On Thu, 8 Sep 1994, Scott Turner wrote:
> Here's something I don't like about the Oly combat system. I didn't
> like it in Ancient Oly and I still don't like it.
>
> Suppose I cruise into a province with my Big Killer Stack and I want
> to capture/kill the Unfortunate Victim Stack. If I expect to win this
> battle and I'm smart, what I'll do is issue 10 or so attack commands.
> If I win the first battle, I'm very likely to win all the ensuing
> battles, and in those ensuing battles I'll capture anyone who escaped
> the first battle. And if I lose the first battle, my force is
> probably in tatters anyway, so I might as well kill it off with the 9
> subsequent attacks before the next turn, when the Unfortunate Victim
> Stack is going to retaliate before I can flee the province.
>
> A second problem is that it takes a long time to leave a province.
> Even if the Unfortunate Victim Stack somehow manages to avoid capture,
> the Big Killer Stack is going to hammer it again at the beginning of
> the next month unless Unfortunate Victim Stack just happened to be
> leaving the province the month of the attack.
>
> The result is that it is very difficult to flee from battle.
> Occasionally you'll see someone accomplish it, but for the most part
> battles are to the death.
>
> I don't have anything useful or constructive to say about this. Maybe
> the system is fine as it is, but I don't like it. It seems to me that
> there ought to be some reasonable, realistic chance for survivors to
> flee from a battle.
>
> -- Scott T.
>
>