RE: Sensor Range Question [Evasion]

-----Original Message-----
From:	Thomas Anderson
[SMTP:thomas.anderson@university-college.oxford.ac.uk]
Sent:	Thursday, April 29, 1999 3:35 AM
To:	gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
Subject:	Re: Sensor Range Question [Evasion]

consider how few major naval or aerial engagements have been fought at
targets: the battle of Jutland was at Jutland because that's where the
fleets were when they met, not because someone was going to Jutland. the
battle of Britain was fought over a gigantic patch of sky, not around
the
targets the germans were attacking.

example: if i have a fleet at anchor in orbit around Gamma Hydri Prime,
and my enemy jumps in to the system at local coordinates 3728 mark 489
stroke 90 dash ZZ9 plural Z alpha, then i have two defined points; it is
then just a matter of maneuver until we meet. or, i could hang around
and
we could fight at the planet.

Tom

	No, battles don't have to be fought exactly at the key point,
but you have to 
have
key points to justify the battle.  You can easily specify one side of
the board 
as being
"towards Gundersen's Giant Loot Pile" and not have any significant
feature on 
the board,
but having a key feature on the board does increase the critical factors
that 
need to be
taken into consideration plus adds terrain or strategic considerations.

You can have battles in open space, but the activity leading up to the
battle 
implies that
there are key points that channel traffic into certain strategic areas
or paths 
that allow
the battle to take place.  If you didn't have a key area, there would be
no 
reason for
anyone to be there.  In a one-off game it doesn't really matter what the
reason 
you're there
for, but in strategic games the loss of a supply center or warp point
could be 
of grave
importance to the overall picture.

--Binhan