====== OGRE Digest, May 7th, 2003 (Last: May 4th) ======== ===== Question about infantry cost From: "Clayton Springer" From: "David & Robin" ===== future military history From: stephan beal From: "Chris French" ============================== From: "Clayton Springer" Subject: Question about infantry cost All I really want to know is the answer to this question: Why do infantry platoons cost 6? I suggest they are twice as expensive as they should be. I would like to hear the reasoning behind making them so expensive. I might add that: Most of the advice in GEV centers around more and more hvy tanks. (At the expense of GEV and Missle tanks.) Allowing 2 platoons for a hvy tank, will give the player who takes all hvy tanks something to think about. While Missle tanks (and GEV) can probably gobble up infantry. ===== [I personally am rather infamous for the LGEV devouring swarm technique. In the clear 6 Heavies are attacked by a dozen LGEVs, getting 1 kill and 2 disrupts. Then rather than sensibly backing up, the LGEVs overrun the three alert tanks and destory them at a cost of one LGEV per tank killed. And then the nine surviving LGEVs buzz through this hole in the line to raise havoc. Putting a squad on top of each tank helps ward off such silliness. You can see my logic (such as it is) for costing infantry at 6VPs per platoon at http://www.io.com/~hcobb/gev/infantry.htm -HJC] ===== From: "David & Robin" Subject: Question about infantry cost In my opinion Infantry really shine in Ogre. The small, tight map, and the Infantry's ability to scramble across rubble lines make them very nasty little buggers. On GEV maps it is a very different story. They are just too slow and too short ranged to be much use. The GEV-PC and the ability to hitch rides on tanks help, but leave the infantry vulnerable to spillover fire. I haven't played OM enough to know how infantry fare there. The specialist infantry types are nice, but at twice the price of regular infantry I seldom find them worth taking. If only a GEV-PC/Infantry discount combo was available, then they might start to seem cost effective. ============================== From: stephan beal Subject: future military history > From: David Morse > PanEuropean Federation. It is the summer of 2092: > >>> http://66.93.230.14/~dm/ogre/dinochrome.html <<< Great stuff, David! Two extremely minor grammar/typo things: - At one place "under way" should have been "underway" (i think). - In the next-to-last paragraph: "you've got a foe that dehumanized" i think it should be ".... that's dehumanized..." This passage: Grendel made it to the very foot of the Urals, before being pinned between a sheer cliff face and a PanEuropean Huscarl. Grendel nuked the cliff face and permanently buried both Ogres. Reminds me very much of a scene i read in one of the Bolo books about 12 years ago, where a Bolo is hidden under debris for years before some kid(?) wakes it up. The question now is: have you actually played out such a scenario? It sounds like it'd take several days. ===== [Sleeping Bolos seem to be as common as sleeping princesses, but who'd want to kiss one? -HJC] ===== From: "Chris French" Subject: future military history > From: David Morse > 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. [opinion] I don't think there would be any, for a couple reasons: 1) The armies of the Last War suffer from the same problem as the dreadnought-equipped navies of WW1 -- the equipment is so hide- ously expensive, any large-scale battle lost would cripple the loser financially. 2) Cruise Missiles effectively prohibit any true concentration of military force at any given place. FCOL, look at the number of cra- ters on the basic _O_ map, and realize that each of those craters is one CM. Now figure how many CMs were shot down en route by lasers or detonating CMs. All that for an INF battalion, an armor company, and a D0 CP. There are no "Kursks" or "El Alameins" in _O_. The battles depict- ed in _GEV_ and _O_ are representative of what the Last War was. Which explains why the LW accomplished nothing. > 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. Big -- yes. Likely -- no. OGREs are not expendable, especially not in "hell-or-plunder" operations like this. Not to mention that, if I read the OGREverse chronology right, Paneurope was already well on its way to History's Recycle Bin in 2092, and was incapable of putting up any sort of coherent defense. Oh, and as to the article's last paragraph: Give my regards to the Dept. of Homeland Security when they come for you. [/opinion] > 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. INF should only be 5 VP, according to Cobb (the formula, that is). I haven't run them through the formula to see where that 1 VP should be placed. One issue, tho': I think the INF bonus for Defense is a bit high. realize that while a 2- or 3-part INF unit can survive a D result, a 1- part INF unit has a 66% chance of being whacked. IMHO, INF should be immune to D results; 6-18 guys spread across 9/10 of a mile isn't *that* big a target! > 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. No, the games played out like the game designer intended -- every- one for himself (no alliances), and the victory went to the guy doing unto others without being done unto himself. (I was infamous for pulling sweeping 180-degree corner, neatly dropping into a foe's Back arc, and beating him to death either by gunfire or by causing him to crash.) > [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] I didn't see anything about "grabbing" -- just "looking around" and "blowing up". It would seem, on that basis, that the "looking" bit is a WOMBAT -- "Yes, sir, we found out all this info about these towns. Oh by the way, we also blew up those towns, so the data we gathered is sorta irrelevant now...." > 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. In _OGRE Book_ (either vol.), there is a scenario pack called "Your Mission, Should You Decide To Accept It...", which has as a sce- nario a "OGRECOVERY" unit rescuing a "ESPIONOGRE". In _OB_ 2nd ed., it's pointed out that this scenario can be played with a Ninja and a Vulcan.... CF ===== [Thought for the day: "Equally important, and perhaps more challenging, software programs, expert systems, and computing hardware are growing in their "authority" and capacity to make (or fail to make) key decisions". - Captain Chris Johnson, U.S. Navy (Ret.), USNI Proceedings, May 2003, p35 Hmmm, should I ram that heavy or head straight towards the CP? -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