J Andrew Evans wrote:
>
> Mike Looney IONet wrote:
>
> > I don't think the figure scale is the same as the ground scale in ANY
> > version of Epic.
> >
> > Granted they don't say that, but very few wargames have a ground scale
> > equal to the figure scale.
>
> This is an interesting comment. What would Epic (in any version) have to change
> to be "in scale" as regards the ground?
Warning this may be a bit obvious and does have a rant built into it.
War games have 4 scales that the rules are written around.
1) Figure scale: This is the 6 mm/ 1:300 scale that most of the list is
aware of. A normal sized man is 6 mm tall in this scale. (more or
less) This is a know figure for Epic
2) Ground scale: This is how much "real" ground is represented by x mm
on the game board. Most war games run some where around 1:1000, where 1
mm = 1 meter. Some do some odd things, like 1" = 50 yd. or go with
1:2500 scale, where each mm is 2.5 meters. Command Decision / Combined
Arms/Over the Top, the game system that Epic (all versions) is loosely
based on uses 1:1000 for micro armor ground scale.
3) Time scale. 1 turn is ?? units of real time. CD/CA/OOT uses 1 turn
is 15 min real time.
4) Unit scale. 1 "figure" on the board is ?? real units in real life.
(example a unit of infantry in Epic is 5 men. A unit of armor is 1
tank. CD etc. uses 1 unit is one platoon (30ish men or 4-6 vehicles)
If you assume that Epic does in fact have the 1:1000 ground scale that
means that small arms fire has a range of about 300 meters in the
current version, which is OK, and that heavy weapons and tanks have a
range of about 450 meters, which is also ok, if a bit short, but given
that WH40K is based on WWI/WWII level tech, not Desert Storm level tech,
well, that works out also. Movement is a bit slow, but on road "march"
(the only non tactical movement in the game) lets infantry go 450 meters
per turn, which if we assume say 5 mins turns, is not a bad road march
speed. This is NOT full tilt running down the road, this is a speed
that you can keep up forever (more or less) even while carrying a full
combat load. Like I said, movement really is a bit slow. I would go so
far as to increase movement by a flat 50%. Frank Chadwick, one of the
best war game designers alive today, is of the opinion that "You can
never have too much movement in a game". Historically the real limit
on an armies ability to move was the action of the enemy on the physical
speed of the army. Speed of units is something that will be looked at
quite a bit in E41K "Full Version". Not sure now if I will change it or
not.
<rant>
Epic has, in all versions, a rather major problems with range ratio.
The ratio of small arms fire to tank weapons (roughly 1:1.5) is
acceptable, if a bit nice to the grunts. The ratio of small arms to
artillery ranges (roughly 1:3, at best) is, on the face of it, absurd.
Even in WW1, where armies were manned by men that were expected to be
able to hit targets 1000 meters away (the BEF, at the start of the war
was all long term "professional" and really did expect that sort of
range), short ranged artillery had 11,000 meter ranges. By the time we
get to "modern" era, where infantry has a range of say, 500 meters
artillery has ranges if 18km-40 km. Light mortars have ranges of
8km-12km. There is something wrong with a game where normal infantry
can more or less expect to be able to charge a battery of guns. That
has really not been an options after the American Civil War.
</rant>
Received on Sat Sep 12 1998 - 16:14:27 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0
: Tue Oct 22 2019 - 13:10:52 UTC