Re: [eia] evasion attempt off Naples

["Kyle H" <menexenus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    Once again, I have not received the email from JJ that Mike quotes
below.  Without having access to the full text, I'm not sure what the upshot
was supposed to be.  Maybe JJ was just venting steam, or maybe he was
suggesting rules changes.  The following is written assuming that the latter
is the case.  No offense is intended to anyone, especially JJ.  In what
follows I am just trying to argue my case as effectively as possible.
    First off, our most important reason for not changing the rules is that
Mike and I have relied on them in the crafting of our orders.  It follows
that we will be very reluctant to agree to changes now.  Mike's response
attempts to make the rules seem more realistic by relating them to poor
communications.  My tactic is just the opposite.  In essence, I'm willing to
admit that the rules allow for some unrealistic situations, especially when
taken to extremes.  But that will be true for most rules in most games.
    To address JJ's point more directly, I will present four responses to
JJ's "30 fleets" thought experiment, in increasing order of
seriousness/importance.  A) There are not 30 fleets in the game (only a
little over 20).  B) Even if there were that many fleets in the game, our
stack would only be able to intercept 5 of them on average (assuming that
each one moves through 1 adjacent sea zone apiece).  C) Multiple battles
against individual fleets - even significantly weaker ones - would
eventually wear us down.  D) It would be stupid for these fleets to file
past us one at a time when the rules allow them to mass prior to moving past
us.
    Allow me to expand on this last point.  As JJ has pointed out many times
before, the rules are written to favor combined movement.  To me, JJ's
argument below is like pointing out that it would be silly to send 10
individual corps one at a time against Napoleon's Grand Armee.  Yes, that
would be silly, but that's why the rules allow for combined movement and
stacking.  The response is similar in the naval case.  Yes, it would be
silly to send one fleet at a time against a more powerful stack, but that's
why the naval rules allow for combined movement and stacking of fleets.

    I can't help but be reminded of Mike's complaint in our aborted last
game that the UMP rules allowed JJ (the British player) to evacuate Spanish
troops from Spain to avoid facing Mike's superior (French) troops, even
though that meant that Madrid would be occupied without resistance.  In that
situation, Mike complained that the rules lacked realism in much the same
way that JJ is making the same complaint now.  In both cases, my response
is/was: the rules aren't always written for maximum realism.  Sometimes game
balance issues can cause a rule to be written in a way that violates
"realism".  Just as the rules allow for Spain to evacuate its military in
the face of a French attack, they also allow for 30 individual fleets to be
intercepted by one stack.  When rules are pushed to extremes, extreme things
can happen.  <shrug>

    Again, I hope I haven't offended anyone with this response.  As I said
before, for all I know JJ was just venting steam and he was not proposing
any rules changes.  If so, my reply is completely unnecessary and I
apologize.  But this is what happens when a person doesn't get all his
emails and has to hear about some of them second hand...  In any case, I
hope everyone takes this email in the spirit in which it was intended,
namely, a frank discussion of the rules - nothing more, nothing less.

    I'm looking forward to seeing how JJ's coalition attempts to foil our
plans.  I'm sure he'll come up with something we didn't anticipate.  He
always does.

kdh

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Gorman" <mpgorman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <eia@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: [eia] evasion attempt off Naples


> At 03:57 PM 12/11/2002 -0500, you wrote:
> >While I see what you guys are saying as far as the letter of the rules
> >says, I
> >find it _extremely_ silly that there is no limit to the number of
> >interceptions
> >a defending stack can attempt before combat begins.  For example, a stack
> >of 30
> >ships is attacked by, say, 30 fleets with 10 ships each.  This
interpretation
> >makes it possible for the defending stack to intercept each and every
> >attacking
> >fleet separately as it enters the area.  Not only is this silly in that
it
> >gives 30 ships a reasonable chance to defeat 300 ships, but also, at the
rate
> >of one interception combat (or manuevering to intercept) per day, this
> >part of
> >the naval phase would take up an entire month's game time, with nothing
left
> >for naval combat or the land phase.  Or, if the attacking fleets are
supposed
> >to be showing up simultaneously or almost simultaneously, how could there
be
> >even a chance that every fleet could be intercepted ?
>


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