Last time I spoke with Jon, he brought up the idea of allowing purchases of BCs. He suggested that since they are effectively immortal, they should cost twice what they are worth in normal unit prices. I am posting a new poll at right. Please vote on this idea, and please discuss as comments to this post.
Here are my thoughts:
I have to vote NO on this. I have several reasons for this, as follows.
1. The value of an "immortal" company is unmeasurable and could almost be termed priceless. Effectively, every BC unit that has been wounded in battle but heals up before the next fight is worth his points once over again; units that are promoted increase in value; and heroes increase tremendously in value. And the longer the game goes on, the more they are worth. So to charge twice their value is undervaluing them greatly over time. Beyond mere numbers, they lend a powerful intangible benefit as well. In the battlefield, they stand out as beacons of defense, places where you know you can hit an enemy, but you're not going to be able to eradicate him (for the most part). As opposed to recruits who you know you can actually whittle down. So not only are they worth their total point value several times over, they also add value in terms of their mere presence on the battlefield.
2. BCs, by campaign design, are the heart and soul of your civilization. They are there from the start as your core. Future warriors can only be recruited and trained -- they are not your core. Hence, to allow additional BCs to be bought violates this principle by generating a new core of units. Additionally, since this was the concept of the game at the start of the campaign, to fundamentally change the concept mid-game I think is a mistake. Making minor rule adjustments mid-game to correct imbalances is one thing. Changing the fundamental nature of the primary idea behind the game is another thing altogether. I think allowing BCs to be added at this point is too revolutionary of an idea to implement in this campaign iteration.
3. Hegemony. The campaign is a long game. Its true purpose is to give us a purpose behind our gameplay and a context in which to battle. So the fact that it will take a long time to determine a winner is ok, as really the idea behind the entire system was that the campaign serves the battles, not the other way around. That being said, there are preciously few ways to shift the balance of power. For the most part, it is a slow process. Even in the wake of a huge battle, if the majority of the units are BCs or ultra-heroes (that are near-impossible to kill), territorial control may shift, but comparative force strength will remain relatively level. Therefore, I think we need to preserve those balance-of-power-shifting aspects of the game. An eliminated BC is one such result that can effect such a shift. Hence, if we allow them to be replenished during the game, that eliminates that aspect of play. Granted, they would cost more and reduce what you can spend on recruits, but see argument #1 for my thoughts on that.
4. Opening strategy. This reason piggybacks on #2. We designed the game to allow for ultimate starting flexibility, which we all took advantage of in different ways (i.e. Jon went with fewer powerful BCs -- and his BCs are still probably the strongest on the board overall; I went with a few veteran BCs and a few virgin companies, along with ultra-heroes. Richter bought many small, mobile heroes to accompany his veteran BCs. Heath, having no game experience, played with an entirely virgin set of BCs). We chose those approaches based on the game concept in front of us. To make such a revolutionary change as to allow BCs to be purchased now changes our Middle Earth into a vastly different place from the one we imagined at Turn 0.
Please feel free to discuss and vote.
Mike
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11 comments:
An individual BC is NOT immortal. Witness my decimated Arnor and Rivendell BCs, now both too weak to get into a fight. Every time a BC gets totally trashed, it loses on average a sixth of its strength (more if one rolls a series of 1s on the warrior injury table :P ).
However, overall BC strength remains constant, as the system is designed to exactly replace losses. So strength basically passes to the winners from the losers. EXCEPT I haven't accounted for experience growth, which rewards frequency of play with quality and number of heroes.
Thus, the campaign by equalizing player BCs ensures progress is by quality of play, recruits providing the wildcard (cf. Gwaihir at Dol Guldur 1).
So I guess the problem is valuating BC units vis-a-vis recruits, as Banys remarked. Note that recruits can wipe out BCs with hardly a loss (cf. both Dol Guldur battles--I'd have taken all of two losses if I hadn't needlessly gotten the eagle wasted). The only basis I can make an estimate is on the survival mechanism itself. Since BC units have only 1/6 chance of dying of a wound, they should cost 6 times as much. This means a virgin BC should cost around 600 points.
So I vote N unless BC units cost 6 times recruits.
Hey I had to ask, 600 pts actually sounds fair, but then pointless.
Hmm.... I guess this just means we are on the defensive now boys :)
I have been thinking about the problem a bit more, ok quite a bit more, I wish I had done this a year ago :)
Based on what you guys are saying anyone who opted for a developed company over a non-developed one was rather silly in the long run. We all treated companies at the beginning of the game based on point values. The reality is, one 200 pt company DOES NOT equal two 100 pt companies. "Full grown" the two 100 pt companies will have 30 guys, the one 200 pt company can only have 15 guys, perhaps a bit "stronger," but probably not, especially since they are facing double companies in every fight.
Oh well, perhaps I need to stop staring in the Palantir so often, and I won't get so depressed. I should have done the calculations before we all started. This is going to get interesting. I have a much better idea what I will do next time, when we start a new campaign, in about three years :)
Jon,
"One 200 pt company Does Not equalt two 100 pt companies."
Possibly true, possibly not. They ARE equal in the sense that when you and I play a pickup game, and we agree to design 500 pt armies, those armies are theoretically equal strength. However, as we both know, if I picked 3 decked out wraiths versus your well-designed standard army, I'm going to lose because wraiths are not front-line troops and can't win a battle all on their own. BUT, in the case of a BC, the BC generally speaking balances itself out into a well-designed army. You have a couple heroes. You have archers. You may have some mounted troops, etc. So really, a 200 pt single army is often equal to two 100 pt armies.
"Full grown, the two 100 pt companies will have 30 guys, the one 200 pt company can only have 15 guys.
Well, you're mixing temporal frames of reference. When the two 100 pt companies are full grown, yeah, they'll outnumber your 200 pt army. But at that point, they'll also each be worth 200 pts. I think the argument you're trying to make here is one of progression. At the start, your stronger BCs gave you a strong dynamic tactical advantage, as smaller BCs couldn't handle your powerful companies. But as time progresses, both virgin and old BCs progress toward a limit. Theoretically speaking, extending the game out to the limit, yes, two smaller BCs will eventually surpass the larger BC, because both have a hard limit. Practically speaking, the stronger BC will retain its edge for quite some time, as it will take a long time for the two BCs to actually catch up, all else being equal.
I admit that the "all else being equal" clause is a sinkhole of problems because we all know that all else is NOT equal here. But the main difference is the general. If the general of the 2 small BCs is aggressive and strategically sound, and fights them in battles such that they improve, and doesnt' suffer a catastrophic loss, then they're going to outperform the larger BC if that larger BC is led by a static general.
To summararize, there is a nonlinear relation between the power versus growth of an initially strong BC and two initially weak BCs. The strong BC can defeat the two weaker BCs early on, one on two. As time progresses, if both sides are developing equally, much depends on the particular nature of the BC (i.e. a cav-heavy army is not so effective vs a lot of good archers). If the general of the small BCs leads more effectively, than perhaps they will catch the big BC more quickly. Ultimately, in the end game, the two BCs will beat out the single strong BC because both run up against the same limit. But practically, we're not going to hit that limit this game. It's like chess. The trade off when you have a strong dynamic advantage is to use it immediately, and force your opponent into an uncomfortable position, so that when your dynamic advantage runs out (and it will eventually), you replace it with static advantages that last long-term, while having inflicted static disadvantages on your enemy due to your previous dynamic advantage (e.g. you make use of your mobile, developed kingside in order to force your opponent to double his pawns on the g-file, opening a lane for your rook to penetrate to his rear defenses; then by the time he has swung enough pieces to that flank in order to neutralize your edge in force, you still control your open f-file, leaving you with something he needs to deal with for many many turns to come.)
Richter - You're exactly right, a BC is not immortal, which is why I put it in quotes. :) Especially with our new experience rules (where outnumbered BCs no longer get extra points), BCs can be damaged pretty badly or outright eliminated, if surrounded properly like you're trying to do near Veil of Tears :). But if you remember, we chose to change those experience rules in order to stop "poor leadership" of running your outnumbered BC into a battle in which it has no chance to win, just to earn more points. An obvious consequence of this is that BCs can be irreparably harmed if they are massacred. A few bad dice rolls and they may have some major issues (i.e. Rivendell), or a few ok dice rolls and they'll take a hit, but be ok (think my easterling company that got axed by your single company + accompanying rangers). That's the consequence of changing the experience rules, and I think we knew that when we chose to go that route.
I do think, at this point, that a losing company should probably get more than their bare bones 2 points (as they probably amassed more battle experience than that, even in their loss). They should probably get at least 3 points, ensuring at least one roll on the replenish troops table, but that's another issue.
I can't seem to log in to this silly program any more...
To clarify, every die of influence represents one casualty being replaced. Over twelve would have to die on average from both companies for influence not to replace casualties. So the system more than replaces casualties (when the four auto influence counted in)--it just redistributes them to the winner.
I don't think influence is meant to model battle experience. That would be the experience system.
I think the main problem with experienced companies (and heroes in general) is the arbitrary valuation system. Consider, Furious Charge is valued 10 just like one extra Attack, but gives an extra attack only half the time. Not to mention the Leadership Skills. In fact, I'd value most skills at 5 rather than 10. The inflation is not so noticeable with a 70 point hero whose main abilities are in the stats so much as a 25 point hero who may have only a single point of MWF besides. Basically, these skills are a needless waste of points.
When comparing two companies of similar experience, both saddles with such point inflation, they will still compare. Take one of those experienced companies against an "equivalent" point value of pure warriors, and they are going to lose.
--M
Finally, I think there IS a problem with multi BC battle influence. If a BC wins a battle, it gets 2D+2 influence (i.e., three new troopers). If the same number of warriors in two BCs win a battle, they get 4D+4 influence (i.e., six new troopers). I guess this rule was a mistake. But if we had simply split the influence reward between participating BCs, it would not have been enough to replace casualties in large battles. The BC system was simply not meant for battles of more than 30 or so BC models on the board, plus it assumes less variance in BC sizes (in fact promotes one particular battle size).
Surround you at Veil of Tears? Nonsense! My ranger is just taking in the sights and sun on the Rhunish Riviera. So much for Mordor promoting tourism...
next campaign winner gets 6 inf and loser recieves 3, 2d+2 is just too much to overcome if the winner rolls well.....
Richter -
that's weird that you can't login anymore ... hm. Want me to re-invite you to the blog, and you can create a new account?
You're right - I misspoke re: experience vs. influence. You are also correct when it comes to valuation of BCs. The different skills are NOT worth the same point value. Truly what should be done is that we should go through and value each skill individually. That will be tougher when it comes to the Leadership skills and easier with respect to things like furious charge.
I'm going to make some new rules posts to break out these discussions.
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