Re: (Mac?) Interface q's

[Jim Kingdon <kingdon at panix dot com>]

> First, how common is use of the Sequential option? I prefer this form
> of play, since I am usually playing solitaire.

The screwy part is that Sequential affects the game balance (at least
in the standard game).  Basically, it is a pretty big advantage to
move second, because the first-moving player will often expend their
ACPs and thus be unable to counter-attack.  The second-moving player
doesn't have the chance to choose to spend the ACPs on movement rather
than counter-attack, but they do have the ability to spend the ACPs on
counter-attack if there are any attacks, and then use them for
something else if there were no attacks.  The only way the
first-moving player can get a counter-attack is to put units in
reserve, and taken to an extreme, this would mean never moving.

Playing against the AI, if you set non-sequential, the AI will
typically move first (unless you type pretty fast).  If you set
sequential, it depends on the order of the sides in the sides list.
So for a challenging game, set sequential and make sure you are first
on the list, before the AI(s).

With human vs human, there is an incentive to stall.  Stan once
mentioned something to me about wanting some kind of feature to give a
timeout or compulsion to move or something.  I suspect that
re-thinking the combat system might be a cleaner solution (although
hardly a small one - even with all its flaws the standard game has
generally been more balanced/enjoyable than most of the others that
I've tried, including some combat model 1 games).