Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

Ewan McNay · Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 9:47 pm Post subject:

Jon quoth:

Terry Dix · Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 9:49 pm Post subject:

Ewan,
I would like to get the points to get closer to equal in value, but having invested a lot of free time into it I don't think the fix going to be a simple one.
The system has blips, MC is very overvalued, to the point that you only see required mininmums. RA is overcosted, indeed all of the morale classes have some costing issues. I don't have the system fully analyzed so I'm not ready to put forth a complete system. I'm not sure it can be done in a fashion that makes list construction easy, and keep the mistakes down.
Ideally weapons would be purchased and morale would be purchased last as a modifier of the base cost. I don't think that that would fly, nor do I think it would be a lot of fun to do the math that way. The question is is there a way to do a change that is effective and managible

joncleaves · Moderator Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 16447

"Less useful" has always been shorthand for "we won't go back and change a list to make it less powerful than it was originally against historical opponents" meaning, if we find that we got it wrong, we will only fix it to make it better, not worse.

How a list does compares in an open sense is not a major concern in any decision I have made or will make.

Noel White · Recruit Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 62

Pardon my unrelated interruption....

Who is "Monty Hall"?

Noel.

joncleaves · Moderator Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 16447

There was a game show in the 70's with Monty Hall as host. He gave away prizes based on some simple games, the most famous of which is take door 1, 2 or 3 and you get what is behind it - a shell game.

Monty Hall (or Monty Haul) became slang for a roleplaying adventure where the GM just gave stuff away easily without serious effort by the players.

Using it in reference to Warrior is both inaccurate and trolling.

Jon

AntiokosIII · Recruit Joined: 30 Jun 2006 Posts: 58

Basically, this argument is over whether a historical rules set is or ought to be "fair". Tournament players want a "fair"set, by which they mean that in theory 1600 points of Later Hemophiliac Nuns played well can beat 1600 points of Western Stone Killers played less well. The Horsemen basically say they care a lot less about "fairness" than they do about historicity. Some aremies are going to be better than others. There are going to be "dog" armies and "killer" armies; deal with it, say the Horsemen.

Personnally, I'd rather have an accurate game than a fair game, and if that means I lose a few where I outplay my opponent, that's life. If you care most about winning, play a killer list and be done with it. If you play because it's fun, play what you love and quit whining. This is easier said than done. The new List Rules are jarring for some of us crusty old 7th players, no doubt about it. Personally, I find myself puzzled and a bit disoriented with some of the weird stuff Romans and Swiss do in HTH, but this is more a comment on my own lack of mental flexibility that one on the rules. On balance, those list rules end up producing a historical result, even though they arrive there by a route I find difficult to understand, so I just have to suck it up, smile, and roll up 3.

This is a great game. Not a perfect one, but damn good. Learn to quit worrying and love the Swiss.

wargame692000 · Recruit Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 34

Terry Wrote:
The system has blips, MC is very overvalued, to the point that you only see required mininmums. RA is overcosted, indeed all of the morale classes have some costing issues. I don't have the system fully analyzed so I'm not ready to put forth a complete system.

This is one of my favorite parts of Warrior. A player has a huge degree of flexibility to choose an army that reflects his style. No single troop type is without it's place. The list rules help to bridge the gap between the inherent limits of troop classification and historic performance.
I think MC is valued perfectly. I won a competition last year with 36 of them and none were minimums. Likewise a Swiss unit without an element of Regular As is no where near as useful. The points difference between EHC and SHC is quite a jump but you often see them in a Sassanid list.
Romans and Swiss are 2 perfect examples of why list rules were needed to balance the costing structure. They both get lots of list rules, they will do well against historic opponents. Yet they are really expensive and have poor support troops, therefore not often seen in competition. Not a fault of the list rule rather the nature of open tournament play.

Paul Collins.

vdal1812 · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:59 am Post subject:

1600 points of Later Hemophiliac Nuns

Hang on, are you telling me I'm painting Nuns for nothing? Well I guess I'll be pushing for list rules for my Nuns! You hear that Scott? Give me killer nuns!

Vidal

joncleaves · Moderator Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 16447

I have Western Stone Killers on my iPod.....

Ewan McNay · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 12:01 pm Post subject:

I think they get a -2 for distraction under such circumstances, and prompts take an extra 2d5 [unless said Killers are also teenagers, in which case all routes from general to the unit are treated as impassable terrain]

Sorry...

QBeamus · Guest

joncleaves · Moderator Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 16447

Sorry, dude, *I'm* not the one saying we got the history wrong. I think we got it right. I don't believe any of these rules are "gadget rules". I think they are fine. In fact, I am VERY happy with Alexandrians, Romans and Thebans. Therefore, if someone needs to show what lists need work and why - from an historical standpoint - its you.

Any time you're ready...lol

And really, since none of your posts have any facts in them, if some are not forthcoming, the benefit of the doubt will expire and you will indeed be trolling and I'll be done with this thread. The fact I have been on it this long, given the speciousness of the "issue", is quite above and beyond the call.

And no, windows is not flawless. Neither is Warrior. But we have yet to have a flaw of either actually pointed out in this thread. "It has gadget rules and I don't like them" isn't a flaw - it is a perjorative unsubstantiated claim.

Stop the name calling and being overly clever and state your issue or prepare not to have anyone from FHE responding to your trolling.

Jon

QBeamus · Guest

joncleaves · Moderator Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 16447

I did not mean to imply you had called *me* a name. You call list rules "gadget rules". The name has a pejorative connotation and does not help a useful discussion in any way.

I do not threaten. I am a mod here and I will ban or ignore trolls as the particular situation warrants. The name troll is indeed a name and yes I am using it for its commonly understood internet connotation as shorthand for a poster who asks a controversial question without any more purpose than to stir up trouble. To date you have shown every characteristic of a classic internet troll and if you continue to do so, you will be ignored and if you continue after that you will be banned. This forum enjoys an excellent rep for its lack of endless internet drivel and bad behavior, so common on other game fora. And it will stay that way.

We haven't changed any FHE list to devalue it to my knowledge. If someone bought things under 7th Edition (or 6th or 5th, etc.) and he now feels FHE has "changed his list" to where he no longer wants to own those figs that really has nothing to do with us. Warrior is not 8th edition. We began with an established game engine, true. But our start point for any discussion - especially of lists - is Warrior, not 7th. With the publication of the last Warrior list book, we have ended discussions that include FHE about the relative differences between Warrior and 7th. This affects your points #1 and #4 from your last post.

The other points in your post continue to reflect your lack of desire to read the archive as all of them have been discussed ad infinitum during the development of Warrior and its lists. It is not a good use of my time to present each discussion in full yet again when the archive was designed for just that purpose. But I will summarize out of courtesy.

#2. The point system is used to balance open competitions, true. This will produce anomalies, as it does with every single game point system ever designed. We made the decision years ago - much discussed online - to keep the basic framework as it had already more playtest effort behind it than any complete revamp could possibly give us. We do intend to relook the point system at some future date, but a revamp is a multi-year process that we do not have in our schedule at the moment. Anyone is free to offer up any comprehensive point system replacement (meaning a complete system, not just a tweak to their pet issue) for our review at any time. If we feel it does the job, we will publish it.

#3. (And this is the last time I respond to a point that uses pejorative terms to refer to aspects of our game...) Our game covers 4400 years -give or take - of military history and 276 armies. Irr C MI LTS Sh and other terms like it may very well indeed refer to two troop types with widely varying chartacteristics. Our design choice was a cap on troop type descriptors over never ending variations and to instead use list rules for those few types who needed a minimum of differentiation to provide an accurate performance. This design choice was marketed and discussed with our online community at length during the time of its development and was seen by most as the best way to go. Certainly there were some, such as yourself, for whom this was not the optimal method. I will note however that none of the opponents of this method - including yourself - offered any workable alternative. Personally I believe that this is because there is none that both preserved the core engine and got the rules and lists out before 2010.

Could I design a better ancients game than Warrior from scratch? Yes, but our mission was not to design a game from scratch, it was to save the game engine for its players the best way we could. Did we have to make hard choices that some old 7th players disagreed with? Yep. No choice was going to please 100% of the people because there is no such choice.
Would I listen to concrete alternatives, especially that might be incorporated into Warrior Battles? Yes, I would.

Do I care when someone gets on here and complains of a decision made years ago without offering any proposals to "fix" his issue? No, I do not.

And no, I do not intend to repeat the history and methodology of the Roman manipular system, especially to someone who does not want to read the archive and persists in bashing our hard work.

If there is a particular list rule you are opposed to on historical grounds, please say so and cite why.
If you have an alternative point system, please by all means share.

If you want to go on calling things gadget rules and asking that I defend every historical decision made in Warrior to no purpose, I am afraid you will be disappointed.

Also, if you feel that by adding a point to every figure that benefits from a list rule things will work better for you, please do so and share the results of the games you played that way. We did it and it did not make any difference unless the game was under 800 points. And the FW lists are balanced to each other and not by specific point values. Its really a non-issue.

J

scott holder · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:43 pm Post subject:

Qbeamus:

You either register as a real user with a real email addy, or you stop posting.

If you post again as a guest, I'll delete the posts.

If you continue trolling, I'll delete the entire thread since it's essentially a rehash of material in the archive and as Jon has pointed out, your "concerns" have been hashed and rehashed, the record of which can be found in the archives.

scott