Although I believe that game balance is the most important thing, always remember when making historical references...this world has magic. Magic effectively changes the rules of reality. Your same assessment, now, the Ring of Wind say, for instance, allows you to change into wind for a certain period of time (not unreasonable for an +40A artifact)...Suddenly that assassin getting away is quite a bit more likely. Consider the superstitious nature of the people, and the general beliefs on magic, now what happens when you make a magic like effect.
I do believe that an army should have a relative chance to catch the agent and injure/kill the agent. It should be a threat that you face when attempting to assassinate a man who leads an army. But the existence of magic changes what is possible, probably and likely. A good counter is a spell, call it "heightened awareness" which boosts scouts ability to find characters, or a guards ability to protect his charge...
···
From: "Kevin Brown" <mornhm@soltec.net>
Reply-To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [mepbmlist] Re: Army disbands
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:37:02 -0000My .02.
Yes armies did collapse and disband after their commander was killed.
But not "huge" armies, the other commanders would assume command -
now some of the sub commanders might take their toys (soldiers) and
go home, but an entire "huge" army would not disband. Remember these
armies were the size of travelling cities. With that said, I don't
have a problem with armies going away with the loss of a lone
commander. It could be argued to be realistic and doesn't affect the
overall game that much.However, agents going into an army a killing the commander and then
getting away scot free doesn't jive with most history/fiction. There
should be some additional risk to assassins - maybe these orders even
if successful should carry a higher risk of death if the victim was
travelling with an army, company or in a friendly pop center. A
player with a 150 agent might think twice about popping that huge
army commander if they knew that there was a good chance that the
army might string them up afterword. Many covert operations have been
considered "suicide" missions, this could be added to the game.It appears to me that most people agree that the agents are too
important in this game Regardless of game balance, imho, offensive
agents are just too important to the game mechanics. Something should
be done to change - not game balance - emphasis on this one character
class. Also, I don't think the suggestion is to change one of the
existing game modules but to develop a new middle earth game. Don't
let game balance affect our suggestions or replies. I'm making the
assumption that the game will be balanced somehow and that all things
are possible.Kevin
--- In mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com, Gavinwj <gavinwj@c...> wrote:
> Given the medieval/ancients nature of ME combat, this is actually
> reasonable. Armies tended to be held together by force of will and
> dedication to the commander. Once the commander was gone (killed or
fled),
> the army did tend to disband (often at very high speed and
sometimes in
> mid-battle). Being the commander was quite a risky business: you
had to be
> at the front of the line in order for your troops to see you
fighting, but
> that put you right smack in the thick of the action. It's really
only since
> Marlborough's time that commanders have tended to stay away from
the battle
> itself, using subordinates to execute their orders and battle plans
while
> they watched from a nearby hill.
>
> As for assassinating the commander being difficult because he would
be
> well-known to the troops: I'm in two minds on this one. He would be
known
> and recognisable to his close associates, making assassination
difficult,
> but not by most of the troops, making infiltration easy. The run of
the mill
> soldiers would recognise him by his standard or by some other
highly visible
> sign. Get an army camp of five thousand men milling around and one
more
> unknown face isn't going to stand out.
>
> Gavin
>
> Steve Prindeville wrote:
>
> > The other thing I have not liked about army commander
assassinations is the
> > army disbanding. How likely is it that an army would break apart
and go home
> > when a commander is killed. Wouldn't their be lower level
> > commanders(non-coms) in the army?