Large PBEM - Thread 2

[ormuzd]

no matter, played few minutes ago and sent to andy

[andy_hammer]

670bc sent to Zord

[Zord]

to Spencer

[SpencerH]

sent

From the Baghdad Times (670BC):

Allah the merciful the compassionate

The glorious armies of our master Hammurabi (the kindhearted) have begun to liberate territory that has been occupied by the land-grabbing Ottomans who have boxed us in and left us no choice. The evil Ottomans lost one spear wielding savage while none of our troops were martyred.

[Harovan]

670BC to ormuzd.

The Egyptians will not meddle in the hostilities between their neighbors, but warn both of them not to step on Egyptian soil.

[SpencerH]

BTW, some players may not know that there is no combat results in PBEM i.e. you wont see what happens to your troops when attacked by another civ. One way around this is to post messages of both sides losses and sometimes small screenshots after your turn.

[SpencerH]

Fairest Cleopatra:

Allah Akbar

We have no interest in Egyptian lands. As you know, since we took no offense to your scout there, we have mostly useless lands within our southern sphere of influence. The evil Ottoman empire has blocked any chance we have of peacefully acquiring decent lebensraum. Therefore, we have chosen to act before being slowly choked by the many-headed hydra of the war-mongering Ottomans.

Hammurabi (the kindhearted)

[ormuzd]

turn sent to andy hammer

[andy_hammer]

Sent to Zord

[Zord]

And on the year 670BC Zord, Emperor or the Ottomans, suffered the attack of the snake-like Babilonians, and lost 1 city. And He knew bad times were coming, and that he should prepare...


... and He sent 650BC to Spencer.

[SpencerH]

From the Babalonian war ministry

Allah the merciful the compassionate

The glorious armies of our master Hammurabi (the kindhearted) have continued to liberate territory that has been occupied by the evil Ottomans. None of our troops were martyred and we didnt bother to kill any more cheese-eating Ottomans.

650 sent

[Harovan]

630BC to ormuzd

I have nothing against combat reports, but they should be sent by mail rather than posted here.

[SpencerH]

why?

[Harovan]

Because this would give more information than you get in the SP game. You don't get informations there about combats half around the planet. Combat results are the sole matter of the two combattants.

Imagine a third side (like myself in this conflict), having evaluated from the weak-average-strong information of the F3 screen the size of one side's military. Now I get the information, that half of this military just was crushed outside my view. Now I might either decide to help the underdog or to finish him off, and this decision would be based on an information I shouldn't have.

Another example. You report in public "Attacking horseman retreats with 1hp, not scratching defending pikeman". I (third side) see, damn, he has already pikemen, so I better don't intervene with my horsemen.

In other games I participate in we send combat results by email in the form:

Combat north of city X:
1 - (4/4) Swordsman attacks (4/4) Spearman. Swordsman loses, Spearman ends (2/4)
2 - (3/3) Horseman attacks (2/4) Spearman. Horseman wins and gets promoted (2/4).
... and so on.

(x/y) means: x is the number of hp's the unit has, y is the maximal number of hp's, like 3 for regular, 4 for veteran and 5 for elite.

This is information both sides would see in SP, why not in MP? But a third side shouldn't have this information.

[SpencerH]

I assumed that was your reason but I wanted to know for sure.

I like the combat results you're using in some ways but IMO that amount of detail will be too much later on. By the time I'm attacking with a stack of 30 cav 20 inf and 50 arty (assuming I'm not dead by then) there's no way to keep track of each combat in that detail.

Plus, there's something to be said about 'the fog of war'. Having a stack of ancient units 'disappear' in PBEM is irritating but having the details of each combat is unrealistic i.e. you cant make a map but you know the details of every combat occuring on the outskirts of your civ?

I think there should be some public acknowledgement of wars. I agree that the tactical details may be too much but we're not playing SP and I see no reason to adhere to SP rules. Eli used the ferenghi rules of war on me at one point, that sure wouldnt have happened in SP.