Subject changed again...
> "Mike Hillsgrove" <mikeah@cablespeed.com> wrote:
> Being mostly an historical gamer, point systems have no value at all to
Nobody with more than half a brain believes that a points system in itself
prevents unscrupulous players from coming
up with min-maxed unrealistic designs. There are too many
cultural, economic, political, logistical, etc factors that affect real armed
forces composition for any points
system to handle. You need army lists/fleet books, or
good scenario designers.
That's true for every page in Full Thrust though, not just the point system.
Good players with good referees don't in theory need any rules at all. They
can make it up case by case as needed. Freeform roleplayers handle very
complicated games without any rules all the time.
I believe that a points system is something like money. It doesn't prevent
fraud or cheating, but for people of good faith it is a very convenient way to
put a value on different ships that everyone can more or less agree on. Always
accurate? Of course not. But most of the time, it's good enough and much
quicker and easier to use.
If you don't like exact point values, I just bought a copy of Babylon 5 A Call
to Arms (the new Mongoose Publishing game, not to be confused with the old B5
Wars) which has a very nice fleet selection system.
Translated into FT terms, ships are divided into frigates, destroyers, light
cruisers, heavy cruisers, battleships, dreadnoughts, and superdreadnoughts.
For any battle, the
players/scenario designer chooses a class and each
player has five points to spend. A ship of the scenario class costs 1 point.
Ships of higher classes double each level, and ships of lower decrease in cost
by 1.
So for a 5 point destroyer battle, the expected is 5 destroyers. But you could
replace 1 destroyer by 2 frigates, or 2 destroyers by a light cruiser, or 4 by
a heavy cruiser. Very quick and simple, no calculators required.
cheers,
> On 1/9/06, Hugh Fisher <laranzu@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> So for a 5 point destroyer battle, the expected is 5
It would take some good dice rolling to take 5 Warsaw-class destroyers
and go head-to-head with 5:
Milvian Bridge class Destroyer Leader (DDL) Displacement: 4400 tonnes (Mass
factor 44) Hull Type: Average (Hull Integrity 13) Crew: 8 officer, 34 ratings
(Crew Factor 3) Armament: 4xClass 2 Batteries, 1xClass 1 Batteries Sensors:
Standard sensors, 1xFire Control Defenses: 2xPDS, Armor rating 2 Drive
Systems: Main Drive rating 6, FTL Drive Point cost: 145
That is the point of point systems. Even if I took only one of these and the
rest were Cimbalongus (Mass 34 NPV 112) they would have a significant
advantage over 5 Warsaws.
It's worse if you take capital ships of differing capabilities. A Tombazis
(Mass 106, Point 353) vs. a Manchuria is not a fair fight
either. Or my 8-pulse-torp Nafkratousa-class dreadnought vs. a Rostov
(which tries to be all things to all men and ends up with a throw weight that
I wouldn't feel comfortable with on a heavy cruiser)
If all designs were balanced so that all ship classes were equal in
capabilities that would be one thing. But they aren't, they reflect differing
design philosophies. ESU goes for cheap, small ships, FSE
for big expensive ones (and so do I--quality counts!). NAC and NSL
inbetween. At least based on what the FB portrays. There are also
sub-optimal ways to design the ships. For instance, the idea of
putting a single fighter bay onto a ship intended to go exchange beam fire
with the enemy.
> Hugh Fisher wrote:
> Nobody with more than half a brain believes that a points
Very much so. To elaborate on this:
ALL realistic designs are min-maxed - as in "designed to give the
maximum possible amount of bang per buck spent". That's why all tanks today
have a
single more or less centrally-placed turret and a single main gun (now
that
the S-tanks have finally been scrapped, except for a few museum
exhibits),
for example: the rivalling multi-turret/sponson, multi-gun designs
simply weren't as good a use of the money, men and industrial resources as the
single-turret, single-main gun tanks proved to be.
Thing is, real-world designs measure both "bang" and "buck" differently
than a tactical game like Full Thrust does. In Full Thrust, the only thing
that matters is tactical combat power and the only cost that balances the
combat power is the one-time NPV or CPV cost paid for the ship. In the
real world OTOH strategical and operational factors like
transportability/strategic range, reliability, operational range,
maintainability given existing infrastructure etc. etc. matter at least as
much as the tactical combat power, and the costs include development,
procurement and operational costs (all of which may include a large amount of
pocket greasing) to name just a few. As a result, the weapons and
vehicles that give the most real-world bang per real-world buck for
nation
A might not be cost-effective at all for nation B (if they're able to
operate it at all)!
Unfortunately, the only way to reflect all these strategical and operational
factors in Full Thrust *tactical* games and thus get the players to
"voluntarily" design "realistic" weapons and vehicles is to play a campaign
with very detailed rules for the campaign economics... or, like
Hugh said, use army/fleet lists. 'Course, even with army lists you'll
still get players who only field SS divisions (because there were battles with
only SS divisions involved, so the lists have to allow for forces like that
too) :-(
[The only other comment I had to Hugh's post was the same one John A.
already made, so I don't have to :-) ]
Regards,
> On 1/9/06, Oerjan Ariander <oerjan.ariander@telia.com> wrote:
> of pocket greasing) to name just a few. As a result, the weapons and
Was it you that brought up the example once of a third world nation
wanting tanks and after some study it was determined that the T-55 was
the closest thing to cost-effective for them because of the nature of
their probably opposition and the logistical problems associated with
maintaining anything more sophisticated?
> Unfortunately, the only way to reflect all these strategical and
Hmph. German WWII players who play with the entire production run of certain
heavy tank models represented on the table at once...
Or German players who play a 1943 or later game with their
organization at more than 60% of book strength. That's a no-go from a
realism standpoint too. Americans you can run at 90%+. Germans were
calling units "panzer divisions" that had a dozen tanks and two battalions of
"panzer grenadiers", and perhaps a few batteries of artillery. And that was in
1943 and early '44. It goes downhill from there. The only time you'd see a
full strength division was if a few were pulled off the line and reconstituted
to serve as the striking force for an offensive.
It also depends on the difference between the best and the worst. In
Full Thrust, where the difference between human-tech ships is all a
matter of taste and design choices, there may be relatively little difference.
But in Real Life, the difference between an American Carrier Battle Group and
90% of the world's navies is so vast that it wouldn't be entertaining to game
except as an academic exercise. Schemes to equalize the the tech gap generally
make for bad games too (OK, roll a
d10. On a 6+, the sailors out pulling watch wonder why that small
boat is getting a little too close. On a 5 or less, it pulls up close enough
to explode. Roll this handful of dice for damage).
> [The only other comment I had to Hugh's post was the same one John A.
Two compliments on one week. Either you're getting soft in your old age, or
I'm getting better at this.
:)
JohnA asked
> Was it you that brought up the example once of a third world nation
That was Zoe, IIRC
The items listed below are modeled using the following systems:
Tech Level - this limits the tech level of equipment that your
nationality can support - perhaps Class-2 beams are as good as it gets
for a 2nd rate nation, but a top tier nation can produce and maintain
Class 3+ weapons. Ditto for torpedoes, missiles or needle beams.
Staffing/logistics - fleet sizes may be limited by the logistical tail
or recruitment limitations - i.e. a star-faring nation that encompasses
4 worlds with billions of inhabitants is going to be able to man hundreds or
thousands of vessels. A nation from part of a single planet with population of
millions may not, even if it had the industrial capacity to manufacture such a
number of ships (say modular ships made at an automated orbital factory).
Unless you implement detailed campaign rules to add these types of factors to
generate fleets, then the best method is to develop solid rules for generating
scenarios that are relatively "balanced".
Balanced doesn't mean equal points, but that each side has similar
opportunities to win the scenario. For instance, in a convoy escort scenario
the defenders may outnumber the attackers by 2 to 1 in points, but if the
scenario objective is to destroy X number of freighters (a la WW2 wolfpacks)
then the scenario mayvery well be balanced.
Points should only be used as a rough tool to determine scenario balance
- the actual weapon mix is very important - Beam heavy fleets are less
effective vs. screened targets, torpedo heavy fleets are vulnerable to
long-range weapons, and the usual mis-match, massed fighters vs.
everything. Scenario balance can be achieved by setting objectives or initial
conditions, and placing terrain or defensive structures rather than just an
equal points total.
For instance - in addition to points, a game might have Victory Points
(VP), with each ship being granted a certain number of VP. An example might be
a player needs to secretly allocate 30VP between the ships of his fleet with a
minimum of 1 VP per ship. Winning conditions might be first player to destroy
15VP of ships. The players are not required to have the VP match the size of
the ship and may have a DE worth 20VP and all the remaining ships (Even a DN,
CA or BB) worth 1. PSB for that would be the heir to the throne is a
Lieutenant j.g. on the DE and everyone else is there for his protection. This
means that hitting the largest ship in the enemy fleet may not be the path to
victory but you won't know that until you destroy the ship and the opponent
reveals the VP value.
VP can also be used to compensate for powerful expendables, such as
missiles, fighters or minefields - these items are purchased with VP's
given to the opponent at the beginning of the scenario and thus the opponent
starts with a VP lead.
The advantage to the VP system is that since the VP are not fixed, you
can play against the same opponents/fleets time and time again and not
know exactly what the key VP ships are going to be, and would thus have to be
prepared to deal with a wide variety of situations, sometimes going for the
capital ships, sometimes having to wipe all the escorts out, or chasing down
the cruisers. It also places more emphasis on ship
survival - if you have critical VP ships damaged, you are less likely to
throw them in on suicide attacks.
These are just some ideas to throw open the discussion on moving the
focus from trying to balance the ships/points to scenario balance.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> John Atkinson wrote:
> of pocket greasing) to name just a few. As a result, the weapons and
No, it was me. Long chats about this with CinC Royal Thai Army (says she
shamelessly namedropping).
I concur with everything the estimable Oerjan has said so far though.
Zoe
> On 1/10/06, B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> would be the heir to the throne is a Lieutenant j.g. on the DE and
???
This idea confuses me. Seriously, every military mission has a specific goal.
In the Army, it's called "commander's intent". If I execute the commander's
intent without taking losses out of proportion to the relative value of that
goal, then I have "won" regardless of what the enemy was trying to achieve or
what their perception of the situation is. You may get that frigate with the
heir to the throne off the board, but unless my mission was to assasinate the
silly git, then if I just blew up four superdreadnoughts for the loss of one,
I'm going to be pretty pleased with myself. And my admiralty is going to hang
a medal on me. Your task force commander is probably an interstellar dust
cloud.
This may lead to situations where both sides walk away pretty pleased
with themselves. I once played on a five-sided scenario where four of
the players managed to achieve their victory conditions. We formed a
two-on-two alliance, blew one player completely off the map, and his
ex-ally negotiated a mutually acceptable compromise with the remaining
players. The fifth player spent the entire time on the communications channels
and didn't, so far as I recall, fire a single shot. My goals
were simple--prevent the Venusians from taking control of this moon.
When the last Venusian ship exploded, I had no issue with negotiating whatever
compromise was required to prevent loosing any of my ships in a pointless
shootout that I wasn't required to engage in to fulfill my mission.
> The advantage to the VP system is that since the VP are not fixed, you
And you have no idea what your mission is, you're just guessing about the
relative values of the ships... That makes no sense to me. It would be like
after the Battle of Midway, Yamamoto announces to his ship captains, 'we won
this fight, because fleet carriers have been arbitrarily assigned a lower
points value today!'. Uhhhh... NO. Loosing capital ships always sucks, has
always sucked, and always will suck, unto the ages of ages.
> On 1/10/06, Zoe and Carmel Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au> wrote:
> No, it was me. Long chats about this with CinC Royal Thai Army (says
Oh, Thais. That explains it.
> John Atkinson wrote:
> This idea confuses me. Seriously, every military mission has a
I agree with what you're saying, although it's worth pointing out that
commander's intent is only as good as the intel the commander has at
that time - there may often be things going on that you don't know
about. I have no problem with there being a few surprises in a scenario. But
the example given does seem a bit random: how are players expected to develop
a tactical plan when they have to guess at VPs? Or if I'm concentrating on the
SDNs but screw up my maneuvering so that the only thing I get in arc is one
whimpy DD, which "just happens" to be worth more points than all the other
ships... have I won because I'm the better player, or did I just get lucky?
(Or did I misunderstand Binhan's point?)
OTOH, I have no problem with the defending player's mission being based on
protecting a DD that the attacker doesn't know is valuable. This could
conceivably lead to a situation where both players win: the attacker because
he destroyed the defender's Big Ships, and the defender
because the Heir's DD got away. I don't have a problem with win-win (or
lose-lose) scenarios myself, `tho some more competitive players might.
Mystery VP's add two factors to the game that are missing right now -
variety of tactics (since weapons and designs are static, if you use the fleet
books, then the tactics pretty much shake down to a few basic patterns) and
variety of scenarios.
As John had previously said - He's going to gun for the capital ships
every time. If this is always the case, then there is no variety in play
- always going to use the same general tactics to achieve the same goal
every time, kill the nearest capital ship then continue down the line.
What if the BB's are second-raters and the cruiser is an empire's newest
creation, pride of the fleet etc. It may be a larger blow to your nation's
morale have your fleet's newest cruiser pounded to scrap than a
pair of second line BB's. This is what the VP's simulate - they add
another factor to the value of the ships other than straight point total and
are used to abstract those strategic values that don't normally show
up in a one-off game.
Historical Example - Pearl Harbor. If rated by naval thinking in the
early 30's, the attack at Pear Harbor essentially eliminated the US Pacific
fleet as an entity forever since many battleships were sunk or damaged. True,
that the US never regained the same number of battleships, but that class had
been made obsolete by the carrier and played a much more minor role in naval
warfare in the Pacific than
pre-war planners would have thought. So from a historical perspective,
the carriers were worth more to the overall war effort than the BB's, even
though they took less time and effort to build.
Translating to VP terms, an allied fleet might have it's carriers worth
2-3 times what the BB's are worth for the scenario.
Another example - if cruisers (Using the old-term for a ship with long
range) are used to patrol your wide-spread empire, then they would be
worth more to your navy than a short ranged Dreadnaught. In that case the VP
of a cruiser might be the same as a DN.
Now looking at VP from a playing point of view.
If for some reason a player decided to allocate most of his/her VP to a
single ship (more than the victory conditions require) then they probably
would take pains to protect or hide the ship. By the player's
actions, you can usually deduce what VP/point value a ship has - cheap
VP/Cheap points will be out in front, while high VP/low point ships will
be in back and the others will tend to fall out in the middle. Thus a
whole new level of game play in introduced - the very formation that you
start out in may provide information to the opponent or can be used to deceive
the opponent (i.e. what is that lone cruiser doing way back there?) The point
of the VP is to provide a reason for people to want to shoot at the 2nd or 3rd
ship in line rather than always maximizing firepower on the nearest target.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
G'day,
> But in Real Life, the difference between an American Carrier Battle
Not trying to be perverse, but that's not universally held opinion. Scenario
generation is critical but we've had some enjoyable games with quite large
tech differences. Its not everyone's cup of tea admittedly, but I for one
enjoy playing very low tech forces just to see how well I would do (i.e. don't
expect to win but how far can smarts get me). However I must admit that on a
more regular basis uneven tech games would tend to be between highest and next
step (or only a few steps) down. That's when you get to see what fun a Sandy
Woodward or Commonwealth subs playing propeller tag can lead to;)
Cheers
> As John had previously said - He's going to gun for the
*I* don't. I kill the small guys first. A PTorp from a DD hurts just as much
as one from a SDN, and I can usually kill the DD in one turn.
> Historical Example - Pearl Harbor. <snip>
Because we didn't have any. It's poor practice to plan to use ships you don't
have. When we got more, we used them (admittedly not for the original
mission).
> If for some reason a player decided to allocate most of
Soooooo....I could put 90% of my VP in one frigate, and send that frigate way
to rear while my expendable dreadnaughts are up front slugging it out.
Yes, you could stack most of your VP in a single ship, but the players who do
that would be the same ones who put all their NPV into a single or couple of
large ships.
In the scenario where you place most of your VP in a single small ship,
your opponent might just pack a few high-speed DD's armed with a P-torps
to take down such stragglers.
VP doesn't necessarily change how a player is going to assemble his fleet, but
it can change how they use the fleet. Players currently subconsciously
allocate VP (based on NPV) to their ships, I would propose to formalize the
process so that it could be used in a tournament format by anyone.
Unless specified in the scenario, most players calculate who won by simply
counting the NPV of the ships destroyed. VP gives a different scale in which
to calculate victory. If people don't like the hidden or random aspect, then
more formalized rules limiting VP allocation can be created. I know that
people already use house rules for generating
fleets that prevent the munchkin or mega-ship strategies and those rules
can simply be applied to VP. (i.e. minimum 1 point per ship, no more than X
points per ship, etc.)
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
I absolutely agree that VP doesn't always have to equal NPV, and am all for
assigning different priorities for different scenarios. The only thing I don't
care for is the idea of keeping VPs secret and expecting players to infer them
from formation, etc. Not saying it couldn't work, mind you; but it just seems
too random to me. YMMV, as always.
Scott "If word gets out that I'm missing, 500 girls will kill themselves and I
wouldn't want them on my conscience."
> Binhan wrote:
> Mystery VP's add two factors to the game that are missing right now -
> On 1/10/06, B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> As John had previously said - He's going to gun for the capital ships
So, by removing common sense from victory conditions you wish to encourage
totally random targeting patterns.
There's a reason certain military tactics keep getting used. It's because they
WORK.
> What if the BB's are second-raters and the cruiser is an empire's
That's fine--IF and only IF that fact is known to everyone and so
there is a reason to gun for the cruisers.
> Historical Example - Pearl Harbor. If rated by naval thinking in the
BZZZT! You're confusing levels of warfare. The carriers weren't present and
the Japanese Naval Intel people didn't track them as well as they did the
carriers. The task force commanders (which is the level of command being
simulated in Full Thrust) were given a mission based on their strategic
leadership's priorities and it was executed flawlessly. The orders didn't take
into account the value of destroying oil storage, and the operations plan
certaintly didn't plan on haring off chasing the carriers around the Pacific.
You have to remember, in order to preserve strategic surprise, all Japanese
operations in the Pacific were timed very closely from Hong Kong and Singapore
to Pearl.
The Japanese task forces executed the mission set before them. It wasn't their
fault that the mission had ZERO relevance to the strategic situation as it
actually existed.
Further, it could be argued that the strike did destroy the US Pacific Fleet.
USN doctrine didn't center around carriers any more than it did cruisers. They
were both considered useful adjuncts to the battle line that was sunk at
Pearl. Had the battle squadrons survived, the carriers would not have been
used to their full potential. It is to the credit of the senior officers of
the USN that they created an entire doctrinal framework for waging naval
warfare basically on the fly, in the six months between Pearl and Midway.
As usual, armchair theorizing without considering the complexity of the
variables involves leads to faulty conclusions. Try doing some research that
doesn't involve a movie.
> Translating to VP terms, an allied fleet might have it's carriers
Why?
> Another example - if cruisers (Using the old-term for a ship with long
How do you figure, given that cruisers are going to be easier, faster, and
cheaper to build?
> Now looking at VP from a playing point of view.
Are you sure? Every time? Why would this be? What effect will it have on the
combat effectiveness of that formation?
Thus a
> whole new level of game play in introduced - the very formation that
Yeah, because God Forbid people should engage in massing decisive effects on
the (percieved) center of gravity of the enemy force. Because then tactics
would have a rational basis and that is "boring".
> On 1/10/06, Beth.Fulton@csiro.au <Beth.Fulton@csiro.au> wrote:
> Not trying to be perverse, but that's not universally held opinion.
Most tech-imbalanced or scenarios have to involve the technical
advantages being nullified by blindingly stupid decisions at all levels from
the grand stategic to the guys on the ground. Which tends to make me feel like
I've been set up for failure.
Isandalwala would have been quite different if Chelmsford had set up a wagon
laager and defended it closely, with massed volleys and with troops detailed
to keep a steady flow of ammo to the firing line. Doing a simillar scenario
where the commander of the British forces has the freedom to make camp in a
tactically sound manner would result in a meatgrinder for the Zulus and the
destruction of the majority of the impis involved. Artificially forcing the
British commander to make the same stupid initial mistakes would just
frustrate me and to me, remove most of the fun of the game.
Same thing with Little Big Horn--there were a number of things that
could have been done to salvage the fight had someone's stupid little ego not
been invested in doing things his way. Step One is don't split your force
three ways when you're already outnumbered. Step Two is listen to your tac
intel, those scouts are paid in cash for a reason. Step Three is, once you see
the entire population of the American Great Plains coming after you, withdraw
to a defensible position and and send messengers to General Crook screaming
for help like a little girl.
Then again, I'm not in this for the thrill of defeat or to get an
"interesting" game. I take it all as a problem-solving exercise and
if I have three alternate solutions that the guy running the game doesn't
allow because it would 'take the fun out of the game' for the other player,
then that defeats the purpose.
Your comparison to propellor tag with Aussie diesels is hardly an example of a
large technology gap. As I understand it, the key factor in sub warfare is
sensor quality and crew quality. While an Aussie
diesel may not have all the latest land-attack cruise missles and
round-the-world-submerged capability, they do have quality crews and I
doubt that anyone is skimping on the sonar suites. At the granularity of Full
Thrust or even Dirtside, it would be utterly indistinguishable. We aren't
exactally playing Harpoon.
> Yes, you could stack most of your VP in a single ship, but the
Um...isn't that what you suggested, with the Crown Prince scenario?
I wouldn't mind if VP for each ship were, say, within 10% of its CPV, as long
as the sum for the fleet was the same, but I think that much more variation
that that would lead to cheese.
You don't have to fire at random targets. You need to make intelligent
decisions regarding your opponent - if you think he has piled a majority
of VP into a few ships, then you can achieve your goal with a few select
shots. If you think he has dispersed his VP evenly across his ships then you
need to determine which are the easiest to kill. The goal of killing a
sufficient number of VP it doesn't say that you have to randomly shoot at
targets hoping for an instant win (and I would worry about commanders who
thought that way in the first place) but it changes
the priority of your firing - you'd still win if you eliminated the
opposing fleet, but there may be a chance to win sooner by killing key ships.
This means that players will have to pay more attention to what their
opponents are doing and try to deduce why they are doing it.
Like in all military matters you are trying to achieve your goal with maximum
concentration of firepower with as little loss to yourself. VP merely changes
what that goal might be.
If your opponent is truly using a random system, is it worth your while to
play against them? It would be like playing against someone who picks a few
random ships and assembles them into a fleet. I don't think most people enjoy
that, and would prefer to play against someone who has taken to time to plan a
strategy and form a fleet to support that strategy.
As usual you've taken the extreme cases and points and presented them as what
will happen every time, which is definitely not the case.
I don't see people arguing that the 6 re-roll rule has ruined FT because
a measly DE could potentially wipe out a dreadnaught or that players who
make mega-ships or field giant flocks of fighters or missiles have
broken the system. People have adapted by making house rules to suit their
play style and the addition of VP is simply another tool they might use to
help them create balanced scenarios.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
G'day,
> Most tech-imbalanced or scenarios have to involve the technical
Actually they don't have to involve that kind of thing, we've had plenty of
games where we've left the blunders to the players. Maybe you're just an
exceptional player;)
On top of which the example you gave (Isandalwala and Little Big Horn) are
examples of extreme tech differences, which I said would not be the ones
happening regularly.
> Your comparison to propellor tag with Aussie diesels is hardly an
Not intentionally, but as we tend to buy US offcasts...;P (that was a joke
before you all descend on me from on high... especially Zoe).
> At the granularity of Full Thrust or even Dirtside, it would be
If you're trying to fit the third world into the same scheme all in one go
you're probably right. If you're playing a scenario just between the US and
Australia and you want to capture the differences, then it would
be fine. That's the beauty of re-scaling and abstraction ;)
Have fun (well ok take care I guess fun won't be much on the menu)
Carnage Con Space-o?
Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies
> -----Original Message-----
IMPORTANT 1. Before opening any attachments, please check for viruses.
2. This e-mail (including any attachments) may contain confidential
information for the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient,
please contact the sender and delete all copies of this email.
3. Any views expressed in this e-mail are those of the sender and are
not a statement of Australian Government Policy unless otherwise stated. 4.
Electronic addresses published in this email are not conspicuous publications
and DVA does not consent to the receipt of commercial electronic messages.
5. Please go to http://www.dva.gov.au/feedback.htm#sub to unsubscribe
emails
of this type from DVA. 6. Finally, please do not remove this notice.
> Carnage Con Space-o?
If so, I'd bring warsheeps, and I've already traumatized the SG2 and FMAS
players enough, I think. Well, almost enough. I don't see why
Indy is against me bringing 1/300 scale sheep for his DS3 demo.
The possibility that you would be using RAM artillery.
Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies
> -----Original Message-----
IMPORTANT 1. Before opening any attachments, please check for viruses.
2. This e-mail (including any attachments) may contain confidential
information for the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient,
please contact the sender and delete all copies of this email.
3. Any views expressed in this e-mail are those of the sender and are
not a statement of Australian Government Policy unless otherwise stated. 4.
Electronic addresses published in this email are not conspicuous publications
and DVA does not consent to the receipt of commercial electronic messages.
5. Please go to http://www.dva.gov.au/feedback.htm#sub to unsubscribe
emails
of this type from DVA. 6. Finally, please do not remove this notice.
> Laserlight wrote:
> Um...isn't that what you suggested, with the Crown Prince scenario?
Which is a good scenario. If a player chose to work the proposed VP system
like that EVERY time, that would be a more than just a bit excessive.
> I wouldn't mind if VP for each ship were, say, within 10% of its CPV,
The current default scenario, kill more CPV than you lose, is subject to
more cheese-ification than the proposed system. I seem to remember a
certain Can-Am game at ECC where the US team brought nothing but
carriers.
-Mike
Binhan,
There are good ideas on both sides of this discussion. Adding VPs or some
method to track success is a good thing. It allows for different scenarios
etc. This could also be done with scenario Victory Conditions
(VCs).
On the other side the point I agree with is this. If your VPs or VCs do not
match what a reasonable military force would do given the knowledge that they
have then the game is not going to be fun for any of
the "problem solving, real-world tacticians". These
folks are more than happy to work within the rules of the "game" to come up
with the optimal solution (that they can at that time given the forces
available etc
etc).
To make a seperate set of rules that they have to decipher to win and ones
that are hidden at the start, and most importantly are ones that have nothing
really to do with "most efficient way to win tactical and strategic encounter"
is not going to endear these folks to the game.
I think this is an interesting point in wargaming in general, there are folks
who like to play for the thrill of the game and don't mind unusual VCs as they
are in it for the excitment. There is another subset that is more interested
in learning about how things would be best run if the physics and rules of the
game were those of reality in that universe.
Given that we may be at a "I understand what you are saying but not why"
position.
Bob Makowsky
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> You don't have to fire at random targets. You need
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI thought that was
the essence of the modern military. ROE where what appear as the best three
solutions to the soldiers on the ground are not allowed.
Not So?
Roger
NB. This was not intended to be amusing.
> On 1/10/06, John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@gmail.com> wrote:
Mike Sarno said:
> [All the VP with the Crown Price]
Concur with both parts of that.
> The current default scenario, kill more CPV than you lose,
That problem was "massed fighters are unbalanced" (plus some other factors),
not due to the concept of "kill more CPV".
How about "assign VP to the ENEMY's ships" rather than your
own? With a limit of +/- 100% of its normal CPV. Example:
if your enemy has 3 cruisers at 200PV each, any one of them
could be worth 0-400PV as long as the total is still 600.
> On 1/11/06, B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
OK, maybe you play among telepaths, or good buddies that you have
achieved near-telepathy with.
For the rest of us, we have to have something to base decisions on. Some data.
Taking all the targeting data and making it secret removes the basis of those
decisions.
> Like in all military matters you are trying to achieve your goal with
VP
> merely changes what that goal might be.
Which I don't have a problem with. What I have the problem with is hiding the
goal.
Since you obviously neither know nor care what the military decision making
process it, let me introduce you to the acronym used as a mnemonic for the
factors governing the execution of any military plan.
METT-T. Some people hang a C onto the end of that.
Mission Equipment Troops Terrain Time Availible C is civillians.
Notice the first one is Mission. You propose only revealing the mission at the
END of the game.
Again, with TLPs, the Army's Troop Leading Proceedures, there is an
8-step process. The first one is: Recieve the Mission. If you move
that to the end of the TLPs, (after 'supervise the execution of the mission')
you have removed the entire basis of the planning.
> laserlight wrote:
> That problem was "massed fighters are unbalanced" (plus some other
Agreed, but the CPV-based scoring did NOT prevent the cheese from being
used. Likewise, there is going to be cheese used in the independently assigned
VP scoring system. Fact is, you're NEVER going to be able to get rid of
cheese, if people want to use cheese, with a simple
scenario-victory system. To completely get rid of cheese, you need
person to act as an independent scenario designer or you need system to
generate reasonable forces with some sort of randomization.
-Mike
> On 1/11/06, Roger Books <roger.books@gmail.com> wrote:
Not so.
ROE determines limits on use of force. The mission is, if anything, more
explicitly laid out to the tactical decision makers because of the
restrictions of ROE.
Rules to limit my actions in a game are part of the game. Rules making it
impossible to make logical decisions what so ever? That is not and should not
be part of anyone's game.
Don't get me wrong: The idea of VPs is fine. If I say that we are on a "shoot
down Admiral Yamamoto" mission, and that is the sole determinant of the
success or failure of the mission, then the Betty bomber containing the
Admiral has all the VPs, and the fighters escorting it have none. Their
existence is utterly peripheral to the mission except in as much as they must
be shot down to allow the Americans a clear shot at the converted bomber.
But the American P-38s have the idea that they are looking for a fleet
admiral transported in a passenger aircraft, possibly a converted bomber. They
know he left this island at this time, and is expected at that island at that
time, thus they must be in a particular general area at a particular time.
They aren't just told "Go fly around the Pacific Ocean, and we'll tell you if
you succeeded in meeting the Admiral's goals for the mission when you land".
Again you are taking the example to the extreme. In this case, the mission is
known at the beginning of the game, which is to score more VP than the
opponent. The details of which exact ships are worth what VP are hidden, but
a) you know the total VP the opposing fleet is worth, b)
you know how many ships he has - this is a closed data set and the
method is to eliminate the possibilities until your goal is reached.
By your example, most FT games don't have a specified mission. As far as I
know most games are played until the players feel that one side has won
(usually by counting up NPV destroyed). But they don't set a specific value of
NPV or any other real goal. NPV has limited value in determining overall
victory value as evidenced by the debate of value per point of small vs. large
ships (i.e. are 300 NPV of DD's the same as a SDN of 300 NPV?) VP actually
brings more definition to victory
conditions - whether you choose to base your VP on NPV or other factors
is an individual decision, but it allows different players to play within the
same conventions to achieve a commonly known end point.
You seemed to have missed a key point in the original proposal which was the
VP value of the ship is revealed when it is destroyed so that each side would
know when the victory conditions were reached.
This means you have a constant running assessment of where you stand to win,
not the case you present where you don't know a) what the goal is (it's to
score the most VP faster than the opponent), b) how to get there (kill enemy
ships)or c) when do you know you've achieved your goal (you've scored enough
VP).
Mission objectives need to be bounded, but not always crystal clear -
many missions involve a degree of uncertainty and it is up to the commander on
the spot to use the resources and information on hand to make the decisions
that turn an encounter into a victory.
FT in and of itself - unless you run a campaign game, has no higher
level of planning other than two fleets show up and blow each other to bits.
VP is a tool in which those higher level factors such as logistical,
political, or economic reasons are abstracted to have an impact at the
tactical level.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
Binhan said:
> In this case, the mission is known at the beginning of the
I'm not disagreeing with the general idea of VP, but the point JohnA was
making is that if Red sets the values of Red's ships, Blue hasn't any idea of
what he needs to do to win. Okay, MAYBE Blue can guess, based on Red's
formation
and actions--but that's not the way victory conditions are
set for real commanders. The key thing for Blue is what value Blue's commander
assigns to things.
Part of the problem here is that you are examining the example from a single
side.
If you view the problem from both sides at once, you will quickly find that
the situation balances itself quite quickly.
Example fleets - Red and Blue, 5 ships each 20 VP per side
Red fleet CL1 3VP CL2 3VP CL3 3VP CA1 5VP BB1 6VP
Blue Fleet DD1 16VP DD2 1VP DD3 1VP DD4 1VP SDN1 1VP
Victory conditions are 10VP (1/2 fleet value)
Red fleet has used a conventional VP assignment with VP assigned based roughly
on NPV value, Blue fleet has taken the extreme and placed all the VP eggs in a
DD basket.
Blue fleet has a problem, a DD is a fragile ship so to place it in a screen in
front of the SDN poses an issue in that a lucky salvo will cost you the game.
The prudent thing then is to place the DD further
away - but that might also draw attention to it as most people place
their escort class ships in a screen IN FRONT of the capital ships. So
obviously, placing a lot of VP's in a weak ship makes you more vulnerable to
losing to random shots. So to summarize, Blue is in a vulnerable position and
must expend effort to keep DD1 alive at all
costs (even throwing away the SDN) keep from losing - this doesn't mean
he will automatically win, just that he prevents the opponent from achieving
his goal.
Red Fleet, being more balanced, can accept the loss of the CL's but must keep
at both the CA and BB alive to prevent the opponent from winning.
If the VP were blind the tactics would fall out like this -
Red Fleet - Keep the BB and CA in a second line, just in range of their
weapons but not so far forward to make them enticing targets. Expend the CL's
in a direct attack on the SDN as it is the biggest weapon threat. If it turns
out the SDN is not worth all the victory points, then mopping up the remaining
DD's should be easy.
Blue Fleet - SDN and 3 DD's are essentially expendable. Use them to
knock out the either the CL's quickly or take down the BB first and work your
way down. Keep DD1 alive at all costs.
Conclusion - even not knowing what the exact VP designations for ships
are, you still will make sound tactical choices - taking out the
strongest or easiest targets first, then working around to the others. What
may change is that if given a choice between two or three targets, you will
have to weight the VP cost vs. the danger that ship poses to
your fleet (i.e. a 1VP SDN is easy to decide - it needs to be destroyed,
but a 2VP destroyer vs. a 1VP cruiser may be a more difficult decision if you
only need 3 more VP to win).
Many real-life scenarios are based on general info - opposing leaders
are meeting in building X - capture and extract them. You may not know
at the beginning of the scenario exactly which of the 100 people in the
building are the ones you want, but you know they are in there, so you simply
capture them all and sort them out later. If you happen to grab your targets
in the first 10 people, then you have achieved your goal and you scoot.
Find weapon Cache in Block Y - trucks have been observed unloading
crates to various buildings in Block Y, a weapons cache exists there, find and
destroy it. You may not know the exact building or the people involved, but
you simply work your way through each building in the block until you find it
and remove or destroy it. You may get lucky and one of the guys you capture
gives up info on the cache and you don't
have to search each and every room/basement/hole in the ground.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> John A. wrote:
> >of pocket greasing) to name just a few. As a result, the weapons and
No, Zoe did. It was one of the examples I was thinking of though.
> >Unfortunately, the only way to reflect all these strategical and
[...]
> The only time you'd see a full strength division was if a few
Yep. That type of player tends to be *very* specific as to what day the OOB
used to justify their forces is taken from - for some reason they always
manage to field those divisions which have been especially equipped for
some particular operation... :-/
> It also depends on the difference between the best and the worst. In
As long as you play similar-points battles, that is. Eastern front
battles
in late '44 would probably see the Soviets fielding at least 4-5x as
many
points to spend on troops as the Germans - even before weighing in any
difference in troop and equipment quality (which would most likely increase
the ratios of men or tanks even further in favour of the Reds).
> >[The only other comment I had to Hugh's post was the same one John A.
I'd say you're getting better <g>
> Laserlight wrote:
> >Carnage Con Space-o?
Sold by Brigade Models. They don't look very cuddly though :-(
> and I've already traumatized the SG2 and
Probably just because they're too small to carry Battle Cattle-style
cybernetic implants :-)
Later,
> On 1/11/06, B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
No, you'll simply find that both commandrs are in the same unsatisfactory
position. And you missed LL's point, despite inadvertently acknowledging it in
your reply. He said:
"Blue hasn't any idea of what he needs to do to win. "
As you went on to say,
" So to summarize, Blue is in a
> vulnerable position and must expend effort to keep DD1 alive at all
True enough, but that's the problem. In your scenario, neither commander knows
what he must do to win, just what he must do to not lose. That means we're
back to the game being nothing more than a slugfest, with both sides trying to
kill as many of the enemy as possible.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lYou need to read
some of the old tactics discussions. Escorts go 5-6 MU
behind the ships they are escorting. The are prime targets at range as you
can reduce throw weight and force ADFC/PDS. You want to force your
opponent to chose a closer range shot at a less vulnerable target or a longer
range shot that may reduce effectiveness.
John, do you really go capitals first? I like to eliminate weapons as quickly
as possible and that requires taking out small ships first.
Roger Books
> On 1/11/06, B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> Binhan Lin wrote:
[...]
> Blue Fleet
> Blue fleet has a problem, a DD is a fragile ship so to place it in a
"Most people" *might* do that - unless of course they normally use their
escort ships as Banzai Jammers (in which case they want the DDs to surround
the SDN), or use the beta-test fighter rules where having a DD or two to
cover the SDN's (A) arc against incoming fighters or missiles is very useful,
or they like to send a few fast ships as an outflanking force to
make the enemy to think about where his own (A) arcs are pointing, or any of
the other numerous reasons to not put all their escort ships in front of your
capital ships.
In short, your "most people do X" reasoning only really works if you play
against someone whose playing style you know well enough that you can
determine when they do something out of the ordinary. Which is pretty much
what John A. said with the "telepathy" comments, of course.
> If the VP were blind the tactics would fall out like this -
Here you're assuming that 3 CLs will be able to take out the SDN without
much support from your CA and BB - if the latter are just in range of
their weapons, they won't be able to contribute very much to the CLs' fight!
In my experience a more likely outcome of the tactics you describe here is Red
losing all three CLs in return for only light damage to Blue's SDN and none at
all to the DDs (since Red concentrated on the SDN), leaving Red's BB and CA
seriously outgunned for the second half of the battle. (Unless, of course, the
CLs were sent as a flanking force allowing the CA and BB to
get into Blue's (A) arcs :-) )
> Conclusion - even not knowing what the exact VP designations for ships
Sound tactical choices such as splitting your fleet up to be defeated in
detail? :-/
> What may change is that if given a choice between two or three targets,
Not if you've determined that some other ships will give you more VPs for the
same effort expended.
However, if you don't know the VP value of the potential target ships -
and as far as I could see from your proposal, you only learn the VP value of
the enemy ships when they are destroyed - their VP values won't
influence your targetting decisions anyway...
Regards,
> >If so, I'd bring warsheeps,
OA said:
> Sold by Brigade Models. They don't look very cuddly though
...and Zombie African Killer Sheep *are* cuddly?
> I don't see why Indy is against me bringing 1/300 scale
They can carry them, in baaaackpacks
Going back to look at it another way:
> "Blue hasn't any idea of what he needs to do to win. "
I'm not against the idea of having the VP differ from the ship's CPV. Perhaps
this destroyer has a bullion shipment, or that cruiser has the pricess, or the
freighter has a regiment of nurses. Your VP might depend on protecting that
unit. You don't necessarily need to know how the enemy values his ships; where
I take issue is with you not knowing what *your* valuation of the enemy ships
is.
As stated in the most recent version of the proposal, players can agree to
have VP values open information. Just like players can agree to have their
ships lists available or not before a game.
I understand the some people don't like walking into a game cold - not
knowing what nationality their opponent is using, not knowing what ships
he/she has chosen etc. Most people work around that by agreeing to
share certain information before the game - VP would just be another
item to share.
--BInhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> On 1/11/06, B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> Again you are taking the example to the extreme. In this case, the
Your mission should not be stated in artificial gamesmanship terms.
> By your example, most FT games don't have a specified mission. As far
Most FT games do have a specific mission. Engage the enemy and inflict enough
casualties to destroy that squadron without suffering disproportionate losses.
That's a very simple, easily understood mission. NPV is a measure of the
relative value of the various ships. It may be an imperfect system (as you
mentioned) but it has a
rational basis--the larger a ship is, the more points it costs (in
general) and hence the emphasis on capital ships as the main driving factor in
determining victory.
> On 1/11/06, B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> Part of the problem here is that you are examining the example from a
I generally only play one side per game.
> vulnerable to losing to random shots. So to summarize, Blue is in a
Your tactics are backwards. You know what the enemy's mission is and play to
avoid letting them complete it. But you don't know what your mission is.
That's strange, and I don't understand how it could ever
be the basis of rational tactical decision-making.
> Red Fleet - Keep the BB and CA in a second line, just in range of
Ever hear of a thing called defeat in detail? That's what you are inviting
with this deployment.
> Many real-life scenarios are based on general info - opposing leaders
That's not general info. That's very specific info. Move in, cordon
off the area, and bag and tag every military-age male in sight. Then
bring in the experts who check identification papers and conduct brief
tactical questioning and determine who goes and who stays. That's perfectly
good information to plan a mission.
You may not know
> at the beginning of the scenario exactly which of the 100 people in
Sez you.
> Find weapon Cache in Block Y - trucks have been observed unloading
Or, since you know the enemy likes to split their caches up among various
buildings for just this reason, you search every damn basement anyway in case
you overlooked something.
Your examples do cause me to retract an earlier statement. It's obvious you
aren't an armchair strategist. Even someone who's read a couple books wouldn't
be trying to teach me my own business.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn 1/11/06,
> laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> That problem was "massed fighters are unbalanced" (plus some
One option is to allow PDS to fire more than once a turn. So Point Defense
shoots at every incoming fighter/missile. Charge Mass x10 as the new
point cost for PDS, and maybe remove the ability to shoot at other ships at
6".
Not sure how to apply that to Kravak Scatterguns though.
As far as establishing victory conditions goes, I totally stole the Scenario
Generator from Gear Krieg/Heavy Gear. The pseudo role-playing flavor of
> On 1/11/06, laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
MIB said:
> One option is to allow PDS to fire more than once a turn.
<grin> People will hate you if you re-open this can of
worms.
> The Man In Black wrote:
> That problem was "massed fighters are unbalanced" (plus some
Let's just say that it has been tried several times, and proved to be a
complete failure each time. The concept works fine if your goal is to
exterminate fighters and missiles from your game universe, but it doesn't work
if you want anyone to actually *use* fighters or missiles.
Regards,
Hi all,
I normally don't chime in, but part of this finally struck me as being
something to babble about...
> On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, John Atkinson wrote:
> On 1/11/06, B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
I find two issues with this type of thing, and to some degree with a lot
of non-FT games.
First, let's look at your VP system as outlined above.
"details of which exact ships are worth what VP are hidden"
Ok fine. But if this is the case, and all you have to work with is a "grand
total" and "number of ships", how can you POSSIBLY determine when
you've achieved the goal of having killed more VPs than your opponent? You
CANNOT know this until after the battle has concluded. And at that point, it's
more likely that either one side is completely destroyed (in
which case you HAVE to have achieved this goal) or one side hypers out, in
which case you have to determine the PV after the battle has essentially
been "won" by the side that stayed.
While there have been lots of examples of objectives (e.g., take out the
carriers, get a fleet supply ship through, determine the strength of the
enemy fleet and get out with you lives, etc.), I would caution to NEVER NEVER
NEVER (did I mention, never?) assign random victory conditions (e.g., each
player gets some kind of VP token that has to be held or captured!) as it
tends to make the game feel even more artificial.
That said, I think that Jon's card based minor plot lines sound really cool,
and could be adpated to any game system.:)
Thanks,
As other people have overlooked before - with the hidden VP values for
ships includes the proviso that as ships are destroyed, their VP value is
revealed so that you have a constant running total of how many VP you have
earned. Therefore as soon as you achieve enough VP, the game is
over - you don't necessarily have to kill the entire fleet to achieve
your total (unless the remaining 1 ship is of sufficient VP to prevent your
goal).
If ships hyper-out or escape, then a portion (perhaps 1/2) of their VP
total would be earned by the opponent, again revealed when they left the
board.
If neither side reaches their VP goal, the game is a draw, or if one side has
earned more VP, but less than their goal, they can claim a tactical victory.
In general, by destroying 1-2 ships, you are guaranteed of having enough
VP left in the pool to achieve a 50% goal, even if all the remaining ships
leave the board.
Again people keep making the point that VP will cause strange,
non-tactically favorable maneuvers or formations. But that is the point
of VP since most players don't use a campaign system that provides economic,
political, morale, strategic intelligence or logistical
factors into one-off games. (i.e. your last missile armed BB may be more
valuable than your beam armed BB's because your nation was going to
attack a starbase next and you needed the long-range weapons to take it
out).
By allowing a player to allocate VP, they are in effect using an abstract
system to change the value of a ship to the overall war effort
- i.e. the USS Indianapolis was just a cruiser, but it happened to carry
the first atomic bomb. The fact that the bomb was cargo had zero impact on its
combat effectiveness or cost to build, but the loss of that cargo could have
had a major impact on the length of WW2.
Perhaps people who play one-off games really don't want to have to think
about outside factors, in which case designing scenarios or applying VP isn't
really relevant.
The point of this thread was to get people to think about scenarios, scenario
balance and how to increase interest in the game. I proposed VP as a simple
method (instead of having to write out dozens of scenario cards or designing
full scenarios) that could be implemented by anyone, anywhere, that would
provide a consistent system of determining who won
a battle, from one-off games to full blown campaigns.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
Bin-han,
Well put.:)
John K. Lerchey Assistant Director for Incident Response Information Security
Office Carnegie Mellon University
> On Thu, 12 Jan 2006, B Lin wrote:
> As other people have overlooked before - with the hidden VP values for
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lwell we use a card
system for fleet generation and victory conditions, eg, u roll 1d6 for how
many of what class, say, capital and the like, then you draw that many cards,
the cards can have from 1 to 4 ships on them each, and as the draw is random,
you never know know what you may be getting. As for the victory conditions,
they range from, do more damage to the enemy than they do to you, to destroy 1
enemy capital ship, this might not seem fair, but its so much fun and it makes
for fantastic game play.
[quoted original message omitted]
Binhan,
Given that I understand your points about VPs being closed at the start but
open as you kill off ships.
And given that I understand that you are using VPs to simulate the effects of
an economic, strategic, or logistic setup that is not being gamed,
I agree that VPs can have merit. The argument remains that random assignment
(or assignment by player based on some sort of player desire) does not meet
any criteria for any sort of game that simulates at all real world tactics.
As John continues to point out, one side may not know that the heir to the
monarchy is on one ship. But they will know that DNs or Fleet Carriers are
able to best project power. They may not know that you value Cruisers more
than DNs due to your far flung empire. But they do know that if they kill all
your DNs that it will be much easier to then kill off all of your cruisers.
For their mission, your VP assignments do not matter. The DD with the prince
is going to live or not, the cruisers are going to get hit or not all based on
their fire priority towards their primary objective (Kill your combat
projection power).
Now having said that. VPs as you say can work to help make the game more fun
and more exciting but they have to be assigned based on some sort of rational
basis if you want the "simulationists"* to play the game.
I think what keeps happening is that we keep explaining this, you keep
countering with "But you don't understand". I for one do understand your
position but as a simulationist as well I reject random VPs or player assigned
VPs that do not reflect some sort of actual likely situation.
If the player was to assign higher VPs to Carriers than to DNs of the same NPV
and say that was because it is easier for them to crew fighters than to crew
DNs I would agree with that aspect. I would not kill a DN and then be
surprised at how little VP I got, kill a carrier and be happily surprised
about how much VP they earned. I would hope that my intel would tell me the
relative values of the units so I can formulate my strategy before the
tactical battle.
Of course I may not know the values that your side puts on its units. I would
try to kill your major power projection units and may concentrate on your DNs
while you are happy that your "more valuable" carriers are getting off
lightly. In this situation after I killed a unit I would not instantly know
the VP of that unit. I may kill all your DNs and then leave the battle. I
would have achieved my goals.
v/r,
Bob Makowsky
*simulationist - gamer that tries to use games (even
science fiction games) to model real-world or
real-thinking creature events and actions. For them
the fun is seeing what happens when you game events given these rules.
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> As other people have overlooked before - with the
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
> _______________________________________________
I have already inserted the idea in my proposal that VP could be open
information if the players agree to it before the game. People seem to be hung
up over the idea that you don't know the exact value of an opposing ship and
seem to expect to have 100% knowledge over every aspect of the game. (How real
is that?)
Again people are describing "tactical" aspects as being the only consideration
for winning a game, whereas using VP I'm trying to introduce "Strategic" or
"Campaign" factors into a tactical game in an abstract way.
VP don't have to constrain your tactical thinking - if you have a sound
tactic that will eliminate all the opponent's ships, then that is one way to
achieve victory. If you are able through luck and deduction, able to win the
game with a single shot, then that is another method of victory. Just because
a DN might be worth 1VP shouldn't PREVENT you from shooting it, but the chance
that a DD might be worth 10VP should cause you to CONSIDER shooting it. If we
used 50% NPV as a criteria for winning a game, and killing a DD you bring your
kill total over 50% NPV, you're saying that you wouldn't shoot at it to win,
because it's not "tactically sound", but would instead keep firing at the
Battleship because it is more of a combat threat?
----
In real-life you'd have flankers, early warning pickets, escorts for the
logistical train, units that don't show up on the board but are
necessary for the operation of the fleet - but no one is going to
allocate 25-50% of their fleet point value for such "non-tactical" uses
- they are going to bring every single point allowed to the board. You
can say that the point values for fleets already include such overhead, but
then you bypass the whole question of logistical efficiency, fleet size and
resources, and military intelligence that in real life can have a huge impact
on what arrives on the battlefield. By focusing solely on the combat value of
a tactical unit on the battlefield, you eliminate a large variety of factors
that really should impact how you play.
Expendable munitions/equipment have been another key point of
contention. For instance, Fighters are considered to be under priced when
purchased in large numbers. If fighters were not as easily replaceable, or had
a significant logistical cost (many more parts and technicians required) then
they might not show up on the tactical battlefield in as large numbers or
expended in suicide attacks so lightly. For instance if each fighter group
were valued at 1VP, then massed attacks by fighters would be less worthwhile
as they are no
longer "cost-less" attacks.
Your tactics should be influenced by larger considerations. For
instance a missile cruiser fleet that is a week away from re-supply will
expend it's missiles differently than a missile cruiser fleet within hours of
a supply base. Or a Carrier fleet may not expend all it's torpedo bombers on
wiping out a cruiser fleet if it were on the way to attack an enemy base.
Tactically it doesn't make sense for an admiral not to use weapons that could
destroy the opponent, UNLESS there was a larger strategic reason to retain
those resources. In the strategic
view, the cruisers might win if they can destroy the torpedo bombers -
either by destroying the carriers or luring the bombers to attack them to be
destroyed by PDS. It may not make sense tactically, but could have an impact
on the overall war.
Once again, if people who play one-off games are uninterested in
modeling strategic effects, they have no reason to implement VP. Just like
there is a subset of players who ONLY play using published designs, but Jon
has provided an NPV system to allow others to create their own designs that
are still compatible with the published ones. Just because a subset uses only
FB designs doesn't imply that EVERYONE has to play with just the FB designs.
VP are the same way, if players are interested in adding additional factors to
determine who a winner is, they can choose to use the system or not as they
please. At this point I am more interested in designing a system that is
simple and easy to use but has enough influence to produce interesting games.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
I'm not sure you are reading the answers to your post. I don't think anyone is
asking for 100% knowledge.
Most people seem to be reacting to the lack of context in your system. Unless
there is an Overriding campaign, games need some framework for players choices
and actions.
Missions (how the real world determines success) are always in context of the
strategic situation (Paragraph 1 of a field order) and given as a measurable
goal or outcome (Commander's Intent, Paragraph 2).
How the player achieves (or fails to) this is tactics.
Take a look at the scenario generator. There are solid missions expressed in
general terms.
[quoted original message omitted]
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn 1/13/06, Robert
> Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com> wrote:
> but as a simulationist as well I reject
As a dramatist, I don't even mind if the VP situation is unlikely, but there
SHOULD be some sort of situation. Context is important for a game to be
emotionally engaging.
*simulationist - gamer that tries to use games (even
> science fiction games) to model real-world or
> On 1/13/06, The Man in Black <mib.zero@gmail.com> wrote:
> > *simulationist - gamer that tries to use games (even
I take it that is the sort of gamer with sparkly pink dice?
Roleplayers who got into tactical wargaming because of colorfully painted 'toy
soldiers' or the burning desire to port Star Trek over to FT.
There's also Humorists: Folks so desperate for attention that they turn every
gaming situation into a convoluted joke involving puns and (often) sheep.
:P
Old time list person who hasn't played in a while but still carries enough
interest to stay subscribed for some reason. People will likely remember me as
being a rather crazed fighter masser whose usual answer to people's complaints
about too many fighters was "then bring more scatterguns!"
:P
However, I have to say that I don't think you're listening a whole lot to what
people are saying. They're not complaining about the basic idea that victory
points may vary depending on a scenario. They're complaining that VPs, under
your suggestion, may be very arbitrarily assigned in ways that may well bear
very little upon any real military goal. For instance, if I were running a
scenario like this, I might bring the Death Star together
with an itty bitty, highly mobile frigate with thrust 10. I have 20 VPs to
assign... and just to be a snot, I'll assign 2 points to the Death Star and 18
points to the frigate. Just for giggles, I'll throw in some PSB about how
Darth Vader's love child (conceived artificially) is aboard the frigate for
some unfathomable reason, and then I'll spend the entire battle having the
Death Star slog its way through your fleet while the frigate runs for the
outer solar system with enough speed that nothing has a prayer of catching it.
No matter what you do, I'm probably going to "win" even if the Death Star gets
owned for fun.
Regardless of whether you, as my opponent, know that you're supposed to chase
down the frigate and not the Death Star, this scenario is LUDICROUS. And yet
it's perfectly reasonable under your system. It's an extreme example, yes, but
it's still one that you seem to almost encourage with your suggestion that
someone assign scads of points to a destroyer when there's a SDN sitting
around worth only one point. I don't care what storyline or
simulation you're trying to run, that's just silly.
E
[quoted original message omitted]
> On 1/13/06, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> 18 points to the frigate. Just for giggles, I'll throw in some PSB
OK, your argument was fine, whatever.
But I have to give public adulation to anyone who manages to fit Darth Vader's
love child into a sentence where it fits naturally without sounding contrived.
Congratulations.
There's also Humorists: Folks so desperate for attention that they turn every
gaming situation into a convoluted joke involving puns and (often) sheep.
:P
John
Yes, as opposed to the truly serious gamer that embraces the lore, heraldry,
and faith of a long dead empire and transporting it into space as a means of
justifying his vast research and generally misspent youth?
;-P
I do read the posts, and your first paragraph is exactly why people taking an
extreme example and using it as a general criticism doesn't really work.
a) You said that you played with what some people might consider excessive
fighter masses. Does that mean that fighters shouldn't be allowed because some
players take the rule to the extreme and it's no fun to play against a player
who takes huge masses of fighters?
b) Unless you write a really restrictive ruling about something,
min/maxers and rules lawyers will always find a loophole/breakpoint to
exploit. This doesn't stop the majority of gamers from not exploiting
the loophole/breakpoint and enjoying the rules.
By your reasoning, people should not be allowed scatterguns, missiles, bubble
carriers, fighters, ships of thrust greater than 8, use floating
boards, build mega-ships or any of the dozen other FT things that when
taken to an extreme, unbalance the game.
c) FT by it's nature does not impose it's rules on anyone - you can pick
and choose what you want to play - FB only, no missiles, no fighters,
2000 point fleets, etc. etc. etc. Simply because a rule appears in a FT
rulebook doesn't mean it has to be enforced (unlike other game systems).
I'm not likely to continue to play against an opponent who constantly brings
his whole point total in bubble carriers, nor one who loads up solely on SM
frigates, or scattergun boats, but that doesn't preclude other players from
doing so. Most people will choose a happy medium and gain enjoyment from it.
By constantly focusing on an extreme case (i.e. 90% of your VP in a single
ship) and extrapolating forward to say the whole system sucks isn't useful.
Taking the same relationship, just because fighters don't work as well with
large numbers, then the entire concept of FT fighters is unworkable and
fighters should be banned.
In addition, your example of a Death Star + frigate; sounds like a
Min/Max strategy for ship selection in the first place, so why wouldn't
they continue that to VP? The problem is not with the VP rules specifically,
but the how the player implements the rules. Assuming the other side has equal
points, they are just as free to make a fleet of 100 thrust 12 scattergun
boats and sending a couple of them to hunt down the frigate. Comparing an
extreme strategy vs. a reasonable one and coming to the conclusion that
something is off and further concluding that the rules must be totally
worthless misses the point. What this really shows is that any rules taken to
an extreme is senseless and what you should really be looking at is a range
where the rules work well.
Just because FT is too bulky for battles with 100 ships per side doesn't
make FT a poor game - you need to look at FT in the context where it is
best - small battles with 5-20 ships per side- and see how it rates
there. The VP system should also be seen through the whole range of
possibilities, and if necessary some arbitrary or optional limits can be
placed to try reduce the extreme effects of the rule, just like fighters.
Define military goals - there are tactical as well as strategic goals.
You are focused on the tactical goals - how to kill the enemy ships on
the board, but strategic goals may be very different. As in previous posts I
have mentioned strategic, logistical, political or other reasons
that may over-ride some tactical considerations - such as a follow up
battle where certain resources (missiles or fighters) are required to succeed
may mean you don't expend them all in this battle, personalities, equipment or
war material that is essential to the overall war effort that has no direct
bearing on the combat effectiveness of the ships involved in the combat, or
national morale effects from having a symbol of pride destroyed. These should
have a bearing on how closely you press an attack or defend certain ships or
expend ordinance in a tactical game, but a regular one-off FT game
doesn't model any of these factors at all in any way.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
Looks to me like this topic is more likely to generate heat than light, so I
propose we let it die quietly. All in favor, signify "aye" by starting a new,
unrelated thread.
JohnA burbled:
> There's also Humorists: Folks so desperate for attention that they
I wonder who he's talking about? Can't be me--I'm not desperate for
attention, I just have a warped mind. :-}
> On 1/13/06, Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
Just to head off another round of sheep puns, I'm going to fire a warning shot
across your baaaaaa.
Hi,
Stepping lightly here (after Laserlight suggested we let it die..., so I'm
going to jump in anyway....)
> The problem is not with the VP rules
Actually, the problem some people are having *is* with the VP rules
specifically.
> Define military goals - there are tactical as well as strategic goals.
I think the problem people have with what you've suggested is that the system
doesn't allow ME to know what MY strategic goals are. If the VPs
are blind and players are allowed to assign them completely at will without
any rational process, then when you choose how to organize your VP, you are
not defining how I can win the game, but the conditions by which you will lose
or not lose the game. You're defining what your strategic weaknesses are
rather than letting me decide what my strategic goals are. So, your
strategic weaknesses exist in an information vacuum, and I have no idea. Thus,
any rational process I use to plan my tactics is just shooting in the dark.
In most circumstances, any military worth their salt will have a pretty good
idea what their own strategic goals are. That's why you have intelligence
agencies, and why you watch your potential opponents during
peacetime. As other people have commented, your system allows me to go into
battle with *no idea* what my strategic goals are, because you've defined them
and keep them hidden. That means that there is no rational
basis for me to choose my tactics for the battle. SO, a player may choose to
shoot up ships at random, or chose a tactical plan based on what they
think is sound judgement. But there is no obvious correlation between what I
the player think is my sound judgement and what the actual victory conditions
might be. In other words, I might have a great battle, play well, have good
luck, and discover at the end that I've lost because you
put 1 point into everything except on ship that was worth 20 points.
I know that this is an extreme example and I agree that *any* system like this
will be open to abuse by people who choose to take it to extremes. But that
doesn't relieve the concern people have. There has to be SOME rational basis
by which I translate my understanding of the strategic situation into a
tactical plan for the battle. That requires that I have some understanding of
what MY strategic goals are. More importantly, there has to be some kind of
connection between what I think my goals are and what the victory conditions
of the game are. Otherwise,
victory is basically just random - and that is what is bugging people
about this.
I know exactly where you're going with this, and I applaud the idea. You want
to introduce an element of "poor intelligence" into the game. There may indeed
be situations where you have a weakness that I don't know about, or where my
view of the strategic situation is incorrect or misguided. Your system seems
to be a bit, well, extreme. I know *nothing*; so rather than having poor
intelligence, I have *no* intelligence.
This is why Jon's suggestion of "minor" objectives on cards seems to work a
bit better. They can add flavour, without producing a complete
disconnection between what people *think* is going on and what is *actually*
going on.
Sure, there are situations in which a commander is completely mistaken or
gets it wrong. To use an example that came up recently - if the
Japanese
had been able to sink the cruiser carrying the a-bomb across the
pacific, that would have been worth much more "victory points" than sinking
any other cruiser.
But this sort of thing should be the *exception* not the rule. Most of the
time, I should have a good idea what my strategic objectives are, based on my
intelligence, etc etc etc.
I think why people continue to have a problem with your system is that it
*never* allows me to have a good idea what my strategic objectives are; in
other words, the "a-bomb on this cruiser" situation is going to happen
all the time.
Now, I can see this happening if you're playing a situation in which your
forces truly have no idea whatsoever about the opponents. From the
GZGverse: Humans vs. Kravak at the beginning of their war, for example -
the humans haven't got a CLUE what makes the Kravak tick, who they are, where
they're from, how many ships they can build of what type in what
time, etc etc. etc. But if you're playing a game between the ESU and
the NAC, both sides are going to have pretty good ideas about the other sides'
productive capacity and strategic situation. They might be wrong in some
detail in a given battle, but *in general* they'll have a fairly decent idea
of what their strategic situation is and what the other guys' situation is.
Anyway, I'm starting to beat this point to death, so enough.
I think your idea is a good one. It just needs to be finessed a bit, so
that it is less extreme.
:)
(Now, if it wasn't 5 in the morning and I wasn't asleep at the keyboard, I
might even have some kind of constructive suggestion...)
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn 1/13/06, John
> Atkinson <johnmatkinson@gmail.com> wrote:
No no... I have Black Maskirovka dice with the numbers painted black so I can
formulate heartbreaking deceptions about what I rolled and then lose them in
the dark when I show off my Glow in the Dark 3D Solar System planets (by Great
Explorations).
Roleplayers who got into tactical wargaming because of colorfully
Civitas Romanus Est.
John
> On 1/13/06, Don M <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com> wrote:
I like it! dramatist. Very good description. I have found that I can enjoy a
dramatist game as you say, there has to be a reason for this to be happening,
context.
Agree most completely.
Now if only I could enjoy dramatic games without my simulationst bent getting
in the way!
Bob Makowsky
> --- The Man in Black <mib.zero@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/13/06, Robert Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com>
> --- The Man in Black <mib.zero@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/13/06, Robert Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com>
> --- The Man in Black <mib.zero@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/13/06, Robert Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com>
Agree most completely and I like the description, dramatist.
There does need to be a reason to play the scenario, some context.
I can play and enjoy dramatic games. I do find that I try to figure out the
underlying reason for it all and make it fit a logical framework. Can't help
it I guess.
Bob Makowsky
> --- The Man in Black <mib.zero@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/13/06, Robert Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com>
Binhan,
We are discussing the same thing and I think we all agree. Scenarios and
forces based on a larger economic or strategic system that is not in play on
the table are important and need to be considered. Use of VPs and well crafted
scenarios are a way to bring that portion to the game.
Use of VPs to make the game "cheesy" or just randomly assigned VPs do not
promote tactical thinking for either side and make for a poor game. Someone
who continues to bend the VP system so that he can "win at any cost" by
cheating the system and not through better tactical thought may have won the
game on the table but has certainly lost a much bigger battle with his former
opponent.
The only portion of your VP posts that I disagree with is the assignment of
VPs that do not reflect some sort of strategic situation and can result in a
win for one
side while following a non-effective tactical
strategy.
Bob Makowsky
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> I do read the posts, and your first paragraph is
gzg-l-bounces+lin=rxkinetix.com@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
> [quoted text omitted]
[mailto:gzg-l-bounces+lin=rxkinetix.com@lists.csua.berkeley.edu]
> On
=== message truncated ===