Re: [eia] Comparing things

[Joel Uckelman <uckelman@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thus spake "Kyle H":
>     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

Err. Ignore what I said about PP and Napoleon in my previous commment; I
was misremembering. Only France is affected PP-wise by having Napoleon
in command.

Here's another mention of the same dispute we're having (see 4.7.5.2.10.1.3):

http://www.student.gsu.edu/~pyang1/ejg/games/eia/eiafaq.txt

BTW, I ran across this variant national aspirations thingy, which looks
interesting:

http://www.student.gsu.edu/~pyang1/ejg/games/eia/EiAnat.html

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