RE: [GZG] Re: Points systems

Part of the problem here is that you are examining the example from a
single side.

If you view the problem from both sides at once, you will quickly find
that the situation balances itself quite quickly.

Example fleets - Red and Blue, 5 ships each 20 VP per side

Red fleet
CL1	3VP
CL2	3VP
CL3	3VP
CA1	5VP
BB1	6VP

Blue Fleet
DD1	16VP
DD2	1VP
DD3	1VP
DD4	1VP
SDN1	1VP

Victory conditions are 10VP (1/2 fleet value)

Red fleet has used a conventional VP assignment with VP assigned based
roughly on NPV value, Blue fleet has taken the extreme and placed all
the VP eggs in a DD basket.

Blue fleet has a problem, a DD is a fragile ship so to place it in a
screen in front of the SDN poses an issue in that a lucky salvo will
cost you the game.  The prudent thing then is to place the DD further
away - but that might also draw attention to it as most people place
their escort class ships in a screen IN FRONT of the capital ships.  So
obviously, placing a lot of VP's in a weak ship makes you more
vulnerable to losing to random shots. So to summarize, Blue is in a
vulnerable position and must expend effort to keep DD1 alive at all
costs (even throwing away the SDN) keep from losing - this doesn't mean
he will automatically win, just that he prevents the opponent from
achieving his goal.

Red Fleet, being more balanced, can accept the loss of the CL's but must
keep at both the CA and BB alive to prevent the opponent from winning.

If the VP were blind the tactics would fall out like this - 

Red Fleet - Keep the BB and CA in a second line, just in range of their
weapons but not so far forward to make them enticing targets.  Expend
the CL's in a direct attack on the SDN as it is the biggest weapon
threat.  If it turns out the SDN is not worth all the victory points,
then mopping up the remaining DD's should be easy.

Blue Fleet - SDN and 3 DD's are essentially expendable.  Use them to
knock out the either the CL's quickly or take down the BB first and work
your way down. Keep DD1 alive at all costs.

Conclusion - even not knowing what the exact VP designations for ships
are, you still will make sound tactical choices - taking out the
strongest or easiest targets first, then working around to the others.
What may change is that if given a choice between two or three targets,
you will have to weight the VP cost vs. the danger that ship poses to
your fleet (i.e. a 1VP SDN is easy to decide - it needs to be destroyed,
but a 2VP destroyer vs. a 1VP cruiser may be a more difficult decision
if you only need 3 more VP to win).

Many real-life scenarios are based on general info - opposing leaders
are meeting in building X - capture and extract them.  You may not know
at the beginning of the scenario exactly which of the 100 people in the
building are the ones you want, but you know they are in there, so you
simply capture them all and sort them out later.  If you happen to grab
your targets in the first 10 people, then you have achieved your goal
and you scoot.

Find weapon Cache in Block Y - trucks have been observed unloading
crates to various buildings in Block Y, a weapons cache exists there,
find and destroy it.  You may not know the exact building or the people
involved, but you simply work your way through each building in the
block until you find it and remove or destroy it. You may get lucky and
one of the guys you capture gives up info on the cache and you don't
have to search each and every room/basement/hole in the ground.

--Binhan

-----Original Message-----
From: gzg-l-bounces@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
[mailto:gzg-l-bounces@lists.csua.berkeley.edu] On Behalf Of laserlight
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 10:32 AM
To: gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: RE: [GZG] Re: Points systems

Binhan said:
> In this case, the mission is known at the beginning of the
game,
> which is to score more VP than the opponent.	The details
> of which exact ships are worth what VP are hidden, but a)
> you know the total VP the opposing fleet is worth, b) you
> know how many ships he has - this is a closed data set and
> the method is to eliminate the possibilities until your
> goal is reached.

I'm not disagreeing with the general idea of VP, but the
point JohnA was making is that if Red sets the values of
Red's ships, Blue hasn't any idea of what he needs to do to
win. Okay, MAYBE Blue can guess, based on Red's formation
and actions--but that's not the way victory conditions are
set for real commanders. The key thing for Blue is what
value Blue's commander assigns to things.
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