New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

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Ludendorf
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Ludendorf »

I was actually surprised by how strong the Galatian list was. It's weak on skirmishers, which I initially took to be a massive minus to the list, and the cavalry aren't nearly as impressive at medium battle size, but those superior warbands can go through anything that isn't a veteran pike phalanx and the army scales up spectacularly. That said, there are a few armies that can worry the Galatians; Hannibal in Africa (elephants, skirmish cav, deep centre to counter the Galatian charge, and veterans), Early Macedonians (Lancers, Veteran Phalanxes, skirmishers to shoot the Galatian horse), and Civil War-Era Romans (Supremely powerful infantry of their own, cavalry, skirmishers and elephants). Any lancer-heavy list can also cause havoc simply because they can park themselves in front of my warbands while the rest go off to murder my cavalry and skirmishers.

I think it's a bit premature for me to claim victory. I'm currently facing Nosy Rat, who has beaten me in more games than not so far. If Nosy Rat goes down, then Kabill or Paul McNeil could still win the game by conquering the winning number of provinces before I can capitalise on it; I think Nosy_Rat and I are very likely to fight each other to a standstill assuming he doesn't simply push me into the sea. A coalition formed from the remaining players could also bring me down; Nyczar and Batesmotel's Romans haven't even fought my Galatians yet, and we share a long border. I have a lot of reserves, but they'll dwindle quickly enough if enough people attack and beat/draw with me at once.

I'd be willing to have a go at GMing the game, but I'm looking to wind down my commitment a bit myself. I would appreciate it if Kabill were willing to take on the job, but I'll step in if required.
Nosy_Rat
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Nosy_Rat »

I feel like it's a bit premature to declare Galatians the ultimate unbeatable army. While it's a strong force (and lead by a very capable commander, of course), Galatians have many drawbacks.
I'm sorry that you'll be leaving the campaign, and hope that everything goes well for you.
Nosy_Rat
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Nosy_Rat »

Nosy_Rat beats the unbeatable Ludendorf's Galatians 53-61 (final casualties 27% to 61%). Very close game, though, one more turn and the result would have been the opposite.
nyczar
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by nyczar »

bbogensc I thank you for your efforts to put this Campaign together and for recruiting me to play. I have experience a new level of gaming enjoyment being brought back to my days of Risk (The board game) negotiating and with FOG II battles having a strategic impact. It is not often I am inspired to research the speeches of Winston Churchill so I can add a bit of humor to our forum here. Further, my game-play has improved due to the fine generals I have had the opportunity to communicate with and battle with in this campaign; albeit not good enough as it seems the only way I can beat Ludendorf is if i have an extra 400 points (I have lost 6-7 straight to him so far with even points).

I agree it is too soon to declare a winner; especially if others are willing to pick up the gauntlet of being the moderator. Aside from feeling that to do so would be premature, with a strategic dimension at play, as Ludendorf pointed out, a superior general with a top list can be beaten if sentiment shifts and he is assailed from multiple directions at the strategic level. One breakthrough at that level, and a weakly defended interior is vulnerable.

As a quick follow-up, if our campaign does indeed continue, I would suggest that we look again at the victory conditions. 1/2 of all territories will take forever given the self-interests involved. Cunningcairn and I shared some ideas about campaigns in general and he had an excellent idea for victory conditions: the winner is the one with the most provinces once a set number of player are eliminated. I suggest we consider this or lower the overall threshold of provinces needed for a new emperor to be crowned.
Cunningcairn
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Cunningcairn »

bbogensc I'm sorry to hear you are leaving. Thank you for your organisation to date it has been most enjoyable despite having suffered heavily against your Persian archers :cry: I also think it is too early to call and would like to continue playing if possible.
Kabill
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Kabill »

After a prolonged struggle against the Sicilians defending their island home, Spanish forces finally carve out a sufficiently decisive advantage on their left flank to bring the bloody battle to a close in their favour.

Spain triumphs in Sicily 43-62, suffering 24% casualties and losing one attacking army.
Kabill's Great Generals Mod for FoG2: http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=492&t=84915
Kabill
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Kabill »

Double post to avoid administrative mistakes.

There seems to be a consensus in favour of continuing the game, in which case I'll reaffirm my willingness to take over moderation of the game. I'll add that I'm perfectly happy for someone else to take this on instead, so if there are any takers then do say!
Kabill's Great Generals Mod for FoG2: http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=492&t=84915
bbogensc
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by bbogensc »

Ok, thanks to Kabill then for GM. Attached here is the base map. Please send future orders to Kabill then. I will be very very busy this week but will finish the Persian matches and then paul can take over.

Yes, to answer the questions I have received from several players, basically I stopped enjoying FOG when it went from 4 dimensions (Heavy inf, Med inf, Archers, Cav) down to 2 dimensions with the DLC mods. The DLC mods took archers and Cav lists effectively out of the game in my view. Note, the cav cannot adjust facing and charge now so the number of cav flanking charges has reduced to nill in my matches. This then reduces the need for elephants and skirmishers, and I am not even recruiting elephants usually in the new DLC, so the complexity and fun of the game has diminished greatly. In 1200 pts med foot lists are still viable and you can get good matches amongst the med foot army types, but in the 2000 pts, its really 1 dimensional where its just heavy foot that matters, not too much different than chess with a lot of luck. The importance of luck has greatly increased in the simpler game which matters to gameplay and league as in the prior DLC luck usually had to get really out of whack to change the outcome of the game.

In successful game mods, the dimensions of gameplay are typically increased with new unit types and so forth, rather than decreased. I think the DLC mods error occurred because lots of new players were only playing heavy foot army types when they first started playing the game, Roman especially, often losing matches often to archers or cav, and then complained to the game designers before learning how to use archers and cav units. The players that were losing to archers in the prior DLC had not learned how to counter archers, which requires more advanced technique. I was routinely beating archer/elephant lists in the prior DLC without any trouble at all. Also, in the prior DLC nobody played Med Foot lists for reasons I don't understand, so its just too bad the DLC mods were made.
Attachments
Base Campaign Map (2).jpg
Base Campaign Map (2).jpg (201.28 KiB) Viewed 2838 times
batesmotel
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by batesmotel »

I'm happy to continue with Kabill running the campaign.

Chris
....where life is beautiful all the time
gamercb
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by gamercb »

Sorry you are giving up bbogensc. Thank you setting up and running the campaign.

Colin
Najanaja
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Najanaja »

Thanks from me as well.

I think the Carthaginians are beaten and I will leave the game after this round.
Kabill
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Kabill »

Ok, should probably start doing some organising.

Original battle deadline was today. There's only two sets of results in so far. Have any been passed directly to bbogensc? Otherwise, can I check games are in progress? It's going to take me a bit of time to get things in gear so I'm not going to apply the original deadline but I do also want to make sure things are moving along.

Also, a couple of rules things:

1) Nyczar suggested adding in an additional victory condition, i.e. whoever has the most provinces when only X number of players are remaining. Did you have a figure in mind, and is there a consensus in agreement with this? I'm personally happy with it if there's general agreement.

2) How much have folks been using the option to raise armies of different types? It's something I've not done very much because the book-keeping is too much for me to want to care about (i.e. keeping track of where particular armies are). If there's not a lot of use being made of it, I'd like to propose simplifying the system, as it will make things a lot easier to keep track of for me as GM. Some possible options:
A - Each player has a single core list they use for all battles.
B - Each player has a single core list they use for all battles, but can change that core list to any other where they hold *all* provinces in that group (e.g. I could change my list to one of the Carthaginian lists because I hold both of the original Carthaginian provinces). To avoid this being done too often, this could come with a cost (e.g. no new armies built that turn, to represent retraining/army reform).
C - Each player has a single core list they use in general, but can use a list local to a province they are attacking from or defending instead (e.g. if I attacked from 52 to 51 I could use one of the Carthaginian lists as 52 is in the Carthaginian province group).

(C) would be my preferred solution in principle but means that games can't get set up until the defender says what army they will use, which slows things up a bit. I also quite like (B) as providing a strategic option to change your army type to face a new opponent after a series of conquests (and isn't meaningfully more complex than (A)). We can of course keep things as they are, but not having to track individual army types would make things a lot easier for me to manage.
Kabill's Great Generals Mod for FoG2: http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=492&t=84915
batesmotel
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by batesmotel »

My battle with Paulmcneil's British is almost done. Battle with RagnarOneToouth's Pyrrhic just started.

I'm fine with just using a core list.

Chris
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Morbio
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Morbio »

I have been building other army types, simply because I wanted some options for fighting in terrain other than open (my hoplite list is not good other than in the open)... which is useful when fighting armies with lots of MF. It's probably fair to say that all of these armies are destroyed as they were on mainland Greece and Nosy has ejected me.

I think I prefer option (C) of the 3 you propose as it is easy to administer. I'll also propose a 4th option (D), which is less realistic, but it would give some variation in battles, which I would prefer for 2 reasons;
1 - It gets a little stale fighting with the same army time all the time
2 - It gives a little boost to the defender and I believe there should be some advantage in defending... call it local knowledge, or logistic support from the populace or whatever you want!

D - Attacker specifies what army type he is attacking with, chosen from all the provinces he owns, and the defender can choose any army type to defend with from any province he owns. It does mean that a Carthage army could suddenly appear in Britain (or wherever), which isn't very realistic, but I think this will make for a more enjoyable game.
Ludendorf
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Ludendorf »

I agree. C seems like a reasonable compromise, though I am quite capable of keeping an account of which armies are which on my own. This does not necessarily have to require much work on the part of the GM.
Morbio
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Morbio »

Ludendorf wrote: Tue Jul 10, 2018 12:50 pm I agree. C seems like a reasonable compromise, though I am quite capable of keeping an account of which armies are which on my own. This does not necessarily have to require much work on the part of the GM.
The downside is that the GM needs to track too (or we work on trust) and the opponent may not know what armies you have where and so it makes it difficult to plan accurately. At least with option D the map will explain what possible armies may be involved in a battle and there is no overhead to this approach.
Ludendorf
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Ludendorf »

Morbio wrote: Tue Jul 10, 2018 2:56 pm
Ludendorf wrote: Tue Jul 10, 2018 12:50 pm I agree. C seems like a reasonable compromise, though I am quite capable of keeping an account of which armies are which on my own. This does not necessarily have to require much work on the part of the GM.
The downside is that the GM needs to track too (or we work on trust) and the opponent may not know what armies you have where and so it makes it difficult to plan accurately. At least with option D the map will explain what possible armies may be involved in a battle and there is no overhead to this approach.
Seems fair. I'm ok with Option C or Option D.
Najanaja
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Najanaja »

Carthage vs Ptolemy. Approximately 36% to 53%. Couple more turns should yield a result.
batesmotel
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by batesmotel »

Etruria (Roman 199 BC) 39% beats British (61%) in area 11. Final Roman causalties 22% so one army lost.

Thanks for a tough game.

Chris
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Cunningcairn
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Re: New FOGII (April 2018) Campaign Tournament (bbogensc)

Post by Cunningcairn »

The 2 games were I'm being attacked by gamercb are most likely going to end in draws as the challenges were made very late. How much time do we have?
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