Re: [eia] Comparing things

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

I don't know...  I have a stance on this issue, but it's not a very strong
one.  I think that both interpretations are rather artificial, since in
both, every winner gains the full PP gain for the battle, where I think it
would be more reasonable to "share the credit" and make the PP gains
proportional to the contribution each victor made to the battle.  In Joel's
interpretation, an attempt is made to do this sort of thing for the losing
side, "sharing the blame" so to speak.  But neither view tries to do the
same for the winners, and there is no clear way of doing so, since the PPs
are based on the losing side's corps.
So neither view does what I would like it to do, namely make both the
winners' and the losers' PPs depend on the number of corps each has in the
battle.  Given the choice between the two flawed interpretations, however, I
would prefer equality between how the winners and losers are treated.  Two
wrongs (both winners and losers gain/lose full PPs) seems better for game
balance than one wrong and a right.  So I reluctantly favor the way we are
presently doing things.

-JJY

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Helle" <jhelle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "public list for an Empires in Arms game" <eia@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 11:00 PM
Subject: RE: [eia] Comparing things


> I personally believe the rules should state losers and winners in the
> plural.  From what I've seen of the game it appears very rare that wars
are
> fought between two major powers alone.  We have a history of "world wars"
in
> our campaign that compel me to interpret the rules in the plural form so
as
> to include *all* victors and *all* losers in a battle.  For what it's
worth,
> that is my opinion.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: eia-bounces@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:eia-bounces@xxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
> Kyle H
> Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 2:18 PM
> To: public list for an Empires in Arms game
> Subject: Re: [eia] Comparing things
>
>
>     I don't know...  I've seen D&D mistakes published in Dragon magazine,
> and I've seen Blood Bowl mistakes published by Games Workshop.  In house
> publishers are often more interested in selling magazines than in getting
> things right.
>
>     Here's the crux of the problem, as far as I'm concerned.  You say that
> they were being sloppy on the back cover.  But that's exactly the problem:
> exactly *where* were they being sloppy?  Or, more to the point, exactly
> where does the sloppiness stop?  We all agree that a mistake was made
> somewhere.  You say that we should reject as mere sloppiness the fact that
> the back cover refers to only one victor and one loser in a battle.
> Rejecting this wording (and only this wording) preserves the
interpretation
> that you share with the man who wrote the article in The General.
>     For the record, I agree with you that we should reject the implication
> that there is only one victor and one loser in a battle.  Similarly, I
think
> it was the *very same sloppiness* that caused the writer of the back cover
> to say that the (singular) loser loses 1/2 of a PP for each of "his"
corps.
> If you think it was sloppy for the writer of the back cover to refer to
only
> one victor and one loser, then wouldn't it make sense that the reference
to
> each of "his" corps would be part of the same sloppiness?  After all, if
you
> are assuming that there is only one victor and one loser, it would be
> perfectly natural to make reference to "his" corps.  It would not imply
> anything additional.
>
>     So, as I see it, you think that the sloppiness of the back cover
extends
> only far enough to protect your interpretation.  (We should reject the
> singular victor and loser, but we should place emphasis on the word "his"
in
> the rule for losing PPs after a battle.)  I think the very same sloppiness
> extends far enough to protect the interpretation we are currently using in
> our game.  (If they were sloppy when they refer to a single victor and a
> single loser, that same sloppiness explains why they used the word "his".)
> In any case, we can each build our own interpretation depending on what we
> wish to ignore as mere "sloppiness".  So basically, we are left with
> inconsistent wording and only our own sense of what makes sense and what
> doesn't as the final arbiter of how to play the game.  Appeals to
authority
> are interesting, but not decisive.
>     BTW, EIH tries to uphold the view that there can only be one victor.
> EIH has rules for determining which country is the sole "victor" in a
> combined force, and it gives that country all the PPs for winning (and
gives
> none to the other contributors).  So, in that sense, EIH is more faithful
to
> the rules as they are written than any of us are willing to be.
>
>     In the end, though, I will not stand in the way if others are
convinced
> that Joel is right.  Joel seems to have convinced Mike.  If others find
> themselves equally persuaded, then I will concede on this issue.  (Of
> course, it goes without saying that if we change how we assign political
> points for field battles, then we should also change how we assign
political
> points for naval battles.)
>
> kdh
>
>
> > Because they were being sloppy, I expect. The fact that there was an
> > article in The General which *advises* doing just that. In fact, here's
> the
> > article reprinted on the AH web site:
> >
> > http://www.avalonhill.com/default.asp?x=articles/strat/eia20030801
> >
> > Quoted here is the first item from the last section:
> >
> > Although Napoleon said, "I would rather fight an alliance than be part
of
> > one," the fact remains that allies do have one advantage in battle. If
you
> > contribute, for example, two corps to a battle against the French, the
> most
> > political points you will lose in a defeat is one, while you stand to
gain
> > as many as three. Your nation could lose three battles and win one and
> > still come out even. True, the French would then have nine political
> > points, but the important fact is that you would not lose nine.
> >
> >
> > If what the back of the rulebook says is a mistake, then this whole
> > paragraph is too. And it appeared in The General, which was the Avalon
> Hill
> > company magazine. I expect that someone at AH was involved in checking
> > strategy articles so that they didn't openly conflict with the game
rules.
> > Moreover, the guy who wrote this article, Bruce Milligan, is listed in
the
> > credits on p. 46 as one of the playtesters for the game. Given all that,
I
> > have a hard time believing that he was wrong about the rules and no one
> > caught it.
> >
> > --
> > J.
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> eia mailing list
> eia@xxxxxxxxx
> http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/eia
>
> _______________________________________________
> eia mailing list
> eia@xxxxxxxxx
> http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/eia
>
>


_______________________________________________
eia mailing list
eia@xxxxxxxxx
http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/eia