Minefield deployment

j campbell · Post by **j campbell** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 7:42 pm

Just a thought-it would be nice if engineering units that are in a defensive position could deploy minefields in an adjacent hex-say 1 per turn if the unit did not move or provide an additional defensive bonus for units sharing the same hex. At the moment i use my german engineering units to try an blow as many bridges as possible and avoid soviet units as best possible in my retreat. I try not to have them in the front line too much because of the VP's if they are eliminated. any thoughts, suggestions?

john

Gregor_SSG · Post by **Gregor_SSG** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:42 am

j campbell wrote:Just a thought-it would be nice if engineering units that are in a defensive position could deploy minefields in an adjacent hex-say 1 per turn if the unit did not move or provide an additional defensive bonus for units sharing the same hex. At the moment i use my german engineering units to try an blow as many bridges as possible and avoid soviet units as best possible in my retreat. I try not to have them in the front line too much because of the VP's if they are eliminated. any thoughts, suggestions?

john

We thought about this, but we couldn't see any way of stopping players from abusing the system, and creating their own private Maginot lines. But in Battles in Normandy, the scenario creator will be able to specify a number of minefields that turn up in a particular turn and must be placed in that turn by the player (in much the same way as interdiction happens now).

This way, there is a defined limit to the number of minefields created, but you still get the fun of trying to predict where they will do the most good.

Gregor

Mac_MatrixForum · Post by **Mac_MatrixForum** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 12:11 pm

Gregor_SSG wrote:We thought about this, but we couldn't see any way of stopping players from abusing the system, and creating their own private Maginot lines.

I don't see any big problem with players creating minefields, except that it might give the defender too much of an advantage, if the minefields they can create are too good. Is this it? Well since you do know that there's going to be a pocket you can prepare in ways that are ahistorical. I don't know. Just seems like a shame engineers can't make minefields

.

What you are suggesting for the next game seems great except I don't understand why the mines work like interdiction and not like reinforcements.

hank · Post by **hank** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 7:04 am

Gregor_SSG wrote:We thought about this, but we couldn't see any way of stopping players from abusing the system, and creating their own private Maginot lines. But in Battles in Normandy, the scenario creator will be able to specify a number of minefields that turn up in a particular turn and must be placed in that turn by the player (in much the same way as interdiction happens now).

This way, there is a defined limit to the number of minefields created, but you still get the fun of trying to predict where they will do the most good.

Gregor

I agree you need to limit the number of mines a group of engineers can lay. They can only carry or truck in a finite number of mines. I do think the engineers should have this function as a standard feature BUT limit them so they can't just lay miles and miles of mine fields.

good stuff ...

I'm still anxious for the next title and the KP patch due out soon ... "ooohh ... sooo exciting "... ... that's a quote from 'Blade' ... good scene ... I think

hank

Gregor_SSG · Post by **Gregor_SSG** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 8:37 am

Mac wrote:I don't see any big problem with players creating minefields, except that it might give the defender too much of an advantage, if the minefields they can create are too good. Is this it? Well since you do know that there's going to be a pocket you can prepare in ways that are ahistorical. I don't know. Just seems like a shame engineers can't make minefields .

What you are suggesting for the next game seems great except I don't understand why the mines work like interdiction and not like reinforcements.

Here's a short history of how naive implementation of game features generally goes:

Designers make change to system, often at user request.

Some smartypants figures out how to abuse this change.

Smartypants tells everybody else.

Gamers then abuse the system, even if the trick is completely optional, while blaming designers and labelling the game 'broken' or 'porked'.

So we're very conservative about such things. Mines will be taken like interdiction so as to make it a 'use it or lose it' situation, rather than allowing players to stockpile them, as would be the case if they were like replacements.

Gregor

Mac_MatrixForum · Post by **Mac_MatrixForum** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:28 am

Gregor_SSG wrote:So we're very conservative about such things. Mines will be taken like interdiction so as to make it a 'use it or lose it' situation, rather than allowing players to stockpile them, as would be the case if they were like replacements.

Stockpiling was in my mind a positive feature as I consider the appearance of features often

. An example: I'm getting mines every turn, I don't use them, where do they go? Saying they get wasted because of game balance is a perfectly fine explanation but I consider it a break in the suspension of disbelief (the game does not operate akin to how I perceive real life). Saying that the mines get distributed into another front because you didn't have immediate use for them is much more understandable to me. It's only a matter of wording the feature but showing these kinds of considerations is something I just like to see and game design articles that explain the ideas behind the rules are something I enjoy immensely.

Thanks for the clarification.