[FT] Accelerated Play

In preparing for the GZG-ECC FT game Operation Avalanche, I determined
that
I would have a large number of ships and would need a way to speed play.

I tried a staged inititive option last night is a scaled down version of
the
scenario with 2 players. Each of my ships are numbered (I started in one
of
my fleets and numbered ALL of my ships consecutivly). I put 10 chits in
a
cup (0-9). For the ship-to-ship firing phase, I divided it into 3
stages.
For the first stage, I drew 3 chits (0,1,9). Ships whose numbers ended
in
0,1, or 9 fired simultaneously. I did the same procedure for the 2nd
phase,
drawing 4,5,6. And in the 3rd phase the remaining ships (2,3,7,8) fired.
After the ship-to-ship combat, all chits were placed back in the cup for
the
next round.

Result:
1) It was difficult to find which ships were going to fire if the player
had
more than a small group of ships (we had about 20 each).
2) Because the game was KV vs Human, we did not have to worry about if a
ship had screens or not, but this would be a major concern on a Human vs
Human conflict. Each player would have to keep track of 3 sets of
results
for each ship attacked No Screens; 1 Screen; 2 Screens.
3) The KV players had to keep track of not only the damage done to each
Human ship, but the number of hits on it (so that the first pip of
damage to
a human ship could be applied to armor).
4) It became confusing when you were given damage to write down while
trying
to keep the damage you did straight in your head.

Conclusion:
While it would work for a PBEM game, it did not work in a minatures
game. 

I might make one more pass at testing an exceleration for the game:
Each side trades off fire (as normal), but may fire:
 1 Capital (BC-SDN, CVL-CVH)
 2 Cruisers (CL-CH)	-or-
 3 Escorts (SC-DH). 
Has anyone tried this? I imagine that it will effect game balance
somewhat.
I don't think that it will give one side an advantage in my game because
each side has about the same number in each category (and roughly the
same
point totals).

Does anyone have any other ideas that have been successfully play-testd?

I will probably end up droping the staged inititive and scale the game
down
some.

---
Brian Bell
bkb@beol.net
http://www.ftsr.org/ft/scenarios/op_avalanche.asp
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