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BoerWar -> RE: Corsican Usurper - AAR/ messages (12/15/2007 7:57:40 PM)
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OK, we’ll take some of our email exchange to the forum. Maybe other have some good ideas.
First, there is no requirement for the countries to be allied for the bug to occur I’ve had it come up in practice games where SP and FR weren’t allied.
In my opinion without some sort of house rule prohibiting stacking BR is far less defensible. The army is pathetic so if anyone gets ashore BR is forced to surrender. The rest of the countries (except maybe SP aren’t as dependent on their navy).
Here’s why I think the bug is far more nefarious than you seem to think. Let’s say RU and TU move their fleets off the coast of SP next turn. In the next turn TU and RU declare war on SP. At that point the RU/TU coalition has a landing point that is invulnerable because the bug would prevent SP from attacking it. The best SP could hope for is to stack its fleet nearby and hope to catch the invasion forces by interception. Of course a smart RU/TU coalition will prevent this by sprinkling combined stacks all over the area. The same sort of scenario can be used against BR. Let’s say FR and SP set their fleets up in the channel with an invasion fleet on the coast. [edit: ok, just tested it and SP can’t set up in channel (hattip Murat). Nevertheless, the cloak of neutrality can be used to similar effect.] SP DOW’s BR during the diplo phase. Now BR can’t attack the channel stack. He can park his fleet there with Nelson, but that still leaves a 33% chance that BR gets invaded without a naval battle of any sort when the invasion fleet sails. Of course, with the combined SP/FR fleets in the channel even if the interception occurs victory is likely, but not guaranteed.
And here’s why I think the house rule at least provides comparable results. In your example of RU/TU at war with only FR, under the house rule the worst case is a RU fleet of 28 HS and 7 LS could meet a FR fleet of 20 HS and 11 LS (35 vs 31, roughly one to one with no LS or HS ratio penalty). Were there no bug, under this scenario the worse case would be a combined TU/RU fleet with 40 HS and 23 LS against 39 HS and 22 LS (63 vs 61, again roughly one to one with no LS or HS ratio penalty). While RU gains a slight advantage under the proposed house rule TU has a disadvantage because FR can still throw 20 HS and 11 LS at his 12 HS and 16LS which can’t benefit from stacking attacking with the Russians.
I see your point about stacking while not at war. We could ease the restriction against stacking if you aren’t at war, but then we would have to say if you are stacked with someone you can’t declare war against a common enemy until you aren’t stacked anymore.
It isn’t perfect, but until they come out with the patch it is better than doing nothing.
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