Re: Olympia combat

From: jrives@tridom.uucp (Joel Rives)

Date: Wed, 13 May 1992 15:12:09 +0000

In article <rwallace.705737972@unix1.tcd.ie>, rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) writes:

|> My proposals would also make the game a lot more realistic.
|> Realistically, if you have 20 men and there are 5 individuals in a town
|> whom you want to kill, you should be able to kill them all in the course
|> of a single day with very little difficulty, unless some other strong
|> force intervenes to stop you, or unless some of them manage to hide (cf.
|> Stealth skill). In Olympia, if all of them issue MOVE orders
|> simultaneously, you will only get ONE of them; you will be lucky to ever
|> find the others if they don't want to be found, and the one guy you do
|> actually manage to attack, the little bugger will probably manage to
|> flee! Furthermore your 20 men will be so exhausted after the incredible
|> effort of attacking one man (note heavy sarcasm here) that they will
|> show noticeable fatigue for the rest of the month!! This situation has
|> been getting steadily worse for the whole course of the game so far and
|> there are proposals going around to make it worse still.

I'll take issue with your version of 'realistic' here!

Say you have 20 men in town and you want to capture/kill 5 individuals.
If each individual takes off separately and your 20 men stick together
and chase after only one at a time, it is quite easy for me to see where
the other 4 will get away. If you want to capture more than one you need to
split the troop up and send -- say -- 4 men after each fleeing opponent.
The problem is that the game system makes this sort of thing very
difficult. Your group of 20 men would have to have already been comprised
of -- at the very least -- 5 separate units (an expensive proposition).
I see a great deal of value in being able to divide an existing faction.
However, such a command would undermine the FORM command.

|>
|> Incidentally, lest everyone fall over themselves shedding tears for
|> killed new players, I would point out that new players have far less to
|> lose by getting killed than established players! i.e. someone who's been
|> playing for 20 turns and gets killed loses the results of 20 turns of
|> effort, but a killed new player does not.

That really depends upon how you look at it. Granted, a new player has much
less in terms of a built up faction in the game to lose. However, each time
a new player is killed, they lose the opportunity to build up 20 turns
worth of effort. If your player characters were consistantly killed within
the first couple of months of existance, your 20 turns worth of effort
would not amount to squat! On top of which, you would probably feel extremely
frustrated.

--
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Joel M. Rives                           INTERNET: jrives@eng.tridom.com
O-O Analysis, Design & Implementation   UUCP:     joel@ad.UUCP
Avalon Designs, Inc.                    VOICE:    (404) 514-3398
Consulting with  AT&T Tridom                      (404) 377-0764
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References

Re: Olympia combat
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Wed, 13 May 1992 06:19:32 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Olympia combat
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Wed, 13 May 1992 06:19:32 +0000