Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

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

Post by nyczar »

I was suggesting 50 for the sake of an example. To me it is the option that is important. I defer to your expertise with the specifics.

Thanks.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by bbogensc »

Another possible solution would be to give 10 bonus points for control of the middle squares in the map ONLY in the event of a draw score. Or, 5 points for advantage in score, 5 points for controlling the middle squares, something along those lines.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by ianiow »

bbogensc wrote:Another possible solution would be to give 10 bonus points for control of the middle squares in the map ONLY in the event of a draw score. Or, 5 points for advantage in score, 5 points for controlling the middle squares, something along those lines.
How about the side with the most troops over the half way line when a game times out wins a minimum victory of 75pts (same as a timed out victory). That would disuade anyone from hill/wood-sitting on their own baseline. Nothing to stop a MF army rushing to a woods in their opponents half of the map and sitting in there for the rest of the game - fair play to them, so this ruling should not be too unfair to MF armies.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by MikeC_81 »

rbodleyscott wrote:
Certainly one we should consider.

The only problem is that it is open to manipulation. Essentially any game where the time limit is looming, and neither side has scored more than the Draw score, they could hit the "Agreed Draw" button to up their scores. Do they deserve a better score than players who just keep playing until the time limit?

And the whole point of the current system is to encourage people to "have a go" rather than footle about. So the "Agreed Draw" score would need to be fairly low. Certainly not 50. (In the Digital League scoring system a Draw is worth the equivalent of 25).
Part of this is the asymmetrical matchups that continue to come up in the tournaments which create game states such as this. Dacians vs Romans is no where near a fair matchup in the open.

I touched on this in my last gameplay review. Certainly at some point in time Roman players should begin to offer something of value for the Dacians to legitimately target if they want a result but matchups like these should be avoided in the future.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by rbodleyscott »

What a shame, and how bland it would be, if we had to avoid all terrain-sensitive matchups - which seems to be what is being requested.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by markwatson360 »

Personally I like the variety and for me, one of the best things about this game is the large number of different types of armies, historically commanders had to make the best of what they were given and i think it should be the same in this game.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by rexhurley »

I don't have an issue with armies being chosen nor the terrain which doesn't suit me in either of these initial games what I do have an issue with is people who enter do one or two turns then dont come back or do another after being pm'ed then don't return leaving good players lanquishing at the bottom of the table complete friggin bs :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by shawkhan2 »

I think it would be nice if the same map was used for all players in a round. This would make it possible to make a fair comparison of player abilities.

Of course the initial pairing of players is very luck dependent. The pairing of an expert with a newbie can result in immensely lopsided results leaving players with more equal matchups with an almost insurmountable disadvantage. Going to a scoring system like the one used in the Digital League would fix this.

Something should be done to exclude players who refuse to play turns in a reasonable time or simply go missing. This seems to be an ongoing problem in every tournament.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by rbodleyscott »

shawkhan2 wrote:Something should be done to exclude players who refuse to play turns in a reasonable time or simply go missing. This seems to be an ongoing problem in every tournament.
They are excluded from subsequent rounds.

Admittedly there is currently no system in place to exclude them from subsequent tournaments, but how likely is it that the same people will repeatedly enter tournaments and then not play them?
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by rexhurley »

rbodleyscott wrote:
shawkhan2 wrote:Something should be done to exclude players who refuse to play turns in a reasonable time or simply go missing. This seems to be an ongoing problem in every tournament.
They are excluded from subsequent rounds.

Admittedly there is currently no system in place to exclude them from subsequent tournaments, but how likely is it that the same people will repeatedly enter tournaments and then not play them?
Reasonably common unfortunately Richard and once again I will be lanquishing at the bottom of the field due to this
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by MikeC_81 »

rbodleyscott wrote:What a shame, and how bland it would be, if we had to avoid all terrain-sensitive matchups - which seems to be what is being requested.
That would be fine if you had hand crafted maps which offer both sides a reasonable chance. But you have a random auto generator that doesn't necessarily balance out opportunities.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by bbogensc »

I'm re-posting this here so it will be read (all the original posts from MikeC and myself are on the FOG Multiplayer rankings thread) as I think it would be a darn shame if the game is changed so that the Indian archery units are less capable based on league play stats (as some have suggested might be happening in the next update). It is true that Indian matches up well against certain types of armies especially pike and cataphract armies with a small number of very costly units, but the solution is for players to select armies for league other than Ptolemaic, Pontic, Macedonian, Roman, etc., simply because they want to try to run over their opponent with pikes or veteran heavy infantry, or at least to do a better job in recruiting a larger and less-expensive-per-dude army when faced with an archery based opponent.
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MikeC, really great post, a pleasure to read. One big comment is that it seems to me the rankings could be relative to the opponent. For example, in league play, at least in my division, 6/9 players took heavy infantry based armies. Many players like to recruit the best heavy infantry units available in the Pontic/Seleucid/Ptolemaic/Mac/Lysimachid, so they end up with about 12 core units in the army, and the prevalence of that army type skews the results both in the stats and intuitively as we think about the game. In my view, however, against either Roman or Indian based armies, it will be difficult to win with that selection of 12 or so strong units, largely for the reasons you explore in the post. As Indo-Greek I was recruiting 24 infantry units in match (only 1/2 of which were archers btw), so outnumbered the heavy infantry folks 2 to 1, plus cav and elephants and ranged ability.

Although I chose Indo-Greek in league play and seemed to match up favorably against the "12 core infantry unit type" heavy infantry type army, it seems to me that Italian Hill Tribes could recruit 28 or so Italian Foot. Does anyone think 12 heavy infantry are going to consistently prevail against 28 MF even on flat terrain where the MF player knows how to play? I don't. Furthermore, that's HILL tribes meaning rough ground plus hills would be the base terrain. If anyone wants to do a scrimmage on Med Hilly terrain with either Roman or "12 core infantry unit type", I'll take Italian Hill Tribes, Slave Revolt even others with MF as the base unit, and lets play it a few times and see what happens. I at least strongly prefer outnumbering the opponent 2 to 1 and think its possible to prevail with those armies consistently against a non cavalry opponent.

Hence, I can be onboard with your rankings where we specify the opponent is a "12 core infantry unit" type army, or even a hoplite army. But the rankings are relative. Italian Hill Tribes or Etruscan (late) are also going to often beat Indian-based armies in my view. Its just that nobody took those armies in league play so we don't observe it.

So, to rank armies we need a table with relative rankings, not a list, where it is accordingly NOT, A defeats B, B defeats C, therefore, A defeats C.

Finally, I really liked a few of your comments on (i) warbands (ii) horse archer range.

(i) Warbands (loose order). Why do Loose Order Warbands cost 63? This is the same price as Close Order Warbands. With all other infantry types "loose order" reduces the price as between heavy and medium foot. This makes Loose Order Warbands a very expensive unit. It seems to me Loose Order Warbands should cost 57 or so?

(ii) Horse Archers Range. I've tried to use horse archer based armies as the core of the army, and the result is the archery is not effective enough to prevail on its own due to the short range, except possibly against certain types of Roman armies. So, I agree with you that foot archer armies just dominate horse archer armies, and this is unrealistic in historical terms. It seems to me that the range of horse archer (steppe) cavalry should be the same as foot archers (or even greater), which I think is historically more accurate. The steppe cavalry were using bone and other advanced recurve-type bow components, plus the momentum of the horse, to get an extra range and punch to the archery, not less. So, in gameplay it should be possible for horse archers to pepper an opponent from long range and not to approach to 2 squares.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by klayeckles »

couple thoughts on the entire topic (not arguing with anyone at all here)...basically when two skilled players are at hand, numbers of troops (vs quality) become the deciding factor. now this isn't the case with a delta of one or two troops, but in the case of the indians, and to some extent the MF armies you mention, they can overwhelm the enemy and gain outflanks, the indians, with the cheapo cav and chariots, almost at will. the indians are currently THE best...because in addition to numbers they have massive firepower (which takes away turtling and cautious advances), AND manouver supremacy with all the mounted troops. and with the elephants the opposing cav has no chance. FOG I was a tad harder to get an outflank...so the indians weren't as dominant. i expect we might see a tweek to the indians.

on horse archers...i believe they are perfectly designed per historical. contrary to belief they did not dominate foot archers (TACTICALLY). WHAT THEY DID WAS DOMINATE AT THE STRATEGIC LEVEL. due to mobility horse cav armies could avoid unbalanced engagements, and choose their own times to battle...yielding many victories where they had superior numbers or positioning (usually both).

the whole discussion of fairness and missmatches and such has been ongoing for 6 years. and what i find interesting is that the top players continue to win regardless of the armies involved. now true, when two equal players meet each other, the armies will be a significant factor...not as important as the decisions the commanders make during the battle, but a factor, just like lady luck is a factor. And to try and nullify all the differences and yield a fair game with equal armies and equal terrain eliminates a massive number of variables...WHICH IS WHAT MAKES THIS GAME SO TREMENDOUSLY REPLAYABLE! Alexander and hannibal have never been quoted as saying "Golly gee, if i only had an even battle field"...they won by superior tactics and strategy (and some luck along the way). The discussion of how to make the game completely equivalent for both sides is fine...but it isn't historically accurate, or as fun to play (and eliminates all excuses when we lose :) ) I can imagine some anti historical senarios tht create some equivalent terrain, and equivalent armies (say a meeting of greek states) , but i suspect there will be little sustained interest.
when i lose i generally ask... should i have advanced, or waited? Did i use the terrain the way i should of? did i maximize my advantages, and minimize her's? and most often...was i patient? Was i craftier than my opponent, did i have normal luck ?then if i find i answered yes everywhere, and still lost, then maybe there was something in the army. (bad terrian??? well silly, then you have an obvious draw, the MOST common outcome in the ancient world was armies drawing near, and NOT fighting because someone didn't like the situation...sometimes this went on for months until one side was desperate to get a result.

So i guess the debate will continue on forever on the issue of fairness, and certainly there are some tweaks that might make some types of engagements more playable...but i strongly suggest folks make a very unbiased analysis of what's happening on the battle field to result in losses, prior to jumping on the "broken game" bandwagon. FOG I had the same discussion for 5+ years, yet if you look at the results of dozens of tournies and leagues the same names come up consistently...i remember playing the top player...who took a sad looking Egyptian army in a league and still crushed folks...he took a dog and still beat most opponents. that's the beauty of it-- its NOT CHESS! (add giant smiley face of your choosing)
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by bbogensc »

klayleckles... I think we are in general agreement. But, maybe I wasn't clear on the concern and topic of the poste - per stockwellpete post on the forums, there may be (or by implication is) discussion to modify the effect of foot archer armies in FOGII BASED ON AGGREGATE STATS of league game outcomes. The point I was trying to make is that Indian matches up well against the Macedonian variant armies (that are chosen about 65% of the time in league play by my estimate). So, the Indian stats are surely skewed higher by the predominant opponent in league. Against other opponents, Indian variants would not fare so well, take Etruscan (late) for example or various Greek armies where 20+ heavy infantry plus cheap skirmishers can be recruited. I assume you would agree, yes?

As to your comments on Steppe Cavalry archers that is just not correct - it is not intuitive, but the steppe mounted archers had better (or at least comparable) range than foot archers they faced in both India and Europe. The steppe nomads had composite bows with better technology, where that technology presumably came out of the far east and came across asia as the horse peoples migrated. So, the best archers were in the near east (e.g., Syrian city states) with foot bows and the steppe cavalry. Indian archers were considered subpar by the Greeks partly from the metal composition of the arrows not being hard enough to penetrate armor, as illustrated as Alexander almost died from an Indian arrow (at very close range).

Hence, horse archers should be able to maneuver and shoot with the same range as foot (with 120 men only) from the front or flank without being in charge range similar to foot archers (with 480 men). If that were the case in FOGII, then one could imagine more realistic results to historical where horse archer based armies have some tactical advantages over Indian foot archers especially. I think we can also agree there is no way to recruit horse archers (at 32) and defeat Indian archers (at 36) absent some change to the rules, so that is kind of silly in historical terms.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by nats »

I am finding the Tournament very strangely set up.

For one thing it seems that I have fought against two people roughly my skill level which was very good and lucky, but looking at others there seem to be a lot of very good players put against a lot of very inexperienced players and that is skewing the results a lot in favour of the better players. You would have thought the round draw for the second and third rounds would have matched players of similar skill levels for a more balanced and enjoyable tournament for all concerned - there's no fun, surely, if you are a very good player going against only inexperienced players I would have thought.

Not only that but people who play someone else with a timeout get a whopping 150 points per match! I won both my last two rounds and only got around 130 points for both. So there is something wrong there where someone who hasn't fought any rounds is much higher than someone like me who has fought and won two rounds. 150 points is too much. Yes it must be unfair and disappointing to not be able to fight in a round but the default points warded shouldnt be as high as 150 which is what you would get if you won the round decisively. My reckoning is around 130 points would be more like fair which would be representative of winning a fair close fight.

Personally though I would have rather had it arranged on a knock out basis similar to the World Cup where the final matches are played between the best players. This random draw thing doesn't seem to work very well to me.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by rbodleyscott »

nats wrote:You would have thought the round draw for the second and third rounds would have matched players of similar skill levels for a more balanced and enjoyable tournament for all concerned
It does. It uses the "Swiss Chess" system where the draw is done according the each player's score at the end of the previous round. The top two players play each other, and so on down the table. This is intended to match the players' skill levels as closely as possible.
Not only that but people who play someone else with a timeout get a whopping 150 points per match! I won both my last two rounds and only got around 130 points for both. So there is something wrong there where someone who hasn't fought any rounds is much higher than someone like me who has fought and won two rounds. 150 points is too much. Yes it must be unfair and disappointing to not be able to fight in a round but the default points warded shouldnt be as high as 150 which is what you would get if you won the round decisively. My reckoning is around 130 points would be more like fair which would be representative of winning a fair close fight.
It is hard to get this right. Some people are pressing for it to be increased to 170 points.
This random draw thing doesn't seem to work very well to me.
Only the first round draw is random, subsequent rounds use the Swiss Chess system
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by bbogensc »

Just looking at the factions selections in the knock out tournament, very few players (I think nobody thus far) is choosing to play factions with core units: (a) Lancer (b) Heavy Cav, or (c) Horse Archer. One player took Hepthalite I noticed, which is sort of a mix.

If game modifications are being considered then maybe these cav factions should be improved to make mounted armies more viable (?)

One suggestion is that maybe units in pursuit should not be flankable, or should be able to evade charges. Or maybe the player should get to control the pursuit move to a degree. I note its quite aweful to have a lancer or cavalry charge succeed and then get flanked on the pursuit when its mostly out of player control.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by rbodleyscott »

Pursuers don't count as in close combat, so if they do get charged in the flank they don't autodrop, and the enemy only gets a guaranteed +50 net POA.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by bbogensc »

understood, that helps. The pursuit may still a negative that makes it very difficult to select a mounted army. The break points on each mounted are often pretty high, so if a charge succeeds, and then the pursuing unit gets caught (and then flanked by another unit on the next move, e.g.) its a big problem.

MikeC_81 also noted this as a negative to warbands in his analysis.

Just something to consider.
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Re: Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

Post by Herode_2 »

rbodleyscott wrote:
Not only that but people who play someone else with a timeout get a whopping 150 points per match! I won both my last two rounds and only got around 130 points for both. So there is something wrong there where someone who hasn't fought any rounds is much higher than someone like me who has fought and won two rounds. 150 points is too much. Yes it must be unfair and disappointing to not be able to fight in a round but the default points warded shouldnt be as high as 150 which is what you would get if you won the round decisively. My reckoning is around 130 points would be more like fair which would be representative of winning a fair close fight.
It is hard to get this right. Some people are pressing for it to be increased to 170 points.
The decision will always display kind of arbitrary of course.
I would personnaly go on a statistical solution :
A priori, a random player shall be considered has having a medium skill on gaming, thus ending the tournament around rank 50 on 100.
On the Field of Glory II Legions Triumphant Tournament, rank 50 player gathered 321 points.
If this tournament is standard in terms of scored points, a player winning because its opponent timed out shall win around 321/3 points, that's 107 - let's say roughly 110 points.
If it's not standard, just compute the average score of similar tournaments and you have default "win by time out" score.
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