"Stop and Go" Topic
23 Posts
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Rick Don Burnette | 28 Jun 2016 12:57 p.m. PST |
I may be alone on this but doesnt it bother anyone that after issuing an order, however done, say for artillery fires, as one example amongst many, that with each new player turn, the player has to repeat the order, even if it is to do the same thing. Say the player successfully aquires the target area plaaces the fire template with the intention of a lengthy interdiction, to catch more enemy as they pass through. The same for movement. Why all the stop and go, especially where your unit is not impeded, spotted or has to decide on a route? Why reaquire a target that you have already aquired if targethasnt moved or changed in any way? Playing be it Command Decision or BoltAction or Team Yankee, I have to Stop wnd Go, reaquiring targets, reidduing movement orders even in situations where I shouldnt have to. Remember, the target or situation is unchanged, the firere has not been changed |
Extra Crispy | 28 Jun 2016 1:34 p.m. PST |
That's the nature of breaking seamless time up into neat turns and phases. After all, let's say you issue a march order to a unit to go from point A to point B. You still stop and go with movement. It moves 12" (or whatever_ each turn until it reaches B. Now if I had to roll to see if they follow the order or something, then yes, that would be odd. But AFAIK none of the rules you cite have that requirement. |
etotheipi | 28 Jun 2016 2:05 p.m. PST |
Extra Crispy is dead on with "Stop and Go" being an effect of slicing up time. As well as the above, the time slices give an opportunity to make tactical in situ adjustments to an operational objective. Go from point A to point B: – Move from point A directly toward point B – Look around and realize you want to swing wide now as opposed to moving shortest distance. |
Martin Rapier | 28 Jun 2016 11:02 p.m. PST |
Some rules (not many) do have continuous activity. This usually requires writing things down, which is unfashionable. The order chits in CD are supposed to represent the tactical decision cycle, however once you have located something you certainly don't need to require it every turn (unless it moved out of LOS). |
advocate | 28 Jun 2016 11:21 p.m. PST |
A few rules I have read or used have a mechanism to set units moving, and they continue each turn. As stated above, it's a function of having limited commands though it might be more widely applied. For WW2, look at Spearhead (divisional) and Crossfire (company level) for different approaches. Both, I realize now, by Arty Conliffe. |
(Phil Dutre) | 28 Jun 2016 11:45 p.m. PST |
You could also take a pure mechanistic view. Let's take artillerey. In the end, what matters, is the average amount of damage inflicted per turn. To get to that average, we chop the mechanics up in a series of die rolling procedures. Whether you call these roll-to-hit, acquire-target, order-rolls, activation-rolls, … is in a sense irrelevant, although it does add atmosphere. So, look at your order rolls or whatever as a mechanic to adjust the average damage inflicted, the average distance moved, … If you do not like the name that procedure is given, rename it to something else, or adjust other probabilities, e.g. the roll that determines the number of hits. E.g. Activate artillery each turn with 50% chance, and inflicting 4 points of damage, is equivalent to activate the artillery every turn, and inflict 2 points of damage. E.g. A unit moving with 50% chance each turn for 8cm, is equivalent to moving every turn for 4 cm. One mechanic can be more fun than the other. Too much discussions about wargames rules design are based on the name given to a specific rule, and the subsequent interpretations people give to that rule based on its name alone and try to link it to real-world-procedures; while in essence, you should just look at the results. The best-known example of this phenomenon are the endless debates about saving rolls. "I don't like saving rolls because once you're hit, you're hit." However, in a well designed ruleset those two (results, and naming) should fit together perfectly and match the intuitive understanding people have about how a battle was fought. |
(Phil Dutre) | 29 Jun 2016 2:02 a.m. PST |
But in essence, it is an interesting question. How do you model a continuous sequence of events with actions and reactions into discretized bits, each managed by an adversary, such that you somehow still get the feeling of that continuum? As we all know, real battles do not follow the IGO-UGO framework, nor does morale strictly come after melee which comes strictly after firing and after moving. Designing a good turn sequence is one possible answer; randomization of the turn sequence adds to the unpredictability, and hence tries to counteract some of the undesirable effects of a fixed turn sequence. At the end of day, playability of the proposed mechanics is perhaps the most important factor to consider. |
Dexter Ward | 29 Jun 2016 2:07 a.m. PST |
Variable Length Bound is the answer. If only someone could get it to work properly :-) George Jeffreys managed it, but only when he was running a game himself. Nobody else seems to have been able to make it work. |
Martin Rapier | 29 Jun 2016 2:41 a.m. PST |
Mode base systems work quite well too (like in TAC:WW2). The units mode determines its potential range of actions, and that mode persists until something external changes it (which may be new orders, enemy action or whatever). But you don't have to issue new orders every turn. |
David Brown | 29 Jun 2016 2:52 a.m. PST |
Phil, At the end of day, playability of the proposed mechanics is perhaps the most important factor to consider. Well said. It boils down to how best to manage a game and manage historical events within the game. A designer can come up with all sorts of mechanisms that represent reality or history far better but most break down when it comes to managing and controlling the actual game play, especially in multiple player games. E.G. IGO UGO works because players know exactly what to do in each phase, other systems that use individual unit (or whatever) initiative means players must remember whose done what within the sequence and when. This leads to situations where players need to mark everything as they go along or end up with the classic interjection "Have I moved this unit, I can't remember?" Hardly the fast paced historical game play most designers are after! Hence most rules stick with a solid, basic format that players first understand because of its familiarity and secondly can manage easily and effectively. DB |
Martin Rapier | 29 Jun 2016 4:36 a.m. PST |
Yes. IGOUGO has a simplicity which can't be matched. And as most warfare is action/reaction, it is also a pretty good simulation. |
etotheipi | 29 Jun 2016 7:50 a.m. PST |
E.g. Activate artillery each turn with 50% chance, and inflicting 4 points of damage, is equivalent to activate the artillery every turn, and inflict 2 points of damage. E.g. A unit moving with 50% chance each turn for 8cm, is equivalent to moving every turn for 4 cm. In the average they are the same. Nobody lives in the average. If you're running away from a superior force the sequence 8,0,0,0,8,8 is very different from 2,2,2,2,2,2, especially if your enemy catches up and kills you by turn 3 in the latter case. Whether you call these roll-to-hit, acquire-target, order-rolls, activation-rolls, … is in a sense irrelevant, although it does add atmosphere. The nomenclature is irrelevant, but the meaning behind it isn't unless nothing in your game interacts with anything else. For example, cover may affect "to hit" in one system, but not "damage". In that same system a spread out formation might not affect "to hit", but reduce "damage". For the reason describe above, doing this in the aggregate is not the same thing from the discrete distribution standpoint, even if the arithmetic average ends up the same. Also, having the different components of the overall mechanism adds to playability, as it correlated change, orders, and outcome in the mind of the player. |
(Phil Dutre) | 29 Jun 2016 8:32 a.m. PST |
In the average they are the same. Nobody lives in the average. If you're running away from a superior force the sequence 8,0,0,0,8,8 is very different from 2,2,2,2,2,2, especially if your enemy catches up and kills you by turn 3 in the latter case. I was talking about expected value, of course. If you take variance into account, you can have different results when looking at a small number of individual turns. In the end, it depends what game mechanic you prefer. I prefer higher variability (8, 0 , 0, 8 , 8), because it leads to more fun and excitement during gameplay, but I can see some people prefer predictiveness (2,2,2,2,…). But it remains a game mechanic, it is hard to link either system to "real battlefield" effects, unless you know what the actual variance is of artillery bombardments and want to model that in your game. For example, cover may affect "to hit" in one system, but not "damage". In that same system a spread out formation might not affect "to hit", but reduce "damage". But if the end result is the same, does it really matter (mathematically), whether a certain bonus or penalty is applied to the to-hit roll or the damage roll? It might form a more logical connection in the mind of the player, such it makes "more sense", but that doesn't make it inherently true or false. Just easier to wrap your head around, perhaps :-). So, to come back to the OP, if the rules require a repetition of orders every turn, and that seems highly illogical, either: - rename the rule such that the new name is more in line with what you think that rule is modeling; - ditch the rule and adjust some other probabilistic effects accordingly to keep the same overall effect. We have a saying in our gaming group "Insert your own favourite explanation", meaning that if you're wondering what a specific rule is supposed to represent, use some explanation you are happy with and use that to make up your mental image of the rule in question. |
(Phil Dutre) | 29 Jun 2016 8:47 a.m. PST |
What I do agree with, is that changing the variance of possible outcomes, can slightly change the tactics being used. E.g. in our ACW house rules, we once had a rule that a unit needs a turn reloading before it can fire again. Thus, you could fire every other turn. We got tired of that (bookkeeping …), and decided that units could fire every turn, without reloading. Of course, since units could now fire at twice the rate, we reduced the firing effects by half. Nevertheless, this led to subtle changes in gameplay. If you know you can fire now, but not next turn, you become more aware of when to fire, and where your unit is positioned during the turn it cannot fire. If you know you can fire every turn, that aspect becomes less important. So yes, playing around with the variance of probabilistic effects does change tactics, but in the end it comes down to what you like best as a game. |
etotheipi | 29 Jun 2016 11:38 a.m. PST |
But if the end result is the same, does it really matter (mathematically), whether a certain bonus or penalty is applied to the to-hit roll or the damage roll? For the same reasons of variability that you discussed above, it does make a difference. If I take .5 Ph, d8 damage and reduce the Ph to .25 I can still inflict 8 points of damage in one turn. If I reduce the damage to d4, then I cannot. If your resources (whatever the damage points count against) are (nearly) perfectly elastic, then it plays out like the aggregate. If you are, say protecting a choke point like a bridge or a doorway, the difference between I can stop them as they advance and I have to let certain numbers of enemy through for some certain number of turns is a big difference. but that doesn't make it inherently true or false. Just easier to wrap your head around, perhaps :-) Which I believe, is you whole point about making things playable. it is hard to link either system to "real battlefield" effects, unless you know what the actual variance is of artillery bombardments and want to model that in your game. As you say above, it is easy to link them together when they form a consistent model. Realism is not required for representation. - ditch the rule and adjust some other probabilistic effects accordingly to keep the same overall effect. The interaction mechanics are inherently linked to the turn sequencing, as you describe in your ACW example. The fact that you don't care about a dynamic doesn't mean you didn't change it. In fact, if you liked a different mechanic better, it is exactly because it did make a difference. My point is that you can either actually know what you're doing when changing rules or just randomly change and hope things get better. |
Rick Don Burnette | 30 Jun 2016 12:08 a.m. PST |
I am reminded of a CD game, one that had both Chadwick and Radey as umpires, where because of Stp and Go, aSoviet cavalry attack against the German rear failed. The Sovs move brought them short and the Gremans were able, following the CD order and command rules, face off against the cav. I saw the solution to this years ago in Vive L Emperuer, using a proximity reaction roll, wuich CD never adopted This is just one example of reinvsnting the wheel as solutions to all the assorted gamey Stop and Go do exist withoutoss of eaze of play. It is too bad that recent designers have little access to theze solutions |
Ottoathome | 30 Jun 2016 5:53 a.m. PST |
I achieved a solution to this years ago by essentially adapting Jack Scruby's old "Long Move" to the game. The philosophy behind it is simple. If time in the game is no longer continues and regular then all the objections disappear. Also, when the turn represents NOMINALLY a long period of time, then you simply accept that within that time, say an hour or two of a day, all sorts of movements and combats and long periods of silence can occur. Finally, when you radically simplify the game actions you don't care who does what to whom first. It seems to me that all these esoteric systems of activation and phasing are simply a way to get in your licks first before the other guy does, and the other guy of course wants the same thing. Further, everyone wants to continue to limit movement to "itty-bitty baby steps" so that they have a long warning time that something is happeneing, and the game results to one of pure gamesmanship with units on either side doing an intricate "do-se-do" which only results in nothing happening. In my rules there are five phases. The guy with initiative moves, the guy without it thenmoves. There is combat where both sides engage in it completely simultaneously by the placing of combat results cards, then simultaneous resolution of results, finally rally. The key though is the initiative. A person without initiative can move infantry and wagons one measure. Cavalry and horse artillery two. A player with initiative can move his troops as far as his little old heart desires, from one corner of the field to the other, off the board and from off the board back onto the field from any edge he desires if allowed in the scenario. Both sides must stop and end their movement when they come within range of an enemy zone of control, or rough or very rough terrain. The combat results cards can be tremendously destructive or ineffectual, depending on their face, but you get a chance to roll them off. The results are either immediate (like retreats or eliminated or officer casualty, or persistant like disorganized, broken, shaken, etc. Immediate results take effect immediately, and persistent effects remain on the unit and can be removed in a rally phase. Movement is of THREE types or schema, individual unit, by a wing or a command, and finally byReflection. The net effect of this is players become very conscious of dominant terrain, always look to rest their units on secure terrain, or have a barrier between them and the enemy or cover weak spots wish skirmishers and pickets. The other point is that everything happens at once. Decisions can be made by both sides and no one sits around waiting for his turn to come. The combat results cards can be placed as desired and sometimes 18 to twenty six cards may land on one unit, or a single one. That single one might be an eliminated card, which if is not rolled off will wipe out the unit. On the other hand, if on good terrain and well supported with officers the guy with the twenty-six may roll off all of them but a few. The combat results also have good results in addition to bad. For example, there are cards like "heroic rally" which remove all lingering effects cards, and may actually IMPROVE a unit. Other cards may impose a big retreat but the ENEMY gets to determine how he retreates. |
McLaddie | 30 Jun 2016 11:23 a.m. PST |
I may be alone on this but doesn't it bother anyone that after issuing an order, however done, say for artillery fires, as one example amongst many, that with each new player turn, the player has to repeat the order, even if it is to do the same thing. Time, or the way game actions are monitored is really the backbone of any game or simulation design. Time is simply how things are ordered so everything doesn't happen at once, but what happens first, second or third. However, placing an order for an artillery or any other unit each turn doesn't make much sense if you are attempting to replicate the decision-making cycle of some command level. The artillery commander can make that decision at any time. A higher level commander could, but certainly wouldn't have to. It is requiring micro-managing. I can only imagine the design has attempted to create simultaneous play. Johnny Reb has this mechanism, where the player [supposedly a division or Corps commander] is laying out commands every turn for regiments and brigades. As Phil D. points out, it is rather illogical. The clash between representing battlefield reality and an easily understood game mechanism often comes down to the designer beginning with misconceptions about how command and command cycles work. Too much discussions about wargames rules design are based on the name given to a specific rule, and the subsequent interpretations people give to that rule based on its name alone and try to link it to real-world-procedures; while in essence, you should just look at the results. I agree with Phil, though looking at the results still faces the same problems with a specific rule: Interpretation. However, in a well designed ruleset those two (results, and naming) should fit together perfectly and match the intuitive understanding people have about how a battle was fought. And there is the other fly in the mechanics. How do you design for 'intuitive understanding' of what will be a wide variation in that understanding? Players shouldn't have to intuit or interpret anything about someone else's design. The designer has already done the interpretations in creating the game. He is the one who should be providing the explanations of what those abstract mechanics represent. As Dave B. says: It boils down to how best to manage a game and manage historical events within the game. The balance has to be between playability and representation IF both are goals for the game design. If playability is 'the most important consideration' then the history being represented is likely to be skewed, and the same goes for any game that makes historical representation the ultimate goal. The game will likely be less 'playable.' And obviously, with two equally important objectives, the job is more difficult. |
Last Hussar | 03 Jul 2016 2:12 a.m. PST |
It annoys me too in higher level games – "Advance to that hill" – "Ok, we got part way- now what do you want me to do?" – "Keep on advancing" – "Got slowed up, only did half the usual distance in the last 10 minutes, still short of it. Now what do you want me to do?" I've got no problem with the move being variable – stuff the units hit that are invisible to the CinC, but the idea that battalions have to have the order repeated every 10 minutes is ludicrous. I've lost battles because of this. "Brigade A will attack the enemy at point x, Brigade B will support" - Turn 1, both move, rest of the game Brigade B did not move. If it had been in place when 'A' was spent wrecking the enemy, B would have turned the flank and rolled up the line – my opponent said as much. I would prefer some form of plan – Shako or SH command lines – that can only be changed by a command attempt, but as Martin said, this is unfashionable. |
jwebster | 26 Jul 2016 10:45 p.m. PST |
Another way of looking at having to activate every turn is that something unexpected might have happened – for example Rain storm Smoke obscures target Out of ammo Commander gets confused with directions Crossing rough ground However I do agree, if it is hard to activate, then there will be more start/stop than there should be and if trying to move a whole formation, they should usually arrive at destination at the same time The other thing that is missing from failing to activate is sometimes a unit might move faster than usual or shoot twice (critical activation) or decide to take initiative and head off on their own somewhere Just throwing some ideas out – I have seen some solutions to these problems John |
forwardmarchstudios | 29 Jul 2016 12:56 p.m. PST |
I'm going to do a blog post about this in a week or so. I think I've come up with a novel way of doing time for my operational level 3mm rules. In fact, the ruleset that I'm working on is time-based, in that time is really the driving, defining feature of the rules. I think it'll be cool. We shall see though. |
UshCha | 07 Aug 2016 1:46 p.m. PST |
Please do not lump all rules in the same cess pit. In ours you put out an artillery plan which is either pre game or takes time to produce in game,that is within the capability of the resources you have been given. That plan can be used to fire continuously to suppress and fix in place (the declared aim of artillery in the US manuals). That fire will continue for the alloted time (defined in bounds in our game). As it represents a prolonged time compared to just a quick fire blow it will use more ammunition. It will terminate at the stated time, it would need a call to stop it early and it may not happen. Extending the duration of the fire may not be possible quickly as, if all current missions use the available ammo, a command level decision would be needed to define which other mission was scrubbed in favor of this one. This appears to be roughly in line with real world practice. If this is too hard then live with the approximation that the general ordered a mission for which there was not enough ammo to complete. Again in our rules there are limitations, the infinite improbability drive is not available. Stopping something potentially always takes time. If even a team is moving forward it takes a small amount of time to stop it. This in effect adds some of the fog of war as a bonus. |
zoneofcontrol | 07 Aug 2016 8:21 p.m. PST |
My way of dealing with this question is to look at it from a different perspective. My commander gives a unit the order to move. This order uses up a certain amount of his command capability for this turn. The next turn he spends the same amount of command capability to keep them moving. It isn't that he has to order them a second time to move, it is just that he is focused on moving his troops. Because of this he cannot use that same amount of command capability elsewhere to order another unit to do something else. As far as targeting and firing goes… Usually if a target has been spotted and fired on, there is a bonus (easier to hit) chance on the second and succeeding shots. If you switch fire from one target to another then you go through the spotting and firing process from scratch. If these things are limiting your game, maybe you need to add another level of command to your forces. Allow an operational level commander to set the parameters and have sub-commanders to handle them on a more tactical level. |
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