Field of Glory Medieval Mini-Campaign: Empire Builders

Rico

Rico

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I'm kicking the original idea for this to the curb... and have come up with a smaller/more compact version of the campaign with only 20 territories -- hoping to find at least 3 other players to join in - with good turn rates (max 2 weeks for a FOG battle) and up to playing a LOT and very diverse number of FOG 2 battles -- and conquer greater medieval Europe!

Campaign uses Field of Glory II Medieval and Reconquista and optionally FOG II: Wolves At The Gates to resolve battles.


FOG Medieval Empires Small map sample.jpg



The map has 20 territories, grouped into 5 regions: Western Europe, Central Europe & Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe (Spain & Italy/Sicily) and Byzantium/Levant.

At start, territories are randomly drawn for each player faction -- everybody starts with 5 random territories.

Campaign ends when one player/faction is eliminated - then rest add up scores:

SCORING:
ONE point per territory controlled
TWO bonus points per region controlled

FOG Medieval Empires Small map sample2.jpg


BATTLES:

Each player can issue a minimum of ONE battle challenge by attacking a territory adjacent to one of their own.

I am still trying to decide if we go with turns... if the two winning players from previous turn keep initiative and challenge for battles.

I'd like it to work out that everybody gets to fight at least an attack or defensive battle each turn

Battles:
All battles are MIRROR battles. (this is so we can have fair battles with asymmetric strength armies as well)

The challenger can set up a challenge using any forces/armies appropriate to the geographic location of the battle set in any period covered by the 3 DLC's used in this campaign

At conclusion of the mirror battle, % scores are added up over the two battles, higher score wins and either conquers the territory or holds on to it if defending.


This could be fun, if run at a good pace - max 2, at a stretch maybe 3 weeks per FOG2 battle (if RL gets in the way) -- any longer at it gets tedious.

Will think some more.

@Badger73 @Wellsonian @Mad Mike @Nelson1812 @HOA_KSOP @Jolly Olly
@Nathangun
 
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Yo, @Rico. This is very neat and I would join in a heartbeat but for the fact that I'm already too committed to two Slitherine FOG2 tournaments and two Season 11 divisions of the Slitherine Digital League. I'll be too busy with those matches in June to do your efforts their deserved justice. I hope this goes well because I yearn to join it's replay or successor. Good luck with this! Thank you for hosting all the campaigns and tournaments you contribute to FGM. (y)
 
Yeah, I think this one is dead in the water - zero or just negative response so far (except Nathangun)

I think I am finally hanging up my hat and give up on FOG 2 campaign or tourney design - our FGM player base too small, can’t really compete for attention with the big Slitherine leagues/tournaments or manage to get anything off the ground that’s not inevitably going to wither and die from inertia and slow player issues.

I’ll keep a few casual FOG2 games ticking over until I eventually lose interest in the game. I don’t really have that much interest in the Slitherine league/tourney formats.

Maybe I’ll try again when the inevitable Crusades DLC is released, but I don’t have high hopes for that either.

Real pity as I like FOG2.

Maybe time to hang up sword and shield and to return to the CM fold.
 
Well, that is disappointing. I really like your tournaments and they are the only semi-competitive source
of play for me for FoGII. Not really good enough for the on-line Slitherine crowd. Just more fun factor
than the casual games I play when possible.
I would propose you go ahead with the regular tourney style and not worry too much about turn rate.
It's always been a kind of "beer & pretzels" kind of competition anyway. If at times it tends to drag, no big
deal. The guys we have that play FoGII are not likely to complain.
If you need someone to slap reeally sloow players around from time to time, I can do that for ya'!
The game is simply too much fun to abandon. Particularly since DLCs keep it so interesting.
 
It is -- problem with regular format so far is that if it drags for weeks on end, it's me that loses interest.

With Long Live The King ... we ran into problems right from Turn two with Nathangun running into RL delays -- took overall over a month to finish the round even once Olaf stepped in.
Turn 4 ... again, would've taken 5 -6 weeks to wrap the round.

These all designed to work at 2 week turnover of FOG battles in mind.

Basically sitting around for 8-10 weeks at a stretch with nothing going on (format didn't guarantee ongoing battles for everybody, and I didn;t think it would be a problem with quick battle turn-around) -- and the few regular FOG players we have at FGM are prioritising the Slitherine competitions (who manage to ruthlessly impose 2 week game rounds) and any FGM campaign plays a distant 2nd fiddle, I think. (I guess it's understandable)

None of my campaign formats (except this one above) provides players a battle every turn -- so if it takes months to complete rounds with some participants (and tourney manager twiddling their thumbs) ... enthusiasm drops very quickly.

Another issue with FOG itself -- player skill levels impact HEAVILY on how battles play out -- so even with a simple Beer & Pretzels campaign format, you insert a player like Olaf and he cuts a swathe through the opposition 80% of the time.... not ideal.

Anyway -- judging by the just about zero response to the post about this tourney, there is obviously no great need/demand I am trying to fill here.

So, for now... adios FOG campaigns/tourneys at FGM ... I'll go look for a couple more casual opponents.
 
Badger73 said:
Yo, @Rico. This is very neat and I would join in a heartbeat but for the fact that I'm already too committed to two Slitherine FOG2 tournaments and two Season 11 divisions of the Slitherine Digital League. I'll be too busy with those matches in June to do your efforts their deserved justice. I hope this goes well because I yearn to join it's replay or successor. Good luck with this! Thank you for hosting all the campaigns and tournaments you contribute to FGM. (y)
Click to expand...

Yeah, pity -- can't compete with Slitherine leagues/tourneys -- have joined latest one to give it a go, see what happens. -- but not a fan of large, impersonal events like this.

I might one day move my FOG2 activity from FGM over to Slitherine if I want to continue the FOG campaign stuff ... maybe better place for it than FGM (can't believe I am saying this... LOL)
 
Rico said:
I might one day move my FOG2 activity from FGM over to Slitherine if I want to continue the FOG campaign stuff ... maybe better place for it than FGM (can't believe I am saying this... LOL)
Click to expand...

Why not try it on the Slitherine forum? At least you will have a much wider, potential player base available. The last FoGII Medieval tournament had almost 300 players joined. Should be worth a try, if that is what you enjoy doing.

Just keep the CM tournaments going here at FGM, I'm enjoying the Fall of the 3rd Reich very much. A very good idea to include all WW2 titles and giving variety from round to round to all players.
 
Mad Mike said:
Why not try it on the Slitherine forum? At least you will have a much wider, potential player base available. The last FoGII Medieval tournament had almost 300 players joined. Should be worth a try, if that is what you enjoy doing.

Just keep the CM tournaments going here at FGM, I'm enjoying the Fall of the 3rd Reich very much. A very good idea to include all WW2 titles and giving variety from round to round to all players.
Click to expand...

Thanks -- the CM Fall of 3rd Reich working very well.

Yep -- might check out the Slitherine boards to see what they have going on there.
 
Rico said:
It is -- problem with regular format so far is that if it drags for weeks on end, it's me that loses interest.

With Long Live The King ... we ran into problems right from Turn two with Nathangun running into RL delays -- took overall over a month to finish the round even once Olaf stepped in.
Turn 4 ... again, would've taken 5 -6 weeks to wrap the round.

These all designed to work at 2 week turnover of FOG battles in mind.

Basically sitting around for 8-10 weeks at a stretch with nothing going on (format didn't guarantee ongoing battles for everybody, and I didn;t think it would be a problem with quick battle turn-around) -- and the few regular FOG players we have at FGM are prioritising the Slitherine competitions (who manage to ruthlessly impose 2 week game rounds) and any FGM campaign plays a distant 2nd fiddle, I think. (I guess it's understandable)

None of my campaign formats (except this one above) provides players a battle every turn -- so if it takes months to complete rounds with some participants (and tourney manager twiddling their thumbs) ... enthusiasm drops very quickly.

Another issue with FOG itself -- player skill levels impact HEAVILY on how battles play out -- so even with a simple Beer & Pretzels campaign format, you insert a player like Olaf and he cuts a swathe through the opposition 80% of the time.... not ideal.

Anyway -- judging by the just about zero response to the post about this tourney, there is obviously no great need/demand I am trying to fill here.

So, for now... adios FOG campaigns/tourneys at FGM ... I'll go look for a couple more casual opponents.
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear this, Rico. If there's any comfort or relief (well, I guess not), the situation is similar at the Slitherine forums, although the advantage there is that the player base is larger. Still, not many players sign up for campaigns and tournaments and out of these a few drop out of or disappear along the way unfortunately.

I believe there are some keys to success here (not that I abide to them myself): One is to keep enough of a pace to maintain the interest (which is basically up to the players themselves) but not too high (since there will always be at least one player absent or inactive for real life concerns), and I believe 2-week turnovers don't work over time. 3 or 4 weeks per round is more realistic (and even then that may not be attainable in all battles). Another is to not be dependent on a large number of players in the tournament, since the more players, the higher the risk of at least one of them disappearing or dropping out. Of course, if the tournament is arranged on a team basis, the other players in the team can cover up; play the battles, provide the instructions, etc.

You can have a look here at some of my tournaments (some concluded, some failed or about to fail) on the Slitherine forum:

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=494&t=101076 (concluded, but required a player replacement more or less immediately after launch)
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=494&t=101889 (concluded, but prematurely)
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=494&t=101270 (actually concluded without any hickups, but some players were starting to lose interest)
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=494&t=104424 (about to fail, due to players dropping off and low turn rate, but team structure would maybe allow for continuation, with one player taking over both armies in the faction)
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=494&t=103335 (failed, since players disappeared, were inactive or simply resigned)
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=494&t=104525 (continuing at a low pace; could survive due to team structure with one player taking over both armies in faction)
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=494&t=104679 (continuing at a low pace; could survive due to team structure with one player taking over more armies in faction)

So as you see, the tournaments that have concluded have all done so with some struggles along the way and with extended turns.

I've got some ideas for new tournaments (not giving up...) but have to take the above into consideration when setting up rules and structures and deciding which players to accept and not, and how many.

My five cents.
 
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One more thing that came to mind: would it
Rico said:
It is -- problem with regular format so far is that if it drags for weeks on end, it's me that loses interest.
Click to expand...
Hi again Rico! One thing that came to mind, just thinking out loud: would playing 2 battles over a 4-week period or 3 battles over a 5-6-week period for you be a viable and attractive alternative to 1 battle over 2 weeks? If yes, that could be a way to move forward; each round involving several battles per player but over a longer time period. Since for me, and in my view at least, it's more manageable to have more battles running concurrently over a longer period than playing one battle at a time intensively. (per week it could even involve more battles, like 4 battles over a 4-week period instead of 1 battle over a 2-week period and thus 2 battles over a 2 x 2-week period.)

And you other guys (in addition to Rico): what do you think?
 
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kronenblatt said:
And you other guys (in addition to Rico): what do you think?
Click to expand...
My experience with FGM members is that the established ones rarely quit, drop out, or disappear; newbies though seem more prone to do so. FGM members also want to know what to expect before they sign up and resent changes/constraints once things get started. When @Rico establishes an expected turnaround rate as part of sign-up, players will respect and abide. There's always Real Life interference with war-gaming. We can respect that too. Teams with multiple members definitely help reduce those impacts on the other campaign/tournament teams. I also think that other members are more than willing to run campaigns on @Rico's behalf; being the game "developers" of his well documented campaign rules "design". They could relieve @Rico of the routine burdens for administration and discipline as well as GM the campaigns too. That's my two bezants for today . . .
 
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