"FOG 3" Topic

Terry Shaw posted this on the Slitherine forums a few weeks ago for those interested….

Some of you may have heard rumors that Version 3 is being developed.
The current situation is:
1st round of Beta testing is about to start
No publisher has been agreed as yet – but it won't be Osprey
Release date will be 2017 – as early as possible.

It will contain much more substantial changes than did V2 (which could/should have been handled by a PDF download).
However, it won't fundamentally change the the mechanics or style of play.

Changes are being tested that will affect the following (in no particular order):
> Terrain will be much less likely to be (totally) unsuitable for your army.
i.e. Foot armies will be less likely to have to fight Steppe, and mounted armies will be less likely to fight in Tropical or mountains.
The center of the table is likely to be more open.
> Skirmisher will be much less effective, with numbers likely to be much reduced (with a knock-on effect of reducing/removing the 'Benny Hill Effect')
> Heavy Foot will become more prominent in time-limited games
> Medium foot bow armies lose some of their effectiveness – but not enough to render them unusable.
> Certain army types, that are rarely used currently, will become more viable. (Byzantines, Warband armies, Light Chariot armies being examples)
> The impact phase becomes more important (relative to the melee phase).
> Superiors are reduced in effectiveness relative to average – and poor will become more effective.
> Players will have to be more careful with the placement of commanders and of committing them to combat.
> Base losses (attrition) will be higher than at present.
> A number of other tweaks to improve play balance.
Of course skillful use of your army will still be the most important factor in winning or losing your battles

anyone still play FoG?

However, it won't fundamentally change the the mechanics or style of play.

Shame. It was far too complex for my taste. Good move on allowing PDF downloads though! That might bring some folks back to the fold. They will have a tough hill to clime though. Apparently ADLG has picked up some of the FoG tournament players.

No need for FOG3 with ADLG more than filling the niche.

I thought FOG version 1 was ok.

Especially the Ancient British under Cassivellaunus

We still use FoG for Bronze Age, Punic games and are moving into Renaissance.

The rules, IMO, take time to learn but that that time is worth the effort.

Not sure about the need for a /3 but I'll wait & see.

Joker I don't see this

Good move on allowing PDF downloads though!

Too complex for me as well. Seemed likes they were complex because folks were trying to recreate the heady days of the 70's, with rules for everything possible. I found the rules were best used as a sleep aid. Some folks like them, and that's fine, but they aren't for me.

My question wasn't really rhetorical. I should have asked it differently. Are there still groups of people playing these rules?

Still the de facto Ancients rules at our club with around a dozen people using them. Tried Sword and Spear and ADLG as alternates but came back to FOG.

Numbers from a recent Madaxeman Blog article suggest it is still easily the most widely played competition set in the UK

I was going to comment on the Slitherine forums, but it was all too hard to figure out what my old account was. But FOG has some serious issues that need to be fixed, and are being totally ignored.

1. The whole terrain rules need to be re-organised. Not necessarily re-written, but reorganized, so that people can actually find stuff without having to flip all over the place.

2. The army selection process needs to be changed for competitions, so that people bring terrain with them. It is embarrassing to look at photos of a typical ancients competition, and see beautiful armies playing over pieces of felt.

3. The index needs to be better (may be fixed in V2)

4. There needs to be more than the 'line em up and charge forward' scenario. While we can get into a debate on the nature of ancient combat, there were plenty of river crossings, pursuing armies catching raiding parties with loot, terrain heavy battles, sorties from sieges, etc.

Right now FOG produces a complex battle over a flat plain with a piece of irrelevant felt stuck in the corner. Until that is changed I will keep searching for a good set of Ancient rules. Which is a pity as I like the core mechanic.

2. The army selection process needs to be changed for competitions, so that people bring terrain with them. It is embarrassing to look at photos of a typical ancients competition, and see beautiful armies playing over pieces of felt.

That is nothing to do with the rules.

There needs to be more than the 'line em up and charge forward' scenario. While we can get into a debate on the nature of ancient combat, there were plenty of river crossings, pursuing armies catching raiding parties with loot, terrain heavy battles, sorties from sieges, etc.

Also not really the fault of the rules. Although you could argue that they should include guidelines on to how to play other scenarios, there is nothing in the rules saying that they can only be used for the sort of scenarios you describe.

The terrain IS the fault of the rules. The first thing to recognize is that the vast majority of the games are played with the terrain selection rules in the appendices. At the moment, the rules selection allows for just about any terrain on the battlefield. The result is that players need to bring all sorts of terrain -- forests, rough ground, hills, etc. Hence the large numbers of 'bits of felt'. The rules need to have a competition favorable terrain selection system, where players can reduce the number of types of terrain they need to supply for a competition.

As to scenarios, good balanced scenarios are hard to design. I have tried, and really appreciate just how hard it is to get non standard scenarios balanced. But look at Flames of War -- 12 different and finely balanced types of battles. These keep the games interesting. I cant recall EVER seeing a FOG game that wasn't a straight 'line em up and move forward' scenario – with the exception of the odd flank march. The rules should include some alternates -- just to keep the game fresh. And also if they claim to have any resemblance to ancient warfare, because ancient warfare was much, much more than standard field battles.

My pals & I aren't tournament players (NB a statement of fact with no implied criticism of tournament players).

Because of this, we rarely use the terrain rules, preferring to set up historical battlefields where possible or, more often, setting up a mutually agree upon terrain & then dicing for sides.

Equally, though we mostly match the number of points for a game, we don't slavishly follow the army lists. My ECW Scots Covenanters will have a BG of Highland light infantry for example.

We stick to the core rules but like any rule set, "if it doesn't suit, feel free to tweak".

I have friends that still play FoG, although they are also flirting with ADLG.

The only thing we didn't like about FoG was what happens when you have a multi-unit melee with units that don't line up. Rolling file by file and keeping track of who caused which hits gets very tedious.
If that issue could be resolved the rules would be better.
Been playing Sword & Spear and To The Strongest, both of which always have units aligned in fixed ways, which makes things a lot simpler.

The list provided is not a list of changes but a wish list of desired effects. I suspect you'll need a longer list and need to change basic mechanics to get FOG to work as a reasonable simulation playable in a reasonable period of time.

Many ancient/medieval battles were line em up and smash – its the various troop interactions that make these battles interesting – something FOG mechanics never grasped.

TomT

I suspect you'll need a longer list and need to change basic mechanics to get FOG to work as a reasonable simulation playable in a reasonable period of time.

I agree. IMO the best way to speed the game up and make it much more interesting would be to introduce DBA style PIPs. You roll one dice and that's how many units or battle lines you can move. A general with a unit can move that unit for no PIP cost.
It would speed up the game a lot (currently a lot of time is wasted repositioning skirmishers to get the best shooting position, or moving units that are unlikely to see action), and would do away with battle avoidance tactics that you see in tournaments like turning a line of infantry round and marching away from the enemy.

Look, if you don't like FoG, play something different. There's no shortage of candidates, some of which are pretty good games. I do not think it's productive to say you clean up FoG by completely changing the mechanics to change it into something else. Some find it slow and tedious. I definitely do not. If you think it's too slow, play a game you prefer (and God bless you and all Ancients gamers, Earth's finest hobbyists and the glory of all humankind).

OTOH, speaking as one who has spent many happy contented hours playing FoG, there are certainly many tweaks that could be made to improve the game. The terrain rules are certainly capable of improvement, some troop types are badly in need of re-pointing for competition, cavalry should be a bit more maneuverable, etc etc. The basic mechanics are what they are.

Let me preface my statement by saying thatI am also a quite satisfied FOG player. I don't understand the comment about the FoG mechanics not grasping the various troop interactions in a "line-em up and smash" melee.
I must respectfully disagree. IMHO this is a strength of the ruleset.
For example, the interplay between Pike and spear versus sword is handled very well. Pike/spear have the advantage in melee as long as they are steady.
Becoming disrupted as a cohesion state or moving into uneven or rough terrain costs the pike/spear group 1/3 of their combat power and they are now even with sword in terms of advantage. Moving in difficult terrain or having their cohesion fragmented gives the swordsmen an advantage. This changing relationship is a good reflection of what happened when phalanx met legion, and one that is not modeled in as much detail in any other ruleset that I am familiar with.
FoG also features differing factors for initial impact versus melee, and has a solid , mechanism for feeding non- contacted bases into a melee, extending it's footprint over time. In fact, it is loaded with nuanced troop interaction differentiations, e.g. between mounted swordsmen, regular swordsmen and skilled swordsmen. varying types of lancers, provision for mounted with light spear in impact,4 differing levels of armor, etc.
As I recall, the main knock on FoG when the rules were in vogue was that "it took to long " to complete and too many games were not played to a final result in tournament play.There was some thought Foot armies were too slow, but it was also because of the tendency of some players who perceived themselves at a disadvantage to hang back and "slow play"

As I recall, the main knock on FoG when the rules were in vogue was that "it took to long "

Our first games were glacial. Once you learn the rules & the capabilities of your army, the game fairly hums along.