Newbie McGM - Why the hell did we let Dem Taqat name the thread?

[Sonereal]

I actually end up making casualties deterministic. In a 10 Str v 10 Str battle, I do the victory roll. Winner gets a 20% bonus to their strength in casualties (12 v 10). The winner does 27% or 54% casualties, depending if I divide the percentage in half to prevent mass casualties.

Loser would do 23% or 46%. It means you can pretty much determine things through one roll while giving the winner a bonus in casualties, which was added because smaller forces would otherwise perform poorly. The earlier battle role is also already determined by the usual flanking, amphib landing, etc, making the casualties more fluid.

1) Hide the math. Most players - and the exceptions tend to be GMs and Kinich - have a panic attack when they see the underlying mechanics of more complex games.

Kinich had a good ruleset that had the misfortune of showing everyone why it was a good ruleset.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Especially when they hand out stupid results (like the Swedish War in MP4 - I should have won most of the battles and been on the threshold of victory after the first turn, but because of bad luck I, despite having the advantage, lost most of my battles.

You know, when your enemy picks you up on radar weeks if not months in advance, it tends to make an offensive much, much less successful. I kept warning players launching an offensive without disabling an enemy's radar was a bad idea, but apparently that was considered "rubbing it in everyone's faces."

"War is a bad idea" does not even begin to describe my goal with MP4. And I'd say I succeeded - nearly every invading army has paid the piper in the end.

On that note I'd suggest GMs build their games with whether they want war to be viable or not in mind. With Multipolarity I like to try and make wars so costly no one sane will try and pursue them. MP4's done away fairly effectively with the zerg rush tactics that brought down the first two.

 

[Sonereal]

If war is not viable, there has to be compensating mechanics. MP4 sorta works due to there being NPCs to fight over.

 

[Tani Coyote]

If war is not viable, there has to be compensating mechanics. MP4 sorta works due to there being NPCs to fight over.

Not to mention the competitive nature of black ops creating plenty of innovative ways to vent one's aggressive tendencies by other means.

 

[Bowsling]

How does a radar pick up an army months away? Radar doesn't even detect armies at close distances.

 

[Sonereal]

How does a radar pick up an army months away? Radar doesn't even detect armies at close distances.

Tadar. Works through time as well as space.

 

[Tani Coyote]

You will notice enemy troop movements way ahead of time.

"There seems to be a large number of armies pooling within a few miles of our border and growing each day. Sure it doesn't mean anything."

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Bowsling's point was that's not how radar works, and stands as further evidence that so-called "sneak attacks" are totally unjustifiable at the strategic scale.

 

[Tyo]

I think you and Tani stand on the same ground in terms of sneak attacks if I understand what everyone is saying exactly. In terms of roleplay, I don't really consider it radar as much as I consider it "They're crossing the border, we have to set up defenses and prepare ASAP." And since MP series takes place in the future it is pretty justifiable that effective defenses can go up in a short period of time. In any case, I think the EWS is a pretty good rule regardless of practical justification.

 

[Tani Coyote]

stands as further evidence that so-called "sneak attacks" are totally unjustifiable at the strategic scale.

Which was what I was advocating.

Between radar, satellite, whatever, there's no way large-scale troop movements will not be detected far in advance. Add in the home field advantage and any war between powers of relative parity will be very bloody.

There are exceptions such as the speed with which NATO destroyed the Afghan, Libyan and Iraqi armies but that was mostly because of air superiority which is something I generally don't model.

There's stealth technology yes but unless you're filthy rich I'm not seeing the ability to cloak the signatures of hundreds of thousands if not millions of soldiers. I made it in MP4 that minor nations can intercept radio signals, have advance scouts, intelligence, radar, the works to see an invasion coming far in advance unless you take the time to disable their warning system early on.

Unfortunately most do not, resulting in the system doing what it's supposed to.

 

[Bowsling]

How can you not model air superiority in a futuristic game? Large-scale troop movements have not occurred since the end of the Korean War. In nearly every war since (with the possible exception of Vietnam), the war has been decided by whichever side has better planes, or manages to ground the enemy air force before it can do too much damage.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Realism never was my strong point. I get more satisfaction at seeing death tolls in the hundreds of thousands or millions versus only a few thousand.

Plus it lets a war end far too quickly... I want nations that stumble into war to suffer.

 

[Sonereal]

I think you and Tani stand on the same ground in terms of sneak attacks if I understand what everyone is saying exactly. In terms of roleplay, I don't really consider it radar as much as I consider it "They're crossing the border, we have to set up defenses and prepare ASAP." And since MP series takes place in the future it is pretty justifiable that effective defenses can go up in a short period of time. In any case, I think the EWS is a pretty good rule regardless of practical justification.

Realism never was my strong point. I get more satisfaction at seeing death tolls in the hundreds of thousands or millions versus only a few thousand.

Plus it lets a war end far too quickly... I want nations that stumble into war to suffer.

Hence the game is not really furturistic. Really, you could set the time period to 1880 and it would explain away 90% of the problems right away. Then again, you get the same problem. The Vietnam-esque scenarios we have going on in the game don't make a whole lot of sense given Vietnam made ample use of air power. Likewise, it the game had been set in 1880, the nation would fall just as easily.

Wars not ending quickly is the current problem of IOTs. A war that last a turn, two tops, is far more likely to deal severe damage with dragging wars into unrealistic decade long bouts of supremacy where every battle is a Stalingrad.

 

[Lighthearter]

Most wars since Korea have been small affairs too, Bowsling. I know you're going to throw Vietnam and Afghanistan at me, but the truth is that those wars don't hold a candle to World War 2 in terms of men deployed and death tolls. Air forces are a huge part of modern war, but I doubt they could single-handedly end a war on the scale of WW2, even if the firebombing of Germany and Japan was a significant factor in the Allied victory. I think Tani has a point, but I did like when aircraft were modeled in MP1.

-L

 

[Sonereal]

Most wars since Korea have been small affairs too, Bowsling. I know you're going to throw Vietnam and Afghanistan at me, but the truth is that those wars don't hold a candle to World War 2 in terms of men deployed and death tolls. Air forces are a huge part of modern war, but I doubt they could single-handedly end a war on the scale of WW2, even if the firebombing of Germany and Japan was a significant factor in the Allied victory. I think Tani has a point, but I did like when aircraft were modeled in MP1.

-L

In a war between great powers, it makes perfect sense. When wars with minor countries require mass mobilization and movement, it becomes extremely confusing.

However, World War 2 does prove a great point that air power was absolutely critical to much of the advances in the war.

 

[Tyo]

shoudn't this go in the dev thread

 

[Bowsling]

Actually, the main defence of my point was not Adghanistan or Vietnam but the Israeli-Arab wars. Both the later ones (and to some extent the 1948 ones) were fought on even terms by relatively equal powers, and both were extremely short affairs that were decided by air power.

 

[christos200]

Realism never was my strong point. I get more satisfaction at seeing death tolls in the hundreds of thousands or millions versus only a few thousand.

Plus it lets a war end far too quickly... I want nations that stumble into war to suffer.

It is un-realistic to have a small nation of 5 provinces to defend for 5 or 6 turns against a far Greater power.

Also, I liked the Air Wars in MP1. I won most battles in MP1 thanks to my air power.

 

[Mosher]

It is un-realistic to have a small nation of 5 provinces to defend for 5 or 6 turns against a far Greater power.

It's not unrealistic for a small power to defend for a long time against a much larger one. The Soviet-Afghan War and the Vietnam War come to mind.

 

[Bowsling]

What is real? Reality is only a perception.