[PREV - MASKS] [TOP]
PLAY_BALANCE
January 10, 2005
Once upon a time (1980 or so)
I went through a minor wargaming Ogre was a science fiction scenario
phase, mostly playing some based on Laumer's "Bolo" stories.
"Microgames": "Ogre", "GEV", Lots of different kinds of small
and "Melee". tanks ganging up on an enormous
automated tank, the "Ogre".
Melee was a
suprisingly A cool game, but they blew
interesting it on "play balance".
game, an
attempt at It was later expanded, The attacker would always win
modeling tricked out with if they used a strategy of
medieval fantasy junk, and all GEVs (aka hovercrafts).
warfare. became the game
"Wizard", which I These had the unique
As far as never bothered with. capability of being able to
wargames go slide in quickly fire, and
it was No D&D for me, retreat before a
reasonably thank you. counter-attack could occur.
elegant.
Their next game
This is to say that attempted to fix the
playing it involved problem by weakening
detailed study of the the retreat phase of
rules, carefully the GEVs.
reading through the
tables of different Oddly enough, they
weapons you could called it "GEV",
assign to fighters though the GEVs were
crunching the numbers no longer crucial.
about different The design of
tradeoffs of strength wargames has
and dexterity, and so it's own
on. tradeoffs:
elegance vs.
I was playing realism;
this game with realism vs. The phrase "wargame"
an experienced play balance. suggests some attempt
opponent, and at capturing some
he already had aspects of reality.
his strategies
worked out. The original wargames
tended to be historical
Typically he would use very simulations, used to
moderate mixtures of strength learn something about
and dexterity, with weapons strategy and tactics.
from the middle of the chart,
and just a little bit of
armor.
My first attempt at creating a
"character" was to max out the
strength and let dexterity go
to the minimum, max out the armor This was the only
(including a shield on his back) "character" that
and have him carry the heaviest I bothered to name:
possible ax. "Wimpy the Burdensome".
He didn't last very long.
A blow from his ax *might*
be devastating, but in effect
he wasn't able to hit anything.
Another bright idea I had:
I noticed that there was a
special rule attached to
the light bows: a high
dexterity, unarmored,
fighter could fire them
twice in a turn. I tried a
few rapid-firing bowmen, My opponent commented
but while they could hit that he'd tried this
things at a distance, they strategy once, and had
could do only light damage, the same trouble with it.
and never against a fighter
wearing any armor.
This was getting distressing:
it was all very logical, but
how dull if the only reasonable
thing to do was to imitate my
opponent's moderate strategies,
and let the luck of the dice
settle the outcome...
But then I started having some
interesting thoughts... there
were these heavy cross-bows
whose primary flaw was that they
were incredibly slow to re-load
(three turns!). However it only
took *one* turn to change weapons,
so why not send a fighter into
battle with two, one in his hands, My opponent was impressed:
and one on his back? Then you he hadn't seen that idea before.
could pack a heavy attack into
the opening of the game, and
perhaps settle it quickly.
This was useful, but
nothing amazing.
Reading back and forth through
the rule book, I noted another
interesting loophole -- or rather
"simulation hack": spear weapons
did double damage on a "charge
attack". So the *first* hit
with something like a halbred
was really devastating, though
afterwards it was much like any
other weapon.
These heavy halbreds required
a lot of strength, so the
dexterity hit could be a
problem. I thought of a way
to compensate slightly: wear
no armor.
We played a few games where
I relied heavily on a lot of
unarmored warriors with I supplemented them
heavy halbreds. In the opening with one double
of the game, I would have two heavy-crossbow guy.
gang up on one opposing fighter:
the second attack was generally
fatal, leaving the heavy halbred
men free to charge at yet another
target.
This was looking to me like
an unbeatable strategy.
Had they blown it and
pulled another "Ogre"?
Before we put the game
aside for the last time, (We were students in
I asked him what he physics and engineering:
would do if he knew in it's amazing we found time
advance that I was to play several sessions
going to hit him with of this game.)
unarmored heavy halbreds.
He thought for a moment
and said he would try
the radid-firing bowmen.
And indeed, those might
be effective against
unarmored opponents.
Which improved my opinion
of the game immensely:
different strategies could
be effective under different
circumstances.
How depressing if the only path to success
was to imitate the already successful.
--------
[NEXT - INSIDE_AND_OUT]