"Victory Conditions & Army Morale? By Command!" Topic

Mister H,
I'll post the link to the channel after I start a new discussion about it.

This will give you a good overview of the game and how the Action Timing/OODA Loop is different from traditional games:
link

The OODA Loop is all about timing called Action Timing in the game. I've done a lot of research to determine historically how long it took units and crews to perform actions such as spotting and reacting, estimating the range and firing, reloading, etc. This video will give you an idea of how the T-34/76 Action Timing works in the game and the historical advantages and disadvantages it had:

link

I tried using my female AI assistant to do some of the reading.

The system allows players use use any type of combat adjudication, small arms fire, or gunnery system they desire. As in any system, there there is a basic version and a more detailed version.

Wolfhag

I just saw one of the best explanations in a case study for what VP bring to a game:

DOM got the Aliens (1986 movie Aliens) game at a BF thing a the FLGS. Survival of Newt (the little girl) is worth twice as many VP as any of the Space Marines. This is not a "gamey" thing. It is a clear enumeration of an ethic from the point of view of the people in the battle (not the players) – "If it comes down to either I survive or the little kid survives, the little kid survives, and I die taking as many of the bastards out as possible." It also encapsulates we're not just going to save the kid at the expense of even a handful of marines. It gives you a future value for both, and balances them.

Thanks for the links, Wolfhag. I'll check those out. The T-34/76 Action Timing breakdown sounds interesting given how crew layout and equipment affected Soviet tank performance. Always interested in seeing how other designers tackle sequence, and action resolution challenges.

Appreciate you taking the time to walk through your approach. Looking forward to seeing your YouTube channel when it launches!

For the "game" part of it, or "fun" if you prefer, I think UshCha hits the nail on the head. "Battle ends when the challenge is no longer there and victory by one side is clear or the battle stagnates so it's no longer interesting to play."

As for the "war" part of it, every battle has a reason or a purpose. For an ambushed patrol that purpose might simply be to survive the ambush. At Normandy the immediate purpose was for the Allies to establish a beachhead. In many pitched battles a major purpose is to break the enemy's ability to fight.

"Victory Conditions" provide a way of determining if the objectives of the battle have been accomplished by one side, the other, or both.

Sometimes victory conditions are expressed within a time limit. Hold the crossroads at the end of Turn Ten or at 17:00 hours. Sometimes it is something like Red wins by exiting the wagon train from the North edge, Blue wins by preventing this. I have a large number of scenarios where the victory conditions are basically "last man standing." Either play until one side's morale breaks or play until one side has no units remaining on the table.

Often it isn't worth playing the game out to the bitter end. Once the outcome has become clear it can become just a dice rolling exercise. If I know I have no chance of winning I'll concede. I think this is not entirely unrealistic. Armies do not always fight on to the last man.

However Victory points in the abstract can be like performance metrics they can very easily screw the process from the ideal if the performance metrics are very carefully matched to the process they are analyzing. In my own scenarios I would hesitate to pot up performance metrics as |I m unsure what the expected result should be. Winning if it proves impossible due to some overlooking of a issue makes no sense, the player may have played assumingly, that counts as a win. If the only metric was winning it reflects poorly on the Victory points. Dunkirk (WW2) is celebrated as a "win" in the UK despite losing.

We have all seen completion games descend into last bound stupidity to gain victory points. That may be acceptable to some but to me it shows bad victory point analysis.

I m unsure what the expected result should be.

So you don't know how to distinguish winning from not winning? That does make it hard.