Dungeons and Dragons is the best role playing system for crpg's

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by child of Thor


[I was just trying(unsuccesfully) to bait Dr.Spike ]

well.......i've shot arrows into chainmail and plate armour(look....ok i've done some weird stuff in my time).

Chainmail was most often used over another softer type of armour/padding. As it was flexible it would move against the skin in a very abbrasive way, unlike the majority of a suit of plate armour; where you would get the most discomfort(and padding) at the joins.

Plate Armour is also much heavier than Chainmail, so you would try to keep the weight to a minimum - so not as much extra under armour.

Anyway in the tests i've done, using a 60lb bow - Chainmail did provide more protection to the 'meat'(some pork) underneath, with the peircing action of the arrow - the mail would give a little, bend inwards but keep most of the arrow out of the meat.

With plate, as long as you have a heavy enough poundage(and 60lbs was enough) - the arrow simply punches through and goes into the meat, rather than just nicking the surface.

With a sword i found that Plate is much the better armour with a hacking motion, it's pretty much impenetrable. With Chain you may not cut through many of the metal links, but underneath the meat received more damage.

So in those tests - chainmail is better at protecting from peircing blows, Plate armour better at hacking blows.

he he - i was like that 'spoof' dnd video clip that was doing the rounds - ah the weirdness of youth

And to think my experiments when I was young involved pouring salt on slugs........



ACK!

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by DrSpike
The first point isn't true though, not for Civ anyway. Given the major abstractions that need to take place for the game to even work it just is not true that if what remains is modelled 'realistically' that balance will follow. Your conclusion only holds if everything is modelled, and indeed that reality is 'balanced'; both are questionable, and the first demonstrably so.

As for the second point I agree. By focusing on a much smaller goal (ie the combat side of the game) rather than the span of all history the total war games have managed a far greater degree of accuracy alongside great gameplay. I am all for that, and I appreciate that for some the historical side of the game is the draw.

However, the grand scope of Civ requires more abstractions and some aspects that do not follow reality exactly, if the gameplay is to be as desired.

I wasn't trying to draw any conclusions about Civ, just on the pure balance<>gameplay arguement. On the whole I think it does an excellent job at modelling history on the simplified macro scale it operates at.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Grumbold


I can appreciate your position but I believe that if a game has to balance itself by ignoring reality in some obvious way, the designers were lazy people (or forced to be sloppy through time pressure.)

I know you weren't talking about Civ necessarily, I was just offering it as a good example of a case where this statement is not true.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


But Civ2 did have racial characteristics, albeit on a lesser level. Look in the rules.txt file, and you will see settings for the AI for the civs such as "aggressive," "militaristic," "civilized," etc.

But that only effected the AI's (and was to create variety among the AI's) The human player could still play however she/he liked.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike
* DrSpike gets out big stick.

Yes you're right - it's a great book that I used to make my students read. And wrong, of course. The introduction of civ traits adds flavour, variety and strategic depth to the game. Sure traits develop over time, but that isn't the point here. It's a game, with many abstractions.


LOTM - all games have abstractions. Some abstractions are acceptable, some are not. The existence of some abstractions doesnt automatically entail or justify others.

As pointed out earlier, why care about realism on this point when the civs that are in the game were not all civs or potential civs in 4000BC anyway?

LOTM -Short answer - cause this aint Fertile Crescent Universalis. The point is NOT to display actual history, but to show how things would turn out in any earth like set up. (long answer would get to how listed civs existed as such in 4000BC, etc)

Traits that fit standard ideas of the civs make sense from a practical viewpoint, and even teach something about actual traits that the civ may have developed given their actual geographical surroundings.

LOTM - All it shows is that said civs HAD those traits, not how they got them. It does nothing to correct the notion that those traits are innate.

It's a classic example of a context where otherwise correct historical arguments are just dumb. Strategic depth is the appropriate goal.

LOTM - strategic depth is one goal among several.

Ergo, traits good, pedantic historians bad.

LOTM - I take it you didnt enter gaming from board wargaming, did you?

[DrSpike]

Beyond help, alas.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Um, don't think he said that.

I was saying that people buy CRPGs based on AD&D because they somehow have this wrong impression that they would be good.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I know you weren't talking about Civ necessarily, I was just offering it as a good example of a case where this statement is not true.

To my mind they didn't sweepingly ignore reality in the cause of balance, so I'm not sure how it can be used as an example

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Beyond help, alas.

not only that, doc, i really got into board wargaming in the '70s, at a high school in lower Manhattan.

"how can you guys play games about war? Dont you know war is bad for children and flowers and other living things? Arent you guys like creeps?"
"No, no, no, its all about a unique way of learning HISTORY, which is certainly a good thing"

After a point you internalize this

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Grumbold


To my mind they didn't sweepingly ignore reality in the cause of balance, so I'm not sure how it can be used as an example

Not according to the reality mongers!

[Grumbold]

Oh I think they ignored reality in places, but as part of the game design rather than to deliberately balance anything. Turns would have to be less than 1 day long if they wanted to do "realistic" movement rates for aircraft. I can live with abstract movement to avoid needing to play more than 36,500 turns in the final century of the game

[LDiCesare]

I thought plate mail was worn over chainmail, so plate couldn't be worse than chain. The weight of plate mail didn't matter that much as it was mostly mounted armor, so the horse carried most of the weight (well, the man did, but since he didn't have to stand, that was easier on him).

KOTOR 1 & 2 are superb

Errr; Not for me. The underlying D&D system makes Kotor of little appeal to me. I uninstalled it before finishing the game mostly because I felt that there was very little in terms of variety provided to the main character. All choices are far too similar, and solving main quests was mostly done the same way no matter what...
Personally, I definitely won't buy any other game based on D&D because I think this system is bad.
There are better class-based systems out there, and classless systems too.

[Grumbold]

Plate armour was never as heavy as people believe. The modern commando carries more weight on his shoulders in a field pack than the knight wore into battle (about 40 pounds.) The armour was far better balanced around the body so people could easily stand up after falling down. Some knights regularly fought on foot.

I think some of the myth comes from the talk of knights drowning in the mud on the battlefield. That wasn't the armour so much as a combination of the crush of bodies, wounds and the awful footing. Its not so easy to get up when you're in a throng, as poor people trampled to death in panicked crowds tragically show.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Not according to the reality mongers!

civ2 is unrealistic in service to playability - some of this is mathematical necessity (you cant have a TB game with realistic movement, meaningful wars, and yet plays over a small enough number of turns to be playable) - some a design decision to make the game commercially feasible (abstract supply, morale, combat model, etc) With all that unrealism its real hard to tell which sacrifices of realism are due specifically to "balance".

[child of Thor]

@LDiCesare and Grumbold, well the tests i did were based on what i'd been told in p+p rpg's, and through some live role-play events i had access to try this out.

By the mid to late medieval period, Armour had become very sophisticated. It seems some of the very heavy plate armour was designed for combat on horse-back only though. For example King Henry VIII would have to be hoisted into his saddle with winches and pulleys because of the weight of one of his plate suits(and maybe because he was pretty un-weildy himself?). This may have been more of a rarity than the norm though(after all he was a King and could afford very expensive armour?).

Foot-knights did indeed have plate armour that they fought in on foot. The Romans are desribed as having banded armour, but it could weigh as much as some medieval plate. And all sorts of armour combination was used in the past, the japanese laqured armour was interesting

And as an addition to the Civ+realism debate, i'd always wished i could play a game of Civ with either 1year=1turn all the way through, or have that each turn turned into a seasonal year(summer/winter), with maybe each game turn= to one of the seasons. Ok we're looking at 12,000 turn game(or more ), but so what? If it takes me years to play the game then i'll be more than happy.
For me its the taking part bit i'm interested in(especialy in a game as cool as Civ!), the winning is nice but not essential.