I have a complaint about the battle report. Out of respect and a want to not cause too much trouble, this will be my only post on the matter unless someone
directly asks me a question. I would also like to preface saying that I know evicted isn't perfect and that he can't have perfect judgement; it's ultimately all arbitrary regardless of the person deciding. I'm not mad at evicted at all,
I just
believe he made a mistake in this combat report. And if he disagrees, I'll be fine.
For reference, here's the relevant behavior rule:
2. Keep in mind that I am not a historian, so there will sometimes be mistakes and inaccuracies. Even in the best of circumstances, minor inconsistencies are a common occurrence. If some piece of equipment is imbalanced/unrealistic, I might consider changing it if you bring it up once -AND ONLY ONCE- and politely state your argument. However, I will err on the side of consistency with my own game, I do not like to go back and change things. Sometimes it is more important to simply keep the game running smoothly than other concerns.
I know it's stretching it a bit to "use" this rule for overall battle reports and I've tried to avoid doing that in the past, but I feel particularly strong about this one in particular. I'm not looking for it to be retroactively changed of course, but I would greatly appreciate either a (brief) explanation of why I'm wrong or for evicted to possibly take this into consideration for the future.
TL;DR: How is Moskurg winning in air now? And how are they winning in support units?"Support Units"The Taiga has this quote giving the reason for the even battle:
With Arstotzka winning out in the melee's and Moskurg winning out when it comes to support units, the battle is actually pretty even.
Here are the Arstotzkan support units:
- The Restless - A train. Specifically designed to cart supplies and soldiers to the front lines and behind them. The Restless is Very Expensive.
- The Valkyrie - An aerial transport that can carry 10 people or a modest amount of supplies. It can also survive combat and is therefore extra-useful for the front lines and beyond. It's Cheap.
Here are the (known) Moskurger support units:
- The Modified Phoenix - A delicate cargo airship. It can carry much more than the Valkyrie, but cannot really survive any hostile engagements. Expensive.
So Arstotzka has a train dedicated purely to moving supplies and men around behind the front lines,
and a transport aircraft to fill in the gaps as well as transporting men/supplies through/to hostile areas. Moskurg, on the other hand, just has the Phoenix for largely moving things around behind the front lines.
Furthermore, Arstotzka beats Moskurg in expense. Their Phoenix is either Expensive or Very Expensive. The Valkyrie is
Cheap. We know from experience, such as the transition of the HA1 from Expensive to Cheap, that there is a
very sizeable difference between Expensive and Cheap. We should still have way more Valkyries than they have Phoenixes, which
should make up for the loss in capacity.
Hell, the Valkyrie is even stated to be as fast as the Lightning. Which is
faster than every other Moskurger aircraft. So the Valkyrie is cheaper
and faster.
And of course, again, there's the Restless. The Valkyrie doesn't even need to match the Phoenix in capacity because we already have an established train network made purely for moving around men and supplies.
Moskurgs Phoenix is too much of a target and Expensive, so it is regulated solely to bringing up troops and dropping off supplies from the capitol.
Which our Restless trains already accomplish, freeing up the Cheap Valkyrie for other tasks.
Yet Moskurg is stated
explicitly to be outright beating Arstotzka in terms of support units.
This just doesn't make any sense to me.
Air DominanceFrom the latest Combat Report:
Much as in the desert, the two airforces are more-or-less even, with Moskurg edging out slightly ahead with their Wands hitting out an extra degree of range. Arstotzka is still faster, Moskurg still has better maneuverability and acceleration, and Arstotzka still has the longer-range offensive armament. The two airforces have come to a begrudging respect for one another, although both will point out their own advantages when the topic of who would win in a dogfight comes up.
So now they're actually beating us. By a small amount, but
still beating us.Because let's look at the
previous combat report:
For the very first time, Arstotzka is on par in the air.
Let's go into why the Lightning is effective:
This is exacerbated by Arstotzka's new powered turrets, which make fly-by assaults on Skyhawks more common. The ability for the guns to rotate smoothly and track targets evenly makes it easy to hit the large and mostly-immobile floating artillery platforms and knock them out of the sky. Moskurgs Skyskiffs do their best, but they can't go as fast as a Lightning at max speed, and their ability to fight is limited solely to short range due to the limited range of the Wands of Thunderbolt and the fact that they have no other offensive air-to-air weapon. They can't catch Lightning's either, since the pilots can't see before they even reach max speed. Then, with the the ability for the Lightning to track targets more easily, they start finding their own fighters getting shot down.
- We still are faster than them.
- We still outrange them. (the Lightning turret has an effective range of Long Range. Moskurg's lightning is now Medium range.)
- We still have powered turrets.
This is when the Lightning was
Expensive. Like I said earlier, there is a
huge difference between Expensive and Cheap. And we were on par with Moskurg in air combat.
We made our Lightnings cheap, which should effectively
multiply the effectiveness of our airforce.
But now, Moskurg's
winning in air. By a slight amount, sure, but they're winning. What did Moskurg do?
- Make their wands of lightning medium-ranged. Still outranged by the Lightning.
- Add an explosive element to lightning.
The first change should be obvious in its lack of impact. But let me elaborate on the explosive lightning. The Lightning is heavily-armored. Not only that, but its armor is specifically designed to resist lightning and electricity. So that resistance should immediately take the lightning down a level, though it's still explosive. But then this explosion has to get through the
heavy armor.Their explosive lightning is of course much more useful and I won't deny that, but ultimately we're still faster than them and we still outrange them and our guns still oneshot them, while thanks to our armor and lightning resistance, Moskurger lightning shouldn't be able to one-shot our aircraft at all.
Again.
We made the Lightning cheap. Beforehand, when it was
Expensive, we were actually on par (if not
slightly ahead) in air! Then we made it Cheap while Moskurg made their lightning less useless. But bam. Now we're suddenly
losing in the air. Not even on par still, but losing. While none of our reasons for winning in the air changed and we
greatly increased the frequency of our sole reason for winning in the air.
This makes no sense.
Author
Topic: Wands Race: Magic in Forenia [Core Thread] [EvictedSaint's Run] (Read 44724 times)