QUARREL Manual v 1.0
QUARREL Core Information
QUARREL is a new recwar system. Although it is still in its early stages of development, eventually it will hopefully
become a complete replacement for Anunia. The advantage of QUARREL over previous recwar systems is that it takes the
argument and nitpicking out of battles, replacing them with an objective battle calculator that determines a winner based on
forces, conditions, and predetermined formulae.
As one computer game billed itself, QUARREL is “simple to learn, difficult to master”. A commander can create a basic
army and start fighting battles with minimal knowledge. However, when ze is ready for a more complete simulation, further
details like weather conditions, troop morale, and fortifications can be taken into consideration. This document will be a
complete introduction to the finished portions of QUARREL, and provide a brief overview of what will be in the unfinished
portions in Appendix A.
The basis of a QUARREL army is its units. Units can be chosen from preselected templates, altered by adding
modifications, or created by scratch. All units have a strength and movement, and some units also have a bombardment
range. The strength is used in battle, to be discussed shortly. The movement determines how many pixels a unit may move
per day. The range determines from how far away from an enemy a unit can bombard or join in battles. Units are combined
into groups called forces.
Battles in QUARREL are comparisons of the strengths of two forces, of random variables, and of several modifiers
affecting the conditions. By plugging these numbers into a formula or battle calculator, you can obtain damage values for
both sides. You then absorb the damage by sacrificing a certain number of units. If the damage is so great that you cannot
absorb it, your entire army is destroyed.
You conduct battles in QUARREL using the Attack Interpretation and Logical Analysis system, or ATTILA. An early
version of ATTILA can be found online at http://www.raikoth.net/QUARREL/ . Every battle entered into the
calculator gets logged, so cheaters can't lie about the output or keep repeating the battle until it gives the “right” results. To
use the calculator, just enter your forces, your opponent's forces, and some basic conditions like the weather, and you'll be
told who won with how many casualties.
ATTILA also gives you and your opponent the opportunity to set your units'' formations, bringing them to the front, middle,
or back of their group. Although formations do not change the total number of casualties, they can change the distribution
across different types of units. If you have units you are especially interested in protecting, like aircraft carriers, put them in
the back of your formations, and bring expendable units into the front.
Many large, complicated battles will be a series of smaller battles resolved in order. In particular, this is the order in which
ATTILA conducts battles:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Fighters attack enemy fighters.
Winning planes bombard ground units
Warships attack enemy warships.
Winning ships bombard ground units.
Artillery bombards.
Ground units attack enemy ground units.
Note that as it stands, there is no way for planes to attack ships, or for ground units to launch SAM missiles against planes.
Expect at least the latter problem to be quickly resolved in future QUARREL versions.
Creating Units in QUARREL
Each QUARREL commander starts with $75, and zir goal is to spend this money to create as useful and versatile a force as
possible. The workhorses of the QUARREL unit system are the nine basic unit templates. Each is limited to either land,
sea, or air, and each has a particular attack strength, bombardment ability, speed, and cost. These are:
[Name (strength/speed/range) $cost]
Infantry (1/50), $1
Armor (4/150) $5
Artillery (3/50/50) $2 (can only bombard)
Copter (2/200) $5
Small Warship (1/700/50) $2
Large Warship (4/500/50) $6
Carrier (0/500) $10
(cannot fight; can carry 5 planes)
Fighter (*/800/400) $4 (*1 if attacking ground or sea units, 6 in aerial combat)
Bomber (*/800/400) $8 (*6 if attacking ground units, 0 in aerial combat)
There are also several Special Unit Templates, like Missile, Submarine, Transport, and SpecOps. These have not yet been
fully integrated into this preliminary version of QUARREL, but the appendix explains how we intend to make them work in
the future.
These units can be modified by adding Unit Modifications at a certain cost. In the future, modified units can be entered
directly into ATTILA by entering the template and selecting your preferred modification. Currently, you will have to
modify units by hand, and then enter them in as Custom Units. You can find a list of approved Unit Modifications in
Appendix B, or invent your own subject to judicial approval.
You can also create custom units from scratch. This might be useful if you want a unit for a role the templates were never
intended to fill – like a gravship or a knight in shining armor. All custom units should be cleared with a judge before they
are used, or at the very least proposed to enemy forces to see if they raise any objections.
Custom units have three stats – their attack value, their bombard value, and their sacrifice value. The attack value is their
strength during pitched battles– an attack of one means they're as strong as standard infantry, and four makes them even
with a tank. Bombard is their ability to inflict damage on enemy units without taking any damage themselves, like artillery
or a missile. None of the template land units can both attack and bombard, but there's nothing stopping you from designing
a custom unit that can! Sacrifice value is usually equal to unit cost, and represents how much damage it takes to kill the unit.
And, of course, all custom units must be marked as either land, sea, or air (hopefully future versions of QUARREL will
enable amphibious or other hybrid custom units).
As mentioned above, Custom Units are currently the only way to add unit modifications, even unit modifications that make
little difference during battle. For example, if some of your planes are particularly long range, you should enter them
separately from the original planes, so that ATTILA can tell you whether any planes shot down during the battle were of the
normal or the long-range type.
Factors Influencing QUARREL Battles
“The race does not always go to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.” Every QUARREL battle has a significant random
element, but it is also affected by many other factors well within the control or understanding of an intelligent commander.
Weather conditions are especially important in any form of bombardment. On a cloudy or stormy day, planes will have
trouble bombing their targets unless they have special smart bombs on board. In future versions of QUARREL, weather
may also affect land battles and infantry morale.
Fortified units have a significant defensive advantage. A unit that is not moving can add one layer of fortification per day, to
a maximum of three. Units in small cities have an automatic two units fortification, and units in large cities have an
automatic four units of fortification. Units in prebuilt fortresses have five units of fortification, the maximum currently
allowed under QUARREL.
Rough terrain gives a strong advantage to the defender. Attacking a unit in a forest or on a hill is likely to lead to significant
casualties. And when a unit is on a terrain its nation is especially familiar with (eg attacking Babkhans in the desert, or
Hyperboreans in the tundra) they get a 10% terrain bonus (this is not yet in ATTILA; please enter it in manually for the
present).
Unit morale is a complicated system that isn't yet finished by any stretch of the imagination. The factors that create and take
away morale also aren't hard-coded into ATTILA yet, although it will correctly factor morale into battle results. See
Appendix A for some discussion on how morale might work.
Unit Movement and Etiquette
A commander may move zir unit once per day. Ze may post and take backstory related actions as often as ze wants, but the
unit's speed per day remains the unit's speed per day.
A unit may move and attack on the same turn if its move puts it within range of an enemy unit. Air units are a slightly
special case. Although their speed is 800, this only applies when travelling between bases. They may only attack within 400
px of a base.
A good post should include backstory, a summary of the backstory, and a summary of what official in-recwar actions have
occurred. This last summary should include any initiation of battle, along with the forces involved in the battle, sny bonuses
the attacker gets, and any unusual formations the attacker wants. The attacker should not enter the battle into ATTILA.
The defender should arrive, notice the attacker's initiation of a battle, and either escape the battle (if zir army, using its
movement that day to flee, could get out of attack range) or enter the battle into ATTILA zirself. This allows the defender to
make last minute changes to formations, to take out any “surprises” ze may have in store, and to enter zir own formations.
The defender should then post the results of the battle.
If the attacker doesn't believe the defender's results, ze is welcome to check the log. Alternatively, since the log is ugly and
hard to understand, ze can ask a member of the QUARREL team to do it.
After losing a battle, a unit always gets a chance to retreat. A losing unit gets a 10 px movement bonus on its next turn (they
want to get out of there!) and even if the winner logs on earlier the next day, they can't start a battle before the loser gets the
chance to retreat. If the winner is faster than the defender, even with the defender's 10 px bonus, the winner can pursue,
catch up, and start another battle the next turn.
If a defender doesn't respond to a battle “offer” within a one day period, and all reasonable attempts to contact zir have
failed, then the attacker can run the battle zirself, using common sense values for the defender's troops and formation, and
the result will be binding. If the defender loses, ze will auto-retreat towards zir capital or, where this is inconvenient,
another big city or army nearby.
If a commander does not post for three days, and has no good excuse like a formal LOA, their unit is disbanded.
Every unit has a home city. This ought to be the capital of the territory governed by the unit's commander. For example, if
the unit's commander is Duke of Exampleburg, the unit ought to start in Exampleburg. If there is no such territory, the unit's
home city is the national capital. All units should start in their home city. A unit cannot fight until one full day (midnight to
midnight GMT) has passed since it has been created. So if a unit joins in Tuesday morning, it can't fight until Thursday
morning..
You may give some of your units to another commander, but only so long as you are also posting.
Appendix A: Future Additions
The QUARREL Design Documents contain several systems that we haven't implemented on ATTILA yet.
Submarines will be a special kind of sea unit invisible to all other sea units. They can launch an attack, and get a certain
random chance of automatically destroying an enemy warship, carrier, or transport. Enemy ships armed with anti-submarine
weapons drastically lower the submarine's chance of succeeding, and increase its chance of being destroyed. Submarines
can also launch missiles.
Missiles can be launched at enemy forces to cause an instant 40 points bombardment damage (destroying the missile in the
process, of course). Enemy warships and anti-missile ground units will each get a chance to shoot down the missile before it
detonates.
Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons will all give a flat death rate – eg 33% of enemy units die. Nuclear weapons
have the ability to destroy cities, and biological weapons have the ability to spread to nearby cities and units – including
your own.
SpecOps are a special unit that can infiltrate enemy cities and units. They can bomb bridges, destroy airplanes on the
landing strip, spread propaganda that saps enemy morale, and many other things.
Speaking of which, a more complete morale system will involve the effects of weather, of won/lost battles, and give
incentives for writing good backstory.
When QUARREL Phase 2 is complete, ATTILA will be replaced by a much more comprehensive battle calculator that
allows you to enter an OrBat and automatically track its progress through an entire war.
...and more.
Appendix B: Unit Modifications
This lists some unit modifications currently approved by QUARREL. Right now, the only way to use these modifications is
to add them manually and enter the resutlt as a Custom Unit. QUARREL Phase 2 will include an upgraded calculator that
can add these, and many others, automatically.
Mods marked with an asterisk are no trouble to implement and can be entered as Custom Units (though they may take some
remembering or arithmetic on your end). Mods without the asterisk don't work in this version of QUARREL, but are under
consideration for future versions.
Infantry
* Marine (can attack directly from ships) $1
* Heavy (2 strength instead of 1) $1
* Paratroopers (can paradrop; assume range 400 from carrier or airbase. Plane can be shot down unless win air battle) $2
* Mechanized (150 speed instead of 50) $1
- SAM (adds +1 strength to overhead air battles; 25% chance of shooting down unescorted bombers) $1
Armor
* Heavy (5 strength instead of 4) $1
* Reinforced (can absorb +$3 worth of damage) $1
* Light (3 strength instead of 4, 250 speed instead of 150) $0
Artillery
- Increased Range (60 range instead of 30) $2
Small Warship/Large Warship
* Reinforced Hull (can absorb +$3 worth of damage) +$1
- Missile Platform (can carry 4 cruise missiles) +$3
* Fast (speed increased +200 px) +$1
* Copter Platform (can carry 2 copters) +$1
- Destroyer (counters submarine attacks; see Submarine Warfare) +$1
- AEGIS (+2 strength against air, extra missile defense) +$1
Carrier
* Supercarrier (can carry 12 planes instead of 5) +$4
Fighter
* Stealth (you can PM secret moves with this fighter to judges. It is not visible until you attack with it) +$3
* Air Superiority (9 strength in aerial combat instead of 6) +$2
* Ground Strike (3 strength when attacking ground or sea instead of 1) +$1
* Extra Fuel (600 range instead of 400) +$1
* VTOL (takes up 1/2 spot on a carrier, or 1 copter spot on a Copter Platform ship) +$1
Bomber
* Stealth (you can PM secret moves with this bomber to judges. It is not visible until you attack with it) +$3
- Smart Bombs (no penalties for bad weather) +$2
 Nuclear Bombs (see NBC Warfare Module) +$8
 Biological Bombs (see NBC Warfare Module) +$2
 Chemical Bombs (see NBC Warfare Module) +$2

Biological (see NBC Warfare Module) +$2
Missile
 Nuclear (see NBC Warfare Module) +$10
 Chemical (see NBC Warfare Module) +$2

Appendix C: QUARREL Team
Design: Scott Alexander
Programming: Andreas Mayer, Scott Alexander
Testing: Harvey Steffke, Andreas Mayer, Scott Alexander
Hosting/Other Administration: Harvey Steffke
Unofficial Military Advice: Nick Leghorn