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Subject: 
Re: Castle wars: teach us, quick!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.castle, lugnet.loc.pt
Date: 
Thu, 21 Feb 2002 00:08:42 GMT
Viewed: 
48 times
  
(First of all, let me thank once again for everyone's replies; I have
started to look at the rules, and hope to be at least somewhat comfortable
with the game logic by the time our meeting takes place)

In lugnet.castle, John P. Henderson writes:
In lugnet.castle, Leonard Hoffman writes:

1. the problem with melee style fighting is that in real warfare you always
have to plan about the future. 85% casuality rate is unheard of in real
warfare, because you will probably have enemies (other kings, or possibly a
peasant revolt) in the future who will take advantage of such a devastating
victory.  you also have to think about morale.  men won't fight for a guy who
generally kills off most of his men just to achieve victory (ie. morale
problems in WW1).

Lessons well learned by King Pyrrhus when he defeated the Romans at too high
a cost.  I believe his own words were, "One more such victory and we are lost."

Yup, I know the story. The expression "Pyrrhic Victory" exists in
Portuguese, too.
But if you take the other example: WW2, Pacific. The Japanese had no fear of
Pyrrhic victories - in fact they wanted ANY victory they could possibly get...

2. sometimes battles were to just beat the crap out of your enemy, but quite
often there is another reason as well.  there is alot of fighting to take
strategic points, or even strategic concerns, such as holding off an enemy
while your main force does a flanking maneuver (sp). such things like 'capture
the flag' may seem silly, but actually mirror real military concerns.. more so
than melee and general destruction.

True again.  Some of the more realistic strategy games I have seen focus on
capturing an objective of some sort and keeping your units alive long enough
to prove you control it (the objective).  (The Steel Panthers PC games come
to mind, as do certain Avalon Hill board games.  Many of the latter also
encourage you to preserve units long enough to hold out for reserves that
come into play during later rounds.)  A total mass melee where the victor
risks all to end up with little (such as in Chess) makes for a fun game, but
I agree it isn't as realistic.

I will accept those thoughts as very useful for future games.
But if we are simulating an assault to "the last stronghold", it is to
expect a very fierce resistance to attack by the defenders. Especially in
the context of the Crusades...
By what I could learn since yesterday from the rules, this will probably be
our storyline; we have very few castles and troops, so this appears to be a
more reasonable choice. My *personal* preference to a story would be the
conquest of Porto in 868, because the city was small at the time and the
armies involved were too... but then again, *I* will only be watching the
action. :-)


Pedro



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Castle wars: teach us, quick!
 
Good points on realism. (...) Hope you ahve a great time! Starting out with not that many troops may be a good idea. In my experience a battle with two sides of 50 men each, can easily take as long as a game of monopoly. If one side is defending a (...) (23 years ago, 21-Feb-02, to lugnet.castle, lugnet.loc.pt)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Castle wars: teach us, quick!
 
(...) Lessons well learned by King Pyrrhus when he defeated the Romans at too high a cost. I believe his own words were, "One more such victory and we are lost." (...) True again. Some of the more realistic strategy games I have seen focus on (...) (23 years ago, 20-Feb-02, to lugnet.castle, lugnet.loc.pt)

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