Unit Costing - Review
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Unit Costing - Review
Since everyone's bringing up new topics, I might as well throw this in.
When I originally wrote Anunia, I said I was just taking the costing system from SNARL. And I thought I was. But having talked to people that helped write SNARL recently, and observing the reaction of people from the early days of SNARL who missed the original writing up of Anunia, I find that what I actually did was take the Novatainian/Tokish interpretation of SNARL costing and put that in.
The problem comes when people look at it and think it's just SNARL and so the system breaks down, as happened in the Jasonian war.
In the Novatainian/Tokish interpretation of points, the points cost of a unit = its fighting strength (where 1 point = 1 standard modern infantry unit). Description is secondary to this. So, traditional example, if a 5000 point army attacks a 3000 point army, and all other factors are even, the 5000 point army will win. Obviously most battles have other factors (strategy, morale, location etc) different and so 5000 does not automatically beat 3000, but in the Novatainian/Tokish interpretation, points are still a primary deciding factor. The beauty of this system is that it's entirely self-regulating with regards to costing. If I choose to put in a bomber and cost it at 3000, and someone else just takes the standard and costs it at 1000, my bomber is three times better than their bomber. Even if I didn't describe my bomber in great detail, because its costed like that, it is stronger. If everyone understands and accepts that, the system works fine and its impossible to cheat in your orbat costing. If normal tanks are 40 and you put yours in as 20, then even if you describe them as the most awesome tank ever, they're still only half as good as a normal tank.
What SNARL originally had was nothing as strict, just a general, "Your armies should be of similar strength, so if I have 25000 men, you should only have 5 ships" and similar. The way this became most evident in the Jasonian war was with the implication that a unit's description is the way of determining its fighting strength, so if you'd costed your plane the same as other people, but described it with more powerful weapons etc, it should win more fights.
If you have people doing both, obviously the system breaks down, because one group are making their units more expensive (and thus have less) to keep strength fair; and others are making their units standard costs (and thus have more) but giving the units more advanced descriptions, and claiming their strength is more.
Now, my person preference is for the Novatainian/Tokish interpretation to be enforced, as its written in Anunia. But I recognise that there were a lot of people who didn't realise that and have been acting the other way, and may well prefer continuing to act the other way. But we need to decide on one way and enforce it, even if that means I'm outvoted and we go with the Convention just having unit costs, and you use that cost but pick your description and so the strength of your unit is based on the description.
The choice not only has implications for how orbats and battles are decided, but also for how much work the Unit Costing member has to have. If points are self regulating, the points in the Convention are just general guidelines, and what you cost it at determines its strength. But if descriptions determine strength, then it's more important that we have a lot of units defined in the charter at reasonable point values to balance the overall size of armies, and the Unit Costing member has more of a responsibility to check orbats aren't getting away with units who's description makes them totally overpowered for their points cost.
[This also flows into how battles are decided and whether battles should be decided quickly (like one or two posts for each combatant then just agreeing to points lost for each side, or a judge imposed solution a day or two later) to keep the war moving fast, or whether they should be decided accurately (by a blow by blow work through of the whole battle, which might mean individual battles take a week or more to resolve) and slows down the war accordingly. But that's a different topic and if you want to discuss that should be started in a different thread]
When I originally wrote Anunia, I said I was just taking the costing system from SNARL. And I thought I was. But having talked to people that helped write SNARL recently, and observing the reaction of people from the early days of SNARL who missed the original writing up of Anunia, I find that what I actually did was take the Novatainian/Tokish interpretation of SNARL costing and put that in.
The problem comes when people look at it and think it's just SNARL and so the system breaks down, as happened in the Jasonian war.
In the Novatainian/Tokish interpretation of points, the points cost of a unit = its fighting strength (where 1 point = 1 standard modern infantry unit). Description is secondary to this. So, traditional example, if a 5000 point army attacks a 3000 point army, and all other factors are even, the 5000 point army will win. Obviously most battles have other factors (strategy, morale, location etc) different and so 5000 does not automatically beat 3000, but in the Novatainian/Tokish interpretation, points are still a primary deciding factor. The beauty of this system is that it's entirely self-regulating with regards to costing. If I choose to put in a bomber and cost it at 3000, and someone else just takes the standard and costs it at 1000, my bomber is three times better than their bomber. Even if I didn't describe my bomber in great detail, because its costed like that, it is stronger. If everyone understands and accepts that, the system works fine and its impossible to cheat in your orbat costing. If normal tanks are 40 and you put yours in as 20, then even if you describe them as the most awesome tank ever, they're still only half as good as a normal tank.
What SNARL originally had was nothing as strict, just a general, "Your armies should be of similar strength, so if I have 25000 men, you should only have 5 ships" and similar. The way this became most evident in the Jasonian war was with the implication that a unit's description is the way of determining its fighting strength, so if you'd costed your plane the same as other people, but described it with more powerful weapons etc, it should win more fights.
If you have people doing both, obviously the system breaks down, because one group are making their units more expensive (and thus have less) to keep strength fair; and others are making their units standard costs (and thus have more) but giving the units more advanced descriptions, and claiming their strength is more.
Now, my person preference is for the Novatainian/Tokish interpretation to be enforced, as its written in Anunia. But I recognise that there were a lot of people who didn't realise that and have been acting the other way, and may well prefer continuing to act the other way. But we need to decide on one way and enforce it, even if that means I'm outvoted and we go with the Convention just having unit costs, and you use that cost but pick your description and so the strength of your unit is based on the description.
The choice not only has implications for how orbats and battles are decided, but also for how much work the Unit Costing member has to have. If points are self regulating, the points in the Convention are just general guidelines, and what you cost it at determines its strength. But if descriptions determine strength, then it's more important that we have a lot of units defined in the charter at reasonable point values to balance the overall size of armies, and the Unit Costing member has more of a responsibility to check orbats aren't getting away with units who's description makes them totally overpowered for their points cost.
[This also flows into how battles are decided and whether battles should be decided quickly (like one or two posts for each combatant then just agreeing to points lost for each side, or a judge imposed solution a day or two later) to keep the war moving fast, or whether they should be decided accurately (by a blow by blow work through of the whole battle, which might mean individual battles take a week or more to resolve) and slows down the war accordingly. But that's a different topic and if you want to discuss that should be started in a different thread]
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