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[Terenos]

Right so my new character, tentatively.

1 Regiment, Raider upgrade for the regiment, some trait that gives me better raiding (Say a 3+ on a d6, rather than a 4+)

(Note, I'll break this too! Heh. I kid. But yeah. Thats what im planning on playing)

[CyberGenesis]

Home, eating and then breaking Nuke's rule changes

Seriously people, it wasnt as broken as you all thought it was. A little tweaking sure, but half the stuff i've read so far is twice as broken

Take Large Scale Battle changes for instance:
Double? Triple strength? Do i even need to run math on this?
A 1v15 roll isnt as bad as 1v30. How would you assign damage? Treat the units as having double or triple str? Even on a close 14v15 All you've effectively done is increase variance and really only change the strength itself from 14v15 to 28v30 - a difference of 1 more strength in the larger army's favor

More abuse to follow

[Terenos]

Okay. Here is my major issue with this whole proposed rules reform. And this is me speaking from 10 years experience, and thousands of hours, hundreds of gm'd games worth of experience¹.

When someone finds a means via which to break the game mechanics, this is generally cause for alarm. We should seek immediately to close that loophole so that everyone can continue to enjoy things without broken strategies running rampant.
This just occurred. I found a way, with 12 ducats to destroy the Ligorian standing army. I didn't set out to do this, but I had the option available to me. By all means we should change the things that I used to do this.

One thing. One thing only secured my victory. Split Forces the tactic. Not the tactics system in general, not the upgrade system. Just one tactic. So we should change that.

We have a spinning plate (the rules), it begins to wobble (a loophole is discovered) do you balance the plate, or do you throw it away and get a new plate²? A grand sweeping reform is only necessary if a loophole has gotten so big the only way to close it is by changing everything. It has not.

I propose only one change. A small one. Split Forces the tactic, now draws its difficulty from the strength of units not being engaged, not the regiment count. Change what..4 words, the problem goes away? Small patches are always better than grand reforms. The same balance problems exist with Nuke's proposed change. Whereas for the most part, Iituem's rules work well.
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1: Yes I know no one gives a damn. This is the internet and you can claim whatever ridiculous amount of experience you like. That said yes I have that experience, and yes you should probably listen to me because of it.
2: Seriously, with the new reform the game will end, and it will be boring to watch.

[Sheb]

No one give a damn, but I think he's right.

[SeriousConcentrate]

I think the best proposed change, and the only one that is REALLY necessary, was just capping the amount of bonuses you could get from anything. The problem came from a huge Tactics bonus that AF could exploit; if it was capped to +2 or +3 that would be fine. On the other hand, nerfing the living hell out of Split Forces would work equally well. Just my 2 cents.

[Sheb]

I don't agree with you: if someone IS a tactical genius, he should get away with it.

[SeriousConcentrate]

Ah, but that wasn't the issue. He had a lot of units that had tactical bonuses; if each unit had a hard cap to their bonuses, and could only affect maneuvers they were directly on, that would be one thing... but the way it was, he could send one regiment out with the tactical bonuses of his entire army, and that made little sense. My stance is that each regiment should only have the tactics rating they themselves carry and possibly a bonus from the person leading them. Pasha's tactical bonus shouldn't carry over to a unit he has no control over or dealings with, for example.

[Sheb]

But in his case, he was doing tactics with his whole army.

[Ardas]

I think SC nailed it.  It simply boils down to caps in sensible places. Especially the tactics. But things like manouvers being limited when in siege and a couple of new tactical options are also worth looking into. And I believe that a majority agreed on necessity of caps and changes proposed.

[Sheb]

But why a caps on tactics? Why is it unrealistic to have a genius commander, seconded by capable, intelligent officers to outwit an army based on brute strength?

As for siege, the new system only block the use of tactic during an assault. What Terenos did would still be authorized. I think the change Terenos proposed would nerf the split tactic enough.

[vagel7]

I will go myself and I would like to know what she frequently visits.

[Ardas]

But why a caps on tactics? Why is it unrealistic to have a genius commander, seconded by capable, intelligent officers to outwit an army based on brute strength?

As for siege, the new system only block the use of tactic during an assault. What Terenos did would still be authorized. I think the change Terenos proposed would nerf the split tactic enough.

Its not unlikely, but it is game-breaking when tactics score spirals into teens and that is a bonus for ALL units.
If a commander had a rating of 5 or 6 in tactics then you would see something like that, but a cumulative of all tactical scores of all units should not influence the single unit in action unless it acts with them.
If a unit is separated then it shoud not be able to have all the cumulative bonuses of the army.
Besides, the tactics score is meant to represent competent leadership. That means that commander score is for all units, but a tactics score of a one unit should not spill over to others, sice that particular unit has an officer attached to it and that officer commands only them, not the whole army together with others.
I believe that this is the source of confusion with the tactics. It improves the performance of the unit in rolls, just as any other upgrade, but only commander is able to influence the whole army.

As for the siege: even when you sally, there is not a lot of space between walls and the siege camp, especially with enemy fire messing up the battlefield with debris. As such, your options are limited, but you do get other options in return in addition to defence bonus when you stay on the walls.

The reason why we discussed all of this and want to change it is because terenos broke the system. And from OOC perspective its a good thing, because we can fix it and prevent future breaking. And that is why CG is doing all his stress-testing of the rules to see how much abuse can they withstand. Every system can be eventually broken, but as long as the tolerance limits are above anything that PCs can muster we are ok.
And we are not overhauling everyting mind you: the battles will stay mostly the same, the only different thing will be the cap and the variety of options. I personally see no reson to move away from d6, unless CG says otherwise. We are only looking for the correction of runaway cumulatives that are really abstract but would not work in real life.

[Sheb]

Well, maybe I'm wrong, but I think that all the tactics are army-wide. Splitting the ennemy army isn't done by a specific unit, it's done by the army as a whole. Thus it makes sense for a unit's commander to help the whole army: his skillfully led unit may be the one blockign several ennemy units, thus splitting them from the main ennemy group.

As for siege, well, I'd like a new set of tactics to replace the one we have, if only to make siege battle more different, but that's only me.

[Terenos]

According to these proposed rules, Ligoria's standing army at this point has a tactics bonus of +16 (+8 from commanders (2 per, Pasha, Nike,2 NPC commanders) +4 more from commanders with the Tactician trait(Nike and Pasha_), +3 from tactician troops, +1 from fear causing units.) Sure we could say they only have 12 as Pasha isnt with them..

But how precisely does this limit the ridiculously accelerating tactics score? Oh thats right you just have to be an empire capable of dropping more cash on an army than I had.

Yes, I broke the system. But a complete overhaul is unnecessary. A few things need changing.
And if you bitch and moan because I dropped 6 Tactician upgrades, I propose we limit the amount of Heavy upgrades an army can have. Strength and cunning should both be legitimate upgrade paths. If you cap Tactics you must also cap heavy upgrades. But I dont see anyone clamoring for that because you guys only want strength to be a legitimate upgrade path.

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As far as sallying goes, under the old rules, I could leave the fortifications and do whatever I liked, tactics wise. Under the new rules, I can leave the fortifications and engage the siegers as the 'attacker in an open field battle'..So I can do whatever I like,tactics wise. No penalties. No restrictions.

Not that I ever will. Under the new proposed rule changes, the smaller army will always retreat as they have no hope of victory. Battles will become nonexistant, sieges will occur until the defenders run out of food and surrender. How very...Entertaining.

Mileth Siege, with New Rules
Attackers remain at their str of..19? 20? We'll run it at 19, as i'm fair certain thats what they had.
I have a strength of 14 then add +.5 per regiment I have, so an str of 19.

Lets see I cant run any tactics so thats out. Ligoria of course can run tactics their 16 is reduced by 1/3rd of my 7, so call it 2. They can easily use Perfect Leadership (-3 tactics,) Carpe Diem (-2 Tactics), and FHNS (-2 tactics), for a total boost of +5 leaving 7 total tactics points for other things.
So the strength, in the event of attack would come down to a reasonably fair 24 vs 20. They would never attack. They'd starve out my soldiers. No battle occurs.

Open field:
Well they have 16 tactics to my 7, They could easily spend each tactic point they have destroying my ability to use tactics (Sabotage Tactics: Costs 2 tactics. Reduce enemy tactics score by 1.) Leaving the fight at a flat 19 vs my 11. That seems a bit silly. Lets say they use 11 tactics for the +s to strength (Flank, Carpe, Perfect Leadership, FHNS) I cannot block this.  I could only reduce their tactics points by 3, insufficient to stop their tactics. I could Flank+Perfect myself, so thats my best goal. Lets do that.
This gives them an effective strength of 30 vs my 19. I would of course, retreat into my fortifications. No battle occurs.

Strength beats Cunning, Cunning has no way out. So why the hell should I upgrade my army for cunning?

[thatkid]

Okay. Here is my major issue with this whole proposed rules reform. And this is me speaking from 10 years experience, and thousands of hours, hundreds of gm'd games worth of experience¹.

When someone finds a means via which to break the game mechanics, this is generally cause for alarm. We should seek immediately to close that loophole so that everyone can continue to enjoy things without broken strategies running rampant.
This just occurred. I found a way, with 12 ducats to destroy the Ligorian standing army. I didn't set out to do this, but I had the option available to me. By all means we should change the things that I used to do this.

One thing. One thing only secured my victory. Split Forces the tactic. Not the tactics system in general, not the upgrade system. Just one tactic. So we should change that.

We have a spinning plate (the rules), it begins to wobble (a loophole is discovered) do you balance the plate, or do you throw it away and get a new plate²? A grand sweeping reform is only necessary if a loophole has gotten so big the only way to close it is by changing everything. It has not.

I propose only one change. A small one. Split Forces the tactic, now draws its difficulty from the strength of units not being engaged, not the regiment count. Change what..4 words, the problem goes away? Small patches are always better than grand reforms. The same balance problems exist with Nuke's proposed change. Whereas for the most part, Iituem's rules work well.
-----
1: Yes I know no one gives a damn. This is the internet and you can claim whatever ridiculous amount of experience you like. That said yes I have that experience, and yes you should probably listen to me because of it.
2: Seriously, with the new reform the game will end, and it will be boring to watch.

I'm thatkid, and I support this message.

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