Multiplayer mode suggestion

[MVP7]

There has been a lot of complaints lately about players employing cheesy multiplayer tactics like waiting at the edge or even corner of the map to unrealistically cover their flanks. Here's a suggestion on how that behavior could be reduced with a new multiplayer mode without adding objectives.

In addition to the normal rout percents a bonus percentage should be calculated based on the average location of each players (non-light) troops.
The number and distances in the examples are not to scale or exact values since that would obviously require a lot of playtesting and balancing.

FoG2_multi.jpg (64.98 KiB) Viewed 2191 times

In picture 1 both players have advanced to the middle area of the map and are inside deadzone so no bonus is added to either side. The battle is resolved purely with routs just like in any FoG2 battle.

In picture 2 the red player has decided to take advantageous positions at or near his deployment zone. The blue player advances through the deadzone into the red players side and gets a bonus to his score. If the battle ended with red player barely winning by 55% red routed vs 60% blue, the blue player could still be counted as winner when the bonus score is added to the blue score.

In picture 3 the red army (no pun intended) has pushed/circled itself behind the blue line. However, the line can't be pushed beyond that of the other player. This prevents exploits like racing a cavalry army to the enemy side of the map to get a huge bonus without fighting the enemy.

In picture 4 you see a typical corner turtle situation. The blue line is pushed far into the enemy territory so even if red player manages to "deafeat" the blue army by fair margin there's still a good chance that blue player will be counted as the winner thanks to the progressively increasing bonus.

One possible downside of this system could be that it might favor cavalry heavy armies that can get through or at least far into the deadzone before an infantry opponent can get to contact. However, it's still fairly easy to force a cavalry army into evading backwards which should somewhat balance thing out in the long run for most army list pairings. Another possible issue could be armies with high amounts of light units where it might be hard to hold a line or the light player could be encouraged by the to move his entire army behind the enemy army to negate the otherwise unavoidable penalties.

This wouldn't be a perfect solution but it would discourage the most frowned upon gamey tactics without opening many new gamey exploits (as far as I can think of anyway). The system would have little to no impact on fair battles fought in the middle of the map and only have significant impact on the most blatantly gamey situations where the edges of the map are being exploited.

[rbodleyscott]

Interesting

[jomni]

Why not do a special tournament and with this house rule and see what behaviours it encourages and see all types of situations to make the bonus being awarded more robust?

[76mm]

I like this better than objectives, but the problem is still that this bonus will depend almost entirely on whatever random map is generated, and which army benefits as a result. If I have a medium foot army facing the Romans/Macedonians, I'm going to put it on the rough hills/forests, if at all possible.

Is that unreasonable, and should I be penalized if those hills/forests are on back third of the map? Why should I be forced to deploy in the center of the map? Given that the center of the map is clear more often than not (although certainly not all the time), this seems like just another advantage for heavy foot armies.

[Ludendorf]

I have one idea that might help resolve this. I don't know how tricky it would be to implement from a technical perspective.

What if on the edge of the map there were redundant zones, maybe four tiles deep, that you can't normally enter... unless both sides have a unit deployed within two tiles of the 'soft edge' of the map? So yes, you can't normally position troops there; it's outside of where the armies planned to fight. However, should one commander decide to position himself along two edges of this zone, the other commander isn't going to say 'welp, we can't outflank them then.' They can just start to manoeuvre outside of the planned zone of the battlefield.

There's a hard edge beyond that of course (where retreating units may still get knocked off the map; remember, once a unit enters or is forced to enter this zone, other units can pursue and start to move against them there). This means it isn't perfect, but it's a lot harder to align yourself with the hard edge when you need your opponent to move up to the edge in order to 'activate' the redundant tiles. This would kill camping at the corners or edge of the map dead I believe, the issue being any technical or unintended gameplay consequences of the decision. It would also solve 76mm's dilemma; there's now no problem with deploying in the corners of the deployable map if you wish, because manoeuvre can still continue around the borders of where you have deployed.

I think both players would have to be within two tiles of the edge with at least one unit in order to permit manoeuvre. Otherwise, the camping player would just deploy his army near the edge, then move back to the hard edge. Or, if it were attacker dependent somehow, the attacker would get a huge initiative advantage in being able to enter the redundant zone before the defender could. Once both players are near the edge, both would have to gain access to the redundant squares immediately.

[jomni]

I like this better than objectives, but the problem is still that this bonus will depend almost entirely on whatever random map is generated, and which army benefits as a result. If I have a medium foot army facing the Romans/Macedonians, I'm going to put it on the rough hills/forests, if at all possible.

Is that unreasonable, and should I be penalized if those hills/forests are on back third of the map? Why should I be forced to deploy in the center of the map? Given that the center of the map is clear more often than not (although certainly not all the time), this seems like just another advantage for heavy foot armies.

Totally fine by me. But some people will accuse you of turtling.

[76mm]

@Ludendorf's idea is clever, but I'm a bit surprised that camping on a map edge is considered a big enough problem to worry this much about it. I've played almost 160 MP games, including some league and tournament games, and don't recall ever seeing this tactic, even once.

[76mm]

But some people will accuse you of turtling.

Yes, the people with heavy foot armies that would kill medium foot in a fight in the open fields.

I don't hide on a map edge, etc., but I certainly try to take advantage of the most favorable terrain for my army that I can find. I actually find it rather bizarre that people would find that objectionable, and if they do, they are welcome to come and fight on the terrain of my choosing, rather than me coming to fight on terrain of their choosing.

[MVP7]

I have one idea that might help resolve this. I don't know how tricky it would be to implement from a technical perspective.

What if on the edge of the map there were redundant zones, maybe four tiles deep, that you can't normally enter... unless both sides have a unit deployed within two tiles of the 'soft edge' of the map? So yes, you can't normally position troops there; it's outside of where the armies planned to fight. However, should one commander decide to position himself along two edges of this zone, the other commander isn't going to say 'welp, we can't outflank them then.' They can just start to manoeuvre outside of the planned zone of the battlefield.

There's a hard edge beyond that of course (where retreating units may still get knocked off the map; remember, once a unit enters or is forced to enter this zone, other units can pursue and start to move against them there). This means it isn't perfect, but it's a lot harder to align yourself with the hard edge when you need your opponent to move up to the edge in order to 'activate' the redundant tiles. This would kill camping at the corners or edge of the map dead I believe, the issue being any technical or unintended gameplay consequences of the decision. It would also solve 76mm's dilemma; there's now no problem with deploying in the corners of the deployable map if you wish, because manoeuvre can still continue around the borders of where you have deployed.

I think both players would have to be within two tiles of the edge with at least one unit in order to permit manoeuvre. Otherwise, the camping player would just deploy his army near the edge, then move back to the hard edge. Or, if it were attacker dependent somehow, the attacker would get a huge initiative advantage in being able to enter the redundant zone before the defender could. Once both players are near the edge, both would have to gain access to the redundant squares immediately.

The camping player could just have couple units in reserve, ready to fill the map to the edge as soon as other player unlocks the tiles while trying to use them. You can't move through and use the edge zone in a single turn. The end result would be no different from the current situation.

[MVP7]

I like this better than objectives, but the problem is still that this bonus will depend almost entirely on whatever random map is generated, and which army benefits as a result. If I have a medium foot army facing the Romans/Macedonians, I'm going to put it on the rough hills/forests, if at all possible.

Is that unreasonable, and should I be penalized if those hills/forests are on back third of the map? Why should I be forced to deploy in the center of the map? Given that the center of the map is clear more often than not (although certainly not all the time), this seems like just another advantage for heavy foot armies.

Totally fine by me. But some people will accuse you of turtling.

The bonus would not be a big value unless the battle is fought so far in the back of the map that the map edges are obviously being used for tactical advantage.

The "defending" player gets to pick where the battle is fought which should be quite an advantage and the opponent (with an army of equal point value) is forced to react and possibly act in a terrain that is not optimal for them. I think in that situation a small handicap is well justified and it should also be worth it for the defender if the terrain really is that good.

In generated battles I find there's often a decent amount of rough terrain even near center of the map so there should be some passable ground for any army inside the deadzone in most cases.

[76mm]

The bonus would not be a big value unless the battle is fought so far in the back of the map that the map edges are obviously being used for tactical advantage.

Your sketch seems to focus on penalizing for fighting near the back edge of the map rather than the left or right, or a corner, which would to be seem more problematic. If am commanding an army with lots of skirmishers and cav, but a large chunk of poor foot, against a foot-based army, I regularly put my crappy line of foot near the rear map edge so that my skirmishers and cav have more opportunity to weaken the enemy during their approach. Of course that is for tactical advantage, but what is the problem with that?

The "defending" player gets to pick where the battle is fought which should be quite an advantage and the opponent (with an army of equal point value) is forced to react and possibly act in a terrain that is not optimal for them. I think in that situation a small handicap is well justified and it should also be worth it for the defender if the terrain really is that good.

But the point is that basically you are awarding points, even if not that many, based on the location randomly-placed map features. Why not just award the points on the basis of a coin flip, because it is basically the same thing? It also has one of the flaws of using objectives: forcing/encouraging players to occupy specific parts of the map even if both armies would otherwise prefer to avoid it.

[MVP7]

The bonus would not be a big value unless the battle is fought so far in the back of the map that the map edges are obviously being used for tactical advantage.

Your sketch seems to focus on penalizing for fighting near the back edge of the map rather than the left or right, or a corner, which would to be seem more problematic. If am commanding an army with lots of skirmishers and cav, but a large chunk of poor foot, against a foot-based army, I regularly put my crappy line of foot near the rear map edge so that my skirmishers and cav have more opportunity to weaken the enemy during their approach. Of course that is for tactical advantage, but what is the problem with that?

It's far easier to program and portray to the player when working with only one axis even though a system that also takes into account the sides of the map would be possible. Like I side, the suggested system is not perfect solution for everything but it would focus on the biggest issues of corner turtling and fighting with one's back to a imaginary wall. Having one edge of the formation anchored to the edge of the map in the middle of the map is far lesser issue than having your back or both flanks secured, a formation can't stretch from one edge of the map to another and when the fighting is not happening 6 tiles from the end of the map there's much more room for maneuver against the rear as well.

The "defending" player gets to pick where the battle is fought which should be quite an advantage and the opponent (with an army of equal point value) is forced to react and possibly act in a terrain that is not optimal for them. I think in that situation a small handicap is well justified and it should also be worth it for the defender if the terrain really is that good.

But the point is that basically you are awarding points, even if not that many, based on the location randomly-placed map features. Why not just award the points on the basis of a coin flip, because it is basically the same thing? It also has one of the flaws of using objectives: forcing/encouraging players to occupy specific parts of the map even if both armies would otherwise prefer to avoid it.

With randomly generated non-mirrored maps there are bound to be some random elements and "unfairness". It's not like the middle of the map is always the perfect place for heavy foot or cavalry army either. In general I don't believe that on most generated maps the only way you can win with a medium/light army is to sit as far back on the map as possible while totally not taking any advantage of the edges and the turn limit.

[76mm]

It's not like the middle of the map is always the perfect place for heavy foot or cavalry army either. In general I don't believe that on most generated maps the only way you can win with a medium/light army is to sit as far back on the map as possible while totally not taking any advantage of the edges and the turn limit.

Of course, but I would like to take advantage of favorable terrain without penalty, wherever it might be--including in the middle of the map if that is where it lays. I should also point out that "taking advantage of terrain" does not necessarily mean to defend, it can also facilitate an attack.

[MVP7]

It's not like the middle of the map is always the perfect place for heavy foot or cavalry army either. In general I don't believe that on most generated maps the only way you can win with a medium/light army is to sit as far back on the map as possible while totally not taking any advantage of the edges and the turn limit.

Of course, but I would like to take advantage of favorable terrain without penalty, wherever it might be--including in the middle of the map if that is where it lays. I should also point out that "taking advantage of terrain" does not necessarily mean to defend, it can also facilitate an attack.

No doubt your heavy infantry/cavalry playing opponent would like to take advantage of favorable terrain as well but in the end someone has to make a compromise, preferably both sides. The battles in the game are fought between forces of equal power without specified attacking or defending roles with varied army points. It's not fair to assume that you get to pick your preferred battlefield every time, especially if doing so means that your opponent has to march through most of the map just to get to that unfavorable engagement.

Don't think of it as a penalty for using terrain but as a bonus/handicap for being the bigger man and getting into the fight on the opponents terms.

[76mm]

No doubt your heavy infantry/cavalry playing opponent would like to take advantage of favorable terrain as well but in the end someone has to make a compromise, preferably both sides.

In my experience, no one is "compromising", everyone is--and should be--acting in what they consider to be their best interests, in light of the terrain and enemy forces and despite any lack of ideal, or even good, conditions. In many--if not most--cases, even turtling is hardly a guaranteed win.

It's not fair to assume that you get to pick your preferred battlefield every time, especially if doing so means that your opponent has to march through most of the map just to get to that unfavorable engagement.

Sorry, but I'm really scratching my head on this one...so I'm just supposed to plop my army down in the center of the map, hopefully as close to the enemy as possible for his convenience, and not look to see where on the map the terrain might be more favorable? Seriously? We are given a random map--why shouldn't I be able to deploy my army where I want to on that map? Who cares if one side or another has to march through most of the map, are they going to break a sweat?

Don't think of it as a penalty for using terrain but as a bonus/handicap for being the bigger man and getting into the fight on the opponents terms.

Honestly this sounds like a recipe for a bunch of lopsided games, and not especially interesting for either side. Why don't we just restrict the maps to the space physically occupied by the armies, with couple of tiles between them, so that we can dispense with all of that nonsense about choosing favorable terrain and marching around?

And for the record, I don't consider myself a passive or defensive player--I will almost always try to attack, although not necessarily hey-diddle-diddle-right-up-the-middle. I don't find it interesting, challenging, or satisfying to accept battle on plainly one-sided, losing, terms.

[stockwellpete]

Just a thought I have had about this "turtling" business. For a player to move towards the edge of a map, or towards his/her own baseline, there usually has to be sufficient terrain to provide protection for most of their army. Most armies have somewhere between 20 and 30 units at "medium" settings. So what if the random terrain generator was adjusted so you don't get great big hills or forests anywhere at all on the map? In that way it would be impossible to "hide" your army in terrain and play in an ultra-defensive or sterile way. You would have to manoeuvre and use the terrain to help just part of your army.

Is it possible to adjust the map generator in this way? Continuous woods or hills might be restricted to, say, just 12 or 15 squares.

[Ludendorf]

The way I usually resolve impasses like this is with the skirmish. If I lose the skirmish (unless my opponent is patently willing to advance regardless) I will break from whatever defensive terrain I have taken up position in and march forward, because the alternative is my army standing there and getting shot to pieces for the rest of the battle. If I win the skirmish, I will attempt to force the other player to advance by pelting them with stuff until they HAVE to come to me.

Part of the value of skirmishers for me is their ability to force the opponent to come out and fight when they otherwise wouldn't want to.

[76mm]

So what if the random terrain generator was adjusted so you don't get great big hills or forests anywhere at all on the map? In that way it would be impossible to "hide" your army in terrain and play in an ultra-defensive or sterile way. You would have to manoeuvre and use the terrain to help just part of your army.

Is it possible to adjust the map generator in this way? Continuous woods or hills might be restricted to, say, just 12 or 15 squares.

I play most of my battles on XL wooded or hilly maps. Often these maps more often resemble open fields than forests or hills, and continuous woods of more than 12 or 15 squares are generally very rare, and in my experience it is almost never possible to hide an entire army, or even most of it, in a huge block of woods. Maybe on smaller maps, with smaller armies, this is more common, dunno. Continuous hills of that size seem a bit more common but also almost always feature some gentle slopes that do not present a huge obstacle to a determined attacker.

For me, generally and within reason, rough maps are much more interesting to play on than flat open maps, so I would be against nerfing the wooded and hilly maps more than they are now.

[stockwellpete]

I play most of my battles on XL wooded or hilly maps. Often these maps more often resemble open fields than forests or hills, and continuous woods of more than 12 or 15 squares are generally very rare, and in my experience it is almost never possible to hide an entire army, or even most of it, in a huge block of woods. Maybe on smaller maps, with smaller armies, this is more common, dunno. Continuous hills of that size seem a bit more common but also almost always feature some gentle slopes that do not present a huge obstacle to a determined attacker.

For me, generally and within reason, rough maps are much more interesting to play on than flat open maps, so I would be against nerfing the wooded and hilly maps more than they are now.

I am not arguing for a reduction in the proportion of terrain hexes in a map. Just that the features should be smaller.

[jomni]

I am not arguing for a reduction in the proportion of terrain hexes in a map. Just that the features should be smaller.

The danger would be the maps would all look the same. Meaning hilly is still open, woods map is still open, the tropical map is still open...