The Dustbin

[batesmotel]

Division C

Korasanian challenge posted for Doyley50's Vikings, password 'doyle50'.

Chris

[batesmotel]

Challenge posted for my Khorasanians versus KiFI's Franks, password 'kifi'.

Chris

[SnuggleBunnies]

Division A

SnuggleBunnies (Kingdom of Soissons) defeats NikiforosFokas (Jewish Revolt) 44-15

GG

[harveylh]

Division A

harveylh - Arab (Umayyad) 685-750 AD (no allies) defeats NikiforosFokas - Arab Conquest 638-684 AD (no allies), 72-34.

Arab veteran spear easily broke the center of the Umayyad battle line, but fortunately, the Umayyad lancers won both flank battles.

[harveylh]

Division A

harveylh - Arab City 300-633 AD defeats NikiforosFokas - Jewish Revolt 66-135 AD, 50-24.

Good tough game and closer than the score indicates.

[Breogan]

Division C

Breogan (Greeks) defeated cromlechi (Cartaghinian Hannibal in Africa) 61 - 37

[phoyle3290]

Div D

phoyle3290 - (Carthaginian 216-203 BC) defeats uneducated - (Jewish 163-111) BC - 64-25

This battle was pretty tight until the end. His Zealots were eating away at my right flank, but I was able to get my cavalry around his right before he was able to pick my line apart. Thanks for the match!

[SawyerK]

Division D

SawyerK (Ptolemaic 55-30 BC) defeated Uneducated (Jewish 64 BC-6 AD) by 45 to 5.

The Jewish army mounted a spirited defense but the weight of the pikes and legionnaires was too much.

[Tresantes]

Division D

Tresantes (Pyrrhic) defeats KiFi (Macedonian) 54-27

A very enjoyable battle, thanks KFi!

[Tresantes]

Division D

Tresantes (Pyrrhic) defeats Bluefin (Syracusan) 57-32

My right wing collapsed, and it was looking grim (for me, not Bluefin). But somehow the Pyrrhics held on, and managed to turn the tables. Great fun battle, thanks Bluefin.

[Cunningcairn]

Good morning,

The problem is to avoid unhistorical and anachronistic matcups between armies of different centuries. I have noticed that in the current league with my Greek army in the Classical Antiquity section and other sections of course.

My proposal :

The player with the highest rank in each division should choose the 4 armies as usual. When Pete choose the army for the nine games, then the rest of the players should choose the 4 armies according to this army. You can find the suitable army when you set up a Custom game and hit the DATE button ON below the army list. The list is shorten with armies in related centuries. You should choose two armies of the same nation in that list if it is possible.

I think that with this rule we can play more antagonistic games between realistic opponents.

Have a good day!!

Again this is interesting. The awkward thing is that, as the tournament organiser, I have to deal with between 60 and 70 players, so the procedures for them all signing up and choosing armies and then for me forming up the divisions and allocating armies has to be straightforward and quick. The time between the last few people signing up and the tournament starting is around a week and sometimes I am not sure how many divisions there are going to be in a section until then.

If I have to wait until I have formed up the divisions before I can begin the process of choosing and allocating the armies it is going to make things very rushed and it would require all players to respond very quickly to what is happening on the forum. The problem is that not all players read the forum regularly so there are likely to be delays to the start of some divisions.

I have just been thinking how it might work in practice . . .

1) recruitment would open and players would indicate which sections they wanted to join without choosing any armies at first
2) about half-way though the recruitment period, once I had got a "critical mass" of players signing up so that I had a fairly good idea how many divisions would be running in each section, I would start to draw up provisional divisions. I would say that I can tell which division a player will end up in about 75% of the time by this stage. If you came, say, 6th in Division A, or 5th in Division C last time, and you are entering the same section again, then the odds are very likely that you will be playing at the same level in the coming season too
3) from these provisional divisions of 5 or 6 players I would choose one player to pick an army they want to use in the coming season (I can use my bingo kit to choose the player) and then I would post their choice on the forum with a "historically relevant" list of armies that could be used by the other players
4) players would then make their 4 army selections by editing their original post in the recruitment thread. Players signing up for the tournament at this stage would choose their armies from the list
5) I would then form up the divisions and allocate the armies in the same way as I do now by using the FOG2DL ratings

The weakness in this procedure is at stage 2. What if the player who nominated the army needed to be moved to a different division at the last moment? What if I thought there would be 4 divisions, but in the end there were only three? This definitely would happen from time to time. So it would not be a watertight system, whereas what we have now is fairly robust.

Obviously player choices would be more restricted with this system, but the advantage would be to give more historical match-ups. Any comments?

But wouldn't this just end up as 6 sections of themed events? I quite like the fact that some opponents are not historical. I think a bigger problem is mismatched opponents like heavy foot versus armies consisting entirely of a horde of skirmishers. The game thankfully doesn't model this type of conflict very well and I believe there does need to be a restriction on the percentage of skirmishers in an army. Not as restrictive as in FOG1 digital league but maybe no more than 50% of an army or 15 elements?

[devoncop]

In effect this method would be the polar opposite of the random army selection method proposed (maybe only half seriously) recently.

This would be a pretty railroaded method so participants would have a negligible chance of playing with their preferred army and play style.

It would be interesting to see what effect that had on player recruitment.

Several players enjoy being pushed out of their comfort zones..............whether they are more than outweighed by those who don't is a moot point.

[SawyerK]

Division D

SawyerK (Ptolemaic 55-30 BC) defeated Phoyle3290 (Jewish Revolt 66-135 AD) by 66-49.

The Jewish army surged into the early lead under devastating Zealot charges but after that the use of a series of small hills for defense enabled the Ptlolemaics to slowly move back into the game. As shown by the score, it was either army's win until the last two moves when the rolls went to the Ptlolemaics. Phoyle3290 should have a least got a point for his valiant efforts but he just missed getting to 50 in two different unit battles.

[Geffalrus]

Personally, I don't mind historical mismatches. And it can be an interesting (if frustrating) challenge to face an army style that does not sync up well with yours. However, I do feel that the sword cuts both ways in that regard. An army that is designed for skirmishing has many advantages and disadvantages, same with one that is heavy infantry focused. Forests nullify horse skirmishing pretty hard, rough terrain gives heavy infantry masses ulcers, streams make my pikes and lancers want to cry, etc etc. If you bring an army that is dynamite in a certain situation, you're gonna be in big trouble if your matches involve armies or terrain types that hard counter your units. After getting flummoxed by rough terrain and streams in last seasons Classical Division, I've spent the time since working on how to handle that sort of terrain when using my preferred pike/lancer army. Still doesn't mean I enjoy overcoming a stream disadvantage.

I think a bigger issue in army list selection would be armies that have too much flexibility in terms of what they bring. Hannibal in Africa is a great example of a Swiss Army Knife that can bring heavy infantry OR a horde of mediums OR a horde of skirmishers OR a mass of elephants. You never know exactly what they will bring due to the fact that they have a high recruitment cap on those units. Makes for quite the unit selection guessing game.

[IMC]

Hi folks
Early Middle Ages Division B

(8) IMC - Viking (Ireland) 900-1049 AD (no allies) beat (7) rbodleyscott - Frankish 751-887 AD (Viking 790-899 AD allies)

62% to 45%

Thanks for the game

Ian

[KiFi]

Division D

KiFi (Macedonians) was marginally ahead of General Shapur 53-47 in a hard fought battle when darkness fell and the Indians withdrew.

Thank you General Shapur for the very enjoyable game.

(2-2)

[DzonVejn]

Division C:
A draw between Dzon Vejn (Indian) 45 VS 31 Karvon (Achmenidian Persian). Indians killed 45% of Persians. Persians killed 31% of Indians.

(2-2)

[lydianed]

Division D

lydianed (Gepids) defeats uneducated (Jewish) 40-5.

The jews couldn't quite get their shape and while they were still manoeuvring and caught between two positions, the Gepids struck. The battle of the valley was bloody but quick.

[ruskicanuk]

Div A
ruskicanuk - Breton 411-579 AD (no allies) defeats Nosy_Rat - Khorasanian 821-1003 AD (Abbasid 815-835 AD allies), 47 - 18, well played tight game!
ruskicanuk - Breton 411-579 AD (no allies) defeats Cunningcairn - Viking 900-1049 AD (Irish ally), 61 - 36, very interesting rush for the high rough ground, well fought!

[deve]

Div B
deve (Persian) defeated paulmcneil (Thracian) 44-19