[eia] Modifying Rules

[Michael Gorman <mpgorman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

	This is the calmer post I probably should have written last night, but, I 
wasn't in a calm and friendly mood then.
	Well Kyle is putting a great deal of effort into finding a rule that makes 
sense to him, and I respect wanting the rules to make sense.  What we are 
seeing is that the rules for EinA are a fairly complex structure that isn't 
easy to modify beyond the most minor things.  JJ found a little thing that 
changes one small part of the depot placement rules but is small enough 
that it can stand up without rippling all over the place.  Kyle is being 
much more ambitious and trying to make a major restructuring of large 
portions of the movement rules.  While it isn't necessarily a bad thing to 
try to do, it is a pretty damn hard to pull it off without having to 
rewrite the entirety of movement and the initial parts of the combat rules.
	The reason I keep finding problems is that the rules for how you get to a 
place where combat will occur have a great deal of influence on how combat 
works.  It's not going to be an easy task to consider all the fallout from 
any given rules change if it has anything resembling a broad 
scope.  Therefore. once that proposal is released into the wilds of the 
email list, each of us is going to look at how it would alter our battle 
plans and run it through all sorts of possible situations.  There's a good 
chance that it's going to have problems on the first few passes.  I expect 
the pile of exceptions to the general rules of both movement and combat are 
results of people pointing out odd situation after odd situation until the 
guys writing the rules gave up and wrote them in as exceptions.
	Right now, this discussion has caused me to have to tear into the rules to 
the point that they are starting to make sense to me and new rules 
suggestions are seen in the light of something unnecessary.  Therefore, if 
I don't see a big gain over what we already have, I'm more likely to tear 
them apart than give them a big thumbs up.
	Kyle, if you want to try to come up with proposals for an interpretation 
or a rewrite or whatever, go ahead.  It's at the very least the sort of 
exercise that will make us figure the rules out.  But I'd be impressed if 
anyone could make a rewrite of major portions of the movement, combat or 
supply rules without the first several stabs at it rippling into unexpected 
areas and causing objections.
Mike


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