RE: [FT] Accelerated Play

Thanks for your comments, Alan.

I had thought about your suggestion of alternating players. But I think
that
it would have some difficulties in this instance. I do not know how many
players there will be (or how many per side -- common for a convention),
just the maximum number of players. The fleet compisition for each side
is
cruiser-heavy, with a small few capital ships and a good number of
destroyers. Also one side will have some strikeboats and extra (non-ship
based) fighters from a nearby base. 

If I parcel out the capitals, it may be possible to give each player one
a
capital ship, but the player with the SDN will have a lot more staying
power
than the other players with BCs (even if the SDN player is given less
support ships).

If I only get 2 - 4 players, that would mean 1/2 of a fleet firing at
one
time. This seems too much to me. Even with the way I tried it (firing
1/3
fleet at a time), was too much. Currently there are 3 people signed up
for
my game, and I can expect to pick up about 1-2 more pick-up players, for
a
total of 4-6.

On the alternating movement, I remember someone on the list had a
non-order
writing variant where sides alternated with movement starting with the
slowest ships and going to the fastest (MD 2, 3, 4...8). Then the
fireing
order was the reverse of the movement (MD 8, 7, 6...2). This and your
idea
of 1/2 movement without orders is interesting, but undesireable in this
scenario. The scenario features a good many asteroids. Half the fun of
the
game will be dodging the asteroids. Without writing orders, a lot of the
suspense of this feature goes away.

Thanks again for your comments and suggestions!

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: agoodall@canada.com [SMTP:agoodall@canada.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 3:59 PM
> To:	gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
> Subject:	Re: [FT] Accelerated Play
> 
> On Wed, 24 January 2001, "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)" wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Okay, this is a long reply...
> 
> The FT intro games at GenCon tended to get fairly big. You could have
5 or
> 6 ships of varying sizes (but one is usually big, and survivable) per
> player, 4 players per side, two sides. So, you're looking at a long
table
> with 40 ships.
> 
> Movement is pretty easy with lots of guys. The problem is firing. One
ship
> at a time is far too slow.
> 
[snip]

> Typically 4 players sat side by side on a table edge. Let's number
then
> 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d. Opposite them are their opponents, 2a, 2b, 2c, and
2d
> respectively. You roll the dice for initiative. The side winning
> initiative decides if they want their "a" player to go first or their
"b"
> player. 
> 
> The choice is made. Let's say 1a is picked to go first. In this case,
> player 1a may fire a ship, but at the same time so can players 2b, 1c,
and
> 2d. Basically, you alternate back and forth across the table. If
player 2b
> elects to fire at 1a's ship that is currently firing, he can roll, but
the
> effects do not take placue until 1a has finished resolving fire.
> Otherwise, he can freely fire at any other of 1a's ships, or any ship
from
> any of the other side 1 players. Likewise, if 1c wants to fire at 2b's
> currently selected ship, he can but effects are resolved after 2b has
> fired.
> 
> The players on both sides are paired off. Even players who are not
firing
> or being fired at are still busy. They act as the observer for their
team.
> They watch what their immediate opponent rolls. You might want some
> scratch paper to let players jot down what the results were.
> 
[snip]

> That all works fine when you have a lot of players with essentially
> smaller, manageable fleets. What if you want to give two players LOTS
of
> ships, or you want to have lots of players with lots of ships. One
partial
> response is: tough; you can only speed up the game so much.
> 
> Another is to see if you can speed up something else, like movement. 
> 
[snip]

> 1) record speed differences.
> 2) roll for initiative. Winner gets to decide whether to move first or
> second in the turn, but will be considered to have LOST the combat
> initiative die roll.
> 3) the side going first move all their ships half their movement.
> 4) the side going second moves all their ships.
> 5) the side going first finishes moving their ships.
> 
> This works surprisingly well, especially with lots of ships in an
enclosed
> area where neither side is doing anything too sneaky.
> 
> Another option is to divide the turns even further. Instead of moving
side
> 1
> s ships 1/2, side 2's ships full, side 1's ships 1/2, you can do
something
> like side 1's ships 1/4, side 2's ships 1/2, side 1's ships 1/2, side
2's
> ships 1/2, side 1's ships 1/4.
> 
[snip]