====== OGRE Digest, May 15th, 2003 (Last: May 10th) ======== ===== Question about infantry cost From: "Chris French" From: David Morse ===== Strategic Ogre From: stephan beal ===== asking SJ about inf cost From: "Clayton Springer" ===== disabling tanks From: stephan beal ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: Question about infantry cost > From: David Morse > On the orange map I agree with you. On the green map I'm not sure > they're *that* bad, but I'll readily agree 2vp/squad is OBVIOUSLY way > too high. Seconded. > Because infantry cost relies on some constants not used anywhere else in > the formula, and because HJC gets to pick them however he wants, you're > really just looking at Henry's personal guestimate, no more or less > valid than when any other experienced player gives their opinion. That was, essentially, my point: Mr. Cobb was being *far* too kind to INF units. No way on Steve's flat, swampy, woody, stream- and river-infarcted, green earth is an INF's defense value 2.54x that of basic armor. OGRE parts ignore D's and can shoot underwater, and they get a whole 1.8. This is why I propose that INF ignore D results (18 2-meter targets spread across 1,500 meters -- whomever's shooting is buying the whole damned hex, folks :) ) altogether. *That* would justify a 2x Defense value. > Yes. I think the following units need to be examined holistically and > have all their values reconsidered together: > > INF > MARINE > HW-INF > GEV-PC > ENGINEER Also seconded. INF may have been OK when it was just the crater map, but now that everyone has every type of unit.... > > In particular it needs to be spelled out what the game means when some > scenario gives you "8 armor and 30 squads of infantry". By this, do you mean "does a GEV count with the INF, or the armor"? > > 3xHW-INF riding a GEV-PC are going to be hard to balance. Perhaps > HW-INF shouldn't be able to fire if they were mounted on a moving vehicle. Seconded. > But what if there's grunts in those woods? How? The LGEV will leave the INF in its dust. If the LGEV waits for the INf to get there, the fight will be over. It might work if the INF/ LGEV combo is on the defensive, but what sane person takes LGEVs for a defensive line? > And let's not mention those Battlefields maps that are full of swamp. No intelligent player is going to take tracks into those maps, if he can help it. (More than likely, the HVYs have their own attached "panzerblitz" INF squads....) > From: David Morse > Subject: future military history > Bride of Bolo? > > Seven Brides for Seven Bolos? _Waiting For Bolo_? > Capricorn BLU-114/B digicash 22nd SAS USCOI airframe hackers Europol > PLO arrangements IMF CID fraud computer terrorism Adriatic LABLINK > Armani CIA Clinton blackjack quarter ICE Ashcroft Cocaine Reno Forte > high security militia Vince Foster Rubin Perl-RSA AK-47 SWAT Delta > Force Indigo Aldergrove MD5 Maple undercover Treasury enigma Legion of > Doom gamma Ron Brown NORAD nitrate Comirex genetic espionage SDI > Serbian Ft. Bragg Aladdin Centro Albania STARLAN basement subversive > offensive information warfare industrial intelligence warfare BRLO Yeah, yeah, yeah. " Canter Siegel green-card spam / Let's see them grep this, Sam I Am!" :) CF [as if all the references to nukes and thinking tanks isn't setting off the sniffers at Quantico....] ===== [No, they "know" that I'm mostly harmless so they ignore me, pity. Infantry that completely ignore D results could stack 5 platoons in every hex, but they still couldn't chase down LGEVs. -HJC] ===== From: David Morse Subject: Question about infantry cost > [OK, so everybody is saying here that a platoon of grunts is never > worth the same as a Heavy tank, right? I'd settle for "most of the time". In an all-town map, obviously the INF reigns supreme. > And Heavies can stand up to the LGEVs by staying behind woods. > > But what if there's grunts in those woods? > > A Heavy tank rumbles up and fires at a platoon of infantry in woods. > With a roll of 4 there is no effect. The grunts return fire and roll a 3 > causing naptime for the tankers and then follow up with another 3 making > that nap last forever. Argh! HVY, LTs, and arguably Ogres suffer heavy damage when attacking dug-in infantry. But if the infantry have to be the attackers they're in trouble, and if the infantry are facing any other unit, on attack or defense, they're in the big-trouble-no-bubbles kind of trouble. ===== [OK, totally clear map with no terrain. Attackers are 12 LGEVs starting 70 hexes away from the defender's laser tower and two platoons of grunts. The LGEVs are to take out the laser tower in 30 turns or less. Who wins? Isn't the problem lack of proper fire support rather than some strange inability to run down hovercraft on foot? -HJC] ============================== From: stephan beal Subject: Strategic Ogre i'm back-tracking a bit here... On Saturday 19 April 2003... > From: David Morse > 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. Not necessary... (i'm assuming that by "hits a brick wall", you mean that technology has reached the point where it /can't/ go at current speeds, as opposed to /is not going/ at current speeds.) It could also be that R&D departments, and the marketing which /really/ drives the current exponential growth, have been "reduced in force", probably drastically. Imagine how fast technology would improve (i'm talking real-world here) if people stopped paying for all these neat new ways of doing things... i'll go so far as to assert that it wouldn't advance very quickly at all. Once the world goes nuke, so the say, priorities will /probably/ be elsewhere, and the massive reduction-in-cost we're currently seeing on technology goes away (assuming this cost-reduction is a largely an economic matter). i'm not saying R&D dies - instead research is now limited in scope, and the multi-diciplinary skill sets we need to build smaller/faster/cheaper tech is simply not available in the quantities which it has been over the past 50 years. For example, it takes scores of engineers years of work to design the latest high-end PC video cards. Once that work force gets cut too far, video card development will stall. This would, at least in part, account for the relatively slow tech development in the timespan of The Last War (As if that makes any sense... OMFG, i can't believe i'm justifying technology development speeds in the context of a fictitious board game.) ===== [Oh, have I got a technology driver for you. Something that will provide development dollars for decades with a limitless demand for computing cycles and AI capabilities while laying the groundwork for the represssive Combine government. The so called Patriot Act. Can we dig up the founding fathers so we can attach generators to their spinning caskets yet? (Time to start filming a cross between Techomancer and The Matrix. Robots powered by zombies.) And what's the technology of the future to build these chips? Well, Ogres require very compact and powerful computers, BPC armor and powercells. What if I told you that all three will be made out of the same basic material? What if I told you that folks are already working on applying this material for all three purposes? http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20011005S0068 http://www.asc2002.com/summaries/l/LP-05.pdf -HJC] ============================== From: "Clayton Springer" Subject: asking SJ about inf cost HJC-- I think we can think of lots of reasons why inf are worth less than 2VP / squad that is official. The question why does Steve Jackson think they are worth that much and has he ever written on the subject and if not could we get him to comment on it? If you overrun an infantry unit in the forest it is effectively a 6/1 D6 M2. according to http://www.io.com/~hcobb/gev/formcalc.html this is worth 5.666. So in the forest, in an overrun inf is worth about as much as a armor Is there any chance to hear a few word from the game designer on this subject. ===== [Actually, you're not accounting for the ability to split fire, which gives it Attack 2+2+2/1. And Steve Jackson has written about the value of infantry and how to use them. See: http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/articles/gevnotes.html -HJC] ============================== From: stephan beal Subject: disabling tanks Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,86789,00.html Quote: "Attrition of a significant percentage of its tanks is a way of life for an armored division because, in addition to combat losses, there will be a lot of accidents and breakdowns before, during, and after the battle. A tank driver hits an unexpected obstacle the wrong way and loses a track; an engine burns out, or one of the electrical motors that turns the turret fails; a tank slides into a deep ditch, or overturns into a stream. In each instance, the tank is as useless to a force's combat effectiveness as one that has been knocked out by enemy fire." So, what is it in the Ogreverse which makes Heavy Tanks (and their ilk) immune to such problems as rolling over into a stream? Proposed new rule: every armor unit (not including in-tow units) must roll a die for every hex entered. On a roll of 1 the pilot/driver has done something Amazingly Stupid and the unit is disabled. (Okay, maybe that's way overboard. ;). ===== [More like roll once just before the scenario to see which units are down for PM and will take a few turns to get ready. -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