The Dustbin

[stockwellpete]

Early Middle Ages A-B charts.jpg (634.39 KiB) Viewed 673 times

Early Middle Ages C-D charts.jpg (517.69 KiB) Viewed 673 times

[Cunningcairn]

Div B

Cunningcairn - Indian 320-545 AD beat XLegione - Hunnic Sabir 463-558 AD by 58% to 26%

Huns were always up against it with a reduced width battle field. With one flank protected by the Hunnic Sea of Despair the Indians could not be outflanked and the Huns could do nothing to stop their advance. A valiant defense by XLegione who managed to escape with some of his army through gaps that eventually appeared in the Indian line.

[stockwellpete]

Biblical A-D tables.jpg (617.45 KiB) Viewed 697 times

[stockwellpete]

Biblical A-B charts.jpg (644.78 KiB) Viewed 545 times

[MikeMarchant]

Well done, General Shapur!

It was a pleasure to play you.


Best Wishes

Mike

[devoncop]

Division B

devoncop (Jewish revolt) beat Triarii (Kingdom of Soissons) 45% to 20%

A beast of a map for the Roman army with hills woods and rough terrain saw them frantically trying to hold an elevated hill in the NW corner....Unexpected resilience from the Jewish irregular foot combined with the usual impact success from the zealots managed to get the Jewish side home before the Irregulars collapsed....Thanks to my opponent for a brutal contest !

[Najanaja]

Division C

Najanaja (Romans) defeated Dzon Vejn (Indians) 61-55

Romans started well with a flank attack that routed several elephants. Then the overlap started to tell and many of elephants rallied.
Very close game.

(3-1)

[SawyerK]

Congratulations, Shapur!

[Cunningcairn]

At the moment you only allow one army per nation to go into each league. With national army composition drastically changing due to allies, maybe it is time to rethink this rule?

Do you think we should increase it to two armies per nation?

I would vote for just not identical. But I could live with your suggestion.

I really like ianiow's suggestion of just not identical. A lot of the ally options are not that great so I doubt there will be too many choices of the same main nation with different allies.

[stockwellpete]

I really like ianiow's suggestion of just not identical. A lot of the ally options are not that great so I doubt there will be too many choices of the same main nation with different allies.

I have been giving this issue some thought in recent days. With just a couple of hours left in the poll, the result looks decisively in favour of rolling out the new allies feature right across the tournament in Season 6. I am now quite strongly in favour of keeping things the way they are with regards to allies, with some clarifications. If we do what Ian and Martin are proposing then I think it would, on occasions, increase the likelihood of getting very similar armies in the same division. If you look at the Viking 790-899 list, they can have Breton, British, Frankish or French allies (4), while the Roman 379-424 list can have Alan, Arab, Armenian, Frankish, Germanic Foot Tribes, Germanic Horse Tribes and Hunnic (Western) (7). So it would then be possible to have 7 Roman armies with a different army in the same division. I am not saying this is very likely, but every now and then you might get a division where 3 players have the same core army and just have different allies. I don't really want that to happen.

So I am advocating we retain the rule of one core army per nation and that there is no restriction on the allies that may be chosen. So two completely different core armies would be allowed to choose the same ally. I do not think that two players in the same division having, say, Viking allies for their Irish and French core armies, even if someone else had chosen a Viking core army, would make it too samey, which seems to be the concern of some players. Because, in addition, I propose to designate the following groups of armies (where the nationality is more nuanced) as coming from one nation so that only one can be used in each division . . .

Anglo-Saxon and Continental Saxon
Arab (all of them - City, Bedouin, Conquest, Abbasid, Umayyad etc)
Dacian and Carpi
Greek, Western and Mercenary
Hunnic, Hepthalite and Sabir
Indian (all of them - Mountain, Rajput etc)
Jewish and Jewish Revolt
Thracian (all of them - Hellenistic, Gallic, Getae etc)
Viking and Viking (Ireland)

So, for example, in future there will only be one core Arab army in a division. You could not have Arab City and Umayyad in the same division, nor could you have Hepthalite and Hunnic Sabir.

I know that not all players will get their heads round these ideas, not least because a lot of players do not read the forum thoroughly (only around half of the 60 entering this season have voted in this poll), but that doesn't really matter as it will be me who will be implementing the army selection procedure at the start of the season. I will obviously make things as clear as I can in the recruitment threads and gradually over the next couple of seasons players will get to understand the slightly modified system.

I would like to hear comments on these ideas. i am not sure yet whether we need to do another poll. Let's just see how the discussion develops.

[Karvon]

My only slight reservation would be about be about lumping all the Arabs and Indians together. To me that's like saying all the Macedonian successors are one group, and only one could be chosen. I could see lumping Arab city, Bedouin and conquest lists as one set as they are all centered on Arabia. Probably some of the Indian lists could likewise be lumped together. but in each region, some of these lists were contemporaries and enemies/allies.

Karvon

[stockwellpete]

My only slight reservation would be about be about lumping all the Arabs and Indians together. To me that's like saying all the Macedonian successors are one group, and only one could be chosen. I could see lumping Arab city, Bedouin and conquest lists as one set as they are all centered on Arabia. Probably some of the Indian lists could likewise be lumped together. but in each region, some of these lists were contemporaries and enemies/allies.

Karvon

True, but given that most of the match-ups in the FOG2DL are ahistorical anyway, I don't think that this presents a major problem. Only the Themed Event aspires to be historically accurate. The main point is to get a good variety of armies in each division so there are plenty of interesting match-ups. I think what I am suggesting will do that pretty much.

[devoncop]

My only slight reservation would be about be about lumping all the Arabs and Indians together. To me that's like saying all the Macedonian successors are one group, and only one could be chosen. I could see lumping Arab city, Bedouin and conquest lists as one set as they are all centered on Arabia. Probably some of the Indian lists could likewise be lumped together. but in each region, some of these lists were contemporaries and enemies/allies.

Karvon

True, but given that most of the match-ups in the FOG2DL are ahistorical anyway, I don't think that this presents a major problem. Only the Themed Event aspires to be historically accurate. The main point is to get a good variety of armies in each division so there are plenty of interesting match-ups. I think what I am suggesting will do that pretty much.

I have no problem with the proposals as such. Your main point about your objective being "to get a good variety of armies in each Division so there are interesting match up's" is an interesting one.

Whilst this is indeed interesting it can on occasion lead to some completely asynchronous match ups where one side given the random terrain may as well pack up and go home from the off.

Has their every been any interest in having a level playing field category....maybe in the Themed event ?......ie to match identical army lists in a series of Civil War engagements.....The best Generals rather than the luckiest ones (on occasion) could then be said to have the best chance........It would be a bit like Formula 1 with the drivers having to drive equally capable cars......

Just a thought.

[Cunningcairn]

Pete I'll play whatever you decide to do. However I'd like to throw in my two cents worth. I think bunching all the Arab armies including Abbasids, Umayyads as being the same is going to reduce the number of options available by too much. How would you categorise the Fatimids? If Arabs why not the Successor armies which are more alike than some of the Arab armies mentioned? Would you consider no more than two armies of those you mention per section? I realise that this creates issues with Vikings and Greeks for example as they are essentially identical.

[Cunningcairn]

Div A

Cunningcairn - Egyptian 664-571 BC beat sunnyboy - Phoenician 681-539 BC by 43% to 12%

[Doyley50]

Division C

Doyley50 (Vikings) beat desertedfox (Byzantine) 61-43

Doyley50 (Vikings) beat KiFi (French) 47-18

[stockwellpete]

I have no problem with the proposals as such. Your main point about your objective being "to get a good variety of armies in each Division so there are interesting match up's" is an interesting one.

Whilst this is indeed interesting it can on occasion lead to some completely asynchronous match ups where one side given the random terrain may as well pack up and go home from the off.

But that is as much a terrain issue as an army issue. I would not be in favour of excluding what might be considered "outlier" armies. How would we decide what these were, in any case?

Has their every been any interest in having a level playing field category....maybe in the Themed event ?......ie to match identical army lists in a series of Civil War engagements.....The best Generals rather than the luckiest ones (on occasion) could then be said to have the best chance........It would be a bit like Formula 1 with the drivers having to drive equally capable cars.....

It sounds very sterile to me. And then you have the random terrain and number generators making sure things do not stay too "equal" for long. I can certainly build civil war battles into the Themed Event again (I have done so in the past) but I don't think having "a level playing field" as a theme is too interesting really.

[GeneralKostas]

My proposal about it is, every player should choose one core army and one ally army.

[stockwellpete]

Pete I'll play whatever you decide to do. However I'd like to throw in my two cents worth. I think bunching all the Arab armies including Abbasids, Umayyads as being the same is going to reduce the number of options available by too much. How would you categorise the Fatimids? If Arabs why not the Successor armies which are more alike than some of the Arab armies mentioned? Would you consider no more than two armies of those you mention per section? I realise that this creates issues with Vikings and Greeks for example as they are essentially identical.

At the moment there are 109 armies available in Early Middle Ages, but if you strictly apply the current criterion of one core army per nation that still leaves you with 48 separate choices for the 10 players in each division. That is still a fairly wide choice - you have to pick 4 from 48.

If we look at the armies called "Arab" in the Early Middle Ages list then there are 14 of them (not including the Fatimid Egyptians). What I could do with this group is break them up a bit with the first two only being available in Late Antiquity (even though their end date goes beyond the cut-off of 500 AD). The next 10 stay in Early Middle Ages only (including the last one Arab (Syria/Iraq) which goes beyond the 1000 AD cut off). And the last 2 should really be in High Middle Ages as they start after 1000 AD . . .

Late Antiquity only
Arab (Bedouin) 300-636 AD
Arab (City) 300-633 AD

Early Middle Ages only*
Arab (Conquest) 629-637 AD
Arab (Conquest) 638-684 AD
Arab (Umayyad) 685-750 AD (Damascus)
Arab (Abbasid) 747-793 AD (Baghdad)
Arab (Abbasid) 794-814 AD
Arab (Abbasid) 815-835 AD
Arab (Abbasid) 836-873 AD
Arab (Abbasid) 874-946 AD
Arab (North Africa) 789-999 AD
Arab (Syria/Iraq) 890-1008 AD*

High Middle Ages
Arab (North Africa) 1000-1160 AD
Arab (Syria/Iraq) 1009-1150 AD

So that would leave one choice from 10 Arab armies in Early Middle Ages, which is almost the same as the current one choice from 9 Byzantine armies. Plus the Fatimids of Egypt can be considered a second Arab choice as they have dastardly not called themselves "Arab". I think there are going to be anomalous situations with whatever I come up with but I think the one army/one nation rule is still OK for Early Middle Ages.

[ianiow]

I've said it before and I will say it again. I prefer having a few battles in my group where the armies are of similar makeup. Its a better test than facing a horde of skirmishers or a MF army hiding in a patch of woodland every other game.