lucasc68@yahoo.com wrote
I would like to get a thread going on possible change to make a second
edition game of 1650. I e-mailed Clint and he stated the pressure had
to be put on GSI(Bill Feilds) who owns the rights to the software. A
buddy of mine and I were talking the other day and we have many ideas
about changes.
Discussions like this are always interesting. The problem however, is
that they have been going ever since the play testing of the 1st edition
finished many years ago. Thousands and thousands of words have been
written, debating hundreds of ideas, and most of it has all been lost.
I personally don't believe that we'll ever get a 2nd edition, until
someone opens a web site specifically to debate and archive all the
suggestions and opinions on a wholesale revision. If that ever
happened, then after a year or two, a designer would have something to
work with. Whether there's a will to do so, is another issue, but it is
similarly beyond our control. (Well we could organise a boycott I
suppose, but Clint would probably end up down the dole office before GSI
were moved).
Just thinking that you can achieve something so substantial, by raising
a couple of points here, is probably futile... but I can't resist
anyway:
1)John (my buddy) had the ideas of a chief administrator. This
character would have to order himself one turn to be the position. He
would have to be in the capital, no one could challenge him, and he
would be harder to kidnap and/or assissnate.
Don't like it. There always needs to be a pseudo-reality behind the
laws in a fantasy setting. Why on earth should the chief administrator
be immune to challenge? The challenge concept relies upon the idea of
personal honour being of high importance to all. A general modifier to
increase the safety of all characters in a capital might be in order -
reflects guards, and enhanced national security. On the other hand you
might argue that it should be easier to make double agents in capitals -
reflects cosmopolitan intrigue, and materialistic temptations.
2) Why is it that a Troll(Evil HI for some postions) has the same
attack/con as a dwarf with a battle axe or a Beornling footman w/axe.
Can't the troop levels be modified.
This is just a tiny facet, of a much more fundamental game flaw: Troop
types other than HI and HC are rarely ever recruited. The description
'Easterling Charioteers' etc. is purely decorative. There are IMO two
basic approaches for improving this.
The first is a game play approach - Make the terrain modifiers much more
substantial. LI should have advantages over HI in mountains. Cavalry
should be no better than infantry, when fighting off of the plains, or
against a population centre. In history (except perhaps when the
Cavalryman pride was at it's zenith in the Napoleonic wars) cavalry
routinely dismounted to fight when conditions necessitated it. Archers
should have bigger advantages in hills and rough and mountains than they
do, and lots of debate should follow about archers in woods - ever
noticed the report you get about "our archers were hindered by the
tress". If woods hinder archers, why do elves favour the bow? These
changes would make the strategic elements of the game much more
interesting, because you would have to plan for where you expected to
fight, at the time of recruiting your army. In defending, you would
have the option of attempting to catch an enemy army in terrain that was
more unfavourable to them.
The second, is a historical approach - Societies fielded different troop
types based on their social systems, and economies. Compare the late
Anglo-Saxon huge levy of free men, to the C13th century French knights
each with their own fief calculated to provide enough revenue for one
man, one horse, and one suit of armour. So out ME nations should be
restricted in troop types - the Gondors have cavalry, the dwarves hi,
the woodmen li etc. Mercenaries of other troop types might be hired,
but they should be very costly. Naturally this change would have to be
part of a wholesale reconfiguration of game balance - the last thing
anyone needs is an even weaker Woodmen nation.
3) Why is it that an army that loses it commander decide to go home
and take there state issued weapon and armor with them?
Yes, agree (as do most I think). I'd like to see armies without senior
commanders immobilised, and losing morale until a new commander arrives.
I'd also like to see morale have a more interesting effect - armies with
low morale should lose troops to desertion every turn. This was one of
the major problems that commanders faced historically, and one which
would improve our game if written in. Bonnie Prince Charlie's campaign
1745 is a good example, of the horror, of waking up in the morning to
find another few hundred of your men have slipped away in the night.
As it is, you can ForceMarch your Morale 1 army, turn after turn,
without food, and never pay any further penalty.
5) Does every battle end in slaughter for one side. One of the
greatest defeats in military history inflicted on a nation was in 216
BC at Cannae. Hanibal completely surronded a Roman army of 4 double
legions (about 80,000) and inflicted 55000 dead. 25000 still got away.
This battle is the most decisive double envelopements ever and still
the enemy lived.
Yup, there are often survivors. If a defeated army had high morale to
start with, then a percentage of it might appear at the nearest friendly
pop, as an army waiting for a commander, if the above changes were in
place.
6) Why is that an entire nations treasury can be at a village in the
extremes of their nation.
Yes pretty crazy, as is the fact that the merchants can transport 20,000
timber from one corner of the map to another, when it would take a
character 3 or 4 turns to move that long. Lots of ways that the
logistics could be improved, but as soon as you start suggesting some,
you will always face the voices of those who say "but we don't want to
make the game any more complicated".
The answer of course, is to one day develop a more sophisticated 2nd
edition, and let the simpler folk continue to play the 1st edition.
Much as Dungeons and Dragons in the 70's split into Advanced and Basic
D&D.
Regards,
Laurence G. Tilley http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk/
