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Post by paddy649 on Apr 3, 2019 12:57:20 GMT
Can’t you see that actually you are both right but coming from entirely different perspectives.
Yes - DBA 3.0 is a fantastic set of rules that provides the basis for both tournament and club play. For tournament play, and indeed for club play with new members or visiting players etc we need to have an agreed set of rules with consensus about the interpretations we make - which isn’t always helped by Barkerese. That is why consensus across the community is so important and while consensus doesn’t mean “do it my way” it also doesn’t mean “look at me I’m the only one who is correct.” Nor does it help to hold entrenched positions if consensus is required. Question: can we put rule suggestions to the vote or have a system where things can get referred?
No - DBA 3.0 is not perfect. But it is an abstract set of rules using 12 elements a side, covers 2,500+ years of warfare and adopts for simplicity a 4 VP and you lose criteria. Given those criteria it actually does a pretty damn good job of representing ancient and mediaeval warfare. If it didn’t we wouldn’t play it.
Yes - DBA should at least try to represent real world battles. Mostly it does this if you remember the level of abstraction it adopts. I addressed the Cav pursuit issue earlier. The same applies for Spear. They may indeed pursue but if this happens after a third of either army is lost then it won’t get represented in DBA. If they pursue short distances or recover back to their approximate original position before becoming exposed or within the 60 mins or so each bound may take then again this won’t get represented. So first can we try to explain history within the bounds of DBA. Finally give room for the players - pursuit may be as simple as the player volountarily moving a unit forward in the next phase. Only where history can never be repeated do we need to consider adopting new rules.
Yes - DBA 3.0 can and should evolve. We should continue to experiment and challenge the rules. That is what healthy communities do. But here there is a balance to be struck between increasing historical accuracy and complexity vs playability, game mechanics and change resistance. An example of this is the Cam & Ps group move discussions. Historical justifications were made but when the full gameplay implications were explored and it became apparent that no change was probably the least worst outcome and this was accepted. Remember no wargame will model “ruse de guerre” or similar. Also remember that specific issues make poor rules - we should focus on the generic. That said I’d be in favour of more army list specific rules where appropriate. However, let’s not confuse discussion with agreed consensus.
Yes - most of us are resistant to change, especially where it comes to changing the army lists as this requires real effort to put right with our Miniatures. I’m lucky because I was Napoleonic and WW2 gaming between DBA 1.1 and DBA 3.0 and so have been insulated from most of the change but I sympathise with the difficulty in making a 2.2 army purple compliant is more than a few units need to change. I remain confused as to why the army lists have evolved in areas that haven’t been impacted by new units, new rules or new historical evidence.
Yes - there is a difference between questioning the rules and questioning the army lists. The rules should be core and generic the army lists should be specific. So is history cannot be represented question whether this is a fault of the rules OR the army lists. There is no point changing the rules if it is the army list that is wrong (or vice versus.). Hence as a community I feel we should be more open to challenging the Army lists and particularly the Allies bit more than we do as this seems to generate armies that push the rules to their limits.
Anyway - just my 2p.
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Post by primuspilus on Apr 3, 2019 15:28:53 GMT
With respect, there is NO ONE on this forum who has done anything CLOSE to the effort Stevie has put in at testing the game, writing up results, checking histories, and analysing likelihoods of outcomes. He does this because he loves the concept of the game, loves ancient history, and would like to play campaigns, and have a battle generation system, that is better than 75%-80% at generating battles accurately (by historical outcome, not DBA troop type definition). Do go ahead, sue the guy. Geez.
Next, sorry, but the tired old snark "if you want more history, go olay DBMM" is starting to wear very, very thin. I have played DBMM. Extensively. It sucks as a game, for me. It sucks worse as history (points systems generally do, with a few notable exceptions like Armati) and lays open the minimaxing that is so prevalent in other points-based games. DBMM is nowhere near as accessible as BBDBA, and as I have stated, DBMM does not give "better" results. Just bigger, with more minis.
People who think that putting in a choice of recoil, a couple of modifiers and a few mechanisms equates to DBMM are, to put it as gently as I can, kidding themselves. Go play DBMM for a full year, with multiple armies. Then get back to me.
DBA 3.0 is more complex than 2.2. Which was more complex than 1.0. Deal with it. It was never meant to be a "serious" game. PB himself is rumoured to have said it was supposed to be a game for drunkards and 7 year olds. But we as gamers fell in love with it. But we wanted more. Bows that shot. Cv, Kn, Ct, we wanted artillery. And BUAs. And bigger, more comprehensive lists. I challenge all of us to go back to DBA 1.0 if what we REALLY are after is simple, unfettered, childlike DBA canonical play.
Guess what. we didn't want that. We made Phil keep making it better. For us.
So here we are. We agree that Phil only reluctantly agreed to enhance DBA after years of hassling him. It is clear that he intended DBA to be an ancients gateway game to the "real" "big" games, and not a tidy little vehicle to inspire army collections and cute campaigns. We agree that some weirdness persists in DBA unnecessarily.
It is also clear to me that he NEVER intended for DBA to become anyone's "go to" game for life. And in this, the game fails, because the one thing he wouldn't have considered when building out 2.2, is that guys would take the game seriously, and view it as a long term solution to the conundrum of stable, historical ancients gaming.
In that, the game has quirks like the infantile new shooting rules (which were clearly never mass tested beyond the Hundred Years War setting, on an ongoing basis). And so you fetch up with things like EAPs being totally pathetic against the Greeks, thereby denigrating the true achievement that was Greek fighting arms and leadership circa 400-500BC. You get Hannibal's army being mostly useless against a foe they routinely trounced - which is possibly singly the most frustrating thing for newbies about DBA. Newbies who want to play ancients have usually heard of Hannibal. Same may even have heard of Hasdrubal as well.
But in DBA, every Carthiginan general is Horribal (sorry to he who coined this first!). Do we really want to proudly call this an ancients game when most of the time, the Carthos can't win??? How about AlexMac? Against Porus.
What especially galls me is folks who (remember many of these would have been equally dumbstruck by the sudden dumbass shooting rules) insist my +1 to solid Bw and Ax will "break the game", ... and insisting I should favour or pursue THEIR idea, ... when MY idea has seen EXTENSIVE testing, and does NOT break the game as claimed, and THEIR idea ... wait for it ... is just that. It has never been widely or extensively tested.
And testing is NOT a couple quick pick upngames with a mate, if you knew anything at all about stats. You play it againa, and again, and again, and again, and... and do everything you can to create and exploit edge cases that break it.
So if you are happy with EAPs and 4Ax as written, I don't care. Really. Play it as is. Knock yourself out? I am not interested quite frankly in forcin or being forced to di anything. Just don't insist you know better about how a rule wi play out until you have tested it extensively yourself againdt live, cuthroat opposition.
But we have a purple book we liked to game with in our group, and we played a few hundred games with a set of armies covering most of the classical period. It became clear to me that DBA 3.0 was rebuilt around fixing the Dark Ages. and the Hundred Years War. It may be time to extend that superb work to the classical period.
Sorry about the rant all. Not trying to be negative
And Stevie isn't right about everything - and neither am I. But frankly without guys like Stevie willing to pour the hours in to researching, writing, and testing, DBA will turn into a penniless old dowager empress of ancient gaming with only a half blind, doddering butler or two like me, watching over her ...
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Post by greedo on Apr 4, 2019 0:24:41 GMT
Quite well said Primus.
Would it be easier if there was an official successor to Mr. and Mrs. Barker? Someone who would take the reigns, continue development, testing, publishing, etc. If they want to concentrate on DBMM, wouldn't it be better to have someone really passionate about the project, who could collect player data, run testing tournaments, collect and debate change suggestions, and answer "official" questions? Would he be open to selling the DBA rights as it were, so that he could still get royalties from sales, but the game would be able to move forward in an official capacity, instead of unofficial spinoffs/copycats springing up. This person or team of people could also man the forums, and answer questions officially, so feedback could be much quicker.
It would also free their (The Barkers) minds so that they wouldn't have to deal with all the BS that comes with trying to figure out what changes are "good" vs "bad", and all the online yelling that goes on. It might also help solve the problem of not knowing who is major DBA contributors are, such as Primus, Stevie, and Joe. Many of us are random players who play DBA, and make suggestions from time to time, but are more the "consumers" of DBA.
The forum is a bit of a grand leveler, where we are all just names, and I don't know who knows who, other than reading posts. Would this help?
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Post by lkmjbc on Apr 4, 2019 1:59:12 GMT
A truly Epic rant by Primuspilus...
To answer some of Greedo's questions...
1. Their will be an official successor... the WRG company. My guess is that it will lead by Sue Barker. 2. I doubt the rights will be sold immediately as ...well... see #1 3. Phil has basically retired... though he may do something with HF&Gs. So, his mind is free. Tom Thomas is the official head of the Tournament scene in the US at Phil and Sue's behest. I am in charge of the FAQ. 4. As to "who" is "who"
Bob, Tom, Keith, and I were on the development team along with several others that post on this forum that I will not name (they can name themselves if they so desire).
Further, Bob, Tom, Tony and I are all on the FAQ team... again along with a few others.
As to PrimusPilus' rant...
The unfortunate aftermath of the split that occurred during the 3.0 development needs to die and be forgoten. It was caused by a group of extremely unfortunate circumstances and personalities clashes. Those are now gone. It still however hobbles us.
What we need to do is to be able to explore, think, argue and game with the knowledge that we are all one group and striving toward the same goal... producing a better game.
I am focused for instance on a few small changes that will produce a DBA 3.1 (you will see more of my arguments in two months). Tom is focused on development of his own game and ultimately what may in part or whole become DBA 4 (BTW, he is melding some of Phil's best ideas with ideas from another great game designer... Frank Chadwick... not to say that many are Tom's own.) Tony is doing an excellent job promoting the game through his videos. Bob is perhaps the greatest promoter of the game of all time. Martin, I see as the head of DBA across the pond. Keith has the best DBA blog/website on the Internet.
Stevie and Primuspilus are fonts overflowing with interesting ideas. Others are wonderful as well... I can't name you all!
Robert... wow... he is in a class of his own. We all stand in awe of him.
So, let us continue to think, discuss, and "kick against the goads" in good cheer... knowing that even if our ideas aren't accepted... that we did help to shape the future.
Joe Collins
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Post by greedo on Apr 4, 2019 5:05:26 GMT
Thanks Joe! This gives a lot of context to the discussions. Good to know so many of the testers are right here. Can't wait to see what evolves.
Chris
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Post by martin on Apr 4, 2019 8:37:43 GMT
A truly Epic rant by Primuspilus... To answer some of Greedo's questions... 1. Their will be an official successor... the WRG company. My guess is that it will lead by Sue Barker. 2. I doubt the rights will be sold immediately as ...well... see #1 3. Phil has basically retired... though he may do something with HF&Gs. So, his mind is free. Tom Thomas is the official head of the Tournament scene in the US at Phil and Sue's behest. I am in charge of the FAQ. 4. As to "who" is "who" Bob, Tom, Keith, and I were on the development team along with several others that post on this forum that I will not name (they can name themselves if they so desire). Further, Bob, Tom, Tony and I are all on the FAQ team... again along with a few others. As to PrimusPilus' rant... The unfortunate aftermath of the split that occurred during the 3.0 development needs to die and be forgoten. It was caused by a group of extremely unfortunate circumstances and personalities clashes. Those are now gone. It still however hobbles us. What we need to do is to be able to explore, think, argue and game with the knowledge that we are all one group and striving toward the same goal... producing a better game. I am focused for instance on a few small changes that will produce a DBA 3.1 (you will see more of my arguments in two months). Tom is focused on development of his own game and ultimately what may in part or whole become DBA 4 (BTW, he is melding some of Phil's best ideas with ideas from another great game designer... Frank Chadwick... not to say that many are Tom's own.) Tony is doing an excellent job promoting the game through his videos. Bob is perhaps the greatest promoter of the game of all time. Martin, I see as the head of DBA across the pond. Keith has the best DBA blog/website on the Internet. Stevie and Primuspilus are fonts overflowing with interesting ideas. Others are wonderful as well... I can't name you all! Robert... wow... he is in a class of his own. We all stand in awe of him. So, let us continue to think, discuss, and "kick against the goads" in good cheer... knowing that even if our ideas aren't accepted... that we did help to shape the future. Joe Collins Thanks for all that, Joe. All good points. One to remember - DON’T forget the split. ‘He who does not learn from the mistakes of history is doomed to repeat them’, or some other misquote. The ‘split’ was almost fatal to DBA, and that should be borne in mind. But to clarify, I’m just an active member of the forum, who doesn’t baulk at challenging certain ideas which I personally feel are potentially detrimental (much to the annoyance of some others.....😉). Having played DBA from its beginning, I have a vested interest and a certain level of knowledge (ie can remember when stuff was mooted/argued over/proposed in the past). However, I would very much recommend that on ‘this side of the pond’ Bill MacG. (‘pawsBill’) would be best placed to continue any development - he is, as you know, already on the development team and is one of the most knowledgable (in DBx matters) wargamers I’ve met, AND is extremely thoughtful and levelheaded.
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Post by stevie on Apr 4, 2019 12:04:25 GMT
I do apologise for causing all this fuss. I am entirely to blame. It’s my fault for breaking the Fanaticus rules:- The “DBA 3.0 section” is only for questions about the existing rules. The “House Rule section” is the place for new ideas and suggestions. If I had posted in the correct section then none of this would have become an issue. Well, I’ve learnt my lesson and will only post in the correct section in the future. You must remember that I suffer from a disability...I just can’t stop reading ancient history books. Unfortunately there is no cure...apart from burning all the writings of the ancient writers. But I promise I will try and keep my condition under control from now on. 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 Simon on Apr 4, 2019 16:04:49 GMT
Stevie,
Just something to consider. When I go onto the forum, I usually go via the "Recent threads" page. Other people may do the same. Great for getting the latest goss quickly but it is not obvious what section (DBA 3.0, House Rules etc) the message is filed to. It might be an idea to add House rules for XXXX or something silmilar in the post title to reduce the channce of any misunderstanding.
Cheers
Simon
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Post by martin on Apr 4, 2019 17:50:34 GMT
Stevie, Just something to consider. When I go onto the forum, I usually go via the "Recent threads" page. Other people may do the same. Great for getting the latest goss quickly but it is not obvious what section (DBA 3.0, House Rules etc) the message is filed to. It might be an idea to add House rules for XXXX or something silmilar in the post title to reduce the channce of any misunderstanding. Cheers Simon That’s my route in, too, Simon, so I just see posts in ‘most recent’ order, with no reference to which section of the forum they ‘live’ in. And it’s a good suggestion.
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Post by jim1973 on Apr 5, 2019 2:59:40 GMT
stevie keep on going!
I don't always agree with your point of view and I am not as dogmatic about taking the ancient writers verbatim (although Ctesias' description of the Persian Court would make an interesting boardgame).
But I enjoy reading your posts. If nothing else, I learn something by re-reading the ancient descriptions. But more importantly, it makes me think and imagine, which is after all, what this hobby is all about at least for me.
So soldier on lad! Just think, your affliction could be worse. Imagine if they hadn't burned down the library at Alexandria...
Cheers
Jim
PS You should only put a qualifying remark on your posts for the "recent threads" section if everybody else does likewise. There is no reason for you to be singled out.
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Post by Spitzicles on Apr 5, 2019 3:35:45 GMT
Sorry about the rant all. Not trying to be negative primuspilus,
I didn't read it as negative, just explaining your position and pointing out some history and background.
What really impressed me - it was written on a mobile! Well done sir! Thats commitment and passion.
Overall, its an interesting discussion, and one that is worth having every now and then.
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Post by stevie on Apr 5, 2019 17:33:52 GMT
Thanks for that Jim, and fear not, I shall still be promoting suggestions for more history into DBA...but only for those that want it of course. I just need to make sure that I post in the correct sections of Fanaticus so that my ‘compulsive-reading-of ancient-history-syndrome’ does not offend anybody. The “Lessons from History: extra historical rules for DBA 3.0” booklet is nearing completion, and is based upon the following:- “DBA 3.0 is a great set of Ancient Rules, being easy to learn, needing few actual figures so it’s not costly to build and paint an army, and is quick to play making it ideal for tournaments and competitions where time is limited. Regrettably, in order to make it simple and quick to play, certain historical factors and events had to be omitted, making some of the troop classes behave and perform contrary to their real-life counterparts.
It is a pity that DBA 3.0 was not organised with the basic tournament rules in the front, the advanced historical rules at the back, and with a one page simple two-player set of campaign rules in-between.
So this booklet is an unofficial player generated attempt to add those historical rules that DBA 3.0 has left out. Please note that these new historical rules do not alter the basic tournament rules in any way. Consider them as just an extra layer to be placed on top of the basic rules, for more historical realism.”This will cover such things as 3Ax/Ps/3Bw ‘evading’, close combat improvements for 4Ax & 4Bw to make them match the historical accounts, historical shooting improvements, choice of table size, limiting pursuit into rivers, battles ending at nightfall, African Elephant behaviour, and the types of general and their locations, with a few suggestions about tweaking some of the the Army Lists to make them more historical. I also plan on releasing a sister booklet called “Event Cards: for DBA 3.0 campaigns”. This will cover the other historical events, such as scouting and reconnaissance, weather, feigned-flight, impetuous attacks, high or low morale, dissension and confusion, extra troops, anti-mounted ditches, wide off-table outflanking marches, and wild mounted chases that were fairly frequent in ancient battles but were also left out of the DBA 3.0 basic rules. It will also include a simple one-page two-player campaign system (ok, I admit it, my “Map-Less Wars” ) for those that don’t have their own campaign mechanism., plus an updated “Random Terrain Generator” following Joe Collins’ shock revelation that we have all been using the Arable compulsory terrain choices wrong. The idea is that if re-creating a specific historical battle, to use the right “Event Card” appropriate for that conflict. If fighting a ‘what-if-battle’, then on an aggression roll of ‘ 3’ you can randomly choose a “Event Card”. And if fighting the best-of-three battles or a mini campaign, each player randomly chooses two cards at the beginning, but can only keep one of them, and it can only be used once (any aggression rolls of ‘ 3’ during the campaign means they can draw another “Event Card”, but can never have more than one of them, so if two are currently in hand one will need to be discarded). My philosophy has always been that if something is missing from DBA, then let’s add it. After all, we players are not entirely helpless. 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 jim1973 on Apr 5, 2019 23:57:01 GMT
Event cards? Very interesting. I look forward to their development. I have some rudimentary notes on a Strategic Situation table to add another challenge to the general. Something along the lines of roll two dice etc. It's just to add something that may force the player to come out and fight or to hinder army composition or deployment. Exactly as a campaign does.
Jim
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Post by lkmjbc on Apr 6, 2019 0:21:39 GMT
Stevie:
You need to start a separate thread regarding event cards.
Joe Collins
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Post by greedo on Apr 6, 2019 0:47:48 GMT
Stevie: You need to start a separate thread regarding event cards. Joe Collins Agreed! Can’t wait.
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