I notice the arguments on DS2 points and what a government could or could not
afford suggests an economic basis for points. Yet OTOH I thought it was used
to balance scenarios which suggests a game mechanics basis for points.
You really have to decide which it is. You could call it both, but then you
have to accept the problems inherent in attempting to attach two meanings
which may be different to the same stat.
What something costs (money wise) is quite often different from what its value
is in combat. So you sort of have to define which of the two you think points
in DS2 represent.
If economic, many of the suggestions about how expensive FCs and stealth are
have merit - a high tech stealth tank will cost lots of $$$. And in this
case, you can't really use it to balance scenarios - but then if you are
in a campaign, bigger nations may have enough productivity to bring balance
that way.
OTOH, if its a game mechanics value used to balance scenarios between
disparate forces, one has to eye the point costs without saying "Well X or Y
component would be real $$ costly". You have to strictly consider the
in-game effects and do the math as best you can to determine if the cost
justifies the benefit.
And I think you have to balance this in such a way that a moderate tactician
with low tech forces and a moderate tactician with high-tech are roughly
equivalent. You can't argue that high-tech requires better tactics -
otherwise there is no balance! If you need to be a wizard at combined arms
in order to come up even with a moderately competent low-tech player,
then their is something wrong (IMO, YMMV).
Just my 0.02.
> Thomas.Barclay wrote:
[snip good stuff I agree with]
> What something costs (money wise) is quite often different from what
Yes indeed. Hell, the sole reason for the tech progression we've seen
over the past few centuries is that higher-tech gadgets are generally
more cost-effective than lower-tech ones!
> If economic, many of the suggestions about how expensive FCs and
But, and this is a very important point: these systems wouldn't be deployed
into combat at all unless their *combat value* was even greater, or at least
thought to be even greater at the time, than their cash cost.
> And in this case, you can't really use it to balance scenarios - but
Exactly. And in a campaign there are other considerations as well,
which don't come into one-off scenarios - eg., "OK, your FGP-powered
grav tank is vastly more powerful than my old tracked hydro-carbon
burner, but you have a fifty-light year logistic tail while I can drive
to the local car mechanic to fix broken minor details..."
Which is why games which try to be both campaign- *and*
scenario-oriented tend to have rather complex, and often seemingly
illogical, rules for R&D of new tech gadgets <sigh>
Regards,
From: "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com>
> >What something costs (money wise) is quite often different from what
I've done a fair bit of analysis - by no means all for gaming - on
optimal
force mixes, lo- and hi- tech.
One thing to consider: the cost of training and supplying troops. It may be
that "High Tech Vehicle XY-1" is only 10 times as good as "Low Tech
Vehicle T-2". And XY-1 costs 2 mill, T-2 costs 0.05 mill. ( 1/40 of the
price).
BUT....
If they both require 5 crew, and it costs 0.5 mill per crewman to pay and
train on T-1, and 0.21 mill to train on T-2, (ie 0.2 mill for basic,
then 0.3 vs
0.01 for advanced) Then the XY-1 is a real bargain.
This is typical of an advanced, highly-educated country. A lower tech
country which pays 0.0001 mill for basic training would prefer the lower
tech weaponry. Not merely that, but by having a vast amount of lower-
tech, easy-to-repair-locally parts, the odds are that out of 50 T-2s
you'll
have at least 4 working at one time, vs no chance with the XY-1. If T-2
is really cheap and unreliable, then you have to have good repair facilities
as a matter of course: in a war you just have to do maybe twice the
maintenance of peacetime ( as you're taking a 20% loss of your tank fleet
every month just in wear n tear).. But with the XY-1, it would be 100
times the amount.
I got a lot of respect from various 3rd world Scrambled-eggs types when
I was asked about what I thought of their purchasing. Especially since I was
giving
a demo of some very very expensive hi-tech stuff at the time. Showed em
a few models showing that while in some areas "Quantity has a Quality all its
own", by
doing this you can save your better-educated troops for areas where the
10x price gives you 1000x the benefit.
What this all means is that the cost of a vehicle should be Nv*Ct+Cv. Nv
is the number of crew, Ct is the cost of training each one in basic tasks, Cv
is the cost of the vehicle (including the wastage during training, possibly as
high as 20%)
Different sides will have different Points budgets, and different Ct values.
This means
Excellent analysis. I had been trying to work out those ideas, but couldn't
quite find the piece that held it all together. Thanks for the effort.
-Mike
> Alan and Carmel Brain wrote:
> What this all means is that the cost of a vehicle should be Nv*Ct+Cv.
Nv is
> the
From: "Michael Sarno" <msarno@ptdprolog.net>
> Excellent analysis. I had been trying to work out those ideas, but