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Post by medievalthomas on Oct 18, 2017 21:38:23 GMT
Stevie:
The sentence that worries me is: "One party moves the minimum distance to so conform." This seems to say after you figure out who has to conform then only 'one party' moves to conform.
Otherwise I agree with you.
On your (excellent) suggestions:
1. Waiting till end of turn to conform (for side/rear) contacts. This rule is locally very unpopular as it seems to let elements hit on flank/rear off the hook (though much less than it seems). Getting rid of it does cause some TZ issues. I lean your direction to get rid of it but lack so far the courage.
2. For Knights and Knaves I'm getting rid of "or fight as overlapped" its not worth the bother. (Its a rare variation from basic DBA 3.0 mechanics but as you have noted a big head ache for very little gain.)
3. We considered allowing "pivot" to be free but some play testers freaked out by longer BW movement freaked out. You do need to consider issue of when a long group line hits it can wheel a long way if free.
Good work as always.
TomT
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Post by ronisan on Oct 19, 2017 6:55:24 GMT
The sentence that worries me is: "One party moves the minimum distance to so conform." This seems to say after you figure out who has to conform then only 'one party' moves to conform. TomT Hello TomT, well ... as a non native speaker  ... what else should I grasp of the term 'one party'? That sentence is confusing me a lot! The game is played by two 'parties' - isn't it? I had the idea, that it only explains the fact that: If an element or group needs to conform, it has to conform into the direction of moving the shortest distance (like it is shown in figure 12d). ... ? e.g. "The party which has to conform moves the minimum distance to do so."
Cheers, Ronald. |
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Post by Simon on Oct 19, 2017 7:32:05 GMT
I believe that the "One party" sentence means that only one of the players does any conforming. There is no "I'll do what I can and then you do the rest!" approach.
Regards
Simon
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Post by stevie on Oct 19, 2017 10:55:35 GMT
Hi ya Ronald, In this case, the word ‘ party’ means the same as ‘ person’ or ‘ player’. So:- “One person moves the minimum distance to so conform.” There is no "I'll do what I can and then you do the rest!" approach. Regards Simon Ah Simon, but there should be. And in fact there is. It is true that page 9 paragraph 9 says that one party moves the minimum distance to conform. But further down in paragraph 10 it says that if conforming by the first party is not possible, then the other party must do the conforming instead. So there is a “I’ll do what I can and then you do the rest approach!” Basically, the rules don’t care who does the final conforming, just as long as the movement phase ends in a legal formation: i.e. mutual fronts touching, front-edge to flank or rear, or an overlap position. Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, including the latest June 2017 FAQ and the Quick Reference Sheets from the Society of Ancients:-
fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
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Post by Simon on Oct 19, 2017 11:22:00 GMT
I think we agree Stevie! I was suggesting that there is no I'll do a bit and then you - one person does all the conforming or none.
Simon
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Post by stevie on Oct 19, 2017 13:24:31 GMT
Understood Simon. You know, if the word ' must' was followed by the word ' try', things would have been much clearer. (Another thing for medievalthomas's "Knights and Knaves" and Joe Collins "DBA 3.1" perhaps...)  Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, including the latest June 2017 FAQ and the Quick Reference Sheets from the Society of Ancients:-
fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
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Post by medievalthomas on Oct 19, 2017 16:12:15 GMT
Well you may be correct Simon - its another matter upon which are trying to figure out what Phil thought about a matter he hasn't actually thought about. I think its just a stray sentence that doesn't really intend to create such a rule but in 3.0 we may be stuck. Making the non-mover do all the conforming causes some odd results. So I'm still trying to wiggle out of this interp for 3.0 (we can do whatever we want in Knights and Knaves of course). If the non-mover must do all the conforming than you have to hypotetically demonstrate you can't conform - move back to the original contact positions and have the non-mover conform. No one would ever move as per diagram 13d because it would be much better to touch one group and force them to conform into an overlap than to touch two groups at exactly the same moment.
TomT
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Post by timurilank on Oct 19, 2017 22:13:42 GMT
There are some advantages for Spear.
Continuing the combat in the same position as pictured in fig. 13d, player Spear has two combats with an enemy fighting at reduced factors in place of one.
Even if both columns of Blade recoil, there may be a residual benefit by forcing them closer to difficult situations, such as impassable terrain, moved into own archery range or placed in the path of dangerous fleeing troop types, etc.
Worst case, if both Blade X and Y do recoil, the right front corner of Blade W and left front corner of Blade Z would remain touching the TZ of the spearmen in front. Blade would require a high pip score to unravel his predicament.
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Post by Michael Demko on Dec 28, 2017 21:36:10 GMT
This discussion is fascinating. I have to admit that, reading the rules with no prior experience with the game, I had understood that corner-to-edge contact was not legal, and that corner to corner contact (as in an overlap) did not count as "contact".
There was a ton of verbiage emphasizing "edge contact" or "edge to edge contact", so I had read the rule as meaning: the moving element must get at least a portion of their edge (more than a corner) into aligned contact with at least a portion of the target edge (more than a corner) using their MA - and that this would trigger conforming (which would involve no rotation, except in the exceptional case of rear or side contact).
The practical consequence of this interpretation is that the non-bounding player "offers" an orientation for contact. The bounding player can accept this offer, or in some cases force a rotation of exactly 90 or 180 degrees by contacting to the side or rear. But there is nothing the bounding player could do to cause a non-bounding element to rotate by anything other than a multiple of 90 degrees.
It was not until I saw some of the wackier diagrams in these conversations, and Tony's videos, that I realized many people had a much more liberal interpretation of "edge contact" than I did. I may be biased, but I prefer my earlier ignorant interpretation, because it dramatically reduces the range of positions one has to consider when interpreting the rules.
It is an interesting question though what kind of formation could be used to "game the rule" to give a defender a meaningful advantage without exposing flanks. Is there an archive somewhere of the "geometric tricks" people used in 2.2?
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Post by lkmjbc on Dec 28, 2017 22:56:36 GMT
Not a folder... but many of us did use geometric tricks. I certainly did and have a bag of first place trophies for it.
The most common trick was the "V" line. This is where you would move your line to be in a "V" formation and prevent the attacker from conforming. The second was positioning elements on the flanks that prevented once again contact by enemy groups.
The final was a simple cocking of an element to prevent a breakthrough move... the attacker could never conform... and your opponent's pike block could only sit and wait.
These are a few of the tricks that have been eliminated by 3.0.
Joe Collins
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Post by Michael Demko on Dec 28, 2017 23:20:46 GMT
Do the fixes depend on being able to force conforming via edge to corner or corner to edge contact?
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Post by lkmjbc on Dec 29, 2017 3:23:52 GMT
Do the fixes depend on being able to force conforming via edge to corner or corner to edge contact? Yes...for edge to corner. Please note that this was similar for 2.2...if the contacted element was Ps or Lh and not part of a group. 3.0 just extended this to any element similar to HoTT. Joe Collins |
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Post by medievalthomas on Jan 2, 2018 18:44:17 GMT
When played at the highest level 2.2 was essentially about geo tricks of which there were many.
Its essential that the moving element be able to contact with its front edge any part (including corners) of a non-moving element and force conforming. (It seems just a corner contact by movers does not force conforming - leaving a few old 2.2 tricks in tact).
This does open some worm cans though that we did not fully think through in playtest (OK I screwed up).
We are working through them now (sort of) in the FaQ committee - but it is a committee.
Issues:
Group contacts a single element on its side. When does single element conform/turn to face. Many on committee contend that conforming and turning to face are two different things and can happen at different times.
Group contacts single element on "front corner" (though is mostly in side "arc"). Does this count as a front contact requiring single element to immediatly swing round often causing its TZ to free up a previoiusly TZed opponent (preventing this is why elements contacted on the side do not immedialty turn to face).
Many feel the "one party" rule forces us to use hypothetical moves and non-intuative single conforming (or in most cases non-conforming), they may be right which is a pretty big screw up on the part of the playtest crew (ie me) not catching this in development.
Finally I noticed in local games that the gimicks have now switched to the moving party trying to prevent conforming as this forces the non-moving party to get an extra phantom overlap negative modifier. Probably not one of our better ideas.
Still we are much better off than in 2.2 but to get perfect implementation of Phil's very good ideas re conforming has required lots of games and only now a full realization about what the "rule" means. Understand in Phil's mind (who I have played against), its the first sentence that is the rule, the rest just a none exclusive list of how to accomplish. In our minds the first sentence is just asperational while the rest is some kind of firm rule.
Again I'm always interested in both the letter of the law in 3.0 and what players feel would be best practices in an ideal DBX world.
TomT
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... what else should I grasp of the term 'one party'?
