Storm of Arrows Scenarios

Gersen · Post by **Gersen** » Tue May 25, 2010 7:05 am

Hi,

I'm new to the forums, and on the verge of buying Field of Glory.

I'm also tempted by Storm of Arrows, but am unsure what form the pack takes. Does it come with scenarios and additional enhancements to suit the medieval battles? I can't see this written anywhere that says this, in which case do all scenarios come from the community or in a future expansion?

Hope you can help.

Thanks

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Tue May 25, 2010 8:48 am

Yes there are I think 6 scenarios in Storm of Arrows plus all the Medieval armies and Digital Army Generator to fight infinite combinations of random battles and online opponents.

Gersen · Post by **Gersen** » Tue May 25, 2010 8:54 am

Thanks for the reply. I am more interested in the historical battles for the moment, and 6 scenarios does not seem very many. Is there a list of what they are?

I think I will ease my way in with just a purchase of FoG to begin with.

Examinondas · Post by **Examinondas** » Tue May 25, 2010 9:01 am

You can find more SoA scenarios at Lupus' website http://web.me.com/beringar/Hoc-est-bell ... rrows.html

Also, take a look at the "scenario design" subforum.

Gersen · Post by **Gersen** » Tue May 25, 2010 9:10 am

Nice site. Thank-you.

Examinondas · Post by **Examinondas** » Tue May 25, 2010 9:43 am

Yes, Lupus is doing a nice job with his "Hoc est Bellum" website.

The only other SoA scenarios I can find at the "scenarios design" forum are:

* Scar's Blore Heath 1459: viewtopic.php?t=16446

* Examinondas' Lucena 1483: viewtopic.php?p=142859#142859

That makes 7 non-official scenarios (including a version of Agincourt with many differences with respect to the one supplied with SoA)

Gersen · Post by **Gersen** » Tue May 25, 2010 6:44 pm

Got both in the end - the 20% discount for SoA swung it for me.

Like what I see so far!

Lannes · Post by **Lannes** » Wed May 26, 2010 5:02 pm

Great very nice site, wonderful.

berto · Post by **berto** » Wed May 26, 2010 6:04 pm

iainmcneil wrote:Yes there are I think 6 scenarios in Storm of Arrows...

6 scenarios? That's not very many, is it?

Even taking into account the handful of user modded battles.

And, given their simplified portrayal in this game system, it's not as if these scenarios require much time or effort to research.

... plus all the Medieval armies and Digital Army Generator to fight infinite combinations of random battles and online opponents.

I lean toward accurate historical simulations (many if not most historical battles are inherently unbalanced), not toward stylized, abstracted, randomly created, point system based "combinations".

For me, it's about the history, not about competitive game play "fair fights".

Disappointed in this game system so far. Not the best value for my money.

TT miniatures gaming ported to the PC? I should have known what I was in for. My fault.

Caveat emptor.

Examinondas · Post by **Examinondas** » Wed May 26, 2010 6:53 pm

berto wrote:And, given their simplified portrayal in this game system, it's not as if these scenarios require much time or effort to research.

It takes me at least one week to produce a scenario, usually more like 2 or 3 weeks. It takes quite a lot of research (forces involved, commanders, deployment, map), planning (number of BGs, strength of the BGs, map creation), and playtesting.

I'm not saying that my scenarios are great, just that if you want, you can spend countless hours creating scenarios, the FoG PC system being actually rather complex, with a lot of variables to take into account. However, it's also possible to create scenarios in 10 minutes (which, IMHO, is great).

I think you should give a try at creating scenarios, you may enjoy it

berto · Post by **berto** » Wed May 26, 2010 7:30 pm

Examinondas wrote:
berto wrote:And, given their simplified portrayal in this game system, it's not as if these scenarios require much time or effort to research.
It takes me at least one week to produce a scenario, usually more like 2 or 3 weeks. It takes quite a lot of research (forces involved, commanders, deployment, map), planning (number of BGs, strength of the BGs, map creation), and playtesting.

Okay.

Given the simplified portrayal of the forces and maps, relatively speaking, it just seems like less time and effort would be required to create FoG scenarios compared to, say, HPS Ancient Warfare (Greek Wars, etc.) or American Civil War (Campaign Peninsula, etc.) scenarios. I could be wrong.

In my estimation, though, there's more value in HPS games for sure.

Gersen · Post by **Gersen** » Wed May 26, 2010 10:26 pm

I actually only count 5 medieval scenarios in the pack, and two of which are from the community - no offense, I am sure they are fine. But it does seem a bit too few for a commercial product. That said,the community will probably come to the rescue. I've done a few scenarios for other games in my time, and may roll up my sleeves for this.

I've played quite a bit over my first two days, and the overall impression is still positive. I was a TT wargamer when I was a kid, and this resonates with me. As Berto says it is simplistic on the surface, but the mechanics interest me less than the scope for tactical play.

Some initial issues...

1. The AI is not strong enough. I played Pompey in the Pharsallus game and managed to keep half Caesar's elite heavy BGs occupied plodding after my cavalry and skirmishers. They never got into the fight - too easy.
2. Improved sounds for arrows. They sound like a couple of darts limply hitting a dartboard

3. An option to continue a game, even after the victory conditions have been met would be nice. Hate it when the game stops just as you are about to commit the coup de grace.
4. This is a bit trite, but a few varying levels of victory or defeat would be nice.
5. Not really an issue - but a case of having to get used to some very strange casualty tallies. Like when your eliteheavy infantry hit some por light spearmen, and lose 66 for only 2 kills, and the next round you knock them for 375 for only 10 losses. It's like the virtual 6 sided dice only have 1 or 6 on them!

Cheers

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Thu May 27, 2010 8:47 am

There will be more scenarios in the next patch.

keyth · Post by **keyth** » Thu May 27, 2010 8:58 am

@ point 5 - in the preferences, switch from number of casualties to percentage. It will look a lot better! If you search around the forum, there have been several debates about this. Numbers of men in units is essentially just flavour.

logos · Post by **logos** » Thu May 27, 2010 11:41 am

I'm with berto.

For me FoG would be ideal if it had historical scenarios in which strategies and tactics could play out the way they did in real life; if I could use a phalanx the way Alexander did, or elephants the way Pyrrhus did; if it could help me to understand Gaugamela or Marathon.

At this stage it doesn't quite.

If players can influence the development of FoG at all, I vote for a greater focus on accuracy in historical scenarios (with an emphasis on refining the rules so that they better reflect reality).

(By the way, I played Lucena (Examinondas). Pretty Good. Now I know what they mean by "Storm of Arrows".)

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Thu May 27, 2010 12:01 pm

Which parts of the rules do you feel are not accurately modelling history? We think they do a good job and often the things people dont think are modelled are based on historical evidence that conflicts with our research.

On the scenarios I've just heard most of the ones in production are not medieval unforutunately so we're seeing if we can get some more free medeival scenarios for the next upate.

logos · Post by **logos** » Thu May 27, 2010 1:23 pm

Well, take the Battle of Heraclea (280BC).

History tells us that the battle was finely poised until Pyrrhus introduced his twenty war elephants, whereupon the Roman Cavalry routed creating chaos in the Roman lines. The charge of the Thessalian cavalry then delivered the coup de grace.

I've played FoG's Heraclea a number of times. In no game did the elephants play a role even remotely like that of Pyrrhus' elephants. In no game could they have played such a role. Twenty of FoG's elephants cannot rout a couple of BGs of Roman cavalry (and a routing Roman cavalry BG cannot rout a Roman legion). Fog's elephants disorder cavalry but they cannot cause the type chaos that Pyrrhus' did. Twenty of FoG's elephants cannot be decisive in Heraclea the way Pyrrhus' were.

FoG's Heraclea cannot play out like the real Heraclea.

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Thu May 27, 2010 1:30 pm

If you attack the elephants with the cavalry yes they can. If you know the elephants are going to beat your cavalry and avoid them they dont. The problem is you have information the generals didnt, and change your plans accordingly.

Elephants massacre cavalry so I'm not sure what else could be expected from the rules

logos · Post by **logos** » Thu May 27, 2010 2:00 pm

You know, perhaps the reason that I couldn't get any thing like the real Heraclea in FoG is that all of my games resulted in decisive victories for which ever side was not controlled by the ai. This meant that either the elephants could not save the day or were superfluous.

I suppose that had the battle lines been peppered with disrupted and fragmented BGs the introduction of a the elephants may have been more significant.

perhaps the ai is the issue.

Would you like to defend it as well?

keyth · Post by **keyth** » Thu May 27, 2010 2:07 pm

In its current state, the AI is OK to learn the game against and try out DAG armies. The one exception is where scenarios have been written with a 'scripted' AI advantage. Play against people for a real challenge.