Also, this post will be whatever I do, so I'm going to try and use headings and stuff and not do much explanation, so hopefully you all know me/the war well enough to get what I'm saying.
OOC Purpose of War
The major cause of problems in recwars is and remains different OOC purposes in the war. In this case, between people who thought it was a test war to do crazy stuff in, and those who thought it was a serious war to do cool backstory in. No system can deal with this, really. My suggestion is just that we all have the unofficial policy that when we start a war, we include a "Statement of Intent" explaining the OOC purpose of the war. Including things like
- Illusion War or Real?
- Is there a predetermined winner/storyline?
- If not, what (if anything) does winning entail?
- Is there a particular focus on backstory, tactics or both?
- Appropriate tech level (including is magic allowed).
We need more than the current four types of movement. I would suggest at least a 2000 km level of movement costed at 5%. We also need to make it clear that for everything except teleport, distance and speed is the key factors in what you pay and the types are only examples (ie a ship could pay to move more than 500 km in a day, and would pay the fly cost). For teleport, distance is unlimited and speed is instantaneous - it's a special category.
Actually, question. You pay for eight hours of movement. Does that mean I can move for 10 hours to go 600 km and pay 2%? If that's allowed, that wasn't obvious.
Movement - Feasibility
This was always intended but we should explicitly state in the charter: "You can use any movement method which is feasible for your unit, as long as your unit pays the appropriate movement cost. If your unit does not explicitly include naval, air or teleportational transportation methods, it is commonly assumed that you can get these from friendly/neutral cities to other friendly/neutral locations. For example, if you are Gralan, you can take a ship from Rillanon to Port of Sails; or a plane from Novatica to Hamuji. Teleport for hire is available within Gralan cities and sites of magical learning; but not from anywhere else."
Movement - Cost
Note (since it wasn't clear) - you pay the % of the unit's current points value, not its original points value.
Stealth
See here for some comments on stealth and whether we need extra point costs for it.
Thinking a little more myself, it would be of clear value for secret moves which don't instantly result in an attack. Like stealthing to get yourself in a good location for a later ambush. There should probably be a cost for that separate from the cost of the attack itself. This could possibly be covered by "anti-recon" points.
Balancing Units
The key question for this system has centred on the balancing of units. If a unit has a large range of powers compared to another unit, how does that affect it's tactics modifier? What constitutes a large range of powers? And what about weaknesses?
A few things which came out semi-clearly:
- Don't take this war as the be-all-and-end-all judging canon, we're all still learning the system.
- The range of powers thing should be compared for each particular battle, not considered in general. ie "Do I have a larger range of powers/weaknesses compared to the unit I'm fighting?" not "Do I have a large range of powers/weaknesses?"
- Strengths/Weaknesses should be specified for non-obvious units if you want them to affect the judges decision. (non-obvious units are things that aren't "Infantry", "Fighter", "Bomber", "Tank" etc, including "Kraken" "Ninja Squad" and "Amphibious Vehicle")
- Remember that because sizes aren't generally specified, in battle those should be considered to have a balancing aspect (eg 100 point infantry division with a lot of extra weapons vs a standard 100 point infantry division; the one with lots of extra weapons has less men or less well trained men).
- The judge should do a bit more scrutiny of units before starting the war, just to pick up any obvious balance issues.
This never came up but is a question I want answered. Do the original points value of the attacking and defending units make a difference in combat; or is it only the points expended in the attack.
Example: Two infantry divisions go up against eachother.
If they use the same tactics in all cases, do the following combinations of attacks make any difference to the resulting tactics modifier?
- 600 point division attack a 200 point division with a 10 point attack.
- 600 points division attack a 200 point division with a 100 point attack.
- 600 points division attack a 200 point division with a 200 point attack.
- 200 points division attack a 600 point division with a 100 point attack.
- 300 points division attack a 300 point division with a 100 point attack.
I think it was confirmed that "Public movements of major armies with no attempt to conceal yourself are common knowledge", otherwise phrased as "basic recon is free." But we should flesh out a little more at one times you don't know what your opponent did in a public move, and what recon can find exactly.
Assumptions
This is a big one. We need to make more assumptions clearer. I'll give you one very simple example from the war.
You have a carrier you're moving across the ocean in a public move. You make no references to trying to hide or looking out for enemy units. Should we assume you are doing both? What difference (if any) does it make if you do specify both those things?
Summaries and Godmodding
No changes to charter needed; people just now know that Gralans write a "this is I how I intend to start the battle" summary and not a "this is exactly what happens including your response" thing. And some of us have been reminded to make it clearer that it's an intention.
Orbatting
This was a test war, and we all took a casual approach to orbatting, vaguely mentioning powers and expecting people to guess weaknesses. That was fine for a test war, but after this we need to go back to orbatting much better and more explicitly. In particular:
- State maximum unaided movement type of that unit. (eg If an infantry unit is not assumed to also have transport, say it's Walk; if it is assumed to have transport, don't just assume it, say it, and say it's Drive). This does not preclude hiring movement from cities, but tells everyone what you can do without it.
- State clearly any movement aid type things as part of a unit. Like Aircraft carriers, or a mage's ability to teleport.
- State clearly the abilities and main weaknesses of the unit. A wikipedia link is not enough, do it in the orbat so we can all see at a quick scan.
- Also, state in particular any abilities that can be used for recon/anti-recon.
- State equipment, at least basically.
Unorbatted Units
From now on, don't orbat units without points attached. Good, that solved the Carrier problem. But as a related issue, if people charter transport from a city (which is by definition unorbatted) and you attack it in a manner consistent with attacking that type of transport but not attacking the unit itself, how does that play out?
Magic
Everything I've said for orbatted units applies double for magic units, because they have no basis in earth reality. Particularly particularly since we don't have clear charters up (at least when we had charters the exact limits of magical ability was explained, if not in the orbat itself). Fides and I were super-casual because it was a test war, but that sort of level of casualness is not appropriate in a proper war (and we know that).
Also, a reminder - at any point during the war (if you had had units able to do so, like a Ninja Squad) you could have tried to gag Fides or I, which would have stopped us casting (Focus Requirement), which would have got you huge tactics bonuses. Actually, that raises a valid point.
Disabling Units
Can the system handle this, or not? Probably not. Just thought I'd ask.
Tactics Modifiers
It would be nice if some example combats for each set of tactic modifiers could be written up.
We're not fighting battles anymore, we're fighting sub-attacks
This came through more at the end. This is no longer Anunia where you say: "I throw this part of my army at you, doing these things."
"Well I respond doing this."
"Well I do this in response to that."
"Hang on, you can't do that."
*argue for five pages*
Judge: "This is the result, now please stop arguing or invoking Wikipedia"
Instead, what happens is "I do this, with this many points spent on the attack."
"I defend in this manner."
Judge: "The tactics modifier is this, take this much damage."
"I now continue the battle with this move."
etc.
Still not convinced this is a good thing, but it does appear, in retrospect, to be how the system is designed.
It's still probably helpful to email the judge contingency plans anyway.
Defence
It's still a little unclear (for me at least) what "defence" is meant to entail. Is it strictly "I do this defensively" or "I counterattack this way" or both?
It certainly should not include new movement (which should be posted after the fight is resolved), unless your defence is "I run away very fast."
Who are you attacking?
Just specify exactly which units you're attacking, and preferably location to, to avoid confusion.
Orbats on the Wiki
This is actually in the system but wasn't used. I think (having given it more thought) that this would be good as it allows you to pay for secret moves, recon and anti-recon without having to yell "I'm paying this many points to stop you doing recon on me" (which kinda defeats the purpose). Obviously still email the judge. And it keeps an up-to-date record of our orbats clearly for mid-war viewing.
I didn't re-listen to ART, so I hope there may have been more points made there that I missed. But there's the one from these threads.