Re: Re: [GZG] John's Shipbuilding

["Eric Foley" <stiltman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@xxxxxxxxx>

> What I would prefer would be victory conditions that value withdrawal
> of damaged units, to give the players a motive to act like historical
> admirals.

My Full Thrust games usually encouraged this sort of thing although we never 
put a real point value on it.  Total shipping destroyed and/or captured and 
surrendered was as big a factor in the process of who wins as whether or not 
you've got control of the table when the game's over.  There were a few 
games where I'd trade my fighter complement for most of the opposing force 
but had to withdraw after losing a smaller fraction of mine and, although 
he'd control the board, I could still claim a certain amount of victory in 
the fact that I'd inflicted a far more expensive rate of exchange than I'd 
eaten.  Certainly I preferred these sorts of questionable victories over 
controlling the table when I've only got a single destroyer that's 
spaceworthy out of an entire task force.

And this lent itself to things that happen in real battles:  what 
constitutes an actual victory?  Jutland saw the Germans inflict more damage 
and yet they withdrew.  Same with the Coral Sea for the Japanese for the 
most part.  Pearl Harbor was militarily a complete success on the level of 
tactical planning and damage inflicted but strategically it is easily one of 
the greatest blunders of all time for bringing the US into the war without 
crippling the USN's effectiveness nearly as badly as it could have.  And so 
on.  Not all naval battles are as obvious in their outcome as Midway.

E 


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