I am now well into the process of building the verb web, but I have come across a problem that requires me to step back a bit and think in big-picture terms. The problem concerns the combat model. The combat model that I had in the previous Le Morte D’Arthur was a fairly straightforward wargame model considering force ratios and unit cohesion. Should I preserve that? Here’s the list of Actor attributes associated with battle:
LastCombatTime: used by Fate to decide when it’s time to put that Actor into a fight
ArthurIntervenes: a boolean value indicating that Arthur has sent in the Katerfaks
Cowardly_Brave: obvious
Stance: how aggressive the duke’s force’s stance towards the Saxons is. This is going away.
Cohesion: the fighting effectiveness of the duke’s forces.
Headcount: the number of fighters that the duke has brought. I’m tempted to replace this with the nine people serving the duke, and then report each death individually.
NewCohesion: this is calculated from a rather complex script. It handles damage to the duke’s forces
NewHeadcount: this, it turns out, isn’t used anywhere.
SaxonStance: how aggressively position the Saxon forces facing the duke are. This is going away.
SaxonCohesion: the cohesion of the duke’s opponents
SaxonHeadcount: the headcount of the duke’s opponents.
Of these attributes, I definitely want to get rid of the stance. That’s a tactical consideration irrelevant to the battle as an interpersonal event.
I don’t need to keep track of Headcount for the duke, because that can be found by counting the followers who are still alive. However, I will need to keep track of the Saxon headcount.
I might want to change Cohesion to Morale. I think that the concept is important to retain, and it provides a useful source of information for Arthur.
Hence, the procedure I must execute requires me to delete the attributes Stance, SaxonStance, NewCohesion, and NewHeadcount. I’ll retain Headcount because it’s easy to maintain.
To work.
Post Scriptum
I just realized that I have to handle combat as a series of individual combats. It should not be a matter of two forces with X headcount and Y cohesion clashing and inflicting Z casualties, etc. Instead, I must select individuals from different dukes and set them against Saxon heros. The battle becomes a series of individual combats, each one affecting the morale/cohesion of others.
This is a great idea! More like The Iliad than a wargame.