To lose dice or not to lose dice...

[marioslaz]

I want to apologize for the title of the thread, but there was already a thread on this argument where my question would be off topic, so I started a new one and I was short of idea about a title...

This thread is intended as a question to authors, but all comments are welcome.

First, I need to say I play FOG since 6 months and over, but me and my friend are "slow players" , so we played about ten games. We play wargame since over 20 years, so we are experienced players, but with a knowledge of FOG more academic than from play. I say so because perhaps my question could appear stupid to people with a lot of game experience.

Thinking about some questions about losing dice and seeing what kind of approximation this involve, I started to think if there was a different solution, more linear, and I thought to POA and quality re-roll. Both are linear and can apply to all rolls without the approximation that 1 per 3, or even 1 per 2, involves. Using just my imagination, and so without any statistic calculation or beta testing, POA seems a better solution, because it would be simpler than modify quality re-roll. About quality re-roll, which has been my first idea, you could make worse the grade of a BG of one step for disr, frag, disorder, severe disorder (always disorder and cohesion don't sum, but you get only the worst). Of course this is a problem with average frag, or poor disr or frag. I thought you can re-roll also 5s and 4s, with an effect of disr and frag similar but opposite to that of a general fighting in front rank. This solution is a little more complicate, but still feasible.

I haven't time to make beta test on these ideas, or even to make some calculation to find if are balanced solutions in game terms. Since I'm sure you thought to such solutions and perhaps also beta tested some forms of them, I wonder to know the reasons because you discarded them.

[hammy]

Hi Mario,

That is an interesting mechanism but not one I am aware of having been tested during development. It may be a good way to simplify things for a potential FoG lite though and I can see it of use in a game somewhere.

[shall]

A nice question as it relates to the fundmantals of the game desing in fact. The basic reason the FOG game desing works well is by having independent mechanics that are all simple which then combine to get the effect. Sort of 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 81 different outcomes in a smooty profile.

By trying to bundle too much into any 1 dimension you generally find you are de-smoothing the effects. We did indeed try using re-rolls and POAs to do more but they are eaech quite blunt. The sophisitication comes from combining them. The 1 per 2 and 1 per 3 are actually quite accurate across most of a game in their effect. Its onmly when you have 2 dice DISR that there is a big effect.

By all means give it a try but I suspect you would find that a single mechanic is too granlular and needs to ebcome vastly more complicated then to do it.

FWIW I found it could do it with POAs going from ---- to ++++ and using 10 sided dice. This is also why having jsut 1 dimension can lead to tables with lots and lots of factors. Any takers?

Si

[grahambriggs]

having separate POA and quality mechanisms is, I suppose if you were being very picky, a little inelegant. But it's straightforward to do and allows 'quality rerolls dont apply' effects that would be a bit more difficult in a combined mechanism.

I think the current mechanism works well. Compare with DBM where the basic mechanims didn't give enough fine grain and hence eternal fiddling with how superior and fast worked never really struck the right note.

[sagji]

An alternative solution is to use random rounding.

When loosing 1 per 3 roll a dice on 1-4 you loose the dice, on 5-6 you don't.
When loosing 1 per 2 roll a dice on 1-3 you loose the dice, on 4-6 you don't.

Can also be use for 1 per n
When gaining 1 per 2 roll a dice on 1-3 you don't get the dice, on 4-6 you do.
When gaining 1 per 3, with 2 bases, roll a dice on 1-2 you don't get the dice, on 3-6 you do.
When gaining 1 per 3, with 1 base, roll a dice on 1-4 you don't get the dice, on 5-6 you do.

[marioslaz]

An alternative solution is to use random rounding.

Your idea it's good but too much complicated. You must roll to know how much dice roll... IMHO game would slow down too much. But you give me another idea. First, I must say I'm not too satisfied even with this, but I expose because could be another step toward something of very interesting.
My idea is very simple. If you have some rests when you calculate reduction, for example a BG of 8 bases disrupted, you calculate the dice as usual but you roll one dice of different colour and on this dice you apply a minus 1. I mean a minus 1 on the score, not on POA. Quality re-roll apply before correction, so if you roll a 6 with a poor you re-roll and apply -1 on new score, if you roll a 2 with a superior no re-roll, and so on. After you applied -1 you check if the final score is a hit or not.
Example. A BG of 8 bases disrupted. You lose 2 dice and 2/3. So you roll 5 dice plus one coloured dice; coloured dice get a -1 on score, so if you needed a 4 to hit, coloured dice need at least a score of 5.
My idea seems simple, but as I wrote, I'm not still 100% satisfied. I cannot say why, I simply have the feelings it's not so straightforward as it can appear.

[sagji]

An alternative solution is to use random rounding.

Your idea it's good but too much complicated. You must roll to know how much dice roll... IMHO game would slow down too much.

It is only ever one more than your suggestion, and you could roll them all at the same time if you have dice in two extra colours.

But you give me another idea. First, I must say I'm not too satisfied even with this, but I expose because could be another step toward something of very interesting.
My idea is very simple. If you have some rests when you calculate reduction, for example a BG of 8 bases disrupted, you calculate the dice as usual but you roll one dice of different colour and on this dice you apply a minus 1. I mean a minus 1 on the score, not on POA. Quality re-roll apply before correction, so if you roll a 6 with a poor you re-roll and apply -1 on new score, if you roll a 2 with a superior no re-roll, and so on. After you applied -1 you check if the final score is a hit or not.
Example. A BG of 8 bases disrupted. You lose 2 dice and 2/3. So you roll 5 dice plus one coloured dice; coloured dice get a -1 on score, so if you needed a 4 to hit, coloured dice need at least a score of 5.
My idea seems simple, but as I wrote, I'm not still 100% satisfied. I cannot say why, I simply have the feelings it's not so straightforward as it can appear.

I can see a number of issues.
How do you work it for a BG of 7 bases fragmented?
How do you work it for a BG of 7 dases disrupted?

Taking a BG of 2 bases, it gets 1 dice plus one reduced dice. If it is at ++ this has little effect (4+ instead of 3+), if however it is poor at -- this has a major effect (6 rerolled as 6 versus 5+)

You can get the correct effect by rolling a dice with more sides and any value over 6 is a miss, re rolls use a D6 - however it requires a D9 for 2/3, a D12 for 1/2, and D18 for 1/3. Substituting D8 and D20 gives a reasonable approximation.

[marioslaz]

I can see a number of issues.
How do you work it for a BG of 7 bases fragmented?
How do you work it for a BG of 7 dases disrupted?

Always the same. The principle is to balance approximation precision improvement and complexity. I had thought also a more complex solution:

• -1 if the rest of division by 3 is of 1 base
• -2 if the rest is 2 bases

but it's more complex and it's too penalizing towards disr as regards frag.

Taking a BG of 2 bases, it gets 1 dice plus one reduced dice. If it is at ++ this has little effect (4+ instead of 3+), if however it is poor at -- this has a major effect (6 rerolled as 6 versus 5+)

Your chance lower always of 1/6. Of course, if your chance was big in proportion the loss is minor. This is the same of combined effect of POA and re-roll, just for example.

You can get the correct effect by rolling a dice with more sides and any value over 6 is a miss, re rolls use a D6 - however it requires a D9 for 2/3, a D12 for 1/2, and D18 for 1/3. Substituting D8 and D20 gives a reasonable approximation.

I'm not favourable to use different dice. Anyway, my original proposal was to obtain a little compensation on approximation to avoid approximation is penalizing for some BG size. Because I'm an historical player, and I play just in campaign game or historical scenario, I don't want to have a such conditioning when I choose BGs size for my army list. But I must admit this is just a minor issue.

[SirGarnet]

I think separate POA and quality mechanisms are appropriate and desirable both because we are using D6 and to organize things conceptually for players.

I've learned to rather like the losing dice mechanism in practice and the way the net POAs may be unaffected.

Larger bodies of men at times suffer more from disorder, disruption etc. - that is credible.

Mike

[marioslaz]

Larger bodies of men at times suffer more from disorder, disruption etc. - that is credible.

One BG of 2 bases disrupted loses 0 dice.
One BG of 6 bases disrupted loses 2 dice.
One BG of 8 bases disrupted loses 2 dice.
Ths BG of 6 suffer more than the BG of 2. But the BG of 8, larger than one of 6, suffer less than it (same loss, but with more bases, so it's a percentage loss less severe). Larger bodies of men sometime suffer more, some other suffer less. That is not credible.

[HannibalBarca]

Wargames are not supposed to be credible, that is to say you could be mistaken into thinking that the half-inch tin models were actual soldiers. They're only supposed to be good enough approximations. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[sagji]

Taking a BG of 2 bases, it gets 1 dice plus one reduced dice. If it is at ++ this has little effect (4+ instead of 3+), if however it is poor at -- this has a major effect (6 rerolled as 6 versus 5+)

Your chance lower always of 1/6. Of course, if your chance was big in proportion the loss is minor. This is the same of combined effect of POA and re-roll, just for example.

It is not strictly 1/6 - it depends on quality.
The problem is that the reduced dice system introduces a interaction between quality, POAs, and the reduction for disrupted, which should not be there. For example disrupted superior bowmen shooting at -- can't hit under your system as they need a 6 to hit.

Yes it is "better" than getting a dice at full effect, but if you are going to the inconveninece of rolling a dice of a different colour with additional modifiers it is no more difficult to throw 2 dice of different colours and useing one to say if the other is counted, or of rolling a dice of a different number of sides.

[shall]

All rules draw lines somewhere. you could argue that a poa + is probably 2/3 + etc but it doesn't affect th overall game. Also you are assuming sizes stay same but over the game death rolls mix it up a bit too.

I would be wary of complication the simple 3 x 3 x 3 principle as its what makes it work. All the above is a step backwrds to a 9x3 whuch rapidly becomes 27 x1 and voila massive single mechanic.

Have fun with it but having spent more than a few hours studying mnechanics of 100s of sorts it looks a blind ally to me which will fix the 2% and mess up the 98%.

si

[marioslaz]

All rules draw lines somewhere. you could argue that a poa + is probably 2/3 + etc but it doesn't affect th overall game. Also you are assuming sizes stay same but over the game death rolls mix it up a bit too.

I would be wary of complication the simple 3 x 3 x 3 principle as its what makes it work. All the above is a step backwrds to a 9x3 whuch rapidly becomes 27 x1 and voila massive single mechanic.

Have fun with it but having spent more than a few hours studying mnechanics of 100s of sorts it looks a blind ally to me which will fix the 2% and mess up the 98%.

si

Do you want to know my real idea? I think that for disrupted the malus on CT it would be enough. When you make a CT, you have near 42% to fail if you have not minus. With just a -1 your chance to fail raise to near 58%. In most cases, at least in games I played, when you lose a melee you have at least a -1 (1HP3B), so you have 58% to fail, that raise to 72% if you are disrupted.
Instead, I feel that disorder is better represented by dice loss, but in this case approximation of 1 per 3 in many cases is a factor. Not a major issue, but is a sensation of distortion. I don't know if I explained, because it's likely just a my sensation, something like a placebo (have you ever tried this? you suppose that something it's bad for you and if you experience it you say "What did I say you? This is not a good system" and you don't notice you rolled all 2s, of course with superior troops )

[shall]

Didn't really understand the last post. Were you mixing up disorder and disruption?

yes we tried that and many other things too. But don't let that stop you testing some ideas and posting the results. The only caaveat I would add is thy need simulating lots of times - at least 100 and ideally 1000+.

Si

[rbodleyscott]

something like a placebo

Actually if it is bad, it is a nocebo.

[marioslaz]

Didn't really understand the last post. Were you mixing up disorder and disruption?

yes we tried that and many other things too. But don't let that stop you testing some ideas and posting the results. The only caaveat I would add is thy need simulating lots of times - at least 100 and ideally 1000+.

Si

Sorry, a mix of hurry and poor English can be devastating
I try to simplify in order to be more clear. I analyse just disruption and disorder, in both case you lose 1 per 3 dice.
Disruption -> you have a -1 modifier on all tests
Disorder -> no CT penalty
IMO disruption is anyway a concrete penalization, because even if BG size can influence dice loss (and even if this is likely more a perception than a real issue, but let's not complicate too much the matter) penalty on CT is a great handicap. Disorder is quite inconsistent because it bring only dice loss and dice loss can be influenced by BG size.
Of course disorder is just the first step in losing of formation, but anyway there are a lot of terrains which should be favourable to MF against HF (just to make an example) and this advantage it's not so evident as I would expect (of course all this comments are my opinions, supported by a gneral knowledge of historical warfare and wargaming, but still personal opinions). I'm following my thoughts with not a great insight on them (I apologize if some of my comments will result already known or even stupid ones) but it seems to me that disorder could affect more POA mechanism. For example, Sp and Pk are the only troops which POA are affected by disorder, and they must be severe disordered to loose POA.

[shall]

but it seems to me that disorder could affect more POA mechanism. For example, Sp and Pk are the only troops which POA are affected by disorder, and they must be severe disordered to loose POA.

The unsteady is much more important than it appears to you and is desinged that way specificlly for the mathc ups.

1st you are not correct on pikes

They lose a POA for not being in the open

2nd as both are not steady they fail to cancel other peoples POA

Swordmen
Lancers if they are disordere but have rtheir front edge in the open!

So the swing is carefully set up to be mild against enemy that could not take advantage but quite severe vs troops who could.

Try charging pikes with MF Imp Foor Sw in the open and then try it in uneven being carefuil to catch all the POA and dice effects.

Si

[marioslaz]

The unsteady is much more important than it appears to you and is desinged that way specificlly for the mathc ups.

1st you are not correct on pikes

They lose a POA for not being in the open [...]

I'm sorry, I didn't explain correctly. In effect I didn't evaluate rightly disorder on pike, but my post have another meaning. Spear and pike suffer from disorder, also Lance and chariots (because are not in open). But other troops don't lose anything, just dice.

[shall]

That was our intent - we consider troops who are Imp Ft Sw much less sensitive to terrain than troops who relied onf roemd coordnation between their troops and arms.

Si