Re: Olympia combat

From: rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)

Date: Sun, 17 May 1992 13:59:43 +0000

In <1992May15.204503.24546@cbfsb.cb.att.com> skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta) writes:

>But seriously:  I think you're taking a rather narrow view of
>the Olympian world.  Sure, it's okay to specialize in an area.
>You want to be a ruffian who kills people, fine.  But you gotta
>feed your men.  Other people can bribe them away from you.
>Pesky magicians might cast nasty spells on you.

I've got to feed my men: fine. However, I think there should be a
reasonably easy way to do this without devoting vast amounts of time and
energy to setting up a business empire, and I think the most reasonable
way to have this happen is to make WORK adequately effective at least
for supporting your units even if not for making huge fortunes.
(Conversely, someone who wants to set up a peaceful business empire
should not have to devote large amounts of time and energy to defense,
and indeed does not; he can set up in law-abiding areas.)

Other people bribing my men away from me: this not too unreasonable in
itself, although I think there should be an option something along the
lines of, automatically and immediately ATTACK any unit trying to
PERSUADE or TERRORIZE any of my units. (Lest I be accused of trying to
get things all in favour of my particular playing style, I also agree
that there should be some way for a police force etc. to protect
innocent units by ATTACKing anyone who ATTACKs another unit in the same
province.)

Magicians casting nasty spells on me: I have no objection whatsoever to
this. If another player uses an effective weapon to defeat me in battle,
whether magical or non-magical, that's my tough luck.

The only problem I do have is with a situation where I have a superior
force to another player, but the rules prevent me from using it
effectively. My opponents should be other players (should I choose this
lifestyle) not the game rules themselves. To this end, I am glad to see
that fatigue has been toned down. I think it would help also to
implement the ENEMY status, to arrange things so that units leaving a
province are considered within the province until they arrive at the
next one (or at least within range for a few extra days), and to ensure
that combat always finishes in one day (just remove the check on how
many combat rounds can be fought in one day, or increase it to a very
large number), or even make combat a zero time order. (Realistically,
any combat involving no more than a few dozen men on both sides, as most
do, is going to be over in seconds or minutes rather than hours. Though
you could perhaps argue that a unit which is in a strenuous combat (one
in which it takes significant wounds) will want the rest of the day to
recover.)

--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie

References

Re: Olympia combat
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Fri, 15 May 1992 19:38:01 +0000
Re: Olympia combat
skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta)
Fri, 15 May 1992 20:45:03 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Olympia combat
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Fri, 15 May 1992 19:38:01 +0000
Re: Olympia combat
skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta)
Fri, 15 May 1992 20:45:03 +0000