RE: Vietnam and modern combat

There are pre-game pseudo-campaign things you can do to simulate this.

For instance, you can assign the American or Conventional troop
commander a certain number of "patrol" or troop points to assign over a
period of time - for instance 7 days.  The commander decides when (what
days) and where to assign the patrols ( for example there might be a
village, two main roads and two secondary roads).  The unconventional
player also picks when and where he will attack, assigning points (booby
traps, troops, equipment).  Then the referee or players then reveal
their choices day by day to determine if an encounter occurs. 

Some gameplay balances - the unconventional forces gain "prestige" or
"propaganda" points for occupying or certain areas (villages or roads)
while conventional forces gain points for days with no activity and
controlling villages and road.	Control being defined as being the last
group to pass through the area.  These points are then converted to
additional troop points for the next time period (week).

Additional factors (like fatigue) can be modeled by having some sort of
"reaction dice roll" when a unit is attacked - for instance for every
patrol a unit was part of that week, it needs to roll higher than that
number on a d6 or d8 to activate the first time. 

This allow some tactical "psychological" factors to come into play and
would keep the players involved making choices and fewer "random dice
rolls" at more stages of the game.

--Binhan 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Atkinson [mailto:johnmatkinson@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 6:35 AM
> To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
> Subject: Re: Vietnam and modern combat
> 
> 
> 

> The problem in simulating the lower-level stuff is
> that guerilla warfare is, like special operations,
> impossible to simulate on the game table.  Both depend
> on the reality that for most of the time, nothing
> happens.  You do 30 patrols down the same stretch of
> road and nothing happens, it takes a dedicated
> professional to stay alert the 31st time.  But by its
> very nature, the game table is only out if something
> is going to happen.  You can't simulate that tendency
> towards complacency nor the vigilance of leadership to
> prevent that comlacency.  And if you try, what you end
> up with are a handful of dice rolls by the
> 'conventional' player before the game starts
> determining whether or not the guerilla will win--and
> after that it's hardly worth it to play.
> 
> John
> 
>