Request For Comments...

Having played in a few games recently, I thought I'd throw out a few
ideas/thoughts that cover a gamut of topics that I'd be interested in
getting a wider audience's perspective on.

BTW - I forgot, in my last post, to throw some props towards those
Wolfpack folks.  I do appreciate you maintaining a game I truly
enjoy and for putting up with sometimes emotionally heated dialogues
from people who get pasted (i.e. me).  Humility, on all sides, is a
good thing to maintain.

To the topics:

1) Rotating Updates

When these were first introduced, I liked them.  Why?  Because I
played from Australia where most of the "standard" update times
were pretty inconvenient.  This at least gave me a few updates that
would be in a normal local timezone.

As a single-ruler nation, however, I've discovered that these rotating
updates are amazingly painful to cover (not to mention the math of
many were simply beyond my alcohol-dumbed brain).  For this
reason, many nations, I believe, do end up co-ruling.  However, this
co-ruling was the same result for static updates that were inconvenient
to European and Aussie players.   So the only real losers here are
single-ruler nations.

Could we, therefore, go back to the update "norm" being static
updates?

2) Defensive artillery (land-based)

I've chatted with a few people on the idea of defensive artillery
(i.e. return fire) having a greater range than offensive artillery.  I
believe this used to be in the game.  I like this idea.  Why did this
not work?

3) The "anti" command

I hate it.  It's made life way too easy for invaders to roll one nation
and move onto the next.  An invadee only has 1 update of "hope"
where his che can kick in and fight for the love of his nation.  As
soon as an enemy gains mobility, it's game over (typically) for those
potential rebels.  And it's more micro-management.  Very annoying
(but you have to use it if it's there).

4) Terrorists (aka land spies w/ "sabotage")

Never have really used land spies before.  Undecided as to their
game value (i.e. I understand the role they play ala spy planes, but
not sure they're really necessary?  not explaining myself well, I'm
afraid).

But to further augment them with the ability to sabotage just annoys
me.  Perhaps I'm just tired of hearing about all the suicide bombers
in the middle east (and I haven't had to hear about places getting
nuked or strat bombed, so I'm still enamored with those ideas in
empire) but do we really need this further offensively minded
capability?

5) Treaties

Any chance of revisiting the treaty command to try and accomodate
the format/structure of NA's that are commonly used today?
Obviously it can't reflect things like "don't muck with my ally", but
for basics around non-aggression and duration, it should be feasible.
Would anyone use this?

6)  I'd like to revisit an idea that was previously discussed back in
92-96: Unit stacking limits

Most "new" wargames I've played recently have a notion of stack
limits (granted, my sample-size may be small).  Empire seems to
be the one exception.  Now, it may be that I'm just jaded having
recently faced some truly massive unit stacks, but they seem to
completely throw the balance of things out of whack.

Rather than throw out my comments about the whys and wherefores,
I'd be curious to hear what other people's opinions on this are.

Do you think it's good to have sectors with stacks of 80 units?  Are
stacks of 12 artillery a good thing?  Would the idea that if I wanted
to attack with multiple units, I would need multiple sectors to attack
from, right?  Do stacks aid an oppressor or a defender?  Is it even
feasible (Wolfpack bros) to implement stack limits on units?  Should
this also apply to ship-based "units" (i.e. do away with the 50 fb +
20 bb + 30 dd + 20 ls invasion fleets)?

Okay - so I'll make one comment on this... or rather, I'll refer to a
comment that was made by someone else some time again that I
think reflects my current ponderings on this:

>From Jim Ortlieb, Head Junkie of the CrackHouse, circa 1996:

> Due to the changes in planes and the addition of land units, it costs
> more to defend the same area.  See, previously I could put 300 mil in
> a sector and it was defended easily because the attacker needed
> enough mobility to attack from the surrounding sectors.  NOW, each
> unit brings its own mobility into the fight.  Thus, the "stacking
> limit" which was once there is now lost.  (We'll call this is the
> mobility factor.)

Thanks for any comments you feel up to offering....

Mr. Ed - Dottering Fool of Resvon