quote:
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
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).]
Re: Simple, Reasonable Disengage/Retreat Rule
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