Buff for heavy weapons ?

Field of Glory II is a turn-based tactical game set during the Rise of Rome from 280 BC to 25 BC.
TheSkirmishLord
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Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by TheSkirmishLord »

When I first tried "Heavy Weapon" units, I was surprised that they didn't get any more of a bonus than units with spears. Essentially, Thureophoroi, Falxmen, and Thracians have ABOUT the same value in combat.

I would think units using a Falx or a Rhomphaia would have a bit more punch than spearmen. You don't , however, want to buff them so much that they equal heavy infantry on flat ground. Also, you must consider that the Falx & Rhomphaia weren't SO effective that all ancient armies rushed to start using them.

Another player posted this suggestion on the Steam forum but it seems that the community over there has lost most of its enthusiasm for commenting.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by jomni »

Heavy weapon has a different purpose, in addition to the melee POA, they can chop through any armour. So their effect is more obvious vs armoured enemies than unarmoured ones. They will be key during medieval times. You can see their effect in my Silkroad mod. The Heavy Weapons Med Foot can deal with armoured cavalry and make cataphracts less effective.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by Delbruck »

jomni wrote:Heavy weapon has a different purpose, in addition to the melee POA, they can chop through any armour. So their effect is more obvious vs armoured enemies than unarmoured ones. They will be key during medieval times. You can see their effect in my Silkroad mod. The Heavy Weapons Med Foot can deal with armoured cavalry and make cataphracts less effective.
Why did Thracians start using a rhomophia when few of their enemies were very heavily armored? And if the falx cancels out armor, why did Romans uparmor some of their legions?

It seems to me the curved blade would aid in making an opponents shield less effective, but might not do much against heavy armor. The bill and halberd probably were used quite differently; less like a personal hand arm, more like a spear, with the ability to hook and penetrate armor.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by rbodleyscott »

Delbruck wrote:
jomni wrote:Heavy weapon has a different purpose, in addition to the melee POA, they can chop through any armour. So their effect is more obvious vs armoured enemies than unarmoured ones. They will be key during medieval times. You can see their effect in my Silkroad mod. The Heavy Weapons Med Foot can deal with armoured cavalry and make cataphracts less effective.
Why did Thracians start using a rhomophia when few of their enemies were very heavily armored? And if the falx cancels out armor, why did Romans uparmor some of their legions?

It seems to me the curved blade would aid in making an opponents shield less effective, but might not do much against heavy armor. The bill and halberd probably were used quite differently; less like a personal hand arm, more like a spear, with the ability to hook and penetrate armor.
You are very likely right re the differences between different weapons lumped into the "heavy weapons" category. Such issues are the price paid for keeping the range of capabilities to a manageable number, and avoiding going into the minutiae of the different efficacies of sub-categories of weapons. In future we could look at treating the falx/rhomphaia differently from other weapons currently rated as heavy weapon.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by Kabill »

What, if anything, would be the effect of 50% heavy weapons? Would it affect the armour penalty at all, and if so, would it subtract from armour (e.g. removing the effect of light armour completely and reducing the effectiveness of heavy armour) or multiply it by a fraction (e.g. halve the effect of armour). Within the existing ruleset, I can potentially see 50% heavy weapons/50% swordsmen represent lighter armour-piecing weapons, is my thinking

Otherwise, a separate lighter heavy weapon category that subtracts half the maximum armour score rather than all of it would be my suggestion: light-armoured units would lose all their amour but heavily armoured units would keep some of it, which feels a good reflection of the description of the falx piercing shields but not metal armour.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by rbodleyscott »

Kabill wrote:What, if anything, would be the effect of 50% heavy weapons? Would it affect the armour penalty at all, and if so, would it subtract from armour (e.g. removing the effect of light armour completely and reducing the effectiveness of heavy armour) or multiply it by a fraction (e.g. halve the effect of armour). Within the existing ruleset, I can potentially see 50% heavy weapons/50% swordsmen represent lighter armour-piecing weapons, is my thinking
Looking at the scripts, 50% heavy weapon should remove 50% of the armour advantage. However, making them 50% heavy weapon, 50% swordsmen would make them worse against steady spearmen and pikemen, because the sword capability would not count full effect against these.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by Kabill »

Ah, yeah, I'd forgotten that. Never mind.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by TheGrayMouser »

It would be nice to at least to distinguish between short hafted ( rhomphias, pole-axes) and long hafted ( halbards, bills) .
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by MikeC_81 »

It is also strange to me how the AP effect is worked into combat calculations. Heavy weapons just strips all armour advantage the opponent may have. Shouldn't it subtract the armour level instead? Say 2 armoured units are fighting each other but one has a Heavy weapon and another does not, no beneficial effect is gained.

Right now Heavy weapons are still pretty good imo because all the units that carry it generally have no armour themselves so you can generate a cost-effective combat situation by pitting a Heavy weapon unit vs an opponent of similar quality but superior armour. But edge cases would be better addressed if Heavy Weapons changed the PoA calculation by removing armour from the opponent's PoA so that a Thracian using Heavy Weapons against another protected unit would have an armour advantage.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by Kabill »

MikeC_81 wrote:It is also strange to me how the AP effect is worked into combat calculations. Heavy weapons just strips all armour advantage the opponent may have. Shouldn't it subtract the armour level instead? Say 2 armoured units are fighting each other but one has a Heavy weapon and another does not, no beneficial effect is gained.

Right now Heavy weapons are still pretty good imo because all the units that carry it generally have no armour themselves so you can generate a cost-effective combat situation by pitting a Heavy weapon unit vs an opponent of similar quality but superior armour. But edge cases would be better addressed if Heavy Weapons changed the PoA calculation by removing armour from the opponent's PoA so that a Thracian using Heavy Weapons against another protected unit would have an armour advantage.
I never even noticed that - I'd intuitively interpreted the manual as implying your suggestion without thinking about it too much. I agree, then, applying a malus to the opposing unit's armour value makes much more sense, especially in the context of later lists where there'll be a lot more armoured heavy-weapon users who will otherwise get little-to-no bonus from it.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by TheSkirmishLord »

Is the armor advantage really enough or should Heavy Weapons get a higher POA bonus than spearmen?
I just think Heavy Weapon units should be marginally better than Thureophoroi type units which they presently are not. Maybe bump it up +50 or =25 from what it presently is.

@MikeC_81
Excellent point - I didn't notice that either and it should be changed in the way you suggested.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by Kabill »

TheSkirmishLord wrote:Is the armor advantage really enough or should Heavy Weapons get a higher POA bonus than spearmen?
I just think Heavy Weapon units should be marginally better than Thureophoroi type units which they presently are not. Maybe bump it up +50 or =25 from what it presently is.

@MikeC_81
Excellent point - I didn't notice that either and it should be changed in the way you suggested.
With a change to make heavy weapons reduce armour, rather than remove armour advantage, I think it would be fine. Thacians - who are the main users of heavy weapons in the game at the moment - are Protected which is the same as Thureophoroi. As such, their heavy weapons don't currently give an advantage. But if heavy weapons removed armour, rather than armour advantage, then Thracians would have a small advantage over Thureophoroi because of their resultant armour difference. (Falxmen wouldn't be affected by the change, as they are unarmoured so implicitly get the full benefit. But they are Superior as well, so perform better than Thureophoroi because of that).
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by rbodleyscott »

Kabill wrote:
TheSkirmishLord wrote:Is the armor advantage really enough or should Heavy Weapons get a higher POA bonus than spearmen?
I just think Heavy Weapon units should be marginally better than Thureophoroi type units which they presently are not. Maybe bump it up +50 or =25 from what it presently is.

@MikeC_81
Excellent point - I didn't notice that either and it should be changed in the way you suggested.
With a change to make heavy weapons reduce armour, rather than remove armour advantage, I think it would be fine. Thacians - who are the main users of heavy weapons in the game at the moment - are Protected which is the same as Thureophoroi. As such, their heavy weapons don't currently give an advantage. But if heavy weapons removed armour, rather than armour advantage, then Thracians would have a small advantage over Thureophoroi because of their resultant armour difference. (Falxmen wouldn't be affected by the change, as they are unarmoured so implicitly get the full benefit. But they are Superior as well, so perform better than Thureophoroi because of that).
On what historical basis should Thracians have an advantage against thureophoroi?
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by Kabill »

rbodleyscott wrote:On what historical basis should Thracians have an advantage against thureophoroi?
I doubt there is any historical evidence that could demonstrate the relative strength of that specific match-up. But that's just one example of the more general issue at hand - whether the game adequately reflects the effectiveness of heavy weapons.

If we focus on the falx, there seems to be common agreement - including both historical sources and modern-day trials - that the falx was highly effective against armour of the period, particularly shields but also metal armour. However, because Heavy Weapons in the game only get rid of an opponent's armour *advantage* (as opposed to their base armour value), they provide no benefit against opponents with the same or lower armour value. As a result, units such as Thracians (who are Protected) gain no armour-related bonus against similarly armoured units (e.g. thureophoroi), which means in those circumstances the game is not reflecting the historical effectiveness of such weapons against armour.

Given this, while I wouldn't argue that there is evidence to suggest Thracians should have a specific advantage over thureophoroi, I would argue that there is evidence to suggest that units such as Thracians should mitigate the armour of comparably armoured opponents. And, in the absence of evidence suggesting that units such as thureophoroi were in fact evenly matched or stronger against falx-armed Thracians, I see no rationale for specifically seeking to maintain their comparable strength if other factors imply otherwise.

(To generalise the issue, it's well established that swords were largely ineffective against the sophisticated plate armour of the late Middle Ages, hence the prominent use of heavy pole-arms. However, by the current game rules, if an Armoured unit with Heavy Weapons were to fight another Armoured unit with the Swordsman keyword, they would be considered evenly matched, which is ahistorical considering the knowledge effectiveness of Medieval arms and armour.)
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by MVP7 »

I think the Thracians as unit interact fine with their contemporaries as they are and I don't see why falx would need a specific weapon category considering how everything else is bunched up as well.

However in the medieval times having heavy weapons not giving POA against equally armored opponents would be an odd dynamic (unless it's presumed that all heavily armored units have an anti-armor weapon like a mace and never have 'heavy weapons'). Also in late medieval the spears are presumably going to give way for bills/halberds while maces/flails are going to be serving as anti-armor weapons in a very different way. With current weapon categories I guess both would be counted as similar heavy weapons even though they have very different capabilities. Some of the heavy weapons like halberds would be primary weapons and also very effective against cavalry while weapons like maces could be just a secondary weapon with an anti-armor bonus for swordsmen/lancer units.

And speaking of medieval weapons, I'm going to derail the thread a little. I'm interested in what is being planned for weapon category 'Longbow', how would they differ from "generic" bows? It seems inconsistent with the rest of the game to raise one specific type of a weapon above other largely similar weapons. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a category 'Heavy bow' that could include especially powerful bows like longbows, mongol bows and other heavy composite bows. Alternatively longbow units with 'bow' could be simply made more effective with better unit skill level since by the high-medieval times most military bows (withing the scope of the game) are going to be either longbows, composite bows or crossbows anyway.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by rbodleyscott »

MVP7 wrote:And speaking of medieval weapons, I'm going to derail the thread a little. I'm interested in what is being planned for weapon category 'Longbow', how would they differ from "generic" bows? It seems inconsistent with the rest of the game to raise one specific type of a weapon above other largely similar weapons. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a category 'Heavy bow' that could include especially powerful bows like longbows, mongol bows and other heavy composite bows. Alternatively longbow units with 'bow' could be simply made more effective with better unit skill level since by the high-medieval times most military bows (withing the scope of the game) are going to be either longbows, composite bows or crossbows anyway.
The current plan is for longbows to be somewhat better than "bows" vs armoured/heavily armoured targets.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by MVP7 »

rbodleyscott wrote:The current plan is for longbows to be somewhat better than "bows" vs armoured/heavily armoured targets.
Ok thanks. How would they be in comparison to crossbows then? Aren't they also going to be more effective versus armor than regular bows?

Has there been any discussion about increasing the range of the longbows in comparison to regular bows? Would the longbows become too hard to balance if their short/effective range was raised to 3 and max range to 5?
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by rbodleyscott »

MVP7 wrote:
rbodleyscott wrote:The current plan is for longbows to be somewhat better than "bows" vs armoured/heavily armoured targets.
Ok thanks. How would they be in comparison to crossbows then? Aren't they also going to be more effective versus armor than regular bows?
They will not be much affected by armour, but their slower rate of fire means that overall they are less effective than bows - except vs armoured targets. The main strength of crossbows was as an ideal siege weapon, and that they were easier to learn to use than bows.
Has there been any discussion about increasing the range of the longbows in comparison to regular bows? Would the longbows become too hard to balance if their short/effective range was raised to 3 and max range to 5?
Hard to justify in comparison with composite bows of equal draw weight. Especially as shooting ranges are already generous.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by MikeC_81 »

MVP7 wrote:
rbodleyscott wrote:The current plan is for longbows to be somewhat better than "bows" vs armoured/heavily armoured targets.
Ok thanks. How would they be in comparison to crossbows then? Aren't they also going to be more effective versus armor than regular bows?

Has there been any discussion about increasing the range of the longbows in comparison to regular bows? Would the longbows become too hard to balance if their short/effective range was raised to 3 and max range to 5?
Contrary to common popular beliefs, modern research increasingly suggests that long-range fire by Longbows, or any kind of hand-held bow, was negligible. Almost all of these weapons were only effective at very close range and would have been used as such.
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Re: Buff for heavy weapons ?

Post by Ludendorf »

I'd actually like to confirm this. Do heavy weapons get an overall bonus against protected swordsmen then? The 100 POA the heavy weapons get in melee should cancel out the 100 the swordsmen get quite nicely, and the removal of the protected status should then put the swordsmen at a disadvantage.
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