Countering Master Enslave...

[MaxWilson]

JimMorrison said:
Introducing any wholly random element takes this away, it says that no matter how well you plan and organize your decisive strike, you may be throwing everything away - not because you failed to accurately predict your opponent's behavior, but because you could not rely on a known quantity.

That's kind of an odd attitude to hear coming from somebody who plays a probabilistic wargame, as opposed to (for example) Diplomacy or Go. There are many, many wholly random factors in the game, e.g. whether Ritual A will be cast before Ritual B, whether army X will attack province P before army Y (and thus which will be the defender if/when they do fight), which and how many nations you'll go up against in the Arena Death Match. By your own argument, these random factors are known quantities and the essence of strategy is to anticipate both your opponent and the unknowable random complications and devise a (probable) counter to each.

You can certainly make the case that the current initiative system is fine as is. I wouldn't dispute that. You could make the defender advantage even stronger than it is and it will still be a playable game, in the same sense that Diplomacy is a playable game (one which offers options to both sides, none of which options dominates all the others). I would like a more random initiative system because in the endgame the defender is so strong--in a way uncorrelated with reality--as to seem unthematic. I love the game as it is, but I happen to think thejeff's suggestion would be really awesome and thematic if it were implemented, and it would probably make the MP players happier in the endgame at the same time. It's not likely to happen unless JK also thinks it would be awesome, so I'll just hope he reads this thread and agrees.

-Max