Re: [Fwd: Re: XConq playable intermittently?]

[bob at fla dot fujitsu dot com (Bob Carragher)]

shebs@shebs.cnchost.com sez:

> Bob Carragher wrote:
>
> That was one of the rationales for allowing fewer independent
> cities in the standard game - less chance for a random setup
> to be severely imbalanced.  I've been thinking about how to
> reduce the influence of production capability overall, perhaps
> by adding some sort of "overhead penalty", or limiting the
> total number of units a side can have at any one time.

While I wouldn't necessarily argue against such an "overhead
penalty" immediately, I would point out that, as one's
territory expands and one's frontiers move significantly
beyond one's original, "core" territory, the production
there becomes less useful because (in a large world) it takes
a lot of time and effort to transport such units to the fronts.

I would not want a limit on the number of units a given side
can produce, because that may be necessary to break a
stalemate against a powerful opponent (or allied group).

> > If one drops out for maybe 2 or 3 turns, then that would not
> > be traumatic.  One must take bathroom breaks when necessary.  B-)
> > But a drop-out of, say, 5-10 turns (heaven forbid more) would
> > be suicidal, particularly in the early, exploratory phase of
> > a game.  At that point, the lost production really hurts.  Put
> > another way, your opponent's increased production will enable
> > him to do more things while simultaneously increasing his area
> > surveyed and his number of neutral towns acquired.  Bottom line:
> > do you really want to do that?
> 
> You'd probably want to choose particular setup options.  For instance,
> world-seen eliminates the exploration phase, and you could make
> players' starting countries larger while reducing the numbers of
> independent towns.

Okay, I could see how "world-seen" would eliminate that
disadvantage in the early game.  However, I've come to feel
that that should be part of one's strategy.  After all, how
do you quickly explore your environment while simultaneously
preparing your defenses against a surprise attack?  It's a
very interesting tactical exercise for me, and the most
exciting when I can find no humans to also play against me
(which is almost always).  Maybe that's my problem.  Maybe
if I had 2-3 regular human opponents, then this would not be
such a big deal.

In any case, even if one knew the complete lay of the land
and where all the neutrals were located, loss of early game
production costs one exponentially in the long run, I think.
It's just very bad to be idle that early.

On the issue of reducing independent towns, I'm a little
dubious of that as well.  In a large world, it becomes
difficult-to-impossible to transport ones units, in fighting
condition (read: with enough supplies to combat), to the
front if one doesn't have enough way stations.  Bases are
useful, but their usefulness can be limited without an
organized effort to keep them thoroughly supplied.

				Bob