RE: [GZG] Re: Points systems

You don't have to fire at random targets.  You need to make intelligent
decisions regarding your opponent - if you think he has piled a majority
of VP into a few ships, then you can achieve your goal with a few select
shots.	If you think he has dispersed his VP evenly across his ships
then you need to determine which are the easiest to kill. The goal of
killing a sufficient number of VP it doesn't say that you have to
randomly shoot at targets hoping for an instant win (and I would worry
about commanders who thought that way in the first place) but it changes
the priority of your firing - you'd still win if you eliminated the
opposing fleet, but there may be a chance to win sooner by killing key
ships.	This means that players will have to pay more attention to what
their opponents are doing and try to deduce why they are doing it.

Like in all military matters you are trying to achieve your goal with
maximum concentration of firepower with as little loss to yourself.  VP
merely changes what that goal might be.

If your opponent is truly using a random system, is it worth your while
to play against them?  It would be like playing against someone who
picks a few random ships and assembles them into a fleet.  I don't think
most people enjoy that, and would prefer to play against someone who has
taken to time to plan a strategy and form a fleet to support that
strategy.

As usual you've taken the extreme cases and points and presented them as
what will happen every time, which is definitely not the case.

I don't see people arguing that the 6 re-roll rule has ruined FT because
a measly DE could potentially wipe out a dreadnaught or that players who
make mega-ships or field giant flocks of fighters or missiles have
broken the system.  People have adapted by making house rules to suit
their play style and the addition of VP is simply another tool they
might use to help them create balanced scenarios.

--Binhan

-----Original Message-----
From: gzg-l-bounces@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
[mailto:gzg-l-bounces@lists.csua.berkeley.edu] On Behalf Of John
Atkinson
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 5:38 PM
To: gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Points systems

On 1/10/06, B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:

> As John had previously said - He's going to gun for the capital ships
> every time. If this is always the case, then there is no variety in
play
> - always going to use the same general tactics to achieve the same
goal
> every time, kill the nearest capital ship then continue down the line.

So, by removing common sense from victory conditions you wish to
encourage totally random targeting patterns.

There's a reason certain military tactics keep getting used.  It's
because they WORK.

> What if the BB's are second-raters and the cruiser is an empire's
newest
> creation, pride of the fleet etc.  It may be a larger blow to your
> nation's morale have your fleet's newest cruiser pounded to scrap than
a
> pair of second line BB's.  This is what the VP's simulate - they add
> another factor to the value of the ships other than straight point
total
> and are used to abstract those strategic values that don't normally
show
> up in a one-off game.

That's fine--IF and only IF that fact is known to everyone and so
there is a reason to gun for the cruisers.

> Historical Example - Pearl Harbor.  If rated by naval thinking in the
> early 30's, the attack at Pear Harbor essentially eliminated the US
> Pacific fleet as an entity forever since many battleships were sunk or
> damaged.  True, that the US never regained the same number of
> battleships, but that class had been made obsolete by the carrier and
> played a much more minor role in naval warfare in the Pacific than
> pre-war planners would have thought. So from a historical perspective,
> the carriers were worth more to the overall war effort than the BB's,
> even though they took less time and effort to build.

BZZZT!	You're confusing levels of warfare.  The carriers weren't
present and the Japanese Naval Intel people didn't track them as well
as they did the carriers.  The task force commanders (which is the
level of command being simulated in Full Thrust) were given a mission
based on their strategic leadership's priorities and it was executed
flawlessly.  The orders didn't take into account the value of
destroying oil storage, and the operations plan certaintly didn't plan
on haring off chasing the carriers around the Pacific.	You have to
remember, in order to preserve strategic surprise, all Japanese
operations in the Pacific were timed very closely from Hong Kong and
Singapore to Pearl.

The Japanese task forces executed the mission set before them.	It
wasn't their fault that the mission had ZERO relevance to the
strategic situation as it actually existed.

Further, it could be argued that the strike did destroy the US Pacific
Fleet.	USN doctrine didn't center around carriers any more than it
did cruisers.  They were both considered useful adjuncts to the battle
line that was sunk at Pearl.  Had the battle squadrons survived, the
carriers would not have been used to their full potential.  It is to
the credit of the senior officers of the USN that they created an
entire doctrinal framework for waging naval warfare basically on the
fly, in the six months between Pearl and Midway.

As usual, armchair theorizing without considering the complexity of
the variables involves leads to faulty conclusions.  Try doing some
research that doesn't involve a movie.

> Translating to VP terms, an allied fleet might have it's carriers
worth
> 2-3 times what the BB's are worth for the scenario.

Why?

> Another example - if cruisers (Using the old-term for a ship with long
> range) are used to patrol your wide-spread empire, then they would be
> worth more to your navy than a short ranged Dreadnaught.  In that case
> the VP of a cruiser might be the same as a DN.

How do you figure, given that cruisers are going to be easier, faster,
and cheaper to build?

> Now looking at VP from a playing point of view.
>
> If for some reason a player decided to allocate most of his/her VP to
a
> single ship (more than the victory conditions require) then they
> probably would take pains to protect or hide the ship.  By the
player's
> actions, you can usually deduce what VP/point value a ship has - cheap
> VP/Cheap points will be out in front, while high VP/low point ships
will
> be in back and the others will tend to fall out in the middle.

Are you sure?  Every time?  Why would this be?	What effect will it
have on the combat effectiveness of that formation?

Thus a
> whole new level of game play in introduced - the very formation that
you
> start out in may provide information to the opponent or can be used to
> deceive the opponent (i.e. what is that lone cruiser doing way back
> there?) The point of the VP is to provide a reason for people to want
to
> shoot at the 2nd or 3rd ship in line rather than always maximizing
> firepower on the nearest target.

Yeah, because God Forbid people should engage in massing decisive
effects on the (percieved) center of gravity of the enemy force. 
Because then tactics would have a rational basis and that is "boring".

John

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