Re: Request For Comments...

"Mr. Ed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> 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?

Ultimately, this depends on players.  If enough players want fixed
update times, deities will run games with fixed update times.

To let players vote with their scarce playing time, players need to
know the update schedule when they sign up, or at least they should
get a chance to bow out after the schedule is determined.  That means
that it must be determined well before the first update.

Letting players vote on the schedule is a good thing, but it's not
without problems.  The exact details of the vote can present
`interesting' choices.  Do you vote for fixed updates at a
yet-to-be-determined time, thus risking every single update in the
game to be at an impossible time?  Or do you hedge your bets and vote
for rotating updates, knowing one out of four updates will be
impossible?  Voting work best if the alternatives and their
ramifications are clear.

> 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?

I can't find any trace of this in the code.

Do you have an idea when this used to be in the game?  It would make
it much easier for me to look for it in ancient versions of the code.

> 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).

Agreed.  It's pretty high up my personal list of things I'd like to
get rid of.

Some people whose judgement I respect tell me the whole concept of che
needs a redesign.

> 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?

`Is it really necessary?' is a valid question.  Other valid questions:
is it fun?  Is the fun worth the extra complexity?

> 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?

Could you sketch what changes / extensions would be needed?

> 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

Feasible?  Maybe.  Hard?  Certainly.

The way units are coded doesn't easily accomodate stacking limits.

The part that's only hard is interactive movement (march, navigate,
etc.).  When attempting to enter a sector, you check what's there
(somewhat slow, but hardly matters since it's interactive), and refuse
if the stacking limit is exceeded.

This is a PITA when you only want to move through the sector, not stay
there.  So you could only check when the player asks to end the move.
But what if the stacking limit is exceeded, but there's no mobility to
move any further?  Allow them to move on for free?  Abusable.  Force
them back?  That sector may no longer be owned.  Or its stacking limit
may now be exceeded because some ally moved stuff there.  Headaches...

An then there's the part that's even harder, I think: automatic
movement, like retreat.

I fear stacking limits would annoy me terribly.  No more grabbing a
bunch of units to march them to the front together.

An alternative approach: limit effectiveness of large stacks.  Let
combat strength add up up only to a suitable limit (number of units,
number of men, whatever), then give diminishing returns.  This
approach is not used for classical boardgames, since there you have to
keep the calculations as simple as possible.  Stacking limits, on the
other hand, are no real problem there.  Computer games are different.

> 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.)

Interesting.

In my personal opinion, it *should* be possible to take any sector, no
matter what its defense is, at a cost that is in a reasonable relation
to the sector's defense.  Strong defense, very high cost.

> Thanks for any comments you feel up to offering....
> 
> Mr. Ed - Dottering Fool of Resvon