Rice Paddies & Casino Royale

WaterRabbit

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I don't know how many of you saw "Casino Royale", but the torture Bond was given towards the end of the movie seems to be fitting for the person(s) that wrote and decided the Rice Paddy rules were a good idea. :freak: It seems they were purposely trying to make these rules such that no one would ever bother playing with them.

These rules are unnecessarily convoluted for what they are trying to represent.

It seems to me that these could be really simplified and still get the same effect across. When the rule cases are 8.2101-.2108 just to describe how to move in them, someone should have realized they had taken a wrong turn. :eek:

Maybe if/when the PTO rules are revised we could get a playable version of these rules. :whist:
 

Tater

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I don't know how many of you saw "Casino Royale", but the torture Bond was given towards the end of the movie seems to be fitting for the person(s) that wrote and decided the Rice Paddy rules were a good idea. :freak: It seems they were purposely trying to make these rules such that no one would ever bother playing with them.

These rules are unnecessarily convoluted for what they are trying to represent.

It seems to me that these could be really simplified and still get the same effect across. When the rule cases are 8.2101-.2108 just to describe how to move in them, someone should have realized they had taken a wrong turn. :eek:

Maybe if/when the PTO rules are revised we could get a playable version of these rules. :whist:
The effect and mechanics are playable...it's just that getting there is one long journey. ;)
 

Robin Reeve

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I would advocate simplified panji, paddy, cave and seaborne assault rules, fully compatible with pre-existent scenarios.
Rice paddies could be compared to brush or marsh or open ground, depending the season, with perhaps a +1 MF when crossing a bank.
Movement on the banks could be compared to the shellhole's MF choice.
Etc.
And, if some "realism" effect (as having units stay on the bank in other phases than MPh) is lost, so be it.

About Mr Bond's torture, I would rather hit the brains of the conceptor of those excessively circonvoluted rules.
 

Jazz

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I don't know how many of you saw "Casino Royale", but the torture Bond was given towards the end of the movie seems to be fitting for the person(s) that wrote and decided the Rice Paddy rules were a good idea. :freak: It seems they were purposely trying to make these rules such that no one would ever bother playing with them.

These rules are unnecessarily convoluted for what they are trying to represent.

It seems to me that these could be really simplified and still get the same effect across. When the rule cases are 8.2101-.2108 just to describe how to move in them, someone should have realized they had taken a wrong turn. :eek:

Maybe if/when the PTO rules are revised we could get a playable version of these rules. :whist:
Rice paddies and Panjis....essentially playable, but you couldn't tell it by looking at the rules.

When one considers that the cave rules were written by the same people, is it possible to make caves more playable? Or is the nature of caves just too intractable to an elegant solution?
 
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WaterRabbit

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It seems to me that they could have just used analogs that were currently in the rules to describe them. If they did, the rules would be about 4 paragraphs. :)
 

Blackcloud6

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I don't think caves are really that hard once you get your head wrapped around them. And most of the stuff does not seem to come up anyhow.

But, in general, I agree with the notion that the PTO terrain rules, landing craft and such are overdone and over written whereas the ETO stuff is elegantly simple.

It seems to me, that starting with Chapter F, the ASL designers adopted the principle taht the more esoteric something was, the more involed the rules need to be to make it happen in the game.
 

Jazz

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I don't think caves are really that hard once you get your head wrapped around them. And most of the stuff does not seem to come up anyhow.

But, in general, I agree with the notion that the PTO terrain rules, landing craft and such are overdone and over written whereas the ETO stuff is elegantly simple.

It seems to me, that starting with Chapter F, the ASL designers adopted the principle taht the more esoteric something was, the more involed the rules need to be to make it happen in the game.
I've never played caves, but I can see that they would be playable...if only they stripped away all that friggin' verbage that deals in excruciating detail with situations that never seem to come up...just like rice paddies and panjis....

I'm thinkin' someone was getting paid by the word.
 

Jazz

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circumvoluted, then? Anyway, I am understandable, am I not?
We do have our stardards to maintain Robin.... :smoke:

Of course, you do realize that you have just been a party to a hijack?

" we need a Muttley snicker emoticon"
Jazz
 

Jazz

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Jazz,

I believe that it is a word dealing with the area of logic. Do a Google search for it.
I stand corrected...I guess I need to visit more than the usual 1-2 dictionary sites that I usually use.

Verb: circumvolute
Wind or turn in volutions, especially in an inward spiral, as of snail
Derived forms: circumvolutes, circumvoluting, circumvoluted


Didn't find anything about logic?

And here, I thought I wuz keepingRobin honest....:paperbag:
 

WaterRabbit

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I don't think caves are really that hard once you get your head wrapped around them. And most of the stuff does not seem to come up anyhow.

But, in general, I agree with the notion that the PTO terrain rules, landing craft and such are overdone and over written whereas the ETO stuff is elegantly simple.

It seems to me, that starting with Chapter F, the ASL designers adopted the principle taht the more esoteric something was, the more involed the rules need to be to make it happen in the game.
Chapter F is an easy read compared to Chapter G. It think the problem was that the were trying to define ever specific interaction in the rules and head off quesitons before they came up.

Unfortunately, I think they failed in that aspect.

I read through the rules on Paddies, Panji, Caves, etc. and they are perfectly understandable. However, they are perfectly forgettable as well. The problem is the rules don't focus on general overridding principles first and then resolving the infrequent situations. Instead, both are intertwinned to create a situation where one has to constantly reference the various rules to verify every action.

We almost need a Venacular Chapter G. :)
 

Tater

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It seems to me that they could have just used analogs that were currently in the rules to describe them. If they did, the rules would be about 4 paragraphs. :)
Combined with some short examples...it would have been much better.

It seems like Ch F & G were written with the clarifications already built in...or so they thought.
 

bendizoid

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"There I was......Vietnam, I wasn't in some 'classroom' just talking about it.... I up to my knees in rice paddies!!!!!......slugg'in it out with charlie..... while you hippies were at college smok'in pot and gitt'in laid."

"You make me want to puke my guts out,"
Bob

me no know how to play rice paddies or caves.
 
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Psycho

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"There I was......Vietnam, up to my a$$**** in rice paddies........... while you hippies were at college smok'in pot and gitt'in laid."

"You make me want to puke my guts out,"
Bob

me no know how to play rice paddies or caves.
You talkin bout this Bob? :D

[YOUTUBE]Xfi4s8cjLFI[/YOUTUBE]
 

Blackcloud6

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I've never played caves, but I can see that they would be playable...if only they stripped away all that friggin' verbage that deals in excruciating detail with situations that never seem to come up...just like rice paddies and panjis....
That is what I found when I played a cave scenario. They just didn't seem as hard to use as the rules put them out to be.

I read through the rules on Paddies, Panji, Caves, etc. and they are perfectly understandable. However, they are perfectly forgettable as well.
Agree. The forgettable aspect is the hard part of these particular rules. They're highly involved but not often used. Thus they evaporate in the mind easily.
 
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jwb3

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That is what I found when I played a cave scenario. They just didn't seem as hard to use as the rules put them out to be.
I wouldn't know, because I find them so intimidating that I've never tried to thoroughly read them -- much less actually play them!

I was able to slog through the Rice Paddy rules by, IIRC & NRBH, using highlighters to color all the relevant rules blue (for wet paddies), yellow (for in-season paddies), and green (for whatever the third type is). At least whenever I actually play my first rice paddy scenario, I won't have to read the whole section all over again.

And beach landings are somewhat similar, in that you can ignore whatever parts of the rules do not apply to the current scenario's beach steepness, wave height, and all those other variables. If you can figure out which parts those are! :)

Today at a game store I happened to look at a book about Japanese fortifications in WWII. It included a diagram of a typical Japanese "cave" complex, but made it clear that the things were much more man-made than the term "cave" implies. And looking at that diagram, suddenly the bits of the cave rules that I have learned made a great deal more sense, because now I understood the nature of the "reality" the rules are meant to reproduce!


John
 
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