Age of Iridium Summary - Final Commentary - 6/6

First, if anyone would like to see maps of the battle please e-mail me
and I can send them to you. I have pictures, in GIF format, for every turn of
the game.

BATTLE COMMENTARY

One of the Tsarist players said that it was a pleasant change to see a game
won more by tactics than luck, and I must concur. If anything, the Nipponese
had the best luck (causing Khalkin Gol to strike with one threshold check,
Shinome's improbable resistance under exceptional fire, several bad
minesweeping rolls).

The Tsarists didn't so much win as the Nipponese lost. The Tsarists' play
wasn't what I would call brilliant. This isn't a slam; they were never put in
a position where they COULD be brilliant. They were competent and made few
errors, which was all that was necessary to win. I will say that the Tsarists
were the best organized of any team I've ever seen in any PBEM or PBM game.
They never missed a turn since their admiral had default orders for every
ship. I'm not sure I'd encourage this in the future (a few players felt out of
touch with the game since all they had to submit for orders was "me too") but
it certainly gave the Tsarists an edge. This, more than the Tsarists' actual
maneuvering, won them the game.

On the other hand, the Nipponese were hurt with a poor initial setup, which
was exacerbated by communication problems. This could have been fixed, but I
think the Nipponese were too focused in pulling their fleet together. If you
are ever looking for reasons why you don't split up your force if you can at
all help it, this was it. However, in the face of this adversity I wouldn't
have been surprised to see the team break up and lose interest. That wasn't
the case. The Nipponese never gave up hope even when they themselves were
unhappy with their own setup. I really must commend the Nipponese for never
giving up and playing the battle to completion.

I still think that the Nipponese might have been able to pull off a win. The
turning point was on turn 4 when the Nipponese realized that the cruisers
weren't going to get out of range in time. Instead of turning and running,
which split the group even more, I think that they may have been better aiming
the north fleet right at the Tsarists. This was potentially suicidal, but
could reap HUGE benefits. Half the destroyers had pulse torpedoes, and the
other half had seven C batteries. That's a lot of firepower. I think they
would still have lost their cruisers, and maybe all of their destroyers, but
they could probably take out one or two of the battleships on their own. With
a little luck, half the Tsarist capital ships could have been destroyed or
struck in that one, grand sweep. That would have gone a long way towards
balancing the scenario. Any survivors would be able to fly through the other
side of the minefield, where they could join up with the battleships. This is
just my personal thoughts. It's also possible that they wouldn't have done any
appreciable damage while losing their destroyers as well.

I would unhesitatingly play a game with any of these players, and would
happily include them in any game I run in the future. There was a very real
feeling that the Nipponese did not play up to their potential and would like a
rematch.

SCENARIO COMMENTARY

The purpose of the scenario was three fold. First, I wanted to run a large
game that would be next to impossible to play on the tabletop. Second, I
wanted to try a game that used rear facing arcs. Finally, I had an idea for
a game based loosely on the Russo-Japanese war.

The ship designs were less than optimal. I based them roughly on
pre-dreadnought designs. The ships are long and thin. The major
batteries have three firing arcs, but the other ships have either one or two
arcs only. Battleships were based on A batteries as the primary weapon and C
batteries as secondary. Cruisers were armed with B and C batteries, and
destroyers had only C batteries. This doesn't produce the best possible ships,
but it created some interesting tactical problems. These ships
require more thought than, say, a fleet of three-arc A battery ships.

Both sides were given only partial information on the other side's technology.
The Tsarists had shield technology and submunition packs, while
the Nipponese had anti-shield technology (pulse torpedoes) and enhanced
sensors. This meant that the Tsarists had an edge in long range gunnery
duels and the Nipponese should prefer a close-in battle.

The sun never entered into the game in any real tactical sense. My original
supposition for the scenario was that the Nipponese would try to hem the
Tsarists in between them and the sun. This would force the Tsarists to close
range or try to fly right through the Nipponese, thus nullifying their long
range advantage. If they didn't close, the risked damage from solar radiation.
Once through the Nipponese fleet, they would have to turn around, preferably
in the middle of a minefield. I expected a short, bloody battle with the
Nipponese sitting in broadside formation as the Tsarists ran directly at them.
The two fleets would pass through each other in a bloody melee and the
Nipponese would eventually have the sun to their rear. This would give them
the advantage for removing critically damaged ships. In fact, at one point I
thought that the Nipponese might be far too powerful.

I would like to try this scenario again sometime, with both sides knowing what
they have to expect. I would probably eliminate the reinforcements since they
added nothing to the game and make the scenario too complicated. I might also
give the Nipponese battleships level 1 shields. The third possibility is to
eliminate the minesweepers. Finally, the minelaying cruisers didn't do much at
all to the scenario, so I'd probably replace them with something more potent.

PBEM COMMENTARY

I made a mistake during the game. In turn three or four I accidentally gave
the Nipponese turn results to the Tsarists. I asked the lurkers what I should
do about this and they all agreed that I should make it up to the Nipponese.
Giving them some reinforcements was the consensus. I gave them an extra ship,
which was the first through the jump point. This was to compensate them for
the mistake I made; in the end the ship had no effect on the battle. The other
reinforcements were planned from the beginning. I used a random method, chosen
by the players, for determining the composition of the reinforcing squadron
and the turn they appeared (one on turn 9, the other on turn 12).

Mines are a pain in e-mail games. In a tabletop game it's relatively
easy to figure out which ship is first to detonate the mine and whether or not
the minesweeper would get to the mine first. Since I was using an automated
system for resolving movement, I had to calculate by eye the ships that would
be within range of the mines during the turn. I have since come up with an
algorithm that could make this calculation, so I intend to add it to
my e-mail resolution program (when I write it :-)  ). For PBEM purposes
I assumed that every ship within range of the mine during that turn has a
random chance of being hit by it, but minesweeping occurs first. This gives
strange cases where a group of ships could fly through a minefield with the
minesweeper at the BACK of the fleet, but it worked in the context of the
game.

I would probably use simultaneous fire in the future. Sequential fire works
fine, but it adds a fair bit of work to the turn resolution. It also doesn't
add much to the game. I prefer sequential fire in face-to-face games
since
it adds some tactical complexity, but in an e-mail game you have to
preplot the fire order before you see movement and combat results. The extra
complexity doesn't gain you much.

FULL THRUST COMMENTARY

I noticed a few things about Full Thrust in this game. Sensors don't seem to
have much of an effect. I gave the Nipponese better sensors with the
assumption that they would be able to pick off the minesweepers before the
Tsarists hit the mines. In all honesty, I haven't found sensors to be of much
use. Sure it's nice to know what you are up against. In most games, though,
you don't get a useful scan until you are within range of the weapons anyway.
Perhaps if there was a system that could hide the class of the ship and only
enhanced or superior sensors could penetrate it, there would be a reason to
have sensors in the first place.

In retrospect, I'd probably dump the sensor rules for the next game.

Rear arcs proved interesting, but probably because the ships weren't optimum
designs. Broadsides were powerful, when the occurred. Interestingly, the
Nipponese southern fleet swung in behind the Tsarist fleet at one point. This
maneuver would have been devestating in regular Full Thrust. In this case, the
Nipponese had a slight advantage. Both sides had two A batteries that they
could bring to bear, but the Nipponese also had pulse torpedoes. Without
artificial constraints on weapon arcs, though, rear arcs would pretty much
eliminate the need for tactics.

The fleet morale rules worked quite well. My flagship rule (giving each player
a personal flagship that would never strike) meant that each side would always
have one ship per player unless the ships were destroyed. This is quite useful
in a multiplayer game. I wouldn't recommend the fleet morale rule for small
engagements as it makes it too easy to eliminate a ship, but in this large
fleet engagement I thought it added to the game. It might also be an idea to
add it in campaign games. I might try to simplify the rules around prize crews
and capturing the ships. It was kind of neat seeing a struck ship revert back
to its original side. I would just like to simplify the mechanics, if that is
possible.

CONCLUSION

Once I've got an automated e-mail resolution program, I'd like to run
this scenario again. I might make it smaller, though, or at least run it with
fewer players. I had 19 people sign up for the game and eventually went
through each one as the game progressed. Maybe shrinking down the scenario
would be helpful. It might also be possible to play the same scenario with
fewer people.

In closing, I enjoyed running the game and had a lot of fun. Hopefully the
players did as well. I would like to thank everyone who played in the game. I
greatly appreciated it.