In preparing for the GZG-ECC FT game Operation Avalanche, I determined
that I would have a large number of ships and would need a way to speed play.
I tried a staged inititive option last night is a scaled down version of the
scenario with 2 players. Each of my ships are numbered (I started in one of my
fleets and numbered ALL of my ships consecutivly). I put 10 chits in a
cup (0-9). For the ship-to-ship firing phase, I divided it into 3
stages. For the first stage, I drew 3 chits (0,1,9). Ships whose numbers ended
in 0,1, or 9 fired simultaneously. I did the same procedure for the 2nd phase,
drawing 4,5,6. And in the 3rd phase the remaining ships (2,3,7,8) fired.
After the ship-to-ship combat, all chits were placed back in the cup for
the next round.
Result: 1) It was difficult to find which ships were going to fire if the
player had more than a small group of ships (we had about 20 each). 2) Because
the game was KV vs Human, we did not have to worry about if a ship had screens
or not, but this would be a major concern on a Human vs Human conflict. Each
player would have to keep track of 3 sets of results for each ship attacked No
Screens; 1 Screen; 2 Screens. 3) The KV players had to keep track of not only
the damage done to each Human ship, but the number of hits on it (so that the
first pip of damage to a human ship could be applied to armor). 4) It became
confusing when you were given damage to write down while trying to keep the
damage you did straight in your head.
Conclusion: While it would work for a PBEM game, it did not work in a
minatures game.
I might make one more pass at testing an exceleration for the game: Each side
trades off fire (as normal), but may fire:
1 Capital (BC-SDN, CVL-CVH)
2 Cruisers (CL-CH) -or-
3 Escorts (SC-DH).
Has anyone tried this? I imagine that it will effect game balance somewhat. I
don't think that it will give one side an advantage in my game because each
side has about the same number in each category (and roughly the same point
totals).
Does anyone have any other ideas that have been successfully play-testd?
I will probably end up droping the staged inititive and scale the game down
some.
---
> On Wed, 24 January 2001, "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)" wrote:
> Does anyone have any other ideas that have been successfully
Okay, this is a long reply...
The FT intro games at GenCon tended to get fairly big. You could have 5 or 6
ships of varying sizes (but one is usually big, and survivable) per player, 4
players per side, two sides. So, you're looking at a long table with 40 ships.
Movement is pretty easy with lots of guys. The problem is firing. One ship at
a time is far too slow.
We started doing some stuff during the game to speed things up. One easy way
is to look at the situation and have someone say, "You're not going to affect
things over there, are you? No? Okay, then fire one of your ships." This did
help, with twor or three ships firing at once. But, inevitably, you get into a
domino situation. Player 1 wants to fire at a ship before player 2 can fire
it, who wants to fire before player 3 can fire, etc. etc... In tense, close
situations you end up back with one player then another firing.
During the last GenCon game I participated in, I suggested something that the
others at the table thought could work well. Typically 4 players sat side by
side on a table edge. Let's number then 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d. Opposite them are
their opponents, 2a, 2b, 2c, and 2d respectively. You roll the dice for
initiative. The side winning initiative decides if they want their "a" player
to go first or their "b" player.
The choice is made. Let's say 1a is picked to go first. In this case, player
1a may fire a ship, but at the same time so can players 2b, 1c, and 2d.
Basically, you alternate back and forth across the table. If player 2b elects
to fire at 1a's ship that is currently firing, he can roll, but the effects do
not take placue until 1a has finished resolving fire. Otherwise, he can freely
fire at any other of 1a's ships, or any ship from any of the other side 1
players. Likewise, if 1c wants to fire at 2b's currently selected ship, he can
but effects are resolved after 2b has fired.
The players on both sides are paired off. Even players who are not firing or
being fired at are still busy. They act as the observer for their team. They
watch what their immediate opponent rolls. You might want some scratch paper
to let players jot down what the results were.
Example: 6 player game, 3 per side. Sides are 1 and 2. Players are 1a, 1b, 1c,
2a, 2b, 2c.
Initiative is rolled. Side 1 wins. They elect to fire player 1a first. Players
1a, 2b, and 1c all pick targets and resolve fire. Players 2a, 1b, and 2c act
as observers, hold the other side of the tape measure and
-- if their ships are targets -- mark damage and do threshold checks.
1a chooses his ship and starts to fire at one of 2a's ships. 2b fires at the
same ship 1a is firing. 1c fires at one of 2a's other ships. 2a watches 1a's
rolls and records the results of fire on his ship. 1b
watches 2b's rolls and jots down/remembers the result. When 1a is
finished, 1b tells 1a what to mark on his ship, and 1a makes threshold checks
if needed. 2c watches 1c and helps him old the tape measure. When 1c is
finished rolling, 2c jots down the result. When 2a has a free moment, 2c tells
him what happened and 2a records the results.
Then play alternates. In this case 2a, 1b, and 2c now fire. Resolve back and
forth until no other ships are left.
Example 2: the same game, a couple of turns later. Side 2 wins the initiative
and decides to fire player 2b first. What is the order of fire? Using the
alternate set up, player 2b, 1c, and 2a fire. After that is complete, players
1b, 2c, and 1a fire.
Example 3: a five player game is running, with players 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, and 2b.
The easiest way to do this is as follows: if side 1 wins the initiative two of
their players can fire first. If side 2 wins the initiative, only one side 1
player can shoot.
So, if side 1 wins initiative and chooses 1a to fire first, then 1a, 2b, 1c
fire, then alternately 2a and 1b fire. If side 2 wins the initiative and
decides 2a will fire first, then 2a and 1b fires, then 2b, 1c and 1a.
Another way is to just give side 2 a third fleet corresponding to 1c's fleet,
and let the players argue over who uses it and when.
Note: yes, it may mean that one player on one side will run out of ships while
the other players on his side still have plenty to fire at. That will slow
down that side and hamper them. That's part of the grand tactics of this kind
of game. You want to keep the fleets on both sides well managed. You may
decide to let fleets reorganize under a player so that the work load is
balanced out (which encourages players to stay in the game, and encourages
players to give UP ships to another player because it's a disadvantage to have
a player idle).
Yes, in odd numbered games, the side with the fewest players actually fires
more often. Unless you give the other side another fleet, you will end up
giving the shorter side a disadvantage. You can either tune this in
playtesting, or actually make use of it in a scenario (the fewer number of
players might have a bigger fleet, but since there's only two of them their
command structure is now lumbering).
That all works fine when you have a lot of players with essentially smaller,
manageable fleets. What if you want to give two players LOTS of ships, or you
want to have lots of players with lots of ships. One partial response is:
tough; you can only speed up the game so much.
Another is to see if you can speed up something else, like movement.
For Full Steam I've experimented with non-simultaneous movement. Now,
yes, this is anathema to Full Thrust. Part of the point is simultaneous
movement. But, if you have long engagement ranges and want to speed up a
couple of dull turns, you can do this:
1) record speed differences. 2) roll for initiative. Winner gets to decide
whether to move first or second in the turn, but will be considered to have
LOST the combat initiative die roll. 3) the side going first move all their
ships half their movement. 4) the side going second moves all their ships. 5)
the side going first finishes moving their ships.
This works surprisingly well, especially with lots of ships in an enclosed
area where neither side is doing anything too sneaky.
Another option is to divide the turns even further. Instead of moving side 1
s ships 1/2, side 2's ships full, side 1's ships 1/2, you can do
something like side 1's ships 1/4, side 2's ships 1/2, side 1's ships
1/2, side 2's ships 1/2, side 1's ships 1/4.
Depending on players, this can speed things up. Be warned... I've seen players
deliberate after each partial move and had the whole thing slow DOWN the game.
Just some thoughts...
Thanks for your comments, Alan.
I had thought about your suggestion of alternating players. But I think that
it would have some difficulties in this instance. I do not know how many
players there will be (or how many per side -- common for a convention),
just the maximum number of players. The fleet compisition for each side is
cruiser-heavy, with a small few capital ships and a good number of
destroyers. Also one side will have some strikeboats and extra (non-ship
based) fighters from a nearby base.
If I parcel out the capitals, it may be possible to give each player one a
capital ship, but the player with the SDN will have a lot more staying power
than the other players with BCs (even if the SDN player is given less support
ships).
If I only get 2 - 4 players, that would mean 1/2 of a fleet firing at
one time. This seems too much to me. Even with the way I tried it (firing
1/3
fleet at a time), was too much. Currently there are 3 people signed up for
my game, and I can expect to pick up about 1-2 more pick-up players, for
a
total of 4-6.
On the alternating movement, I remember someone on the list had a
non-order
writing variant where sides alternated with movement starting with the slowest
ships and going to the fastest (MD 2, 3, 4...8). Then the fireing order was
the reverse of the movement (MD 8, 7, 6...2). This and your idea
of 1/2 movement without orders is interesting, but undesireable in this
scenario. The scenario features a good many asteroids. Half the fun of the
game will be dodging the asteroids. Without writing orders, a lot of the
suspense of this feature goes away.
Thanks again for your comments and suggestions!
-----
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net
http://www.ftsr.org/ft/scenarios/op_avalanche.asp
-----
> -----Original Message-----
[snip]
> Typically 4 players sat side by side on a table edge. Let's number
[snip]
> That all works fine when you have a lot of players with essentially
[snip]
> 1) record speed differences.
[snip]
--- "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)"
> <Brian.Bell@dscc.dla.mil> wrote:
...
> On the alternating movement, I remember someone on
XXX
I'll take the credit/blame for this one!
XXX
...
Without writing
> orders, a lot of the
XXX I should hope the path of the asteroids
is fixed in direction and speed. Not much
changes if the ships have a free move, some-
body will still do a nose plant!
Bye for now,