Olympia combat: the break

Bron Campbell Nelson (bron@bronze.mti.sgi.com)
Thu, 22 Sep 94 23:02:31 -0700

Since we're all in a free wheeling discussion about Olympia combat,
I thought I'd bring up an issue that annoys me, namely "breaking".
The idea is fine, but it suffers from the same sort of counter-
intuitive problems that people have been searching for in the
"smash" and "4:1" proposals: adding forces to a side can make it
worse.

As a simple example, consider a fight between 2 nobles vs. 2 nobles
plus 1 peasant. The side with the peasant will lose more than
half the time. This is because they will "break" when the peasant
and one noble dies, while the other side doesn't break until both
nobles die. Adding the peasant has made the stack weaker.

So what can be done about this? I don't know how to make the problem
go away entirely, but I think a simple thing could be done to mitigate
the problem: the break point should be made more adjustable.

Right now, the break point is either 50% or 100% (if you USE 9505).
I propose the following: If the noble knows 9505, then they can set
the breakpoint to anything they want (1% to 100%). This gives the
noble stack leader at least a chance to cut their losses and flee
before their nobles start dying, or to adjust the break so that the
loss of some fodder does not cause a early break.

Clearly this only helps if you know 9505, but I think it's better
than what is offered now.

--
Bron Campbell Nelson      bron@sgi.com  or possibly  uunet!sgi.com!bron
These statements are my own, not those of Silicon Graphics.


Main Index  |  Olympia  |  Arena  |  PBM FAQ  |  Links