Too famous battles ?

[Hertsblue]

The problem with points systems is that there seems to be no way of catering for all the subtleties of a period without giving one or other of the constituents an undeserved advantage. Since the factors of a given troop-type affect the factors of all the other troop-types on the list, adjusting one factor, even by a little, causes problems elsewhere. It's like nailing down a loose floor-board and then finding that  the other end has popped up on the other side of the room. Even using a fixed formula - troop-value = armament x protection x morale, as a simplistic example - will like as not throw up an aberration somewhere down the line.

So, points systems are fine for competition games, where everything must be stark black or white, or for knockabout games to kill an hour or so, but unsuitable for anything even vaguely historical IMHOl.     

[getagrip]

No, for me it's a guide and that's all.

Nothing to do with competitions; wouldn't enter one if you paid me.

It's just a starting point to know if the forces are roughly equivalent (or not if it's a siege game etc).

[toxicpixie]

There's no reason a points system should be bad (except poor design! Or deliberate design for something that's not even supposed to "historically accurate"), what they should do is get a plausibly set up historical army for the period in question, against another plausibly set up historical army for the period in question, and then have a scenario set up that lets you fight a plausible battle for the period in question that generates the same sort of tactical (or level of play you're modelling) situations that a commander would have faced.

Ideally it should make sure there's clouded info for both sides on both troops present, and also give somewhat asymmetrical victory conditions so that everyone has a chance at winning, even if the forces are unbalanced; basically where "winning" is actually "delay the enemy for long enough for X to Y elsewhere", or "get X troops off the field on exit Y" as opposed to "smash your troops into his troops and see who breaks first".

Where they fall down is that it's very difficult to quantify "effectiveness" across lots of units, and doubly so if it's a set of rules for a vast period where things change, or even a very fluid rapid change era (eg WW2) where technical changes mean what was actually pretty good the year before is now rubbish. Or weapon system X is great against unit Y, but useless against all others etc etc. Ally this with bad scenario design ("meeting engagement" between "equal forces" that ends up as an attack-defence with someone grabbing good terrain and the other player attacking at 1 to 1 odds again, yay!) and identical victory conditions and you get what the anti-points system commentators are saying above.

Ally a good system for troop choice for the period in question with decent scenario design and you get what I mention first - plausible forces for both sides, with plausible missions, on terrain that's plausible. As I mentioned in the other thread on the ACW, the "fan generated" Spearhead scenario & points system does that brilliantly. FoW appears to work in the exact opposite. BKC falls somewhere in between but comes closer to the SH end with a bit of appropriate tweaking and making the choice not to cheese things

Hell, it doesn't even need to be "points based" as such - the F&F "random army" generator works excellently giving a game, where you effectively roll off to generate one of a number of pre-set forces that have an appropriate theatre and period feel.

Edit: none of which will replace a well researched and set up historical battle for the period where there's already interesting things for all the players to do, where either side can "win" and there's no easily broken bits (and where the players don't know it inside out and can therefore "break it" easily no matter what! Hindsight & an omniscient helicopter overview is a wonderful thing for a general to have...). But there's often not so many of those... and even fewer if the players really do know the period!

[fred.]

For ACW points would seem to be quite problematic - as there are only really 3 troop types. For Fantasy games, and combined arms WWII+ games points can work quite well as there is a wide variety of units, and there needs to be some way of grading them.

But in ACW you have infantry, artillery and cavalry (which is really mounted infantry). Infantry should out-number the other two by a high ratio. Cavalry is faster than infantry but less combat effective due to reduced numbers and often shorter ranged weapons. Artillery obviously has much longer range, but is slow to move, and very weak up close. You could argue that all 3 are worth the same points per stand, you might decide artillery is worth 2 infantry. And probably comes down to the detail of the rules you are using.

Going for balanced forces, with broadly similar amounts of the different types of troops is most likely to work. A points system isn't really going to help decide this.

[toxicpixie]

There's plenty of scope for difference in the ACW - artillery has rifles versus smooth bore & battery sizes for example, infantry breechloaders from muskets, and that's before you hit "soft factors" like morale and training and unit size. There's also the command structure and generals level of abilities and staff etc etc, so you can go as nuanced as you like and there's a lot to cover.

However, that's not the point - points values are a mechanism to give a "fair" game (under the caveats I mentioned before - basically, historically plausible set up, with historically plausible tactical options and play, and historically plausible outcomes - not necessarily the *same* as history, but a "what if" within the realms of possibility). You can do that for any period but rather than having to juggle a lot of intangible factors a good points system with a decent scenario set up system with achievable "win" outcomes for both sides (I'd consider them to be the same thing, one none exists without the others and all feed back through each other) should let you sit down and go with relatively little faff. It doesn't have to be points as such, it's the "force and scenario generator" that's key - semi-random, totally crafted, diced on tables, a little from option A and a little from option B - however you want to approach it, but it should give you a force that can fight a fight that both you and the opponent can enjoy that feels like the right period without required weeks of research with sources people simply don't have.

Of course, it's getting the balance right that's hard, anyone can bodge some values on something and call it a points system, or make some semi-random tables to generate X proportion of infantry against Y cavalry against Z arty with A percentage being Vet/Reg/Green, but that doesn't mean they're either right for the period, right for the various sides abilities, or right for the outcomes they need to achieve on table top

[Dunnadd]

Cannae: any historically-literate Roman will post triarii on the wings and almost certainly win by a central breakthrough.

No one really knows why they didn't do that. They were guarding the camp. Was this to stop Hannibal's cavalry raiding the camp and damaging the army's morale?

Was it for reasons of gaining political prestige for the Consuls (Generals)? If the Triarii were sent in it was seen as having been a close battle. There was prestige in winning a battle without using them.

Was it just unimaginative generals following standard practice of keeping the Triarii in reserve?

Or was it politically unpopular to send the Triarii in because the Triarii veterans considered they'd done their bit and shouldn't have to fight unless it was an emergency?

I also find it hard to understand how, if the area between the hills and the river was too narrow to let the Romans deploy except in a very deep formation, could Hannibal's cavalry manage to outflank them?

My brother supported his cavalry with Triarii in every battle i fought against him when he was Romans and i was Carthaginians - and there was pretty much no response i could make to it that gave me any chance. Nullified the Carthaginian advantage in cavalry, which is their only significant advantage over Romans.

[paulr]

No one really knows why they didn't do that. They were guarding the camp. Was this to stop Hannibal's cavalry raiding the camp and damaging the army's morale?

Was it for reasons of gaining political prestige for the Consuls (Generals)? If the Triarii were sent in it was seen as having been a close battle. There was prestige in winning a battle without using them.

Was it just unimaginative generals following standard practice of keeping the Triarii in reserve?

Or was it politically unpopular to send the Triarii in because the Triarii veterans considered they'd done their bit and shouldn't have to fight unless it was an emergency?

I also find it hard to understand how, if the area between the hills and the river was too narrow to let the Romans deploy except in a very deep formation, could Hannibal's cavalry manage to outflank them?

My brother supported his cavalry with Triarii in every battle i fought against him when he was Romans and i was Carthaginians - and there was pretty much no response i could make to it that gave me any chance. Nullified the Carthaginian advantage in cavalry, which is their only significant advantage over Romans.

Some very interesting thoughts, I can see some victory conditions involving the Triarii presenting the Roman player with some interesting 'political' decisions 

[toxicpixie]

See, that's the kind of thing a good scenerio design system should cover - you can take triari at X cost. But if you take more than Y you lose A victory points/steps. Or like Maurice's increasing costs - first elite unit costs X. Second costs x+1, next x+2 etc

[Chris Pringle]

A good scenario system should also allow, not only win/lose, but also a draw as a possible result. Often our most satisfying games are the ones with two or three objectives seriously contested on the last turn, all three results still possible, coming down to the last rolls of the dice, and ending in an honours-even draw.

Chris

[Hertsblue]

No one really knows why they didn't do that. They were guarding the camp. Was this to stop Hannibal's cavalry raiding the camp and damaging the army's morale?

Was it for reasons of gaining political prestige for the Consuls (Generals)? If the Triarii were sent in it was seen as having been a close battle. There was prestige in winning a battle without using them.

Was it just unimaginative generals following standard practice of keeping the Triarii in reserve?

Or was it politically unpopular to send the Triarii in because the Triarii veterans considered they'd done their bit and shouldn't have to fight unless it was an emergency?

I also find it hard to understand how, if the area between the hills and the river was too narrow to let the Romans deploy except in a very deep formation, could Hannibal's cavalry manage to outflank them?

My brother supported his cavalry with Triarii in every battle i fought against him when he was Romans and i was Carthaginians - and there was pretty much no response i could make to it that gave me any chance. Nullified the Carthaginian advantage in cavalry, which is their only significant advantage over Romans.

Has anyone considered that the reason the triarii weren't used might be because they were too old and knackered to be of much fighting value? The Senate did, after all, scrape the bottom of the proverbial barrel to provide eight legions - an unheard of number previously - after serious losses at Trebbia and Lake Trasimene. Just a thought.

[FierceKitty]

I haven't got the books here, so I'm very open to correction, but weren't the triarii actually being used to attack the Punic camp, in the hope of rendering the expected Roman victory all the more decisive by denying them anywhere to retreat? Classic hubris, in that case.

[Dunnadd]

Hertsblue wrote

Has anyone considered that the reason the triarii weren't used might be because they were too old and knackered to be of much fighting value? The Senate did, after all, scrape the bottom of the proverbial barrel to provide eight legions - an unheard of number previously - after serious losses at Trebbia and Lake Trasimene. Just a thought.

Hadn't thought of that. Possible, but on the other hand the veterans of Alexander's army who became the Argyraspids (silver shields) in the early successors' battles were getting on more than a bit in some of those, but still seemed to outclass younger but less experienced phalangites facing them every time.

Could have been that the Romans were scraping the bottom of the barrel and down to doddery old men and boys in their early teens, but i wouldn't have thought so that early in the war. The Republic won a lot of its wars just through having immense manpower and the ability to always raise new troops. They lost two entire fleets full of legionaries to storms in the First Punic War and just raised more troops and oarsmen built more ships. They did begin freeing slaves and prisoners of war after Cannae to make two legions though, so possible,.

[Dunnadd]

Fierce Kitty wrote

I haven't got the books here, so I'm very open to correction, but weren't the triarii actually being used to attack the Punic camp, in the hope of rendering the expected Roman victory all the more decisive by denying them anywhere to retreat? Classic hubris, in that case.

Will check on that when i get time. I'm pretty sure different Roman and Greek historians give different accounts of the battle.

[Dunnadd]

edit should have said they armed two legions of slaves and prisoners - they only got their freedom if they killed one of Hannibal's soldiers

[FierceKitty]

Cannae: any historically-literate Roman will post triarii on the wings and almost certainly win by a central breakthrough.

Nagashino: Ieyasu himself said that if Katsutori had waited, the allies would have been forced to advance over an open field dominated by the Takeda cavalry, and thus smashed.

I meant Katsuyori. Typo. My bad, guys.