[Taqwus]

Lack of consistency with the existing rules? IIRC, combat movement doesn't cost supply; only strategic movement does.

A complicated solution might be --

Remove the plain turn limit and the borders.

Individual ships that are at least some large threshold (100 squares, say) far from all of their enemies may, at their option, escape. Withdrawal location should possibly be a random adjacent empty square on a per-ship basis, or possibly destroyed if none are available; this fleeing consumes all movement points for the subsequent GAME turn (i.e. it's a serious penalty, because these ships may be picked off one by one while thusly scattered).

What SHOULD happen when the defender flees while entirely surrounded, is unclear to me. Possibly it should be treated as an attack and lead to another fight? The automatic destruction rule comes from traditional war games, but fleeing armies are usually more restricted in their movement and easier to intercept than space ships, one would think.


Combat terminates on

a) all remaining pairs of objects are allied,

b) (chess-like) no hull damage, facility destruction, population loss, unit/ship loss, or unit/ship escape for N turns (to prevent certain forms of obnoxious behavior),

c) Perhaps, mutual consent? Might be useful, for instance, if both sides end up with crippled ships and neither has a prospect of damaging the other, and neither wants to have to wait N turns. Or there are probably other peculiar uses, like two enemies agreeing to cooperate for one battle against a superior foe, and again not wanting to wait for N turns or bothering to move away from each other.

Apply translation to the entire map. After all, if your ship is in the center of the screen (or near it), then anything that's far enough to be off it isn't immediately relevant, since it's much too far for shooting; it's presence can be noted on a minimap (perhaps a square with a radius equal to the escape threshold; really don't need to re-center, 'tho, if next object is w/n, say, 5-10 of center I'd think) or by a labelled arrow on the appropriate map edge.

If you want to run, you have to be fast enough to put distance between you and your foes, but you won't be hampered by slamming into a mysterious wall. If you scatter, actually, there's a good chance some will escape since your attacker may not be sufficiently numerous enough to chase 'em all.

Drawbacks obvious to me include the complexity (infinite-size board, retreating placement), possibility for arbitrariness (via the parameters), and, naturally, coding complexity. But maybe for SE V, heh, and it'd at least get rid of the borders and the basic turn limit (which can stop you right before you start doing hull damage, say).


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night