Yeah, see, that is just stupid too.

You'll notice that the game specifically went out of its way to remove the "If you cripple a whole Kzinti CV group with 1 point of damage over the capital, the Coalition can't ever kill the PDUs!" aspect of the game.

Any situation where you can game negative points to either:

A) Prevent your opponent from directing important units.

and/or

B) You can game approach battles to prevent your opponent from doing anything remotely useful.

Is just dumb. And not something that the rules should support. Look. Now you did it. You got me started.

There needs to be a rule that allows for negative/positive points. Yes. 'Cause otherwise, combat doesn't work. But I can't for the life of me imagine that the designers intended this necessary rule to allow gaming of direct damage and approach battles. See for example:

"The Kzinti push forward riskily to kill that BATS!"

"We, the Lyrans, accept the approach! Oops! We rolled higher than you on the first round. We overcripple one of our 10 BCs, so now you are -10 for the next round and can't possibly beat us to advance. And then also the round after that. And then also -10 when you finally get to the BATS you are trying to direct, so you have no ability to do that, 'cause you don't have maulers. Sad!"

This is all just preposterous. And the game works just fine without the ability to abuse this effect (I just played a full, 34 turn game without regularly taking advantage of this silly rule abuse all the time. And it worked just fine). And the game even recognizes that excessive voluntary negative points are a problem some of the time (see: pursuit battles) and require an arbitrary limit to avoid abuse.

Ants. Now you got ants.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, February 22, 2020 - 06:35 pm: Edit

Do minus points affect who wins an approach round? I was of the opinion that was not the case.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Saturday, February 22, 2020 - 06:51 pm: Edit

Its always an interesting thing working out whether a silly/broken/exploitable thing was:
Developer oversight
Developer intention
Developer intended something similar but didnt fully think through
Developer never in wildest dreams imagined

Plus and Minus points mostly work well. I think the abuse comes when you can choose to cripple something to satisfy the damage but choose to cripple something else for way more points, or when the ship crippled provides such a big Minus that the next round of combat is mostly written off.

The -3 cap in this game to me seems a sensible solution.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, February 22, 2020 - 07:24 pm: Edit

>>Do minus points affect who wins an approach round? I was of the opinion that was not the case.>>

(308.3) says nothing on this front. It just says "scores more damage", which, if it takes negative points into account (which nothing indicates that it does not), means that having -9 from overcrippling a BC (my math above was off by 1) indicates that you score 9 points less damage for the purposes of approach battle success.

It certainly did when you exactly used this against me in games we have played in the past, and maintained that the -X points from overcrippling things counted against damage scored in approach battle success.

That being said, in this game, it is mostly irrelevant. As we are working with a -3 cap, which seems like a reasonable way to make this work.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, February 22, 2020 - 08:03 pm: Edit

I don't recall having that specific discussion with you Peter. So much F&E over the years tends to muddle the memory.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Saturday, February 22, 2020 - 09:22 pm: Edit

My proposed rule's "Fix" for minus points would be to simply say that voluntary minus points apply AFTER directed damage. If you overcripple, that keeps you from needing to self-cripple or self-kill something next round, but it doesn't magically protect anything else.

Over direct (killing PDU with their fighters dying for free), it slows down directing. Over self-cripple, it keeps you from needing to self-cripple. Much harder to game.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, February 22, 2020 - 11:18 pm: Edit

Yes, that sounds like the best alternative to the existing rule.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, February 23, 2020 - 08:19 am: Edit

>>I don't recall having that specific discussion with you Peter. So much F&E over the years tends to muddle the memory.>>

Heh, it wasn't so much the discussion, it was the exact situations of:

"I make it to the BATS to try and kill it!

"I roll better in the approach so you don't succeed, over cripple a CC so you are -8 on the second round. Oops. You lose that one too, as you are -8; at the end of the 3rd round of approach, I again over cripple a CC for -8. Oops. You can't possibly direct the BATS now, you are completely mangled and I demolish you in the pursuit from the failed attack. If only you had maulers, infinite money, and 3 dozen command cruisers to over cripple, you could have not gone through this sad failure..." [*]

[*] Paraphrased.

You subjecting me to this multiple times helped illuminate my view of this subject :-)

That being said, Douglas' idea isn't a bad fix either.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Sunday, February 23, 2020 - 09:36 am: Edit

'cuz I am of the opinion at this time that I dunno if minus points matter or not for determining such victory (in approach battles). I'd have to look at Q&A.

If you really DO recall that I once had an opinion one way or the other on the matter, let me know.

By Rob Padilla (Zargan) on Sunday, February 23, 2020 - 11:07 am: Edit

Per the SoP:

5-4J is to resolve minus points only.
5-4L checks to see if the player did enough damage to proceed to the base.

So minus points do exactly what was suspected they can make the next approach round harder.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, February 23, 2020 - 11:49 am: Edit

>>If you really DO recall that I once had an opinion one way or the other on the matter, let me know.>>

Heh. You certainly had an opinion on this at some point. As you used it numerous times to foil base attacks I made in other games. You may have forgotten that at some point, however. It happens. We are all old :-)

Rob has helpfully cleared up the ambiguity. Thanks!

So yeah, I do like the "resolve minus points after direct damage is done" suggested by Douglas above (which also nicely matches the actual rule of "resolve plus points after direct damage is done" currently), but it also doesn't address the Approach Battle issue. Which could easily be addressed by saying "determine if you win the approach battle before plus/minus points are applied". At which point you are fixing two rules.

This thread will all go back to the game at hand as soon as the Coalition is done pouring ships into my capital.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Sunday, February 23, 2020 - 02:43 pm: Edit

Peter. do you remember if I actually stated that opinion or if perhaps I was using minus points primarily to protect my valuable ships? Certainly at the moment I'd feel that I would _have_ to check the rules before crippling a ship to help win a subsequent approach round, which does not jive with my reportedly doing this before, repeatedly.

I did not in our games normally explain my reasoning for things, I remember you once complaining that I liked to keep my cards close to my chest, so to speak in relation to this. Might it be that this was your interpretation of my actions without actual explanation of my motivations at the time?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Sunday, February 23, 2020 - 05:03 pm: Edit

For what it's worth - I don't think (and have never played) that Overcrippling amends the chance of success for Approach battles?

308.31 just refers to 'Score more damage' - not what directing damage can be done.

The SOP probably just confuses it

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, February 23, 2020 - 06:20 pm: Edit

>>Peter. do you remember if I actually stated that opinion or if perhaps I was using minus points primarily to protect my valuable ships? Certainly at the moment I'd feel that I would _have_ to check the rules before crippling a ship to help win a subsequent approach round, which does not jive with my reportedly doing this before, repeatedly.>>

No, no, you 100% used "I overcripple a [CC or something] so you can't win the next round of approach battle" followed by "I overcripple a [CC or something] in the third round of approach, as you couldn't possibly win the second round of approach battle due to the minus points so you can't possibly kill the BATS when you finally get there" at least twice in our Do Not Start What You Cannot FInish game (once when the Kzinti were trying to attack a Lyran BATS>SB upgrade, once when I was attacking a Klingon border BATS). And probably in one or both of the 4PW games we played as well.

These are the only instances in my history of playing this game where they came up. As such, I remember them very clearly :-)

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, February 23, 2020 - 06:28 pm: Edit

CT2

Moves are well underway. As of press time, the Klingons have put their whole NR Fleet on Kzinti SB 1304, a bunch of ships on BATS 1405, and sent the whole North Fleet (50 some odd SEQ) to 1401. The Lyrans have sent a bunch of ships to pin whatever is at SB 0902 (about a dozen SEQ on each side), and then sent their forward deployed ships also to 1401. It is worth noting that the Lyrans have no supply points inside 6 hexes of the Kzinti capital, and currently all their ships are out of supply and will not be able to retrograde. I'd like to think that this will have some sort of negative impact on them, but history indicates probably not so much.

Plenty of ships left to move.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 02:44 am: Edit

"I'd like to think that this will have some sort of negative impact on them, but history indicates probably not so much"

Alas, I think your right!

The ongoing penalties are a lot lower for the Coalition, due to lack of Maulers and (although you don't have them I think) Penal ships.

Saying that, about the only risk is that the Lyrans lose several key ships this turn and get no Salvage and then overcripple their fleet and so an Alliance turn 2 counter attack catches a bunch of cripples and 2 or 3 weaker hulls might die (rather than 2-3 nice hulls if you had a mauler!!)

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - 07:35 pm: Edit

CT2

Moves have finished, reserves have been deployed, and combat is under way.

There are 7 battle hexes in Kzinti space:

-0902: 14 Lyrans vs 9 Kzinti and a SB
-1001: 6 Lyrans vs 2PDU and 3 small reserve ships.
-1001: A bunch of coalition vs BATS.
-1105: A bunch of coalition vs minor planet.
-1304: A lot of coalition vs 15 Kzinti and a SB.
-1401: About 60 Kzinti vs 87 Coalition ships (plus a lot of Kzinti PDUs and fighters).
-1405: A bunch of Klingons vs a BATS.

It is unclear what the Coalition plan to do in 1401. They might attack a bunch of systems. They might just be tying up reserves. Unclear at press time.

So far, the Kzinti chased away Lyrans from planet 1001 and SB 0902. The Coalition are fighting over SB 1304. The Coalition have killed BATS 1004 and 1405, and captured planet 1105 for some cripples.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - 07:41 pm: Edit

1004 was notable for the presence of 30 Lyran fighter factors. Lol.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, February 29, 2020 - 09:03 pm: Edit

CT2

The Coalition have killed SB 1304 for not much cost; between EW shift and bad dice, the Coalition actually did more total damage over 6 rounds of combat with a battle line and a SB than the Kzinti did.

The Kzinti lost a CC, CLD, CL, 2EFF and the SB in 1304.

The Coalition lost DWS, F5L, 3F5, and took 10 cripples (maybe one more in the last round vs the crippled SB without any Kzinti ships defending it, but between minus points and some fighters, probably not).

Now the Kzinti get to fight in their capital. 'Cause it is delightful that the Coalition can get almost 100 ships into the Kzinti Capital on T2 without even trying hard.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Saturday, February 29, 2020 - 09:27 pm: Edit

Fact finding missions, sight seeing, what's not to love about Kzintai ?

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, February 29, 2020 - 09:35 pm: Edit

Eh. the Coalition didn't hit all the Kzinti hard points (or kill 0902) in order to scrape up the ships for that attack.

In 1304, the Coalition had near compot parity and EW parity for the first 3-4 rounds, a shift only happened toward the end after I realized you wouldn't direct on a D6D on the line. Die rolls weren't very differrent and the Coalition lost two damage due to the minus point house rule if I recall.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, March 01, 2020 - 08:44 am: Edit

>>Eh. the Coalition didn't hit all the Kzinti hard points (or kill 0902) in order to scrape up the ships for that attack.>>

Sure. But it's completely irrelevant, as the Coalition will kill all those hardpoints on CT3 for a song. I mean, on the upside, I might do a lot of damage to the Coalition in 1401.

>>In 1304, the Coalition had near compot parity and EW parity for the first 3-4 rounds, a shift only happened toward the end after I realized you wouldn't direct on a D6D on the line. Die rolls weren't very differrent and the Coalition lost two damage due to the minus point house rule if I recall.>>

I don't think the Coalition ever lost damage; you crippled exactly to -2 or -3 every round (fighters and CWs), and the last -3 hanging on the last round paid off over the crippled, defenseless SB; the Coalition broke even.

Even over a SB, however, the Coalition did do more total damage for the battle. Jeez.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Sunday, March 01, 2020 - 12:47 pm: Edit

I recall crippling one or two CWs for -4, but did not comment on this and just stated -3.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, March 01, 2020 - 01:34 pm: Edit

I went back and looked, and it turns out that you did, at one point, overcripple a CW for -4, and only got credit for -3. But you also didn't have any need to do that, as you could have overcrippled an F5L that was on the line instead for exactly -3.

And it turns out that at some point (R4?), you also resolved 10 damage by taking 5 fighters, crippling a CW, and having -3 damage (which should have been -2)...

We'll call it even :-)

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Sunday, March 01, 2020 - 02:01 pm: Edit

I would have lost two compot on the next line if I crippled the F5L and replaced it with an E4. As the repair cost was the same either way, I crippled that CW.