Rules Discussion

[Marlin]

Question: When you have an interdicted Hex with one Control World and a Member World, when you upgrade that Member World to Control World (giving it a HPG-B) what happens to the Interdiction?

[Daemonknight]

It would go away because theres a working HPG now I should think

[chaosxtreme]

That is correct asked Dave and Josh about it when I started when the FWL was interdicted.

[chaosxtreme]

Oh I don't know.

Stack of doom makes you vulnerable across a broadfront.

Mind you it has its place but failing to adequately defend your holdings can come back to haunt you.

Especially now with this new dice roll to see if the militia even fights.

Oh come on Shane

Holt is showing us since turn 20 that STAC'O'DOOOOOOOM is the most succsessive 'and if you want to purely win use this' tactic.

Does not need finesse, does not need taktical skill. All it needs is a large RP background *shrug*

I did answer..
http://intelser.org/forums/index.php?topic=353.0

I see what some of you are saying about the FP buff, but it is still nothing to actually make Veteran or Elie worthwhile. In MM, 3 Veteran Mechs vs 5 Regulars, with fairly equal BV, is an uphill battle for the Vets, as they will be outmassed. In Simres, 10 FP of Vets vs 10 FP of Regulars, what benefit did the Vets have. You really think that 2 FP is an actual benefit?

But you know what, I have said my piece, and nothing is going to be done about it. So I have a choice to make.

I covered both parts in my resume. 1 was an MM match of same FP nearly same BV with skilled troops vs unskilled. (green at that, poor suckers) Was a slugfest if you know what you are doing.

The other is pure FP.

In Simp Res, the Bonus for the skilled Troops is just only an FP addition. Where is the problem when one takes 5 Regular Mechs with an FP of 1 and you correspond in kind with 4 Elite Mechs that might have 1.5 FP?

The .5 account for the Elite Status. No one should cry foul. Even 3 Mechs might have over 1 FP in this example.

BTW, when I offered to fight our Trial out in MM, there was no response. You might have won anyway, such we had a roll and you won. Against regulars.. you might have taken more FP.. Hm.. if bidding down on the same FP, then it becomes a problem of course.. but that might just be the risk of bidding too low?

But then, with equal FP fights, there is the Breaking roll which benefits the experienced side and that is when they have a bonus..

[Marlin]

That is correct asked Dave and Josh about it when I started when the FWL was interdicted.

Excellente.

[Daemonknight]

I know of a way to make veteran and elite troops more viable without actually changing any rules, atleast in the Trial system. As far as Doomstacks go, there really isnt any way around it, they'll appear anyways.

In Trials, when people are bidding, its always bidding by FP. The more 'realistic' way of bidding, would be to bid by unit, ie "CJF bids the Jade Falcon Guards'. Or '2 mech stars of the Jade Falcon Guards'. That way, an opponent has to try and match the bid in numbers, but doesn't always know the FP. It makes bidding a strategic element, like it should be, instead of just a way of minimizing some losses.

In my example, most people are propably aware that its an Elite unit. But say I bid the 1st Falcon Jaegers cluster. Is it Regular? Veteran? Elite? Bidding an Elite unit against a Regular might give you a better chance at winning(higher FP/skills), but then if u lose, your guys get slammed for losing to an inferior unit. Vise versa, if you win, your opponent can salvage their respect by admitting defeat from a superior opponent. I'm just saying, if the bidding process was more realistic, it would make Vet an Elite units more useful than they currently are. sure, 10FP of Elites vs 10FP of greens means nothing, but 2 Stars of Elites vs 2 Stars of Greens is a BIG difference.

That and it opens up RP for the lesser rated units to actually have bragging rights. You can't argue superiority if your 10FP green troops beat 10FP of Elites, because you have almost 2:1 odds in numbers, and as Uncle Joe said, "Quantity has a quality all it's own". But if you win that 2Star v 2Star fight, those Greens just got a huge morale and reputation boost.

[NVA]

Except - You share codices, so each side would be aware of the skill of the unit they are facing.

Except - There is no real honor in 10 FP of elites beating 10 FP of greens.  Elites would be unlikely to bid to fight greens.

[Daemonknight]

Exception 1: you share codecies after the bids are finalized. You don't share them beforehand, or atleast if you read the books, Codex sharing happens once the bids are final. In a combat situation, the attacker sends his bid, and the defender has an internal bidding war to see which unit commander will defend against the attacker. Only once both forces have finalized their bidding are the codecies traded. We don't do this because generally one person is responsible for the whole of a faction's military at any given combat scenario. If we had enough players for each Star Colonel, or even Galaxy Commander, bidding internally would be something to consider.

Exception 2: its an example NVA, call it Veterans fighting Greens, or Elites fighting Regulars, it doesn't really matter. Unless you personally keep detailed files on an OOC peice of information, I don't see how it matters. And even if you did, you couldn't use it...because that would be metagaming to take advantage of a bidding situation. There are bound to be even Elite rated pilots in a Green unit(such as the Elite-rated Colonel sent to whip the brand new converted Militia force into a front-line combat force).

[Marlin]

I can see charm in your solution, Daemon..

we should really try that out.. outside of the game first, though.

[Daemonknight]

the thing it does is that it makes training a unit to veteran or elite useful again. We have an FP value per binary/company, which makes it easy to get an FP for a lance/star of a given weight. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I personally don't keep track of what weight was used to create each Cluster. However, we have an excellent table availible to us for use in these bidding situations: the Flashpoint rules showcase the weights of the mid-level units(Battallions/2Trinaries) in a top-level(Regiment/Cluster). The only thing needed to rectify this to Company/Star would be to add 1 mech of the correlating weight class to the IS side(because in the table, IS organization has 3 Batts to a regiment, when u need 4 mechs to a lance). Anyone who wants to see the table, needs only to look at page 21 of the Flashpoint rulebook, and pay attention to the weights that had a +(it stands for Heavy Weight in FP, it basicly means that formations have a single unit at a higher weight for that unit's designated weight).

So, now we can figure out exactly what mechs are in a given Company/Binary. We will have their veterancy the same way we always have. It will impact MM equally to its impact in SimRes, because in SimRes the FP of the better veterancy unit is higher, and in MM their skills are higher. Also, it makes questions of 'honorable' bids much easier, because they will be much more transparent. 5FP of Elites can mean a handful of Assaults, or a binary of Elite-piloted Gauss Rifle Novas... Now, the opposing player will know exactly how many mechs he has to deal with, and he has to question which of his units can best deal with that sized force.

An example bid would be:

CJF Challenges FWL/SLDF forces for possession of Coventry and it's infrastructure. We bid 1 whole Cluster, the 1st Falcon Jeagers.

Now, if the FWL or SLDF has come into contact with that unit before, and knows how skilled the pilots are, they'll have a good idea that the unit is considered Elite. Therefore, they need to bid at least a Battalion of Elite troops to be effective, or undercut the Falcons and get them to bid lower, possibly from a lesser rated unit if they bid, say Regulars.

FWL/SLDF bids 1 Company of the 10th Leauge Assault Regiment.

These are regular rated troops. The Falcons are unlikly to pit Elites against them, because even if they win, its somewhat hallow. Now the Leauge has taken control of the bid.

Conversely, if the Leauge doesn't know the skill of the Jaegers, or if the Falcons didn't know the LAR was regular, it could be dangerous for the Leauge if they bid slightly less forces, but of a lower skill level. It just adds a much more realistic and fun element of strategic play, in my mind.

[NVA]

I guess I always read the fic differently.  If codices weren't known before bidding, then what does it matter if the IS faked units?  I saw that faking what the unit was, when sent, misled the bidding.

Also, if no one IC makes fun of/looks down on the clan that has lost honor, what does even bidding matter?

[Daemonknight]

If you want to mislead, you need a disseminate disinformation intelligence mission. Units have markings, paint schemes, and rosters, and you would need to change all/most of that to truly mislead an opponent. Its not as simple as just saying "No, we arn't Knights of the Inner Sphere, we're the recruit cadre from Bumblebee Militia". Its always required a DMI mission. And if successful, then you'd be able to say whatever you wanted to during the bidding process.

I fail to see what you mean: you personally had IC ridiculed the Clans as a whole for their loss of honor, in the eyes of the Wolves. As its been said to me, very rarely does an entire Clan lose honor. Its usually a specific person, or unit. Unless something happens consistantly(like a Clan ALWAYS overbidding, or ALWAYS breaking Zell), its rare that Clans look on each other with blanket disdain(or if they just have bad relationships in general... read Adders Wolves, as an example of blanket hatred). And the IS doesn't look at the Clans in terms of 'honorable' usually anyways, thats a moot point.

Its not going to solve every problem, because it doesn't address Doomstacking. But nothing will solve that, unless the GMs introduce a rule that deals with combat width, which I highly doubt.(CW is the idea that a force can only be engaged by so many opponents at a given time effectivly. Think the Great Gash: you couldn't have a multi-regimental force fighting a company in it. You could barely have more than company v company at a given time, because there just isn't room. Combat Width would say, that the multi-regimental force isn't able to bring its full weight against the company, thereby reducing the effective fighting strength of the larger group).

That might be a nice idea to look into, but I don't have a clue as to how you'd apply it other than making the combat ratios slide depending on the size of the smallest combating force. Which would be interesting, because theoreticlly, you could have a Company fight and defeat a Regiment, because the Regiment isn't engaging all at the same time. It'd be an interesting counter to Doomstacks.

[NVA]

My reference was to the BTech universe, not our game rules.  In the BTech universe, story, and novels, IS units misled clan units by sending them false codices.  Thes codices caused the clans to bid too low for the real force they faced.  My point being, codices, as I read it in the back story of the universe, are shared up front, before bidding. 

[GreyJaeger]

NVA is correct, at least as far as the defenders are concerned. Codices of the defending unit are shared when the defending bid is announced. This element can not really be used in Daemonknight's proposal as it would make an exception to the Disseminate Info rule. Should it be used between the Clans? Yep. But Clans do not expect the IS to play by their rules, save when it suits the IS leader's interests to do so. Hence why the Clans quit sending Batchalls.

[Daemonknight]

I say we still do it that way against the IS. If someone wants to mislead during the bidding process, thats fine, but they should have to reveal the true veterancy once the bids are set. You can say you're regulars, but if you're holding strong against Elites, its not likly. Then its upto the players to decide if they want to keep track of what a unit's true skill level is, or if they even want to trust an IS nation.

An example atm is Coventry. the FWL is playing by the rules(although they seem to be trying to curry the favor of SA Folkner), so CJF would assume they arn't going to lie about the units they bid. On the other hand, the Adders might dislike the FWL to the point that they wont even respond to a batchall and just attack, or perhaps always bid a higher-rated force than the FWL, expecting deceit. I think it adds a strategic flair to the game thats kinda missing. Right now, doomstacking is the most effective way to wage war in the game, but i think it takes away from the feel of the CBT universe.

Thats only my opinion, i still love the game and think its fun. But it doesnt really require any changes to the current system, so the GM team wouldn't need to playtest or alter anything to make an attempt at fixing the whole Elite/Veteran vs Regular/Green Swarm issue.