Simple, Reasonable Disengage/Retreat Rule

[Barnacle Bill]

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:
You can't borrow movemnt points it would make it unfair. yes after 2 turns you would have moved the same amounts but what if during a retreat I entered into another system that had a new race in it. I would have established contact a whole turn early which is to my benefit. Also if your fleet doesn't have any movement points or less movement points than your attacker. (Which I would guess would be 90% of the time in a turn based game)you can't retreat so why spend so much time on an option that winds up not being used anyway? I would rather the time be spent on getting drones in and working on the AI. IMHO

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Not so. Let's say you retreat through a warp point and there is a new race there. It is not your move. You have no access to the diplomacy screen or anything else. You won't even necessarily know, until the message log at the beginning of your next move, that first contact has occurred. So, big deal. What unfair advantage have you gained. The only way you would know at all prior to the beginning of your next move is if the retreat itself generated a combat with the new race.

As to the defender having no movement points left 90% of the time, that is the whole point behind letting the defender borrow from his next turn's movement allowance. Let's say you have a strategic movement allowance of 6, and so does your opponent. You used all of your movement points during your move and clicked "end turn". He is 4 sectors away and moves to attack you, expending 4 MP. You retreat and he follows, expending his 5th point. You retreat and he follows, expending his 6th point. You retreat and he can't follow, because he is out of MP. Your next turn comes, and you have already used 3 MP, so you have only 3 left, but you are 1 sector away from him. You expend your remaining MP's getting back to 4 sectors away from him. Net result - you are still 4 sectors away from him. This continues for as many turns as it takes before he breaks off pursuit or you decide to stand and fight.

Now what if we had a real-time game (or real life), so movement is continuous instead of i go - you go. You would be 4 sectors away from him running at top speed, he would be chasing you at equal speed, so he can't get any closer. This is the same net result. That is the point: trying to make I go - you go as close as possible to real life without making it unplayable or giving up the advantages of a turn-based strategy game.

I don't see improvements to SE4 as some sort of zero sum game in which this change and that change can't both be done (unless the two are just flat out mutually exclusive). That we want change X is not a reason to stop asking for change Y (again unless X & Y are mutually exclusive). Even if it were, I can't say that I see drones as a screaming priority. This unrealistic need to fly around the tactical map trying to avoid being "cornered" because of the "walls" is a much bigger detracter from my enjoyment of the game than the lack of drones. I don't even know what drones are supposed to be, can't recall anything by that name in Starfire or any previous space 4X computer game, so I don't miss them.


[This message has been edited by Barnacle Bill (edited 23 January 2001).]

[Commander G]

I agree there should be some sort of retreating option in the game. The moving to an adjacent square or through a wormwhole is a good idea, providing you deduct a MP (carrier over to next turn if neccessary).

I see a few factors at play in retreating:
1) Maximum Speed
2) If maximum speed is equal, some sort of mechanical reliability should come into play.

How about this: consider that a battle board takes an entire sector, have defenders who did not move start in the center and attackers start on the side of the map they entered from. Ships can leave the map, possibibly ending up in a battle in that sector. Ships should be able to attempt to cross a sector to buypass defenses. It would be interesting if a fleet coming through a wormwhole could fight its way across a sectoe with satelites and fighters before moving into the next sector, instead of having to defeat that fleet (or surviging a whole 30 turns) or going back the way it came.

[Seawolf]

Bill,

I don't know how to do the qoute format so bear with me.

As far as the com channels what if it is your turn? I assume that an attacker would be allowed to retreat as well.

for the borrowing of mp that just doesn't make any sense. Why stop at just next turns mp? why not make it 5 turns worth? Besides how would the computer keep track?

The only difference with all the suggested retreat options and the how the game is currently is that your fleet ends up in a different position. Lets say you get hit by an enemy fleet. Unless there is a tech difference between the ships the fleet attacked can always retreat since they would have next turns moves avail. If the attacking fleet had more they will catch up eventually so the fight happens, just somewhere else.

And how can we code the AI to use this option? I see it as an another advantage for a human player over a AI race. "Gee he blindsided me with a large fleet. Rather than lose ships I will run away, save them and come back with a bigger fleet." Also what if the fight is over a planet? Does the fleet attack the planet or leave it alone and go after the ships.

I agree in tactical battle something should be done ranther than pilot for 30 turns but I don't think a startegic retreat option is the answer.

As always IMHO


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Seawolf on the prowl

[Barnacle Bill]

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:

I don't know how to do the qoute format so bear with me.

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I just figured that out recently myself. Click on the thing at the bottom of the message that says "quote".

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:

As far as the com channels what if it is your turn? I assume that an attacker would be allowed to retreat as well.

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Sure, but the attacker is retreating using THIS turns MP's. That means if the attacker attacks using his Last MP for the turn he is stuck, but that is his choice as he is initiating the battle in the knowledge that he won't be able to retreat. As long as he saved a point for retreat, though, if he attacks and things don't go as he planned, he can still retreat. If he does, and that causes first contact, well it is his turn and his move created first contact, so what's the problem?

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:

for the borrowing of mp that just doesn't make any sense. Why stop at just next turns mp? why not make it 5 turns worth? Besides how would the computer keep track?

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Because one is all it takes. The idea is to give the defender a retreat option. You don't need to go any farther than 1 turn to do that. Again, the attacker won't be using using next turn's points, but this turn's. If the attacker has enough MP this turn to catch the defender even if the defender retreats through his entire movement allowance, then the attacker is faster so he SHOULD catch the defender. Frankly, I've seen the same thing done in other games so I don't see the big deal.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:

Besides how would the computer keep track?

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Right now, all your units that have orders left over from Last turn move all on their own at the beginning of this turn, before you can do anything. You just add the information about how many MP's were used in retreating to the info about orders. "-3 MP" or some such at the top of the order que for the fleet or ship that retreated.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:

The only difference with all the suggested retreat options and the how the game is currently is that your fleet ends up in a different position. Lets say you get hit by an enemy fleet. Unless there is a tech difference between the ships the fleet attacked can always retreat since they would have next turns moves avail. If the attacking fleet had more they will catch up eventually so the fight happens, just somewhere else.

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No, the point is that the way the game is played now a ship that "in real life" could not be caught and engaged gets caught, engaged, and trapped in a corner. A fleet that has a weapons range advantage and at least parity in speed, which in real life would be able to destroy its shorter-armed opponent in a running battle without getting a scratch, gets trapped in a corner. If you are faster, and your fleet is small, you can run for 30 tactical turns and stay out of the corners. However, if you are just the same speed, not faster, or if you have a big fleet, as the game is now you can't stay out of enemy weapon range and turn fast enough to avoid getting trapped in the corner. In the game as it is now, even if you have the speed to avoid them, you still have to play out a tedious 30 tactical turns of running in a circle. In real life, there are no corners and you would just run in a straight line.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:

And how can we code the AI to use this option? I see it as an another advantage for a human player over a AI race.

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Figuring out how to code the AI to use the option is not that hard. In the latest Starfire rules, it is "hard-coded" that HUMAN players may have to attempt to retreat if the odds are bad enough, unless you are defending your homeworld. There is a roll modified by racial charactoristics that, if you don't make, you have to retreat because your ships have basically decided not to die for the cause. Ships that are not fast enough to disengage start rolling for for having to surrender.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:

"Gee he blindsided me with a large fleet. Rather than lose ships I will run away, save them and come back with a bigger fleet."

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Bingo! How do you think it works in real life? I guess somebody better explain to the British Army that they were supposed to have stood & fought to the Last man at Dunkirk instead of retreating across the channel and coming back 4 years later (at Normandy) with a bigger army.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:

Also what if the fight is over a planet? Does the fleet attack the planet or leave it alone and go after the ships.

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Potentially, both. If the defender can separately retreat just those portions of his force that are outside of weapons range and fast enough to stay that way, leaving the slow pokes to their fate, the attacker could finish off the slow pokes and then use his next strategic MP (if he has any left) to pursue the retreating force. This would be the defenders choice - try to save something or all go down together.

[dmm]

At the risk of being pedantic:
To quote someone in multiple places, copy and paste the quote b stuff in brackets at the beginning and end of the quote, inserting it in the quoted material where you want to put your comments. And if you want to leave out stuff, just delete it and replace it with ..., which symbolizes that the original quote has more at that spot.

[Seawolf]

My suggetion would be to remove the borders of tactical combat, keep the 30 turn combat limit, and set a retreat button that had all the ships run away from attackers. That way you can "outrun" ships.

Strategic movement should not change on a turn by turn basis. It is 6 or 7 or what ever it is. Don't forget supplies are impacted by movemetn too.

I understand keping it "real" but this isn't real and comparing it to Durkirk very bad. I prefer to us Jutland or Coral Sea where you just have to deal with what you are facing.

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Seawolf on the prowl

[Zanthis]

I have to say I really like Bill's (was it his originally?) retreat suggestion. Would work well without messing with too many basic game mechanics and could easily be an option set in Settings.

However, I'd happily settle for Seawolf's no borders (I don't even need an auto retreat, I'll do it by hand if I have to).

While their at it, any chance of getting turn modes and weapon arcs?

[Barnacle Bill]

Well, the Germans didn't stay and get wiped out at Jutland, either. Their fleet overall was smaller, but they initiated the operation in hope of catching a significant portion of the British fleet alone before the British could concentrate. When they realized that the British had assembled a superior fleet on the spot, they retreated toward their home port. The British broke off pursuit because they feared the short-ranged German torpedo boats that would be near the German base.

If we had the retreat rules I have proposed in SE4, the SE4 Version of Jutland would play out like this. The Germans on their move attacked an inferior British fleet with their main force. The British retreated from that combat into an adjacent sector where they had another fleet, so that their combined total outnumbered the German fleet. Seeing that, he German's then headed for their nearby heavily defended colony with their remaining MP for the turn. On their following turn, the British attacked the Germans with their superior fleet, but the Germans retreated until they got into the same sector as their colony. The British then declined to pursue into the sector containing the colony, because they didn’t want to face the German fleet and colony defenses together.

However, I would be OK with simply removing the borders, or making the tactical map so big they didn’t matter (which might be easier to code). I think retreat would be better, but that would fix the biggest problems and be less complicated. Basically, you would want the opposing forces to start as far apart as they do today, but either of them should be able to run in a straight line away from the other for 30 tactical turns at top speed without hitting the wall. Although I don’t think anything in the game now can get a tactical speed above 7, I would suggest allowing for up to 10 (or more) to maintain flexibility for mods. For example, in Starfire editions 1-3 it worked like SE4 in which the “base” speed of hulls BC and below is 6, while every hull above BC loses a little more of that. In Starfire 4th edition, they have made it so that you lose maximum base speed at the hull size increases over the entire range of hull speeds. We might want to do that in SE4 as well, and would need those extra speed points.

One reason we might want to do that is the missile problem, which Starfire is wrestling with now as well. If your weapons have longer range and your speed is equal or greater, if you have room to run then your enemy can’t hurt you. You may not be able to hurt him, either, if he has a lot of PD, but that is not necessarily the problem. Since a game like this has all these options, people want them to actually be viable options so that everybody doesn’t just build the same “optimum” ship designs. Then there is the concern that you couldn’t intercept enemy fleets threatening your colonies before they got there, if the bombers/raiders we fast enough to avoid your intercepting fleet (retreat or bigger tactical map doesn’t matter). The colony issue can be addressed by changes which make it impossible to put weapons that can hurt a colony on smaller ships and making smaller ships faster than medium or large ships, which means you keep those smaller ships even in later game for exactly this purpose. It would also help if we give enough of a range advantage to fixed defenses that no ship of any size can stand off and pound them. However, to keep the other weapons viable I think you will end up having to do two more things – introduce an opportunity fire system and reduce the range at which seekers can launch. That way, missile ships have to expose themselves at least briefly to opportunity fire from other weapons in order to launch. I think all these changes together, as a package, would make it a better game.

More on the small ship thing. This would take some AI coding to make the AI use proper tactics, but I think it would be worth it. Historically, you had these small torpedo-armed ships that were hard to hit but fragile if you did, armed with short-ranged weapons that could threaten battleships. Those same weapons were virtually worthless on bigger ships because they lacked the maneuverability to employ them properly. So, you had distinct tactical roles for ships of different sizes. Big ships pound other big ships at long range. Some little ships try to get in close to the big ships with torpedoes. The other little ships and the medium ships try to keep the other side’s torpedo ships away from the big ships. I think a class of powerful short-ranged weapons could be introduced to model this (I’d give them a range of 1 and a pretty long reload time, and of course unusable against planets). There would be an ability you could assign to a hull which would be create a to hit decrement just when using this class of weapon, so you could make it increasingly difficult to use these weapons as your hull size went up. I’d also balance things so that the “to hit” protection of smaller ships would make them really hard to hit with this class of weapons. The idea would be that the new class of weapons would really be pretty useless except by small ships against big ships, but devastating if small ships armed with them can get in range of big ships. It should be set up so that a “balanced fleet” is superior to an all little ship fleet, though.

[dmm]

Since retreat is being discussed again, I'm bumping this up, for the benefit of newbies.