Raleigh wrote:*To Risk.* Well I understand your group likes to make sure two sides in a conflict have no distinct advantage over another such as making them use older technology since their normal tech is more advanced than their enemy. I was just asking how you handle the fact that even with that, and possibly even if you force all their officers to be trained at the same academy, one side will still have smarter commanders or even grunts that could sway the game more in their favor.
I'll grant you that it's not a perfect system. There's always going to be someone who knows how to work it better than someone else, or someone with overwhelming superiority in certain categories. You probably know already that Callista's rival from years past put a heavy emphasis on Mako energy, what with their Sister Ray and all that. They had ridiculously high fleet tallies, universally-destructive weaponry, and their brass weren't slouches, either; they were better than everyone else in almost every respect.
Our focus has always been on making sure that weaker powers are at least capable of fighting back, or potentially doing some level of damage even in defeat (it's up them if they want to accept that, though; one participant we had was happy just using standard weaponry, even if it meant a major losing streak) ... that, and to keep people from excessive power-gaming. They can't just take a ship or weapon and say, "it's invincible, you can't destroy it, a winner is me, boo-yah"; if it can't be taken out by heavy firepower, it has to have an Achilles heel that can be exploited.
The same thing goes for our "personal battle" system. Theoretically, I could curbstomp any mortal in my way. By putting limitations on myself (but not so many that it looks like I'm over-handicapping myself, and thus cheapening a win), even relative weaklings stand a decent chance. *sweatdrops* Ambush's child Elk could probably induce status effects on me by his hyperactivity, for instance.
