the wider group.

Si

I've been arguing against this double drop for a long time I'd prefer to only see them occur when a combat was heavily lost, and a 2 hit difference seems too easy to get.

I know we need a random element to the game but this seems a step too far to me. Its ok in DBM as you lose elements at a time and things can average out, but in AoW you are losing battle groups which can make up more than 10% of your total force.

One bad die roll can swing a game. This could happen in DBM if you fought with generals and they died. Some argue this is a good thing, so it depends on your preferrence. At least in DBM you could make the choice not to fight with your generals, and good players usually made this choice. In AoW there are no precautions you can take.

I can sypathise with both sides ot the argument here. Yes having a combat which you expect to win go pear shaped is never fun but uless there is a chance of such things happening you end up with a dull game.

If you make the chance of things like this happening very rare then when it happens it is even worse.

From the stats it looks to me that an average pike BG is less likely to explode on impact with an average spear BG than a 1-6 tripping you up in DBM but as Iain points out there are less BG's than elements so perhaps it should be even less likely.

From a rationalisation POV you could easily explain such an oddity as the pikemen encountering a small area of broken ground or such which disrupted their formation and momentum allowing the spear to get stuck in at an advantage.

I too have encountered the Swiss effect in DBM where if you use Swiss your opponent simply doesn't bother even trying to fight the pikes as they have almost no chance whatsoever of beating them.

I suspect we need to get some more games under our belts and see how things pan out.

I have had some bad experiences in AoW including the one where a BG of knights survived several volleys of archery from my Gulhams with no ill effect then charged up a hill into the Gulhams and routed them in one turn

I have also beaten off a knightly charge with protected crossbowmen who drew the impact phase and passed their CT after loosing the melee forcing the knights to break off. This particular incident was actually rather ammusing as I had a trap prepared for the knights when they broke the crossbow...

Hammy

I've been arguing against this double drop for a long time I'd prefer to only see them occur when a combat was heavily lost, and a 2 hit difference seems too easy to get.

In the case in question - Pikes against spears, (6 dice each). the chance of the pikes losing by 2, and hence being in the 'double drop' range, is 8%. Add to this the chance of getting a score of 3 or under in their cohesion test and we end up with 2% on a straight roll, and 1% if they have a single plus.
Is this too high? - I don't think so.
Of course, if you add a quality re-roll the odds are even lower. (quality affects the chances of a double drop significantly more than the chances of a single drop).

Without the double drop it will be impossible to break an non-disordered BG in one move regardless of the number of POA's in your favour. Does anyone want this?

NB - The reason we went for only 2 difference was that it reduced the advantage of using small BG's throughout your army.....It being much harder to get 2 difference with only 2 dice (3 difference would of course be impossible). We decided that the risks of both the 25% casualty and auto-break compensates enough at the moment. The only alternative was to go for a more complicated points system with points per BG added.

What about a 1HP3B difference (to use a number we already know by heart)? Your big warband mass has to lose by 4 against those pesky Romans, while the 4-6 base BG are at 2.

Jos?©

terrys wrote:NB - The reason we went for only 2 difference was that it reduced the advantage of using small BG's throughout your army.....It being much harder to get 2 difference with only 2 dice (3 difference would of course be impossible). We decided that the risks of both the 25% casualty and auto-break compensates enough at the moment. The only alternative was to go for a more complicated points system with points per BG added.

What about requiring a difference of at least 1 per 3 bases to have a chance of a double drop?

What about requiring a difference of at least 1 per 3 bases to have a chance of a double drop?

1) It's more complicated to work out.
2) At impact you usually get only 1,2 or 3 bases fighting....i.e. just 1 difference would be enough.

We'd also have to decide:
- Who's bases? (attacker or defender)
- Do we count front ranks/2nd ranks/3rd ranks ? at impact/in melee ?
- Do we count overlaps in melee ?
- How do we deal with knights in melee ?
etc.

terrys wrote:

What about requiring a difference of at least 1 per 3 bases to have a chance of a double drop?

1) It's more complicated to work out.
2) At impact you usually get only 1,2 or 3 bases fighting....i.e. just 1 difference would be enough.

We'd also have to decide:
- Who's bases? (attacker or defender)
- Do we count front ranks/2nd ranks/3rd ranks ? at impact/in melee ?
- Do we count overlaps in melee ?
- How do we deal with knights in melee ?
etc.

I didn't say it would be easy

I was thinking about a margin of 1HP3B in a BG. That way a larger BG would need more casualties to have a chance of a double drop. The issue in question was a 12 base BG hitting a 6 base one. On the other hand you would need to be either three ranks deep or fighting on a frontage of more than three bases for it to be harder with this method and it is definitley more complicated.

Personally I think it is OK as it stands but I may change my opinion after some more games.

My calculation of the various chances of getting x or better for different troop types is below:

Elite Superior Average Poor
3+ 99.9% 99.9% 97.2% 96.2%
4+ 99.5% 98.8% 91.7% 88.7%
5+ 97.5% 94.0% 83.3% 77.3%
6+ 92.6% 85.3% 72.2% 62.2%

It does rather look like Elite troops are VERY good at passing CT's compared with average ones and perhaps this is where the problem if there is one lies.

Most of the time when you are testing with the chance of a double drop you are at -2 (2 margin and 1HP3B) so need a 6+ to avoid the double. Average troops are nearly four times as likely to double drop than elites and almost twice as likely to double drop as superiors. This could end up with a game as mentioned earlier where if you are looking at close combat you really need to be superior. I am not sure what can be done tochange this though without significantly complicating the CT mechanism.

Yours

Hammy

As Hammy said (great minds think alike and all that), you just apply the existing 1HP3B mechanism, but as a difference rather than a straight number. It decreases the unnaturalness of an 8 Base BG fighting two 4 base BGs, winning both by one, and having no possible drop, while the inverse may cause a drop.

Or two monstrous BGs (12 base each) rolling 12 dice even, where losing by 2 or more (or winning by such) is over 50% of the possible results.

It makes big hoplite or pikemen battles shorter, but I do not think that is what we want.

Jos?©

I was thinking about a margin of 1HP3B in a BG. That way a larger BG would need more casualties to have a chance of a double drop. The issue in question was a 12 base BG hitting a 6 base one. On the other hand you would need to be either three ranks deep or fighting on a frontage of more than three bases for it to be harder with this method and it is definitley more complicated.

This looks alot like the '1 per figure' of many old set of rules. This caused problems when large poor quality units stopped the impact of quality troops and then overwhelmed them in the melee that followed. Could this also happen in AoW.

To follow another thread, perhaps this could be another role for generals. How about generals in combat being able to affect the COH tests of the unit they are with and re-rolling 1's.

Personally I would see what happens at Usk before we do anything. Wargamers are great at remembering the games they lost by bad dice, far quicker than the ones they won with all those 6's. I certainly do


Don M

The double drop is pretty essential to the game mechanism. Not for its occasional shock impact - although I think that is a good thing personally as it makes the game more of a challenge. If we take this out we ere too much towards a game that is deterministic IMHO. I rather like facing the challenge of a disaster in one BG - I still have about 12 others to play with to try to recover the situation. The main way of routing troops quickly is to DISR them at impact and then get a double drop due to the extra -1. Without the double drop this is impossible. At 2% or less chance of a disaster it is hardly a big problem and what you will find is that you prefer your pike blocks as 8s rather than 12s.

The fact that elites pass CTs easily is pretty irrelvant as the mechanism to break them is the autobreak through base losses more than through CT failure. Superiors are where it matters most as you can have several BGs of these and they are large enough not to break easily. These do indeed avoid double drops and surely this is realisic. Ditto elites.

On the 1HP3 bases....

Just to mention something before we get carried away, things may be more subtle than they first appear....There is perhaps a good mathematical reason for the fixed (2) difference. As you get an advantage in POAs you are more likely to win the combat and this is good, but as the size of your BG grows the chances of big wins drops as your result spread gets lower.

Ideally we want to have a system where the odds of a big win with 1 + POA is reasonably even with size.

At first glance the idea of variabalising the criteria with size seems atractive however...

If we had a 2 dice vs 2 dice combat at 4s vs 5s then

• the chap on 4s expects to get 1 hit but has a 25% of 2 hits and a 25% chance of 0 hits.
  
  the one on 5s expects 0.67 hits but has a 11% chance of 2 hits and a 44% chance of 0 hits.

The spread is pretty high so a 2 hit difference is quite likely despite the relatively small number of dice - and has some possibilities for the disadavantaged chap.

However, if you do this with 10 dice each then the spread is much less and the result is more defined. The top guy is likely to get 5 hits +_ a bit and not get 10 very often. Ditto the other guy with 3.33 +- a bit.

If you raise the threshold in proportion to the troops - in this case to 5 if you do something linear such as the hits per base suggestion - you will find there are very few big wins anymoredue to the spread. If both players are on fours and you rolled 1 zillion dice you would get a draw, at 2 dice each there is abuut a 1 in chance of 2 difference. We are working within a narrow range as th max size is 12 dice per BG but the spread shift from 2 to 12 is dramatic.

So if you are setting a threshold spread for a big win, if you make it variable with the number fo dice rolled (nee number of bases involved) then the proportion of big win events will drop with size unless the average result is massively different already (ie even at ++/-- you would expect 6.67 to 3.33 as a gap so a gap of 5 wouldn't be that easy to get). This is not a good effect and is what accidentally causes the effect Don is describing I suspect.

If we set the 12BG gap to 4 using the 1h3b we may fidn we have done just the same thing and they now cannot double drop from an even combat. The pikes will have 8 dice. The enemy 8. At a + for the pikes then you expect the pikes to get 4 hits and the spears 2.67. leardy bad for the Spears. If you split the spears into two 1.33 each vs 2. The odds of the pikes getting a loss by 4 is very very little - almost nil - due to the lack of spread. The chances of the spears getting 2 loss is high ebcause of the spread. What I am more interested in is, having lst, the odds of a big loss. I suspect the 2 difference comes pretty close to giving both a chance of it happening having lost (the odds f the pikes losing at all not being great of course).

I haven't modelled it precisely, but I have always believed that the the fixed difference is compensating nicely for the decrease in stochastic spread with more dice. i.e. it is more likely to happen as there are more dice, but at the same time less likely to happen as there is less spread and therefre helping keep the odds of a big loss/win reasonably stable with size.

It would interesting to work it out explicitly. Hope that made some sense. Course its late and I might be wrong......

Si

Hi,

My initial view is that I like the idea of the double drop. A while ago I did a lot of reading on the Peloponesian wars, and one thing that struck me was a tendency for the unfortunate part of the line that was facing Spartans to evaporate at or just before contact. Many rules don't represent this well since the factors are so similar, with a grade differential attributed to the Spartans, resulting in a hoplite grind.

The double drop provides a mechanism for this. There is a reasonable chance of a draw and a protracted hoplite melee (which the Spartans should eventually win), there is also a reasonable chance (due to rerolls) that the Spartans will start to dominate early through DISR. There is a smaller, but not insignificant chance, of a double drop loss for the hoplites facing the Spartans, leading to FRAG. This to me would represent the hoplite line quickly breaking up on impact, with a follow through mop-up finishing the job.

Of course, I may change my views on double drops when it first happens to my troops...

Neil

Great to see so many responses on this.

I suspected that the probability would be very low but at 96 AP, one 12 BG of pikes was nearly 12.5% of my opponent's army - quite a lot to lose in 1 combat where the odds are you should win - and there you were thinking it had happened to me.

Having so many games being played at Usk will be useful but you might not see this if most players opt for Superior / Elite melee troops. And I guess that is the obvious way to avoid this issue.

I have no problem in principle with the concept of the DD but I would prefer to see some other external effect - such as routing friends or a lost general - to justify it.

In our next game I'll be using the Macedonians and I've already decided to field them in 8's!

Pete