The one large issue with Piquet system is the complete randomness of it. Since
both players roll an opposed d20 and the winner gets the difference in
activations, it can generate numbers from 0 to 19. If a player is lucky and
rolls several high numbers in a row, the opponent essentially can't move or
perform actions for several turns. I've seen games that were over within 6
turns because one side could not roll high to save their (game)life. A couple
of lines of infantry were able to march across half the board and then fire
and reload three times into the opponent before receiving return fire. The
intiative die rolls balanced out at that point, but it was moot since they had
already taken significant casualties.
I think a better method would be to split initiative down to groups or units
(either platoon or squad depending on where you think the actual level of
command ability makes a difference) and then give a rating to
the commander for that unit - Green, Regular, Experienced (veteran),
Elite, then draw a chit from the appropriate bag. The "Green" commander bag
will be 25% No Action, 65% One Action and 10% Two Actions; The Regular
commander bag will have 10% No Action, 70% One Action and 20% Two Actions;
Experienced will be 70% One Action, 25% Two Action and 5% Three Action and the
Elite bag will have 50% One Action,30% Two Actions and 20% Three Actions. You
can cut the number of bags in half by using both sides of a chit, for instance
Green commanders use the green side of the chit, while regular commanders use
the yellow side. Experienced and Elite troops would use chits that are orange
on one side and red on the other.
This will provide a range of possibilities, but will allow more experienced
commanders to have more options (actions) than less experienced commanders and
on average, on any given turn most if not all of your units will be able to do
SOMETHING. It also removes the problem of one side having total domination in
initiative over the opponent based on a single die roll.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> The one large issue with Piquet system is the complete randomness of
Yep, this is "possible". Of course, you have to win all that initiative *and*
get all the right cards (and none of the wrong ones), *and* use them all for
the right part of your army, and you might win this way. On the other hand, if
you don't get all three of those conditions, you'll usually find a large part
of your army isolated and easily destroyed and the battle lost. I know that PK
isn't to everyone's tastes, but it still seems to me to be the best system
I've seen for allowing the wild results we actually see on the battlefield.
With PK, you could actually produce an Austerlitz, a Jena, or Marengo. Most
systems are woefully incapable of producing those kinds of "snowball"
victories that did really happen. All that said, there are quite a number of
alternate initiative systems in PK now. The most popular alternatives lately
seem to be the domino versions that use domino draws to determine initiative
with the winner getting a higher number (possible *much* higher) and the loser
getting the lower number.
If
the initiative system is all that bugs you about PK, there's probably 2 dozen
variant ways of doing it. One of which is likely to suit you better.
> From the sounds of it Piquet != Fun.
I will say this for the Piquet system it's the best for solo gaming.
[quoted original message omitted]
Don,
I was thinking that, along with the fact that it allows the wild results we
see from real life. Very appealing to me as I tend to be more into how the
combat was fought and not who won because they were able to exectute based on
an obscure rule.
Bob Makowsky
> --- Don M <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com> wrote:
> I will say this for the Piquet system it's the
G'day,
> The one large issue with Piquet system is the complete
Which is the bit I love;) And that's why some people loathe it. I can fully
understand why people with little free time for gaming would hate that, but in
my perverse way I actually enjoy that as that's what can happen in realy
battles. That's
the factor I like, can I cope with the one-sidedness and is there
anything I can do to still come out on top.
> I think a better method would be to split initiative down
Not a bad idea and like I said there are as many impetus variants as people
who played the game probably;)
Another is having hands of cards, or both rolling vs a D12, or pulling from a
numbered card deck, or pulling dominos, or getting what you roll,
or...
;)
G'day
> From the sounds of it Piquet != Fun.
Well it does tend to be a love it or hate it system. I think it comes down to
what you're looking for in a game. I think its heaps of fun, but I know not
everyone does.
Nevertheless my dwarves will be able to live long on the tales of the time
they held those crossroads in the field, turning to cover the flank just in
time, sending those elves flying with shock at finding a deployed line of
colonial dwarves rather than a juicy flank of half cut miners with pick
axes... and they will never admit that if the cards had fallen just that
little different (for instance of the card two cards away had come up two
cards earlier) that they would have run from the field with helmed elven
knights in hot pursuit.
As you may have guessed the other bit I like about Piquet is the story telling
potential and how easy it can then be adapted for more unsual situations...
like the TOW (Piquet campaign system) we have planned for the Kra'Vak invasion
of Tasmania.... DS and SG on land I really know the lie of;)
Cheers
In message <F4783C94B5D9F1479D984ABC31C264355CD280@rxgen2s1.rxkinetix.com>, "B
> Lin" writes:
This is true of how the rules are written (although rare), but it is an
arbitrary mechanism to assign points. There are *MANY* others, using not only
dice but also cards and dominoes. Most of these alternate mechanisms are
designed to give a less drastic swing in scores. This is not really a fair
criticism of Piquet as a whole, IMO.
In message <200409280310.i8S3ArFi008424@b.mail.sonic.net>, "Katrina Brown"
writ es:
> The key issue I have seen with PK (I have never played) is that it is
Piquet is widely played by larger groups. The best Piquet games I've
been in have been 6-8 player games at Historicon. I'm not sure if the
rules themselves address multiplayer mechanisms, but 5 mins on the Piquet
yahoo group will give you lots of ideas.
I wasn't criticising Piquet as a whole, just the aspect of the wide swings in
intiative that the rules have. I don't have problems with the cards for usable
actions or the movement or firing aspects. However, it seems rather arbitrary
to have so much of the game depend on a single roll for each turn, with entire
battles decided by a few opposed die rolls.
If you are going to place that much of the battle to luck, then there is not
much point in setting up the pieces, you can just do half a dozen opposed die
rolls and determine who wins.
Most of the games I play, I prefer that there be opportunities to act and
react, to generate and counter local advantages, which the overall initiative
system of Piquet doesn't generate. It provides for massed advantages (one
entire side or player) vs. just the left flank or even individual units
showing unusual elan or aggressiveness that beat back
an attack and won the day. The plain-vanilla version of Piquet
definitely favors the aggressive player over the passive player.
The problem with house-mods and the huge variety of them is that when
you play at cons or other large gatherings, if all the players are not playing
with exactly the same mods, their level of play may be adversely affected. For
instance, reducing the initiative dice from d20 down to d12 or d10 reduces the
swings, so a player will generally only plan for
4-5 actions instead of 7-10 per turn. using 2D10 for initiative instead
of d20 throws a whole different set of statistics into the works,
requiring a much different mindset (only 2-3 actions per turn instead of
4-5 or 7-10) than if you know you might hit a run of up to 19 actions.
Historically battles are not won or lost by the commanding general's
initiative, but by his knowledge of the battle conditions. Most often you hear
of reserves committed to late, or an attack initiated too late to take
advantage of a local weakness in the lines. These errors occurred, not because
the general was slow in giving the order after the appropriate infomation was
available, but is almost always due to incomplete information being available
to the general in a timely
fashion. Most war games have the defect that player-generals have a
vastly better picture of the battle, the units involved and their abilities,
than any historical general has ever had. Just setting up
the game provides a huge amount of intelligence - you know the terrain
(no booby-traps, unknown ravines or cliffs, or "secret paths" through
the forests), you know your opponent's force size and location (unless you are
allowing flank marches or hidden units), you know the abilities of your
opponent'!
s forces (no suprise super-weapons) and you know your opponent will
engage your forces (no waiting it out for days and days and days). With just
this information a player is able to reduce the command decisions
dramatically, no decision for re-supply, weather, communication lines,
worry about opposing reinforcements, flank attacks, terrain or man-made
traps, super-weapons, feints or probing attacks vs. the start of an
assault, etc. etc. etc.
To truly generate "historical" results, the key factor is to reduce or
eliminate player knowledge of specific details of the battle. You would
receive messages from the front, and send out orders the same way and plot
locations of your units on a map, which may or may not reflect their actual
positions on the board. Reports may be delayed or units wiped out with no
information as to their demise. Even modern
commanders, with radios, GPS, computers and real-time video still have
only a hazy idea of the locations and condition of the troops under their
control, and are very dependent on the commanders on the scene to make the
right decisions at the right time to influence the battle that they are in.
For those reasons I prefer games to have some degree of responsiveness -
even if just Overwatch or pass-through fire to allow units to react to a
local condition, even if orders from a higher command aren't forthcoming or a
side didn't win initiative for that turn.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> I wasn't criticising Piquet as a whole, just the aspect of the wide
I'd call them Initiative Points, but SG already has IP for In Position, so
let's call them Command Points. Let's say a Leader 1
commander is personally directing a Leadership-1 squad. How many CP
should he get, as compared to a Ldr3 commander who is giving orders by radio
to a Ldr3 squad?
Should the number of Initiative Points you get per turn be random, or fixed?
Half baked idea: a) Each player has a fixed number of CP, based on his
leadership rating, and secretly designates how many CP he'll spend on which
units. i) you need not specify the same as your squad's LDR rating. The more
you spend on a unit, the better your chance of having them understand your
order. ii) it's easier to lead a unit if you're there with it. iii) you can
give an order to a group of your subunits, as long as they're doing the same
thing b) Players alternate rolling to activate each unit. c) If a unit either
didn't get CP or blew its roll to activate, it still can take some actions, eg
i) Return Fire ii) Attempt to Go In Position iii) Fire on Enemy in Open
G'day Binhan,
> If you are going to place that much of the battle to luck,
I'm not trying to be a right royal pain here, but couldn't you say that about
any dice based wargame?;)
> Most of the games I play, I prefer that there be
I'd disagree actually the intelligent use of the opportunity and morale chips
means a good (i.e. very skilled) Piquest player can pull it off, where a less
skilled on (whether through inexperience or personality or whatever) won't be
able to. It seems to capture well the natural abilities some leaders have and
some don't in spades;)
> The plain-vanilla version of Piquet definitely favors the aggressive
Again I don't wholly agree with that. If you mean aggressive and disciplined I
could see your point, but just plain aggressive then no because repeatedly
breaking from a plan with Piquet and just responding to what card turns up can
be very fatal. Some sense of what you want to get accomplished, the
flexibility to change it if need be but the
discipline to not change it indicriminantly gets you far in this game -
so passive players can still do well.
> The problem with house-mods and the huge variety of them is
I can see thaht, though cons aren't as big a thing in my gaming life so must
admit to not thinking of them up front.
> Historically battles are not won or lost by the commanding
This may again be down to personal perception of the game and my own biases,
but I have never thought of a card being when the action was started but when
it was completed or effective. So to me Piquet does capture poor intelligence,
the card took ages to turn up and that reflects poor intelligence or courier
getting delayed or phone lines cut or whatever best fits the situation. But
that could be the story teller in me coming through;)
> Just setting up the game provides a
That's where the dereaded stratgem cards come into play... and you thought
that flank was safe... or the river impassable... or the weather fine all
day... or;)
> To truly generate "historical" results, the key factor is to
While not quite to the "its happening in another room" level that you seem to
be referring to here, I have seen Piquet capture many facets of what you're
after.
> For those reasons I prefer games to have some degree of
As a mentioned above there is some of this already in Piquet, though maybe not
to the magnitude or as transparently as you're after.
Cheers
G'day,
> iii) Fire on Enemy in Open
Ok dumb question maybe, but why only in the open?
Cheers
> > iii) Fire on Enemy in Open
Apparently one of the key things squad leaders do is point and say
"shoot!" If your un-commanded squad doesn't have anyone carrying out
this function, I'm assuming that either they don't fire (following the "if we
don't bother them, maybe they won't bother us" approach) or their fire is
ineffectual.
By the way, the mechanics of the "do they follow your order or not" roll is
being left as an exercise for the student.
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
True, but I think it's historically true that aggressive (not stupid or bull
headed) commanders are generally more sucessful than passive ones (especially
at the lower command levels).
> Historically battles are not won or lost by the
I think this is exactly what PK is trying to convey; despite a nice map with
pretty units all over it, your intelligence about your units (let alone the
enemy's) is always inaccurate. Also, I think the initiative system less
reflects "Commander Initiative" than the overall initiative of friendly
forces.
> To truly generate "historical" results, the key
I've played a few games like this at Havoc in Boston, what a blast!
> For those reasons I prefer games to have some degree
PK does allow op fire (assuming you've stored reaction pips).
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 21:31:27 -0400, Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net>
wrote:
> > > iii) Fire on Enemy in Open
Excuse? This is not true for decent troops. I have heard a story about one of
the guys here who they keep joking needs his RPG qualification badge. Seems he
not only nailed an RPG team entire before anyone else knew they were there,
but as he was a vehicle driver and armed with a 9mm pistol, he resorted to
using an RPG the unit had found lying on the side of the road.
The idea that soldiers will not fire without orders is an artifact of SLA
Marshall's Men Against Fire and is countered by decent training. Which none of
the major powers in WWII had time for before shoving riflemen into the line.
I said:
> > Apparently one of the key things squad leaders do is point and say
JohnA said:
> Excuse? This is not true for decent troops. [snip]
a) I was thinking of Col Grossman's book _On Killing_
b) we need to allow for troops who aren't decently trained--IF or PAU
militia, for instance.
> On Tuesday 28 September 2004 08:50 pm, Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
Not IMO. At least not a good wargame. A good wargame will let you use
semi-realistic tactics within the framework of the rules in order to
stack the probabilities of the dice in your favor. Even with an entire game
being plagued with bad dice, the players should be able to say that the player
with the bad dice did well even with the cursed polyhedra.
The rest about PK I opted to snip. I've never played it.
> On 28 Sep 2004 at 20:26, The GZG Digest wrote:
> From: "B Lin" <lin@rxkinetix.com>
This is an issue with Piquet and the reason for the optional initiative rules.
It's a major pain playing a game of Piquet for the first time and
getting stomped by bad rolls. On the other hand this doesn't happen all that
often, and if you play often enough the odd time it happens isn't too big a
deal.
> The problem with house-mods and the huge variety of them is that when
I definitely agree with you on this point. It's one of the reasons I've pushed
several times (with somewhat limited success) for official fixes to the
problems in SG2. Without a common set of rules you end up with people playing
radically different games under the same name.
> Historically battles are not won or lost by the commanding general's
<<snippage>>
> These errors occurred, not because the general was slow in giving the
My area of expertise is the American Civil War, and I take exception to this.
Yes, knowledge of the battle conditions was a major factor in most
(if not all) battles of the ACW. Command initiative was _the_ deciding
factor in many of the major battles of the ACW. Actually, the initiative
of the _sub-commanders_ were the deciding factors in many of the major
battles.
A good example is Chancellorsville. Hooker told Howard to watch his right
flank, but Howard did not take the appropriate measures. Hooker didn't know
that Jackson was planning to assault his flank, but it was a
definite possibility. Hooker issued the appropriate orders, but his sub-
commander ignored them. Hooker went a step further. He issued orders for
Reynold's corps to move up beside Howard the night before, at about the same
time Jackson and Lee were devising their plan. For some reason that
was never discovered, it took the dispatch rider 3 hours to travel 5 miles.
Reynolds got the order just before sunrise. By the time his men were moving,
the sun was up and the Confederates on Marye's Heights could bombard the
bridge across the Rappahannock. This delayed Reynolds by a couple more hours.
As a result, Jackson rolled up the Eleventh Corps while Reynolds was en route.
Hooker told Sedgwick to march from Fredericksburg to Lee's rear as fast as
possible, but gave Sedgwick too much discretion in his orders. Instead of
Sedgwick's corps hitting Lee in the rear on the third day of the battle,
Sedgwick struck a day later, when a groggy Hooker had already moved the army
across the Rappahannock. (There are several other examples in this battle, but
you get the idea.)
Another example is Gettysburg, where Lee wanted Ewell to attack Cemetery
Hill on July 1, but Ewell didn't (claiming his troops were too tired). On July
2 he pushed Longstreet into attacking the Union left flank, but Longstreet was
slow to respond. On July 3, Lee wanted Ewell to demonstrate against the Union
right while Longstreet's Assault (better, but less accurately, known as
Pickett's Charge) went on in the centre, but Ewell attacked too soon.
In each of these cases, the correct order was issued (though you could debate
the effect Ewell would have had on July 1 at Gettysburg) but the battle was
lost due to the time it took the order to be received, or due
to the lack of initiative on the part of the sub-commanders.
One thing I really like about Piquet is that it takes away some of the
player's abilities of co-ordination offered to him by the God's Eye View
and because the player is not actually on the battlefield. Incompetent
commanders and a clumsy command structure can be more easily simulated in
Piquet than in most other games. I'm on the (mostly silent) playtest list
for the Piquet naval game. In the Russo-Japanese War, at the battle of
the Yellow Sea, one of the Russian ships (I think it was the Petropavlovsk,
but I have a bad memory for Russian ship names) was struck in the bridge and
had a rudder jam. Unfortunately, it was also leading a
column at the time. It slipped into a turn, with the ships immediately behind
it following along. This was the turning point of the battle. This is
something very, very few naval wargames simulate. In almost every case a
player would know enough to ignore the lead ship. Piquet offers the
possibility of this situation happening.
Piquet is not for everyone, as mentioned before. I don't find it better than
other games, just different. When I play it, I play it for those differences.
---
On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 05:41:39 -0400, Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net>
wrote:
> I said:
> a) I was thinking of Col Grossman's book _On Killing_
Grossman overstates and oversimplifies the issue. Motivating people to kill is
easy and the Army has been doing it for years. And we make jokes about it
afterwards.:)
> b) we need to allow for troops who aren't decently trained--IF or PAU
The other issue is that people hesitate to kill people. But the definition of
'people' varies. To a Japanese, anyone not Japanese is not People, hence Rape
of Nanking, torture and rape of Korean women, beheading of Allied POWs, etc.
To a Nazi, Jews are not people so it's OK to shove them in gas chambers.
To the average sub-Saharan African, people from other tribes are not
people, so chopping a few thousand of them up with machetes is no big deal.
Grossman is, from what I recall, dealing mostly with 'Mericans and
extrapolates to the rest of the world.
In short, I find it highly unlikely that any but the worst-trained
levies are going to sit and chill with good targets in front of them. Besides
which, motivating people to pull triggers is NCO business at
the fireteam/squad level, and not appropriate subject matter for a
wargame at the platoon/company level.
> From: John Atkinson
Okay, so what would you say are appropriate "uncommanded" actions? Perhaps
separated into QD levels--for instance, being QD8 Marines might allow
"assault through ambush" as a battle drill, but QD4 Heathen Mob would be
limited to "flee".
The other thing I want to think about taking into account is what someone,
probably Dupuy, called "forced posture changes"...eg if you're moving forward
and take effective fire, you have a chance of being stopped. Or if you see an
enemy fleeing, you have a chance of moving to Pursuit posture, even if your CO
wants you to stay put.
On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:46:36 -0400, laserlight@quixnet.net
> <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
Perhaps
> separated into QD levels--for instance, being QD8 Marines might allow
A lot of it depends on the initial OPORD. Given a clear idea of what the
headquarters one or two levels up really wants to accomplish in a mission,
junior leadership can take an amazing amount of initiative. Or they can sit
and freeze.
But give them no clear idea what they are supposed to accomplish, and most of
them will sit in one spot and defend that spot until it gets too hot. And not
much more.
Mobs are an interesting case--they tend to reinforce each other's
attitudes so that either their morale is really, really good, or really,
really bad.
> The other thing I want to think about taking into account is what
Or if
> you see an enemy fleeing, you have a chance of moving to Pursuit
Hard to model, but worth trying.
Allan, Some of your examples support the points of where Piquet fails in the
initative department:
1) Howard was a known negative factor and Hooker attempted to compensate by
moving Reynolds to cover the flank, in Piquet you have no idea which units you
are going to be able to move until you get some initative points to do
something. You can not compensate for a known break in the command, because
there is no fore knowledge of the weak points in your command structure. When
you do send orders to any unit, they will
execute your orders, not 1-3 turns from now, but this turn.
2) Hooker made a rapid decision to reinforce Howard's flank - the
decision was made and the orders issued. But Reynolds did not receive the
appropriate information (orders) until it was too late. Again, the decision
for action was made quickly, but the reception of those orders lagged. I'm
sure Reynolds did not sit on the orders for hours after receiving them, but
executed as soon as was possible.
3) Hooker ordered Sedgwick to take Lee in the rear, again he made the decision
quickly but as you pointed out, he did not emphasize speed enough and Sedgwick
was a day late. If Sedgwick had understood Hooker's
emphasis, perhaps he might have moved faster - again it is an issue of
complete information in a timely manner.
There is a difference between a known problem and a known possibility of a
problem. For instance a rifle that jams 10% of the time in a firefight and
taking a couple of minutes to unjam is different than having 10% of your
rifles out of action due to manufacturing problems. In the first case, you
might have 100 rifles with the overall effect being that you get 90% of rated
firepower, in the second case you field 90 rifles out of a possible 100 so you
get 90% rated firepower. It appears the same, until you are the guy at the
sharp end of the stick. Would you have more confidence in a firearm that jams
10% of the time or one that jams rarely? If you know 10% of your rifles are
sidelined, you
can take steps to alleviate or bypass the problem - perhaps of the 10
sidelined you can scrounge enough parts to make a few more work, perhaps
knowing that 10% of rifles orderded are defective so you increase your order
by 10% to compensate. If the rifles just jam randomly, then your! guys are
just screwed in a firefight they have to take their chances.
So at a company level it appears that there is no difference - whether
the problem is random statistical chance or a delineated subset of the whole,
but in practice it makes a world of difference. Piquet's initiative is another
example. It generates results similar to historical results, but how it does
it doesn't necessarily correlate with how those results were achieved in the
historical example. In Piquet, a unit may sit and do nothing because you don't
have enough action points, which is very different than a unit that doesn't
move because it never received its orders or it's commander is ignoring
orders. In Piquet, if you get initative points, you can move any unit you want
to. In historical battles, you have stubborn commanders who will subvert,
delay or plain ignore your orders and will not move under any circumstances or
will move in a manner contrary to your orders.
Ideally an initative system would be moot, because the individiual unit
actions will generate "initiative". If you give the orders and they are all
carried out, then you have the "initative". If you give orders and they aren't
carried out, then you don't have the initiative. Factors such as communication
speed and clarity should also play a role in determining those effects.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
From: "B Lin"
> In historical battles, you have stubborn commanders who will subvert,
That's why in my half-baked proposal, I suggested that you designate
all your orders for the turn first; only then do you get to see whether your
subordinates act or not.
I don't have any ideas yet on how to model "Your subordinate unit is not where
you think it is" or "moves in a direction you didn't intend." Maybe if you
blow your activate roll badly enough, your unit moves in a random direction.
"The most dangerous thing is a 2nd lieutenant with a map..."
From: "Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net>
> That's why in my half-baked proposal, I suggested that you designate
> I don't have any ideas yet on how to model "Your subordinate unit is
Well, from the sounds of it, this is where the leadership quality things that
are already there in DS2 (and, I presume, SG2, haven't played it) perhaps need
to have a greater effect than they already do. At the moment, it seems to
primarily just affect how well they can really troops and whether or not they
can keep them in the line of fire when the excrement strikes the rotating
blades. Perhaps, in a system like Piquet (or if someone wanted to adapt it for
DS3), it needs to have a greater effect.
For instance, have a set of orders where you write out what you want your
units to do. You might even have queue for the orders you give them on
different turns. Then you have a table that decides how well your units obey
your orders on each turn, based on the leadership ratings of your
sub-commanders, the effectiveness of your communications based on
technology
and/or how far away they are from the main group, etc. Good leaders
follow their orders and are ready to take initiative based on how the
situation develops, bad leaders are going to either follow them slowly or make
contrary decisions on their own and _won't_ take initiative or adapt to
adverse situations well.
This would possibly not only account for the way different units are going
to behave based on how good their sub-commanders are, but would also
allow the overall force commander to know where the weak links in the chain of
command are and try to account for them.
E
I think it's interesting that we all accept random die rolls coupled with
modifiers as a good way to resolve fire combat and morale, but many of us balk
at using the same method to simulate command and control issues.
It's understood that a 30% chance of getting a "hit" on an enemy unit doesn't
mean your unit only shoots a single round and that round only has a 30% chance
of hitting, but rather the cumulative effect of your unit's fire has a 30%
chance of effecting the enemy.
So, the single die roll is not literally the action, but rather is combined
with modifiers to provide a representation of the overall effect of many
actions, decisions, and conditions.
Granted, in PK the modifiers are a bit unorthodox (# of "infantry move in
open" cards... vs. the standard
+1 to hit at close range), but I think the principle
is the same. Modifiers + randomness simulate reality
in a fairly predictable but not guaranteed way. (No one in their right mind is
going to charge an SD with a lone DD, but how many times have we all rolled
nothing but 1's with the SD and the DD's gotten clean away?)
-Adrian
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> Allan,
=== message truncated ===
> Grossman is, from what I recall, dealing mostly with 'Mericans and
Not really, while a great many of the references he cites are American,
there's roughly an equal amount that are addressing non-Merkins. (The
balance admittedly being to Merkin accounts and studies)
He's also looking a much more than what we're talking about here. For that,
you need to pick up _The psychology of conflict and combat_ by Ben
Shalit, a former Israeli military psychologist, whom Grossman references a
number of
times. Grossmen also looks at archeo-historical data as well, with
interesting results.
In any case, Grossman is primarily addressing the development of PTSD -
and makes some excellent points in his 'Grossman Equation' where he looks at
the 'chances' for a person to make a specific, directed and personal kill.
> In short, I find it highly unlikely that any but the worst-trained
Besides which, motivating people to pull triggers is NCO business at
the fireteam/squad level, and not appropriate subject matter for a
wargame at the platoon/company level.<<
Probably one of the best points of this discussion.
Having never played Piquet, I want to pose some questions based on the
examples provided. Again, I'm only asking because I have not seen the rules,
so I'm not sure as to how they really work...
--On Wednesday, September 29, 2004 4:12 PM -0600 B Lin
<lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> Allan,
Ok, but how quickly were those orders actually acted upon? I know you are
saying, "Not 1-3 turns from now", but what other factors may have
delayed the decision, or the execution, which are not explicitly factored into
the piquet system, but are *reflected* in the random allowable actions system?
> 2) Hooker made a rapid decision to reinforce Howard's flank - the
Right. As soon as was possible. What caused the delays in real life? Are those
*even possible* in the game system, or are they again, represented by *not
getting right draw on the cards*? So, Hooker made a rapid decision
(player wants to reinforce Howards' flank). The orders are issued, but
Reynolds did not receive the (orders) until it was too late. What caused the
delay IN GAME? Likely bad card draws that did not allow the player to use the
reinforcements when the player decided that they were needed.
Sounds this actually works to me.
You may not be interparerting the meaning of the cards as the author of the
game intended.:)
> 3) Hooker ordered Sedgwick to take Lee in the rear, again he made the
And so, the "lack of appropriate emphasis", again - something that the
GAMER HAS NO CONTROL OVER between his on-table commanders because he is
not
two human beings passing a note via an ADC to each other - results in a
loss of appropriate action - which IN THE GAME is the result of bad card
draws or bad initiative rolls. Again, the game mechanics may very well
represent exactly what happened in history, without a detailed explanation
of the mechanics of the event, focusing on the outcome - that the action
did not happen when Hooker wanted it to.
> So at a company level it appears that there is no difference - whether
Except that you don't *know* that. And that's the point. The game mechanic is
that the unit *does not act*. The reality *may be* that the
unit did not receive the orders in time (ADC got lost, got shot, whatever) or
that the orders were ignored or misinterperated. The author of the game chose
to abstract the human elements of fog of war and mistakes of execution into a
system which models the overall effects
without telling you which specific events caused the effect. Do you, as a Corp
commander, really *care* about whether the ADCs screwed up, the brigade
commander screwed up, or you screwed up by writing ambiguous orders? Or in the
heat of battle is all that matters the fact that they
were NOT executed as you wanted/expected them to be? I guess is comes
down to the level of specific detail you want to represent in the game. "I
rolled a 12. Shit, my ADC got shot off of his horse!" "I rolled a 6, the idiot
Brigade commander didn't understand the orders!" Or, is "I rolled a 10 and you
rolled a 14. You get 4 actions and I get none" sufficient to
show the EFFECT of the group of actual events that caused the game event? I'm
not really arguing for or against, just presenting a different possible
viewpoint.:)
> In Piquet, if
Ok, so "contrary to your orders" doesn't happen. Or does it? Let's say
that you have two brigades. And you really want one to take a specific action,
but you need a specific card draw to allow it (assuming I understand what I've
heard of the system correctly). You have the second brigade, who you really
just want to have hold ground. You win the initiative and get a card draw for
your allowable actions that does NOT meet your requirements for the first
Brigade, but does allow you an action for the second, though it's not your
*optimal choice*. As a game option, you choose to use the initiative points
you have to do something with the second brigade. Could it be interprated as,
"The commander of the first
brigade was a stubborn clod who ignored your orders, and the commander of the
second brigade ignored your orders and advanced when you wanted him to hold"?
Sounds in an after battle write up, this could well be the interpretation
applied.
> Ideally an initiative system would be moot, because the individiual
And I've seen game systems where the *mechanic* is done this way. As long as
your orders and execution continue to achieve your objectives (individual unit
objectives) you retain the initiative and continue to act. As soon as your
opponent stops your actions, or one of your actions fails to achieve a
specific outcome, initiative switches to the other player. My preference would
be for a system as I've just described, but I don't see
that my *preference* invalidates the system chosen in piquet. It's simply a
different flavor of tool to achieve the same end.
JohnA said:
> A lot of it depends on the initial OPORD. Given a clear idea of
Okay, let's break it down. A squad which does not receive/understand
orders might move incorrectly (not move, move when they shouldn't, or move in
a wrong direction). Should it also affect their fire?
On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 23:45:27 -0400, Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net>
wrote:
> Okay, let's break it down. A squad which does not receive/understand
Too situational too call. In general, no. It might make them break contact
when they should stay and fight, but usually people don't let other people
shoot at them without a response.
An initiative system I've seen recently that I liked was in Wargods of
Aegyptus (fantasy wargame). You decide general orders for all your units
(stick face down counters next to each unit, with instructions such as 'move
forward', 'charge', 'shoot') then roll initiative.
The winner gets 1-3 activations before the other side do
(depending on how well they won), then after that activations alternate. When
you choose to activate a unit, you can choose *any* unit, either one of yours
or one of your opponents. An activated unit obeys the orders it was given
(assuming no failed morale checks etc), but is free to interpret them as it
will (a 'move forward' doesn't specify how far forward, the unit can choose to
move 1" or 6" for instance, as long as it moves forward).
I said:
> Okay, let's break it down. A squad which does not receive/understand
JohnA said:
> Too situational too call. In general, no. It might make them break
My original proposal was that an uncommanded squad could *return* fire, but
couldn't *start* a firefight (unless their target was within RB3 in the open).
> On 29 Sep 2004 at 17:09, The GZG Digest wrote:
> From: "B Lin" <lin@rxkinetix.com>
You don't know _when_ those units will be able to move, but you do know
that once a "move" card comes up you can move the units you want to move. The
question here is "when".
> You can not compensate for a known break in the command, because there
Hooker compensated for a known break in command by issuing orders to Reynolds
and to Howard. He expected them to be carried out quickly, but they were not.
So in real life Hooker issued the orders immediately but didn't know when they
would be carried out. In Piquet you don't know when you can issue the orders,
but they will be carried out as soon as you are allowed to issue them.
I admit that there is a subtle difference here, one that usually requires
written orders and mechanisms for slowing down those orders to play properly
on the game table. I don't like written orders games. Piquet, to my mind,
still does a suitable job (for me, anyway) of representing this
disconnect between when I want the orders to be resolved and when they are
actually resolved.
> Piquet's initiative is another example. It generates results similar
I guess this is where our main point of contention lies. I'm more interested
in whether or not Piquet comes up with results similar to history. I can
always explain it away later, if I feel the need to justify the results. I
don't need them to come up with those results exactly as they did in real
life.
For one thing, I _know_ how Chancellorsville worked out. I know that
discretionary orders to Sedgwick are not a good idea, so I would be working
with information unknown to Hooker (Sedgwick was raised to corps
command by Hooker, and Chancellorsville was his first battle as commander of
Sixth Corps). If the rules are too accurate, I can use my knowledge of the
battle to come up with ahistoric results. In Piquet I often have to develop
battle plans around uncertainties, the same uncertainties that the historical
commanders had to deal with. Due to the random nature of the initiative system
I will be unable to predict exactly what will happen, just like Hooker
couldn't predict the events that happened to him at Chancellorsville.
---
> In message <415BD27A.16880.55E12B@localhost>, "Allan Goodall" writes:
In war, sometimes troops don't move as fast as they should (too cautious,
didn't receive orders promptly, too busy looting, etc...). Sometimes, they
move faster than they usually do. Piquet simply models this without bothering
with an explanation. Many people on the Yahoo group seem to have as much fun
writing battle reports creatively explaining *why* events happened or didn't
happen as they do playing the game itself.
In message <F4783C94B5D9F1479D984ABC31C2643554DF5A@rxgen2s1.rxkinetix.com>, "B
> Lin" writes:
As I stated, this is really not a valid criticism as it is so easy to work
around if you don't like it. You can play where both sides alternate with
equal points, and still have an interesting game due to the card decks. If
you're going that far, though, you probably have irreconcilable issues with
Piquet's design philosophy and, rather than trying to make it more
deterministic, should just play something more your tastes. At a certain
point, it just comes down to what you enjoy.
> You can play where both sides alternate with equal points,
One idea I had with Battle Masters, which has a similar card deck, was to
separate each side's cards, drawing from each partial deck in turn. (Note: if
this already came up in the discussion, my apologies.)
As some of the cards included 'All x Units Move' or even 'All Units Move',
which, unless discarded, can still cause massive inequalities, but mostly it's
far less often that one can move many units. Seldom are one's next few moves
negated by units being wiped out or crippled before their turn comes up.
Add some reaction/overwatch moves, and it would smooth out the see-saw
nature. Given improvements in C3, that makes sense.
But, would it still be Piquet?
On another question: overwatch, in most games I've seen, is fairly
restrictive. Would folks prefer it restricted rather than simple a held
action?
BTW, don't be afraid to point out when I've made a dumb vacc-head
question.
The_Beast
> On another question: overwatch, in most games I've seen, is fairly
I'd define OW as "a Fire action against a target in the OWer's front arc, can
be used at any time, including during another unit's move". I wouldn't allow a
Held Action to interrupt someone else's move, I don't think.