Re: [GZG] Small arms tech and troop quality

>Points:
>
>1) OA has it pinned. When you stackup k farmers against j SF 
>Operators and are trying to determine at what point k and j equate 
>(or the relative worth), you have two problems:
>
>a) your k/j balance is as affected by survivability (ability to take 
>multiple hits, ability to bounce impacts off, ability to autoresolve 
>and be back on your feet, but primarily the armour question) as by 
>firepower
>
>b) firepower probably doesn't accrue linearly - I don't have the 
>brainpower handy, but I'm betting that doubling the number of 
>farmers opposing the SF may more than double their chances, once you 
>pass a certain point. For instance, the difference between 1 and 5 
>farmers may be near zero - they may all just get whacked before they 
>can do anything (SF has greater range, accuracy, and effectiveness 
>and typically acts first and with good coordination of fire) so 
>their value is pretty much unaffected. But going from 7 farmers to 
>14 may very well mean bad things for the SF team. So the progression 
>may not be linear.
>
>Ultimately, every point system I've seen, including those agonized 
>over by many smart people (DS, SFB, Car Wars, etc) all have flaws 
>and places a smart player can exploit the system and usually quite a 
>few of those.

All agreed, Tom, and I think in hindsight that I phrased the initial 
question confusingly - as I then explained in the rest of the post 
(and in several subsequent explanations), I was NOT referring to an 
overall points value in combat, but purely to useful directed 
firepower at that stage.

It should probably have been phrased something more like this:

"Is one super-trained elite special forces soldier with the best 
cutting-edge high-tech weapon able to put down controlled and 
effective fire equal to that of 25 untrained farmers with shotguns?"

What I was trying to get folks discussing is whether the extremes of 
the scale feel in any way reasonable: if a stand of untrained 
civilians with obsolete weapons outputs 1 firepower point, then does 
it feel right to have a stand of special forces Elites with 
super-hi-tech kit outputting 25 firepower points?  Or is that simply 
too much of a variation - or even not enough!?

Note that these are raw firepower values BEFORE any modifiers are 
applied for range, circumstances, cover, armour or anything else.

>
>This was one of the reasons I always loved SG2 - it ultimately 
>didn't engage in that particular straw-man of trying to calculate 
>(using simple math) the very complex. So much of a units utility is 
>scenario dependent - how much cover is on your game board? The value 
>of an autoshotgun is high if all sight lines are 6" or less, the 
>value of a sniper rifle is high if all sight lines are cross-board, 
>for example. RO&E, relative balance of one force to another, etc. 
>Similar other factors come into play in SG2 in things like commander 
>quality, number of units on the board relative to the other side, 
>relative mobility, etc. There's a reason that OA and others in his 
>trade don't do their estimations on the back of a napkin with very 
>basic math for people who can't handle range bands.

I couldn't agree more!	:-)

>
>This kinda sucks, but good prefab scenarios provided by experienced 
>players are the best route for newbies to a game - I'd recommend 
>that approach far more than any point system. New players then get a 
>scenario that is mostly balanced (by playtesting and hard-won 
>experience of from the designers) and they aren't given an 
>illusionary point value scheme that they'll be mad about when they 
>find the holes. Play a few scenarios, start to get a feel for the 
>underlying issues, make small changes, see how they work, develop an 
>expertise in setting up fun, workable scenarios without the 
>artificiality of a point system. Ultimately, point systems seem to 
>me to be just a hard road - hard to come up with, destined to fail, 
>illusory for new players, and despised when exploits are found as 
>they inevitably will be.

Once again, this is exactly how I look at it - now we just have to 
convince everyone else to see the light that has illuminated our 
lives, Brother Thomas of Canadia...  ;-)

>
>If you feel you have to develop a point system to be in the required 
>market niche, then I wish you the greatest of luck. May God have 
>mercy on your soul.... :)

Whether we end up with a points system at all, or some kind of hybrid 
force builder system that is linked to the scenario, remains to be 
seen. What I'm trying to do at the moment is to pin down unit-vs-unit 
infantry fire combat resolution.

>
>TomB
>PS - Did I mention how good Stargrunt is lately? :)

Thanks! What I'm trying to do now is make sure that SG:AC is as good 
if not better!	:-)

Jon (GZG)

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l