Re: Olympia Stacking 'Gotcha'

From: cedman@714-725-3177.nts.uci.edu (Carl Edman)

Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1992 02:15:40 +0000

More opinions on stacking.

1. Stacking between people should have _no_ effect on visibility. If
BtA and the apprentices A, B, C and D work together in the Tower in
Chardia, BtA should be equally visible in the following two situations.

Tower
   BtA
   A
   B
   C
   D

and

Tower
   A
      B
         C
            D
               BtA

After all, what would be the rationale for distinguishing these two
situations ? They just show different command structures, not any
actual physical differences.

Now if you want to take building/cities into account for visibility
that would make sense. Two cases would be useful.

- Any group would only be visible to an unobservant eye if it makes up
at least 10% of the population of that structure, including civilian
population. i.e. three 20-man units and 5 one-man leaders live together
in a tower. The 20-man units would show up, the leaders wouldn't. Only
truly huge units owuld be visible in a large city like Drassa. Still a
total population coun't should be available. You shouldn't be able to
hide 11 20-man units in a tower completely just because none is larger
than 10% of the total population.

- Some buildings like caves may allow the owner to hide in them even if
he has now units to hide behind.

2. More importantly, how is combat handled between substacks ? Should
two stacks in the same city be completely unable to attack each other
just because they are part of the city stack ? Or should one be
automatically unstacked and have to attack the other through the city
walls ? I think not.

The proper rule seems to be that if one stack attacks another, all
parent stacks which are not common parent stacks get involved. Again
this is easier to understand than to explain. A is a city, stacks B and
C are in A. D wants to attack B. Distinguish these two situations:

D is outside the city:

A
   B
   C

If D attacks B now, A will be a parent stack of B, but not of D, so it
will fight together with B. This would also automatically involve C on
B's side.

D is inside the city:

A
   B
   C
   D

If D attacks B now, A will be the parent of both D and B. So D and B
will just have to fight it out between themselves. C doesn't get
involved.

In other words, if an outside army attacks a city, all citizens fight
it off together. If there is murder inside the city, that doesn't
automatically involve anybody else.

I've tried this rule on a few more cases in my head. It always seems to
Do The Right Thing. Try it yourself.

Carl Edman, BtA

References

Re: Olympia Stacking 'Gotcha'
hauck@cs.washington.edu (Scott Hauck)
Wed, 10 Jun 1992 00:36:51 +0000