FOG II -- Roman Civil Wars Campaign -- feedback and next campaign suggestions

Rico · Apr 15, 2019

With the FOG II Roman Civil Wars campaign basically concluded (YAY! -- a finished FGM campaign!!)

-- wouldn't mind some player feedback or suggestions.

I think the system worked really well in its simplicity (and its avowed aim to just play LOTS of FOG II battles

) ... I would add a few refinements:

1. make new armies and navies more expensive to buy

2. if an army wins by the 60% casualty inflicted level, it's disorganised and cannot move or attack next turn.

3. the Barbarian invasions are not pre-announced -- but happen at same time as Player Faction orders were played out.

4. maybe give some provinces higher points value in generating action points (to be used for building armies and moving and attacking)

5. a fun suggestion came from @Wellsonian (for this campaign specifically) that only armies commanded by the faction's Ceasar could have Praetorian Guard units.

As to the next follow-up campaign, I have two options in mind:

1. The Justinian/Belisarius Campaign (under construction) -- this will unfortunately still take a while to build -- because it's an asymetric warfare campaign with a lot of resource juggling for the Byzantine player, getting the balance right and stripping it down to a simple, workable version is proving rather tricky.

2. Wars of the Diodochi

This would a representation of the wars between the Hellenistic kingdom successors of Alexander the Great to carve up his empire among themselves and even an attempt to reunite it again under one of them.

It would be the Seleucid Perian kingdom, Ptolomaic Egypt, Antigonus holding modern Anatolia, and Lysander & Cassander holding Thrace and Macedonia itself respectively (might combine that into one faction) ... with marginal actors jumping from the sidelines to stir trouble... Epirus, Sparta, Aetolian league... Armenia, Lybians and maybe Chandragupta from India. (sort of playing the role of the Parthians in the Roman Civil Wars campaigns)

Idea would be to run it on basically exactly the same rule set as the Roman Civil Wars , with the few refinements added in.

Same 10 Turn limit as Roman Civil Wars campaign.

(I am toying with the idea of random selected armies for variety and spice? -- needs some testing)

Forces are core Macedonian-style phalanx units with local variations thrown in when it comes to cavalry etc... and there's often ELEPHANTS! (should make @Nelson1812 happy

)

We'd also have to break up the overpowered player triumvirate that dominated the Roman Civil Wars campaign.

What you guys think?

Nelson1812 · Apr 15, 2019

Like the ideas, and 2. Wars of the Diodochi.

Think the present excellent campaign is will balanced and fun.

1) Quick idea... select the mirror games, defender selects which map to play on and discards the other... unless both armies are attacking, then play both maps.

Badger73 · Apr 15, 2019

Rico said:
With the FOG II Roman Civil Wars campaign basically concluded (YAY! -- a finished FGM campaign!!) -- wouldn't mind some player feedback or suggestions.

I think the system worked really well in its simplicity (and its avowed aim to just play LOTS of FOG II battles ) ... I would add a few refinements:

1. make new armies and navies more expensive to buy

2. if an army wins by the 60% casualty inflicted level, it's disorganised and cannot move or attack next turn.

3. the Barbarian invasions are not pre-announced -- but happen at same time as Player Faction orders were played out.

4. maybe give some provinces higher points value in generating action points (to be used for building armies and moving and attacking)

5. a fun suggestion came from @Wellsonian (for this campaign specifically) that only armies commanded by the faction's Ceasar could have Praetorian Guard units.

<snipped>

I favor Wars of the Diadochi as our next campaign too.
Here are my thoughts on the 5 points you raised, @Rico.
I concur that simpler is better and the goal is to produce as many matches as possible.

1. Won't this make the game run longer or at least take more turns to achieve resolution? The Diadchi didn't use navies much so that matter is likely moot for them.
2. That's fair as long as less movement doesn't slow the game down too much.
3. I would suggest that a Barbarian invasion into a province from which a player army moves out to attack should cancel the player movement and cause the "moving" player army to stay in place in defense against the barbarians.
4. Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences. Unequal values will influence player incentives and may create unforeseen inequalities.
5. Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences here too. All Roman governors and generals had a praetorian guard. Ceasar's was just bigger and more permanent. I suspect the Diadochi generals surrounded themselves with their highest quality units as well. Garrisons on the other hand would not be manned by elite units.