====== OGRE Digest, May 4th, 2003 (Last: April 29th) ======== ===== future military history From: David Morse ===== House Call From: "Chris French" ===== Vulcans... From: David Morse ============================== From: David Morse Subject: future military history In GEV, Shockwave, Ogre, and O. Scen. Book 1 we see a lot of "typical" battles of the last war. What we don't see are the atypical, BIG battles, the ones that were major turning points. At least reading the history in Gurps Ogre I get the feeling that one RAID or one CEASEFIRE COLLAPSE doesn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things. I set out to write the history of a really big, really meaningful battle. As usual, the Combine is the attacker, and as usual, its got a big ol' Ogre. Actually about TWENTY Ogres. The goal, as usual, is to destroy enemy command & control, in this case: the Kremlin, with the long term goal of knocking Russia out of the PanEuropean Federation. It is the summer of 2092: >>> http://66.93.230.14/~dm/ogre/dinochrome.html <<< Chris French: > If _OGRE_ had anything to do with "real" warfare, as opposed > to one-off set-piece ass-kickings, INF and MIL would be useful. Can't argue with that. But the extremely high point value of infantry actually makes them even more outmatched in fights, since the cost of losing them is so high. When you lose runaway games of RAID, a contributing factor is the attacker's ability to convert your 20 squads to 60 vp. > 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. That's fine and well, and I've had a lot of fun with those sorts of games. Let me predict what your games play like: The winner tries to cement alliances or pick on cripples, in either case the aim is the same: pick on someone you can definately beat. In the end, the winner will rarely have faced an equal foe. Contrast this to the design of Excersise T ( http://66.93.230.14/~dm/ogre/exercise-t.html ), where you actually get a payoff for fighting the good fight. The scoring model is so solid that its even fun to play 3 player. I just gotta patch that one little loophole on self-inflicted damage. :) ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: House Call > [I have a scenario that showcases hoverized infantry at > http://www.io.com/~hcobb/gev/2002/gevmay23.txt Umm, why does the Attacker gets points both for searching hexes, *and* for blowing the s*** out of them? Doesn't that make the searching part of the exercise kind-of (excuse the pun) pointless? > I'm thinking of something that cuts way back on the GURPS complexity > and has maybe half a dozen numbers for a battlesuited grunt. -HJC] Half a dozen? _O_ only needs four; _B_ had *three* (add the first, subtract the second, and roll the dice). > From: Fred Kiesche You have _An Eternal Golden Braid_ too, huh? (My SO has one.) > Subject: Howdy (A Reintroduction) > (via Allen > Varney, where is he these days?) I wanna know where Chad Irby is. :) > (we typed it up on an > IBM Selectric!!!) Ah, the Psychotic Golf Ball typewriters. I recall with fondness the look on the face of someone in a typing class I was teacher's aid for who had not secured the ball correctly before hitting the SHIFT key. Shot the ball halfway across the classroom; still don't know how she managed it. :) "Fore!" > (mostly in California, something about the NJ > weather that drives them away!). Or the toxic-waste-mutated Great Whites off the coast.... :) "We're gonna need a bigger boat." "Well, USS _Intrepid_ is in New York harbor...." >I'm in the process of > selling off most of my gaming collection, but will > still keep Ogre/GEV, a few RPG's such as Universe and > EPT, and a pile of "board" style games such as > Triplanetary. And MG microgames, of course!!!! You wouldn't have a spare set of _One-Page Bulge_, would you? :) CF ===== [The Combine isn't going to hold the ground and this is a terrorist training ground, so why not grab everything you can see and then blow everything else up? -HJC] ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Vulcans... If BPC is expensive, why go to the bother of putting meters of BPC on Ogre Vulcans? I'd think a foot would do, and keep the cost down. Just a thought. -Dave ===== [Same reason it's got AP guns. When you're doing OGRE recovery, you can expect things to get a little hot. -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