Last Man Standing Tourney - ROUND ONE

[Greybeard]

Geeez...I never meant last man standing literally. Guys are dropping like flies.

I believe Greybeard and Old Rocky are either done or about there. I'll evaluate where the remaining two games are and set up for Round Two. If you've dropped out, are out of touch, or cannot continue-then you're out. We'll see who this leaves and start from there.

Hello Nick,

yes indeed.. We've been done for quite some time.. but the game just doesn't think so.. I have no units left on the map.. rocky owns all the real estate.. in truth I got so frustrated with the mass of artillery that hit me on pre-game bombardment (I was player 2, so Rocky's fire 1st), and since nearly all my infantry was either paralyzed from artillery fire or 'z' fire every round thereafter that I picked up the dregs and retreated off the map.. hoping to hand rocky an early decisive win.. alas.. not to be.. our trusty AI has not yet ended the game, and.. even more oddly.. with all of my troops off the map, rocky is taking casualties from ghosts.. for whatever reason my A0 unit (which is now off map and has been for 10+ turns) has racked up an impressive 10 unit kill count.. all happening off map.. each turn at the end of rocky's phase he is hearing 'artillery fire'.. again which is strange, as I had only 4 on-map mobile flame rocket units at start and they also are now all off-map.. and frequently at the begining of a turn rocky is finding some of his units that are still on-map have reverted to 'retreat or routed' and have taken losses to get them that way..

Something is screwy here.. this one might be difficult to get an accurate score with by the time the game ends.. 10 more turns from now if the AI lets it go that long..

As for suggestions.. reduce the artillery allowed.. severely reduce the artillery allowed, or give a much larger playing field.. the small map, while it makes it easy to find your opponent, is a boon to player 1.. all player 1 has to do is purchase enough artillery so that on round 1 nearly every hex on player 2 side can be affected by heavy artillery fire (with 10K points, and no limit - easily achieved) and the game at that point is largely done.. player 1's guns fire first in a pre-game bombardment.. and bingo.. player 2's side is virtually immobilzed, including the ability to reply in kind as virtually no unit in player 2's deployment area comes thru the barrage w/o damage or heavy supression.. and simply can't respond.. then player 1 just keeps up the artillery fire every turn and sets his ground troops off to mop up..

Thus.. my retreat off the map.. simply no hope for any sort of meaningful combat ability or survival after the pre-round-one artillery smash.. just scoop up the pieces and run away..

IMHO, this ought to be more of a search and destroy issue, not a smash and bag the shards.. suggestion for game 2.. only artillery allowed is light mortars that would be a part of a full infantry company purchase.. more like 1-2 mortar teams per infantry company.. and zip for ammo supply.. this would absolutely take artillery out of the picture for world domination of the tourney.. but would retain it's usefulness at a point of resistance that needs to be cracked..

cheers!
Greybeard