FOG - 50% Skill, 50% Luck?

[stockwellpete]

What would you say?

[iandavidsmith]

What would you say?

I would say more skill , maybe 70/80 % skill , 30/20% luck.
There are people i have played multiple times but their movement,match ups
and forward thinking have just been inferior to mine and usually ends
in my demise , there is just enough luck to make it interesting though.

I think the balance is good as you can get at the moment , i only play
PBEM though so i am unsure how the AI is.

Cheers
Ian

[Morbio]

Luck is a factor for sure, but the better the general the less of a factor it becomes.

[stockwellpete]

What about the idea that the closer the two players are in ability the more that luck becomes a factor?

[frankpowerful]

What about the idea that the closer the two players are in ability the more that luck becomes a factor?

this is exactly what i wanted to say (but didn't find the right words)

[Lysimachos]

What about the idea that the closer the two players are in ability the more that luck becomes a factor?

That should be right, with the addition that anyway the best way to plan a battle is to think always that the unexpected could happen and to plan in order to take care of it. In fact, generally when I loose a match I realize that some of the previsions I feared became true and that having moved my units more carefully and prudently the problem would have been solved.

[stockwellpete]

That should be right, with the addition that anyway the best way to plan a battle is to think always that the unexpected could happen and to plan in order to take care of it. In fact, generally when I loose a match I realize that some of the previsions I feared became true and that having moved my units more carefully and prudently the problem would have been solved.

I basically agree with you, but sometimes when you have a bad turn with a dice the extreme melee results that occur can end your chance of winning the game even though you have made no mistakes at all. And in some games you can win heavily on one flank and lose heavily on the other when the match-ups are very similar in both cases. In those circumstances the skill/luck balance has tipped right over towards luck. I don't find either of these two circumstances particularly satisfying.

[quackstheking]

Whether you call it "Lady Luck", "rub of the Green" or the vagaries of war, luck should always be a factor! If I wanted to play a wargame where there was no luck involved, I would take up chess!!

It therefore follows thatwhere players have similar levels of ability (whether this be experienced or rookies) then luck plays a part. Part of the attraction of our hobby is that the underdog whether the player or the army always has a chance!

Don

[stockwellpete]

Whether you call it "Lady Luck", "rub of the Green" or the vagaries of war, luck should always be a factor! If I wanted to play a wargame where there was no luck involved, I would take up chess!!

It therefore follows thatwhere players have similar levels of ability (whether this be experienced or rookies) then luck plays a part. Part of the attraction of our hobby is that the underdog whether the player or the army always has a chance!

Don

I don't think anyone is suggesting that there should be no luck in the game, it is more a case of asking how much should there be. My own view is that there is too much at the moment.

[dazzam]

My guess is it's around 80% skill 20% luck..although the wild variances from missile fire are too much for me. And I will get annoyed every time my cats get disrupted after charging LF in the rear. Over a game the dice tend to even out..although at times a few key combats can be affect by some wild dice which can have a bearing on a game..but such is life.

If it were 50% luck and 50% skill can you explain the pantherboy phenomenon?

[stockwellpete]

If it were 50% luck and 50% skill can you explain the pantherboy phenomenon?

No, I just used that as a catchy title for the thread. If I had to quantify the luck factor overall, I would say something like 75% skill - 25% luck, with the proviso that some games between equally matched players there can be well over 50% luck. I have lost and won games where the die rolls in one turn have decided the result, even when the odds might probably suggest a different outcome - and this is far from an occasional experience either.

pantherboy wins so many games because he knows FOG inside out and he knows what to do in most situations that occur. Plus he has developed tactics that are very hard to counter i.e. playing at a very high tempo and applying overwhelming force at the weaker points of an opponent's army.

[jonno]

I think the 50% / 50% is about right - which is a weakness in this game.

Knowledge of the game changes this - but with two relatively equal players it might be even more luck.

There is too much randomness on die rolls. I can't remember the TT game but i can't think of another game with a similar combat system to FoG PC

I have seen combat results where one side has 4 hits for 20% casualties the other 3 hits for 2% - which just seems wrong!

[jdm]

I think an important factor to consider in this debate is that the level of skill may be a much higher factor than you suggest.

Both in table top gaming and in the videogame version the results from games played clearly indicate that the performance of certain individual players is a significant number of wins way beyond 50/50. In some cases very significantly more.



Regards
JDM

[IainMcNeil]

Yep - luck is rarely ever a factor unless the player skill is very equal. However each individual combat can be decided by luck so players tend to blame the bad luck for losses and ignore the good luck that balanced it. It is human nature!

[Xiggy]

I would say maybe 75 percent skill, 25 percent luck. As an example I would looks at pantherboy, mschund, cothyso and a few others that rarely lose a game. I think patherboy has lost maybe 2 games in the last year. (Both were with him playing numidians which are arguably one of the weakest lists in ror) I cant remember when cothyso has lost and I think I have 1 win and 1 draw after maybe 15 games with mschund.

There are other players I am sure I have missed the rarely lose. They throw the backgammon theory out the window in my opinion.


If this was a 50/50 game the best players would win less than 60 percent of the time. That is not the case.

[Morbio]

Both were with him playing numidians which are arguably one of the weakest lists in ror

Arguably?.... Definitely!

I also agree with all the sentiments listed, both by Xiggy and by Iain.

The luck comes in the odd (maybe odd is the keyword) individual combat, in itself it rarely determines the battle result... and where it does, it's often because the player hasn't made allowance for the bad luck.

[dazzam]

Overall I agree with the fact that skill is a far better determinant of the the result rather than luck. My games with eric are strong evidence of that.

I do think that elements of the game are too random and that can add to a sense of frustration when you've had a few bad rolls go against you.

One of these is the casualties from archery fire. It really is just nuts that you can inflict more casualties with 0 hits than 2. An extra 1 on the dice roll of a MF unit can take you to 9% casualties from 0.5%. I just fell strongly that this extra level of randomness is unwarranted and could be partially addressed by perhaps having a normal distribution of the casualties from missile fire rather than the linear distribution across the casualty range. I think with combat it's not as bad when one side wins the combat but when there are an even number of hits it's also an issue.

The sacking of camps is also a little too random as well and I've had a few games decided by not sacking a camp despite being stuck on it for several turns while the opposition has just turned up and instantly sacked. It's happened in my favour I'm sure as well but just think the randomness of the time frames is a little too much. I've offered a suggestion to this in another post re camps.

I would really like to see these things tinkered with as they can stand out as being completely random and when a few other things have gone against you will add to the view that the game is too random overall.

[IainMcNeil]

The casualties is an area I would like to tighten up but have not got round to.

[dazzam]

Thanks Iain..it's good to know it's an issue you are looking at

[stockwellpete]

The casualties is an area I would like to tighten up but have not got round to.

Would something like this be a big job to do, Iain? Would you want to test it first before going "live" with it?