[FT] Background vs Scenario Balance

[quoted original message omitted]

> > Many things that balance out in a scenario don't even come close to

All of these are the way that you can go about balancing out scenario.
However, most military planners tend to avoid "equal" conflicts if at all
possible. One side *should* have some sort of advantage, even if a slim one,
and it would probably be the attacker. If you are using straight costing out
of FT(MT, FB...) then the FTL vs non-FTL should probably balance out ok
if they both have equal points to spend.

The other stuff is a bit more problematic, I would tend to just fudge it
until I got the "force-flavor" that I wanted. Either that or give the
weaker side some other advantage (the ability to bring their force in from any
mapside, or split their forces, or place their ships after all of their
opponents) or that took their streamlining or ortillery into effect. (Some
ground target that gives them an extra 5 victory points or something if they
destroy it...)

> David Rodemaker wrote:

> All of these are the way that you can go about balancing out scenario.

The "equal fight" mentality stems largely, I think, from GW games, whose
players are almost maniacally obsessed with it and whine about the lack of
equality constantly. I've played plenty of scenarios and the "line 'em up and
shoot it out" variety of battles, but the fact is that whether or not you use
equal points, one side or the other will have the advantage due to factors
that can't be taken into account by points costs of ships. In most scenarios,
I'd agree that the attacker ought to have an advantage, but then again, some
of the best scenarios I've played in have been of the "ambush" type where an
attacker thought a defender was weaker than they really were.

> The other stuff is a bit more problematic, I would tend to just fudge
(Some
> ground target that gives them an extra 5 victory points or something

Personally, I wouldn't worry about fudging it. After all, military commanders
seldom have enough of what they want when fighting a battle, particularly if
they're on the defensive. To me, the idea of a bunch of ragtag leftovers
trying to stop an enemy raid is a fun type of scenario to play (Or maybe
destroyers and light carriers vs. battleships ala the Battle of Samar in WWII?
THAT was a case in which the defender was *horribly* outclassed, and suffered
for it, but still managed to drive the attacker away. In fact, I may get
around to writing a scenario for that one some day). If, however, you're
playing
attacker/defender
with the defender being weaker, one way to "balance" things out is to force
the attacker to behave along certain prescribed lines (i.e. "Admiral, you must
destroy the orbital cargo facility and have only X number of turns to do so
before the enemy reinforcements show up from the outer system", thus forcing
the attacking commander to devote more of his weapons fire to destroying the
orbital facilities rather than just munching the defenders and then hanging
around for a few days bombarding it into rubble. The point is, that it's not
always necessary to balance the scenario on the basis of forces on the table;
it's also possible to balance it in terms of objectives as well.

> The "equal fight" mentality stems largely, I think, from GW

I would agree completely. Most of the "fun" scenarios that I have played tend
to have really weird victory conditions also. Set up a FT battle like a SG
scenario! Most often FT comes across as a bad dungeon crawl i.e. whomever
can kill the most goblins/ships wins...

Great pick-up game, boring scenario.

> Personally, I wouldn't worry about fudging it. After all,

Once again I would have to say that I agree with everything above. Scenario
building is (probably <g>) more about deciding objectives than about
"balancing" forces. Basically the defender is going to have whatever doctrine
would say that they would have to hold their objectives, the attacker is going
to have whatever *their* doctrine says they are supposed to have to take their
objectives. Nobody ever said that their objectives were going to be the
same...

The other "type" of scenario design is "seeing what would happen if..." and
these are rarely balanced. The examples I'll give come from SFB (excuse me if
I get the specifics wrong, I don't even own the rules anymore)

The whole Kobayashi Maru scenario for one.

"Lone Grey Wolf": One single DN without escorts escaping back to friendly
space (actually a micro-campaign) after a failed treaty negotiation.

There was a similar scenario set at the end of the Kzin War of Return with
the Khan (??) and the Usurper both battling it out one-on-one each with
a single DN. A situation that would "never occur" in "reality".

Those are the three that come to mind, but I sure that there are others... The
Kzin one was interesting because they came out and out said in the scenario
write up that players had been begging them for years to come up with an
official scenario like this, but that they never had before because they
couldn't figure out why the heck it would happen.

Echoing some other comments.

The sides do not have to be balanced in points or even capibilities, but each
side does have to have a reasonable chance to achieve the goals of the
scenario.

You can do this with a victory point multiplier, giving one side more VP per
damage than the other.

Often more fun are the "Desperate Gamble" type of scenarios where one player
is outnumbered/outgunned but one side has to do something unrelated to
winning the battle (Get the courier through; Scan a sector and report to HQ;
Drop supplies to forces on the planet; etc.)

And the only way to "balance" a scenario for VP is to test, test, test and
test again.

One of the difficulties in FT, when trying to do this, is the lack of terrain.
It is hard to block a pass, or hide forces in the woods, or force them march
down the valley. A planet or asteroids can add a lot to a scenario.

And as a last comment, some of the most fun games that I have played are where
the players ignore the set goals and do something off the wall. An example is
the FT Cheese game the Mike Sarno ran at GZGECC III. Everyone was supposed to
try to take over the space station while preventing each other from doing the
same. However, one or more players decided to try to destroy the station
instead. It was a very fun game.