Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by mceochaidh »

This is from H.H. Scullard's "The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World", regarding the Battle of Gabiene in 316 B.C.

"The open plain was dry and salty: hence it was soon enveloped in a cloud of dust. Antigonus saw his chance and under the cover of the "smoke screen" he detached the Median cavalry and the so-called Tarrentines from his left wing and sent them around Eumenes' right flank to the rear where they overran his baggage train." Scullard's main source was Diodorus. This illustrates an instance where weather and terrain obscured the field. It also illustrates the importance of a camp in ancient warfare and also command and control. Antigonus' son Demetrius was in command of the right wing that charged the baggage. Pithon was in command of the left wing.

I think weather and visibility in the game should be considered as well as having camps. Command and control is a complex issue that I think should also be considered. Is the loss of a free turn enough of a penalty for being out of command range?
I am not sure it is, as it does not prevent individual heavy and medium foot units from heading off by themselves. Should superior impact cavalry out of command range be subject to the dreaded impulsive charge if the odds are in their favour? Would changes like these create a battle plan where generals were assigned to centre and wings and moved with them to insure command and control was maintained, with the CIC being able to move about (assuming 4 generals in an army)? The decision to rally troops and join units charging may be more interesting and certainly more complex.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by melm »

Weather and camp could play an important role. But I doubt how it works in multiplayer game.

I admit in single campaign if we have mist or camp, or other weather condition like rain or snow, the campaign will have more immersion. However, in multiplay, I doubt anyone will find that the base camp being looted and the whole army betrayed will be interesting. Like I seldom saw anyone playing Total War Rome II online not with clear weather and dry ground. Plus, We have "protecting baggage train" scenario in game but I doubt human vs human game will result someone march away from his baggage train and handle it as trophy to his or her enemy.

If dev has the enough time and resource, the singleplayer campaign could have more weather and ground factors(which I would like to see). If,suddenly, there is rain during the battle and the ground turns muddy, AI will not find it annoying but human beings with large cavalry certainly doesn't like such randomness to hamper his advance. Still I doubt its contribution to multiplayer game that I think is 80% component of the game.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by stockwellpete »

I think some of the resistance to these new ideas from Slitherine (and perhaps Richard's development team as well?) will be along the lines that they do not want to over-complicate the game. If you start to add all sorts of detail then the game could become bogged down a bit and become less enjoyable for a significant number of players. I do understand this position and it is true that some players, who just want to play a quick battle, will find the extra features a bit of a chore. I think the way round this problem is to add some of the features that have been mentioned as "advanced rules" whereby players wanting to use them have to tick a box at the start to include them in their game. The default position would be the "standard game" where these extra rules were not active.

I think an arrangement like this might satisfy a wider range of players and keep players interested in the game for much longer. It is very noticeable to me, as the person running the large multi-player FOG2 Digital League, that many players who had entered Seasons 1 and 2 have not entered Season 3 and very few of them appear in the multi-player lobby playing other types of matches. My assumption is that quite a few of these players have stopped playing the game altogether. I know that some players will always move on to the next game in due course, and there are some fantastic games being released all the time, but maybe an "advanced rules" option could retain more players than is currently the case?

I know that there is a financial calculation to be made whenever anything is added to a game. It is very easy for us to come with new ideas that sound exciting and we concentrate less on how many person-hours would be involved in developing the ideas and how many extra sales would result from them. Maybe the initial group of "advanced rules" could be sold as a DLC? I am not sure, to be honest. That is one for the marketing people. :wink:

But I think the "advanced rules" idea does have a bit going for it. In my collection of games I have John Tiller's "Renaissance", which is a very good representation of 16thC warfare (it is quite an old game now and the graphics are very poor) and he has an optional rules facility which allows you to incorporate up to 18 rule modifications into your game including such things as "isolation rules", "melee terrain modifiers" and "partial retreats". Some of the things I would like to see considered are weather; command and control (see post from mac above); supply and camps; and morale, fatigue and treachery (i.e. defections). I think the trick with all of these would be to introduce them in the most minimalist way possible so that they do not detract from the overall dynamism of the game play.
Last edited by stockwellpete on Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by jomni »

Optional rules are nice. Just like tabletop house rules.

But it might be a Pandora’s box. Does advanced rules need balancing? Or it’s ok for them to unbalance things for more detailed stuff. Does the AI need to learn to adapt to those rules and each of their combinations?
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by melm »

If Richard wants to boost the sale, more resources should be thrown into singleplayer campaign. Grand campaign map, logistic system, fog of war for grand campaign map, weather and season change, etc. Because according to my experience, with steamdb data, majority of the game players are singleplayers. For example, one game is sold 500k copies but the stable highest peak online players are only 1200+, the highest peak is about 4k, that could mean that 1 out 12 buyers likes to player against human. All others just want casual singleplayer mode. However, singleplay for FOG II lacks appealing if we compare it with Battle Academy series, the game with same engine, that BA has nice cartoon, clear storyline and optional achievements. But it may not be a problem as Richard may just want a game for online TT game as it is far more arrangeable. We don't need to worry about self-locality. Forgive me if I am wrong, I think that's the dev's intention for creating the game is online TT game, which means multiplay part is far more important than singleplayer mode. For multiplayer part, each introduced factor shall be considered with gameplay. The negative example is "Company of Hero 2"'s blizzard mechanism. Most players don't want such factors interrupt the game. Thus, you are not easy to find one having the blizzard setting for online play.
As human being, most of them, wants fast-paced, minute-by-minute-reward online game, plus everything is balanced. PBEM mode, in my sad opinion, won't attract many on the internet. Whether FOGII will have richer features and eye-candy or remain simple along route of chess depends on the dev's choice.
Last edited by melm on Mon Oct 15, 2018 10:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by stockwellpete »

jomni wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 8:32 am Optional rules are nice. Just like tabletop house rules.

But it might be a Pandora’s box. Does advanced rules need balancing? Or it’s ok for them to unbalance things for more detailed stuff. Does the AI need to learn to adapt to those rules and each of their combinations?
Well, anything that is added to the game will need a certain amount of testing and balancing, but something like weather rules or supply should not be too difficult to introduce, I would think. FOG1 had camps so that should not present too many problems either. Whether you would need supply wagons and camps would be one of the first questions to answer. Things like morale and fatigue, or command and control would be more difficult to introduce but maybe not impossible? The thing about testing is that really you need to change just one variable at a time in order to track the knock-on effects it might have elsewhere in the game. Another consideration is the life-cycle of the game. Is it 3 years, 5 years or longer than that? Would we have time to add these new elements or is the timetable already full with possible biblical and medieval additional DLC's.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by MVP7 »

I think relatively small part of what is already a relatively small playerbase would be interested in most of those features. Selling a bunch of features as a separate DLC would also most likely attract little more than scorn in the current climate towards selling game features piecemeal (see the various total war blood dlc). I find if very hard to see how this could be anything but a big money and time sink with very little payback.

The advanced rules would be a nightmare to balance (and in some cases, to program), every combination would have to work with all the other variables. Even after the features were made they would still bloat the game codebase and have to be maintained and rebalanced in the future even if they were rarely used. Just making the features work as optional and as DLC would require significant overhaul on how the game and modules currently work. If optional rules were to be added the best time would probably be near the end of the game's development when all the planned content and systems are done and balanced.

Personally I think FoG2 already achieves a very good balance between realism and gameplay. The game stays simple but still models the effects of many of the requested features while leaving players enough control and room to maneuver so the battles don't turn monotonous. I don't personally find the suggested "advanced" systems necessary or even that interesting. Dust could be interesting but line of sight is very tricky to do on a square based map and additionally it would probably end up being used very unrealistically. Some weather effects could mix things up occasionally but there isn't much room for changes so it would probably boil down to shorter line on sight and maybe some damage reductions.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by stockwellpete »

melm wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:41 am If Richard wants to boost the sale, more resources should be thrown into singleplayer campaign. Grand campaign map, logistic system, fog of war for grand campaign map, weather and season change, etc. Because according to my experience, with steamdb data, majority of the game players are singleplayers. For example, one game is sold 500k copies but the stable highest peak online players are only 1200+, the highest peak is about 4k, that could mean that 1 out 12 buyers likes to player against human. All others just want casual singleplayer mode. However, singleplay for FOG II lacks appealing if we compare it with Battle Academy series, the game with same engine, that BA has nice cartoon, clear storyline and optional achievements. But it may not be a problem as Richard may just want a game for online TT game as it is far more arrangeable. We don't need to worry about self-locality. Forgive me if I am wrong, I think that's the dev's intention for creating the game is online TT game, which means multiplay part is far more important than singleplayer mode. For multiplayer part, each introduced factor shall be considered with gameplay. The negative example is "Company of Hero 2"'s blizzard mechanism. Most players don't want such factors interrupt the game. Thus, you are not easy to find one having the blizzard setting for online play.
As human being, most of them, wants fast-paced, minute-by-minute-reward online game, plus everything is balanced. PBEM mode, in my sad opinion, won't attract many on the internet. Whether FOGII will have richer features and eye-candy or remain simple along route of chess depends on the dev's choice.
Yes, I am not sure what the figures for FOG2 are, but most players play single player and the big problem is that if you introduce new elements you can actually weaken the AI when really you want to be strengthening it as much as possible. One way round that would be to introduce the "advanced rules" just for multi-player, but that then runs the risk of upsetting many of those who just play single-player.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by stockwellpete »

MVP7 wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 10:12 am I think relatively small part of what is already a relatively small playerbase would be interested in most of those features. Selling a bunch of features as a separate DLC would also most likely attract little more than scorn in the current climate towards selling game features piecemeal (see the various total war blood dlc). I find if very hard to see how this could be anything but a big money and time sink with very little payback.
I don't see why your first sentence should be true. I think a lot of players are quite happy to see added realism provided that it does not compromise gameplay. Selling them separately is one possibility, or maybe sell them as part of a DLC with new troop types and other features? If you sold them separately, at least then people who were not too keen on them would not have to buy them. As I say, the marketing people will have more idea about this than me. And no, I was arguing for a "minimalist" approach to these extra features so I don't think it will involve massive amounts of research and development. Some of it would require just a small amount of tweaking to what we already have in the game now.
The advanced rules would be a nightmare to balance (and in some cases, to program), every combination would have to work with all the other variables. Even after the features were made they would still bloat the game codebase and have to be maintained and rebalanced in the future even if they were rarely used. Just making the features work as optional and as DLC would require significant overhaul on how the game and modules currently work. If optional rules were to be added the best time would probably be near the end of the game's development when all the planned content and systems are done and balanced.
How do you know they would be a nightmare to balance when the details of what we might consider have not even been posted? I will sketch out some rough ideas of mine in my next post. Yes, maybe the optimum time for some of these ideas might be towards the end of the games' development cycle.
Personally I think FoG2 already achieves a very good balance between realism and gameplay. The game stays simple but still models the effects of many of the requested features while leaving players enough control and room to maneuver so the battles don't turn monotonous. I don't personally find the suggested "advanced" systems necessary or even that interesting. Dust could be interesting but line of sight is very tricky to do on a square based map and additionally it would probably end up being used very unrealistically. Some weather effects could mix things up occasionally but there isn't much room for changes so it would probably boil down to shorter line on sight and maybe some damage reductions.
I give the game 7 out of 10 at the moment, which means I feel that there is still some room for improvement. I have an open mind on what might be introduced in future to enhance the game. You have obviously made your mind up already. :wink:
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by MVP7 »

@stockwellpete, Nightmare to balance because instead of having one complex set of units, terrains and interactions to balance (for both the single- and multi-player), you would have those with countless combinations of optional systems that are also synergizing with each other. Even a small change will shift the balance in some way if it has any effect on the gameplay, otherwise it probably won't even add anything relevant. It's also very easy to underestimate the amount of programming work needed even for a relatively simple sounding system in order to make it clean, bug-free and consistent.

I'm not opposed to new systems being added to the game and I'm sure there will be a steady flow of new features and mechanics that are seamlessly integrated and balanced. However I'm not crazy about the idea of a bunch of half-baked house rules that would no doubt divide the multiplayer playerbase, make discussion about game balance harder since everyone would be playing their own game or be told to use the advanced rules instead of complaining. The existence of the minimalistic features could also hinder a proper future integration of some of those systems into the base game.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by stockwellpete »

Weather

I think the introduction of weather rules would be a massive plus for the game and I think it can be done in a way that is not too intrusive at all. The first thing to say is that we should be trying to model the more extreme types of weather that have a serious impact on the battlefield. So we should be modelling "heavy rain" or "heavy snow" rather than rain or snow showers and flurries. These are the weather types that we might consider for starters . . .

Heavy Snow - detrimental to missile units; negative modifier in POA charts; can render some missile units unusable if snow persists for a certain number of turns in the day; snowfall can be intermittent; visibility as either Mist or Fog.

Heavy Rain - ditto

Wind - detrimental to archers; negative modifier in POA charts; wind can be intermittent; ? wind could just be characterised as "blustery" so all archers would be affected, or would it be possible for wind to be directional to benefit one side?

Mud or Ice - at start of the battle and remaining throughout - no free 45 degree turns for any unit so main effect is to slow the battle down a bit.

Mist or Dust - reduce line of sight to (maybe) 6 squares

Thick Fog - reduce line of sight to (maybe) 3 squares

Of course, you would need to test all this, but it would not need balancing as such as the conditions will affect both armies.


Camps

As FOG1.


Supply

Whether this needs to be represented in ancient or medieval battles in addition to camps is a fair question, but I do think you have to have one or the other. If you just opted for supply then you would need a new unit called a "supply wagon" that would have a supply range (maybe up to 5 or 6 squares) for archers, handgunners and early artillery. These would have a starting value and deplete during the battle. They could be captured or destroyed.


Morale, Fatigue and Defections

I accept the argument that these first two things are already substantially built into the units through the cohesion test mechanism. But what about situations where a smaller army takes on a bigger army precisely because it knows that larger army is suffering from poor morale and defections? I am thinking mainly of scenarios here. Starting units as already "disrupted" or "fragmented" is one possibility that I have not tried yet but I am not sure if that would work OK. it might, of course. But maybe designating a unit as steady but with "poor morale" at the start and giving it a negative modifier in any cohesion tests it faces in the battle would be better? The issue about fatigue is more tricky and may be a complication too far, but some units (particularly cavalry) seem to zoom about the battlefield pursuing all and sundry to very little detriment. In terms of Defections, is there anyway that this could be represented in the game? Again I am thinking of scenarios, but if a multi-player campaign system did eventually appear then it would have its place there too.


Command and Control

I don't want to plagiarise mceochaidh's arguments here, but I agree that losing just the 45 degree free turn for being out of command range is insufficient. Maybe the unit should lose a percentage of its movement allowance as well? Perhaps 25%? And maybe the command radii for "Troop", "Field" and "Great Commander" could be reduced from 4, 8 and 12 to 4, 6 and 8 respectively in the "advanced rules"?


To sum up

It took me just a couple of hours to collate and present these ideas today. A lot of them are not new and have been discussed before (particularly in the context of FOG1). Most of them use the existing structures of the game (POA charts, cohesion tests and command radii etc) and would be fairly unobtrusive in terms of gameplay.
Last edited by stockwellpete on Mon Oct 15, 2018 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by stockwellpete »

MVP7 wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 2:03 pm @stockwellpete, Nightmare to balance because instead of having one complex set of units, terrains and interactions to balance (for both the single- and multi-player), you would have those with countless combinations of optional systems that are also synergizing with each other. Even a small change will shift the balance in some way if it has any effect on the gameplay, otherwise it probably won't even add anything relevant. It's also very easy to underestimate the amount of programming work needed even for a relatively simple sounding system in order to make it clean, bug-free and consistent.
The biggest problem with these ideas is how will they impact on the AI and the single player experience. It is not so much the complexities involved in making some of these changes (and there will be some), as whether the AI be able to cope with them on the battlefield.
I'm not opposed to new systems being added to the game and I'm sure there will be a steady flow of new features and mechanics that are seamlessly integrated and balanced. However I'm not crazy about the idea of a bunch of half-baked house rules that would no doubt divide the multiplayer playerbase, make discussion about game balance harder since everyone would be playing their own game or be told to use the advanced rules instead of complaining. The existence of the minimalistic features could also hinder a proper future integration of some of those systems into the base game.
What do you mean? Why are you calling these ideas "half-baked house rules" and talking about a fractured community as a consequence of them? Truly bizarre. :? Additions to the game have got to start somewhere and most, if not all of these, Richard will already have a view on. The point of these discussions is so that that some of the ideas they contain can be considered for "seamless integration" in the future.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by MVP7 »

Weathers could be nice. Most of them would mainly reduce the efficiency of ranged units though and I don't know if POA penalties for everyone would have much impact on the end result (or if the penalties could be applies differently to different units in meaningful way). No free turn when icy/muddy would not effect undrilled/unmaneuverable units, only the better units, not sure if this would make sense. Fog or mist with reduced visibility could be very interesting. Not sure how the AI would handle it though.

Camps and ammo supply could be nice if some asymmetric game modes are added in the future. Supply wagon in open battles seems like an unnecessary hassle and also detrimental to the balance of ranged units.

Morale and defection could be nice scenario designers. I don't think I would like them in random battles and campaigns though, historical morale issues are usually built in to the army list and unit design.

I think fatigue is already baked into the game in abstracted but believable manner. Units that spend a lot of time in melee will always take losses that steadily reduce their performance and ranged units will start losing efficiency as they run out of ammo. As a result units kept in reserve will always perform better than those that would be "fatigued". Some kind of optional fatigue system would have to be built on top of the existing abstraction, it would take a lot of work and in the end it would encourage passive play.

I'm highly skeptical of how much if any added realism the suggested command and control system would add. There are several layers of leaders below the generals and it's definitely not the generals job to be yelling marching rhythm to the troops. I just can't imagine how the general's presence would effect the speed of the formation. It's not like the sub-leaders would just slow down for no reason since the plan of battles has probably been told in advance or it's based on convention. Any percentage reduction to movement wouldn't work either since there's little room for reduction and it would immediately start messing with the nonlinearity of the square based movement system. I don't think further penalty for lack of general would make gameplay more interesting or varied either and the AI would have to be completely re-educated when it come to use of generals.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by SnuggleBunnies »

With all respect, Pete, I have to say that I am very skeptical of most of your suggestions, at least for random map games.

Weather - these options would be nice for scripting into scenarios, but in reality, armies usually avoided fighting in severe weather conditions. The vast majority of battles seem to have been fought on basically nice days. Since most battles required both sides to form up, most battles were fought in good conditions. Adding weather would have to be done cautiously, like night time combat - which did happen, but not often, and only in select situations. A good scenario option, but something that IMO should stay out of skirmish mode.

Supply - No. We don't have too many accounts of this sort of thing being done, and it would prolong the effectiveness of missile fire later into that battle, which I think is not desirable from a balance perspective.

Morale - I believe this is already done in scenario design by utilizing different levels of Experience vs Elan.

Command - A 25% loss would in effect be more like a 50% loss for most units, which seems far too severe. A smaller command radius, I would not be opposed to. Alternatively, a feature I actually liked in FoG1 was having to pay for commanders, but balancing this well would take extensive testing.

Camps - this, I think, is a far more complex issue than is in your post. Many things to consider. How large should the camps be? One tile? Two? Scaling with army size? Should they only be allowed on Open Ground so that players can't dump them in forests in the corner etc.? Should they be Light Fortifications, Obstacles, Build Up Area, or just Open? Or would a player pay for defenses? Do they defend themselves, or should you have to peel off troops to defend them? What rout % should they be? And, finally, would they add much to the game? Would they be realistic? I mean, we have lots and lots of accounts of troops plundering the enemy camp, and their side LOSING as a result - which seems the opposite of what adding camps into the game would do.

As I've stated before, (and I say this as somebody who rarely touches single player) IMO the most effective way to grow the player base would be to add a simple Shogun Total War 1 style provincial campaign system. I say simple, but of course balancing and implementing this could quickly get extremely complicated. For example, a map of the "known world" would have to be very different based on what year it started, and balancing all that would be a nightmare - that's not even mentioning the problems that could come with balancing a multiplayer map campaign with PBEM simultaneous campaign turns (my dream). Still, I get the impression that the main thing making people hesitate from buying the game is the lack of a map based campaign layer, not more granular battlefield functions. Again, I say this as somebody who doesn't really touch single player except to look at unfamiliar armies and for beta testing.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by MVP7 »

stockwellpete wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 2:16 pm
MVP7 wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 2:03 pm I'm not opposed to new systems being added to the game and I'm sure there will be a steady flow of new features and mechanics that are seamlessly integrated and balanced. However I'm not crazy about the idea of a bunch of half-baked house rules that would no doubt divide the multiplayer playerbase, make discussion about game balance harder since everyone would be playing their own game or be told to use the advanced rules instead of complaining. The existence of the minimalistic features could also hinder a proper future integration of some of those systems into the base game.
What do you mean? Why are you calling these ideas "half-baked house rules" and talking about a fractured community as a consequence of them? Truly bizarre. :? Additions to the game have got to start somewhere and most, if not all of these, Richard will already have a view on. The point of these discussions is so that that some of the ideas they contain can be considered for "seamless integration" in the future.
I'm specifically referring to the suggestion that these things would be introduced as a set of optional rules that the players can cherry-pick. Every player would have different opinion of what is the best way to play the game (no doubt effected to some degree by what best suits their preferred armies and tactics). There would be little point is discussing the balance of the game if that discussion was based on dozen different versions of the game and it would be virtually impossible to balance all of them in satisfactory manner.

If the game already had an option for "advanced" C2 or fatigue I think it's safe to say that it would be far less likely that any major changes were made to the standard C2 or fatigue mechanics of the game. Any major development would probably focus on the optional rules themselves (which would have to be superficial enough to be switched on or off willy-nilly). Hence the addition of optional house rules would hinder the possible proper integration of improvements.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by stockwellpete »

SnuggleBunnies wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 2:57 pm With all respect, Pete, I have to say that I am very skeptical of most of your suggestions, at least for random map games.
That's all right. If they could be introduced just for scenarios then that would suit me very well. :D
Weather - these options would be nice for scripting into scenarios, but in reality, armies usually avoided fighting in severe weather conditions. The vast majority of battles seem to have been fought on basically nice days. Since most battles required both sides to form up, most battles were fought in good conditions. Adding weather would have to be done cautiously, like night time combat - which did happen, but not often, and only in select situations. A good scenario option, but something that IMO should stay out of skirmish mode.
Hmm . . . I am working on the battlefields for a future text campaign and I have one where it deluged at the start of the battle rendering all the missile and artillery units useless; another where a strong blizzard blew into the faces of one army forcing them to charge through an arrow storm in order to melee; and a third one where thick fog resulted in two contingents from the same side attacking each other causing them to lose the battle. So from that small sample around 25% of battles were affected by severe weather conditions.
Supply - No. We don't have too many accounts of this sort of thing being done, and it would prolong the effectiveness of missile fire later into that battle, which I think is not desirable from a balance perspective.

Camps - this, I think, is a far more complex issue than is in your post. Many things to consider. How large should the camps be? One tile? Two? Scaling with army size? Should they only be allowed on Open Ground so that players can't dump them in forests in the corner etc.? Should they be Light Fortifications, Obstacles, Build Up Area, or just Open? Or would a player pay for defenses? Do they defend themselves, or should you have to peel off troops to defend them? What rout % should they be? And, finally, would they add much to the game? Would they be realistic? I mean, we have lots and lots of accounts of troops plundering the enemy camp, and their side LOSING as a result - which seems the opposite of what adding camps into the game would do.
Well, I counterposed "camps" and "supply" so it is one or the other really. I think camps is not too difficult really and we could start from how they were handled in FOG1 and work from there. The big problem is whether the AI could cope with it as it couldn't really in FOG1.
Morale - I believe this is already done in scenario design by utilizing different levels of Experience vs Elan.
I am not aware of this. I want to be able to represent experienced troops as "steady" at the start of the battle but give them "poor" morale because of various historical factors. Is that possible now, anyone?
Command - A 25% loss would in effect be more like a 50% loss for most units, which seems far too severe. A smaller command radius, I would not be opposed to. Alternatively, a feature I actually liked in FoG1 was having to pay for commanders, but balancing this well would take extensive testing.
Why would it? Just dock a few AP off units out of command radius (using a percentage value). Yes, paying for commanders would be a good feature for random battles.
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by stockwellpete »

MVP7 wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 2:59 pm I'm specifically referring to the suggestion that these things would be introduced as a set of optional rules that the players can cherry-pick. Every player would have different opinion of what is the best way to play the game (no doubt effected to some degree by what best suits their preferred armies and tactics). There would be little point is discussing the balance of the game if that discussion was based on dozen different versions of the game and it would be virtually impossible to balance all of them in satisfactory manner.
I don't see a problem here. You just agree with your opponent on the forum, or by PM what you want to do in a particular game and set it up accordingly. If you are putting an open challenge on the multi-player system then maybe that just has to be a standard game with no advanced rules.
SnuggleBunnies
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by SnuggleBunnies »

Yes, for scenarios I would not be opposed, though of course I don't know how much work it would be to implement.

As to the weather - we've both read a lot, I'm sure, and I think it's fair to say that far more than 3/4 of open field battles took place in non severe weather.

Supply - it's not necessarily a matter of too difficult, but a matter of whether it would add or detract form the game's objective of defeating the enemy army in battle. If the feature was added just for scenarios, that would be ok, but then time would have to be spent coding AI for a feature not too often used.

As for morale - I thought that's what traits like "Disheartened" were. So a unit could be average quality but effected by previous defeats in campaign mode. Somebody who plays campaign or is more familiar with the editor would have to speak to that, though.

Well, a few AP off would penalize infantry rather severely compared to cavalry, as being able to move 1 square instead of 2 is far worse than 3 instead of 4. It could also exacerbate RNG induced rage - your subcommander gets himself killed in a successful charge early in the battle, and your entire wing is suddenly incapable of maneuver and horribly handicapped. Not necessarily unrealistic (though I'm also not convinced that it IS realistic), but I suspect most players would hate it.

I also tend to agree that splitting the community is not a good idea, especially in what really is an indie game with a relatively small player base.
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SimonLancaster
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by SimonLancaster »

I just want to say that these type of PC tactical wargames attract players who only play mp battles. Bunny and I are two of them. In other games of a similar ilk like Chaos Reborn and Sanctus Reach there were plenty of players who only played mp battles. I think it is wrong to say that most players are just interested in sp campaigns.

I would be interested in knowing how many posters mainly focus on mp mode. There will always be some that go for sp and mp, of course.
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ahuyton
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Re: Any chance for real new gameplay features (not just new units) in the future ?

Post by ahuyton »

For what it's worth, I think that the sp campaigns are quite fun.If nothing else, they allow me to win a game from time to time. So I would agree with an earlier contributor who suggested developing that aspect of the game. Let me add that it is already good and an advance on the Pike & Shot campaigns and I think that it is an attractive feature of the game.

On Pete's suggestions, I am rather more favourable than some respondents. In particular, having weather as a feature would add another interesting set of complications and allow us to do Towton, which in itself would be welcome. It is a bit like terrain in many respects. You can always choose an open field type terrain or occasionally have the challenge of a trickier battlefield.

I also like the idea of fatigue as this clearly was a huge factor in all battles. I recall a nice set of tabletop rule, Glutter of Ravens by Daniel Mersey, that featured fatigue markers as well as cohesion in dark age games and it made a lot of sense and added interesting tactical considerations. It also added a lot of coloured counters to the table, something we would not have to worry about in this game. Maybe it gets too complex to work out, but it certainly merits looking at if RBS and his team are looking for new challenges...
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