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Post by kaptainkobold on May 19, 2017 0:10:39 GMT
It seems this thread has developed into a serious complaint about the DBA 3.0 terrain system. We worked hard on this aspect of the game and felt we had greatly improved the system - it seems from this feedback that we did not go far enough. I have no experience with the "Triumph" system but did use the 2.2+ system and found it far inferior to the DBA 3.0 system (the 2.2+ guys had left the DBA 3.0 playtest team prior to our upgrading the terrain system). I like the 3.0 system, although I never really played that much DBA 2.0 to appreciate the differences. I long ago adapted the DBA 3.0 system (or an early working version of it) for HOTT, and have used it regularly since. It gives far more interesting terrain set-ups than you'd get if the player gets to choose where the items are positioned. |
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Post by Dangun on May 19, 2017 9:15:56 GMT
I like the 3.0 system, although I never really played that much DBA 2.0 to appreciate the differences. I long ago adapted the DBA 3.0 system (or an early working version of it) for HOTT, and have used it regularly since. It gives far more interesting terrain set-ups than you'd get if the player gets to choose where the items are positioned. HOTT doesn't have the same issues to deal with that DBA 3.0 does. DBA 3.0 has to (may have to?) create a fair game for a 12 psiloi army versus 12 Cav. Some players might expect DBA 3.0 to produce historical battlefields. They are different problems/objectives. |
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Post by stevie on May 20, 2017 10:27:26 GMT
Getting back to the original question of whether the WADBAG ‘Manoeuvre Ratings’ are a good idea or not, I have become very interested in medievalthomas’ excellent suggestion of a system based on ‘Scouting Points’.
I’ve amended this slightly to the following:-
Both players roll for aggression as normal to see in which country or region the battle will take place.
They then roll to see who has the ‘Scouting Advantage’.
Add +1 to their die if they have more ‘Scouting Points’, and +2 if they have twice as many.
The higher score gets to decide whether they want to be the attacker (and choose the base edges and deploy and move 2nd), or be the defender (and choose and place the terrain, but deploy and move 1st).
‘Scouting Points’ are 2 for each LH element, and 1 for each Ax or Ps element.
(It might seem odd that Ax are worth the same as Ps, but remember that every country will have some bad or rough going areas somewhere inside their boarders, and LH would be poor scouts in such terrain. Anyway, it is necessary to give Ax one scouting point so that auxiliary armies such as the Spanish, Samnites, Illyrians, Thracians, Kappadocians, and such like will have a chance to out-scout their opponents and have it be possible for them to get the bad going terrain they so desperately need.
Also, having mounted armies ‘defending’ might seem strange, but not if you consider that they have scouted the land and found a nice place to give battle that suits their troops, and arrived at this spot first and are awaiting their opponents.)
It might be a good idea to look at the chances of things happening so we know what we are talking about.
Consider the following chart which shows the effects when using the current DBA 3.0 aggression factors.
Re-rolls have been included in roughly the same ratio as the primary die rolls in order to make the totals 36.
My feeble brain struggles with big numbers, so I have shown the ‘out of 36’ chances as ‘out of 6’ as if a single dice.
Difference Chances out of 36
-4 1 ( 3%) -
-3 3 ( 9%) half out of 6
-2 6 (17%) 1 out of 6
-1 12 (33%) 2 out of 6
0 18 (50%) 3 out of 6
+1 24 (67%) 4 out of 6
+2 30 (83%) 5 out of 6
+3 33 (91%) 5.5 out of 6
+4 35 (97%) -
Reading the chart
Suppose the I/47 Illyrians (aggression 3) are fighting the II/35 Later Macedonian’s (aggression 1).
The difference between the aggression factors is 2, so Illyria has the +2 line while Macedon has the opposite -2.
So as you can see, Illyria has 30 chances out of 36 (or 5 out of 6) of being the invader while Macedon has only 6 chances out of 36 (or 1 in 6) of being the invader. Therefore, Macedon has 5 out of 6 chances of being the defender and having control of the terrain. This is very bad news for the Illyrians…they only have 1 chance in 6 of getting any bad going for their auxiliaries, and 5 chances out of 6 of fighting on a totally flat open billiard table against pikes.
I don’t give much for their chances of winning under such adverse conditions.
The same applies to all high aggression armies: the I/43 Skythians, II/80 Huns, IV/35 Mongols, and the IV/55 Ottomans (mounted armies all with an aggression of 4) will have to face a mass of bad going as they are almost always the invader.
As I have said before, one would have thought that the invader, who could decide exactly where and what part they wanted to invade, would choose a battlefield that suited their army, even when inside an enemy’s country.
The same chart above can be used for the proposed ‘Scouting Points’ to determine the chances by simply looking at the differences between these before dice are rolled in exactly the same way.
So let’s compare the current ‘Aggression Factors’ against the new ‘Scouting Factors’ to see who could be defending and have control of the terrain under the new proposed system (I have shown the minimum and maximum scouting elements allowed to each army if there is a choice).
Remember, scouting is each player rolling a dice and one of them will +1 if more scouting points, and +2 if twice as many scouting points, equal scores being re-rolled (LH = 2 scouting points each, Ax and Ps = 1 scouting point each):-
Who Defends Using Aggression Factors (in brackets): Who Can Choose To Defend Using Scouting Points (in brackets):
I/52f Athens (2) vs. I/60c Persia (3) = Athens 4 out of 6 Athens (2 or 5) vs. Persia (1 or 6) = varies, usually Athens
II/12 Alexander (4) vs. II/7 Persia (1) = Persia 5.5 out of 6 Alexander (4 or 5) vs. Persia (5 or 14) = Persia 3 to 5 out of 6
II/10 Rome (3) vs. II/13 Samnites (1) = Samnites 5 out of 6 Rome (4) vs. Samnites (11 or 12) = Samnites 5 out of 6
II/10 Rome (3) vs. II/27b Pyrrhus (4) = Rome 4 out of 6 Rome (4) vs. Pyrrhus (4) = both 3 out of 6
II/33 Rome (3) vs. II/32a Carthage (4) = Rome 4 out of 6 Rome (2 or 4) vs. Carthage (9) = Carthage 5 out of 6
II/33 Rome (3) vs. II/39 Spanish (0) = Spanish 5.5 out of 6 Rome (2 or 4) vs. Spanish (12) = Spanish 5 out of 6
II/33 Rome (3) vs. II/35 Macedon (1) = Macedon 5 out of 6 Rome (2 or 4) vs. Macedon (5) = Macedon 4 or 5 out of 6
II/33 Rome (3) vs. I/47 Illyrians (3) = both 3 out of 6 Rome (2 or 4) vs. Illyrians (12 or 13) = Illyrians 5 out of 6
II/49 Rome (3) vs. II/11 Gauls (3) = both 3 out of 6 Rome (2 or 8) vs. Gauls (1) = Rome 5 out of 6
II/49 Rome (3) vs. II/40 Numidians (1) = Numid 5 out of 6 Rome (2 or 8) vs. Numidians (12 or 16) = Numid 4 or 5 out of 6
II/49 Rome (3) vs. II/37 Parthia (2) = Parthia 4 out of 6 Rome (2 or 8) vs. Parthia (8 or 20) = Parthia 3 to 5 out of 6
At first glance there is not that much change, although players would have some control over who the defender would be (should the Parthians have the maximum number of cataphracts but have less chance of choosing who has control of the terrain, or take more weaker scouting LH/Ax/Ps and increase the chances that they may have control?).
However, look at the effects of the new ‘Scouting Points’ on the following conflicts:-
Who Defends Using Aggression Factors (in brackets): Who Can Choose To Defend Using Scouting Points (in brackets):
I/7b Lybians (4) vs. I/22 Egyptians (2) = Egypt 5 out of 6 Lybians (8) vs. Egyptians (1) = Lybians 5 out of 6
I/63 Paionians (3) vs. II/17 Lyimachus (2) = Lyimachus 4 out of 6 Paionians (14) vs. Lyimachus (7 to 9) = Paionians 4 or 5 out of 6
I/47 Illyrians (3) vs. II/18a Antipatros (1) = Antipatros 5 out of 6 Illyrians (13) vs. Antipatros (3) = Illyrians 5 out of 6
II/54a Irish (3) vs. II/81Romo-Brits (1) = Romo-Brits 5 out of 6 Irish (8 to 9) vs. Romo-Brits (1 to 10) = usually Irish 4 or 5 out of 6
I/43 Skythians (4) vs. I/60c Persia (3) = Persia 4 out of 6 Skythians (16 to 24) vs. Persia (1 to 6) = Skythians 5 out of 6
II/80a Attila (4) vs. II/82 Patrician Rome (0/1) = Rome 5.5 out of 6 Attila (11 to 16) vs. Rome (4 to 11) = Attila, 3 to 5 out of 6
IV/35 Mongols (4) vs. IV/24 Khwarizm (1) = Khwarzim 5.5 out of 6 Mongols (10 to 22) vs. Khwarizm (8 to 12) = Mongols, 3 to 5 out of 6
III/73 Seljuq Turks (3) vs. IV/1 Byzantines (1) = Byzans 5 out of 6 Turks (10 to 18) vs. Byzantines (5 to 13) = usually Turks 3 to 5 out of 6
III/40 Vikings (4) vs. III/24 Anglo-Saxons (2) = Saxons 5 out of 6 Anglo-Saxons (1) vs, Vikings (0 to 2) = usually both 3 out of 6
Conclusion
The current aggression works fine for about half the armies, but not the other half.
High aggression armies almost never get to choose the terrain, which can put them at a severe disadvantage.
Players already instinctively know this…which is why low aggression armies are often used in tournaments.
Using ‘Scouting Points’ in this way is actually superior to the WADBAG ‘Manoeuvre Ratings’.
Players will have some limited control over scouting depending upon their army’s composition.
So if you don’t mind your high aggression auxiliary army fighting on a totally flat and open battlefield, or if you don’t mind your high aggression mounted army facing masses of bad going every time, then by all means use the current aggression system as described in the DBA 3.0 rule book.
But just remember that, as good as the current system is, it is not perfect.
There may be other simple ways of doing things.
And the ‘Scouting System’ just needs a extra die roll with a +1 or +2 added to it.
Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, including the latest FAQ and the Quick Reference Sheets from the Society of Ancients:-
fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
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Post by timurilank on May 20, 2017 17:17:33 GMT
A couple of comments and I will follow up with them with a bit more detail if I have time. 1- I also do not like the terrain set-up process and find it annoying at best. This is regardless of DBA version. I have tried to like but cannot. It must be because I am a battlefield tramper and I just can't get over a system where you have control over placement. 2- The Triumph! system is not hard to use and I like the way the battlefields look and play better than DBA. I only put that forward here as someone who is not part of the feud and wish all well. Life is too short and I have enjoyed the games and people I have met playing 2.2, 2.2+, 3.0, etc. 3- Sue in her starter book for DBA indicates she thinks terrain boards are superior to other terrain (yes, they look MUCH better, look at the FoW games at the conventions.) I built some terrain boards following most of the rules in designing DBA 3.0 terrain. The tournament using them seemed to go just fine, even though my system for randomizing use of the boards fell apart after round 1. 4- Some of the ideas here are very interesting and this has been a topic in wargming with books and systems going back to the early days with Charles Grant and others. 5- I like some of the ideas like timurlink's last one "For each army there were six orders of battle with minor variation (10 – 20%) among the troop types. Placed face down the player picked at random an army and went off to battle. " This reminds me of the very clever approach in the historical skirmish books that allows high replay value for variations in forces on historical ground. You could combine this with random terrain boards too and have more than enough variety. Also, a thank you to all those DBA gamers who have produced inspiring terrain (and that includes some of you on this thread) and documented these terrain ideas on Fanaticus. Bill
Bill,
I am currently testing campaign ideas (Sub Roman Britain) which have armies of different strengths fighting over variable terrain. I plan further tests using other themes before a final draft is placed on file.
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Post by primuspilus on May 20, 2017 19:28:59 GMT
Stevie, technically the chances of a +4 army being defender are slightly higher than 1/36. A 5-1 or a 6-2 split causes a reroll with a nonzero probability, and so on...
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Post by stevie on May 20, 2017 23:35:07 GMT
Stevie, technically the chances of a +4 army being defender are slightly higher than 1/36. A 5-1 or a 6-2 split causes a reroll with a nonzero probability, and so on...
Ah! That is true…technically.
If one player has +4 to their die roll they will have 33 chances out of 34 (97.05%) of getting the higher score.
Their opponent has 1 chance in 34 (2.94%)…and there will be 2 chances of re-rolls, making the total 36 chances.
But the 2 re-rolls cannot stay as they are…they are re-rolled and have the same chance ratio as the primary rolls.
And 97.05% of 2 is 1.941, and 2.94% of 2 is .0588.
(No matter how many times an equal score comes up, the re-roll will have the same chance ratio as the primary roll)
So the person with +4 really has 33+1.941 = 34.941 chances out of 36 of winning the roll.
And the other person has 1+0.588 = 1.0588 chances out of 36 of winning.
I think most would agree that 34.941 chances out of 36 is as near to 35 out of 36 as to make no difference.
Likewise, 1.0588 chances out of 36 is as near to 1 chance in 36 as to not be worth bothering about.
Still, it’s nice to see that people are checking my mathematics and not just taking what I say at face value. 
Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, including the latest FAQ and the Quick Reference Sheets from the Society of Ancients:-
fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
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Post by medievalthomas on May 22, 2017 17:40:23 GMT
Stevie:
Thanks for doing all the hard math work re the Scouting Points suggestion. My original suggestion would have made for a bigger modifier (+1 - most Ps, +2 most LH & +3 if you have the most of both). But since you've gone to all the trouble to do the math for the "+1" system, I'm persuaded to adopt it. You seem sure that Aux should be included and I appreciate the need for some Aux boast overall so will also adopt. I orginally considered "choice" instead of just being the Defender but was not sure anyone would choose Invader - but as many players are smarter than I am, I'd prefer to let the marketplace decide this idea (ie do people actually use the "Invader" choice).
I'll add this to the next edition of Fire and Ice as an Advanced Rule (I like to keep the base system Knights and Knaves simple enough to teach kids & wives [not because wives are not smart enough to grasp the Advanced Game - quiet the contrary they are likely to smart/busy to want to sit around and learn a bunch of tedious additional rules just to play a toy solider game on the kitchen table).
This way I can get my player base using the rule - giving us some useful feedback on both its ease of use and impact on DBX games.
Great work.
Thomas J. Thomas
Fame and Glory Games
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Post by primuspilus on Jan 9, 2018 3:04:21 GMT
Tom, how did these work out? One issue I thought about was not allowing Cv the benefits of scouting would not help a high-Cv army against a bad going army at all. Think Light Chariot armies. On average, I would think the scouting rules work out to be even mostly, with a slight edge to the player with the Light troops?
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Post by medievalthomas on Jan 10, 2018 22:57:37 GMT
Not caused much drama (or difference) have been swamped playtesting High Elves and Wood Elves for the Olde World edition (coming up). My son and I have been in virtually constant play test since he's on college break. I'll try to focus more on this suggestion in the next few games.
Thomas J. Thomas
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Post by mthrguth on Jan 10, 2018 23:17:40 GMT
In the good old days, it was 50-50 to put out terrain. IMO this led to players in open tournaments going for armies with maximum combat factor strength above all else. Just too risky to bring auxillia or warband when there is a 50-50 chance you will play on a billiard table against enemies with knights or elephants. Vikings and Indians could function well in both environments. Vikings because blades are still a '3' against foot in bad going and Indians because longbows still shoot well in bad going/ and they had knights and elephants as well.
Under the aggression or invasion/maneuver rating systems a player in an open tournament might choose an unbalanced army, like all light horse; but only if they have a rating that will allow them a good chance to place terrain. Most USA tournaments are only 3 rounds; so an army with a low aggression has a reasonable chance of placing terrain in 3 straight games, or losing horribly if they get the wrong terrain.
And all this goes out the window if the tournament is fought on 30 inch boards instead of 24 inch boards. Truth, it happened to a very nice Canadian player using Gauls at Historicon last year. He could not build a 'terrain highway' for his warbands into the enemy deployment zone, ( a good tactic) because the board was just too big.
My first instinct would be to do away with the aggression or invasion/maneuver systems and substitute some sort of alternating terrain placement system.
I preferred the old dice roll to determine where the attacker shows up. I also think that there should be more smaller pieces of terrain rather than the really big pieces one can have now. But I'm not about to write my own set of rules.......
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Post by jim1973 on Jan 13, 2018 11:27:32 GMT
I've always thought that DBA 3 was robust enough to take more than the "park the bus in your penalty area then charge" set up. As there is an opposed die roll to start things off it does offer some options (e.g. ambush, chance encounter (both armies enter in marching column) etc). not too much. Most battles were "line'em up and sort it out". Did some preliminary work a while ago trying to set the strategic situation for the battle. Must dig it up and have another look.
Jim
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Post by primuspilus on Jan 13, 2018 13:32:05 GMT
Ultimately, if going-specific armies were able to be handicapped through a tournament-style points system (I know Tom's design works on this principle) then there could be some compensation for bringing Ps/Ax heavy armies, but I think adjusting the terrain dynamic a bit is far, far less overhead.
I thought about the scouting dynamic: it can work in a tournament setting, but it can break down in a campaign, where you may have uneven forces on the board.
My verdict about the 30" board is that I agree with Phil - it is not an ideal solution, and I am not interested in travelli
ng around to and fro with multiple board sizes. I like the 24" board, it gives a good game in the vast majority of cases.
I liked Stevie's idea of the high agression army actually setting up the board. This is a nod to the fact that unless recently defeated and fleeing for their lives, an army will invade a territory along an axis of advance that has terrain most suited to them and their troop composition.
The defender may be he who chooses exactly where to make his stand, but it will have to be across the invader's axis of advance.
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Post by primuspilus on Jan 13, 2018 13:54:01 GMT
The more I think about it the more the following makes sense to me:
The invader provides the terrain pieces in accordance with the topography of the defender. The defender can deploy the pieces as the current process stands. So a LH invader should have pieces of minimal or LH-friendly terrain that are compatible with all topographies. If he doesn't, he is stuck using the defender's pieces :-). So there is his incentive to get busy making terrain pieces!
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Post by stevie on Jan 13, 2018 17:55:01 GMT
The more I think about it the more the following makes sense to me: The invader provides the terrain pieces in accordance with the topography of the defender. The defender can deploy the pieces as the current process stands. So a LH invader should have pieces of minimal or LH-friendly terrain that are compatible with all topographies. If he doesn't, he is stuck using the defender's pieces :-). So there is his incentive to get busy making terrain pieces! Hmmm…I’m not sure it would work that simply primuspilus. For example, take the Romans (aggression 3) vs the Arable Iberian Spanish (aggression zero). The Romans will be the invaders 33 out of 36 times (91%), so they will choose the fewest, smallest, most easy going terrain. And it won’t really matter where the defending Iberians places this useless terrain. With no large bad going, they are stuffed!…which is just what the invading Roman wants… The main problem with the current system is who gets terrain control. This can be vitally important, and both sides want it. A good going army, such as mounted or heavy foot, wants to choose and place the terrain. A bad going army, such as an Ax or Ps, also wants to choose and place the terrain. So who should get to choose? At the moment, it’s always the defender, which is usually the army with the lowest aggression. If you have a high aggression army, then tough. You get no say in the matter (but you do get to choose the starting edges). But David Constable has an interesting alternative system. I hope he doesn’t mind if I describe it here:- * First there is a new area terrain type called ‘open ground’, usable in all regions, which can overlap an adjacent quarter. * Players roll for aggression, and the lowest score is the defender (exactly the same as the present system). * Now here’s the new bit - both players must secretly chose three terrain pieces each, appropriate for that region.
The defender must choose one or two compulsory, and the invader cannot choose compulsory terrain. * Starting with the defender, players alternate rolling for the placement of one of their pieces (using the current system). * Last of all, the invader gets to choose the starting edges (just as they do now). (Alternatively, if there is no road, dice for the invader’s starting edge… 1 = north, 2 = east, 3 = south, 4 = west, 5 = defender’s choice, 6 = invader’s choice) Apart from compulsory terrain, each player can only chose one of each type (i.e 1 wood, 1 difficult hill, 1 'open ground', etc). Normal terrain limits still apply, so some later placements may get discarded if they exceed terrain numbers. (For example, after the first river/waterway/gully/BUA/oasis has been placed, subsequent ones are automatically discarded)The advantage of this system is that terrain becomes a compromise… …with some terrain that the Ax/Ps army wants, and with some terrain that the mounted/heavy foot army wants. If both parties desires good going, you could even end up with an almost totally open battlefield, like Gaugamela.  Let's look at that Romans (aggression 3) vs the Arable Iberian Spanish (aggression zero) example again. Now the Iberians could have a large Edifice BUA and two large difficult hills, all bad going. And the Romans one small piece of plough, one small type of rough, and a large area of 'open ground'. That gives both sides a bit of what they want, and both sides have a chance...no matter who is the invader or defender. Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, including the latest June 2017 FAQ and the Quick Reference Sheets from the Society of Ancients:-
fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
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Post by primuspilus on Jan 13, 2018 19:26:31 GMT
Hhmmm, Stevie, that is a lot of overhead. Let's see: with the Iberian/Roman example, both sides want terrain placement. The method you mentioned above feels tedious and convoluted to me. Here is a question: what if a simple roll off is used? So after the defender is determined, high roll (unmodified) plays the role of landscaper. Reroll ties. Then over the long run about half your games have the Roman screwed, about half have the Iberians screwed. Seems balanced at the very least?
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