Systems of Gaming?

[JohnnyEgregious]

And when a command unit is in the battle, there needs to be a way to attack specific units in a stack. ex. When enemy units are told to engage Sizemore when he is leading a stack of golems. So instead of making it another choice it could be those three general orders I mentioned before, Attack leader, attack weakest, and attack strongest. We could just use attack leader, but the other two would allow a general focus if there were say... Hobgobwin dance knights and dwagons in the same stack. Attack weakest unit would go for the unit with the least hitpoints in the stack.

Nix that... In a tabletop game you'd definitely get to pick which stack attacks which unit yourself. The only issue is how we factor in blockers.

[Drunut]

Blockers? Do you mean units that prevent the enemy from moving past them? I thought that would be settled by Attacks of Oppurtunity, after all, your avatar has Ansom and Vinny running through a stack of Dwagons... and it looks like the Dwagons are getting some good AoO.

[JohnnyEgregious]

Seems like a complicated mechanic for units that have only 4 stats. On the other hand, the pic is my avie so we can look a bit closer... it looks like the bats are blocking melee attacks and the only attack against Vinnie and Ansom themselves is a ranged attack. I think this means a formation or something, where the bats are "in front" or blocking.

But, I think these attacks mean that there is a minimum number of rounds before you can retreat. Kinda like when Parson was hitting the seige units, he used warlords in the stack so he could have them retreat after only a few rounds. This could also keep something that you're chasing in the game from retreating as many times as it wants.

Also, how would retreating work if not on your turn? At the end of your turn, all units' movements drop to 0. Would we have retreat just bump you out of the hex? It would probably send the fleeing units either back to it's own hex, if it were the attacker, or if they were fleeing defenders they would get bumped directly backwards, depending on which side the attack was from.

[Drunut]

Hmm, I always thought those bats were just keeping the other Dwagons busy... wait. I guess if a unit engages another unit, they are deadlocked into fighting each other.

On retreating, you don't. If you are engaged and it's not your turn you fight it out. Then when it's your turn you use the movement points to run away. If you don't (or your counter-attack fails) then you get attacked again. I guess damage done depends on attack vs. defense? We haven't really gone into what system we're going to use for that.

[JohnnyEgregious]

So after a battle, if both survive, opposing armies can be in the same hex?

[zeekgenateer]

I believe to be able to retreat you need to have move available. If you used up all your move, you wouldn't be able to retreat. Since turns are days you'd have to consider rounds... so if unit A is attacked by unit B, and it has move left over it can retreat one hex. If unit B still has move to pursue, it can, and repeat until A can no longer retreat or B decides not to pursue.

[JohnnyEgregious]

I believe to be able to retreat you need to have move available. If you used up all your move, you wouldn't be able to retreat. Since turns are days you'd have to consider rounds... so if unit A is attacked by unit B, and it has move left over it can retreat one hex. If unit B still has move to pursue, it can, and repeat until A can no longer retreat or B decides not to pursue.

Page 46, unit's move drops to zero at the end of the turn. But that still leaves the issue of what happens at the end of a battle.

a.) Battle rages until one side dies or retreats.
b.) Battle last for a certain number of rounds. Whoever wins the engagement, by some quantifier we haven't chosen, forces the other side's units out of the hex.
c.) Battle rounds take a move point, you can have as many rounds as you have move points to attack. Units CAN occupy the same hex, if they're unled they spend all their move points attacking, if led you can spend only the rounds you want.

I like option C, especially since it would help me reconcile the high move stats of some units we've seen. But I do like both of you guys' idea about not being able to retreat when it's not your turn. On page 69, Jillian attacks the wounded dwagon stacks, along with the uncroaked warlords in them. Parson didn't have them retreat, which he would've if he could've in my opinion. The only thing would be the fight at Gobwin Knob, when Parson et al. retreat from the courtyard... But since he'd already been reassigning units in different parts of the city that turn, and it doesn't take move points to move around your city I'm ready to write it off as a special case.

Also do we need the mechanics to move units while another battle rages? My main example would be Ansom filling the courtyard with units while the dance fight was still going on. It seems like for the unled units you could resolve one round per other move point you spend, since you could move a warlord into the hex during the battle.

Lastly... So it's unled STACKS that attack automatically? I know a warlord gives a bonus to other units in the hex, but I think the other stacks that they aren't leading specifically might automatically attack.

[Drunut]

@ Johnny, No. If a Warlord is in the hex I believe that it gives leadership bonus to the whole hex, and as such it allows control. Parson had 17 or 18 Dwagons in a hex with what, 2 or 3 warlords? I believe that if there is a commander, he can direct any part of the battle regardless of what stack. Also, I believe here Manpower was giving orders to the entire hex to counterattack, not just his stack.

[Cmdr I. Heartly Noah]

I like Drunut. He seems to have a good grasp on things.

A battle takes place inside an entire hex. Everyone in the hex is involved. If there is no commander on one side, they auto-attack. If there is at least one commander on the side, he can give orders to all the units in his hex. Bote that this includes casters, meaning a stack led by a caster, while not stronger than unled, has more tactical options. Canonically, this is not enough to make casters popular stack leaders. For a warlord, his leadership bonus is conferred only to the units in his stack, unless he's a Chief Warlord, in which case every unit on his side gets an additional bonus, but his personal stack gets his full leadership bonus. Units get a stack bonus of up to 8, but it seems there is no limit to how many units in a stack can benefit from a leadership bonus (or a caster's special unit-based bonus).

[marshalkowski]

Dang, I came to this party a little late, but I'd like to throw my hat in the ring. I'm thrilled in today's wiki and forum age that people are taking the initiative to make an Erfworld game happen. I'll openly admit I didn't thoroughly read every post here, but I at least skimmed them and will read them when I'm not at work.

Some thoughts:

• I think sub-hexes will weaken the game, overall. It would make individual battles take too long in a hex game that, in my humble opinion, should be more about the overall campaign (something frankly lacking in TT game options right now).
• I need to reread the leadership rules, stat points, etc. for battles, but I think a system like Heroscape would be good for battles, where you modify number of dice used and use opposing dice rolls. Battles would be stack vs. stack, with units within the stack almost acting as hit points for a given stack. Obviously there would be default marching orders for unled stacks, but otherwise players could choose what stack attacks where.
• As far as withdrawing goes, I think depending on the balance of the battle, defense should possibly be given a withdraw action allowing them to leave a hex, though there could be obvious limitations (can't retreat to where the attackers came from, etc. But this would only be necessary if battle become horrendously weighted toward the attacking side. That's what playtesting is for, I suppose.
• Since the comic does establish that a city takes up only one hex, a middle ground might be that each city can have a corresponding card (about half the size of a piece of paper, maybe) divided into Walls, Tunnels, Garrison and Airspace, so that troops can be placed on each location.
• Resources will be huge for this game. Each city should produce a certain amount of Shmuckers per turn based on its location and type of city (I'm picturing a Marbit city underground, with no Airspace or Walls but two extra tunnels spaces that produces major resources in lieu of walled defenses, for example). We'll have to get a sense for scaling the economy, as there are both building and upkeep costs (though less for uncroaked, of course!)

That's what has popped to my mind at this moment, and over the course of reading the comic. Let me know what you think, and where I'm simply out of my mind. From what I've read, I have great faith that an amazing game can be produced from this group.

Oh, perhaps a second wiki should be produced for Game Rules, so as not to conflict or be confused with the Comic canon?