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Well, wish that polls could be edited more.

Its kinda sad that its not a thing.
- 0 (0%)
I wonder why its not a thing.
- 0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: July 20, 2019, 11:03:02 pm


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Author Topic: An Indeterminate Arms Race, now containing actual turns!  (Read 4121 times)

Aseaheru

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Re: An Indeterminate Arms Race, now containing actual turns!
« Reply #30 on: November 02, 2019, 12:31:40 pm »

 More actual rules for mechanics worked out and associated information posted. Now, time to get back to work on the actual turns...
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Man of Paper

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Re: An Indeterminate Arms Race, now containing actual turns!
« Reply #31 on: November 02, 2019, 06:50:09 pm »

Okay, so I'm not even playing this time but I need to say something because you've shot yourself in the foot a dozen times already. I expect you'll be ignoring the following advice like you keep doing, but I have to try one more time. As I've said before, I'm pointing out issues not because I'm an asshole, but because I want good-quality arms races to play.


Stop making rules for every aspect of everything. It kills your games. Hard. You have rules made up for the sake of having rules for things that could, and should, be handwaved. This is a forum game, not a simulation.

A clear sign of something being extremely convoluted is when you say "Yes, as soon as I finish working out the mechanics fer it. Knew I forgot something, turns out it was "movement of armies" and "yaknow, kinda one of the main gimmics fer this thing"", or when you need to tell both teams that you've made accounting errors for the one thing that should actually matter to them (tokens) on a number of occasions. You've been adding new rules constantly, which not only compounds the abundant issue of overly complex and unnecessary rules, but it makes it seem more and more like you don't actually have a coherent idea for how the game should run. There should be no reason to have to "counter" artillery supremacy. Equipment should not have hardcoded values in a forum game. At least not in any way that there's no wiggle room for GM interpretation. There are exceptions to the rule, but not in your case, where you're trying to simulate damn near everything going on in and out of battle.

There is way too much going on in every single spoiler in both the updates and the OP. Complexity =/= Quality.

If there's a score of people willing to play arms races and you've whittled your game down to 2v2 then there's an issue, and it's not with the playerbase. You seem to have learned exactly nothing from the brief Asymmetrical Arms Race, and instead doubled down on everything that pushed that game into a hole. I mean shit, look at how many people you lost by doing something astoundingly dumb in regard to starting equipment yet again. There was no reason to include the "you choose what to give to your enemy also whoever gives more is what we go with" schtick. Literally pointless. And that's your biggest problem. Before you do something you should really ask yourself two questions:

"Why?"
and
"What will this add for the players?"

If either one of those has no response then you need to reevaluate what you're doing. If it's inclusion for the sake of inclusion then it's unnecessary.

Here's some extra feedback based on my experience for future games for you to consider. And please do consider it. If you put as much effort into something much simpler than what you're trying to push then I have no doubt that it'll be good.


Tokens: Having different numbers of tokens needed to perform a whole array of tasks across a number of phases doesn't really work. There's too much forethough and accounting there for a game. I used tokens in Blood of Champions, but it cost a single token for any action. This meant players had an easier time planning turns ahead, and resulted in more active engagement as opposed to crunching numbers. There were admittedly four different tokens, but they all functioned the same way, affecting only the flavor of the actions.

Designs: You did the "components" thing again, my guy. Don't. There's no need to break things down into every subsystem and require that everything be done by the players in order to get the thing they actually want. That's a quick road to disinterest. Same thing with needing to develop ammo. Unless it's a nonstandard type of shot the players should be able to assume that they'll have bullets available for the gun they're making. 6d6 is also way too much. Holy shit. Rolling for quality should be all that's necessary. Development is acceptable so long as the rest of your system isn't an obtuse mess or you're Draig. Rolling for both quality and bugs is something ARs have moved away from because it's contradictory and makes little sense (the gun's amazing, but also explodes in your face whenever you fire it!).

Expeditions: Not a terrible idea in and of itself, but there's no reason to have them take two turns before seeing results. If the worry is with power creep, well, one of the perks of being the GM is you can determine just how much something adds to one side. Unless you've tagged hard numbers on everything. But you shouldn't do that. Nobody should. Not in a forum game with as much potential for players to do ridiculous things as an Arms Race. Especially a cult-based arms race.

Logistics/Equipment: You should not be forcing your players to contend with large-scale logistics unless that's specifically the purpose of the game, like if it were "Package Delivery Race" or something. In fact, I'll use this moment to point out that the amount of chaff you add to things takes away from the focus of the game - the cults and their activities in this case. Having equipment levels be variable is unnecessary, especially if basing it on combat. I recently considered looting and it's potential effects in MWAR, but ultimately it's not the point of the game. The point of any arms race is for both sides to throw shit at one another and, most importantly, have fun. It shouldn't be worrying about whether or not Army 1 has enough rifles to arm everyone without shorting Armies 2-5. Logistical requirements for each unit is also superfluous. There's a reason why most ARs are doing away with the idea of Transport Capacity, and that's got nowhere near the impact of adding a logistical weight to every single unit.

Land Combat: You're using hard numbers for equipment. This is literally impossible to keep balanced and keep track of as a game goes on and the teams grow in ability to do crazy things. That is, unless you're actually just making it up. This is actually similar to an issue I had in IWAR and continues in MWAR - resource creep. My teams get a new resource every turn, meaning I have to keep their economic growth in mind while deciding on equipment costs. I need to keep the early-game costs at a level that later-game designs can still be scaled with without making everything Cheap. But my players also know the numbers we're working with, and I am clear about the rules.

Navy: You're doing too much again. The focus should be on cultism, not ensuring you have big enough ports for your ships. If this were a naval-based arms race then that'd be fine (and indeed it is in Refit and Repair), but it's not.

Armor and Vehicle Logistics: No more math, man. This is honestly entirely too much to ask players to keep up on if you want an active playerbase larger than two. I can't state enough how much your games need to be simplified.

Aircraft: Once again, you're trying to simulate something that should be largely handwaved (flight time). My opinion on Airfield logistics is the same as my opinion on the logistics employed here overall - unnecessary.

Movement and Map Logistics (there's that word again): Damn near every other Arms Race uses clear, distinct generalized routes, lanes, or something similar to express how far your forces can move in a given turn. The most recent one that hadn't done that was eS' Wands Race 2, but even then orders were a simple "forces push (y) from (x)" with some specific orders given if the players decided to. This is, again, taking away from what should be the main draw of the game.


Obviously I'm not going to tell you to stop running this game - if you enjoy it or it's what you want to do then by all means continue. But next time you start an Arms Race I want you to consider making some changes to appeal to a wider audience. And also maintaining said audience. Otherwise you'll be in this same boat yet again where you're lamenting the low number of players you have. In conclusion, be better so I can play more games please.
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coleslaw35

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Re: An Indeterminate Arms Race, now containing actual turns!
« Reply #32 on: November 02, 2019, 07:41:10 pm »

*SUPA SNIP*

To a much less "harsh" (not saying you're being a dick) degree, I agree. From the start, these rules have been overly complex to the point that it's more of a hassle to play than it is fun. This is why I will no longer be participating. I will remove myself from the discord.

While I do genuinely appreciate it, AseaHeru, it shouldn't be this slow and difficult to do anything. Not to mention the fact that we're fucked anyways because we had to spend a turn to refit our workshops to produce carts so we could actually arm our armies, only to find out we needed to build a lumber mill or else we'd be producing only 2 carts a turn, only to find out that the lumber mill wasn't enough since we also needed a forge to produce metal. There are way too many rules that don't really add anything and instead just complicate things.

Some of the rules just seem arbitrary. For example, we can't take equipment back from armies. We can only give them equipment. Like... why? What if we want to recall some equipment to free up logistics points for other equipment? Do we just wait for the equipment to get destroyed?

Also, allow me to quote something from the Discord server:

Quote
Coleslaw 09/27/2019
aseaheru my dude
these mechanics need to be simplified lmao
this shit is so hard to follow at times
 
AseaHeru 09/27/2019
These are the simplified ones.
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Aseaheru

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Re: An Indeterminate Arms Race, now containing actual turns!
« Reply #33 on: November 02, 2019, 08:07:24 pm »

 Well, thank you fer yer feedback there. If I may, I do have some remarks in response.

 Ive tried games without rules, which most of the time results in how things work changing each and every round. It was not fun for me to run, and I feel it was not fun for the players to suffer under. I do try to keep a limit on what even gets a rule to things that really do need one.
 Im not sure by what you mean by some of this second paragraph, particularly the instances of the "'Counter' artillery supremacy", As for the rest of it, yes. Most of this nonsense is the result of me trying to work out a system that can be used for most things, which I freely admit should have been worked out more prior to the start, the last few days prior to which I started rushing and thus forgot systems that I feel are important enough to require rules. (Most of the rest of it is the result of me just being crap)
 Toomuch going on asin "these should be split up" or "this is just rambling"?
 This, I feel, is more or less nonsense. If I went with a different system then its hardly doubling down, is it? It being dumb, however? Probably. However, there where indeed reasons for it, mostly "It gives the players some chance to set their own focus in a way clearly less complex as, for instance, in the asymmetrical race". Infact, it is because of those questions being asked that certian planned requirements have been removed, such as ammunition production.

 On specific portions:
 Tokens: Partially this is because certain things should be easier and take less effort. Most of the problems arise from when I play games with different numbers(both allotted per turn and for specific actions) and from the fact that, indeed, there is only one flavor of token for almost everything.

 Designs: The problem with removing components(which are, more or less, limited to guns, engines, an signaling equipment) is thats about as basic a setup as I fell is possible without removing the rational for using the same base thing for multiple roles. For ammunition, if you arent talking smallarms, thats indeed all that is needed, even here. The problem is, you kinda need a round before you can design a gun for it, and if yer talking things like grenade launchers, missiles, artillery or (in more modern times) shotguns, its an important aspect to have more than one flavor of ammunition. The number of dice, and how distributed, are a similar artifact of trying to both provide an enjoyable experience and juggle portraying atleast a veneer of realism to something.

  Expeditions: The time taken is mostly in my thinking "oh, these will mostly be going across to other continents, which takes time, and when there they gotta get off, do X,Y, and Z, and then head back. One year should represent that nicley". I have been thinking of changing the time taken for local expeditions(or ones with a base locally anyways) as a result.

 Logistics: This is all less of me trying to make a modern arms race and more of me trying to make an old-school weapon design game and work off of systems other than "everyone has this general level of X". But hey, Ive learned, no variable resource supply and no manufacturing and shipping ammunition, Im not suicidal. Divving up equipment into ranks is my method of permitting specialization of a unit.

 Land Combat, i.e. numbers: its certainly labor intensive, but its not impossible, and it beats the pants off of "the gun stated to work 1/6 of the time is somehow killing everything". I just have to be reasonable about the actual numbers involved.

 Naval Cultism: If this was just a game about cults on one island, absolutely. Its... not. You may have seen, but not noticed, that port capacity is another thing that has quietly been dropped, for most of that reason. Naval combat is still important enough to keep whats about alive, but the fat I have been able to find has been trimmed.

 Armor: The behind-the-scenes of the math for armor is fairly simplified, even if it does work in a rather different method than the standard Arms Race one Sensei added midway through the first game.

 Aircraft: Again, similar to armor, its important enough to exist. Is my method the best? Probably not. Is it more complicated than how Sensei set it up in the first two arms races? Yeah. Does it have potential for teams to do fun things with? Yes, and getting the rules for it written out ahead of time (unlike in the first AR, for instance) should reduce salt.

 Map Movement/Logistics: This has been added to, again, hopefully increase potentially interesting results. Enemy have a factory complex with materials coming from the other end of the map? Well, that can be killed off. Want an army to zip around the enemy like yakety sax is playing? Thats an option. Yes, its more complex.

 TLDR, most of this is the result of me not trying to run a Sensei-style arms race. Part of this is due to the fact that I dont like running or playing weapon design games with things pulled out of someones ass, particularly when it is my own ass. Much of this is the result of my trying to work out a near-universal system for weapon-design games. Most of this is the result of my trying to reduce, or remove, salt by being as upfront as possible about how things function without actually just handing out the raw numbers. Perhaps contrary to popular belief, I do try to keep these sortsa things in mind, even if it does appear that I fail fairly regularly.



Ninja edit

 Allrighty, sorry to see you going Coleslaw. Most of the time spent isint somuch me suffering though the rules as my not doing anything. I have rather less time now than I did when I started and... well, Im lazy.

 The quote is true though, these rules are the result of simplification.


Edit

On that note, I should ask, of the ~3 other players still about, any of yall still interested in this? I would rather not put further effort into something noone cares about.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2019, 08:19:17 pm by Aseaheru »
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