Game 82

[Pharaoh]

Change the terror bombing rules to limit the amount or morale lost in a single turn to a maximum amount for the entire turn and not on a per attack basis. This still allows the force peace option to be used on those who deserve the outcome and keeps the terror bombing as a viable part of the game.

 

Seems like a better solution than just removing the order, indeed. If this could be programmed into Victory, I would prefer this solution.

 

Hi Guys,

 

I agree that this solution (cap on morale loss due to attacks per cycle - would have to be for the entire cycle for nations being targeted by multiple opponets) would have been a better one but in this instance I'm constrained by the ancient Pascal code (20 yrs or so old), archaic file structures and hardware that Victory! is currently run with. Pete and I have taken a look at it and it's not something simple.

 

I can definitely do it with Victory! II (modern hardware/code) but a complicated change in the current version would take a fair amount of time to even attempt and there is no guarantee of success. We'd have to shut Victory! down in the meantime to make such an attempt since we can't run it for a while with no FP at all then, maybe, reintroduce it later in a modified form.

 

I agree that the FP change makes Victory! a different game and when everybody adjusts it will definitely play differently but with everybody on the same page I believe the game will still work and be fun until Victory! II is completely ready.

 

Thanks for your input and understanding,

 

Russ

 

Having dealt with archaic code before I know exactly what you are saying. Chances are good that undesired and unintended consequences of a code change could reak serious damage to several games. A tough spot and I don't think anyone blames you for the outcome. We just have to adjust to a new reality.

[Pharaoh]

and throws the game balance in 82 from one side to the other

 

this is not a true statement. the balance of power rest with the tiger alliance. we are currently pushing into spain and will not be stopped. that is why they came up with this tactic. we own all of central europe and are pushing against the fringe countries. this strategy was devised to stop us from winning the gameand conquering their home countries. there is no way for them to win game 82 by forcing peace on us one by one.

 

As for the rule change and the person complaining that russ changed the rules to accomodate us because we were crying. another false statement. russ changed the rule for no reason to do with game 82. he changed it because using this tactic very early on in any game wil put a country negative and make victory unplayable for everyone.

 

 

Looking back over comments made earlier I thought you guys conceded the bombing tactic would win. It does not say that obviously and I was in error. If you guys had German and Russian tech and your enemies American tech however..... Well, you guys are good enough to overcome I suppose but now we will never know for sure.

 

I note you do not admit or deny that there were threats to quit.

[RTGRuss]

Change the terror bombing rules to limit the amount or morale lost in a single turn to a maximum amount for the entire turn and not on a per attack basis. This still allows the force peace option to be used on those who deserve the outcome and keeps the terror bombing as a viable part of the game.

 

Seems like a better solution than just removing the order, indeed. If this could be programmed into Victory, I would prefer this solution.

 

Ok - I dived back into the Victory code and went through every procedure to find every instance where national morale can be changed and I believe I've found a better solution.

 

I've coded it so that all terror attacks will no longer affect national morale. Any air (SB/TRS) or naval (CB) mission where population was a primary or collateral damage target can still be issued as normal and everything will work as before - it just won't generate any national morale loss for the target nation. The damage that would have gone to population will be wasted now so SB/CB missions with the Population target key should be avoided - the damage results would just be the collateral damage so it's more efficient to use any other target key.

 

This will remove the threat posed by the massive use of terror attacks while leaving the Force Peace concept in the game (so that there are still consequences for an out of control treasury, etc.). I considered the morale loss per cycle idea but it would have been a far more complex coding problem and, with archaic code, I wanted to find something relatively simple that I was confident I could do without causing other problems in the game. Reduced morale loss was an option too but without a cycle loss cap I was afraid it wouldn't solve the issue.

 

I had already made a code change to prevent neutral positions from using the Force Peace (FP) order and I thought that I might as well leave that in. Neutral positions don't do it often (they often have morale problems of their own) so I don't think it will be a big change regardless but I think it's probably a change for the better.

 

Thanks to everyone for their input and patience during this whole process. I know that it hasn't been fun for any of us but I hope the end result is a workable solution that keeps Victory! running until we have Victory! II ready (still a ways to go but we are making progress).

 

Please take some time to pass the word around and let everybody know the current situation, etc. If there any questions, etc. please let me know. I'll be holding off on processing Sat/Sun turns until late tonight so if anybody needs to submit an updated turn please get it to me as soon as you can.

 

Thanks again,

 

Russ

[Predator]

pharoah--i never threatened anyone I would quit this game so you have bad information there. I am playing the game for free so...I know there were discusions with russ but I found that out when russ emailed me about the rule change. I thought the game would be ruined by both sides using those tactics but I thought we were working it out in game. whatever....I think russ has come up with the best possible solution...I have no problem with the tactics being brought back in vic II as long as you have a way to defend against them, in this version you dont..

[Earthling]

This solution is far better than the removal of the FP order.

[Pharaoh]

pharoah--i never threatened anyone I would quit this game so you have bad information there. I am playing the game for free so...I know there were discusions with russ but I found that out when russ emailed me about the rule change. I thought the game would be ruined by both sides using those tactics but I thought we were working it out in game. whatever....I think russ has come up with the best possible solution...I have no problem with the tactics being brought back in vic II as long as you have a way to defend against them, in this version you dont..

 

You are being far too clever in avoiding answering the question "were there threats made by TIGER to quit?" You say that you did not make them, but that does not really answer the question now does it? Nevermind. I don't want to provoke another irritating non-answer and I am not even sure I want to hear the whole truth at this point. Good luck to all remaining participants in 82.

[Pharaoh]

Change the terror bombing rules to limit the amount or morale lost in a single turn to a maximum amount for the entire turn and not on a per attack basis. This still allows the force peace option to be used on those who deserve the outcome and keeps the terror bombing as a viable part of the game.

 

Seems like a better solution than just removing the order, indeed. If this could be programmed into Victory, I would prefer this solution.

 

Ok - I dived back into the Victory code and went through every procedure to find every instance where national morale can be changed and I believe I've found a better solution.

 

I've coded it so that all terror attacks will no longer affect national morale. Any air (SB/TRS) or naval (CB) mission where population was a primary or collateral damage target can still be issued as normal and everything will work as before - it just won't generate any national morale loss for the target nation. The damage that would have gone to population will be wasted now so SB/CB missions with the Population target key should be avoided - the damage results would just be the collateral damage so it's more efficient to use any other target key.

 

This will remove the threat posed by the massive use of terror attacks while leaving the Force Peace concept in the game (so that there are still consequences for an out of control treasury, etc.). I considered the morale loss per cycle idea but it would have been a far more complex coding problem and, with archaic code, I wanted to find something relatively simple that I was confident I could do without causing other problems in the game. Reduced morale loss was an option too but without a cycle loss cap I was afraid it wouldn't solve the issue.

 

I had already made a code change to prevent neutral positions from using the Force Peace (FP) order and I thought that I might as well leave that in. Neutral positions don't do it often (they often have morale problems of their own) so I don't think it will be a big change regardless but I think it's probably a change for the better.

 

Thanks to everyone for their input and patience during this whole process. I know that it hasn't been fun for any of us but I hope the end result is a workable solution that keeps Victory! running until we have Victory! II ready (still a ways to go but we are making progress).

 

Please take some time to pass the word around and let everybody know the current situation, etc. If there any questions, etc. please let me know. I'll be holding off on processing Sat/Sun turns until late tonight so if anybody needs to submit an updated turn please get it to me as soon as you can.

 

Thanks again,

 

Russ

 

Excellent! Two thumbs up and a big thanks for coming up with a great fix Russ.

[Kurassier]

Excellent! Two thumbs up and a big thanks for coming up with a great fix Russ.

Actually, the second change just makes it worse. Now you are decreasing the value of some expensive air units. What next? limiting the TAC rating of HDBs because they are too powerful or limiting the number you can build? There are LOTS of rule changes that need to be made to Victory and we have been told numerous times that changes would be applied to VIC II not Victory. And if RTG does want to change rules, they should not change the rules for ANY games that have already started. That is just bad form. Now the door has been opened for anybody to complain about rules that 'don't make sense' and the precedent has now been set to change those rules immediately. How many people will be affected by these rules in major or even minor ways? Causing moral damage from strategic bombing actually makes sense (since it happened in real life) but now it is arbitrarily removed from the game?

 

Please note, my comments are not necessarily reserved for the FP/SB rule changes, but any changes once a game has started.

 

Again, I'm just very disappointed in RTG.

[Pharaoh]

Excellent! Two thumbs up and a big thanks for coming up with a great fix Russ.

Actually, the second change just makes it worse. Now you are decreasing the value of some expensive air units. What next? limiting the TAC rating of HDBs because they are too powerful or limiting the number you can build? There are LOTS of rule changes that need to be made to Victory and we have been told numerous times that changes would be applied to VIC II not Victory. And if RTG does want to change rules, they should not change the rules for ANY games that have already started. That is just bad form. Now the door has been opened for anybody to complain about rules that 'don't make sense' and the precedent has now been set to change those rules immediately. How many people will be affected by these rules in major or even minor ways? Causing moral damage from strategic bombing actually makes sense (since it happened in real life) but now it is arbitrarily removed from the game?

 

Please note, my comments are not necessarily reserved for the FP/SB rule changes, but any changes once a game has started.

 

Again, I'm just very disappointed in RTG.

 

I think this was a special case where a rule destroyed the playability of the game for everyone. The first fix also seriously affected playability making dollars essentially a meaningless resource. Destroying a part of the value of strategic bombing however is not crippling to Victory. I have been in a lot of games and have never seen SB play a big part which is why I liked solution 2.

 

That said, I understand your frustration in game 82. The enemies of TIGER had a clever and legal strategy that in my opinion would have tipped the balance in their favor. I have heard the argument that TIGER would have won anyway, but I am not convinced. With more countries opposing them and presumably many more bomber strikes, TIGER would be forced to go to peace long before all the opposing countries were. This is something that can be verified by modeling if someone has the time. Plus I would bet TIGER did not have any American tech and their opponents likely do.

 

I don't think Russ can make a change of this scope and leave out game 82 so it is tip the balance of 82 or ruin Victory. That is just my analysis and of course everyone in 82 will have a strongly different opinion on one or more of my points. As one line in an old SPI game Campaign for North Africa once said, and I paraphrase, if you play a game for several years and you are an average or better player, you know whether you won or not regardless of what the official victory conditions are. As an observer, my opinion is the TIGER alliance would have lost and I think all but five players in game 82 would agree. You know whether or not you would have won so call it an unrecognized Victory and let TIGER do their worst in the officially recognized result. They have interior lines and four of the best ten players I have seen in Victory. Unless you come up with another clever strategy, I don't see TIGER losing on the battlefield in the official version. Again, just my unbiased opinion. If you like a challenge, see how long you can make the game last. I have played WWII games where you knew you were going down, the object was to stretch it out. You may even out-last them.

[brogan]

Excellent! Two thumbs up and a big thanks for coming up with a great fix Russ.

Actually, the second change just makes it worse. Now you are decreasing the value of some expensive air units. What next? limiting the TAC rating of HDBs because they are too powerful or limiting the number you can build? There are LOTS of rule changes that need to be made to Victory and we have been told numerous times that changes would be applied to VIC II not Victory. And if RTG does want to change rules, they should not change the rules for ANY games that have already started. That is just bad form. Now the door has been opened for anybody to complain about rules that 'don't make sense' and the precedent has now been set to change those rules immediately. How many people will be affected by these rules in major or even minor ways? Causing moral damage from strategic bombing actually makes sense (since it happened in real life) but now it is arbitrarily removed from the game?

 

Please note, my comments are not necessarily reserved for the FP/SB rule changes, but any changes once a game has started.

 

Again, I'm just very disappointed in RTG.

 

I think this was a special case where a rule destroyed the playability of the game for everyone. The first fix also seriously affected playability making dollars essentially a meaningless resource. Destroying a part of the value of strategic bombing however is not crippling to Victory. I have been in a lot of games and have never seen SB play a big part which is why I liked solution 2.

 

That said, I understand your frustration in game 82. The enemies of TIGER had a clever and legal strategy that in my opinion would have tipped the balance in their favor. I have heard the argument that TIGER would have won anyway, but I am not convinced. With more countries opposing them and presumably many more bomber strikes, TIGER would be forced to go to peace long before all the opposing countries were. This is something that can be verified by modeling if someone has the time. Plus I would bet TIGER did not have any American tech and their opponents likely do.

 

I don't think Russ can make a change of this scope and leave out game 82 so it is tip the balance of 82 or ruin Victory. That is just my analysis and of course everyone in 82 will have a strongly different opinion on one or more of my points. As one line in an old SPI game Campaign for North Africa once said, and I paraphrase, if you play a game for several years and you are an average or better player, you know whether you won or not regardless of what the official victory conditions are. As an observer, my opinion is the TIGER alliance would have lost and I think all but five players in game 82 would agree. You know whether or not you would have won so call it an unrecognized Victory and let TIGER do their worst in the officially recognized result. They have interior lines and four of the best ten players I have seen in Victory. Unless you come up with another clever strategy, I don't see TIGER losing on the battlefield in the official version. Again, just my unbiased opinion. If you like a challenge, see how long you can make the game last. I have played WWII games where you knew you were going down, the object was to stretch it out. You may even out-last them.

 

The Tiger Alliance had 4 German Tech and 1 American tech. The American tech player, Greece, was the nation we were focusing SB attacks against. The Tiger alliance had most of Europe, but the 8 remaining countries controlled Spain, Portugal, Africa, Ireland, Iceland, the Americas, Scandinavia, N/C/S Russia, and the middle east. So we were spread out and they were centralized. Taking out American Tech kind of make it impossible for them to hit us anywhere except Spain and C. Russia, so at worse they would be trying to land LCI's against us. Iceland and Americas were 100% safe as well. I actually found it kind of amazing how little damage you needed to do to get a 3% morale loss on a target. Out of the 8 of us, we had 1 German, 2 Russian, 1 British, and 4 American techs. My TA Portugal was doing 3% morale loss to Greece, flying 3 or 4 wings b-17's at night at a range of 9. He had a 4 star general at the base, a 5 tech in SB, and a 5 tech in night ops. So being able to hit at target with about a value of 600 - 700 SB rating before bonuses gets you 3% morale damage.

I'll also tell you what was kind of cool, since we started with so many CP, I turned my border with France into Fortress Europe just for kicks at least at first until the later in the game. Every province that faced France had legendary forts on all France facing sides plus water spaces, along with about 4,000 LDBs and 1,700 LAA as well. The 3 border cities (Huesca, Bilbao, Barcelona) also had the same FDU and forts. On the last turn, Hungary finally moved a group into Narbonne, but we'll never know what the battle would look like with 18 King Tigers vs. 18 King Tigers going at each other in the mountains against Legendary fortifications. It would have been fun for a while. Of course I also had 18 more King Tigers in each of the 3 cities and a stockpile of AR and IR (4000 each per city) in case the cities were cut off.

 

- Spain 82

[Pharaoh]

Excellent! Two thumbs up and a big thanks for coming up with a great fix Russ.

Actually, the second change just makes it worse. Now you are decreasing the value of some expensive air units. What next? limiting the TAC rating of HDBs because they are too powerful or limiting the number you can build? There are LOTS of rule changes that need to be made to Victory and we have been told numerous times that changes would be applied to VIC II not Victory. And if RTG does want to change rules, they should not change the rules for ANY games that have already started. That is just bad form. Now the door has been opened for anybody to complain about rules that 'don't make sense' and the precedent has now been set to change those rules immediately. How many people will be affected by these rules in major or even minor ways? Causing moral damage from strategic bombing actually makes sense (since it happened in real life) but now it is arbitrarily removed from the game?

 

Please note, my comments are not necessarily reserved for the FP/SB rule changes, but any changes once a game has started.

 

Again, I'm just very disappointed in RTG.

 

I think this was a special case where a rule destroyed the playability of the game for everyone. The first fix also seriously affected playability making dollars essentially a meaningless resource. Destroying a part of the value of strategic bombing however is not crippling to Victory. I have been in a lot of games and have never seen SB play a big part which is why I liked solution 2.

 

That said, I understand your frustration in game 82. The enemies of TIGER had a clever and legal strategy that in my opinion would have tipped the balance in their favor. I have heard the argument that TIGER would have won anyway, but I am not convinced. With more countries opposing them and presumably many more bomber strikes, TIGER would be forced to go to peace long before all the opposing countries were. This is something that can be verified by modeling if someone has the time. Plus I would bet TIGER did not have any American tech and their opponents likely do.

 

I don't think Russ can make a change of this scope and leave out game 82 so it is tip the balance of 82 or ruin Victory. That is just my analysis and of course everyone in 82 will have a strongly different opinion on one or more of my points. As one line in an old SPI game Campaign for North Africa once said, and I paraphrase, if you play a game for several years and you are an average or better player, you know whether you won or not regardless of what the official victory conditions are. As an observer, my opinion is the TIGER alliance would have lost and I think all but five players in game 82 would agree. You know whether or not you would have won so call it an unrecognized Victory and let TIGER do their worst in the officially recognized result. They have interior lines and four of the best ten players I have seen in Victory. Unless you come up with another clever strategy, I don't see TIGER losing on the battlefield in the official version. Again, just my unbiased opinion. If you like a challenge, see how long you can make the game last. I have played WWII games where you knew you were going down, the object was to stretch it out. You may even out-last them.

 

The Tiger Alliance had 4 German Tech and 1 American tech. The American tech player, Greece, was the nation we were focusing SB attacks against. The Tiger alliance had most of Europe, but the 8 remaining countries controlled Spain, Portugal, Africa, Ireland, Iceland, the Americas, Scandinavia, N/C/S Russia, and the middle east. So we were spread out and they were centralized. Taking out American Tech kind of make it impossible for them to hit us anywhere except Spain and C. Russia, so at worse they would be trying to land LCI's against us. Iceland and Americas were 100% safe as well. I actually found it kind of amazing how little damage you needed to do to get a 3% morale loss on a target. Out of the 8 of us, we had 1 German, 2 Russian, 1 British, and 4 American techs. My TA Portugal was doing 3% morale loss to Greece, flying 3 or 4 wings b-17's at night at a range of 9. He had a 4 star general at the base, a 5 tech in SB, and a 5 tech in night ops. So being able to hit at target with about a value of 600 - 700 SB rating before bonuses gets you 3% morale damage.

I'll also tell you what was kind of cool, since we started with so many CP, I turned my border with France into Fortress Europe just for kicks at least at first until the later in the game. Every province that faced France had legendary forts on all France facing sides plus water spaces, along with about 4,000 LDBs and 1,700 LAA as well. The 3 border cities (Huesca, Bilbao, Barcelona) also had the same FDU and forts. On the last turn, Hungary finally moved a group into Narbonne, but we'll never know what the battle would look like with 18 King Tigers vs. 18 King Tigers going at each other in the mountains against Legendary fortifications. It would have been fun for a while. Of course I also had 18 more King Tigers in each of the 3 cities and a stockpile of AR and IR (4000 each per city) in case the cities were cut off.

 

- Spain 82

 

Good points. There are a lot of choke points in the south and Iceland and the Americas would be untouchable. They could not force a victory presuming Greece was forced to peace.

[Earthling]

So, if I am reading the posts correctly, this game is officially coming to an end? Or has one side decided to drop the game?

 

Just curious.

[Pharaoh]

So, if I am reading the posts correctly, this game is officially coming to an end? Or has one side decided to drop the game?

 

Just curious.

 

Not that I am aware of. We were just discussing how one alliance in 82 thought a neat use of the rules being used by their opponents was too devestating to game balance to be allowed in any game of Victory so they successfully petitioned Russ to change it. Once the change was made, they then claimed they would have won 82 anyway so apparently the rule was not really that devestating. It was devestating, but not devestating devestating you know. Meanwhile, the side that would have won before the rule change now thinks not only that they were robbed of a victory but that now they have to play out the rest of the game with fleets of expensive and practically useless strategic bombers they built with the understanding that they would win the game with them. Now all they are good for is sucking up stores of gen, victory points for the other side, and occupying space until converted into said victory points. I am not involved in 82 in any way except as a commentator and I used to be connected to both sides before I quit Victory to get an MBA because I no longer have any time for games, just commenting on games. Hope that clears it right up.

[Guest Spongebob]

Sponge on a Serious note for once - Maybe this game should be drawn to a close then with all the bitching that seems to have taken place. Call it quits, declare winners and move on

[RangerOne]

Excellent! Two thumbs up and a big thanks for coming up with a great fix Russ.

Actually, the second change just makes it worse. Now you are decreasing the value of some expensive air units. What next? limiting the TAC rating of HDBs because they are too powerful or limiting the number you can build? There are LOTS of rule changes that need to be made to Victory and we have been told numerous times that changes would be applied to VIC II not Victory. And if RTG does want to change rules, they should not change the rules for ANY games that have already started. That is just bad form. Now the door has been opened for anybody to complain about rules that 'don't make sense' and the precedent has now been set to change those rules immediately. How many people will be affected by these rules in major or even minor ways? Causing moral damage from strategic bombing actually makes sense (since it happened in real life) but now it is arbitrarily removed from the game?

 

Please note, my comments are not necessarily reserved for the FP/SB rule changes, but any changes once a game has started.

 

Again, I'm just very disappointed in RTG.

 

I think this was a special case where a rule destroyed the playability of the game for everyone. The first fix also seriously affected playability making dollars essentially a meaningless resource. Destroying a part of the value of strategic bombing however is not crippling to Victory. I have been in a lot of games and have never seen SB play a big part which is why I liked solution 2.

 

That said, I understand your frustration in game 82. The enemies of TIGER had a clever and legal strategy that in my opinion would have tipped the balance in their favor. I have heard the argument that TIGER would have won anyway, but I am not convinced. With more countries opposing them and presumably many more bomber strikes, TIGER would be forced to go to peace long before all the opposing countries were. This is something that can be verified by modeling if someone has the time. Plus I would bet TIGER did not have any American tech and their opponents likely do.

 

I don't think Russ can make a change of this scope and leave out game 82 so it is tip the balance of 82 or ruin Victory. That is just my analysis and of course everyone in 82 will have a strongly different opinion on one or more of my points. As one line in an old SPI game Campaign for North Africa once said, and I paraphrase, if you play a game for several years and you are an average or better player, you know whether you won or not regardless of what the official victory conditions are. As an observer, my opinion is the TIGER alliance would have lost and I think all but five players in game 82 would agree. You know whether or not you would have won so call it an unrecognized Victory and let TIGER do their worst in the officially recognized result. They have interior lines and four of the best ten players I have seen in Victory. Unless you come up with another clever strategy, I don't see TIGER losing on the battlefield in the official version. Again, just my unbiased opinion. If you like a challenge, see how long you can make the game last. I have played WWII games where you knew you were going down, the object was to stretch it out. You may even out-last them.

 

The Tiger Alliance had 4 German Tech and 1 American tech. The American tech player, Greece, was the nation we were focusing SB attacks against. The Tiger alliance had most of Europe, but the 8 remaining countries controlled Spain, Portugal, Africa, Ireland, Iceland, the Americas, Scandinavia, N/C/S Russia, and the middle east. So we were spread out and they were centralized. Taking out American Tech kind of make it impossible for them to hit us anywhere except Spain and C. Russia, so at worse they would be trying to land LCI's against us. Iceland and Americas were 100% safe as well. I actually found it kind of amazing how little damage you needed to do to get a 3% morale loss on a target. Out of the 8 of us, we had 1 German, 2 Russian, 1 British, and 4 American techs. My TA Portugal was doing 3% morale loss to Greece, flying 3 or 4 wings b-17's at night at a range of 9. He had a 4 star general at the base, a 5 tech in SB, and a 5 tech in night ops. So being able to hit at target with about a value of 600 - 700 SB rating before bonuses gets you 3% morale damage.

I'll also tell you what was kind of cool, since we started with so many CP, I turned my border with France into Fortress Europe just for kicks at least at first until the later in the game. Every province that faced France had legendary forts on all France facing sides plus water spaces, along with about 4,000 LDBs and 1,700 LAA as well. The 3 border cities (Huesca, Bilbao, Barcelona) also had the same FDU and forts. On the last turn, Hungary finally moved a group into Narbonne, but we'll never know what the battle would look like with 18 King Tigers vs. 18 King Tigers going at each other in the mountains against Legendary fortifications. It would have been fun for a while. Of course I also had 18 more King Tigers in each of the 3 cities and a stockpile of AR and IR (4000 each per city) in case the cities were cut off.

 

- Spain 82

Andy,

I was well aware of what I was up against, but very much looking forward to the challenge of trying to break through your fortifications you dug into the Pyrenees Mountains. Tanks aren't meant to fight in mountains, but the SS King Tiger has the strongest attack value in the game. I was therefore going with them.

 

The Moroccan 12th breakthrough caught me off guard. It was like a blitzing linebacker that broke through my front line and fixing to cause all sorts of havouc in my back field. Unless Portugal also did something equally bold, Germany should be able to knock back the Moroccan 12th.

 

This is the kind of attack and counter attack is what makes this game thoroughly enjoyable.

 

The terror bombardment campaign with no counter measure was not enjoyable. My attempts to get you guys to come up with a workable solution did not work, so I paniced and sent the e-mail to Russ. Stopping the FP order was the wrong choice, but no one is happy with the current solution either.

 

After giving it more thought, I think the best and most balanced solution, is also the easiest. Keep all the rules as they were, just lift the cap off of the PA order.

 

You guys were doing 75 morale points of damage to Greece. That would cost 5625 money points to counter. More than Greece could afford to substain, but the entire TIGER alliance could help him afford the cost. However, keep going and you guys increase it to 100 morale points of damage. Now you are talking 10,000 money points to counter.

 

This is more than we could afford. We can only give 10% of our treasury to a TA and we were all on a war economy, trying to build as much stuff as possible and get it to the front lines. In other words your massive strategic offensive would have a massive ripple effect throughout our entire alliance.

 

As you continued to apply the pressure, in order for us to keep paying the big bucks to keep up, we would have to start shutting production down. This would inturn impact our ability to wage war on all of the other fronts.

 

It would also put a sense of real urgency in our offensives. I could no longer take my old sweet time picking away at your fortified positions. I would have to push harder and faster. We would have to get to Lisbon and Madrid before you knocked Ken out.

 

Primarily it would put the competition back into the contest and we could keep going with Game 82.

 

Alas, we will never know, as Russ has decided to shut us down. I am sorry for my participation in this mess. I know my opponents will never believe me, but my aim was to come up with a workable solution to the problem and keep the game balanced and competitive for everyone. I do not want special treatment or favors and did not intend to kill game 82.