Deep Dive Feedback: 2.7 Foreign/Military affairs

[MrPotatoTed]

Hi all.  2.3 is finished and locked in unless we discover something totally game breaking.  I'm now working on 2.8 (executive actions, supreme court nominees).

I "hope" to get to 2.7 as well before @vcczar's September 19 deadline.  So if you have feedback for foreign/military affairs, now is the time!

[matthewyoung123]

Ted, I'd like to try out a version of the ALL HANDS ON DECK in my playtest even if we have to skip over some PHASES before we get there because time is of the essence here.

Like I described in my post before, I plan to take ALL politicians with at least 1 MIL ability that aren't already on career track or have a job, and place them into the "military" phase of the actions.  Exception to that is Military track politicians which will also go in.

Looking at the number of battles that have to be fought PER WAR to win, I don't want to KILL all the politicians in a faction.  I'm thinking that, based on difficulty, no matter WHAT the outcome, the casualties should be about the same (will roll a dice for the actual numbers of politicians).

EASY battle- 1-2 politicians are wounded or die.  1-2 get a random +1 Mil increase.  1-2 get a random trait that deals with the military in some respect; Disharmonious, Easily Overwhelmed, Efficient, Iron Fist, Leadership, Likeable, Military Leader, Propagandist, Controversial, Unlikeable, Lackey, Magician, Harmonious, Kingmaker, Delegator, Micromanager, Two Faced, Predictable, Crisis Manager, Decisive General.  These are a mix of TWENTY positive and negative traits that COULD be given.  

MEDIUM battle- 2-3 are wounded or die. 2-3 get +1 Mil. 2-3 get random trait.

DIFFICULT battle- 3-4 are wounded or die. 3-4 get +1 Mil. 3-4 get random trait.

A "wounded" politician means they would lose 1 MIL skill and no longer be able to fight (ie- they would be removed from all future combat).  In addition, they would gain the FRAIL trait.  Better than killing off the politician, right??

THANKS!!!!

[Vols21]

Wounded veterans like. Bob Dole or John McCain were hardly frail.    But lot of good ideas here otherwise.  My fear is killing off too many people, and suggest maybe a dice roll to determine the KiA, MiA.    It could be possible to have none of the statesmen die (I like the concept that some can die, but not making it a high chance.     Something like 1=2 deaths, 2=1 death, 3= 2 wounded, 4 = 1 wounded.  5-6 no statesmen casualties 

[matthewyoung123]

11 hours ago, Vols21 said:

Wounded veterans like. Bob Dole or John McCain were hardly frail.    But lot of good ideas here otherwise.  My fear is killing off too many people, and suggest maybe a dice roll to determine the KiA, MiA.    It could be possible to have none of the statesmen die (I like the concept that some can die, but not making it a high chance.     Something like 1=2 deaths, 2=1 death, 3= 2 wounded, 4 = 1 wounded.  5-6 no statesmen casualties 

I think that's a great concept.  However, again, I think we need to find the mid point between TOO MANY losses and TOO FEW losses for factions in a major war.

[Vols21]

we should go in and run some sample wars (use the Congressional employment from a playtest of that era) and use a couple different methods after the battle to see how they play out as far as killing off the statesmen.    Current game rules don't kill any which I agree is too few.   In the dice chart I posted above, could add 1 to the killed/wounded numbers for the major bloody battles (difficult)

Should FRAIL somehow come into play when deciding who might die during a given battle?    (or they have increased odds, by listing them several times on the list to randomly choose from? - which then makes me wonder about HALE - would they maybe roll twice if hit, and getting wounded if the second roll failed)

[matthewyoung123]

6 hours ago, Vols21 said:

we should go in and run some sample wars (use the Congressional employment from a playtest of that era) and use a couple different methods after the battle to see how they play out as far as killing off the statesmen.    Current game rules don't kill any which I agree is too few.   In the dice chart I posted above, could add 1 to the killed/wounded numbers for the major bloody battles (difficult)

Should FRAIL somehow come into play when deciding who might die during a given battle?    (or they have increased odds, by listing them several times on the list to randomly choose from? - which then makes me wonder about HALE - would they maybe roll twice if hit, and getting wounded if the second roll failed)

I'm trying to get there with my 1772 run...but I wouldn't mind running a "what if" from any year database and seeing how it shakes out.  Maybe let's run the Mexican War, so use the base playtest sheet for the 1840 game?

[MrPotatoTed]

8 hours ago, Vols21 said:

we should go in and run some sample wars (use the Congressional employment from a playtest of that era) and use a couple different methods after the battle to see how they play out as far as killing off the statesmen.    Current game rules don't kill any which I agree is too few.   In the dice chart I posted above, could add 1 to the killed/wounded numbers for the major bloody battles (difficult)

Should FRAIL somehow come into play when deciding who might die during a given battle?    (or they have increased odds, by listing them several times on the list to randomly choose from? - which then makes me wonder about HALE - would they maybe roll twice if hit, and getting wounded if the second roll failed)

I'm all for people running such tests -- though to be clear, last time I looked, there were existing rules for killing off military career track folks in major battles.

[matthewyoung123]

5 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

I'm all for people running such tests -- though to be clear, last time I looked, there were existing rules for killing off military career track folks in major battles.

There are, but the chances are so small, I think it only happened once in two wars that lasted a combined total of 14 years in the 1840 test.  To me, that's not very risky.

Also, it adds another potential way to increase your stats on politicians.  It's probably the most risky way to do it though since there is a risk of wounding or death.

 

[Vols21]

On 9/22/2022 at 10:37 AM, MrPotatoTed said:

I'm all for people running such tests -- though to be clear, last time I looked, there were existing rules for killing off military career track folks in major battles.

That’s the point of running an isolated test (outside of the regular full tests going on).   Can apply some different “rules” (charts j and see what the different outcomes are.   That way we might can find the happy medium and right mix.   Possibly the existing rule works best, but sounds like there are some opportunities to improve the battle/war aspect of the game without drastically changing the game.