Re: unfair starting positions

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald@phy.cmich.edu>]

Hello Emmanual,

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, Emmanuel Fritsch wrote:

> A game was designed, twelve years ago, in my school, with quite 
> good results on starting position. It was very close to standard 
> game, but : 

You might wish to try Bellum Aeternum. It has most of the features 
which you discuss below.

> -- capitals were much more powerful than cities, and you had 
> several capitals at the beginning. 

Bellum has Towns, Cities, Grand Citadels, Metropoles, and 
Capitols. Each has a different cost to build or upgrade to (not 
yet implemented), and the last three items on the list are 
quite powerful.

> -- you started with may other units, particularly troop 
>    transport (both sea and air transport) 

Bellum has an assortment of starting units. The composition of 
this assortment depends on what game variants you select.

> -- the presence of ships in your starting unit set, and a reduce 
> size for the starting countries leaded the program to place your 
> capitals near the sea. 

Ships are among the starting units in Bellum.
Each country's capital must be placed near the sea.

> -- A patch was added to forbidd any capital or independant town 
> in contiguity with another capital or town. 

In Bellum, the country radius is sufficiently large so that this 
is avoided.  Towns can still be adjacent to one another, but the 
chance of them belonging to opposing sides is very, very small.

> -- some units were added, some modified : 
>     -- katalina, an airkraft which transport infantry, with a 
>         wide range (30/40 hex).

Cargo Planes, in Bellum. Actually they just transport Paratroopers 
right now. Once I make the necessary modifications to the Xconq 
kernel, they will be able to carry other units, but those units 
will be forced to embark/disembark in facility units (i.e., Armor 
will not be able to jump out of Cargo Planes).

>     -- torpedo which sinks ships.

Submarines, Torpedo Boats, and Torpedo Bombers have a special 
advantage when attacking large ships.
 
>     -- bomber were now just able to bomb land units, and with 
>         lower efficacity, ships and transport the bomb but not 
>         infantry.

Bombers are able to hit both cities and land units, however they 
are less accurate against land units. (And Dive Bombers are more 
accurate than Bombers, though less deadly.)
 
>     -- cruiser was splitted into a cruiser and a battleship, 
>         Battleships were better against land units (particularly 
>         against coastal cities) but easily sunk by subs and very 
>         expensive. 

Bellum's family of warships (not including carriers or special 
ships) is Destroyer, Frigate, Cruiser, and Battleship. However, I 
am thinking about removing Cruiser and just making Frigate 
stronger. (Similarly, I am considering the removal of Light 
Carrier, and increasing the capacity of Escort Carrier.)

> That was a great game. 

I would very much appreciate it if you could try Bellum Aeternum 
sometime and give me some feedback, since you apparently have 
experience with a similar game.

> Except the patch, all ideas given here are easy to implement 
> back to Xconq.

Yes.

  Regards,
    Eric