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Post by mrweasely on Sept 7, 2006 1:31:26 GMT 1
I don't think Sauron put in multiple eyes. The FSP didn't actually lose any companions to moving the FSP. Gandalf took out the Balrog with an Eye. Merry and Pippin were kidnapped by Orc Patrol. Boromir fell prey to Isuldur's Bane. The three hunters were seperated through some vague combination of The Breaking of the Fellowship and I Will Go Alone. 0 dead companions doesn't sound like the kind of yield I'd expect from two eyes a turn. Maybe he was putting all his Event dice into drawing character cards, and all his Character dice into playing them. After all, he did have The Palantir of Orthanc uninterrupted for the first ~4 turns or so. With that, its not a terrible way to do things. Incidentally, it is a more viable strategy to hold back until later in the game in the Wizardry variant ( wiz.osaurus.us). This is because activation of free nations gives them an extra dice efficiency that Sauron can't accurately estimate. Therefore, he fears to activate them too soon.
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SevenSpirits
Nazgûl
PlayTester
Sauron meant no harm. He only wanted to draw the extra cards...
Posts: 283
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Post by SevenSpirits on Sept 7, 2006 5:33:12 GMT 1
Oh, Sauron put in eyes all right. The FP just took it as corruption.
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Post by davshar on Sept 8, 2006 0:50:44 GMT 1
Good answers all, because all have a different angle on the story and the game. I was being flippant speaking about the 'abnormal psychology of Dark Lords' but madwoffen thinks this is indeed the reason. But I was saying that Militarily Sauron's caution made no sense, even given all his previous failures and unpleasant times and his belief that all is going his way and he has plenty of time. Even so, why wait? He used only 1/10 of his army at Minas Tirith? Why not lose only 1/2 of it on the FP. He is pretty sure all is going his way? This is a reason to launch the attack, not to wait. I suspect Tolkien has Sauron wait because it he did attack, as in the game, it would have been difficult to have written a story line that didn't have his hordes sweeping over the world, as they often do in the game.
Mr. Weasley's not wanting more complexity in the Companions or tactical game (and I'm sure he speaks for many, many others who are quite satisfied with the basic game) points to a way to please all. Many wargames have a set of basic rules that apply to all games played. They then have a set of intermediate difficulty rules and set of advanced rules. The designers could take the best and most popular House Rules and suggestions offered on the forum and put them into optional rules, allowing players to tailor the game to their particular tastes.
But I think one change that almost all players would agree on, surely, surely, is that the various cities and strongholds should be weighted as to value; at the very least Gondor ought to be worth more VP than, say, Eredor. Make Gondor worth about 5VP. But if that is changed then, logically because Gondor was much more heavily defended than any of the other FP settlements, it should have an enhanced defense capability. This could be the ability to hold 7-8 units instead of 5 during siege, or allowed 3 siege engines instead of 2, or letting its defenders hit on a roll of 4-6 instead of the 5-6; the method is debatable but should be enhanced in some way.
And again I return to something that bothers me; the argument that Sauron did not release his armies because he thought he was doing so well. That is illogical; when you are winning, when the enemy is disorganized and down, that is when you hit them the harder. What is he worried about? How could the FP trap him. If the FP, say Galadriel or Gandalf, decide to use the Ring themselves then this is another reason to hurry before they do so.
And Sauron must have, finally, to use his armies to conquer Middle Earth; the Ring alone won't do it. He is not the Hitler of his world; that real monster struck early, hard and often. Rather, he is indeed, the George McClellan of Evil Wizards; amassing huge armies, creeping forward a bit with them, finally attacking with a small portion of them, always afraid that something, something will go wrong. Perhaps this is Tolkien pointing out to us that those with supposedly supreme power are often those who feel the most insecure.
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Post by mrweasely on Sept 8, 2006 5:04:07 GMT 1
Sauron was expecting the following war: - Phase 1: hunt the ring. Force the ringbearer to use the ring. The ring corrupts all around it. So we enter...
- Phase 2: because the Ring is the Ring, sooner or later, a strongman will emerge with it on his finger, probably Aragorn, Gandalf, or an elf lord, or just maybe that shifty devil Saruman. They'll set to organizing armies, and making war on Sauron. At that point, there will be a number of neutrals (e.g. the Dwarfs). If the Free Peoples have collecitively realized that this is a war for survival, they'll probably flock to the banner of the new ringbearer. If, on the other hand, Mordor seems remote, they'll let the new ringbearer fight with Sauron unaided. In fact, since one evil lord is as good as another the Dwarves have no reason to go to war at all. Thus there's no point in attack the Dwarves early, you just make enemies out of neutrals, and lose valuable orcs.
- Phase 3: the new Power and Sauron slug it out in a apocolyptic battle for Middle Earth. Mountains boil. Seas are leveled. Etc etc etc. This is the Main Event. It is also a good time to have a lot of orcs in reserve.
Leading up to last battle at Cormallen, things appear to have gone about as Sauron expects. He thinks the Ring is in Gondor. Inexplicably he attack DEW then (too soon!), but that's OK because the enemy appears to have made a grave blunder: Rather than creating an entire war-waging economy with the Ring, the ring bearer is forcing a decisive battle with the remnants of his pre-war army! See Saruman's buildup in just a generation for an example of what ring-lore can do logistically... he goes from Ivory Tower Geek to Contendah in no time flat, and he only knows about the ring, he doesn't even have it! That the new Power isn't doing this appears to be greatly to Sauron's advantage. If he crushes the new Power at Cormallen, then he wins an early victory the Phase 3 battle that he's scared of. About the only dumb thing Sauron is doing is putting his Nazgul into the battle at Cormallen. Since The One Ring commands them, their allegience seems suspect. But I'm not an evil overlord, so what do I know?
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Post by jimchris on Sept 8, 2006 6:07:20 GMT 1
In my opinion, the most interesting point about Sauron's attack in Minas Tirith is that it makes sense - in terms of both the book, and the game.
As far as I know, the following is all in the book (well, apart from what is obviously my own speculation).
The situation straight after Saruman had been taken down was intriguing for Sauron. He knew that a halfling, a Baggins, was carrying the ring. From the fact that Pippin looked into Saruman's Palantir, Sauron thought knew that Saruman had captured a hobbit. There were not that many hobbits walking around, so chances were that Saruman had captured the Ring. However, after he sent a Nazgul to get the said hobbit, he learned what had happened in Isengard.
Soon after this, Aragorn appeared to him in the Palantir, and successfully resisted domination - he even showed him Anduril. Sauron had every reason to think that Aragorn was heading for Minas Tirith, wielding the Ring. So, Sauron reviews his troops, sees that they ought to be well sufficient, and orders the Witch-King to take down Minas Tirith by any means possible - time suddenly had become an issue with the new information. Also, it should be remembered that Sauron hated the Dunedain, and especially their kings, with a fiery passion; the first 2000 years of the Third Age he had worked to destroy the line of kings, and he was not about to let a new one establish himself now. Aragorn, who must have known all this, obviously intended to deceive the Dark Lord - and to a certain extent, he succeeded.
In the game, the situation where the attack is made makes some sense, even if it could be criticised... Fellowship has taken a bit of corruption (4-5?), it is left without any companions in Westemnet, Saruman is wasted, and Gandalf the White is in play, so Galadriel denial has been successful. Fellowship starts moving - and it is only a two steps from Minas Tirith. Allowing them to heal there would definitely not be good, better to put MT under siege at least...
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Post by davshar on Sept 10, 2006 0:09:06 GMT 1
Well, Wow, is my response. Everytime I think I have given a very strong argument for a point I am knocked onto a proper plane of humility; Mr. Weaseley and Jimchris, you know your Tolkien. Both my weakness and my strength (assuming I have any - well we can make any assumption we want, it is, after all, a fantasy world) as a critic of WotR is that I tend to focus on it from the military point of view. You have just showed me some of the weaknesses of this approach.
I see your points that Sauron has to take into account a wide range of possible factors, political and Ring, as well as military and so I yield part of my argument to you. But still, something in me rebels against the idea of raising vast armies and not using them, or at least part of them. Sauron's superiority seems to be so huge (are we ever given any reasonably specific numbers on his armies vs. the FP armies?) that he could have attacked early on with a part of it and still had plenty left to attack Minas Tirith and deal with other possibilities.
But accepting your positions, doesn't this make even a stronger argument not for the Absurdity of Victory Points but the Absurdity of All Strongpoints Being Worth 2 VP? I've gotten to the point where I won't play an opponent unless they agree to a House Rule to make Minas Tirith worth 4 or 5 VP, with a balancing exchange increasing the power of the defense of that city; it was the Rome of Middle Earth and so its defenses should be harder to defeat than any other city. I am quite willing to negociate over the exact nature of this defensive increase but it should be included. Minas Tirith worth the same VP as Eredor or the Gray Havens simply warps the military aspect of the game too much.
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Post by jimchris on Sept 10, 2006 10:05:02 GMT 1
Thanks for the kind words regarding understanding the world of Tolkien - I guess I have the unfair benefit of having gamemastered Middle-Earth RPGs for about a decade, so I've had to review his texts often. You got me thinking about the amount of VPs, though, and I think you're quite right. It might make for an interesting, more colourful and Tolkienesque variant if some strongholds were priced higher than two VPs. At the moment, I'd raise the costs of both Minas Tirith and Lorien - they were, in many ways, the centres of resistance for humans and elves, respectively, and important sites of ancient heritage. Losing both of them should definitely be worse than losing the whole of DEW, for example, and individually they might well be equivalent to Dol Amorth + Pelargir, or the whole of Rohan. As a counter, I'm wondering if it would be enough to let both sides muster three siege engines - if necessary, FP might get a free siege engine at both sites at the start of the game. Edit: forgot about the military side of the post...Why, then, did Sauron not use his armies earlier? I can't say for sure... he has had a historical tendency to corrupt rather than destroy, if possible, though. The elves of Eregion and the Dunedain of Numenor were perhaps the best examples. It seems that he has only taken military approach after corruption has failed - Eregion was ravaged only after the Elves renounced him, and even though he assaulted the Dunadan refugees without provocation, it was clear that Elendil could never be corrupted. This is the trend Sauron seems to follow through in the book - he used 'threats and promises' towards the Dwarves of Erebor before the council of Elrond, and as I mentioned above, he assaulted Gondor only after it became apparent it couldn't be peacefully subdued. All in all, it seems that from the start, Sauron considered open warfare as the last, and therefore it seems the least desirable, option. Why this was so is an open question... maybe it has to do with his original role as Morgoth's lieutenant. If I recall correctly, he was never a master of war, but rather a more sophisticated envoy. Also, he must have been pretty spooked about the power of the west after the Valar dispatched his master, and he fled into hiding. Interestingly, the whole business of the Rings fits well here - his first intention seems to have been to corrupt Middle-Earth and to turn them into slaves, not burn it to rubble. One could speculate that he had seen what enough destorying and ravaging would do. A further intriguing point is that there seem to be clear differences on how evil manifests in the actions of Morgoth, Ungoliant, Sauron, and the Witch-King... but this goes well beyond the topic of this post...
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Post by mrweasely on Sept 10, 2006 16:32:15 GMT 1
For the most important elvenhome, my money's on the Gray Havens. Without it the elves are stuck in Middle Earth forever. With it they're immortal, even if Sauron wins they can flee for Valinor.
There's already a huge payoff for taking Lorien, be it only 2 vp. That is removing the Galadriel action die. In fact, Lorien should be the initial SA target in 90% of games.
The advantage to taking Minas Tirith and Pelargir is less pronounced: it fortifies against a FP military victory. On the other hand, by not attacking Gondor at all, and leaving Mordor, Southron, and Easterling armies standing around, the threat of FPMV is also greatly ameliorated. Perhaps Gondor should get a free gondor-only army/muster die on the start of any turn in which it is active.
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Post by Goodgulf the Grey on Sept 11, 2006 17:02:27 GMT 1
This discussion got me thinking about a couple of House Rules that might be interesting:
1) SP needs 11 VPs to win and Minas Tirith is worth 3 VPs. This makes an SP Military Victory with MT equal to the current requirements but adds one if it doesn't include Minas Tirith.
The discussion about why adding Eyes in the Hunt is not valuable got me thinking too...
2) Hunting Witch King : Eye tiles outside of Mordor to do damage equal to the number of Eye dice in the Hunt box. This would help generate more Corruption damage in the Expansion games.
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Post by mrweasely on Sept 11, 2006 17:17:19 GMT 1
For the FSP, there are really two sub-games. In the first, Smeagol shows up and takes the helm from Gandalf, or at least Gimli, and in so doing prevents corruption twice: first by showing up, and second by choking on a '2' or '3'. In these games corruption is not a concern.
The other sub-game is when Smeagol doesn't show up before Frodo and Sam go alone. In this case, all the intuition players built up in the base game about corruption and WK card cycling serves them well indeed.
I've played a series of three games where Smeagol did not show up. Furthermore, Galadriel is only living into the endgame in 30% of my games, thus her eye-nerfing ability isn't operative. The fellowship is having a very hard time of it! __________________________________________________________
As to modifying the Nazgul Chief: Many people claim he is underpowered. MG hotly contests this. I personally can't judge, because the few times I've played with him I've found him to be agonizingly boring. I never bring him out anymore, because he's just not interesting to me. Also, even if I did want to bring him out, I'd have to wait for about 5 games until I find one where the FSP is revealed on its first two moves, and I have a muster to spare. I think changes to the Chief should start first with making him fun, then second with making him "balanced", whatever that means.
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Post by mrweasely on Sept 11, 2006 17:26:31 GMT 1
What is "fun"? Corsairs and Ents are not fun in Twilight. It takes forever to do anything with them. In the original game they were fun, albeit dorky fun. The Witch King is fun. Gandalf the Grey is fun. Killing Galadriel is fun, because it envolves bluff and cardplay. Killing Galadriel with the Witch King is mighty fun indeed. So here's my equation, see what you think: cards = fun!
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Post by Krieghund on Sept 11, 2006 18:45:18 GMT 1
SP needs 11 VPs to win and Minas Tirith is worth 3 VPs. This makes an SP Military Victory with MT equal to the current requirements but adds one if it doesn't include Minas Tirith. This is similar to a rule I proposed a few months ago on BGG, except I had both Minas Tirith and Helm's Deep worth 3 VP each and the Shadow needing 12 VP to win. This idea was intended to be a simple fix for the DEW North "problem", but nobody seemed to have much interest in it. Interestingly enough, this is at least the second time since then that someone else has mentioned something similar to it. Great minds, eh?
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Post by davshar on Sept 12, 2006 19:26:04 GMT 1
Good mediations all. To jimchris, your knowledge of the books is indeed deep and is most useful to someone like me who knows a lot of our earth's military history, which is sometimes applicable to the WotR, sometimes not. I have a younger brother who can quote extensively from the Silmarillion; I suspect you belong to that group who are as bound to the Ring.
Your comments on Sauron's motives for not attacking sound correct. The type of personality that becomes a murderous dictator, the Hitlers, Stalins, Castro's and Sadams, are almost always cynical types; they think everyone else is just as immoral as they are, but hypocritical about it. Thus, anyone can be corrupted given the time and the right price.
Interestingly, Saruon and the WotR has an affinity with a case I mentioned earlier; the attack of the Persian Empire on fifth century Greece. Xerxes, like Sauron, preferred corruption to war (after all, as Clauswitz never tired of pointing out, in war uncertainty is the greatest element, chance is 75% of everything) and wasted a lot of time trying to bribe Themistocles and other Greek leaders. A number succumbed but the best did not and Xerxes was forced to fight. Like Sauron he had a vast numerical superiority and yet was beaten badly both at sea and on land, just as his father Darius had been defeated by the single city-state of Athens at Marathon a decade before. Sometimes a side does win against the most amazing odds.
But it is also a strange condiction that these dictator types, with the utter ruthlessness and cruelty to sieze power and kill anybody they percieve to threaten them, are often cowardly, either physically or morally and often enormously insecure. Sauron, I think, has these personality flaws. In the books the FP forgot something that is wonderfully illustrated by what happened to U.S. Grant at his first battle, a large skirmish really, at the start of the Civil War. Grant crept along, terrified of the enemy, crushed under the burden that the lives of so many soldiers depended on his decisions and he had never commanded before ect. When he finally topped the hill on the other side of the ferocious Confederate hordes were supposed to be waiting, he found that the Rebels had run away. He wrote that: "At that moment something occured to me which I had never considered before; that the enemy had been just as afraid of me as I had been of them. It was a lesson I never forgot." Quote approximate.
To a degree I think this applies to the FP. Yes, Sauron has many advantages but he has been quite successful in making the FP forget that he also has disadvantages and weaknesses, both militarily and in his character. And they have forgotten that he, too, is afraid.
But you are right, jimchris, to point out the moral factors of war, factors which Napoleon were far more important than the physical.
I will reply shortly to Goodgulf and Mr. Weasely, for both had interesting things to say. Mr. Weasely, indeed, put his finger on the cruz of all simulation/board/wargames in a single sentence of three words! There's condensation for you.;
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Post by jimchris on Sept 12, 2006 22:28:16 GMT 1
The analogies of the Persians and the Greeks, and the memories of Grant, are interesting and seem to fit quite well with the tone of the military proceedings just before the War of the Ring. In my opinion, you're quite right in describing what Sauron did, and what some of his basic assumptions were (well, as well as any of us can figure out the reasoning of a 20,000+ -year old demigod). Indeed, relating to Sauron's attempts was the founding difference between Denethor and Aragorn. Both of them struggled with him through the Palantir; Denethor despaired, ending up in the pyre, whereas Aragorn used the momentum Sauron had put forward to cause his downfall. To be sure, out of the whole of the Fellowship, Aragorn is the one with whom I'd never sit down to play poker with. Interestingly, this seems to be what often happens in the game. One reason why the FP very rarely attempt military victories is because of an ingrained belief that the Shadow armies are simply too powerful, even if they are not.
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Post by davshar on Sept 12, 2006 22:52:38 GMT 1
Goodgulf, your house rule for altering the VP for Minas Tirith is a good one; like better suggestions it balances several factors rather than just adding or subtracting a single one.
The change the VP for more important settlements discussion runs both ways though; there are settlements whose VP should be reduced or eliminated. And of course just as I am flowing along in my argument my mind is hit with the Spell of Forgetfullness. Is the Shire a city or town? If a city then this is an obvious example of overating. The Shire has no particular strategic or political or military value and should be worth nothing. In the books the Hobbits were so out of it they did not bother to send any troops to help Gondor and indeed, did not even seem to know a world war was happening until Saruman showed up to set up his petty dictatorship. Is Dale worth as much as Edoras? The exact ratings can be argued but it shouldnt be that difficult to establish a more realistic balancing of the values of the settlements. Future editions of the game could just print the values on the map and players could use these or ignore them in favor of the present unweighted VP system for settlements.
Krieghund, you show too that there is a need for a readjusting the VP system. The present one simply warps the various strategies.
I mentioned the Grey Havens as an overrated settlement but Mr. Weasley thinks it one of the most important, for the Elves. It may make them safe but it does not make them very glorious: Oh, well, no use us all dying, let's make for the Blessed Lands. But this isn't really reflected in the game as there is no way to evacuate the Elves.
If there were though, an interesting strategy for the FP player would be to betray the Grey Havens to Sauron so the Elves have to stay and fight. In fact, this would have been a good idea for one of the non-Elf leaders in the Books but they were all to good even to conceive of such a thing. At the obvious risk of boring all mad with my Salamis analogy this is what the Athenian Themistocles did at that battle. Athens was already occupied and the Athenians had no place to go, except perhaps Italy. The other Greek city states were cowed by the size of the huge Persian fleet and voted not to fight the next in a council of war on the island of Salamis.
Themistocles then did a double-double cross. He sent one of his slaves to tell Xerxes that he, Themistocles was ready to be bought and that the Persians must hurry and bring their fleet out that very night because the Greeks were fleeing even then. The Great King bought and sent out his fleet, thus trapping the Greeks against Salamis Island and forcing them to fight. But since the Greeks had not actually started to run the Persians spent rowing in place in the Gulf of Salamis and so were exhausted when the battle started the next day. A similar 'betrayal' of the Gray Havens would have been greatly to the advantage of men in the war against Sauron. I feel the rocks of outrage falling on me now.
Mr. Weasley, I love your idea of giving Gondor a free muster roll on any turn it is active. Something indeed needs to be done to bring the war back to Gondor; it is the Byzantium that the eastern hordes need to crush if they are to gain access to the Free Lands of the East. But as long as it is worth no more than the Woodland Realm we will get some very unhistorical strategies.
Also, your remark about the value of Lorien is on target. If I ever get around to writing my post on Grand Strategy in WotR I will argue that Lorien is the single most important region on the map.
And, finally, when you ask 'what is fun' in a simulation game you have the weasel by the tail. The answer, of course, is that fun, like art, pornography and morality is in the brain of the beholder. That is why I would argue again for a set of 'layered' rules, with basic rules and then a wealth of extra rules of various rules of various complexity which players can add as they wish. Yes, one can do this with House Rules but a company like Fantasy Flight has vastly more resourses to test play these rules.
Like you, I would also like more cards. Over the years, playing wargames and other simulation games I was always irritated by the usual lack of what was then called 'special events'. War is the realm of Chance and more cards reflect this. One kind that comes immediately to mind is weather, unless we are to assume that all of Middle Earth has the same kind of weather all the time in all its regions. But, unlike you, I am a Galadrielphile; it is she who is the center of the resistence to Sauron and has been for centuries. But each to their taste.
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