Interim Turn Announcements
I'll definitely have to sleep before making a new battle report, at this point. Before then I figured I'd post some stuff I was thinking about.
Oops, Moskurg Model 4 costs resources!
I didn't mean to leave it with no resource cost. It costs 3 ore, 3 oil.
The Final Word on Recoilless Rifles
Having done more research, it seems very unlikely that an antique or modern Recoilless Rifle around the Rhino/Hippo's size could reasonably penetrate the amount of armor it's been penetrating without the benefit of HEAT rounds. I still don't think this is the biggest issue in the world. I also care for internal consistency with events in my own game as much or more as I care for consistency between my game and real life. As such I have a couple options:
A) Keep the RR's as they are. They have one or two points more AP than they probably should. Oh well, it's just one weapon.
B) Nerf the AP, but explain previous performance by giving it moderately effective HEAT rounds. This would imply that Moskurg made decent 2.2 inch HEAT rounds when they made either the Rhino or the Hippo, effectively giving them a 6 die roll retroactively. On the plus side for Arstotzka, this would mean the RR's don't stand to be drastically improved by adding HEAT rounds and would be more easily defeated by, say, slat armor. On the other hand, these HEAT rounds would be available for Breaker guns and possibly SPATs, as a matter of consistency. This would improve moskurg anti-armor performance considerably.
I will be hearing arguments (not votes) for A and B options, from both sides, and of course Kot and 10ebbor10 in particular.
War Crimes
A lot of people are concerned about violating the Geneva Protocol/Hague Conventions and similar. I can say that your countries are not signatory to any international war crime treaty. In my brief research I haven't yet found any clear record of how these were enforced on non-signatory countries, either in theory or in practice. I'd appreciate it if someone could point me to a good article on that subject. I would probably use a simplified version in game (these treaties are long man), the biggest tenet being the banned use of gas weapons and poisons, with expanding bullets and such probably banned as well (I will warn any nation before they go ahead with designing/revising treaty-violating weapons so there is no ambiguity). Anyway, I'd like to have these as a game mechanic with clear rules rather than ambiguous ones players are fearful and unsure of.
The Arstotzka-Moskurg War Treaty
(I'll repost this at the top of the 1930 BR as well)
At the risk of turning this into a diplomacy game: High Command of each Nation is proposing a war treaty. In a game-changing, landmark historical event, some basic articles, such as "Prisoners will not be served as meals to other prisoners", "Prisoners will not be served as meals to tigers or bears" and "Prisoners are friends, not food" have already been agreed upon! It also forbids to weaponized use of the Ark of the Covenant, if it is ever found. They are looking to the engineers of both sides to form the section of the agreement that pertains to which weapons are allowed and not allowed.
You may draft an agreement which describes forms of banned weapons, eg "All gas and chemical weapons are banned, and the use of tigers as weapons is banned" or "landmines may not be stacked on top of one another" or even "Moskurg may not use recoilless rifles, and Arstotzka may not use RPGs" and then this agreement must be ratified by a majority of voting players on each side. The terms can be whatever you want, even unreasonable stuff if both nations agree. You can even get creative and, for example, make provisions for future additions. Beware of loopholes, or use them to your advantage. High command will refuse to deploy any banned weapon out of a superstitious, unfounded fear of frost giants/sand devils, but also because the country which is victim to treaty violation will receive a game-breaking amount of foreign aid expense credits and materials.
Also, start posting National Sports
It will make my job easier if they are here in the OOC thread when I start writing the battle report tomorrow.
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Topic: Arms Race, OOC [Completed] Now with Arms Race III, against another forum! (Read 233737 times)