From: jchunko@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Jeffrey Chunko)
Subject: Re: EiA: Problems
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 07:33:06 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.163521.11497@cis.ohio-state.edu> farrell@satcom3.cis.ohio-state.edu (christopher k farrell) writes:
> 	Our group has been playing an EiA campaign  for several weeks now and
>I thought I'd make some comments ...
As one of the other players in this game I thought I'd add some context here.

The Players:                 The Bids (approx)
	Chris: England         45
	Jeff (me): France      16!
	Jean: Austria          5? very low
	Richard: Russia        20
	Tim: Turkey            8

The Play so far:
Jean bid low for Austria with the intent to use the VP saved to bid for UMP's.
He bid 5 for Spain and Prussia and got them both, fully active.
So the French were faced with a triple alliance on the first turn (All 3 
started at war with me.)  Nappy was most annoyed, the usualy strategy when
dealing with an alliance is divide and conquer, but since they were all run
by the same player...  Ick.  I sent token forces into Spain and Italy figuring
that Spain only needed a token force to be taken care of, and Austria would
be more interested in claiming Italy than invading France immediately.
This left the massed French forces to pound on the poor Prussians.

Things worked pretty well, the Spanish went inactive in a short time from
force losses.  The Prussians followed (bloodily) shortly therafter.
The Austrians had cleaned up things nicely in Italy mean while, but 
the losses of political status from controlling spain and prussia had hurt
them badly.  With their army untouched but tottering near the instibilty zone
they chose the lesser of two evils, Ally with France, get to keep italy
and go pound on Russia.

Meanwhile, the Turks and Brits had cleaned up Africa, with Briton ceding 
it all to Turkey to form the Ottoman empire. In exchange the Turks agreed
to take losses for the Brits in their joint battles.

Russia was mostly idle, taking Sweden and ignoring Austrian pleas...

Currently, Russia is licking it's wounds, hiding it's army in St Petersburg.
(It lost about 35 factors in just one battle with Nappy, and has had large
chunks of Russia occupied each economic phase for the last 2 or three turns.)
But Spring is here, and thanks to supply line reinforcements the French
have just recieved 31I and 15G basically in Poland... :) Life is good.

Turkey and France have just landed a joint force in Austria.

The Prussians (Russian controlled now) have massed on the northern
border of Austria.

And that's where things stand.


>        I'm afraid this game is starting to loose some of it's considerable
>charm.  And no, to my fellow players, it is *not* because of that really
>nasty battle Wellington lost; that was a risk I was willing to take.

Oh and it was a beautiful battle too :)  BTW Chris be glad those dice came
up when they did, instead of then it would have mattered.  You were hosed
on the chit pick, the dice mattered little in that battle (Probe vs outflank
and Wellington rolled 1-for CRT, 6-outflank and 1-CRT to start the battle)


>        First:  There are too many rules that are either unclear, insufficent,
>or both.  For those of us who can't get 7 people (we only have 5), the UMP
>rules so drastically change the game as to be bizzare.  In our game, Austria
>sold out Prussia (waiting until France had his corps positioned to take Poland
>before surrendering) so that he could ally with France to invade Russia.

Heck Chris, you suggested it. :)

[deleted]

>effect that we end up consulting the rulebook too often.  (Like what happens
>when Russia is at war with Austria and France, Austria is at war with 
>Russia and Prussia, France is at war with Russia, and Prussia is at war with
>Austria?  What happens when a stack of French and Austrians run into a 
>stack of Russians and Prussians?)
 
I really do want to know the answer to this, it will be important in our game
and it will happen _soon_.  Anyone? Prussia and France are in an enforced
peace... Would it matter if they were just not at war?

>        I guess what really irritates me the most, though, is this political
>system.  The only factor in winning the game, of course, is political points.

[deleted]

>        So, why didn't they make the VP requirements more reasonable?  Like,
>increasing the number of VP's for France and GB by, like, 20?  So that things
>like this, due only to inexperience or lack of logical thought, don't
>happen?
>
>        Anyway, I'm far from wanting to resign my position as Great Britain.
>*BUT*, I'm starting to have a few reservations about the game which I so
>unequicolly praised before.

Well you knew that coming in Chris.  This game, as is virtually every other
good multi-player game, is self balancing.  The bids for countries and the 
play of the other players should counterbalance any small problems with the
rules.
Organization: Doctoral student, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA