Dear staff,
As I continue to review the current “Era of Chaos” ruleset and playstyle I have a few questions and concerns. The first one that I wish to bring up is how the territories on the world map are connected. I took the liberty of labeling my concerns on the current world map.
In Figure 1, there are several territories whose corners connect to each other or are bisected irregularly. This creates some questions:
1) Would it be possible to travel across one corner to another? Such as:
a) Western United States (1) to Central Canada (5)?
b) Central United States (2) to Western Canada (4)?
c) Greater East Asia (24) to West Siberia Territory (21)?
d) Central Asia (23) to North Asia (22)?
e) Algerian Territory (12) to the Principality of Poland (19)?
f) Egyptian Territory (13) to Greater Germania (18)?
g) South Atlantic to Egyptian Territory (13)?
h) Congo Territory (14) to Middle East (17)?
i) Congo Territory (14) to Algerian Territory (12)?
2) The box that represents Greater Indonesia forms vertical angles with Southern Australia, does this mean that you can cross from Southern Australia (26) into Greater Indonesia (28) without going in Northern Australia (27)? Or from Northern Australia (27) to the Indian/Pacific Ocean without going through Southern Australia (26)?
3) Where does the North Atlantic and South Atlantic Divide?
a) Does Republic of Colombia (8) connect to the North Atlantic and South Atlantic?
b) Does Algerian Territory (12) connect to the North Atlantic and South Atlantic?
4) On the same vein, given that the Earth is round shouldn’t it be possible for a player to cross the North and South Poles to other territories? Examples include:
a) Central Canada (5) to the Duchy of Moscow (20), West Siberia Territory (21), or North Asia (22)?
b) Southern Australia (26) to Madagascar (16), Duchy of South Africa (15), Kingdom of Argentina (10), or South Atlantic?
Secondly, I feel that the current way movement is wrongly done. A “1 Day” of movement is really “1 + X Days” where x represent the number of territories you need to cross.
For example, this week (6/20 to 6/24) my character Aleksandra Beria moved the “Tiger’s Claw” from Western United States to the California Base in that region. On the night I sent in the action, I was given the status of “Western United States, Moving to California Base, [1]” as opposed to just appearing in the base. I finally updated to “Western United States, California Base” the following night.
What is really happening is that TWO days of actions are being used for supposedly ONE day of action. Please observe Figure 2 below.
Each action day is like a turn, where all units of the game move together in one day’s worth of action on that particular day. Version A of Figure 2 shows this happening properly: the player decides his action of that day is to move onto a base. Thus, he spends his action that day making the move and the update that night would read that he has reached his destination as a result of him using that day’s action to move.
Version B in Figure 2 shows what’s happening now, which is the “1 + X Days” variant. Instead of the player spending that day’s worth of actions, they don’t start moving until the second day. This means the player is occupied by his movement for TWO WHOLE DAYS before it is complete.
For comparison, imagine it like moving pieces in chess:
Figure 3 shows Figure 2 as a pawn moving ahead one square. Version A is how chess is normally played, the piece is moved. Version B is the same pawn but based on the way movement currently treated in “Era of Chaos”. It took an extra turn for that pawn to move into position and as a result THE PLAYER LOSES AN ACTION FOR A TURN/DAY.
That is, if the player decides to let his action complete.
Below in Figure 4 is a diagram example of the current movement if treated by a player who sends in a movement action to a new location every day of a five-day action week.
As you can see, despite trying to move into every surrounding territory, the player stayed in the (10) and potentially avoids ambushes, running into patrols, or even catching up to board a friendly ship.
RECOMMENDATIONSA. Refine the map to better illustrate crossings or points of transit. All this involves is sitting down and listing where one territory connects to a different one. Then you can reshape the lines or add new ones to better illustrate it on the map. I also recommend using actual borders for the oceans instead of square boxes.
B. Treat the “One Day’s Travel” as the distance you traveled that day and update it that way. For example, if you start out in West Siberia Territory (21) and you sent in an action to move to Central Asia (23) then that night you are in Central Asia (23) because you just spent the day/turn moving there. Just keep in mind that the player is also using the SAME day that they SENT in the action to be MOVING as well.
Chan, over and out.
