Firstly...you're right, and I'm sorry (about the first paragraph above). What I see as flaws in BT, others can easily see as boons. But hey, that's why BT exists, right? What bugs me, is people trying to take the "boons" of MW:DA (as I see them), and change them into the "flaws" of BT (again, as I see them). If I wanted to play a more complex, "realistic" game I'd play CBT. If I want to play a faster, more exciting game I'll play MW:DA. If I wanted MW:DA to be more like BT...I'd just play BT. Dig?

As for the second paragraph above...would you like me to start giving you examples of warlike societies that have become 100% nonviolent in only a few decades? I could. It'd be easy.

Especially in a situation of new economic and social pressure, when the new generation grows up everything can change around them. In a galaxy at peace, even the most warlike will have trouble keeping their way of life going as it was.

Frankly, I can compare it easily to the atom bomb in World War II. In a way, those two bombs we dropped (and all the other more convential warfare before them) prevented another World War from breaking out for the next 60+ years. Sure, we've had smaller conflicts, police actions, and the like...but not another war on the same scale. All this because of the destruction wrought, as everyone took a step back and realized exactly how bad it could get.

The Word of Blake Jihad (and it's plethora of chemical and nuclear warfare) *was* exactly how bad it could get, and it shocked even the most firey of the Clans into a temporary stasis.

But maybe now that's breaking down...maybe now that's changing, right? Maybe the warriors blood in their veins can only be held back for so long, in the Battletech Universe.

It's easy to believe, if you just draw paralell's to our own planet's history...at least for me it is.

@others: Thanks for posting so I could post again. I didn't see IronMouse's post early enough to edit my own post (we wrote them at the same time). But I'm still not going to discuss charge anymore here. Plenty of other threads for that.

-Nick

Charging makes too many mechs unplayable!!!!

Ok I have a good way to distinguish CBT vs MWDA.

Both share the same CONCEPT, but are different games.
There is nearly 20 years real time between them. The bagage caried by one should not be sadled by the other, And Vise Versa.

Both games share element of the same concept but should not be compared or looked at as one. In being 2 systems, elements from each, may or may not be shared and may or may not work in
the same way. This is good, it give players choices on what system to play. but in no way does it mean the other must conform to the players preference. Thats why he's playing the one and not the other. So in short CBT and MWDA both share the same concept but in no way are the same game and its unfair to compare them as such.

As for charge, straight LOS and overshooting the target if you miss would probably fix it.

Okay...I think I can buy this argument. Sure, it's a part of the universe. To be specific, it's one possible future of the universe, right?

However...how do you define hard facts? I don't see any that really can be considered to be contradictory to what appears in the BT timeperiod...at least not any that can't be explained by the passage of time.

@whoever said only 20 years had passed should rechecked their math...maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought the last battletech publication was around 3070, and MW:DA is based in 3133 currently.

-Nick

I meant from the begining of CBT 1983-4 to the begining of MWDA 2001-2 about 15 years actually. If you didn't mean Me then I'm just paranoid :noid:

Oh yeah. You did say "real time" didn't you? :)

Doh! *hits head*

Er...of course I wasn't talking about you! Um...whatever would have given you that idea? Please move along now... Yes, we are a hedge, please move along!

*ahem*

-Nick

Now that I've deconstructed your 'is not CBT' argument, I'll put a stake in your realism bit.

When people talk about realism the counter-argument is often, as you noted, mechs aren't real. But people aren't really taking about realism, they're talking about SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF.

It's the same thing as going to the movies. We don't believe in Vampires and Hobbitts, but we're willing to suspend our disbelief when the special effects kick ### and it sure looks real enough (Reign of Fire, anyone?). Job done. But when the effects are real hokey, like the last Star Wars movies (CHEESY CGI) then our willingness to believe just gets stretched too far.

That's where we are. We're willing to accept mechs in the 31st century based upon some considerably good storytelling over the last 15 years of the product line, but when Delrio has mechs doing handsprings, we just can't accept it. Our suspension of disbelief is lost, the bubble is popped. That's where people argue that charge (as it currently exists) isn't real- that no one is going to take a very expensive and rare maching and crash it into everything. You would do it with a real tank in the 21st century and you can't believe it with an imaginary mech in the 32nd century, either.

Ok.

I love Battletech dearly, and Nick and I have butted head about MW/BT many-a-time.

However, as he said, this is a DIFFERENT GAME. While I do think charging is a bit too powerful, I do not think so based on BT canon. I have long ago accepted that these are different games with different mechanics, and do not try to justify anything BT canon in the MW universe anymore, otherwise I would claw my eyes out while wondering why Catalina's LRM 20s only shoot 12" while James Odom's Streak SRM6s shoot 14".

Just let it go. It's a game. Read the books for fluff and play the game as a seperate, enjoyable entity. :)

I do oh so hate charge, and wish to see it capped somehow, but again, not because of any BT canon.

Kudos again Nick. Wait, what are you still doing here anyway? ;)

We agree, quite strongly, on the Delrio matter, warriorsage. That particular abuse of BT, ahem, cannon is offensive even to me (and I'm a generally happy and accepting fellow when it comes to my fiction).

Since I'm responding to this post anyway...I think where we are currently at odds is how you think about MW:DA. You think of it as a simulation, I think of it as an abstraction. You think of charge as literally crashing into your opponent, I think of it as dodging and weaving sporadically while you move up the battlefield, presenting a mobile enough target that no one can draw a bead on you for long enough to get a shot off (and paying for it by nearly overheating your mech), until you make it to "knife range" combat, when you blast your flustered opponent at point blank range.

Any turn based game is an abstraction, really. It's like in DnD 3rd edition: you don't swing your sword only once every 6 seconds (combat turn)...during that 6 seconds the roll represents what damage you've managed to inflict as you dodge and trade blows with your opponent. I imagine constant shots going back and forth across the board, constant covering fire and the like. A single turn of mechwarrior represents so much in my imagination. :)

Yes, in MW:DA manueverability and speed is more influencial than range...but that's a deliberate choice of the designers, and more or less taken into account in the point value of units (speed and evade are both rather expensive).

Warning: I'll be happy to continue arguing abstraction versus simulation on this thread, but I'm not going to argue about charge specifically (except in examples, such as above). That's really not what this thread is here for.

It's funny...I don't feel staked. ;)

-Nick

why not solve the problem and make battletech rules and clicks rules there that is solved and then you just have to decide which you are going to play and where why can't anyone else see that .

just at tournements you use the clicks ruls or if the majority chooses the battletech.

wizkids if you see this i hope you have already been planning this but get the conversion out asap.

I still staked you, but in an abstract way, it may have seemed like a tickle.

:)

You are right, I do view MWDA more as a WARFARE simulation, though I get into the imaginary stuff too. And I tend to be very positive in my posts, especially towards WK, and I love the game. But really, you are spitting in the wind when it comes to just accepting some of the more hotly controversial push-button issues, and the realism bit.

I mean, I accept pushing damage, and so does everyone else mostly, even though that doesn't make sense either. See?

When I refer to "hard facts," I am mostly refering to the various inconsistencies of weapon systems, etc. Story wise, its pretty good.

(Note, the weapon system problems are in my own opinion, I am not trying to impose them on anyone.)

This is so very true. Unfortunately, I have reached the stage where I do not even see the units as mechs or VTOLs or artillery or infantry. They are simply collections of numbers and properties with various game effects.

Chess is an abstraction of warfare. Given the logic of some people who have posted in this thread, chess is a terrible game because knights do not have to move in an L shape, castles cannot move at all and a Queen would never be the most powerful unit on the battlefield.

I am always a big fan of the "suspension of disbelief, but only to a point" type of thinking. Try studying some college level physics and see just how much science fiction, as opposed to science fantasy, you can stomach. Hell, just try some high school physics and see how you go. Mecha are one of the worst ideas from a logic, sense and "realism" point of view that I have ever seen. If you cannot except the difference between abstraction and simulation, then perhaps you should do some live action roll play and get away from any set of "rules". Use your imagination and you can "rationalise" any game mechanics.

P.S. Nick
I like the idea of changing charge vs mechs but not vehicles as an overall fix. I have never had any real problem with the charge mechanic anyway. Being as conservative as I am, I rarely do it in any case. If it was "broken" then I would be charging my arse off!

I also like to consider this game an "abstraction" not a simulation. For example, I think they have deliberately not told us what the terrain scale is, so the battlefield can be either a small arena sized place, or a 36 km x 36 km region, or a whole continent depending on your imagination.

So does the game fire up your imagination or not? Can you see the events on the gameboard actually happening, based on what you imagine mechs to be like?

Every MWDA player has some idea of what mechs can and cannot do, and how they fight. If you are a die-hard CBT veteran, these ideas are shaped by CBT game mechanics, by nearly two decades of fiction, and by several excellent computer games. There is a large degree of internal consistency within this body of work (I like the term "lore.") As a result, those of us who have immersed ourselves in this lore have a consistent shared mental picture of the events of a 31st century battlefield. Other players may be bringing very different mental pictures of giant mecha combat, based on anime or whatever. Their mental picture may not match that of the CBT veterans. (Delrio must have been watching Power Rangers!)

Anyway, my point is this: the fiction and game mechanics of MWDA do not have the same degree of internal consistency that the CBT universe once had. For example, Dossier cards are generally consistent with the CBT universe but the unit stats don't match them at all. This interferes with suspension of disbelief. As a result, the game doesn't fire the imagination as much as it could. Maybe you can visualize a charge as a combination of movement, shooting and close combat, but most players see bumperbots in their mind's eye (since that's what it represented in CBT). When we look at these great miniatures with big huge guns, can you blame us for wanting to shoot those guns, and being disappointed when the game mechanics don't seem to let us get a shot off?

I couldn't agree with you more. Everyone complains that tank drops, VTOLS, artillery, etc. are ruining the game. What do I say to that? Players are ruining the game.

The exact people that you (noeticist) are talking about are the people whom I feel are ruining the spirit of the game: FUN!!! Its these people and the people who have the win-at-all-costs mentality so they have to use VTOLS, Artillery, etc. instead of trying to enjoy the game.

There's a real interesting concept going in the new game I'm playing (.hack//ENEMY CCG), your tournament rating never goes down, it just goes up faster for those who play and win more but your level still goes up just for playing and losing in a tourney.

I'm seriously considering quitting this game and in fact I've already started selling off some of my pieces to buy .hack. I'm just not sure if its worth it to play such a negative game any longer...