Slitherine

I have had 6 months away from the game and I returned to it a couple of weeks ago. I had forgotten just how poor a representation of medieval warfare FOG is at the moment. Some of the DAG games that I have just played are completely ludicrous; scenario games are somewhat better because designers do try and recreate more realistic military encounters.

Some basic points . . .
i) medieval armies were divided into distinct groups, or "battles". Usually there were three of these, but not always - vanguard, main army, and the rearguard. There would often be a small mounted reserve.
ii) these "battles" were quite distinct formations, with their own leaderships, and they usually fought the enemy separately from each other (at least they did in the early stages of a battle). Soldiers were not generally interchangeable between "battles". So medieval battles were often "three battles in one". If one "battle" routed then the "battle" of the other side might equally pursue them off the battlefield rather than help the rest of their army in the remainder of the battle.
iii) the death of leaders could often be disastrous, leading to the rout of both individual "battles" and whole armies.
iv) longbowmen were much more potent than they are in the game
v) skirmishers could not fly, nor could they jump over friendly troops, they were human just like everybody else

No-one got any comments then? For those of us interested in the medieval period now would be a good time to clarify our thoughts so we can present them to the new developers. Once the new code is done (soon) then the discussions will shift to gameplay changes and the development of FOG 2.0.

This subject has cropped up in a few of my games this week and there seems to be a view that the game is a lot better at representing ancient warfare than medieval warfare. I really know very little about the ancient world to say if this is true. It would seem to me that the general lack of command and control rules would be just as much of an issue when using Roman or Persian armies as it is in the medieval period. What do people think?

For my part I have been playing in LOEG and I have been trying to use my army in the way that I understand a medieval army would have gone about things (i.e. in fixed contingents with a small reserve). I have not done particularly well as might be expected but from what happened in those games I feel it should be possible to develop simple rules that reward "historical behaviour" in the gameplay. For example, by introducing tougher movement penalties for isolated units and by introducing tougher "out of command" criteria by linking soldiers to leaders from the outset of the battle, it should encourage players to keep their contingents grouped together around the leader flags. I also think that if those leaders are killed then their contingents need to undergo some sort of collective morale test to see if they continue in the fight. It might mean that killing a leader needs to be a little bit harder than it is now.

For my part, "I'm done with the DAG" until this is sorted out. I shall just stick to scenarios because at least there scenario designers are creating historical armies and deployments and the games are generally balanced very well.

Edit: just a thought, but I do have a copy of the TT rulebook for FOG so I will look in there today and see how "command and control" is handled for the Renaissance period. I will post again later.

I am no expert on Medieval warfare but it's a large period of history and I imagine it's difficult to generalise too much about the potency of any particular troop type or formation as many factors come into play. I do recognise in your argument something I've come across before on other wargame forums. There seems to be a school of thought that historical accuracy is everything to the point where you wonder if the logic is taken as far as it could go you would end up with a reenactment of battles rather than a wargame as everyone would expect English Longbows to destroy French knights and Norman cavalry would always flatten charging Saxons etc. There is already a penalty for loss of leaders and it seems to be significant. What fun would it be if every time a leader died the game was effectively over? The key word is fun I think. Chess is a wargame and it's challenging and good fun. No one thinks it resembles the real thing. Nor do I believe TT resembles real battles but it's still fun. Yes it's good scenario designers can recreate accurate battles and it's also fun that you can purchase an army and try to beat another army according to movement and other rules in a similar way you can in chess but with an element of luck. Realism is good but if you take it too far you remove the fun game element. It's about balance I feel, I'm not against the changes you suggest but there is always that balance between entertainment and historical accuracy when it comes to wargames that's why some wargames which are extremely detailed often end up unplayed. See Ancient Wars by HPS as an example.

cromlechi wrote:Realism is good but if you take it too far you remove the fun game element. It's about balance I feel, I'm not against the changes you suggest but there is always that balance between entertainment and historical accuracy when it comes to wargames that's why some wargames which are extremely detailed often end up unplayed.

Yes, I agree with you about this, cromlechi. It is just that some of us think that greater historical accuracy can be introduced into the gameplay without sacrificing the fun element. Nor would it necessarily make the game that much more complex either. FOG needs to keep its "Easy to Learn, Hard to Master" characteristics. Having said that, I do think "command and control" is a fairly basic requirement of a historical wargame.

I don't know if you were around when we discussed this matter a fair while back now, but you might find it interesting . . .

http://www.slitherine.co.uk/forum/viewt ... best+ideas

Gday all
I think the game is a reasonable representation of Ancient warfare but feel we need a seperate representation for medieval warfare where as Pete suggests the tactics and weaponry were very different.. Commanders were a very importtant part of Medieval armies as they were in ancient times,troops simply wouldnt attack on their own accord unless the odds were heavily in their favour.
I think movement penalties should be much more restrictive when out of command radius and more prown to disrupt easier.
Medieval weapons especially the longbow were far more effective than the game allows and could be easily remedied with an increase in range and modifiers for hits.Pikes were very effective defensivly and kept the Nasty Knights at bay but were extremly prone to archers as were all Pike through out history.The short of it all is the game doesnt feel right to me for the Medieval period and with some seriuos thought we may be able to suggest ammendmants to the basic game to get the a more realistic representation. I feel those interested should share their thoughts here,and you never know it may just happen.

Cheers Turk

Not sure I agree with you at all Pete, I actually think the game probobly better represents the medieval period


"i) medieval armies were divided into distinct groups, or "battles". Usually there were three of these, but not always - vanguard, main army, and the rearguard. There would often be a small mounted reserve."

I dont see any differnce as this is a such a large generality. Alexander at Gaugemela had a center phalanx, a right wing cavalry corp and a left wing cavalry corp ( and reserve of greek mercenaries) So?

"ii) these "battles" were quite distinct formations, with their own leaderships, and they usually fought the enemy separately from each other (at least they did in the early stages of a battle). Soldiers were not generally interchangeable between "battles". So medieval battles were often "three battles in one". If one "battle" routed then the "battle" of the other side might equally pursue them off the battlefield rather than help the rest of their army in the remainder of the battle."

just as true in ancient battles
Hannibals last battle vs the Romans the superior Numidians drove off Hannibals cavalry on one wing... After some time they returned and struck hannibal in the rear... This was noteworthy in that they returned at all

"iii) the death of leaders could often be disastrous, leading to the rout of both individual "battles" and whole armies."

just as true in ancient battles

"iv) longbowmen were much more potent than they are in the game"

maybe maybe not, of course your talking about a 200 year span of the relative imortance of this weapon vs 2000 years of warfare the game covers

"v) skirmishers could not fly, nor could they jump over friendly troops, they were human just like everybody else"

I agree foot skirmishers are probobly the most abstract unit class. I would be happy if they could only move at the same speed as medium foot and had to pass cohesion tests after evading

I dont really believe there was any real command and control differnces between an ancient Greek city state miltia levied hoplite phalanx vs a Saxon fyrd or norse shield wall. They lined up x men deep and that was it! All the commander could do at that point was "inspire" by his presence


The "problem" the PC game has is 40 plus BG's roaming about as th eplayer wills it, of course every turn based PC games has this problem
Noone wants to play a game where you only have 3 "elements" under you control , right? Even the Total war games give you 20 elements to command

Hello TGM.

What I wrote was, "This subject has cropped up in a few of my games this week and there seems to be a view that the game is a lot better at representing ancient warfare than medieval warfare. I really know very little about the ancient world to say if this is true. It would seem to me that the general lack of command and control rules would be just as much of an issue when using Roman or Persian armies as it is in the medieval period. What do people think?" So I wasn't really making a statement, more just asking a question.

I think some of the ideas contained in that old thread of macs' are worth re-visiting - movement penalties or morale penalties to encourage players to keep "units" together more; and whether it would be possible to have collective morale tests for contingents at a certain point is something else that interests me. In this way the death of leaders would be more important than it is now (I would also say that if all leaders of an army were killed that would mean an automatic rout of that army). In addition, I think there is a problem with having an absolute break point for armies to decide games - I think this should be a relative measurement between the strength of the two armies; and maybe have it backed up by a general exhaustion level in the game which would give inconclusive results or draws.

The answer in IMHO is BG size which the PC game lacks We need MULTI HEX BG's ! That way a phalanx can be a phalanx, a mob of levies will be a mod of levies etc..
There is no reason why you cant have 2 hex wide BG's in a hex based environment Heck you can have 2x2 easily ( swizz pike column anyone??)
More eggs in one basket, wider units means less maneverabilty etc

Likly the biggest impediment to ever getting these is the DAg lists. They would have to be radically changed and I dont see the resources being expended on that massive a change

A quicker fix which is more "doable" imho is to incorporate "complex move tests" for all BGS

SO outside a leader command range you need to pass a test to do anything OTHER than shoot, impact charge or simply advance forward only at maximum move allowance
Drilled troops would thus be the only types you could have as "deep raiders" , "flankers" or even ambushers...

This would prevent "horde armies" from streching across a map yet each segmemt be in utter control by the player. Similary , those you like to load up on spears and strech themm map edge to edge could have there line advance most unproffesionally in bits and pieces without the leaders availbe > of course a gint horde army could stand defensivley which I think historically waht would have happened.
IF something like the above was a reality, then the below could further mitgate "too much player control of their BG's " by perhaps making leaders costs rise proportionatly to the size of the dag army? As it stands, 800 1000 point armies there is really no reason not to load up on leaders at that point...

Just to be clear Pete, I dont mind the concept of BG's being attached to a "real command structure etc" I really like the idea of a wing or battle potentially having itc own BP rout limit... but the problem of course is these ideas are so far from what fog is as a game system I cant see it being changed, but who knows?.

TheGrayMouser wrote:The answer in IMHO is BG size which the PC game lacks We need MULTI HEX BG's ! That way a phalanx can be a phalanx, a mob of levies will be a mod of levies etc..
There is no reason why you cant have 2 hex wide BG's in a hex based environment Heck you can have 2x2 easily ( swizz pike column anyone??)
More eggs in one basket, wider units means less maneverabilty etc

Likly the biggest impediment to ever getting these is the DAg lists. They would have to be radically changed and I dont see the resources being expended on that massive a change

Yes, I definitely would like to see this introduced. Maybe a small team of modders working under Dan's (cothyso) direction might be able to do this eventually?

A quicker fix which is more "doable" imho is to incorporate "complex move tests" for all BGS

SO outside a leader command range you need to pass a test to do anything OTHER than shoot, impact charge or simply advance forward only at maximum move allowance
Drilled troops would thus be the only types you could have as "deep raiders" , "flankers" or even ambushers...

This would prevent "horde armies" from streching across a map yet each segmemt be in utter control by the player. Similary , those you like to load up on spears and strech themm map edge to edge could have there line advance most unproffesionally in bits and pieces without the leaders availbe > of course a gint horde army could stand defensivley which I think historically waht would have happened.
IF something like the above was a reality, then the below could further mitgate "too much player control of their BG's " by perhaps making leaders costs rise proportionatly to the size of the dag army? As it stands, 800 1000 point armies there is really no reason not to load up on leaders at that point...

Yes, this is an interesting idea too. The only thing I wonder about is the " advance forward only at maximum move allowance" - an alternative might be to allow movement of one hex, but that would be a minor point.

Just to be clear Pete, I dont mind the concept of BG's being attached to a "real command structure etc" I really like the idea of a wing or battle potentially having itc own BP rout limit... but the problem of course is these ideas are so far from what fog is as a game system I cant see it being changed, but who knows?.

I think it makes sense to raise all these issues again now as the new coding work is approaching its conclusion and the debate will then shift to possible gameplay changes and FOG v2.0. If you don't ask . . .

Dont mean to turn your thread into another wishlist thing but I cannot resist. Since CnC is the likly the biggest hurdle in this game how bout something like this:

At the beginning of each DAg battle(of course could be used in the editor as well), a player is given a set amount of commands or "orders of battle" (like the TT) I think 3 or 4 is too limiting and generic so have it based on the total # of BG's in the army Maybe a divisor of 8 or 10? So a 40 BG army would have 4 commands. The player would need to organize all his BG as being attched to one of the 4 commands predeployment

At deployment he would need to deploy each pre determined command SEPERATELY. To prevent players from being sneaks and scattering across the map(this is imortant for the next part) the deployment zone would be divided into ,, in tis case 4 zones. You deploy command A into any zone, then command B in any of the 3 remaining etc

The actual battle: well this would be the biggest change , each command would be "activeted" one at a time. To keep it simple, you could activate any command in what ever order you want, the crux is once activated, you can only move shoot charge, complete melee combat for that active command. Then when done you would go to the next command. Once a command is done, there no going back.

This in itself would change the complexion of the game in terms of command and control.

If coupled with complex move test for units that are not in the radii of a commander then I think all battles, anciemnt and or medieval would a heck of a lot more realistic and one would nt have to rewrite evry single DAG list, nor create additional unit types etc.

Yes, that is another very interesting idea, TGM. It would keep the contingents together for the duration of the battle very well. The game already has "Allied contingents" where the commander of that contingent can only affect allied troops, so really the idea of separate contingents or "battles" is just building on that. With the CMT's as well it would make the game much more realistic.

stockwellpete wrote:Yes, that is another very interesting idea, TGM. It would keep the contingents together for the duration of the battle very well. The game already has "Allied contingents" where the commander of that contingent can only affect allied troops, so really the idea of separate contingents or "battles" is just building on that. With the CMT's as well it would make the game much more realistic.

A bonus to the above idea is that if commands got mixed up together, whether by the friction of battle, or players doing it on purpose, there would be some reall issues of troops getting in eachothers way, which is very easy to prevent in the cuurent classic "turn based move any unit at anytime you want to maximise every combat in a way no commander , even if watching the battle from a flying pegasis with radio(or magic crystal ball) manner "

I have just been looking at the TT rules for FOG, TGM. It is on page 187-8 of the book if anyone else is interested. So they have "4 deployment batches" of a roughly even size. Maybe for medieval warfare you would only have 3 main contingents and the mounted reserve would be deployed with the main "battle" that contained the C-in-C? But the basic idea tallies very well with what happens in FOG TT so it deserves serious consideration on that basis alone.

stockwellpete wrote:I have just been looking at the TT rules for FOG, TGM. It is on page 187-8 of the book if anyone else is interested. So they have "4 deployment batches" of a roughly even size. Maybe for medieval warfare you would only have 3 main contingents and the mounted reserve would be deployed with the main "battle" that contained the C-in-C? But the basic idea tallies very well with what happens in FOG TT so it deserves serious consideration on that basis alone.

Yeah that the basic idea although its intent for the table top is to prevent "surpise deployments" where one guy deployes his army and then the other deplys after in a way to complety take adavantage of his knowledge. It also prevents having to blindfold the player

The TT has no command and control rules thoughpe se, but as its fought in phases, things tend to play out much differnelty than the classic move unit, see what happens, move another (and likly decided on what happened to the ist unit if you get my meaning) etc

Some other considerations:

-- As I've pointed out before, the PC BGs are all the same size, where as on the TT, most barbarain BGs would be 3 or 4 hexes worth that all stay adjacent and all resolve combat and test as one big unit -- a huge difference to the PC version (which I believe broke the game in this respect.

-- TFOG-R rules (which TT players seem to prefer to to even the 2.0 AM rules) prohibit non-mounted or LF types from deployed on the outer edges of the map.

Deeter

Just a quick combat reference LBows. And I'm not an expert on Medieval warfare. (At one time I was pretty knowledgeable about Napoleonic Warfare.)

Anyway I do have a couple of comments:

1) I don't think the Longbows were as invincible as some propose. There are a lot of troop types in history that seem almost invincible. Legionnaires, Companion Cavalry, and Swiss come to mind. Almost any troop type could be engineered to be invincible -- but what would be the point? At the end of the day we want a competitive game. Let's say that they were made incredibly superior to everything else on the battlefield. Would it be correct for the 3,000 year span of the game? What would be the point cost? If Longbows are made invincible, they would probably have to be priced at about 25 points (including stakes and batteries). So most players would only buy 6 of them and even a dumsh!t like me could get to their flanks.

2) Having said that, I do think Longbows aren't correctly represented in the game. As I understand it, perhaps better than any archers in history, Longbows utilized plunging fire. The long, heavy arrows were very effective in that mode. If I made a tweak, I'd allow the entire back rank of Longbows to shoot. So, in game terms, they'd be firing four dice, instead of three. Might need to bump their price up a point or two, but no more.

3) I am skeptical that Longbows were that superior to other bows as an anti-armour weapon. I think they were devastating against mounted troops. I think a better arrangement of POAs is for Longbows to be modified as per all other bows, but get a +1 against all mounted, including elephants.

While we're on it -- I do think crossbows were more effective vs armour than other bows. I don't understand why they aren't less penalized vs armour and heavy armour. On the other hand, I don't think they should get second rank fire.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

John
Flatsix518 "the unfortunate"
(changed my tag-line after a couple of recent games)

flatsix518 wrote:Just a quick combat reference LBows. And I'm not an expert on Medieval warfare. (At one time I was pretty knowledgeable about Napoleonic Warfare.)

Anyway I do have a couple of comments:

1) I don't think the Longbows were as invincible as some propose. There are a lot of troop types in history that seem almost invincible. Legionnaires, Companion Cavalry, and Swiss come to mind. Almost any troop type could be engineered to be invincible -- but what would be the point? At the end of the day we want a competitive game. Let's say that they were made incredibly superior to everything else on the battlefield. Would it be correct for the 3,000 year span of the game? What would be the point cost? If Longbows are made invincible, they would probably have to be priced at about 25 points (including stakes and batteries). So most players would only buy 6 of them and even a dumsh!t like me could get to their flanks.

2) Having said that, I do think Longbows aren't correctly represented in the game. As I understand it, perhaps better than any archers in history, Longbows utilized plunging fire. The long, heavy arrows were very effective in that mode. If I made a tweak, I'd allow the entire back rank of Longbows to shoot. So, in game terms, they'd be firing four dice, instead of three. Might need to bump their price up a point or two, but no more.

3) I am skeptical that Longbows were that superior to other bows as an anti-armour weapon. I think they were devastating against mounted troops. I think a better arrangement of POAs is for Longbows to be modified as per all other bows, but get a +1 against all mounted, including elephants.

While we're on it -- I do think crossbows were more effective vs armour than other bows. I don't understand why they aren't less penalized vs armour and heavy armour. On the other hand, I don't think they should get second rank fire.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

John
Flatsix518 "the unfortunate"
(changed my tag-line after a couple of recent games)

I wrote this about the longbow in the "Arrows on Sky" thread a couple of weeks ago, John. I am certainly not arguing for them to be made "invincible", just a bit better. They didn't kill many heavily armoured knights outright, even at close range, but they would certainly knock down their horses and break up the momentum of their charges. If you come off a horse in full armour at gallop speed you would not always be able to get back up again quickly (concussion, broken collar bones etc). But massed longbow fire against blocks of unarmoured foot soldiers (e.g. Scots) was absolutely devastating,

"They are very poorly represented in the game (mind you, medieval warfare is poorly represented in the game, full stop ). Across the various periods covered by FOG most archery fire is attritional and that is correct, but massed longbow fire was really the medieval equivalent of the machine gun. Used by the English it was absolutely lethal against the Scots in a number of battles and it caused French armies great difficulties in a number of key battles during the Hundred Years War (Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt). But in FOG the longbow is often not much more dangerous than the crossbow and regularly longbowmen units score derisory hits against "protected" enemies who seem to be able to just stand there and trade volleys for turn after turn. It is just plainly ridiculous - they would be forced to melee as quickly as possible or they would run.

My solution? I would double (at least) the potency of the longbow against unarmoured targets and I would double the rate of disruption caused by the longbow against armoured units. Close-range longbow firing at armoured enemies should also be more lethal than it is. Longbowmen grouped in two ranks should all be able to fire en masse (i.e. the rear rank of archers should be able to fire over the front rank of archers). This would make longbow fire more deadly and more realistic. Some longbowmen units should also be classed as "superior" (e.g. Cheshire archers). Other changes would be to reduce the melee capability of archers. Some had swords, particularly in the retinues, but others did not and fought with anything they could put their hands on, including discarded weapons; and all archers should have a limited amount of ammunition (so they could only shoot a certain number of times). This initial allocation of ammunition could be supplemented by extra arrows carried by the supply wagon (a new unit type that needs to be created for FOG 2.0, in my opinion)."

stockwellpete wrote:

flatsix518 wrote:Just a quick combat reference LBows. And I'm not an expert on Medieval warfare. (At one time I was pretty knowledgeable about Napoleonic Warfare.)

Anyway I do have a couple of comments:

1) I don't think the Longbows were as invincible as some propose. There are a lot of troop types in history that seem almost invincible. Legionnaires, Companion Cavalry, and Swiss come to mind. Almost any troop type could be engineered to be invincible -- but what would be the point? At the end of the day we want a competitive game. Let's say that they were made incredibly superior to everything else on the battlefield. Would it be correct for the 3,000 year span of the game? What would be the point cost? If Longbows are made invincible, they would probably have to be priced at about 25 points (including stakes and batteries). So most players would only buy 6 of them and even a dumsh!t like me could get to their flanks.

2) Having said that, I do think Longbows aren't correctly represented in the game. As I understand it, perhaps better than any archers in history, Longbows utilized plunging fire. The long, heavy arrows were very effective in that mode. If I made a tweak, I'd allow the entire back rank of Longbows to shoot. So, in game terms, they'd be firing four dice, instead of three. Might need to bump their price up a point or two, but no more.

3) I am skeptical that Longbows were that superior to other bows as an anti-armour weapon. I think they were devastating against mounted troops. I think a better arrangement of POAs is for Longbows to be modified as per all other bows, but get a +1 against all mounted, including elephants.

While we're on it -- I do think crossbows were more effective vs armour than other bows. I don't understand why they aren't less penalized vs armour and heavy armour. On the other hand, I don't think they should get second rank fire.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

John
Flatsix518 "the unfortunate"
(changed my tag-line after a couple of recent games)

I wrote this about the longbow in the "Arrows on Sky" thread a couple of weeks ago, John. I am certainly not arguing for them to be made "invincible", just a bit better. They didn't kill many heavily armoured knights outright, even at close range, but they would certainly knock down their horses and break up the momentum of their charges. If you come off a horse in full armour at gallop speed you would not always be able to get back up again quickly (concussion, broken collar bones etc). But massed longbow fire against blocks of unarmoured foot soldiers (e.g. Scots) was absolutely devastating,

"They are very poorly represented in the game (mind you, medieval warfare is poorly represented in the game, full stop ). Across the various periods covered by FOG most archery fire is attritional and that is correct, but massed longbow fire was really the medieval equivalent of the machine gun. Used by the English it was absolutely lethal against the Scots in a number of battles and it caused French armies great difficulties in a number of key battles during the Hundred Years War (Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt). But in FOG the longbow is often not much more dangerous than the crossbow and regularly longbowmen units score derisory hits against "protected" enemies who seem to be able to just stand there and trade volleys for turn after turn. It is just plainly ridiculous - they would be forced to melee as quickly as possible or they would run.

My solution? I would double (at least) the potency of the longbow against unarmoured targets and I would double the rate of disruption caused by the longbow against armoured units. Close-range longbow firing at armoured enemies should also be more lethal than it is. Longbowmen grouped in two ranks should all be able to fire en masse (i.e. the rear rank of archers should be able to fire over the front rank of archers). This would make longbow fire more deadly and more realistic. Some longbowmen units should also be classed as "superior" (e.g. Cheshire archers). Other changes would be to reduce the melee capability of archers. Some had swords, particularly in the retinues, but others did not and fought with anything they could put their hands on, including discarded weapons; and all archers should have a limited amount of ammunition (so they could only shoot a certain number of times). This initial allocation of ammunition could be supplemented by extra arrows carried by the supply wagon (a new unit type that needs to be created for FOG 2.0, in my opinion)."

quote and i think devastanting in fire but more weak in melee especially by cavarly charge

StockwellPete writes:

"They are very poorly represented in the game (mind you, medieval warfare is poorly represented in the game, full stop ). Across the various periods covered by FOG most archery fire is attritional and that is correct, but massed longbow fire was really the medieval equivalent of the machine gun. Used by the English it was absolutely lethal against the Scots in a number of battles and it caused French armies great difficulties in a number of key battles during the Hundred Years War (Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt). "

For a certain period of history English longbowmen were absolutely lethal, but they were also a specialised and effectively elite troop-type - a bit like the Swiss pikes in the way they could dominate a battefield. I think there's a case for making longbows in English armies of the relevant period much more effectice, but AFAIK other armies even in the same period did not field longbowmen who were nearly as effective, so a general change to the lethality of archers would probably introduce more historical inaccuracies than it would solve.

Pseudonius wrote:StockwellPete writes:

"They are very poorly represented in the game (mind you, medieval warfare is poorly represented in the game, full stop ). Across the various periods covered by FOG most archery fire is attritional and that is correct, but massed longbow fire was really the medieval equivalent of the machine gun. Used by the English it was absolutely lethal against the Scots in a number of battles and it caused French armies great difficulties in a number of key battles during the Hundred Years War (Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt). "

For a certain period of history English longbowmen were absolutely lethal, but they were also a specialised and effectively elite troop-type - a bit like the Swiss pikes in the way they could dominate a battefield. I think there's a case for making longbows in English armies of the relevant period much more effectice, but AFAIK other armies even in the same period did not field longbowmen who were nearly as effective, so a general change to the lethality of archers would probably introduce more historical inaccuracies than it would solve.

So in the DAG lists, make English longbowmen elite. Problem solved