Hi Chris,
I'll answer your second question first, since it leads into the other
question. TOC was initially designed as a strategic board game, but it did
evolve somewhat from its original concept. One of the reasons that one unit
is assigned to one cell has little to do with scale, although I have used
this reasoning before to justify this rule. The main reason is that TOC was
designed to be used by the blind gamer along with their sighted friends and
family. If you have many pieces on every cell, it is difficult to represent
this on the screen's display. You can assume that cities can have more than
one unit, but there aren't too many of these and you can examine them if
there is any question. A Sighted person or someone using a Braille display
can view the map quickly and know where all active units are without going
to each cell and pressing Tab.
Now that I have said this, fighters can share cells with units of their own
side. Although I argued that fighters are different since they are in the
air and other units are on the ground and so they can't get in each others
way, there is a much more pragmatic reason for this. Fighters initially had
the problem that they were constantly running out of fuel since they were
blocked by other units. You were losing more to fuel problems than enemy
action. The solution was to allow them to share cells with other fighters
and units as long as they did not belong to the enemy.
To answer Willem's question at the same time here, I feel that fighters are
one of the most important and strategic unit types, but for other than
scouting, you need lots of them. About half way through a campaign I
probably have half my cities producing fighters. Why do I like them? Here
are a few reasons:
1. They move fast and so you can concentrate defense and offense on a
distant or vulnerable location very quickly.
2. They can share cells and they travel six cells per time unit and so you
can coordinate attacks of many fighters on an enemy in just one time unit.
3. They can easily scout large areas of sea for approaching enemy ships and
submarines, and once found, you can send many fighters to that spot in one
or two time periods.
4. Cities far back from the enemy lines can produce fighters and bring the
strength of their production power to the enemy quickly.
I don't have much use for fighters early in a campaign and very seldom in
complete land battles until the very end of the game, but to reiterate, when
you build fighters, build lots. The Battle of Britain map really shows the
power of fighters.
To address your question about using fighters to bomb cities, the beta team
discussed this a bit and we didn't really come up with a decision. We
didn't know what to do with fighters once they passed over an enemy city. We
decided that they would deliver one HP of damage as they do outside cities,
and if they had a successful attack, they could continue past the city, or
circle back for another attack, but what if they end their six moves while
over a city, how do we handle this? We ended up deciding that in the next
release we would look at having a bomber type. These would be more limited
in some respects, but more valuable as a stand-alone unit. Of course,
they'll cost more.
You mentioned that performing coordinated attacks are difficult, how so?
Any one unit has eight exposed sides to be attacked from, and does it really
matter if your second line of attacks comes a time unit later? An example
might help me address the problem.
By the way, your previous two posts were great. They won't be implemented
in the first release, but they will all seriously be considered for the next
one. I'm tempted to implement some of them immediately, but the version 1.0
label has to be put on it some time.
David.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Bartlett" <[email protected]>
To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2010 4:31 AM
Subject: [Audyssey] More thoughts on TOC air power.
Aircraft need to be able to bombard cities. The current prohibition
stunts
their power quite a lot. IF they can attack convoys, why not cities?
Also, the unit stacking rules seem odd. You can have an infinite number
of
units in a city, but in a cell the same size you can only have one
non-fighter unit. There seems to be a confusion of scale, and it makes
coordinated attacks impossible. What is the thinking here?
Chris Bartlett
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