====== OGRE Digest, April 25th, 2003 (Last: April 19th) ======== ===== mines for hexes From: "Chris French" ===== Strategic Ogre From: "Chris French" ===== Sort-of on-topic From: "Chris French" ===== Henry's Pyramid Article. From: Fish Flowers ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: mines for hexes > From: David Morse > Seems reasonable, but I postulated higher costs because I wanted mines > to be practical in Breakthrough. I guess that's just not possible while > still having them practical in any other scenario. What makes "Breakthrough" so different, except for the fact that the GEV side actually has to pass through the chokepoints on the northern half of the map? > Imagine if the defense could buy these suckers in Iron Mountain. Sad mr > Ogre Mark III-B would lose before getting in range. "Iron Mountain" is about the worst _O_ scenario I've ever seen. It's merely a question of how many track shots the armor force can make; the scenario could just as easily be played by having the armor side's player roll a series of 1-1 attacks and see if he can score a certain number of X results in a certain number of turns. No strategy, no nothing. > [If you've got lots of time you can make a dandy defense. Iron > Mountain has always been a race scenario. I wouldn't allow hidden mine > emplacement during a scenario. I think what he's saying is that if mines of *any* kind are allow- ed, the scenario coughs and dies. (Imagine allowing a special mine-deployment tank into the scenario....) > Ogre AP guns are only D1 but they can't be destroyed by any amount of > spillover fire -HJC] Yes, well OGRE equipment also gets to ignore D results. The number of 5s and 6s required to off an OGRE makes even pro- fessional die-roll-finessers choke. ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: Strategic Ogre > From: David Morse > Cyberbrains are expensive and only put on the largest units in 2050. By > 2090 they're still expensive, and still only put on the largest units. > If anything, the units are getting bigger and bigger. That, or (in a total reversal of what really happens during a war) all sides cease development of new equipment in favor of mass production of what is already available. (This may explain why the Last War accomplished exactly nothing -- I haven't seen judgment this bad since Germany in the 1940s.) I suspect the lack of proper cyborg development is related to the fact that even in "basic" _OGRE_, humans don't count for much; if the cyberbrains were allowed to develop at a "realistic" rate, humanity would be hopelessly irrelevant. > If computers were doubling every 18 monoths, and given that in 2071 its > cost effective to buy a cyberbrain for a Mark III, by 2081 it should be > cost effective to put in a LGEV, and by 2087 it should be cost effective > to build terminators instead of battlesuits. Since that does not > happen, Steve is saying computing hits the brick wall right after > self-awareness. See above. > To get all philosophical, I'm bitter I'm not a super-genius, and who > isn't? I wonder if evolution has hit an intelligence brick wall? That > is to say, intelligence doesn't help you reproduce. Only in societies where the intelligence-deficient are not pre- vented from breeding. The current wall is that every square inch of usable land is claimed by someone -- there's nowhere to expand, save at the expense of one's neighbors. > But last issue you just got done saying it paid to examine these guys > against various strawman armor forces. [...] > That's all I'm saying. Actually, what I was trying to say was that if a Mk. 6 was put against a Mk. 5 and Mk. 4 (I think that was it) -- anyway, in an OGRE-only fight, the value of an OGRE changes, since a good bit of its weapons cannot be used. In the article in question, the *only* fight being discussed was OGRE-v.-OGRE, as if that was the only sort of fight an OGRE ever got into. No mention was made of OGRE-v.-armor, or -INF, fights. > (er, it just occurs to me that we've been assuming the book value of 100 > VP for the Mark III, while literally every player I've talked to > believes its more like 90-96. I'm not sure what people think about the > Mark V's value) Same problem -- a Mk. I is useless against its cost in SHVYs or HVYs, but if the force is required to have INF, its value increa- ses. > Alas, the quad-Fencer must continue to wage a guerilla war for its > return to canon. Its weapon: close in firepower and/// Its two weapons: > close in firepower and out-of-print rules, and/// Its weapons include: > close in firepower, out-of-print rules, an almost fanatatical devotion > from the fan base, and/// Among its weapons are such DIVERSE ELEMENTS > as: close in firepower, out-of-print rules, an almost fanatical devotion > from the fan base, and the challenge of a cool kit-bash... You're a loony. :) > End Stevie-subsidised infantry today! Let market forces decide the > frequency of infantry! If _OGRE_ had anything to do with "real" warfare, as opposed to one-off set-piece ass-kickings, INF and MIL would be useful. > [The reference I think you are thinking of is older than some of the > folks on this list. That may be, but NOBODY EXPECTS the arcane references. :) > [There are some multiplayer scenarios where you gain points by blasting > other Ogres, but don't lose any points for getting blasted yourself. > > Therefore if you can inflict a lot of damage and then destroy your own > Ogre you win. -HJC] In my Car Wars group, we had a rule: A surviving player almost always finished above a dead one. We gave 1 point for killing a foe, -1 for being killed, and 1 for being the "survivor" (last car running). The only way to win and die was to wipe out half the field before getting whacked one's-self. This seems to suggest that these scenarios need to increase the "death penalty" for players. CF ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: Sort-of on-topic I was thinking about theatre-sized _OGRE_ battles, and I thought of a *REALLY* old SJG game, which I have never been able to find a copy of, yet might be helpful. It's called _One-Page Bulge_. As the name suggests, it's a simulation of the Battle Of The Bulge, with the rules on a single 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper (double-sided, I suspect). Does anyone have a copy of this? If so, do you think it might be useful? CF ===== [SJGames was making noises about rereleasing OPB as a boxed game and then everybody saw the pricetag. I'd like to see the SJ classics released as a bunch of games on one CD for $30 or so. Just to get their name out to the PC or console gaming crowd. -HJC] ============================== From: Fish Flowers Subject: Henry's Pyramid Article. Great article in Pyramid this week by Henry, which fixes a lot of the problems which infantry face in GURPS Ogre. (I was just looking at G:Ogre a week ago, trying once more to figure out how it was infantry were supposed to do anything except die.) Thanks, Henry. Fish. ===== [See: http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/ I was just about to give up on that one. My main goal was to show the basis for the 3/1 infantry platoon in GURPS terms and I also worked out exactly how to do that 8 minute mile militia while lugging around nuclear missiles. If my SATNUC fixes are accepted the next trick is to figure out how to rework Battlesuit so that it is compatible with both GEV and GURPS and usable for miniatures. -HJC] ============================== Send all submissions or mailing list changes or problems to ogre@sjgames.com Archives for this mailing list may be found at http://www.io.com/~hcobb/ General online support for the OGRE game is at http://www.sjgames.com/ogre Ogre, G.E.V., Shockwave and other products mentioned here are trademarks or registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy at http://www.sjgames.com/general/online_policy.html