ME Second edition ideas

[corsairs_game_101]

MEPBM may be reasonable balanced team to team (or not). That is not the center of my complaint about assassins.

I think that any strategy game is better when there is an effective defense against every offense and an effective offense against any defense.

MEPBM provides this in many situations. Build fortifications....agents and war machnes can take them down. Someone invades with a big army. use smaller armies to delay while you recruit and bring in help. Someone is delaying and blocking, try moving evasive, or moving in an unexpected direction.

I think that the problem with agents in MEPBM, is that in most cases, there is no effective defense against them. There is nothing that a military nation can do to stop the agents from emptying his treasury, killing all his characters, poofing his armies.

If you do get a guard in the right place at the right time, the assassin will either blow through him, or in the best case, you capture the assassin, he escapes, and you got one extra turn before he finishes off your best characters.

I think that by allowing ANY 50+A have a very good chance of catching and holding any attacking agent, you create this "effective defense" against an offense.

The next one to deal with would be the dreaded Curse Squad. I'm thinking that a character can't be cursed by more than one character on a given turn. However, the turn after he is cursed, he gets no healing and can't execute any orders (too sick to do anything). This gives the "attacked" nation a chance to try to locate the cursing mage, and assassinate it.

You get cursed. You move available agents to neighboring hexes and ScoChar, while getting cursed a second time. If you found the mage, and have enough agents in the hex to deal with guards, then you get a shot at offing the mage before he kills your character.

Or better yet. You get cursed, you move in the agents to ScoChar, but move in your own curser to the location where the character is getting cursed. Then you curse the mage that is cursing you.

Gives a WHOLE new meaning to Curse battles.

What really needs to happen with troop types, is that heavy troops get 3/4 the movement of light troops. That would make light troops "worth it".

A rework of the "withoout food" algorithim would also be great. If the army was fed (such as being on a pop), then they get full movement, even if they have an empty baggage train.

AND, instead of a hex by hex calculation, just reduce max movement by 3/4. Right now, without FO, cav move 6 plains road hexes (1 * 4/3, rounds to 2). If the 12 was reduced by 9, then they'd get 9 moves. The current way is just too difficult to use, and leads to too many mistakes.

Okay, stop... enough for now.

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[tonyz]

I think that any strategy game is better when there is an effective defense
against every offense and an effective offense against any defense.

Agreed.

I think that the problem with agents in MEPBM, is that in most cases, there
is no effective defense against them. There is nothing that a military
nation can do to stop the agents from emptying his treasury, killing all his
characters, poofing his armies.

Try and figure out where the agents will go, and have a curse squad or
two waiting for them. The only problem is that this takes until turn
10 or later, whereas the DS can have army-killing assassins on turn 2
(Urzahil and Ji Indur both move to Osgiliath on turn 1, Urzahil hands
over the Cloak of the Abyss, Ji kidnaps army commander) and the FP
not too much later on the game depending on who gets the Ring of Wind
first.

I think that by allowing ANY 50+A have a very good chance of catching and
holding any attacking agent, you create this "effective defense" against an
offense.

How about having guard rank be compared to _natural_ agent rank instead
of artifact-boosted or stealth-boosted rank? That way even if Mr.
I-Have-Too-Many-Artifacts A40(100) S10(50) goes in against somebody,
an A40 guard still has a very good chance against him.

The next one to deal with would be the dreaded Curse Squad. I'm thinking
that a character can't be cursed by more than one character on a given turn.
  However, the turn after he is cursed, he gets no healing and can't execute
any orders (too sick to do anything). This gives the "attacked" nation a
chance to try to locate the cursing mage, and assassinate it.

Curses are kind of overkill, really -- and you shouldn't be able to curse
an army to death just by killing its commander; there are a lot of captains
and marshals in command.

What really needs to happen with troop types, is that heavy troops get 3/4
the movement of light troops. That would make light troops "worth it".

And make it necessary to recruit "heavy" troops with some sort of
metal for armor (no armor = light troops, bronze or steel = heavy
troops, leather+mounts= cavalry, wood=archers) -- and include a new
troop type, "mounted archers".

A rework of the "withoout food" algorithim would also be great. If the army
was fed (such as being on a pop), then they get full movement, even if they
have an empty baggage train.

Yes.

AND, instead of a hex by hex calculation, just reduce max movement by 3/4.
Right now, without FO, cav move 6 plains road hexes (1 * 4/3, rounds to 2).
If the 12 was reduced by 9, then they'd get 9 moves. The current way is
just too difficult to use, and leads to too many mistakes.

I've never had any trouble with them.

Tony Z

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On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 05:22:06PM -0600, corsairs game 101 wrote:
--
"The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;
His fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air,
And he that stays will die for naught, and home there's no returning."
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.--A.E. Housman