Effectiveness, cost and useage
- Lord_Montague
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Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
If you follow the points system completely in the way you're suggesting Andreas, you'd have battleships blowing up submarines purely because they are 5000 compared with 1000. To use submarines again, you'd completely negate the advantage a diesel submarine has over a nuclear submarine in shallower waters. To go on points alone, you rob people of using tactical and strategic finesse, which is as much a part of recwarring as the story element you propose. You mustn't lose site of the fact that it is a recwar.
To do as Chrim suggested would be a good idea, but it would mean the removal of the table from the convention itself and instead have it as a separate appendix. It would also need more than one person (me) to keep it up to date. The alternative could be what Chrim has done in getting in contact with me and asking for my appraisal of a weapons system/platform and have that down.
Demon makes a valid point regarding the 750 and 150 thing. Yet, if he'd had a problem he should have flagged it. Personally, I don't rate the AC-130 as that good a weapon so I'd put it down lower than 750 but obviously higher than 150. Of course that would be my personal opinion which is why, as you'll see in the other thread, i'm proposing an organisational change.
Andreas, why are the points wrong?? Would you mind clarifying? I'm not getting defensive on it, its just I actually want to know! What you say about the basics being encapsulated in points and having advancements noted is what I've done.
To do as Chrim suggested would be a good idea, but it would mean the removal of the table from the convention itself and instead have it as a separate appendix. It would also need more than one person (me) to keep it up to date. The alternative could be what Chrim has done in getting in contact with me and asking for my appraisal of a weapons system/platform and have that down.
Demon makes a valid point regarding the 750 and 150 thing. Yet, if he'd had a problem he should have flagged it. Personally, I don't rate the AC-130 as that good a weapon so I'd put it down lower than 750 but obviously higher than 150. Of course that would be my personal opinion which is why, as you'll see in the other thread, i'm proposing an organisational change.
Andreas, why are the points wrong?? Would you mind clarifying? I'm not getting defensive on it, its just I actually want to know! What you say about the basics being encapsulated in points and having advancements noted is what I've done.
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Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
Sorry Monty, maybe I'm not explaining this right.
Points should be the basis, and then work off strategy and the like after that. And points should definitely be a major feature in determining the relative strength of similar units (eg those gunships). Yes, there are obviously some units which have specific advantages against other types beyond their points (eg AA against Air, Sub against Ship etc). But most often we're looking at battles bigger than one unit (eg a fleet of subs vs a couple ships) and that's when saying, "Well look, this group have twice as many points AND a natural advantage against Ships, they should do a bit more damage," is most valid.
Personally, in the sub vs Battleship thing, I'd be surprised if the person with the battleship accepted that a single sub could take the entire battleship down. But if it were a few subs attacking a battleship, it wouldn't surprise me at all.
By points being wrong, I mean if a single AA (20) vs a single bomber (1000) means the AA should logically win and seems innapropriate, then the AA should be increased in points. Having a single AA thing worth 1000 is obviously stupid too, but 20 may be too low.
You know what we need ... Bayen. He's the one who converted me to the "points" interpretation ... I'll go and find him
Points should be the basis, and then work off strategy and the like after that. And points should definitely be a major feature in determining the relative strength of similar units (eg those gunships). Yes, there are obviously some units which have specific advantages against other types beyond their points (eg AA against Air, Sub against Ship etc). But most often we're looking at battles bigger than one unit (eg a fleet of subs vs a couple ships) and that's when saying, "Well look, this group have twice as many points AND a natural advantage against Ships, they should do a bit more damage," is most valid.
Personally, in the sub vs Battleship thing, I'd be surprised if the person with the battleship accepted that a single sub could take the entire battleship down. But if it were a few subs attacking a battleship, it wouldn't surprise me at all.
By points being wrong, I mean if a single AA (20) vs a single bomber (1000) means the AA should logically win and seems innapropriate, then the AA should be increased in points. Having a single AA thing worth 1000 is obviously stupid too, but 20 may be too low.
You know what we need ... Bayen. He's the one who converted me to the "points" interpretation ... I'll go and find him
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
- chrimigules
- Posts: 1102
- Joined: Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:04 am
Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
A single AA gun can get a single bomber if the bomber flies into range, and even then, there are countermeasures and lack of accuracy and such. A bomber in itself has a much greater range and destructive potential than an AA gun.
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Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
*arrives*
The nice thing about points is that they're always right. If I want to buy fighters for 500 apiece and you want to buy fighters for 1000 apiece, that's alright, but yours will be twice as effective. It's a self-balancing game mechanic, which is really cool. The idea is not to get too caught up in the statistics you copypasted off Wikipedia to determine the outcome of the battle. When I judge, I look first at points to figure out who has the starting advantage. The second thing is the type of units, which matters mostly for stuff like AA vs Air or Sub vs Ship - designated "anti-units." They can clearly change the battle result, but don't get swept up in it; a 100 pt anti-air station won't take out a group of six bombers worth 9000 pts. It could possibly damage one or two, but that's it. I don't care if you call it super-russian-mega-radar-power-anti-air, you only spent 100 points on it. The point system works because it self-balances - if you want stronger anti-air, put more points into it; it's that simple. The final and most fun judging criteria is strategy. Not silly strategy like "I have more missiles than you," or "I use subs against your ship because they're good against it," but real, intelligent strategy, like "I notice the enemy is intercepting our radio transmissions so I send out a dummy message with fake orders and set up an ambush to take them by surprise."
The point system is not something to be followed strictly, but it has a simple elegance that only gets marred the more tables and so on you add to it. When give a list of actual, real-world units with costs, that takes away from points = strength and turns it into points = $cost and it changes the expectations. Now, maybe this is just a different style of recwarring. This is how Toketi does things in CITRA, with more emphasis on (clever) strategy and perhaps some storytelling than on statistics lifted off of Wiki. You guys don't *have* to do it like is, Andreas just wanted me to come over and argue my case. Case argued.
The nice thing about points is that they're always right. If I want to buy fighters for 500 apiece and you want to buy fighters for 1000 apiece, that's alright, but yours will be twice as effective. It's a self-balancing game mechanic, which is really cool. The idea is not to get too caught up in the statistics you copypasted off Wikipedia to determine the outcome of the battle. When I judge, I look first at points to figure out who has the starting advantage. The second thing is the type of units, which matters mostly for stuff like AA vs Air or Sub vs Ship - designated "anti-units." They can clearly change the battle result, but don't get swept up in it; a 100 pt anti-air station won't take out a group of six bombers worth 9000 pts. It could possibly damage one or two, but that's it. I don't care if you call it super-russian-mega-radar-power-anti-air, you only spent 100 points on it. The point system works because it self-balances - if you want stronger anti-air, put more points into it; it's that simple. The final and most fun judging criteria is strategy. Not silly strategy like "I have more missiles than you," or "I use subs against your ship because they're good against it," but real, intelligent strategy, like "I notice the enemy is intercepting our radio transmissions so I send out a dummy message with fake orders and set up an ambush to take them by surprise."
The point system is not something to be followed strictly, but it has a simple elegance that only gets marred the more tables and so on you add to it. When give a list of actual, real-world units with costs, that takes away from points = strength and turns it into points = $cost and it changes the expectations. Now, maybe this is just a different style of recwarring. This is how Toketi does things in CITRA, with more emphasis on (clever) strategy and perhaps some storytelling than on statistics lifted off of Wiki. You guys don't *have* to do it like is, Andreas just wanted me to come over and argue my case. Case argued.
Bayen ronToketi
http://www.toketi.org
http://www.toketi.org
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Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
What Bayen said. That's what I meant. If that isn't clear enough, then I'll give up on making it clear in Anunia and turn to QUARREL.
Thanks Bayen
Thanks Bayen
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
I think a lot of this could be fixed by very clearly stating in the unit descriptions the full extent of their capabilities.
As an example:
Anti-Air, 20 points
Can only attack air units
Effective vs. air units
or,
Destroyer, 1000 points
Effective vs. ships
Moderately effective vs. air units
Can detect submerged units
Some care would need to be given to the descriptions, but the point would be that, if it's not in the description, it probably doesn't go. This would eliminate the possibilities of trying to do something extremely dodgy, like aiming anti-air at a column of incoming tanks or bombard long offshore targets with destroyers. The judges would have the final say in anything beyond the listed capabilities and, unless someone really screwed up with writing them, the answer would probably usually be no.
Almost all recwar problems start when person A claims their unit has some warfare capability it posesses in real life that isn't in the charter or unit descriptions and is only obvious to people that know a lot about the machinery and person B didn't know anything about said capability because they aren't much of a real world military buff. A lot of so-called "tactical and strategic finesse" is really just flaunting knowledge gleaned from wikipedia. Entrenching infantry in rocky terrain in preparation for an incoming attack is strategy. Claiming that your units are totally undetectable because the enemy ships aren't using a certain level of technology to detect them is probably acceptable. Knowing that your anti-aircraft guns on your battleship can shoot 1200 meters and claiming to be able to blow all of the enemy bombers out of the sky becaues they only designated their height to be 1000 meters is just being a dick.
It may be a recwar, but it's also a recwar. Not everyone wants to spend a few hours reading up on World War II ship and cannon chassis designs in order to be able to defend themselves and write a good story.
As an example:
Anti-Air, 20 points
Can only attack air units
Effective vs. air units
or,
Destroyer, 1000 points
Effective vs. ships
Moderately effective vs. air units
Can detect submerged units
Some care would need to be given to the descriptions, but the point would be that, if it's not in the description, it probably doesn't go. This would eliminate the possibilities of trying to do something extremely dodgy, like aiming anti-air at a column of incoming tanks or bombard long offshore targets with destroyers. The judges would have the final say in anything beyond the listed capabilities and, unless someone really screwed up with writing them, the answer would probably usually be no.
A lot of us don't know the difference and don't particularly care to have to research a million enemy units to figure it out. If the units came with this knowledge in the unit, maybe things would go more smoothly. If the unit descrption for a diesel submarine had what its advantages over a nuclear submarine in shallow water are, and that was a given capability of the unit, then everything would be just fine.To use submarines again, you'd completely negate the advantage a diesel submarine has over a nuclear submarine in shallower waters.
Almost all recwar problems start when person A claims their unit has some warfare capability it posesses in real life that isn't in the charter or unit descriptions and is only obvious to people that know a lot about the machinery and person B didn't know anything about said capability because they aren't much of a real world military buff. A lot of so-called "tactical and strategic finesse" is really just flaunting knowledge gleaned from wikipedia. Entrenching infantry in rocky terrain in preparation for an incoming attack is strategy. Claiming that your units are totally undetectable because the enemy ships aren't using a certain level of technology to detect them is probably acceptable. Knowing that your anti-aircraft guns on your battleship can shoot 1200 meters and claiming to be able to blow all of the enemy bombers out of the sky becaues they only designated their height to be 1000 meters is just being a dick.
It may be a recwar, but it's also a recwar. Not everyone wants to spend a few hours reading up on World War II ship and cannon chassis designs in order to be able to defend themselves and write a good story.
- chrimigules
- Posts: 1102
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Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_mm_gunSaiKar wrote:This would eliminate the possibilities of trying to do something extremely dodgy, like aiming anti-air at a column of incoming tanks
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Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
Harvey - while I entirely agree with the general thrust of what you're saying, what you're asking for is basically to have standardised units and not specifics. Those who have basic to middling military knowledge seem to like specifics. Fully standardised units would better be handled buy QUARREL.
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
- Lord_Montague
- Posts: 913
- Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:39 pm
Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
Yes, we agree!! Points are the basics and if, as Bayen says in a different post, you want increased ability from the basic unit you add more points and you get that. Where I disagree with you is where you say about the subs versus ships. That doctrine you put forward would have a fleet of battleships obliterated by a fleet of multi-purpose frigates! It wouldn't happen. The Battleships can absorb far greater damage than the frigates and if the battleships closed (which I would do), the frigates wouldn't be able to stand for long against the battleship's guns.Andreas the Wise wrote:Sorry Monty, maybe I'm not explaining this right.
Points should be the basis, and then work off strategy and the like after that. And points should definitely be a major feature in determining the relative strength of similar units (eg those gunships). Yes, there are obviously some units which have specific advantages against other types beyond their points (eg AA against Air, Sub against Ship etc). But most often we're looking at battles bigger than one unit (eg a fleet of subs vs a couple ships) and that's when saying, "Well look, this group have twice as many points AND a natural advantage against Ships, they should do a bit more damage," is most valid.
Personally, in the sub vs Battleship thing, I'd be surprised if the person with the battleship accepted that a single sub could take the entire battleship down. But if it were a few subs attacking a battleship, it wouldn't surprise me at all.
By points being wrong, I mean if a single AA (20) vs a single bomber (1000) means the AA should logically win and seems innapropriate, then the AA should be increased in points. Having a single AA thing worth 1000 is obviously stupid too, but 20 may be too low.
You know what we need ... Bayen. He's the one who converted me to the "points" interpretation ... I'll go and find him
And a single submarine vs a single battleship, the sub wins every time unless the battleship has a helicopter on it and/or very high ASW capabilities. The battleship commander might not accept it and if I was him i'd definitely try and get myself out of it but in the end I'd have to bow to the inevitable.
I'll explain the reasoning for AA being at 20 points in a number of points:
1. Its limited in its effective usage; it may be able to be used against surface targets but its designed to blow up flying things so its not effective against surface targets.
2. Its limited in range; aircraft can fly above the maximum ceiling of the weapons.
3. It can be baffled; by flares or chaff or even by your approach; place a radar on top the of the mountain and you get a nice clear view of the air all around. But the bombers can fly under the radar coverage and then pop up to deliver the blow.
4. There are weapons designed to take AA out.
5. It cannot move independently; at 20 it needs to be towed. When it is capable of moving on its own, its classed as armoured anti-air and the range of its weapons is drastically cut.
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In Victory; Unbearable.
In Victory; Unbearable.
- Lord_Montague
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Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
Its not the points but what you spend the points on. Your example of a 500 point fighter vs a 1000 point fighter is a bit warped. If that 1000 point fighter is designed for air to ground operations while the 500 point fighter is an air superiority fighter, that 500 point fighter will have an advantage. I wouldn't be happy seeing a heavily modified Harrier GR9 at 1000 blow a standard Eurofighter or Tornado F.3 out the sky purely because its a 1000 points. Plus if your 1000 point fighter fired air to ground missiles at my 500 fighter you can be sure that I wouldnt take it, 1000 points or not.Bayen wrote:*arrives*
The nice thing about points is that they're always right. If I want to buy fighters for 500 apiece and you want to buy fighters for 1000 apiece, that's alright, but yours will be twice as effective. It's a self-balancing game mechanic, which is really cool. The idea is not to get too caught up in the statistics you copypasted off Wikipedia to determine the outcome of the battle. When I judge, I look first at points to figure out who has the starting advantage. The second thing is the type of units, which matters mostly for stuff like AA vs Air or Sub vs Ship - designated "anti-units." They can clearly change the battle result, but don't get swept up in it; a 100 pt anti-air station won't take out a group of six bombers worth 9000 pts. It could possibly damage one or two, but that's it. I don't care if you call it super-russian-mega-radar-power-anti-air, you only spent 100 points on it. The point system works because it self-balances - if you want stronger anti-air, put more points into it; it's that simple. The final and most fun judging criteria is strategy. Not silly strategy like "I have more missiles than you," or "I use subs against your ship because they're good against it," but real, intelligent strategy, like "I notice the enemy is intercepting our radio transmissions so I send out a dummy message with fake orders and set up an ambush to take them by surprise."
The point system is not something to be followed strictly, but it has a simple elegance that only gets marred the more tables and so on you add to it. When give a list of actual, real-world units with costs, that takes away from points = strength and turns it into points = $cost and it changes the expectations. Now, maybe this is just a different style of recwarring. This is how Toketi does things in CITRA, with more emphasis on (clever) strategy and perhaps some storytelling than on statistics lifted off of Wiki. You guys don't *have* to do it like is, Andreas just wanted me to come over and argue my case. Case argued.
The air station thing is somewhere else where I agree slightly with you but think you've over egged the points system again. I agree that a 100 points worth of anti-air should not be able of destroying a squadron of 9 bombers worth 9000. But if the commander of the bomber does something unbelievably stupid, such as flying at a relatively low altitude within the range of the anti air units and taking no preventative measures, I don't think he should be rewarded just because he has more points. In an event like that, you'll find a very aggrieved anti-air commander being punished because of points. In RL if that happened, those bombers would be mauled so badly I doubt even one could get out intact. But in recwar, its a compromise as we all know so I would think that at least 2 or 3 bombers would be deemed acceptable to both people.
What you deem as silly strategy is what I would deem basic strategy. Firing more missiles than the opposition is effective and does thet job. Using a submarine against a ship gives you an inherent advantage and makes it effective. What you deem as real intelligent strategy is what I've done before (possibly against you or Andreas at Ambassador in regards to the ambush) and I was accused of essentially cheating. Why? Because I'd given the impression from previous attacks that I had split up my fleet when I'd in fact kept it intact but added waypoints to an attack and launched it from outside radar range. Basic Strategy is not silly, but basic and you need to accept that rather than tarnish unrefined tactics as silly. Personally I view the tactics of EMP charges, killing of commanders and close quarters combat as fanciful, barbaric and unnecessary respectively. Alternatively, I view missile barrages and application of overwhelming force as perfectly valid. I doubt we'll ever agree on what you call silly and I call clever but we need to accomodate each other in this and that is what Annunia has done until now and should continue to do.
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In Victory; Unbearable.
In Victory; Unbearable.
- Lord_Montague
- Posts: 913
- Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:39 pm
Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
If we were to list in the way you suggest Harvey, we'd have huge lists of abilities and possible usages for every conceivable unit. We do try to work what you suggest by having specifications of units declared in orbats at the beginning of a war.SaiKar wrote:I think a lot of this could be fixed by very clearly stating in the unit descriptions the full extent of their capabilities.
As an example:
Anti-Air, 20 points
Can only attack air units
Effective vs. air units
or,
Destroyer, 1000 points
Effective vs. ships
Moderately effective vs. air units
Can detect submerged units
Some care would need to be given to the descriptions, but the point would be that, if it's not in the description, it probably doesn't go. This would eliminate the possibilities of trying to do something extremely dodgy, like aiming anti-air at a column of incoming tanks or bombard long offshore targets with destroyers. The judges would have the final say in anything beyond the listed capabilities and, unless someone really screwed up with writing them, the answer would probably usually be no.
A lot of us don't know the difference and don't particularly care to have to research a million enemy units to figure it out. If the units came with this knowledge in the unit, maybe things would go more smoothly. If the unit descrption for a diesel submarine had what its advantages over a nuclear submarine in shallow water are, and that was a given capability of the unit, then everything would be just fine.To use submarines again, you'd completely negate the advantage a diesel submarine has over a nuclear submarine in shallower waters.
Almost all recwar problems start when person A claims their unit has some warfare capability it posesses in real life that isn't in the charter or unit descriptions and is only obvious to people that know a lot about the machinery and person B didn't know anything about said capability because they aren't much of a real world military buff. A lot of so-called "tactical and strategic finesse" is really just flaunting knowledge gleaned from wikipedia. Entrenching infantry in rocky terrain in preparation for an incoming attack is strategy. Claiming that your units are totally undetectable because the enemy ships aren't using a certain level of technology to detect them is probably acceptable. Knowing that your anti-aircraft guns on your battleship can shoot 1200 meters and claiming to be able to blow all of the enemy bombers out of the sky becaues they only designated their height to be 1000 meters is just being a dick.
It may be a recwar, but it's also a recwar. Not everyone wants to spend a few hours reading up on World War II ship and cannon chassis designs in order to be able to defend themselves and write a good story.
Gleaning knowledge from wikipedia is not tactical or strategic finesse, I agree. Knowing how to use that knowledge is though Harvey. Are you telling me that if you read on wikipedia that unit A could only fire forwards that you wouldnt attempt to launch an attack from the rear? Entrenching infantry in rocky terrain is actually a bad idea because there's not enough soil for them to dig in properly usually. Claiming units that can't be detected is NOT acceptable. Everything can be detected one way or the other. Stealth planes can be detected, submarines can be detected, special forces can be detected. As for what you describe as being a dick, I described earlier as punishing unbelievably stupid moves and will further describe it now as simply being sensible.
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In Victory; Unbearable.
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Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
Oh goodness ... you've just tempted me to do this NCM-style.
Sorry. What I mean is, the way to resolve all these problems would be to stop costing units as a whole and rather build units up from different features, all of which would have standard costs. So take an AA. It might be made up of:
Range (0-200 km) - 5
Height (0-10000 ft) - 5
Response Speed* (10 seconds) -5
Basic AA unit (towed) - 5
Total 20
*which embodies the speed at which it fires, radar etc.
If someone wanted to use the s-400 say, that has range (0-400 km), they might have something like this:
Range (0-400 km) - 7
Height (0-10000 ft) - 5
Response Speed* (10 seconds) -5
Basic AA unit (towed) - 5
Self Propulsion - 8
Able to hit stealth - 5
Total 35.
What Anunia would have (as an appendix) would be tables which say something like:
"Range (0-100 km) - 2
(0-200 km) - 5
(0-300 km) - 6
(0-400 km) - 7
So in making a unit people would have to pick the range, and sub in the appropriate cost for that range. They'd do the same for other attributes.
The disadvantage of this is that it means you have to define the abilities of every unit, even ones that are on Wikipedia (obviously for an existing one you just select the relevant parts and cost it as such). To be fair, you're *meant* to do that for non-standard units anyway.
The huge advantage is you have, right there in your orbat, the abilities of your unit, and an objective way of costing them. If your opponent is fighting you, they then don't have to look at your orbat, search for it on wikipedia, find it in a different article, skim through it to try and find information about its range and miss the feature you use in counterattack - it's all there. It also means, say, when Monty costed AA (towed) as a lower amount and said that reduced ten, and I thought that might have been wrong, we have an objective and obvious way of deciding how much more or less its worth by being towed.
Yes, to do this properly would require a lot of work at the start to get all the tables up, and to redefine standard units. But once that's done, it would make everything a lot easier and hopefully help both military and non-military inclined people to understand units and their capabilities better and avoid disputes. There would obviously be new features we hadn't thought of - that would then be brought to the judge at the start of combat and a cost worked out there, instead of someone just putting on an overall cost we later decide is totally unfair.
Sorry. What I mean is, the way to resolve all these problems would be to stop costing units as a whole and rather build units up from different features, all of which would have standard costs. So take an AA. It might be made up of:
Range (0-200 km) - 5
Height (0-10000 ft) - 5
Response Speed* (10 seconds) -5
Basic AA unit (towed) - 5
Total 20
*which embodies the speed at which it fires, radar etc.
If someone wanted to use the s-400 say, that has range (0-400 km), they might have something like this:
Range (0-400 km) - 7
Height (0-10000 ft) - 5
Response Speed* (10 seconds) -5
Basic AA unit (towed) - 5
Self Propulsion - 8
Able to hit stealth - 5
Total 35.
What Anunia would have (as an appendix) would be tables which say something like:
"Range (0-100 km) - 2
(0-200 km) - 5
(0-300 km) - 6
(0-400 km) - 7
So in making a unit people would have to pick the range, and sub in the appropriate cost for that range. They'd do the same for other attributes.
The disadvantage of this is that it means you have to define the abilities of every unit, even ones that are on Wikipedia (obviously for an existing one you just select the relevant parts and cost it as such). To be fair, you're *meant* to do that for non-standard units anyway.
The huge advantage is you have, right there in your orbat, the abilities of your unit, and an objective way of costing them. If your opponent is fighting you, they then don't have to look at your orbat, search for it on wikipedia, find it in a different article, skim through it to try and find information about its range and miss the feature you use in counterattack - it's all there. It also means, say, when Monty costed AA (towed) as a lower amount and said that reduced ten, and I thought that might have been wrong, we have an objective and obvious way of deciding how much more or less its worth by being towed.
Yes, to do this properly would require a lot of work at the start to get all the tables up, and to redefine standard units. But once that's done, it would make everything a lot easier and hopefully help both military and non-military inclined people to understand units and their capabilities better and avoid disputes. There would obviously be new features we hadn't thought of - that would then be brought to the judge at the start of combat and a cost worked out there, instead of someone just putting on an overall cost we later decide is totally unfair.
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
That's the case in real life - who cares how much it cost to buy a plane; what matters is battle effectiveness. But this is a game, and that means we have two choices. First, we can take the "administrative" approach, where a judicial council type group who everyone agrees has authority sets prices for units and gives them specific capabilities, then you work off of the capabilities primarily. On the other hand, you can do a "self-working" approach, where you don't really have standardized units, except perhaps a few examples; people can define their units at whatever cost they want because the cost *defines* the effectiveness. Sure, it's not quite as realistic, but it's a whole lot simpler and gives players more time to concentrate on the fun parts of recwarring (i.e. not copypasta from Wiki.)Lord_Montague wrote:Its not the points but what you spend the points on.
Oh, it makes all kinds of sense - but again, only in the real world. In a game, it's just boring. If you can beat a video game by mashing on a single button that shoots missiles the whole time, it's no fun after five minutes. What I mean by clever is *interesting*. If you were to explain a battle to someone else, would it be boring (we had more missiles than them so they all died) or interesting (we tricked them into thinking we had split our fleet and destroyed them when they attacked our full force instead)? I enjoy being beaten by a cool move that I hadn't seem coming, but it's not fun to be beaten by a thousand dull missiles, or even to win on a technicality.Lord_Montague wrote:What you deem as silly strategy is what I would deem basic strategy. Firing more missiles than the opposition is effective and does thet job.
Valid, but not fun. That's honestly why I've never done any Anunia recwarring - it just doesn't look interesting to me. Maybe some people enjoy winning by superior firepower... we in the roleplaying crowd (yeah, that's us) call it powergaming and prefer unique or intriguing strategies because, above all, this is a game to be enjoyed! If you don't enjoy my way and I don't enjoy your way, I guess we won't play together...Lord_Montague wrote:Alternatively, I view missile barrages and application of overwhelming force as perfectly valid. I doubt we'll ever agree on what you call silly and I call clever but we need to accomodate each other in this and that is what Annunia has done until now and should continue to do.
Andreas the Wise wrote:Oh goodness ... you've just tempted me to do this NCM-style.
I don't know... I prefer just having everyone use generic units like "Anti-Air Station" or "Bomber Plane" and not worry too much about specifics, just if you want a better model, pay more to get it... to paraphrase Scott: if you accidentally attack a city that has anti-air, say "oops, I forgot you had anti-air, I guess I lose some planes," don't go look up statistics to prove that it is likely to be a misty day and mist creates rust in their specific model of anti-air that reduces their range by half and saves your plane...
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Re: Effectiveness, cost and useage
I would just like to suggest perhaps the number of offensive missiles should be less than number of defensive missiles / measures.
For instance, in the submarine battle, Demon of North was firing several torpedoes at me.As we all know, the ammo has to be fixed. On the submarine of the class I had, the max was 50 (if I remember correctly) with the ability to fire from the 4 torpedo tubes (or perhaps . Anyways, at this point, when Demon fired at me, I have the option of either going defensive or counter-attacking. I chose defensive as my priority were in saving the submarines as long as possible. So, that meant I had around 50 defensive equipment on board.
Now, assume in the above case one of my defensive submarines goes up against a similar submarine class of Demon's. Theoretically, if Demon keeps firing his torpedoes, and I keep firing my defensive torpedoes, then we both end up in stale mate. At the end of the day, Demon runs out of torpedoes to hit me with, and I run out of anti-torp torpedoes to defend myself with. Neither of us have the ability to hit the other (since we both used up our 50 allocated stores).
This post is mostly aimed at the missile issue.
The "strategy" in this case is what you choose your weapon systems and how you play it out. Sure it would piss off a few people (in above case Demon), but if you look at it, I can't do anything to him either, because I don't have any offensive capability.
So, point being:
1. When a unit (like submarine or aircraft or ship) has a well defined limited number of quantities of weapons it can carry, then that should be enforced. The participant need not inform what each of those numbers are (ie. offensive or defensive). That is left for the participant to choose when the time to use them comes.
2. When there does not exist a limit, an artificial mutually agreed limit should be put on the unit, prior to the usage of that unit. So, if I say I am using a Type 45 destroyer, and wiki has no mention on the missile number it can hold, then the judges should tell that this type can only have 100 missiles. it would be judge's duty to go find out as much as possible on type 45 destroyer, see what missiles it can fire, and then put a limit on it. if a destroyer can fire ICBMs for instance, then putting a limit of 100 is ridiculous. If it can only fire within visual range missiles, then 100 sounds quite low.
For instance, in the submarine battle, Demon of North was firing several torpedoes at me.As we all know, the ammo has to be fixed. On the submarine of the class I had, the max was 50 (if I remember correctly) with the ability to fire from the 4 torpedo tubes (or perhaps . Anyways, at this point, when Demon fired at me, I have the option of either going defensive or counter-attacking. I chose defensive as my priority were in saving the submarines as long as possible. So, that meant I had around 50 defensive equipment on board.
Now, assume in the above case one of my defensive submarines goes up against a similar submarine class of Demon's. Theoretically, if Demon keeps firing his torpedoes, and I keep firing my defensive torpedoes, then we both end up in stale mate. At the end of the day, Demon runs out of torpedoes to hit me with, and I run out of anti-torp torpedoes to defend myself with. Neither of us have the ability to hit the other (since we both used up our 50 allocated stores).
This post is mostly aimed at the missile issue.
The "strategy" in this case is what you choose your weapon systems and how you play it out. Sure it would piss off a few people (in above case Demon), but if you look at it, I can't do anything to him either, because I don't have any offensive capability.
So, point being:
1. When a unit (like submarine or aircraft or ship) has a well defined limited number of quantities of weapons it can carry, then that should be enforced. The participant need not inform what each of those numbers are (ie. offensive or defensive). That is left for the participant to choose when the time to use them comes.
2. When there does not exist a limit, an artificial mutually agreed limit should be put on the unit, prior to the usage of that unit. So, if I say I am using a Type 45 destroyer, and wiki has no mention on the missile number it can hold, then the judges should tell that this type can only have 100 missiles. it would be judge's duty to go find out as much as possible on type 45 destroyer, see what missiles it can fire, and then put a limit on it. if a destroyer can fire ICBMs for instance, then putting a limit of 100 is ridiculous. If it can only fire within visual range missiles, then 100 sounds quite low.