Unit Costing Anomalies

Field of Glory II is a turn-based tactical game set during the Rise of Rome from 280 BC to 25 BC.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by rbodleyscott »

MikeC_81 wrote: Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:13 pm Auxilia, and therefore any other armoured LS Swordsman unit, at 45 is still too high. But if you want to start there, I'll bug you again later ;)
Absolutely fair enough.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by SimonLancaster »

Lots of learned input. I just want to say that in my experience the cataphracts are really poor for their cost. Bunny told me that they cost 72 before but even at 68 they don't offer much of a punch.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by vakarr »

SLancaster wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 7:50 pm Lots of learned input. I just want to say that in my experience the cataphracts are really poor for their cost. Bunny told me that they cost 72 before but even at 68 they don't offer much of a punch.
Cataphracts have often had this problem with previous rule sets - look great but don't do much, makes you wonder why, if they were so ineffective, they were used in real life. It's true in Field of Glory they also are not worth their points unless you are fighting cavalry, when they are pretty good (though still rather expensive). I always understood that they were, at least in some armies, meant to fight infantry, as a sort of mounted phalanx, but they are useless against infantry (or at least not any better than cheaper types).
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by lapdog666 »

just throwing this as it came to my mind 15 seconds ago : why not have standardized costs as it is now , tied to equipement,capabilities morale etc, but make it also tied to the faction/nation. you keep the standardization but it is now tied with the Nation

perhaps it could provide more space for balancing
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by Geffalrus »

The weird thing about lancers (cataphracts included) is that they are almost better when attacked, rather than when attacking. My reasoning for that is that they're big bonus is on impact. On subsequent melees, they're no different than 60 point veteran armor cavalry. So the one thing cataphracts have over xystophoroi is that they can survive multiple attacks and subsequent melees better due to their armor advantage POA. It's really, really not fun to attack cataphracts with anything but elephants or other lancers. While pikes can handle the subsequent melee, the problem is that you're dedicating a 75 point or more pike to handle a 68 point cataphract.......so not an ideal solution, especially when the cataphract can withdraw from combats and force another roll of the impact dice to tie them down.

The major downside of cataphracts is that they're even worse than normal lancers at riding around flanks. However, I find doing a long flank ride to be exceptionally difficult to execute since you either need enough units to tie down your opponent's army, or an opponent who doesn't understand the danger of a lancer rear charge. I honestly find myself using xystophoroi defensively more than offensively. Pike armies have expensive main lines, so your cavalry does double duty as flank guards. And lancers work well there since they can't be cohesion-dropped by flanking infantry, they can back peddle from losing fights forcing another impact or threat of a counter charge, and multiple infantry units ganging up on them run real risks of losing the impact and then taking a cohesion test with the -1 penalty from facing a lancer on open ground.

In a way, cataphracts are defensive units that (like elephants) can really take advantage of a unit breaking in combat with them - due to their 3 space movement and impetuousness.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by Witan »

Overall, are cavalry too highly priced at present? Cavalry armies don't seem to do too well in open tournaments.
I think that veteran byzantine lancers are too high priced at this moment. They cost 72 points while a armoured noble lancer only costs 64 points having the same stats, only missing 50% bow ability. A difference of 8 points just because of this 50% bow ability is quite a lot difference in my opinion. Also worth mentioning is that Byzantine Lancers in general do not evade and through this cannot use the bow ability like an expert armoured horse archer could do while evading enemies with their planned 66 points cost.

Also regular byzantine lancers should possibly get a small cost reduction in the context.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by rbodleyscott »

Witan wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:08 am
Overall, are cavalry too highly priced at present? Cavalry armies don't seem to do too well in open tournaments.
I think that veteran byzantine lancers are too high priced at this moment. They cost 72 points while a armoured noble lancer only costs 64 points having the same stats, only missing 50% bow ability. A difference of 8 points just because of this 50% bow ability is quite a lot difference in my opinion. Also worth mentioning is that Byzantine Lancers in general do not evade and through this cannot use the bow ability like an expert armoured horse archer could do while evading enemies with their planned 66 points cost.

Also regular byzantine lancers should possibly get a small cost reduction in the context.
50% bow cavalry in fact shoot 67% as effectively as a 100% bow-armed unit. This is because a 100% bow armed cavalry unit shoots with 75% of its men, whereas a 50% bow armed cavalry unit shoots with 50%. (This is equivalent to the tabletop rules, where the first shooting rank of models in a bow or mixed unit shoot at full effect at close range and the second shooting rank of models at half effect).

Their shooting is therefore not negligible at all, which gives major tactical options that are not available to pure lancer units. We think they are correctly costed.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by Nosy_Rat »

Veteran Byzantine lancers are decent for their price, it's the basic ones that are overpriced (or underperforming?), imo.
Their Above Average (+12.5) quality really hampers them down.
They are simultaniously bad at charging (with just 112.5 POA at charge, even irregular foot or noble cavalry stands their ground pretty well), and at shooting (smth like 75% of shooting capabilities of a basic 40 point horse archer or 50% of a Hunnic one), and at surviving (while armor somewhat reduces incoming damage in the shoot-out, they still get to pass a morale test after receiving 2-3 volleys, and the not-so-high quality means they would likely fail that test. And once disrupted, since they can't evade, they become more dangerous to yourself than to the enemy).
Maybe a bump in quality to +25 POA, with a minor price increase, or drop to the Average quality with a price decrease could make them work.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by lapdog666 »

yesterday i managed to rout 3 heavy units and 1 light with 1 cretan archers because they charged @ deep stream and flanked them also because they are fast moving light infantry. Usually tho they are just expensive unit which gets demolished in open terrain and they cant even charge @ rough ground . their melee role (which suplements missle role) is where they can truly shine is limited to deep streams and forests basically making them too useless. Also often times i m forced to take them just because i need light infantry and i dont have other choices like in late macedonian army roster

what do you think about adding them protected status , for free somehow
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by rbodleyscott »

lapdog666 wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:44 pm yesterday i managed to rout 3 heavy units and 1 light with 1 cretan archers because they charged @ deep stream and flanked them also because they are fast moving light infantry. Usually tho they are just expensive unit which gets demolished in open terrain and they cant even charge @ rough ground . their melee role (which suplements missle role) is where they can truly shine is limited to deep streams and forests basically making them too useless. Also often times i m forced to take them just because i need light infantry and i dont have other choices like in late macedonian army roster

what do you think about adding them protected status , for free somehow
I don't think so. We are, however, reducing their cost from 42 to 39 points.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by lapdog666 »

what about giving pikes one of those negative modifiers on cohesion check when losing combat (against non light units) or when losing combat after Flanking attack

but in return giving them Some Armour or slower POA decay rate.

More power , more vulnerability to flanking attacks, making them less useful if their flanks are not covered

one problem might be that good players wont be flanked anyway and that it d result in them just having more poa from some armour.(but they ll probably be used more conservative, or not separated all over the place) although additional negative cohesion check when losing any combat (non light) not just flanking combat , would perhaps offset that more than enough
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by Geffalrus »

lapdog666 wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2019 8:41 pm what about giving pikes one of those negative modifiers on cohesion check when losing combat (against non light units) or when losing combat after Flanking attack

but in return giving them Some Armour or slower POA decay rate.

More power , more vulnerability to flanking attacks, making them less useful if their flanks are not covered

one problem might be that good players wont be flanked anyway and that it d result in them just having more poa from some armour.(but they ll probably be used more conservative, or not separated all over the place) although additional negative cohesion check when losing any combat (non light) not just flanking combat , would perhaps offset that more than enough
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a cohesion drop to Disrupted already remove their pike POA bonuses? Additionally, since they have huge numbers and a high cost, they're extremely efficient to flank. They have a small horizontal frontage giving their opponents a lot of room to work with for flanking. And breaking a pike adds a lot of % to your opponent's rout column.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by MikeC_81 »

Geffalrus wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2019 10:12 pm The weird thing about lancers (cataphracts included) is that they are almost better when attacked, rather than when attacking. My reasoning for that is that they're big bonus is on impact. On subsequent melees, they're no different than 60 point veteran armor cavalry. So the one thing cataphracts have over xystophoroi is that they can survive multiple attacks and subsequent melees better due to their armor advantage POA. It's really, really not fun to attack cataphracts with anything but elephants or other lancers. While pikes can handle the subsequent melee, the problem is that you're dedicating a 75 point or more pike to handle a 68 point cataphract.......so not an ideal solution, especially when the cataphract can withdraw from combats and force another roll of the impact dice to tie them down.
This is indeed the case and one of the better ways to use Lancer style cavalry to negate a strong enemy foot unit. Indeed there appears to be historical precedence for this. In both Dio's and Plutarch's account of the disaster at Carrhae, they clearly indicate that armoured Parthian horsemen didn't charge Roman infantry. Instead they were stationed in front or close by with missile-armed cavalry firing into the flanks for Roman infantry. When the Romans attempted to move locks shields in tight formation (perhaps testudo), Lancers (described as pikemen) would move in and savage them.
Geffalrus wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2019 10:12 pmThe major downside of cataphracts is that they're even worse than normal lancers at riding around flanks. However, I find doing a long flank ride to be exceptionally difficult to execute since you either need enough units to tie down your opponent's army, or an opponent who doesn't understand the danger of a lancer rear charge. I honestly find myself using xystophoroi defensively more than offensively. Pike armies have expensive main lines, so your cavalry does double duty as flank guards. And lancers work well there since they can't be cohesion-dropped by flanking infantry, they can back peddle from losing fights forcing another impact or threat of a counter-charge, and multiple infantry units ganging up on them run real risks of losing the impact and then taking a cohesion test with the -1 penalty from facing a lancer on open ground.
Lancers in the game do regularly edge out non-lancer cavalry though so there is a use for them to engage and disperse enemy cavalry on the wings and then move in once they were driven off. There really isn't any difference between lancer rear charges and normal Light Spear rear charges. They all auto drop morale all the same. That said it could be that Lancers are relatively unattractive in certain situations because Light Spear Cav is not that bad against them and once they get into melee, its all the same. Right now Light Spear Cav pay nothing for their weapon ability and its 50% as effective vs Lancers.

They should probably straight up do 0 PoA vs Lancers since Lancers should crush Light Spear cav with great consistency and right now, that isn't the case. Either that or they need to cough up some points for that LS ability.
Nosy_Rat wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2019 10:28 am Veteran Byzantine lancers are decent for their price, it's the basic ones that are overpriced (or underperforming?), imo.
Their Above Average (+12.5) quality really hampers them down.
They are simultaniously bad at charging (with just 112.5 POA at charge, even irregular foot or noble cavalry stands their ground pretty well), and at shooting (smth like 75% of shooting capabilities of a basic 40 point horse archer or 50% of a Hunnic one), and at surviving (while armor somewhat reduces incoming damage in the shoot-out, they still get to pass a morale test after receiving 2-3 volleys, and the not-so-high quality means they would likely fail that test. And once disrupted, since they can't evade, they become more dangerous to yourself than to the enemy).
Maybe a bump in quality to +25 POA, with a minor price increase, or drop to the Average quality with a price decrease could make them work.
I don't think the problem is so much the pricing, it is more that many army lists for some reason totally lack skirmishing options. Missile fire is the bane of cavalry in this game B Lancers would not nearly be as exposed to missile fire if their lists had halfway decent skirmishing options. Most lists at 1200 FP have a laughable 4 LF units. You could try to supplement with B Flankers but those are godawful expensive for what they do. If they only had more skirmishers, you could keep the B Lancers back and pelt enemy foot or cav with missiles while preserving the formidable Lancer defence so a large number of units couldn't beat them.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by Geffalrus »

MikeC_81 wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2019 11:58 pm
Lancers in the game do regularly edge out non-lancer cavalry though so there is a use for them to engage and disperse enemy cavalry on the wings and then move in once they were driven off. There really isn't any difference between lancer rear charges and normal Light Spear rear charges. They all auto drop morale all the same. That said it could be that Lancers are relatively unattractive in certain situations because Light Spear Cav is not that bad against them and once they get into melee, its all the same. Right now Light Spear Cav pay nothing for their weapon ability and its 50% as effective vs Lancers.
Lancers cause an extra -1 to cohesion tests, right? So losing to a lancer during a flank attack would be supremely dangerous.

As far as dealing with cavalry, I find them useful just because they "push" the light spear cav out of the way, opening the enemy flank up to.......whatever else you have behind them. Not that I have actually done that in reliably multiplayer...........
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by lapdog666 »

any chance of giving above average status to scutarii
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by rbodleyscott »

lapdog666 wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2019 12:20 pm any chance of giving above average status to scutarii
Not really. However, for consistency with other army lists, we probably ought to have some higher rated "picked scutarii" units, but that would require new textures to make them easily distinguishable from the average ones. Currently the art department is working flat out on models and textures for the next DLC.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by GamerMan »

One thing that really bugs me is that armour is supposed to help against arrows, but in this game it usually has no effect at all, and often outright harms your units against arrow fire.

For example, take lancer cav. If superior unprotected lancer cav would take 10 cost worth of damage from a volley of arrows, protected would take 12*.84=10.08, or about 1% more damage in cost per volley of arrows. Superior armoured takes 16*.72=11.52, or about 15% more than the protected and unprotected variety. only cataphracts take less damage from arrow fire (13% less than protected, 25% less than armoured). The numbers are even worse for LS + Sword cavalry.
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by rbodleyscott »

GamerMan wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2019 2:46 am One thing that really bugs me is that armour is supposed to help against arrows, but in this game it usually has no effect at all, and often outright harms your units against arrow fire.

For example, take lancer cav. If superior unprotected lancer cav would take 10 cost worth of damage from a volley of arrows, protected would take 12*.84=10.08, or about 1% more damage in cost per volley of arrows. Superior armoured takes 16*.72=11.52, or about 15% more than the protected and unprotected variety. only cataphracts take less damage from arrow fire (13% less than protected, 25% less than armoured). The numbers are even worse for LS + Sword cavalry.
Points lost per volley is an interesting way of looking at it, but armour doesn't only affect shooting casualties, so the reduction in shooting casualties should not necessarily match the increase in points cost. Likewise one of the (few) disadvantages of Superior troops is that they suffer just as many casualties from shooting as the equivalent Average troops, so it is inevitable that points lost per volley is going to be greater for Superior troops than Average troops. But then, they are also less likely to lose Cohesion as a result.

For the benefit of anyone confused by this discussion, the actual casualties caused by shooting at a unit are reduced from Unprotected > Protected > Armoured > Fully Armoured.

See the attached screenshots. The average casualties are the average of the displayed range. The reduction in casualties for:

Protected compared with Unprotected is 15%.
Armoured compared with Protected is 18%
Fully Armoured compared with Armoured is 30%.

Reduced casualties means a reduced chance of having to take a Cohesion Test, which is far more important than actual casualties.


Unprotected.jpg
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Protected.jpg
Protected.jpg (195.49 KiB) Viewed 2759 times
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by rbodleyscott »

Armoured.jpg
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Fully Armoured.jpg
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Re: Unit Costing Anomalies

Post by LorneMalvo »

I can't find the answer to this question so I guess this thread is better than starting a new one.

Regarding Italian infantry versus Phoenician style foot costings in the Carthaginian lists; they both have the same unit description but different costs. Why is Italian inf more expensive even though (at least in the Hannibal in Africa list) the unit size is slightly smaller?

What am I missing?
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