Lends itself to Andre' Norton's idea of the Dipple (displaced people) which recurred in many of her space-based fantasy books ... also considering Stalingrad, Jerusalem, Babylon, Nineveh, and probably look at a number of other ancient cities and the way they went about conquering - the "scorched earth" policy may have been more prevalent than we think. After you've conquered the world, what better way to keep control than to have your own people colonize it?
Tim
On Monday, April 7, 2014 1:17 AM, "" <> wrote:
>That is a good idea in 5FW.
>
>The world/Hi-Pop world thing is an interesting wrinkle in a game full of
>interesting wrinkles. The game kind of wants to come out and say, "ignore
>all but the Hi-Pop worlds," but if it did, then you'd say, okay, what are
>the other 90% of the worlds for? The real world is sort of like that. You
>can take all of Illinois except Chicago, and you have taken something, but
>you really want Chicago as well.
>
>The other thing about Hi-Pops, as you observed, is that they tend to
>become holocausts. Because they are so important, and both sides want
>them, and have such huge defenses, and require such huge attacking forces,
>and have such large ground forces, and require such large invading forces,
>the fight lasts so long, what have you got after you finally take one?
>
>Scorched earth. You spend all that effort and get nothing for it. Stalingrad.
>
>Maybe it's smarter to just take all the low-pop worlds after all.
>
>> Dear Folks -
>>
>> Dave wrote:
>>>Yes, you make an excellent point, which kind of undermines the whole
>> bootstrap concept.
>>>There's a tendency in Traveller to think in terms of the map and worlds
>> when the keys are
>>>actually the Hi-Pop worlds. "Amateurs talk about worlds, Professionals
>>> talk
>> about Hi-Pop
>>>worlds." While that may be "smart," to bypass, island-hop, ignore the
>> low-pop worlds and
>>>focus all of the effort on the Hi-Pop worlds, it seems to be counter to
>>> the
>> spirit of SF
>>>gaming, where worlds matter.
>>
>> In one game I ran of the _Fifth Frontier War_, I changed the rules because
>> of this problem. The original rules give points based on the tech level of
>> the worlds you conquer; I changed it to give more emphasis to the Hi-Pop
>> AND
>> high-tech worlds. (Hmm, maybe full points for UWP Pop and only half points
>> for TL? Something like that, anyway.)
>>
>> Makes for a different game, and more like the canonical 5FW - a war of
>> attrition - especially since those worlds generally have LOTS of SDBs and
>> local troops that an invader needs to subdue.
>>
>> But I take your point about the "romantic" side of Traveller. (Why else do
>> you think we took over Tavonni IMTU? It _is_ right in the way of the SW
>> invasion... ;-)
>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>> David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
>> http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw
>> "I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
Tim
On Monday, April 7, 2014 1:17 AM, "" <> wrote:
>That is a good idea in 5FW.
>
>The world/Hi-Pop world thing is an interesting wrinkle in a game full of
>interesting wrinkles. The game kind of wants to come out and say, "ignore
>all but the Hi-Pop worlds," but if it did, then you'd say, okay, what are
>the other 90% of the worlds for? The real world is sort of like that. You
>can take all of Illinois except Chicago, and you have taken something, but
>you really want Chicago as well.
>
>The other thing about Hi-Pops, as you observed, is that they tend to
>become holocausts. Because they are so important, and both sides want
>them, and have such huge defenses, and require such huge attacking forces,
>and have such large ground forces, and require such large invading forces,
>the fight lasts so long, what have you got after you finally take one?
>
>Scorched earth. You spend all that effort and get nothing for it. Stalingrad.
>
>Maybe it's smarter to just take all the low-pop worlds after all.
>
>> Dear Folks -
>>
>> Dave wrote:
>>>Yes, you make an excellent point, which kind of undermines the whole
>> bootstrap concept.
>>>There's a tendency in Traveller to think in terms of the map and worlds
>> when the keys are
>>>actually the Hi-Pop worlds. "Amateurs talk about worlds, Professionals
>>> talk
>> about Hi-Pop
>>>worlds." While that may be "smart," to bypass, island-hop, ignore the
>> low-pop worlds and
>>>focus all of the effort on the Hi-Pop worlds, it seems to be counter to
>>> the
>> spirit of SF
>>>gaming, where worlds matter.
>>
>> In one game I ran of the _Fifth Frontier War_, I changed the rules because
>> of this problem. The original rules give points based on the tech level of
>> the worlds you conquer; I changed it to give more emphasis to the Hi-Pop
>> AND
>> high-tech worlds. (Hmm, maybe full points for UWP Pop and only half points
>> for TL? Something like that, anyway.)
>>
>> Makes for a different game, and more like the canonical 5FW - a war of
>> attrition - especially since those worlds generally have LOTS of SDBs and
>> local troops that an invader needs to subdue.
>>
>> But I take your point about the "romantic" side of Traveller. (Why else do
>> you think we took over Tavonni IMTU? It _is_ right in the way of the SW
>> invasion... ;-)
>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>> David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
>> http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw
>> "I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>