Rise of the Remorhaz Society

[Hotfoot]

I didn't want to say anything until I was finished catching up, only having found this thread a few days ago. Now that I'm on the same page as everyone else, I shall now share my thoughts concerning the story.

Sachmo, I am very impressed by what you have written so far. While game logs in general are enjoyable reading, the level of detail and personality that you produce is wonderful. I'll admit, reading this story got my juices flowing again, both for SEIV and for writing. Well, more like just got them flowing faster, but I'm sure you get the idea.

I also would like to say that I very much like your handling of the passage of time inside of the game turn and combat turn. It really gives me a good feel of the long-term scale of the game. Given the detail that you go into, however, I can only imagine the amount of time it takes you to play each turn.

This is not all about praise, however. You've also made me fall behind on my workload, however, as I have not only am I suffering from a severe case of the "Just one more turn" syndrome, but also a "Just one more installment" bug. I am holding you directly responsible for this and demand compensation*!

I'll send my people to talk to your people.



*and by compensation, I mean "Pie". Or more installments of your story. It's all good.

[sachmo]

Hotfoot- Thanks very much! I'm so glad you are enjoying it! It does take a while to complete a turn, and sometimes I find myself wondering how it will all end up. However, the writing is so much fun, I can't skip ahead! Also, if it's pie you demand for your time, head on over to Phongs and I will eat a piece with you!

Geo- the problem with Renton is that while I would love to promote him...no one is dying! I haven't been able to find a reason to promote him yet. If he were in the 2nd Brigade, which is poised to drop on the Rage homeworld, he might soon find a truckload of spots open.

[Hotfoot]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I have a suggestion. As a veteran of the first Remorhaz ground invasion, and four other drops since, isn't it about time that Private Renton earned a promotion? What did he do, sleep with the Captains wife or something?

How many slots have opened up in the chain of command? Judging from the current mortality rates of the marines, not many. Maybe once we see some nastier ground battles with more losses on the Remorhaz side, I can see this happening. As it is, everyone who survived the combat drops would be in the same boat as Renton.

Of course, maybe if he just went from Private to Private First Class, or something, that might work.

[geoschmo]

So, write in some deaths. How hard is that? Even in a relativly peaceful invasion some sniper is going to get a lucky shot off or some guy will step on a landmine going off to take a leak. Even if you don't lose any troop units in the invasion, every troop unit doesn't corelate to one marine does it? I figured your troop unit was the drop ship with a platoon or whatever. So the platoon survives, but a couple guys die. A couple of JAFR's come in. The Captain gets promoted to Colonel, the Lieutenant goes to Captian, everybody moves up till the music stops playing.

The unit goes on and on, but the guys in the unit change slightly from battle to battle.

Geoschmo

[sachmo]

I've thought about that, Geo. Just a couple of Space Marine casualties, with no vehicle losses. We shall see what happens, as 1st Brigade is going planet hopping again, and soon.

Also- You are right about the unit scale in the Remorhaz universe. One unit (Blazer) carrys a platoon (20) Space Marines. To date, they have lost exactly one Blazer.

[geoschmo]

Yeah, that's what I thought. So in the history of the Remorhaz marines they have only had one entire platoon of soldiers that were wiped out. This is understndable considering the lack of organized defense you are facing. The US army probably hasn't lost an entire platoon in combat since Vietnam, and I am not sure it happened all that often over there even. What does happen though in almost every engagement, even when one side vastly outnumbers the other, is that a couple guys in a platoon will get killed or wounded (They don't even have to get killed really) and have to be replaced with green troops. And Lieutenants and seargants get killed occasionally.

Something else to consider is every time you build a new Blazer, that's a totally new platoon. You might fill it with raw recruits for Privates, but you would want to get officers and Seargants that have some experience. So what you would do is promote some Privates from another platoon that has seen some action. So there you woudn't even need casulties, just some additional units and you have room for promotion.

So you can jazz up the invasions a bit. They don't have to have actual casualties in your game. Just write in some decent firefights where the good guys lose some boys, and some boys get wounded, but the units aren't totally wiped out. But just because you took over the planet and didn't lose any blazers doesn't neccesarily mean the natives threw down rose petals for your guys when they landed.

Geoschmo

[ September 26, 2002, 17:49: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Jmenschenfresser]

An interesting naming convention for troops, which I might use in the history game is to divide up troops into Companies or Regiments or something like that.

So you design a troop and call it 1st Brigade. and you make 10 of them. Design another as the 2nd bridage and make 10 of them. So forth and so on until you have a few hundred. Now when you go into battle, and if you take losses, you'll know which brigade took losses and which needs replacements.

I suppose you could, if you were ambitious, go down to smaller Groups of 5 or 3 troops. Then you could organize them by troop transport. Call the transport 4th Division, and then if you add several to a fleet you could then call the fleet 1st Corp or something like that.

Maybe you are already doing that...dunno. Spur of the moment idea.

[geoschmo]

That would work. He's not really doing that. He's just got a design that he is equating to a platoon of 20 soldiers. But he isn't using the actual troop design names to keep straight on the numbers. That would work very well I think.

I had the idea once to have a different name for each combat unit based on what planet they were from. This way I could sort of keep tabs on them as they travelled around conquering planets. Similer to your idea though. You could do the same thing for ships I guess.

Geoschmo

[ September 26, 2002, 18:19: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[sachmo]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
That would work. He's not really doing that. He's just got a design that he is equating to a platoon of 20 soldiers. But he isn't using the actual troop design names to keep straight on the numbers. That would work very well I think.

I had the idea once to have a different name for each combat unit based on what planet they were from. This way I could sort of keep tabs on them as they travelled around conquering planets. Similer to your idea though. You could do the same thing for ships I guess.

Geoschmo

Actually I am creating different designs for the different brigades! I did it so that I can keep track of who takes losses in the engagement, or to determine which brigade gets the glory! I was also planning, and still may at some point, introducing some Space Marines from the Norak planets. Since they seem to love freedom so much, they are eager to fight for it! I was thinking that their troops might utilize a different weapon technology, as their combat tactics would be different from native Remorhaz Marines. That is, of course, if the chairman and the commandant believe they will remain loyal. Or assuming the Ukra-Tal aren't about the wipe the floor with my butt!

[ September 26, 2002, 19:26: Message edited by: sachmo ]

[geoschmo]

I have a suggestion. As a veteran of the first Remorhaz ground invasion, and four other drops since, isn't it about time that Private Renton earned a promotion? What did he do, sleep with the Captains wife or something?

Great story Sachmo. Very engrossing.

Geoschmo