Campaign update 10/4

kg little mac wrote:
But I'm respectfully withdrawing from this campaign because I simply cannot deal with Digby's attitude.

Regards,

kg little mac

Mark

No! I implore you not to leave sir! Personally I am delighted to see all you GCM fellows turn up, and am certain that if we managed to get some great big games going, we'd all have a splendid old time.

It seems that we are actually all in agreement, but there are some clashes of character, and it would be silly to let that get in the way of a good fight.

I've stayed quiet on this topic, but have read with increasing bewilderment as I see a bunch af people all with exactly the same idea managing to get annoyed over something that is in all probability highly academic!

I believe we all agree that we don't want to play in games where there are lots of crazy charges and melees. Well, GOOD NEWS CHAPS, it's not going to happen, because I know for a fact that we've all agreed that's frowned upon.

Now we're into some of the details.

Can I propose that we relax the "rules", until we've actually played a game. Then *IF* there are any hot topics, or incidents which divide us, at least we will have all had a chance to play together before we fall out, and at least we'll have had something solid to fall out over!

Come back Mark, because once one of you leaves, I know the rest will follow, and it would be such a shame. It's great to see you and Jonah and Spoom - and I'm so thrilled to be facing you from the saddle at last!

M.Jonah wrote:[...] if rule 7 had not been there then none of this discussion would have taken place .

You may be right, Mark, you may be right. I fear though, that rule 7 has been almost a pretext for some long-standing personal stuff to bubble up. If it hadn't been rule 7 it would have been rule 37bis.

Personally, I've never been very interested in the actual wording of rule 7. I'm much more concerned about the loophole of the rules saying we can toggle trees off 'briefly'. I tried to get that changed, I didn't succeed, I (eventually) shut up about it.

I think Sven (Major Byrd) has got it spot on.

Yours,

Jeff

Blaugrana wrote:I'm much more concerned about the loophole of the rules saying we can toggle trees off 'briefly'. I tried to get that changed, I didn't succeed, I (eventually) shut up about it.

I thought your suggestion was taken on board, after Martin's comment.

Again, something for both corps commanders and the umpire to decide for us, like they did with Rule 7 and which some people seem to have already forgotten.

FlashmanKBE wrote:

kg little mac wrote:
But I'm respectfully withdrawing from this campaign because I simply cannot deal with Digby's attitude.

Regards,

kg little mac

Mark

No! I implore you not to leave sir! Personally I am delighted to see all you GCM fellows turn up, and am certain that if we managed to get some great big games going, we'd all have a splendid old time.

It seems that we are actually all in agreement, but there are some clashes of character, and it would be silly to let that get in the way of a good fight.

I've stayed quiet on this topic, but have read with increasing bewilderment as I see a bunch af people all with exactly the same idea managing to get annoyed over something that is in all probability highly academic!

I believe we all agree that we don't want to play in games where there are lots of crazy charges and melees. Well, GOOD NEWS CHAPS, it's not going to happen, because I know for a fact that we've all agreed that's frowned upon.

Now we're into some of the details.

Can I propose that we relax the "rules", until we've actually played a game. Then *IF* there are any hot topics, or incidents which divide us, at least we will have all had a chance to play together before we fall out, and at least we'll have had something solid to fall out over!

Come back Mark, because once one of you leaves, I know the rest will follow, and it would be such a shame. It's great to see you and Jonah and Spoom - and I'm so thrilled to be facing you from the saddle at last!

Very good. You and Jeff both.

Gameplay, gameplay, gameplay! If we spend more time arguing than playing, what's the point? I see this being divisive and heading down the path of our previous campaigns. Vs campaigns are the toughest thing to keep going. We haven't even played one campaign battle and the arguments are flooding in.

I think we stick to our previous HITS and Couriers rules. We all agree (as far as I know) to no brigade charging, basically taking your entire brigade and throwing it at a position. I think it would be hard with couriers to pull that off anyway, your couriers get killed a lot during melee so there is a risk even if you were to attempt it. Also if you ride close during melee your avatar could get killed (seen it happen plenty) which sends you back near the starting point - so your melee troops may not always get a commander bonus therefore they could easily lose. So once you send them in, you may not get them back, kinda like cavalry, they get away from you (which is realistic).

Is there even a campaign game schedule this weekend? If not perhaps I should develop a scenario with Leffe or something so we can get some game going.

FlashmanKBE wrote:

kg little mac wrote:
But I'm respectfully withdrawing from this campaign because I simply cannot deal with Digby's attitude.

Regards,

kg little mac

Mark

No! I implore you not to leave sir! Personally I am delighted to see all you GCM fellows turn up, and am certain that if we managed to get some great big games going, we'd all have a splendid old time.

It seems that we are actually all in agreement, but there are some clashes of character, and it would be silly to let that get in the way of a good fight.

I've stayed quiet on this topic, but have read with increasing bewilderment as I see a bunch af people all with exactly the same idea managing to get annoyed over something that is in all probability highly academic!

I believe we all agree that we don't want to play in games where there are lots of crazy charges and melees. Well, GOOD NEWS CHAPS, it's not going to happen, because I know for a fact that we've all agreed that's frowned upon.

Now we're into some of the details.

Can I propose that we relax the "rules", until we've actually played a game. Then *IF* there are any hot topics, or incidents which divide us, at least we will have all had a chance to play together before we fall out, and at least we'll have had something solid to fall out over!

Come back Mark, because once one of you leaves, I know the rest will follow, and it would be such a shame. It's great to see you and Jonah and Spoom - and I'm so thrilled to be facing you from the saddle at last!

I personally have no problem with rule 7. As I have said, I'll play by whatever rules are given. And I have no problem with the rules being determined by Neal and MTG and whoever the Confederate corps commander is.

But it is my opinion that Digby holds a grudge against all GCM players and will continually belittle and try to bully all GCM players on this forum.

I sincerely apologize for leaving the campaign. And really, I don't hold a grudge against Digby, though I often find myself defending the GCM on the Norbsoft forums from his criticisms. I don't know the guy and really haven't conversed with him much on TS and never had a cross word with him on TS either. But I can see the writing on the wall.

I'm not trying to get anyone to leave the campaign and wish you all much success and fun playing it.

kg little mac

Mark

This issue reminds me of the pornography battles of the 1970's. While much of the Supreme Court was mightily concerned whether the peni were erect or flaccid, Potter Stewart was more pragmatic saying he knew it when he saw it. We are arguing over the exact same thing.

Everybody agrees that large numbers of charges are unacceptable. But trying to quantify that has just led to a major headache. I suppose I could get around rule 7 by marching my brigade up to the line in column of regiments and have one regiment charge after another. Eventually, one of the regiments would win. I didn't break the rule, however, I'd be very disappointed if someone didn't call me out for doing it. That's always the problem with trying to quantify a gentleman's agreement, there's always a loophole someone didn't think of. That's why my personal preference was to have no charging at all, except against artillery. Then we'd just rely on people being gentlemen who abide by it.

The fact that charging is considered important to certain styles of play most likely has to do with how the scenarios are designed. In SOW and GCM, it's all about capturing and holding some objective common to both sides(e.g. capture and hold Aps Knob). KS scenarios are much different. Symmetric objectives such as those are the mark of an uninspired mind. Sit on Aps Knob and I'll just cut off your LOC and starve you off it. KS battles tend to be much more fluid where sitting on a strong point is not always the best option. That may be the reason why some of us don't see the imperative of charging.

Mark, I disagree with your assessment of Martin's position in this debate. I don't think he is trying to drive anyone away by being inflexible. You have to make allowances. He's a Brit, his command of english is not on par with us Americans. All he and the other KS'ers are advocating is playing in the spirit of how the game is played here, nothing more. I hope you'll reconsider and give this game style a chance.

Words have left me at this point

Mark i never intended any of this but i felt that the topic needed discussing before the rules had been set in gold and never dreamed that it would go on this long.

I have never said i would not abide by the rules but would rather debate and come to an agreed level where all parties were happy.

Kevin

I think making the rule no charging at all is even worse than having the rule as is.

I agree with jeff's assessment in that we all agree column charging is abhorany and i never advocated this or mass charges i hate the tactic its just the stance taken is wrong also.

-Mark
aka jonah

Good thing for me X-Com just came out.
Im leaning towards following Soldier and walking away from the campain.
Curbing in Mass charges is a great Idea, Im all for it. I RARELY CHARGE EVEN IN GCM, No charging on the otherhand is totally unrealistic.
Melee may not be perfect in this game but removing it completely isnt the answer either.
I have problably 50-70 books on the A.C.W. and I would be hard pressed to find a book where there wasnt some commander who told his troops "fix bayonets and close with the enemy and dont stop to fire" very few of these actually made it to melee for many reasons. Some were even ordered forward with uncapped or unloaded rifles.
One reason melees were not joined (attempted but not joined) seems to be recreated well (maybe too well[ =) ] with green troops) by Kevins mod as troops break and rout before they get into melee. BUT the other main reason that no-one wants to hear is that the defenders fell back in the face of overwhelming force, commanders DO HAVE THIS OPTION and can retreat before melee with NO Point penalties and if done before mauled, no morale penalties.
This is by far (to me atleast) closer to real than outlawing charges completely.

M.Jonah wrote:I have never said i would not abide by the rules but would rather debate and come to an agreed level where all parties were happy.

IMHO, Mark, all parties being happy with all rules is ideal but is not always achievable. If after some debate, we can't reach unanimity, we have to go for the next best thing. Some compromise. eg Kevin would prefer no charging at infantry. I would prefer no toggling off of trees. But are these preferences worth arguing over to the extent that people get so hacked off they walk away from the campaign?

Once we're in battle, trying to work out where the hell the enemy are & sending off orders nineteen to the dozen, I do believe this will seem much less important.

Yours,

Jeff

kg little mac wrote:But it is my opinion that Digby holds a grudge against all GCM players and will continually belittle and try to bully all GCM players on this forum.

What? I mean... what? That's ridiculous.

What happened here was that the house rules by which HITS & Couriers are always played was presented to all and some of the GCM players started questioning them. I only took up an opposing position to the people questioning the rules. We have to have these in place because unlike the GCM, there is no game mechanic put in place to stop mass charges and stacking, and a number of other things the game allows you to do.

None of the HITS players had a problem with the house rules because they are all used to them, we all automatically abide by them because we know doing so gives us a better and more enjoyable game. We have quite a lot of melees but that is often down to the auto-charge function, not players throwing in lots of regiments.

Neal said that the rules would be agreed by the two corps commanders, which they were, on the first post of page 2. Some GCM players then kept gnawing at the subject and wouldn't accept that the discussion was closed. I finally posted that these are the rules, end of discussion, as agreed by Neal, Kevin and Stefan 4 pages ago. The problem lies with the people who wouldn't stop questioning the decision. People should have just played the first campaign game and seen how it went. Or played some HITS & couriers sandbox games to get a feel of it all.

These kinds of discussions are one of the reasons I left the GCM group and play HITS instead, because people endlessly debate everything and often in hostile ways. I grew fed up of the lack of respect people have for each other on the GCM forums. We do not do that here. We do a lot of things differently here. Please respect those differences, they are like that for good reasons.

Sorry discussion was never over regardless of the decision made by the umpire and the two corps commanders.

Wrong answer keep fanning the flames one GCM player down another thinking of not bothering way to go.

Mr. Digby wrote:These kinds of discussions are one of the reasons I left the GCM group and play HITS instead, because people endlessly debate everything and often in hostile ways. I grew fed up of the lack of respect people have for each other on the GCM forums. We do not do that here. We do a lot of things differently here. Please respect those differences, they are like that for good reasons.

I rest my case. . . you cannot resist demeaning the GCM.

Oh goodness!

Melee in aisle seven!

I am locking this topic for 24 hours. We need a cooling off period.

I don't intend to stifle discussion, I like discussion. I like freedom and democracy rather than dictatorship. However, at this time we're just injuring ourselves.

Those who wish to resign may do so at any time. This is a "Gentleman's Club." Anyone who wishes to conduct himself as a gentleman may come and participate. Be you a gentleman or not, you are also free to leave at any time. It's not like I can tie you to your chair and duct tape your headset to your ears, whilst making you play SOW.

If someone charges in their whole brigade, then what can I do? Break their fingers?

Gentlemen, let's take a day to chill out and then just play.

The Father General would remind you of Matthew 5:25-26.

He would not ask you to read to verse 27, he prefers to imagine that such things do not even exist.

See you in 24, gentlemen.