A Question of Scale

[Shadowmourne]

Unlike vanilla AW, BaMAS is huge in scale. Estimates/census put the population of China at something like 50,000,000 before the Three Kingdoms Period (the period in question) began.

In BaMAS there are People and then there are Pawns. Pawns are like stuff - they have separate moves for manipulating them. Pawns don't have names - not really. Pawns can't hurt you any more than a bowl or a knife. People have names. People can hurt you - with a knife, or a Pawn, or an Army. Name someone and they're a Person - not a Pawn.

In AW, gangs, large gangs, are still a sensible number of people. You could fit a gang into a large hall. In BaMAS the halls are that much bigger to fit everyone in. It has three scales - Personal, Tactical and Strategic for dealing with large numbers. It has War Moves for dealing with Armies.

What needs work, and fiddling, are the exact numbers. At the moment the Governor and the General are still using AW numbers (and tags) with a few more zeroes. This is high on the list to be sorted.

Tactical and Strategic are not just terms for Warriors, Tacticians and Generals. Courtiers, Governors and Ministers use the same scale for dealing with politics.

So, scale, think BIG.

[Jeff Russell]

This is exciting to me! I'm working on tiered scaling for my Ice and Fire hack, so I'm wondering how you're three scales are going to work.

Is it like, at the personal scale, a guy, two guys, small gang, medium gang, et cetera just like in AW? But at the tactical scale a "small gang" is like 100 dudes, and a medium gang is 300?

The other way I could see it working is just saying "medium gang = tactical scale" (in the hundreds of dudes range) and "large gang = strategic scale" (in the thousands of dudes range).

The former is closer to what I'm going with, but the latter could have a crazy, sweeping Dynasty Warriors like thing going on.

[Shadowmourne]

It's somewhere in the middle. Part of scale includes organisation - so that a gang or rabble - no matter the size - never reaches the higher scales.

Essentially, the Personal scale works as vanilla AW. Tactical Scale "resets" that to a degree - a small Unit at Tactical Scale is like a Huge Gang. This happens again at Strategic scale where Units are treated as individuals.

Of course, the equivalents of Not To Be Fucked With let's you act as a Small Unit - around 500 Soldiers. Then, the General gets to do Strategic Scale things on the Personal Scale - declaring War on you as an individual.

(I am hoping for at least a degree of the Dynasty Warriors thing going on).

[Jeff Russell]

Thanks, very cool! Do please post as you figure more of that out, cos like I said, I'm working on something similar and want to steal any good ideas you have :)

[theloneamigo]

I've been having a look at this hack, and this rendition of the idea of scale is quite interesting; the idea that at greater scales you're changing the rules of the game rather than just their scope.

It's obviously still a little vague in execution, of course. For example, what does it mean when the General can declare War on individuals and use War moves at the personal scale? Does it metaphorically mean he can Fortify his Position against the Courtier's political advances, or just literally against the Warrior's attack?

[FigureFour]

I believe he can "metaphorically" fortify his position against the Courtier, however the important factor is that to do so, he has to GO TO WAR on the Courtier. It doesn't have to be leading armies into battle against them, but they are enemies engaged in a protracted and violent battle against each other.

[Shadowmourne]

I've been having a look at this hack, and this rendition of the idea of scale is quite interesting; the idea that at greater scales you're changing the rules of the game rather than just their scope.

It's obviously still a little vague in execution, of course. For example, what does it mean when the General can declare War on individuals and use War moves at the personal scale? Does it metaphorically mean he can Fortify his Position against the Courtier's political advances, or just literally against the Warrior's attack?

Yes, definitely. However, as FigureFour says, the General has to go to War. Now obviously that doesn't quite mean what it may mean today, but there are formalities and there are rules (metaphysical ones) and it won't be quiet or clean.

A General who fortifies his position against a Courtier. He becomes an unmovable mountain (assuming he's successful) - he's not politely saying "no" he's the person who is now unshakeable in his convictions potentially shouting down the Courtier. It's not pretty, it's War!