Initiative - was RE: Piquet

The one large issue with Piquet system is the complete randomness of it.
 Since both players roll an opposed d20 and the winner gets the
difference in activations, it can generate numbers from 0 to 19.  If a
player is lucky and rolls several high numbers in a row, the opponent
essentially can't move or perform actions for several turns.  I've seen
games that were over within 6 turns because one side could not roll high
to save their (game)life.  A couple of lines of infantry were able to
march across half the board and then fire and reload three times into
the opponent before receiving return fire.  The intiative die rolls
balanced out at that point, but it was moot since they had already taken
significant casualties.

I think a better method would be to split initiative down to groups or
units (either platoon or squad depending on where you think the actual
level of command ability makes a difference) and then give a rating to
the commander for that unit - Green, Regular, Experienced (veteran),
Elite, then draw a chit from the appropriate bag.  The "Green" commander
bag will be 25% No Action, 65% One Action and 10% Two Actions; The
Regular commander bag will have 10% No Action, 70% One Action and 20%
Two Actions; Experienced will be 70% One Action, 25% Two Action and 5%
Three Action and the Elite bag will have 50% One Action,30% Two Actions
and 20% Three Actions.	You can cut the number of bags in half by using
both sides of a chit, for instance Green commanders use the green side
of the chit, while regular commanders use the yellow side.  Experienced
and Elite troops would use chits that are orange on one side and red on
the other.

This will provide a range of possibilities, but will allow more
experienced commanders to have more options (actions) than less
experienced commanders and on average, on any given turn most if not all
of your units will be able to do SOMETHING.  It also removes the problem
of one side having total domination in initiative over the opponent
based on a single die roll.  

--Binhan

-----Original Message-----
From: laserlight@quixnet.net [mailto:laserlight@quixnet.net]
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 12:15 PM
To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: Piquet 

>With out going into excruciating detail, it uses an
alternating initiative system (sort of), when it's
your initiative, you get impetus (action points) to
spend activating your units. But, and this is the real
core of the system in my mind, what actions you are
allowed to take each turn depends on drawing cards
from a deck.

I've been mulling over something much the same for SG2, except that a
unit
would be able to take one of a limited number of Battle Drill actions--
eg
"Fire on enemy in open at RB3 or less", or "Return Fire", or "go In
Position"--even if the commander doesn't get any activation points.

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