Slitherine

I wrote this originally in the MF discussion thread, but I have put it here too to avoid detracting from that discussion . . .

"Do people think that the command radius for the various generals are too big? Does this encourage spamming cheap units to a certain extent? Currently, command radii for troop, field and great commanders are 4, 8 and 12 squares respectively. This means a troop commander controls an area of 69 squares, while a field commander controls a whopping 249 squares. When I was playing this game regularly I didn't really think much about my commanders and their command radius until one of them got killed. Perhaps the current radii make things too easy? What if you reduced them by 25% to 3, 6 and 9? That should be ample still, shouldn't it? A field commander would still be controlling an area of 169 squares (13x13 minus the corners being chopped off, so probably minus 24 squares, I guess, which makes 145 squares). If you reduce the command radii it would also make it a tougher decision about using your general in melee - it is usually a no-brainer at the moment."

And then Schweetness101 has provided another mod from his factory reducing the command radii to 3, 6 and 9.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nhmsq3ndklik ... JOXqa?dl=0

What I didn't realise yesterday was the command radii are the same regardless of the size of the map. I was expecting them to be proportionately different according to how many squares there were in a map. So, maybe for the largest size maps the 4,8,12 scale is OK, but which command radii might be more appropriate for the 4 smaller map sizes? I would say that a 3,6,9 scale is one viable alternative and also possibly 2,4,6 for the smallest map size.

So given there are 5 map sizes - very small, small, medium, large, very large - and probably 3 viable command radii scales, the question is how you distribute these 3 scales among the 5 map categories. Possibly . . .

very small 2-4-6
small 2-4-6
medium 3-6-9
large 3-6-9
very large 4-8-12

or if you wanted a softer effect . . .

very small 2-4-6
small 3-6-9
medium 3-6-9
large 4-8-12
very large 4-8-12

The command radius mod provided by Schweetness101 is working well. (Schweetness - the corners of the command area are fine ). I tried an Anglo-Danish v Welsh match-up against the AI on medium-sized maps. Playing as the Anglo-Danish first, I felt the 3-6-9 command scale was proportionate to what is one of the smaller armies you can build (around 21/22 units for 1200 pts). The field commander C-in-C was with the reserve and nearly all the time its command radius covered the entire Anglo-Danish army. There was only a short period early on where one Anglo-Danish contingent had to swing round a marsh that took it beyond the C-in-C's range, but that had no effect because the sub-general was still present. So that worked perfectly OK for that army.

Then I played as the Welsh, and because it was a larger army (nearly 30 units), and because it was necessary for the leaders to fight in the front rank (the Brythonic foot were outclassed by both the huscarls and well-equipped spearmen), there were more problems. Basically this was because the sub-general leading the central contingent got killed at the same time that the Welsh cavalry reserve (with their C-in-C) had moved to firm up one of the flanks - and then the C-in-C got killed too. So this left quite a few units showing "Reduced CC", which I felt was realistic as 2 of the 4 leaders were now dead.

And now I have just played against the AI with the largest map and I still found the 3,6,9 scale to be OK. I think it does mean you probably need to think a bit harder before committing your C-in-C to melee but otherwise for the Viking army I was using it was pretty much "as you were".

I like the current command radii. There are less drastic and more focused ways to reduce medium foot hordes' efficiency like making them pay for maneuverability.

Well, having 'reduced cc' is essentially meaningless for the Anglo-Danish outside of skirmishers and cavalry, shieldwalls can't get free 45 degree turns.

MVP7 wrote: ↑Thu May 07, 2020 2:53 pm I like the current command radii. There are less drastic and more focused ways to reduce medium foot hordes' efficiency like making them pay for maneuverability.

It is hardly drastic and it is not just about the manoeuvrability of MF. Players are also saying that they feel they have too much control over their armies so this would be a way of making that a little harder. Having a 4,8,12 command radii scale in medium or smaller battlefields virtually means your units will always be in range, unless your leaders start dropping. A 3,6,9 pattern, even on the largest map size still seems to be viable although I still need to test out a horse army to be sure. I think making the areas controlled by each leader a bit smaller does make it quite interesting in terms of how many leaders you commit to battle at any one time, and whether you decide to keep your C-in-C out of harms way until the later stages of a battle.

I think there is scope here, particularly in multi-player, for making the game a bit more challenging, even if is initially through a mod. I have a thread about "tournament mode" opened up to pick up any other ideas and I think "command and control" could be central to that. The other idea that might work well in terms of "command and control" is to have the capabilities of the sub-generals reduced to those of the ally-generals. Ally-generals have no command abilities over the units of the main army, just their own contingent. That would really freshen up the command and control aspects of the game and hopefully it could eventually be used in some of our multi-player tournaments (and in some of my scenarios).

pompeytheflatulent wrote: ↑Thu May 07, 2020 3:21 pm Well, having 'reduced cc' is essentially meaningless for the Anglo-Danish outside of skirmishers and cavalry, shieldwalls can't get free 45 degree turns.

They are a very small army, but cavalry and skirmishers can make up around 25% of their total units, so it has some effect on them.

The change would be drastic and off the mark in the sense that it would also effect high cost Heavy infantry and cavalry armies while leaving low cost unmaneuverable armies largely unaffected.

I personally don't think there's need for the change and I'd much rather see some other issues like Pike mechanics and Medium foot pricing changed and tested first.

Of the games I've played with really great command and control mechanics (I think 'Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm' is the most recent example I can think of), all of them have the c&c mechanics as a fundamental part of their game design, not something that's tacked on as an afterthought. In this area I think FOG is held back in some degree by its roots as a table-top game.

Using the example of Flashpoint Campaigns, in that game you have an asymetrical WEGO turn-based system set in a cold war gone hot scenario, where:

- The NATO and Soviet commanders take turns giving orders, then watch them get played out. BUT, how often the player gets to give orders depends on the quality and average readiness of their HQ units, and how many units are out of command radius. So the NATO player might get to issue orders every 20 in-game minutes while the Soviet player issue orders every 30 min. And this is constantly updated. So if you get your HQ plastered by artillery or air strikes, you might find yourself suddenly only issuing orders once every 45 in-game minutes.

- Orders takes time to filter down to your units, and this length of time is dictated by your units' readiness, being inside of their HQ's command bubble, and their proximity to the enemy. Spamming constantly changing new orders every turn will not result in them being carried out any faster, and will only result in tanking that unit's readiness %.

- The player as a limited number of orders per turn. But the more orders you use, the more radio traffic your HQs generate, making them more likely to be located by the enemy and plasterd by artillery or air strikes.

Anyway, with a command and control system that complex and integral to the basic gameplay, I'd be willing to bet that the game designers had the whole system worked out and tested before they even decided on whether their game was gonna be hex-based or square-based. How you would retrofit something like that to an existing game via a mod I can't even begin to imagine. So therefore I think you are really barking up the wrong tree in this regard.

MVP7 wrote: ↑Thu May 07, 2020 5:01 pmThe change would be drastic and off the mark in the sense that it would also effect high cost Heavy infantry and cavalry armies while leaving low cost unmaneuverable armies largely unaffected.

Which armies do you mean? Etruscans? Kyrenean Greeks? Anyone else? There are not very many of them, are there? Soissons and Romano-British are changing now.

I personally don't think there's need for the change and I'd much rather see some other issues like Pike mechanics and Medium foot pricing changed and tested first.

It won't effect you in single player as it will probably develop first as a mod among just a few players using multi-player. Once it is refined a bit it will probably be raised as an issue in a beta test at some point. There is no need to counterpose it to other issues that are being discussed right now, they are not in competition with each other.

pompeytheflatulent wrote: ↑Thu May 07, 2020 5:55 pm How you would retrofit something like that to an existing game via a mod I can't even begin to imagine. So therefore I think you are really barking up the wrong tree in this regard.

I am not retro-fitting anything. Just suggesting a small modification to what is already there.

Well, I guess the best source to steal ideas from would be the old 'Great Battles of Alexander/Hannibal/Caesar' series of games, but if I recall correctly even that game had asymmetrical command cycles, so I not sure how much of their game mechanics would be applicable.

Edit: well shit, that whole series is like 6 bucks on gog, so I think I know what I'll be doing for the next week or so.

Even more edit: I'm seeing a bunch of 1-star reviews on gog due to technical issues getting things to run on modern PCs, so buyers beware I guess.

Just another thought that I have had which might be worth looking at in a mod at some point . . .

At the moment the various scales are 2-4-6 , 3-6-9 or 4-8-12 which gives a very large increase in area commanded by troop, field and inspired commanders respectively. An alternative pattern that isn't so drastic in its differences between the different quality of leaders could be 2-3-4, 3-4-5 and 4-5-6.

stockwellpete wrote: ↑Sat May 09, 2020 9:28 am Just another thought that I have had which might be worth looking at in a mod at some point . . .

At the moment the various scales are 2-4-6 , 3-6-9 or 4-8-12 which gives a very large increase in area commanded by troop, field and inspired commanders respectively. An alternative pattern that isn't so drastic in its differences between the different quality of leaders could be 2-3-4, 3-4-5 and 4-5-6.

i think this could probably be done, it's just the way the code is right now it likes the three values to have a common factor, because there are at least 2 important places (both in displaying the command radii and calculating the smaller morale boost radii) where it divides by the common factor.The issue is you must end up with a discrete number of tiles that the effect takes place over, so you couldn't do, for example, 4,5,6 and then divide them all by 2.

I could just add more conditions and explicitly give each radius all of its own values and get rid of the single common factor division bit which is kind of just done for convenience it looks like, but I'd have to take another look.

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2020 3:47 am i think this could probably be done, it's just the way the code is right now it likes the three values to have a common factor, because there are at least 2 important places (both in displaying the command radii and calculating the smaller morale boost radii) where it divides by the common factor.The issue is you must end up with a discrete number of tiles that the effect takes place over, so you couldn't do, for example, 4,5,6 and then divide them all by 2.

I could just add more conditions and explicitly give each radius all of its own values and get rid of the single common factor division bit which is kind of just done for convenience it looks like, but I'd have to take another look.

OK then. Usually there is a solution when we are talking about simple mathematical changes.

But I have had another idea now too. What if we abandoned the idea of a progressive scale (e.g. 3-6-9 square radius) where there is a hierarchy according to the general's ability? Supposing we said instead that all generals in the game had a command radius of, say, 4 squares, regardless of their ability? Sub-generals could only command units that were in their contingent at the start of a battle (i.e. they behave like ally generals) and C-in-C's can command any unit in the army. That might be interesting.

I do remember from FOG1 that it was not unusual to see players putting their C-in-C with a light horse unit because in that game you could get double moves if your units were in command radius at the start of the turn and there were no enemy units within a certain distance. So you had the C-in-C riding about behind the lines urging parts of his army forward. At the moment in FOG2, the command radius really only gives a free 45 degree turn to certain troop types, which is important but quite limited in scope. I think it is an area that might be developed a bit more. For example, if you had anarchy rules then the command radius would certainly be much more important. Also, at the moment a unit will attempt to rally every turn (up to 5 turns) if it has a general present and it has a much smaller chance of rallying without a general there (I am not sure what the % chance is). But what if you said that units within their general's command radius at the start of a turn either will always attempt to rally or will have a greater chance to rally than a unit without a general does now? That again would add to the importance of the command radius. And it would make the loss of a general far more significant.

Just some thoughts anyway.

Anarchy charges, with Generals being able to mitigate them, seem to be one of the best ways to increase the Generals' importance. Having not played FOG1, hopefully units like Roman Foot or Phalanx would be basically immune while Warbands, inexperienced medium foot, and of course cavalry would be likely candidates to get antsy and charge away.

The rally radius would be great too.