FragMaster said:
I don't agree about the average dice rolls thing and the above arguments don't alter my opinion. In a game full of possibility {dice, cards etc.} I'm trying to use situations that will always have a chance of happening instead of mentioning that in SOME cases they won't happen.
With BS there will ALWAYS be an opposing roll happening with a chance of rolling Lore. Without BS this is not the case. This example has nothing to do with card draw in the first case but everything with the 2nd because the positioning of your units has a great part of whether there will be a battleback roll or not.
No, there will not always be an opposing roll happening, because if the attacking unit rolls a flag, then there is no battle back. The reason I speak of the game as a whole rather than specific instances of rolls is that the number of dice needed to be rolled in order to reach the banner total for a particular does not change whether a game involves BS or not. On average, the same number of dice will need to be rolled giving the same number of opportunities for lore to be rolled BS or no BS. Except, that since no lore can be gained during ranged attacks, that would mean there are actually less opportunities.
The reason we are even discussing this is because it was advanced that BS increases the number of lore tokens involved in a game. Even if it were true, it wouldn't address the main reasons I enjoy playing using Medieval Tactics as described in the base game rule book over BS, but it isn't true. Not an opinion of mine. You may disagree with what I've pointed out, but even though it may seem that BS would lead to rolling more dice, it can't. As you pointed out, when the units are gone they don't roll any more. BS does not increase the hit rate nor dice numbers. It does not increase the number of banners needed. It does not increase the opportunity for more lore to be rolled. It may increase the number of lore generated on a given turn, assuming that a battle back has occurred that would not have occurred during a no BS game, but then you have to assume that that attack would still have been perpetrated, which it may not of, because the controlling player was concerned about getting a battle back in the first place (and I do believe that as players grow accustomed to BS, this would happen frequently).
FragMaster said:
So with BS the random factors of rolling a battleback are greatly reduced = more Lore. Moreover, as I've already mentioned, there is a bigger possibility that players will finish any combat with casualties on both sides instead of the possible non-BS situation of doing "free" damage with no retribution. More casualties means that more rolls have been made which in turn means that more Lore has been collected.
With BS the random factors of rolling a battle back are increased, not reduced. No BS removes a large portion of the randomness involved in whether or not there will be a battle back, as there is no randomness if a unit that is not bold is attacked: there will be no battle back. It is the introduction of randomness that I don't appreciate with BS. If a flag is rolled, there will be no battle back, but if one isn't, there will be. Granted, there is some balancing in that if a flag is rolled, that often means one less potential hit was rolled (if it is a hit, then likely the targeted unit will be battling back, unless we are talking about multiple flag situations). Either way though, does not affect the overall number of dice a player will need to roll to achieve victory.
FragMaster said:
Overall, there will be more Lore collected since there is a BIGGER possibility of rolling battlebacks and doing some damage back when using BS rules. I agree that overall the number of hits to win is the same but the LOSER's number of rolls is different . When using BS the loser would have rolled more dice as battlebacks thus collected more Lore. I don't know if I can make it any clearer than that without actually showing it on a BattleLore board.
What you would find if you showed it on a BattleLore board is that those "extra" battle backs would cause damage, which would mean that there would be less need for rolls in the rest of the game, as long as the player did the wise thing and went after those damaged units. It wouldn't make much sense to waste those battle backs by not targeting those weakened units later in the game. This is exactly the effect that I have been trying to describe.
FragMaster said:
Also, extending the game time over many turns is a nice way to interpret a turn-based melee battle but this works best when all units have an opportunity to activate every turn like in Tide of Iron for example. BattleLore mechanism of activating units only with Commands does not fit very well with this interpretation since that means that your units are actually worthless drones that need a Leader to command them to defend themselves in melee combat unless they are together.
Battle Savvy fixes these strange timing issues of the game.
This is the crux of what one has to accept when using the C&C system: everything is happening in a way that makes sense in real-time. It does not necessarily best replicate a skirmish when all units are activated every single turn. The C&C system gives a particular order with which to resolve the skirmish action, and if a player chooses not to reconcile that order with what they see as "real", often they do not like the game or lobby for changes.
Play the game using Assault as the order for every turn (with or without the +1d). The shortcomings of playing the game this way will quickly become apparent (or one may love it, who am I to speak for another's tastes
). The order system of C&C games draw out the action.
Battle Savvy changes some of the timing that the game uses, but instills its own strangeness, as will any mechanic for a board game that is trying to model (to varying degrees) real time combat.
Bold or not, units are not worthless drones, but positioned for future events in the game (which may be happening simultaneously, or may be happening at a later point in real time). The player that more effectively positions his units for future events in game time is much more often than not going to be the victor - BS or no BS.
First Todd said:
None of what is presented here is going to affect, on average, the number of rolls required during the game. I understand what you are pointing out, but none of it is simply a function of whether a non-bold unit gets to battle back or not - card play, positioning, dice results, etc, etc, all feed into that. It appears to me that you are assuming that every no BS games ends in one side overrunning the other. That is simply not the case. On a smaller scope, it appears that you are arguing that one side or both is almost constantly running out of cards to respond to action on the board, also not the case.
Then FragMaster said:
Overrun issue: It's more likely to happen with non-BS than with BS due to "free" damage.
Command card issue: I'm not assuming that one side is constantly running out of cards and cannot respond. I am though taking the possibility of this thing happening and compare it between the two rulesets. So non-BS, this situation CAN happen {not constantly as you say but it can happen}. With BS, it will NEVER happen, you can always respond even with a simple battleback without maneuvering movements from Command cards. We have a 'possibility' and a 'never' or a 'less likely' if you don't agree with the word 'never'. Which is more likely to happen?
And now Todd is saying:
I think we are talking about near the same thing when we say "overrun tactics/issue", and yes it is more likely to happen in a non-BS game, because it is not nearly as viable a tactic in the BS game because in the BS game it will rely on rolling flags. Playing the game to create or find these weak points in the formations is vital to the non-BS game, and an important edge in the BS game.
Not having the optimal command card is a problem one has to deal with in BS game as well as a no BS game. The point I was trying to make is, that not being able to battle back due to not having the correct card is not as big of an issue as it seemed to me your arguments were making it to be. Battling back due to being bold does not require an order to be issued, same as battling back with BS does not. The difference is that in a no BS game one must be more aware of Bold positioning.
First Todd said:
If in playing BS one doesn't do chess-y tactics one will be at a grave disadvantage. BS does not eliminate this element of the game, it just changes the percentages for potential success of particular tactics, rendering them either more or less useful (often depending upon the dice results), but still very necessary. Call the inability to battle back a "free damage" situation if you like, but that is a small view just focusing on the particular turn at hand, but there will be a turn for the opponent following up that "free damage" situation, just as there was a turn leading up to that situation. Players have a lot more control in a BS game than your arguments suggest. Whether the battle back is happening on the same turn or the opponent's next turn does have an impact, but it does not alter the game so dramatically that hand management and positioning are not still more important than fortunate dice rolls now and again.
Then FragMaster said:
I would agree with the above IF the game allowed all units to be activated for free {as most other wargames do} sometime during the player's turn. Since the unit activation is NOT free and is tied to the card draw and hand management I won't accept the above argument of 'next turn battleback'. You have to spend resources to make this so-called battleback to happen therefore the previous turn's damage that your unit received and didn't do anything about is indeed "free" damage. We are talking about close combat, people bashing each other with swords and not machine gun fire. If I come running towards you with a big sword and swing it at you you will try to hit me back with yours. You won't wait orders from your leader to do a self-defense motion {namely: activation via command card next turn}
I cannot accept the timing argument that you are making here because to do anything in this game you have to use a card. When using BS rules your units have a "defense" roll of sorts that does not require a resource expenditure {command card}. If you play non-BS and don't have a viable card then where is your unit's self-defense action, same turn or not?
Also, who said that hand management and positioning is unimportant with BS? Far from it. I just don't like at all the 'reasoning' when I try to explain in my mind what a unit that has just engaged in close combat is doing when it does not battleback because the non-BS rules say so... Maybe I don't like the reasoning because there is no reasoning...
And now Todd is saying:
I touched on the game mechanics and how they relate to real time a bit above, and will do so at greater length later, if necessary, but for now: Don't need an order card to battle back. In no BS, position ones units boldly and they will get a battle back. In BS, as long as a flag is not rolled, they will get a battle back.
I am not sure who said hand management and positioning is unimportant with BS, but it wasn't me. What changes is the relative importance of them compared to dice results and the validity of certain tactics. Still have the same reasoning issues of why a unit that attacked did no damage at all if it rolled no hits (what the hell was it doing then?). If a unit in a no BS game attacks a unit that is not bold, it found that unit in bad defensive position - very easy for me to reconcile that to reality.
FragMaster said:
Todd said:
I don't like to engage in arguments about whether or not game play is "realistic" or not, as with the relatively simple game mechanics involved with C&C games good arguments can be made for most mechanics involved. "Realism" comes down to accepting the chosen model that the game play utilizes to represent the situation. You call it "free" damage, I call it outmaneuvering. Whether or not that outmaneuvering is occurring through the designs of the players or the fortune of the dice and cards doesn't matter - the game will tell its story regardless which (and usually it is a measure of both) is behind the ends.
Agreed. For me, non-BS rules don't simulate the battle correctly. There are timing issues and a lot of things that remain unexplained. Battle Savvy solves lot of those problems and explains better the situation and what exactly is happening.
The main reason I wrote what I did there, is to say that whether one chooses to accept game play as realistic or not isn't something I will argue about - that is anyone's prerogative. However, I do love to discuss what particular mechanics are trying to model, and what I like a lot about the modeling that goes on with Medieval Tactics is how the number of units directly involved in a particular section of the board in melee usually dictates the outcome: The player able to sustain greater numbers (which typically leads to bold positions) in position to attack, prevails. Ensuring that this happens through command cards and attack order is the game.
For me, BS doesn't solve any issues that no BS has created.
48 more pages to go, I am up to the challenge
