[GZG] Measuring and Vector

In my humble opinion vector movement is easier to teach... as long as
you begin by allowing pre-measuring (I just had to be different).

When I started teaching my group, we used markers to pre-measure and
plan our movement orders. I'd recommend this for the first few turns.
I also did assault courses... mini scenarios with several planets/space
scenery and a beginning and end region (6mux6mu) on the table - your
challenge was to race from start to finish (no weapons - only movement).
In fact, I might have the course maps I made up... I worked out some 'optimal'
solutions (will hunt around for them... but they're simple to do yourself). I
would really recommend doing this, at least a simple one like:
START ----\ PLANET /----END
           --------
Try it with a single speed 6 ship, then a speed 6 and 4 (which must come to a
stop in the end region on consecutive turns), start from stationary. It'll
take about half an hour, teach them all the movement rules and how the game
flows. Since it's a race, there is a winner Of course, if you haven't got time
to waste... this isn't such a good idea.

We stopped measuring after a few battles... of course measuring your move
tells your opponent exactly where you intend to be, if they write their orders
after you. Thus, as some people moved to not measuring,
they had to write their moves first... then the pre-measurer's went
(yes, it is unfair - but it kept people playing the game).

In regard to pre-measuring slowing down the game... it really is a
matter of who you play with. Egg timers can be your friend in this case,
you can buy 1,3,5 and 10 minute ones - or a chess clock (have used one
of them for other wargames... but doesn't quite fit with the FT method of
play).

I'm generally in favour of pre-measuring.
I don't mind in FT because of the simultaneous planning and movement,
but in turn based movement judging the distance isn't a skill - it's
luck. Also seems to greatly disadvantage shooty type armies - the melee
guys just run at you, the shooters need to fire and then fall back out of
charge range... much harder to judge. Warmachine is a case in point...
especially when some units charge range is 1 or 2 inches shorter than the
shooters range... that's a pretty narrow margin. Sorry,
I'm ranting... but non-measuring is bad in alternating turn games (in my
opinion).

Simon

On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 2:37 AM, Simon White <mintroll-gzg-ft@2-72.co.uk>
wrote:
> In my humble opinion vector movement is easier to teach... as long as

If by pre-measuring, you mean that every ship has a future position
marker placed where it will coast to, than I would agree with you. Vector is
even easier to teach if have not hobbled the student by teaching him
cinematic, first.

G'day,

> In my humble opinion vector movement is easier to teach...

I agree totally mate. Pre-measuring* is standard down here in Tassie
(could never see the fuss over it really as we already have video
triangulation on research, fishing etc vessels down to cm and you'd need it
for dicking in space craft etc).

* Or measuring as need be actually, as you don't need to do it for everything,
few waves of the tape measure is usually fine and even then in our group only
really for fire or SM placement

Cheers

> On Thursday 07 May 2009 17:00:16 Richard Bell wrote:
wrote:
> > In my humble opinion vector movement is easier to teach... as long

I give every ship a coin, with it's ID painted on, which shows its vector.
There's a couple of images at the bottom of this page:
http://www.glendale.org.uk/ft/planets.html

Never tried it with large fleets however.

> Vector is even easier to teach if have not hobbled the student by

Didn't everyone do vector arithmetic in maths at school? I'm not sure any of
our group needed to be 'taught' anything other than thrust costs, so it was
pretty second nature to us when we switched.

As for pre-measuring - my experience has been that with pre-measuring,
people tend to be more forgiving with whether something is in range or not.
When ranges have been guessed, and shown to be borderline, there is more
arguing over whether a target is in range or not.