[SG2][DS2] battalion or regimental level meta-game

Musing away, I was, about how nice it would be to have something to
string
together games of DS2 and SG2. Then a thought came to me... would it be
feasible to implement a reasonably simple battalion or regimental level
metagame that would generate scenarios for DS2 and SG2?  SG2 battles
tend to
be fought with anything from 2 squads up to 1 company or more, whereas
DS2
battles are probably fought anywhere from company to battalion sized.
That
therefore means battalion or regimental level might be appropriate for a
metagame. 

Questions that then raise themselves:
1) How should such a game be conducted?
2) If it is using a map, what scale is appropriate?
3) What time period is appropriate per turn of the meta-game?
4) How shall combats be resolved?
5) What elements of logistics need to be involved? 
etc. etc. 

My thoughts go something like this:
Rating units: A Platoon should rate some sort of strength statistic, say
perhaps from 1-10. This gives us a bit of range. Perhaps 1-5 is
sufficient.
A Company would rate 4-5x that most times, and a battalion 3-4x that
again.
And a regiment might well rate 4-5x that battalion rating. 

Rating	      Size
5	       Platoon
20	      Company
80	      Battalion
400	     Regiment

This rating might be quite abstract and therefore, in a DS2 or SG2
sense,
would factor in a lot of disparate factors.

Turn length: Could be 1 day or 1 week (a first WAG). 

Scale: Well, if you were using 1 day, I'd suggest that one hex (assuming
we
used a hex board) would be equivalent to 5 km. If we used 1 week, I'd
suggest 25 km. Of course, a little depends on the terrain. Rates of
progress
on the plains in grav APCs will differ notably from that in swamps using
foot infantry. 

You could use a metagame something like this to allow formations to
manouvre
and engage in combat. This might work well with dummy markers too. 

I'm thinking primarily of smaller scale conflicts such as those fought
by
mercenary or colonial forces or smaller isolated combat teams. It would
give
a framework to the SG2 battle that's on the board. 

Of course, you _can_ do this with some sort of scenario preamble, but
it'd
be interesting to have the players "play" themselves into a situation
where
an SG2 or DS2 battle was the result - then too we'd get scenarios where
casualties were an issue (you'd want them for later) and sometimes
battles
would just not be fair - if your enemy caught you napping - but you'd
still
want to bloody his nose (for campaign reasons) before throwing in the
towel.

This musing was brought about by me reading Rick Shelley's "Colonel"
(the
sixth in a series of books about the Dirigent Mercenary Corps) which
reawakened my interest in some higher level manouvering. 

I also briefly contemplated if TacOps (video game) could be refit to use
futuristic units and scenarios from the GZGverse :) 

Tomb.

------------------------------------------
Thomas R. S. Barclay
Voice: (613) 722-3232 ext 349
e-mail: tomb@bitheads.com

2001: To the New Millenium! The next thousand years
are MINE. 
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