Re: Olympia - Getting Too Complex?

From: gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)

Date: Mon, 11 May 1992 20:23:22 +0000

In article <rwallace.705612933@unix1.tcd.ie> rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) writes:

>Does anyone agree with me that the Olympia rules are getting too
>complex, that the direction of modification seems to be perpetually in
>the direction of adding more and more rules? For example:

I think Russell has a good point here: there's no need to have
complexity that doesn't add anything to the game.

>Loyalty - what does this add to the game?

I like this one. It interacts with IMPRESS verses RECRUIT, it is
something you have to worry about when you're losing battles, and most
importantly: it implements starvation without having to add food into
the game.

>Fatigue - ditto

I don't see that much use for this one. It limits your ability to kill
more than 4 newbies in one turn. But, under normal coditions I don't
think it will do that much, because army combat is going to have a
small number of big battles instead of newbie stomping's large number
of small battles.

>Prisoners in combat - ditto

Units are very valuable, so capturing them is a nice thing for the
attacker. But I think combat already has enough rewards, so increasing
them probably isn't good. For example, you migth note that Dr. Pain
has captured ~ 10 groups in the last couple of turns -- that's so many
that he may be selling them to his friends!

>Unit maintenance costs - do these actually add anything to the game
>except bookkeeping?

I think they do. Maintenance for men is a easy way of putting food
into the game without food. Maintenance for ships & buildings is a way
to make owning assets an expense. Both of these add to the game, in my
opinion. Note that without maintenance and loyalty, your exploring
units would be able to walk infinite distances without ever stopping
to work. A minor problem, yes, but it's a little flavor.

> Why not instead just decrease slightly the
>amount of money units can obtain with WORK and increase the hiring
>charge for new men?

IMPRESS doesn't have a hiring charge, and this wouldn't take care of
buildings and ships (although I guess Rich seems to have implemented
building and ship maintenance as damage that needs skill to repair,
but still this is roughly the same as unit maintenance.)

>Varying month lengths - why not just make them all the same length?

I must say that I never saw what the point of variable length months
was -- yes, you can move a little more in the summer so it tends to be
a better "campaign season", but it's really a small effect and I keep
on worrying that I'm going to make a careless error with the length of
the month.

-- greg

References

Olympia - Getting Too Complex?
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Mon, 11 May 1992 19:35:33 +0000