Re: [eia] Access

["J.J. Young" <jjy@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Although I can see what you're trying to say, Mike, these are the points
that lead me to disagree with you:

1.)  As has already been said, the turn and phase system of the game is
arbitrarily imposed on what is actually a continuous flow of decisions, both
political and military.

2.)  The access of foreign troops across national borders is a matter which
would be decided by the national governments, not by local military
commanders.

3.)  The game designers have designed the flow of the game (again,
arbitrarily) to put the decisions made by national governments into the
Political Phase, to set the stage for the military Phases for the month.

4.)  In the military phase comes decisions that could be made by the local
commanders, like where to march, who to attack and how, etc.  But the
framework for these local decisions, such as which nations are enemies and
what borders it is and is not OK to cross, have already been made in the
Political phase.

So I think the Political phase is the right place for access changes, and
nothing I've heard so far has changed my mind about this.  But I didn't want
anyone to think that I wasn't listening (er, reading) because I hadn't
spoken out yet (or recently).

-JJY

By "setting the stage", I mean things like who's at war with whom,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Gorman" <mpgorman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "public list for an Empires in Arms game" <eia@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 2:51 PM
Subject: Re: [eia] Access


> > It seems to me that, when considered temporaly, an access declaration in
> the
> > political phase could be a "response" to troop movement in the land
phase,
> > despite that the former comes before the latter in turn order.
> >
> >
> True, but that's not how the game phases run, so it is also irrelevent.
The
> game says there is an order to the land phase and I get to take advantage
of
> knowing before I make my move what everyone before me has done.  Hwoever
you
> want to image that in the real world, better spies, better mobility,
> tendancy to seize the initiative, whatever, doesn't matter, the fact is
> you're supposed to get to know certain things when you make certain
> decisions.  With access moved, you lose foreknowledge you are supposed to
> have the option of knowing when you make access decisions.
>
> Yes, people have argued against forced access, I see no reason not to
bring
> it back up as the solution used to deal with the arguments made against
how
> the rules are written.  What is being proposed is a change to the rules,
not
> an enforcement of them.  Access is not in the political phase.  People in
> our game are changing that to put it there and I am saying I think that is
a
> bad idea since it forces a model of access into place that I think is a
poor
> model.  So far, no one has agreed with me, but so far, I think I'm right
and
> have yet to see an argument that changes that belief.  I'll end up playing
> with a what I see as a deffective rule as that's what everyone else seems
to
> want, but that hardly means I'm going to think the rule is any less
> defective.  So I see no reason not to bring up how the rules as written
can
> be modified in an alternate fashion to still resolve the difficulties
people
> bring up with the access rules without having to put a dynamic decision
into
> the political phase and forcing it to be made in an awkward manner.
>
> Mike
>
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>


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