Dauntless

Im not sure how much I like the idea of both sides having magic and machinery at their disposal. What I am trying to steer towards would be two or three unique styles of warfare.
My original plan consisted of being able to take control of any country (within a group of 50) and through smart alliances with others, economic dominance and of course an effective military take over the world. The armies would be entirely accurate and consist of everything they do today (which ive already done the research on). The ability to steal technology and the value of economy and politics would hopefully keep everyone at a level playing field. My biggest concern however is creating a game that has already been done and while this particular idea has not been used the World War II games are a dime a dozen. And, how much has most countries military improved since then? As a whole, not a great deal. T-54''s are still used as are F-4''s all over the place.

Kylotan

My original idea consisted of modern technology. I think that would be the most fun to compete against.

SilverMyst

All three of those ideas are very cool. Any others? I also like the 3rd party consisting of eniterly natural elements. Nice twist. Predictable but nice.

quote: Original post by Tacit
... I''m sure he developed a healthy awareness for the negative impact technology had on the environment. Just as his involvement in the War couldn''t not have had an influence on his work. You can''t just shut it off...

true, he mentioned that "an author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience... one has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression..."
but it is absurd to say, "this book is based on X that happened in the author''s life" based on inferences, especially when he said that was not true.

quote: As for hating allegory, Tolkien''s themes are biblical in origin whether he intended them to be or not. And, drawing heavily from the extremely allegorical Anglo-Saxon and Nordic legends for inspiration, I think this was a ridiculous thing to say, even for Tolkien.

his "themes" do not exist. they are contrived by people who read the book and refuse to accept the fact that the guy was just writing a story. i have not read the bible nearly as many times as i have read Lord of the Rings, but i don''t see your point. do you mean the whole "good versus evil" thing? it is quite a stretch to use that as a basis for inventing "themes" that the author never intended.
as for the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic legends, do you mean to say that any story that involves elves is automatically an allegory because of the original legends?
ooh, here''s a good quote: "I think that many confuse ''applicability'' with ''allegory''; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."

quote: But, it was well known that Tolkien was very anti-technology.

true, but tell me this: where exactly is the technology in Lord of the Rings? the evil Sauron who is destroying all the goodness in the world uses magic and swordsmen just like everyone else.
why is it so hard to believe that a classic book wasn''t trying to preach some point or another? it was purely for entertainment (both Tolkien''s while he wrote it and worked out the elven history/language, and the readers'').

I guess I just don''t like the concept of having two totally different means of "technology", whether it be science or magic. Call me a stickler for realism, but I MUST have consistency in my universe for it to be enjoyable. Now if there''s a way to have technology and magic exist side by side, then more power to you.

I guess the reason that I''m also not big on having such unilateral sides is also in my real world training with martial arts. People THINK that Tae Kwon Do is only about kicking or punching, or think that Jiu-jitsu is only about grappling and joint locks. The truth is that each style employs the entire range of fighting skills, it''s just that their doctrine of fighting and their philosophy tends to lean the way they do. A big reason you see the "Grappling is better than Karate" arguments is because you have a misconception of what each side really does.

I also have to have logical consistency. If you have magic vs. technology, are you just going to wind up having units that do the same basic thing but dressed in different clothes? The only way it could be truly interesting is if you have unique abilities on each side, but then you have to make sure that gameplay isn''t unbalanced to the degre that someone figures out the killer combo. And when I mean unique, I mean unique...not just variations on a theme.

To me, what makes things interesting are not the individual units, but the composition of the units and how they are used that is fascinating. I think far too much emphasis is placed on the units, and every post I have made in this forum basically has stressed this. When the major focus of the game is the individual units, then you have a tactical game, not a strategic one. For me, what makes things interesting is how a player decides to place his strengths and weaknesses, and the doctrine that his military uses.

Look at England and the US. Traditionally, these two countries have had the most powerful Navies in the world since we place a disproportionate amount of our budget on them. Ditto for Japan, who until WWII had not lost a major naval engagement in 300 years prior. Of course all three countries I mentioned are "island nations", but look at England. It spanned many continents at one time, and had to have a strong ground force as well. Germany, though it had the most powerful army by 1942 in the world, was foiled by its weak navy. Ditto for France in the early 1800''s.

Doctrine also plays a huge role. How much control do you give to your field officers? What level of military organizations fight independently? When factors like these are taken in, it gives much more "flavor" and "style" to me, then just having two sides that look different, but basically act the same.

hey, I just thought of another game that would actually be pretty cool. It''s another pen and paper game, but it''s called Castle Falkenstein. It is set in the late 1800''s (beginning''s of the Victorian era) and had magic and "steampunk". I actually thought it was pretty interesting, though I thought the "faerie" explanation was a bit weak (not as good as Shadowrun''s explanation of the existence of magic which I thought was the best). Dragons were Dinosaurs that had survived and evolved their own intelligence, though it was different fro our own. Inventions like Jules Vernes Nautilus had coem true, along with the machine that could travel to the center of the earth. If you can dig up an old copy of Space 1889 from GDW, you might want to look at it too as it looked at a fights between European
"ether navies" versus the primitive Martians 9though they had some kinds of mystical weapons I believe)

But the Victorian era setting was very interesting...more so than I think the modern era could provide that you are talking about. I think if you put the time era in this period, it will be more "believeable" (what I mean by this is that since we are familiar with our technology, having something familiar contrasted with something so alien as magic doesn''t juxtapose very well). If you have it in the modern times roughly, then people will have a harder time swallong how magic is going to pop up. So I''d either set it further into the future, or farther back into an alternate past.

3 thoughts:
1-perhaps the magic users arent really magic users, just people with REALLY awesome technology. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistingishable from magic" read "The 5th Column" by Robert Heinlen.
But then you need to explain where these guys come from,
which leads me to my second point:
2-If you use the magic idea and the modern tech, then you have to say that this magic came from off planet, because (A)Two such fundamentally opposed foreces could not have existed peacefully up until modern times. At some point, one would have wiped out the other. (Read pt. 3) If you do balance them out, then you will need to explain where magic came from. If you want them to have a history, say something like "A secluded cult from the backwoods of the Outback came to light 70 years ago wielding magic. We are still at war." Or the magicians have to be fresh arrivals, otherwise, it will be difficult to grasp for modern mind. Perhaps the other way around, though, like the Warlock Series. Christopher Stasheff. Tech lands a spaceship on a magic place...but the idea of magic existing alongsidfe tehcnology is difficult to comprehend. Even in arcanum, the mech was a new arrival. It would be pretty cool though, to see a horde of wizards lighting off Panzershreks firigning lightning bolts at a bunch of M1's. Or the 1st Air Cavalry Division...The mages use levitate spell and fire fireballs from the sky. Air Armoured Cav would give them vorpal (WTF is vorpal) plating around them. There would be like 3 in a bunch.

3-IT will be fundamentally unbalanced, because Technology always moves forways, but magic is virtually always the same, causing magic to get proportionatly weaker as time progressed, so magic would have had to win out int he beginning when it was stronger (relativly), because now, it stands no chance at all. Because if it couldnt win then.....If you balance magic and tech today, then magci wouldve kicked tech's arse back in the day (unless they advance at the same clip, which would need to be explained)

M2C

Edited by - Drmol on March 1, 2002 4:38:44 AM

quote: Original post by DrMol
(WTF is vorpal)

vorpal is a nonsense word that Lewis Carroll (Rev. Charles Ludwidge Dodgeson) made up for his poem Jabberwocky (from Through the Looking Glass )... he never explained what it meant or how he derived it; he said it just sounded good.
because a lot of RPGers also tend to be readers of old silly books, the term vorpal is often used in games and fantasy books... it generally means "deadly" or "magical" or something along those lines...

Edited by - krez on March 1, 2002 12:51:36 PM

quote: Original post by dauntless
"To me, what makes things interesting are not the individual units, but the composition of the units and how they are used that is fascinating."

Dauntless. Could you please expand on this topic. I agree with you that the composition of the units is important and fun. I also think the individual units are fascinating, however, the novelty wears off quickly. If the game lacks the ability to combine units effectevely then it becomes boring.

quote: Original post by dauntless
"The only way it could be truly interesting is if you have unique abilities on each side"

I completly agree. I was curious if you knew of any websites that may help in this area. Or if you had any ideas yourself. I think have unique warfare on both sides is going to be critical.

Edited by - nellspot on March 1, 2002 8:03:22 PM

Yeah ''vorpal'' nowadays is just a hack fantasy descriptor usually meaning that armor is ineffectual against it.

Magic vs Tech would be nice - there haven''t been many RTS games that have done that. Weiss and Hickman wrote ''The Darksword Trilogy'' which focuses extensively on that theme, and then there''s a few games like Arcanum and Warhammer that combine the two (but don''t separate them).

Nellspot

By unit composition I''m basically referring to what most militaries would call their TO&E, which stands for Tables of Organization and Equipment. A serious problem I see with RTS is that you create individual units rather than consistent groups of units. The two major problems with this are:

1) Lack of centralized control
2) Focus on individual units rather than groups

When you create single units and build up your armed forces from this hodge podge collection, it becomes nearly impossible to have a meaningful unified method of control over large groups. Combined arms warfare has developed precisely because there are standards of organization. The key word there is STANDARD. Also, when you create units one at a time, the focus is on the unit itself, and when and where it is needed rather than on how it is to be used. Imagine for example if in a modern battle setting you the player saw a bunch of infantry out in the open. So you conveniently order some artillery to take care of that situation. Wouldn''t it be more interesting instead if you created organized units wherein support units like artillery or close air support is built in when you buy it?

And that is the key to organized unit compositions. In the American military, we have an incredibly flexible and adaptive system. Even the lowest platoon commander has access to artillery and close air support (though higher ranks will of course have priority). In contrast, the Russian military, while having 3 times the amount of artillery, can not support field level officers, and must instead be mandated for use only by higher ranking officers. Are you starting to get the picture?

Also, some militaries have larger base units than others. Much of the very first innovations in military science was discovering the right mix sub levels of organization. The Roman legions were highly effective in part due to their incredible level of organization...from the Centuries up to the legions. This was a huge factor in their abaility to beat plain massed hordes of Germainc horseman (well, when the Roman legions were still roman and not foreign conscripts anyways).

So unit composition is several factors

1) Hierarchical organization
2) Level of support
3) How combined arms forces interwork with each other
4) Logistics
5) Command structure

It is more than just; 4 platoons make a regiment, 3-4 regiments make a brigade, 3-4 brigades make a division, etc etc. It also concerns things like, "can a field officer request support?", "are mechanized units attached to infantry, or do they simply ride aboard?", "how many troops can a Captain command?", "does a Organized unit have built in Anti Aircraft support, or must it be requested?" etc etc.

While this is a very realistic form of unit organization, you can adapt it to a more "relaxed" atmosphere as well. I think the key to thinking in this mode is instead of building your army from the smallest unit as building blocks for your military...think in reverse. Imagine what the Army is like, and what it takes to build that Army.