Proposal 9: Forces And Armies: Clarification
Proposal 9: Forces And Armies: Clarification
Submitted by Chris Roginsky.
The terms Force and Army are clarified.
The terms "Force" and "Army" need to be clarified. In general, the game implies that an Army is a group of SP(s) which are moving or have moved (see 4.1.1, 4.6.1, 4.8, among others), while a Force is a group of SP(s) which are not moving or have not moved (see the definition of ZOI, 4.6.1). The rules also use the term "force" (not capitalized) to mean generic groups of Spartan and Athenian units (5.2, 5.2.4).
The rules are silent on whether a Force and Army can coexist in the same space. I would propose these clarifications to the solitaire and two-player games.
The term Army means SPs in a space which moved during the turn (hence, a leader also must be present) - rule 1.3.
The term Force means SPs in a space which did not move during the turn (if the space is a home space, there also could be a leader present) - rule 1.3.
When resolving situations resulting in a No Battle, a space which contains both a friendly Force and a friendly Army is considered to be a Force - rule 5.2.4.
During the Going Home segment, a space which contains both a friendly Force and a friendly Army is considered to be an Army - rule 5.2.4.
In the two player game only, for all other situations where a friendly Force and a friendly Army occupy a space, the owning player may declare the SPs to be either a Force or an Army - rule 1.3.
Brian Mountford: I agree that the terms are a little ambiguous, and that the choice of the term "Force" is unfortunate, because "force" (uncapitalized) is used generically. If a Force is defined as not having moved (i.e. in contrast to an Army), then we will need to go through the rules and change all references to "Force" to "Force or Army".
Your rules imply that you consider Forces and Armies in the same space to exist independently until the end of the turn. If that is the case, what happens during the Siege Determination segment? Can a player with both a Force and Army declare that his combined forces are either a Force, potentially creating a siege situation, or an Army, forcing a battle?
What happens in the solitaire game, since the owning player doesn't choose?
The gyrations necessary to ensure that sending an Army to reinforce a Force holding a captured space does not result in both Force and Army getting sent home in a No Battle are a direct outcome of the game's lack of control markers. Every time I have to word a rule carefully to avoid control problems, I find myself thinking that adding control markers would simplify things tremendously. Distinctions like Force and Army might not even be necessary any more; the player would either have SPs with a leader or SPs without a leader. Just a thought.
ppw@mountford.net (discussion group)
brian@mountford.net (me)