"Luck & Generalship" Topic

In a good wargame, victory should be due how much to good generalship and how much to good luck?

50% generalship/50% luck?

100% Generalship.

Messengers get lost or captured, orders are misunderstood,local commanders disobey orders (only sometimes a good thing) generals have rivalries or hate each other, etc. I think luck is a big deal.

a good general can make his own luck

but the best laid plans…

YouTube link

Napoleon liked a 'lucky' general

If both sides are using the same dice they should have the same type of luck.

100% luck.

Napoleon always asked was a general was lucky, but he didn't mean blind chance, he meant did he make his own luck by being aware of the battles progress have a plan but essentially being ready to scrap any or all of it to take advantage of an enemy mistake

Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid.

From John Dewey's Human Nature and Conduct, 1922.

Interesting
70:20:10 tactics to luck to forgetfulness. If such things can be measured. To stop me losing my orders and succumbing to bad luck I always wrap my orders around a bunch of cigars. i also forbid my sub commanders from taking battle plans into action. Always works

martin

0% generalship. I have yet to see a tabletop wargame where a player is faced with a majority of the decision space the represented generals. Very few training wargames (military or otherwise) provide that decision space, either.

Victory should be 100% determined by outplaying your opponent. Variability in the battlespace is simply an additional challenge for all sides to address.

80%:20% generalship to good luck, respectively.

Perhaps 90%:10% in some cases.

Clause with observed that war most closely resembles a game of cards. So mostly skill, a little luck.

link

70% skill, 30% luck.

When I win It is 100% luck.

When I lose It must be my poor generalship!

It's a bit meaningless to answer this question unless you define what "luck" is.

Favourable die rolls? Your opponent making a less-than-optimal (some might say stupid) move? A circumstance neither one could have predicted before the game, but which suddenly has an important effect that goes one way or the other?

In some games, once initial deployment is over, the game more or less runs itself. Players only roll dice and make a minor adjustment here or there. Are those games based on luck (the progression of the game mostly determined by dice), or skill (initial deployment)? But even the initial deployment might be due to luck because of the rock/paper/scissors syndrome.

Even if you can define luck, then how would you quantify it relative to generalship?
So, 10/90 or 90/10 are both valid answers … ;-)

I'd rather be lucky than good.

You sometimes make your own luck.

Percentage? Different every time.

Its never a 100% generalship because in a game situation we use dice. Dice are the luck factor. I have had the drop on many units and it didn't matter because I rolled badly.

Almost entirely luck, just as in real battles. This assumes a parity of forces on the table and both "generals" making an honest effort to win.

Before giving an order, a commander weighs up the situation and evaluates alternative courses of action against whatever his success criteria are. A major part of that process is evaluating risks and possible outcomes, not just of the final result but of the sub-objectives along the way.

A commander will rarely have perfect intelligence, so he has to be ready to react to at a moments notice. If the plan gets hung up, he needs to be able to react – the old coup d'oeil ability.

Luck is not even considered – command is about continual assessment and reaction to a fluid situation. Good commanders react appropriately, bad commanders panic, dither, rush in, take too long to make decisions etc.

A good commander won't get into a risky situation where luck is required, unless the situation warrants it. He will have a contingency for bad luck, such as a reserve or an alternative plan.

An example would be D-Day where some landing forces missed their beaches by a long way. It wasn't bad luck but poor execution. The command reaction was to assess the situation and decide what to do.

If bad luck is the reason for losing, usually someone has made a mistake.

Good generalship can be sabotaged by the unknown. A general is only as good as his intel. That said, on the gaming table the unknown is always the outcome of total dice rolls. I've had perfectly sound tactics thrown back in my face too many times to tell, by crappy dice rolls….

Good generalship can be sabotaged by the unknown.

I think it's more a good campaign or mission plan can be sabotaged by the unknown. Good leadership, strategy, operations, and tactical control handle the change. Poor leadership, strategy, operations, and tactical control can't handle the change. I think that is the practical distinction between "good" and "poor".

It's a bit like natural selection. Survival of the fittest. But there is no paragon ideal of the fittest. The current conditions and environment (which change in a partially, but not wholly predictable way) define what is the fittest.

As a strategist, you should always wargame with your staff (in my case for wargaming, that is the various voices in my head) "What happens if this goes south?" and "What do I do if this goes better than expected?"

I've seen many plans that started out with unexpectedly high momentum have that momentum drive the forces into overextended and risky positions.

No plan survives first contact with the enemy.