Other Ancient Warfare Games

[Wolfgang]

I'd just add a couple of points: the deficiencies you point out in FoG such as a lack of ability to breakdown units are being addressed in the current code revision. FoG 2.0 should be quite impressive.

The scenarios are often poor, I agree, but few play them. The majority of action consists of games played between armies created in the Digital Army generators. These use a point-buy system to create historical armies of great variety and the graphics are far superior to anything in AW.

I don't think it's quite reasonable to say that FoG rules are less sophisticated than AW. That really isn't true. Worth adding too that while combat resolution in AW is opaque, FoG provides plenty of feedback so that your ability to learn and validate what is going on is much enhanced.

Best,

Tim

Well yea but...

AW combat results aren't actually opaque - they are visible for each melee and list out the calculation that went into it. All the combat modifiers are well publicized in their manual as well. So for those interested in that aspect - it can be found in both games. AW won't tell you ahead of time what those modifiers will be, but it will at resolution time. Besides, I don't think FoG tells you exactly what modifiers will go into a resolution - I believe it just gives you an estimate.

By lack of sophistication, for example: Currently, there is no way in FoG any kind of siege warfare could be replicated except with a bump in the ground to represent a wall. You can have a palisade and a catapult, sure, but that's about it. And as I mentioned earlier - no formations, movement types, etc. All in all it's a simpler game than AW.

As far as scenario play goes: I play more scenarios in FoG than I do digital army generator battles so I think to say that most pbm play in FoG is via digital army battles is a subjective observation. In AW I can generate an army as well and take it to field on a generic battlefield, but actually prefer pbm play using historical scenarios for both games.

I find FoG to be a lot of fun but more 'game' than historical sim, inspired by it's beer and pretzels boardgame roots no doubt. I believe AW offers more depth and better scenarios. I don't walk away from a FoG gaming session feeling like I learned something new about ancient warfare whereas with AW I often do.