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Post by greedo on Feb 7, 2019 23:30:18 GMT
Alright Stevie, a well thought out argument as usual.  I do still disagree with your proposed solution, but perhaps this is best moved to it's own House rule 3/4Ax thread. We can follow Joe's lead and have 2-3 Ax "fix" options that we can play test and figure out which seems to work best. And when I say "fixes", to Bob's earlier point, these are indeed all house rules, intended to make historical battles work "Better", and have nothing to do with DBA Tournament as written. Joe: Do you have enough play-test information to make an informed decision about 1) Tie recoil pikes, 2) 1BW retreat Ax, 3) +1 PIP charging Bw? Do you need more play testing for any/all of them? Chris |
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Post by lkmjbc on Feb 8, 2019 0:25:14 GMT
Alright Stevie, a well thought out argument as usual. I do still disagree with your proposed solution, but perhaps this is best moved to it's own House rule 3/4Ax thread. We can follow Joe's lead and have 2-3 Ax "fix" options that we can play test and figure out which seems to work best. And when I say "fixes", to Bob's earlier point, these are indeed all house rules, intended to make historical battles work "Better", and have nothing to do with DBA Tournament as written. Joe: Do you have enough play-test information to make an informed decision about 1) Tie recoil pikes, 2) 1BW retreat Ax, 3) +1 PIP charging Bw? Do you need more play testing for any/all of them? Chris I feel very good about the Ax recoil and the Pike recoil. I've managed about 20 games of Macs vs Greek Hoplites...Romans vs late Macs and Selucids vs Romans. Both changes have a measurable impact. Further testing will be my version of Cannae listed above and a more focused Bd vs Ax matchup... Clontarf. I do need more input though from experienced players. The change in Bows needs a lot more testing. I fear they may be overpowered. So, yes I need folks to actually play these battles. Joe Collins |
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Post by arnopov on Feb 8, 2019 10:49:43 GMT
Could we please get some clarity here?
Are these proposals just for house rules, or for something else? 3.1? 4.0?
If for house rules, that's cool, disorganised, random, hare-brained, I don't especially care. It probably should be moved to the appropriate section of the forum though.
If for something a bit more relevant to the community (which I assume it is if input from experienced players is asked), then the process is too messy. What are the design objectives? What are the design principles?
Design objectives could include (not exhaustive!)
- 1.1 Fairness at the army level: all armies are competitive (on average, there always will be bad matchups)
- 1.2 Fairness at the element level: all elements are equally useful (again, on average)
- 2.1 Historical accuracy at the "empire" level? (Romans do well, Mongols do well, etc ...)
- 2.2 Historical accuracy at the battle level? (Battles feel right)
- 2.3 Historical accuracy at the element level (Hypaspists behave like hypaspists, etc ... -That probably would mostly be army list related though)
- x.y level of randomness
- ... Game duration
- ... Fun
....
These are just examples, and design objectives can not necessarily be achieved. Some might even contradict each other (1.1 and 2.1 for instance), and compromises might have to be decided.
Design principles can vary, but it is important to have some (objectives and principles can overlap sometimes)
- Elegance
- Paper economy (not one for me, but apparently PB's chief concern)
- Behaviour, not armament (one that 3.0 seems to have completely forgotten)
- One I like a lot is using the bigger games (DBM, DBMM) as reference. Because they rely on a point system, they contain inherently more fairness. For instance, at the moment a DBA element corresponds to 3 DBM Bd(O) and 3 DBM Wb(O). That's madness, as for 3 Bd(O), you can afford (at least) 6 Wb(O), so a DBA Wb element should already internalise the 2nd rank of Wb, and have 4 vs foot!!! Same for Pk, they should be 4 vs foot too, and the 2nd rank should only bring a +2 (following this principle, there might be other considerations). It's surely not perfect, but it helps.
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Post by Vic on Feb 8, 2019 11:56:18 GMT
House rules, I think. Applying these modifications for competitive play (tournaments, etc.) would be messy and as far as I know there are no plans for a new version in the short term.
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Post by lkmjbc on Feb 8, 2019 13:33:59 GMT
I have posted this before.
I will post this again for clarity.
These play tests are not for house rules.
These play tests are for DBA 3.1.
I will most likely use them or variants of them in tournaments that I run.
They, should they survive the test, will presented to the writers/owners of DBA and whatever development team that is established for consideration. They are not the only changes I will present.
If you are against the idea or uncomfortable with the process, then do not participate.
Joe Collins
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Post by stevie on Feb 8, 2019 16:03:14 GMT
I agree entirely with you Joe. DBA 3.0 is not the last word, it is not the end of the road, and it is not the final version. It is merely the current one in the series. The next version will be even better, just as 3.0 is better than 2.2, which was better than 2.0, which was better than 1.1, and so on. If nothing else a new version is necessary just to incorporate all the FAQ adjudications, and add more clarity to some difficult areas. Even her sister publication, HOTT, has some better clearer and more realistic rules, such as a points system, breaking-off combat, shooting target priority, island terrain features, fleeing troops bursting through friends that also flee, fleeing troops turning to avoid certain obstacles, pursuers won’t pursue if defending a river bank, and several more. If HOTT can have these things, why can’t DBA? Or is DBA deliberately dumbed-down for tournament play? Well, HOTT players play HOTT tournaments, and their rules are not dumbed-down. ---------------------- By the way, that is an excellent analysis Arnopov. But I think the most important thing, the primary fundamental core of the matter, is behaviour.As wargamers, what we want is our little metal soldiers to act as the ancient historians said they did. Once we get the behaviour right, then we can tinker around the edges to bring in play-balance and rule simplification. And we can test this by re-creating historical battles. When our wargames table bears no resemblance whatsoever to the ancient historical accounts, we know the rules are wrong. From an historical players point of view: Ax cannot perform their duty of standing up to Bd/Sp/Pk as the ancients said they did. From a tournament players point of view: Ax are too weak to stand up to Bd/Sp/Pk, so they are not play-balanced, and are useless. Ax are not even the best in Bad Going...3Bd are just as good, and at least they can fight in the open, whereas Ax cannot. No, Wb are the kings of Bad Going, as no Bd/Sp/Pk dare enter while they are around, and they can fight in the open. Ax can’t. If I had the choice I would never have an Ax element...I’d scrap the whole Ax class and replace it with Wb...a special kind of Wb, one that neither gives nor receives rear support, does not pursue, and has a CF of 3 v mounted. Oh, they’ll die just as easily as the present Ax class, but at least they’ll be able to fight back! And they would be a threat to enemy heavy foot, who’ll have to keep some reserves to plug any gaps that appear in their line of battle. At the moment, Ax have no teeth, no bite, no kick and no punch, so are no threat at all the heavy foot, who can ignore reserves and simply form one long single line when facing Ax, even when they are Romans (so much for the Roman reserve system). That isn’t very realistic is it... And it isn’t good play-balance in tournaments either... Some Helpful Downloads can be found here: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
And here is the latest Jan 2019 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2019_1st_Quarter
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Post by greedo on Feb 8, 2019 16:19:40 GMT
These play tests are not for house rules. These play tests are for DBA 3.1. Whoops! Sorry Joe, my misunderstanding. I was under the impression DBA 3.0 was IT.
Glad to see there is a (hopefully not civil war inducing) push for further evolution of the DBA ideas. |
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Post by lkmjbc on Feb 8, 2019 17:37:42 GMT
No problem Greedo... I just want everyone to clearly understand what I am doing. To answer somewhat Arnopov's analysis (which is quite good). 2.2 and 2.3 Would come closest to my goals. Fairness factors in only a little.
Further, these ideas are for DBA 3.1. My goal is to improve the existing set while making as few major changes as possible. They are not for DBA 4.0 or beyond. For those ideas, look to to Tom. I support his efforts fully.
Joe Collins |
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Post by jim1973 on Feb 9, 2019 0:27:33 GMT
Oh dear! I thought late last night that arnopov 's post would start a serious conversation rather than talking about toy soldiers being pushed across the felt whilst rolling dice.
Personally, I am more than happy to participate in discussions of variants, evolutions, etc. But I do understand that some do not. But greedo hit the nail on the head, we must avoid a "civil war", a splintering of the player base, which was so painful. "DBA 3" is the best version in all our minds but the community lost players along the way and that doesn't bode well for the hobby in the long run. What happens to "DBA" is entirely the prerogative of the owners, though of course suggestions can be made. However, as WRG hasn't aggressively protected its IP over the years with many spin-offs, both sanctioned and unsanctioned, published then an (another) Ancient and Medieval ruleset based on the DBA mechanics is completely plausible.
So where to from here? One way is to create a new topic "Towards DBA 3.1" or something similar. That way, all that are interested can actively participate (maybe even vote using the poll) and those not interested can comfortably avoid. So discussion the "DBA 3" topic can be on the current rules and interpretations and the new thread can concentrate on new rules that people think would be useful in an update. This is different to "House Rules", which are often period specific or optional extras. If there is limit to the number of topics then surely we can delete some that are little used (see the DBA 2.2+ topic).
It is so important to keep this community together. There are very active champions of DBA on both sides of this fence and a split in this group would be a tragedy.
That's my 2c worth (1p in UK on current exchange rates). Now back to my Thracian Civil War. My seven year old has adjusted my deployment. As his name is Alexander, I'd better check...
Cheers
Jim
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Post by lkmjbc on Feb 9, 2019 0:41:17 GMT
Oh dear! I thought late last night that arnopov 's post would start a serious conversation rather than talking about toy soldiers being pushed across the felt whilst rolling dice. Personally, I am more than happy to participate in discussions of variants, evolutions, etc. But I do understand that some do not. But greedo hit the nail on the head, we must avoid a "civil war", a splintering of the player base, which was so painful. "DBA 3" is the best version in all our minds but the community lost players along the way and that doesn't bode well for the hobby in the long run. What happens to "DBA" is entirely the prerogative of the owners, though of course suggestions can be made. However, as WRG hasn't aggressively protected its IP over the years with many spin-offs, both sanctioned and unsanctioned, published then an (another) Ancient and Medieval ruleset based on the DBA mechanics is completely plausible. So where to from here? One way is to create a new topic "Towards DBA 3.1" or something similar. That way, all that are interested can actively participate (maybe even vote using the poll) and those not interested can comfortably avoid. So discussion the "DBA 3" topic can be on the current rules and interpretations and the new thread can concentrate on new rules that people think would be useful in an update. This is different to "House Rules", which are often period specific or optional extras. If there is limit to the number of topics then surely we can delete some that are little used (see the DBA 2.2+ topic). It is so important to keep this community together. There are very active champions of DBA on both sides of this fence and a split in this group would be a tragedy. That's my 2c worth (1p in UK on current exchange rates). Now back to my Thracian Civil War. My seven year old has adjusted my deployment. As his name is Alexander, I'd better check... Cheers Jim Jim has good ideas. I certainly wouldn't mind replacing one of the unused forum headings Joe Collins |
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Post by stevie on Feb 9, 2019 14:26:55 GMT
I also think that Jim’s suggestion of having a dedicated “Towards DBA 3.1” forum is a good idea. Then we could have multiple threads instead of one long sprawling thread that often goes off-topic. However... Oh dear! I thought late last night that arnopov 's post would start a serious conversation rather than talking about toy soldiers being pushed across the felt whilst rolling dice. ...oh I don’t know, Jim. I thought that was what wargaming was all about. After all, we’re not professional scholars stroking our long grey beards and puffing on pipes are we (well, not all of us  ). Anyway, we are not talking about completely designing a new set of wargames rules from the bottom up. No...we are just contemplating various minor tweaks to improve certain elements where needed. Such minor tweaking has already been done before:- Spears were not quite right, so in DBA 3.0 they swapped rear for side-support, and are now much better... 4Bw were deemed too weak in close combat, so they too now get side-support and are better... Light Horse likewise were too weak, so they can now get rear-support to make them better... Even Psiloi and SCh received a bit of a boost in DBA 3.0 by ignoring corner-to-corner overlaps... But for the poor old Auxiliaries...nothing. They were weak before, and they are still weak now. In fact DBA 3.0 has made them even weaker! At least in earlier versions Ax could break-off combat and move faster. Even those simple luxuries have been stripped away from 4Ax, leaving them the pathetic troop class that we have today. It just happens that my playing experience has shown me that overlaps-kill-auxiliaries, and that they have no punch. Play-testing has shown me that a simple +1 against Bd/Sp/Pk allows 4Ax to survive overlaps, and have a bit more punch. Some Helpful Downloads can be found here: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
And here is the latest Jan 2019 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2019_1st_Quarter
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Post by davidjconstable on Feb 9, 2019 18:48:25 GMT
Stevie
It needs at least four or five types of Ax to sort it out, it is never going to happen because it is an anathema to add troop types.
You will have to wait a long time for a non-DBA new DBA.
Changes will come in - yes, but not a re-look at things from scratch.
But good luck, enjoy the game, even if you play it with your own house rules.
David Constable
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Post by paddy649 on Feb 9, 2019 20:54:40 GMT
I also think that Jim’s suggestion of having a dedicated “Towards DBA 3.1” forum is a good idea. In fact DBA 3.0 has made them even weaker! At least in earlier versions Ax could break-off combat and move faster. Even those simple luxuries have been stripped away from 4Ax, leaving them the pathetic troop class that we have today.
Agree - about having a “Towards DBA 3.1” forum. Please put making Hypaspists 3Bd/4Ax top of that list for that forum.....I may have mentioned that before..... Also I agree about the lowly Ax being weaker in DBA 3.0. Reinstating the break-off combat would be a step in the right direction. However, I feel one of the problems is that as Wargamers we follow the immutable logic of the Army list and Wargamers rule #1, namely " If one is good then ten is better!" Hence we graduate away from Ax heavy armies and pack our armies with the "killer" troop types of 3Bd, El, 3Kn etc..... It is like playing WWII with wargamers - they'll always field a Coy of Tigers and 3 Coys of Panthers when in reality a single Coy of PzIVs and a platoon or Marder IIIs was the historical reality. What if DBA games randomly selected and Army for the 600+ and then randomly assigned a historical opponent to the other side? Then we'd see many more Ax in action and we'd all get to know and love them and how to use then effectively.......OR work out an Army points total based on good / bad troops and then add a handicap if playing with a killer Army and a bonus if playing with a cr@p army.....I think McBeth has advocated a similar system. IMHO the best DBA games are the ones using equally rubbish armies anyway! |
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Post by jim1973 on Feb 10, 2019 11:31:47 GMT
I've started a thread specifically for a generic discussion of 3/4Ax in the House Rules section so that this thread can return to lkmjbc's playtesting of his ideas.
Cheers
Jim
PS paddy649 you have my vote regarding the hypaspists!
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Post by lkmjbc on Feb 10, 2019 22:21:49 GMT
A play test game of Cannae.
I finished my first play test of Cannae Friday evening.
The good news...
The Cannae game plays very, very well.
In order to better simulate Cannae, I have expanded the regular game to 14 elements apiece and the break point to 5 elements. The differences in army sizes is rationalized by differences in troop quality.
This renders the battle as the following:
Romans
1x Cv Gen
1x Cv
4x Bd Legions
2x Triarii
4x 4Ax Italian Allies
2x Ps
Carthaginians
1x Cv Gen
1x Cv
2x LH
4x Sp
4x 4Ax (Mixture of Spanish and Gauls)
2x Ps
Now the bad news. No new Ax rules were tested in the game. The Carthaginians won 5-2... but all the Aux combat was either Ax vs Ax... or the first Ax kill... a 6 to 1 by a Spear. The rest of the casualties (1 Carthaginian Ax and Ps vs 2x Bd, 1x Ax and 1x Ps) were killed by flanking. The only Carthaginian Ax killed, was killed by a Blade, but was hard flanked.
Oh well.
Joe Collins
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).