RE: [eia] access adjustments ?

[Michael Gorman <mpgorman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:30 PM 4/14/2004 -0700, you wrote:
> I feel that placing access agreements at the end of the political phase
> ("J") makes a certain amount of sense if you consider that it would take
> some time once a war is declared on a minor to  make the decision to sponsor
> said minor, consult with allies (or any interested parties), and publicly
> declare the granting of access.  I don't know how much time a political
> phase represents  , but I find that the delay in allowing other major powers
> access is not all that unrealistic or unreasonable to me.  So basically, if
> a minor is sponsored in February then access will be effective at the end of
> the March political phase.  I, for one, do not want a separate escrow that
> is going to hold up the game more than it already is bound to be.
At the other end, how hard are we trying to make access?

Access isn't in any phase in the base rules.  We've already restricted it a 
lot by putting it into the political phase.  My concern is that we are 
moving towards making the game unplayable in the name of making it 
fast.  There seems to be some assumption being made that access agreements 
are supposed to be difficult, but that's something we made up.  The game 
rules allow them to be made on the fly and so don't need any concerns about 
when nations get controlled.  What we're seeing now is a house rule having 
problems and the response is to make it even harder to use.  I think we're 
going the wrong way.

I don't want to have playing a nation who makes allies become such a pain 
in the ass that I can't stand writing orders.  What does this complication 
add to the game besides being annoying?  And saying it will only be 
annoying sometimes doesn't waive the question of what does it add?  What 
are we gaining by making it harder to administrate an alliance?  We're 
adding a layer of complexity to the game and so far it looks like an 
unnecessary complication to me.

It isn't realism because it's unrealistic to think a nation would have to 
announce all its access agreements to the world and then be incapable of 
breaking them at the last minute.  So you're at best trading one kind of 
compromise on realism for another compromise.

I question the gain in speed since it slows down the political phase by 
requiring more things to be worked out in diplomacy before people answer 
the escrowe.  It prevents interruptions of the land and naval phases by 
shoving those interruptions into an earlier phase rather than by getting 
rid of them.

People seem very attached to the idea that access decisions must be in the 
political phase and must be escrowed so there has to be something we're 
gaining from this.  I just don't get it what it is.

Mike


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