RE: [GZG] Re: Points systems

I have already inserted the idea in my proposal that VP could be open
information if the players agree to it before the game.  People seem to
be hung up over the idea that you don't know the exact value of an
opposing ship and seem to expect to have 100% knowledge over every
aspect of the game. (How real is that?)

Again people are describing "tactical" aspects as being the only
consideration for winning a game, whereas using VP I'm trying to
introduce "Strategic" or "Campaign" factors into a tactical game in an
abstract way.

VP don't have to constrain your tactical thinking - if you have a sound
tactic that will eliminate all the opponent's ships, then that is one
way to achieve victory.  If you are able through luck and deduction,
able to win the game with a single shot, then that is another method of
victory. Just because a DN might be worth 1VP shouldn't PREVENT you from
shooting it, but the chance that a DD might be worth 10VP should cause
you to CONSIDER shooting it. If we used 50% NPV as a criteria for
winning a game, and killing a DD you bring your kill total over 50% NPV,
you're saying that you wouldn't shoot at it to win, because it's not
"tactically sound", but would instead keep firing at the Battleship
because it is more of a combat threat?

----
In real-life you'd have flankers, early warning pickets, escorts for the
logistical train, units that don't show up on the board but are
necessary for the operation of the fleet - but no one is going to
allocate 25-50% of their fleet point value for such "non-tactical" uses
- they are going to bring every single point allowed to the board.  You
can say that the point values for fleets already include such overhead,
but then you bypass the whole question of logistical efficiency, fleet
size and resources, and military intelligence that in real life can have
a huge impact on what arrives on the battlefield. By focusing solely on
the combat value of a tactical unit on the battlefield, you eliminate a
large variety of factors that really should impact how you play.

Expendable munitions/equipment have been another key point of
contention.  For instance, Fighters are considered to be under priced
when purchased in large numbers.  If fighters were not as easily
replaceable, or had a significant logistical cost (many more parts and
technicians required) then they might not show up on the tactical
battlefield in as large numbers or expended in suicide attacks so
lightly. For instance if each fighter group were valued at 1VP, then
massed attacks by fighters would be less worthwhile as they are no
longer "cost-less" attacks. 

Your tactics should be influenced by larger considerations.  For
instance a missile cruiser fleet that is a week away from re-supply will
expend it's missiles differently than a missile cruiser fleet within
hours of a supply base.  Or a Carrier fleet may not expend all it's
torpedo bombers on wiping out a cruiser fleet if it were on the way to
attack an enemy base.  Tactically it doesn't make sense for an admiral
not to use weapons that could destroy the opponent, UNLESS there was a
larger strategic reason to retain those resources.  In the strategic
view, the cruisers might win if they can destroy the torpedo bombers -
either by destroying the carriers or luring the bombers to attack them
to be destroyed by PDS. It may not make sense tactically, but could have
an impact on the overall war.

Once again, if people who play one-off games are uninterested in
modeling strategic effects, they have no reason to implement VP.  Just
like there is a subset of players who ONLY play using published designs,
but Jon has provided an NPV system to allow others to create their own
designs that are still compatible with the published ones. Just because
a subset uses only FB designs doesn't imply that EVERYONE has to play
with just the FB designs.  VP are the same way, if players are
interested in adding additional factors to determine who a winner is,
they can choose to use the system or not as they please. At this point I
am more interested in designing a system that is simple and easy to use
but has enough influence to produce interesting games.

--Binhan

-----Original Message-----
From: gzg-l-bounces+lin=rxkinetix.com@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
[mailto:gzg-l-bounces+lin=rxkinetix.com@lists.csua.berkeley.edu] On
Behalf Of Robert Makowsky
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 5:08 AM
To: gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: RE: [GZG] Re: Points systems

Binhan,

Given that I understand your points about VPs being
closed at the start but open as you kill off ships.

And given that I understand that you are using VPs to
simulate the effects of an economic, strategic, or
logistic setup that is not being gamed,

I agree that VPs can have merit.  The argument remains
that random assignment (or assignment by player based
on some sort of player desire) does not meet any
criteria for any sort of game that simulates at all
real world tactics.

As John continues to point out, one side may not know
that the heir to the monarchy is on one ship.  But
they will know that DNs or Fleet Carriers are able to
best project power.  They may not know that you value
Cruisers more than DNs due to your far flung empire. 
But they do know that if they kill all your DNs that
it will be much easier to then kill off all of your
cruisers.  For their mission, your VP assignments do
not matter.  The DD with the prince is going to live
or not, the cruisers are going to get hit or not all
based on their fire priority towards their primary
objective (Kill your combat projection power).

Now having said that.  VPs as you say can work to help
make the game more fun and more exciting but they have
to be assigned based on some sort of rational basis if
you want the "simulationists"* to play the game.

I think what keeps happening is that we keep
explaining this, you keep countering with "But you
don't understand".  I for one do understand your
position but as a simulationist as well I reject
random VPs or player assigned VPs that do not reflect
some sort of actual likely situation.  

If the player was to assign higher VPs to Carriers
than to DNs of the same NPV and say that was because
it is easier for them to crew fighters than to crew
DNs I would agree with that aspect.  I would not kill
a DN and then be surprised at how little VP I got,
kill a carrier and be happily surprised about how much
VP they earned.  I would hope that my intel would tell
me the relative values of the units so I can formulate
my strategy before the tactical battle.

Of course I may not know the values that your side
puts on its units.  I would try to kill your major
power projection units and may concentrate on your DNs
while you are happy that your "more valuable" carriers
are getting off lightly.  In this situation after I
killed a unit I would not instantly know the VP of
that unit.  I may kill all your DNs and then leave the
battle.  I would have achieved my goals.

v/r,

Bob Makowsky

*simulationist - gamer that tries to use games (even
science fiction games) to model real-world or
real-thinking creature events and actions.  For them
the fun is seeing what happens when you game events
given these rules. 

--- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:

> As other people have overlooked before - with the
> hidden VP values for
> ships includes the proviso that as ships are
> destroyed, their VP value
> is revealed so that you have a constant running
> total of how many VP you
> have earned.	Therefore as soon as you achieve
> enough VP, the game is
> over - you don't necessarily have to kill the entire
> fleet to achieve
> your total (unless the remaining 1 ship is of
> sufficient VP to prevent
> your goal).
> 
> If ships hyper-out or escape, then a portion
> (perhaps 1/2) of their VP
> total would be earned by the opponent, again
> revealed when they left the
> board.
> 
> If neither side reaches their VP goal, the game is a
> draw, or if one
> side has earned more VP, but less than their goal,
> they can claim a
> tactical victory.
> 
> In general, by destroying 1-2 ships, you are
> guaranteed of having enough
> VP left in the pool to achieve a 50% goal, even if
> all the remaining
> ships leave the board.
> 
> Again people keep making the point that VP will
> cause strange,
> non-tactically favorable maneuvers or formations. 
> But that is the point
> of VP since most players don't use a campaign system
> that provides
> economic, political, morale, strategic intelligence
> or logistical
> factors into one-off games. (i.e. your last missile
> armed BB may be more
> valuable than your beam armed BB's because your
> nation was going to
> attack a starbase next and you needed the long-range
> weapons to take it
> out).
> 
> By allowing a player to allocate VP, they are in
> effect using an
> abstract system to change the value of a ship to the
> overall war effort
> - i.e. the USS Indianapolis was just a cruiser, but
> it happened to carry
> the first atomic bomb.  The fact that the bomb was
> cargo had zero impact
> on its combat effectiveness or cost to build, but
> the loss of that cargo
> could have had a major impact on the length of WW2. 
> 
> Perhaps people who play one-off games really don't
> want to have to think
> about outside factors, in which case designing
> scenarios or applying VP
> isn't really relevant.
> 
> The point of this thread was to get people to think
> about scenarios,
> scenario balance and how to increase interest in the
> game.  I proposed
> VP as a simple method (instead of having to write
> out dozens of scenario
> cards or designing full scenarios) that could be
> implemented by anyone,
> anywhere, that would provide a consistent system of
> determining who won
> a battle, from one-off games to full blown
> campaigns.
> 
> --Binhan 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> <<SNIP>>
> 
> I find two issues with this type of thing, and to
> some degree with a lot
> 
> of non-FT games.
> 
> First, let's look at your VP system as outlined
> above.
> 
> "details of which exact ships are worth what VP are
> hidden"
> 
> Ok fine.  But if this is the case, and all you have
> to work with is a 
> "grand total" and "number of ships", how can you
> POSSIBLY determine when
> 
> you've achieved the goal of having killed more VPs
> than your opponent? 
> You CANNOT know this until after the battle has
> concluded.  And at that 
> point, it's more likely that either one side is
> completely destroyed (in
> 
> which case you HAVE to have achieved this goal) or
> one side hypers out,
> in 
> which case you have to determine the PV after the
> battle has essentially
> 
> been "won" by the side that stayed.
> 
> While there have been lots of examples of objectives
> (e.g., take out the
> 
> carriers, get a fleet supply ship through, determine
> the strength of the
> 
> enemy fleet and get out with you lives, etc.), I
> would caution to NEVER 
> NEVER NEVER (did I mention, never?) assign random
> victory conditions 
> (e.g., each player gets some kind of VP token that
> has to be held or 
> captured!) as it tends to make the game feel even
> more artificial.
> 
> That said, I think that Jon's card based minor plot
> lines sound really 
> cool, and could be adpated to any game system. :)
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> John
> 
> John K. Lerchey
> Assistant Director for Incident Response
> Information Security Office
> Carnegie Mellon University
> 
> 
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