RE: [GZG] Re: Points systems

Mystery VP's add two factors to the game that are missing right now -
variety of tactics (since weapons and designs are static, if you use the
fleet books, then the tactics pretty much shake down to a few basic
patterns) and variety of scenarios.

As John had previously said - He's going to gun for the capital ships
every time. If this is always the case, then there is no variety in play
- always going to use the same general tactics to achieve the same goal
every time, kill the nearest capital ship then continue down the line.

What if the BB's are second-raters and the cruiser is an empire's newest
creation, pride of the fleet etc.  It may be a larger blow to your
nation's morale have your fleet's newest cruiser pounded to scrap than a
pair of second line BB's.  This is what the VP's simulate - they add
another factor to the value of the ships other than straight point total
and are used to abstract those strategic values that don't normally show
up in a one-off game.

Historical Example - Pearl Harbor.  If rated by naval thinking in the
early 30's, the attack at Pear Harbor essentially eliminated the US
Pacific fleet as an entity forever since many battleships were sunk or
damaged.  True, that the US never regained the same number of
battleships, but that class had been made obsolete by the carrier and
played a much more minor role in naval warfare in the Pacific than
pre-war planners would have thought. So from a historical perspective,
the carriers were worth more to the overall war effort than the BB's,
even though they took less time and effort to build.

Translating to VP terms, an allied fleet might have it's carriers worth
2-3 times what the BB's are worth for the scenario. 

Another example - if cruisers (Using the old-term for a ship with long
range) are used to patrol your wide-spread empire, then they would be
worth more to your navy than a short ranged Dreadnaught.  In that case
the VP of a cruiser might be the same as a DN.

Now looking at VP from a playing point of view.

If for some reason a player decided to allocate most of his/her VP to a
single ship (more than the victory conditions require) then they
probably would take pains to protect or hide the ship.	By the player's
actions, you can usually deduce what VP/point value a ship has - cheap
VP/Cheap points will be out in front, while high VP/low point ships will
be in back and the others will tend to fall out in the middle. Thus a
whole new level of game play in introduced - the very formation that you
start out in may provide information to the opponent or can be used to
deceive the opponent (i.e. what is that lone cruiser doing way back
there?) The point of the VP is to provide a reason for people to want to
shoot at the 2nd or 3rd ship in line rather than always maximizing
firepower on the nearest target.

--Binhan

-----Original Message-----
From: gzg-l-bounces@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
[mailto:gzg-l-bounces@lists.csua.berkeley.edu] On Behalf Of
wscottfield@comcast.net
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 8:11 AM
To: gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: [GZG] Re: Points systems

John Atkinson  wrote: 

> This idea confuses me.  Seriously, every military mission has a
> specific goal.  In the Army, it's called "commander's intent".  If I
> execute the commander's intent without taking losses out of proportion
> to the relative value of that goal, then I have "won" regardless of
> what the enemy was trying to achieve or what their perception of the
> situation is.  

I agree with what you're saying, although it's worth pointing out that
commander's intent is only as good as the intel the commander has at
that time - there may often be things going on that you don't know
about. I have no problem with there being a few surprises in a scenario.
But the example given does seem a bit random: how are players expected
to develop a tactical plan when they have to guess at VPs? Or if I'm
concentrating on the SDNs but screw up my maneuvering so that the only
thing I get in arc is one whimpy DD, which "just happens" to be worth
more points than all the other ships... have I won because I'm the
better player, or did I just get lucky?  (Or did I misunderstand
Binhan's point?)

OTOH, I have no problem with the defending player's mission being based
on protecting a DD that the attacker doesn't know is valuable.	This
could conceivably lead to a situation where both players win: the
attacker because he destroyed the defender's Big Ships, and the defender
because the Heir's DD got away. I don't have a problem with win-win (or
lose-lose) scenarios myself, `tho some more competitive players might. 

Scott Field
"Your mouth is moving. You might want to see to that."
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