============ OGREverse list, Jan 31st (Last: Jan 29th) ============= ===== Militia Madness From: Preston Gustine ===== Computer OGRE From: Terry Overton ------------------------------ From: Preston Gustine Subject: Militia Madness Militia? ok how does this sound then. Sure an army could field dozens of militia / non-PA troops for the cost of a few PA troops, but look at the trade off. PA troops have a god 2cm of BPC between them and the battlefield. Militia 1/2 cm of a rubberized NBC suit. Guess who's going to be ventilated fastest. Giving rise to morale, a PA trooper is going to feel pretty cocky, he's a walking tank after all, while Mr. militia is going to be hugging that cover and staying as far away from an Ogre as he can. The PA trooper is going to see a buddy go down in a fight, and while thinking "my god that could have been me" he's also thinking, "damn GEV, OVERRUN" well maybe not those words, but he knows he has a good chance against more armor vehicle he's going to face. Militia aren't as lucky, in all reality (yes I know it is a fiction based game) that militia guy is going to say to himself "hmmm my rubber NBC suit vs. Hyper-velocity rounds?? nah I'm going home" PA troops, more lifting power and mobility = more firepower per man. Militia, good old mussel and bone to lug those weapons around, need lighter weapons with less fire power = more militia to equal strength of PA troops. To follow that string lets say 15 militia troops equal 5 PA troops, a 1/1 counter (stand) in the game. Now look at logistics, that 1/1 PA armor units needs only the food, clothing, shelter, and pay of 5 men. Where as the 1/1 militia is triple that. Granted initial costs for PA troops is greater then militia, but in the long run you are paying more in material for the militia then PA. As for those massed numbers of light GEVs, same thing really, look at all the maintenance time that would be sunk into them. 2 Lt. GEVs per normal GEV = x1.5 maintenance time minimum. Which also means more crews to operate the Lt. GEVs, and to fix, arm, repair. I guess in short what I'm saying is a large number of "fuzzy wuzzy" units will push you well beyond the point of diminishing returns. Such units are better as support, back-up, rear-guard duties then as front line assault troops. Counter argument: Hey I'm still spending less for my militia and Lt. GEVs than I would for an Ogre. True, but using some logic in the setting of the game here's the counter to the argument. An Ogre Mk III costs say 20 million to make and arm, and equal amount of militia and Lt. GEVs say 15 million, hey 5 million for the same amount of power. In the resulting fight the Ogre is knocked out but at the cost of roughly 80% of the conventional force. The Militia commander is saying "Hey I spend 12 million to waste 20 million of my opponent's, I win" But look at how the battlefield stands. The owner of the Ogre is more then likely going to send a salvage crew to get back the hull of the Ogre. It may be weapon and treadless, but the CPU is still there. I'm sure the militia commander would love to get his hands on that hull too, but his troops are lacking protecting to the hard radiation coming off that Ogre, so they can't go at it right away. Second, they are down to 20% strength, as such anything that comes and sneezes near them will knock them out of action completely. They can't hold the objective and the Ogre hull, they don't have the strength. Now comes the refit. That blown-away Ogre was 20 million brand new, bet most of that was in the CPU and other neat AI systems, treads and weapons are going to be comparatively cheap, that's why that hull is so valuable. Probably will run 10 million to refit that Ogre. The militia, needing 80% resupply well that's 12 million, ouch 2 million more then the Ogre. So our Ogre is up to a grand total of 30 million, the militia 27 million, not much cost savings huh? Add to it, who's going to stick around to join the cannon fodder crew? "You come here! You have been volunteered to fill the ranks of a unit that just suffered an 80% casualty count in at 45 minute battle. You are to attack the same Ogre, newly refitted and stop it once more." doesn't sound very cheery does it? ----- [I have grave doubts about refiting even lightly damaged OGREs. When's the last time we worried about recovering a cruise missile? (And those aren't even radioactive anymore!) So how about giving every OGRE a suicide bomb? (to avoid surrendering our latest software patches to the enemy) The effect is the same as a cruise missile, seven inches further away, minus one inch per Mark number, shifted to the left one column on the CRT. (Mark One annoys anybody it's overruning with a 1-2 attack, Mark Six leaves a one-inch crater) To balance this, use the Golden BB (http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/articles/goldbb.html), with the adjustment that all attacks during a fire phase directed at any item on the OGRE count one-half towards the critical attempt. (When an OGRE criticals, roll one die, on a six it explodes anyway...) So the overruning a helpless OGRE rule is changed so that at the end of the third overrun fire phase that an OGRE is unable to engage any of it's attackers, it is programmed to automatically self-destruct. (Are you sure that you wish to stack your OGREs?) For the militia, the choice isn't three times as much infantry on foot for the cost of the suits, it's three times as much infantry in armored hovertrucks for the cost of the suits. -HJC] ------------------------------ From: Terry Overton Subject: Computer OGRE > From: "Todd A. Zircher" > > [The OGRE Minis book is complete for playing the minis > > version of the game, but the (eternally? ;-) out of print > > board game has been more sucessful in adaptions to computer > > play. > > True, but given the state of gaming technology today. I > feel that only a game based on the look and feel of the > miniatures game would have any chance of commercial success. I disagree. It depends on which player group you are targeting. The minis rules would translate to a better Warcraft/Starcraft type game, while the classic rules would make a better strategy game like Panzer General or the games produced by TalonSoft or 360 Pacific. The latter group would tend to focus more on tactics/game mechanics as opposed to the more beer&pretzels approach of the real-time genre. Of course there's no reason why you can't have the best of both worlds and let the user decide which play mode they prefer... TJ Overton ----- [Why not take up the discussion on the Ogre On Computer message board (http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/board/) before they close it down? -HJC] Henry J. Cobb ogre@sjgames.com http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 1999, by Steve Jackson Games.