Re: [eia] Comparing things

[Michael Gorman <mpgorman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The problem seems to be that realism arguments favor both sides. That a 
minor contributor to a battle might get more credit or more blame than they 
deserve for a victory or a defeat is not at all hard to imagine or provide 
examples of.

I'm happy playing with either rule although I will probably bring back up 
the issue of whether or not a garrison factor counts you as being part of a 
battle.  It doesn't make you there for defeat purposes at all so I'd say 
it's arguable that it doesn't make you there for victory purposes 
either.  The one clear example where points are given for a battle with a 
garrison is a relief battle and I can certainly see the rescuer getting all 
the glory rather than the rescued.

That add on to the discussion aside.  I do think the back cover has a more 
complete rule and it's for that reason that I think it is what was intended 
originally whether or not we decide it is the best way to do things.  My 
reasoning for this is that the interior of the book wording does not 
include the possibility of a multi-national force while the land combat 
rules clearly do allow for that possibility and devote large portions of 
the rules to describing exactly how they function.  You can infer a way to 
read them to include those forces, but it is not explicit.  The back of the 
book rule explicitly deals with multi-national forces  and the political 
ramifications of using them.

The problem with either way is that they are both clearly both realistic 
and unrealistic at the same time so neither reading will be entirely 
satisfactory.  I do think we need to come to some sort of settlement for 
how we will play and then ignore when it doesn't make sense and be happy 
when it does.

I'm going to have to come down as neutral since I think both cases are 
trying to model how the press responds to an event and plays it back 
home.  Since the press response is not inherently tied to reality in any 
way, we're making it up with either solution.

Mike


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