Re: Initiative - was RE: Piquet

On 29 Sep 2004 at 17:09, The GZG Digest wrote:

> From: "B Lin" <lin@rxkinetix.com>
>
> 1) Howard was a known negative factor and Hooker attempted to
compensate
> by moving Reynolds to cover the flank, in Piquet you have no idea
which
> units you are going to be able to move until you get some initative
points
> to do something.

You don't know _when_ those units will be able to move, but you do know 
that once a "move" card comes up you can move the units you want to
move. 
The question here is "when".

> You can not compensate for a known break in the command, because there
> is no fore knowledge of the weak points in your command structure. 
> When you do send orders to any unit, they will execute your orders,
not
> 1-3 turns from now, but this turn. 

Hooker compensated for a known break in command by issuing orders to 
Reynolds and to Howard. He expected them to be carried out quickly, but 
they were not. So in real life Hooker issued the orders immediately but 
didn't know when they would be carried out. In Piquet you don't know
when 
you can issue the orders, but they will be carried out as soon as you
are 
allowed to issue them. 

I admit that there is a subtle difference here, one that usually
requires 
written orders and mechanisms for slowing down those orders to play 
properly on the game table. I don't like written orders games. Piquet,
to 
my mind, still does a suitable job (for me, anyway) of representing this

disconnect between when I want the orders to be resolved and when they 
are actually resolved.

> Piquet's initiative is another example.  It generates results similar
> to historical results, but how it does it doesn't necessarily
correlate
> with how those results were achieved in the historical example. 

I guess this is where our main point of contention lies. I'm more 
interested in whether or not Piquet comes up with results similar to 
history. I can always explain it away later, if I feel the need to 
justify the results. I don't need them to come up with those results 
exactly as they did in real life. 

For one thing, I _know_ how Chancellorsville worked out. I know that 
discretionary orders to Sedgwick are not a good idea, so I would be 
working with information unknown to Hooker (Sedgwick was raised to corps

command by Hooker, and Chancellorsville was his first battle as
commander 
of Sixth Corps). If the rules are too accurate, I can use my knowledge
of 
the battle to come up with ahistoric results. In Piquet I often have to 
develop battle plans around uncertainties, the same uncertainties that 
the historical commanders had to deal with. Due to the random nature of 
the initiative system I will be unable to predict exactly what will 
happen, just like Hooker couldn't predict the events that happened to
him 
at Chancellorsville.

---

Allan Goodall	    http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@att.net   agoodall@hyperbear.com

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
 - Isaac Asimov, "Foundation"