Are seamines and submarines persistent?

[pkloop]

Do you have to play them on a ship you can see or do they last in the zone they are in until a ship comes into the zone, then make the check as to whether they work or not?

[DrPostman]

It's placed in a zone. You'll see a notification if they are successful or not.

[Ace]

You play them on a ship. They last for 1 trn

[Captain_Orso]

Now I'm sure pldoop knows exactly how to use them.

You must target a water region adjacent to a structure (city, fort, depot, settlement, etc) you own to use a Sea Mine or Submarine RGD (Regional Decision card).

There does not need to be an enemy naval unit present in the target region to play the RGD, but of course if enemy ships are already present in the target region there will a greater chances of successful attacking enemy naval units.

The RGD targets a region, not a ship(s). Enemy ships in the target region, or that move into the target region during the turn the RGD is successfully played, can be attacked by the RGD.

There is a 50% chance that playing the RGD is unsuccessful, in which case the RGD is returned to the player's RGD pool.

If a successfully played, but a Sea Mine or Submarine RGD does not attack any enemy ships--see the messages with the -key- icon after the turns execution--, the RGD is returned to the players RGD pool.



Now off with you kids, go out and play!

[Rod Smart]

Play them in a zone. Its more likely to get a hit if you play them in a zone with ships in them (duh, obviously)- but if they are unsuccessful they go back into the RGD pile of cards to replay- so you may consider using them somewhere you want to defend, like the mouth of the Mississippi to hurt ships going to New Orleans.

[richfed]

I don't think that these cards are returned to the pool any longer ... once played, they are gone until a new batch appears the following January. It's a rule change in 1.06.

[Captain_Orso]

There was an issue fixed on 1.06 in which the Partisan's Raid RGD's were not being remaining removed from the pool if they failed, regardless of the cause of their failing. That was fixed. Now they are a on-shot deal and are always removed when played, as designed.

But, now looking at the RGD files themselves I see that Sea Mines and Submarines are also one-shot deals. They are removed whether successful or not. My bad sorry

[Rod Smart]

I don't think that these cards are returned to the pool any longer ... once played, they are gone until a new batch appears the following January. It's a rule change in 1.06.

I did not know that.

Thanks. I'll adjust my strategy accordingly.

[grimjaw]

... but the mines (or more abstract as obstructions like the chains at New Orleans and elsewhere) *should* persist past one turn. If not indefinitely, then maybe two or three months.

[Captain_Orso]

I don't think that these cards are returned to the pool any longer ... once played, they are gone until a new batch appears the following January. It's a rule change in 1.06.

They are not all the same. Some, such as the development RGD's go back into the pool if they are canceled before their events take place.

I did not know that.

Thanks. I'll adjust my strategy accordingly.

Check the RGD's themselves for whether they are one-shot deals or not. I'm not sure at the moment if they say that they go back to the pool explicitly, but if they don't it says it clearly.

... but the mines (or more abstract as obstructions like the chains at New Orleans and elsewhere) *should* persist past one turn. If not indefinitely, then maybe two or three months.

That may be, but this is the way the devs decided to implement them.

I can say that there was some discussion along the lines of your thoughts during pre-beta testing. A lot of things we were asking for got cut because of time constraints. That's life.

[grimjaw]

I can say that there was some discussion along the lines of your thoughts during pre-beta testing. A lot of things we were asking for got cut because of time constraints. That's life.

Took about ten minutes with a text editor to change the value of the RGD and run it through some turns. Two values to edit: Duration, Effect_PostponeEnd. Duration is the number of turns. Effect_PostponeEnd is a boolean value which determines whether the event decision fires on the first or last turn of the event.

This doesn't work exactly as I'd hoped, however. A successful mine doesn't remove the RGD from the map. It will remain in place until the number of turns specified by Duration has been reached, and possibly damage ships every turn. I think it would be possible to mitigate this by lowering the chance of success and/or increasing the resource cost to the player of the card. Also, if BaseDecay (another RGD value) refers to the % chance of removing the played RGD, that could also be used.

www.ageod.net/agewiki/Regional_Decisions

Either way, it has the same problem all of the RGDs have. Too many details about the card are revealed to the opposing player. As long as they know how many turns the mines will last, they can plan accordingly.

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[Captain_Orso]

But of course Making them last more than one turn, however, is not the issue.

First, "Sea Mines" are not single mines, but fields of mines. That's why they should be persistent after each attack.

The way mines should work, but which cannot be done within the possibilities of the engine:

- Mine-fields should fade-out without the knowledge of either player. Often mines leaked, wiring corroded, the became unanchered or they had some other technical defect and simply ceased to function, unannounced to the owner. Because they were dangerous, you didn't just row out to perform a maintenance inspection. So after a while nobody knew how affective they would be.

- They should require a unit, possibly an engineer, to run the minefield. Minefields often did not have contact-detonators, which were unreliable, but were detonated manually by somebody on shore through a static-electrical charge, IIRC.

- They should have a high variance in effectiveness. Some ships were outright sunk and some only damaged.

- We'd need mine-sweepers; yes, they had mine-sweepers during the civil war

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Of course withing the possibilities of the engine you can mod to your heart's content