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Old 05-19-2012, 06:01 PM   #1
KevinR
 
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Default Gettysburg scenario

In an unrelated thread...

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
I think an interesting scenario to play around with might be the "meeting engagement" a la Gettysburg -- where each side shows up with a mixed bag of forces and then gets a steady stream of (variable) reinforcements coming in. That might give you a single massive battle where each side winds up on the offensive and the defensive at various times during the fight depending on what shows up. Their objectives might be to move a certain number of units off of a given map edge by the end of the 100th turn, or destroy a certain number of Enemy units (or AU equivalents, or VPs or whatever), or so on. Could make for a very interesting (and tense) game with the balance shifting back and forth over the course of the game.
Various folks have expressed an interest in the idea, so here's a thread to discuss. I'll put up my long post in a moment.

Some ideas proposed so far:
* Draw (classic) counters out of a bag.
* Reinforcement cards a la Stabilizer.
* Roll a die against a list (wandering squad table?).
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Old 05-19-2012, 06:02 PM   #2
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Default Re: Gettysburg scenario

Considering the play balance, I think that a draw without replacement is going to be needed, as opposed to the draw with replacement of a die.

The "Gettysburg" scenario has a tricky balance. If the reinforcements are too weak or too evenly matched, the game is liable to devolve into a boring slugfest. On the other hand, if the reinforcements are too strong and unevenly matched, the lucky player will gain a massive breakthrough and insurmountable lead.

The interesting balance is where a single lucky reinforcement can make a credible run and a streak of luck can create a breakthrough, but that the breakthrough is easily closed with slight luck on the other side.

It seems relatively easy to balance individual draws -- perhaps 25% chance of nothing notable, 25% chance of something like a Mark III or a dozen GEVs, and 50% chance of 3-4 armor.

The problem comes in avoiding an insurmountable streak like 3 Ogres or several large armor groups in a row. By doing something like drawing from a dozen options (without replacement), and perhaps reshuffling halfway through, it should be difficult to have a player completely run away with the game although there will be substantial (interesting) imbalance for forces as the draws vary.

Short version: I don't know that pure dice-based reinforcement is a good idea, because luck can be much more dominating. Drawing (cards, counters, counters with dice) without replacement will limit the imbalance.
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Old 05-19-2012, 06:08 PM   #3
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Default Re: Gettysburg scenario

I had a reply typed out and then you moved the topic. :)

Here's a thought:

----------------------------

There's an interesting dynamic available for balancing reinforcements turn over turn when you use dice: Use a matrix.

Picture a table with 6 rows and 6 columns (not counting the header). For your first reinforcement roll, just pick a column randomly and roll on it. For each roll thereafter, use the column that corresponds to the unit you got last time. Got an Ogre? Roll on column one. Three infantry squads? Roll on column 6. And so on. Naturally, the Ogre column (and probably most others) doesn't have an Ogre. Conversely, the infantry column has an Ogre and other sweet reinforcements, to make up for getting three infantry squads last time.

It works even better if you use two dice (so a grid of 11 x 11). Then you can balance the results against a bell curve, too.

It takes some thought to work it out so that the results aren't unbalanced over the course of many rolls, but it's doable and works well if thought-out well (like most things).
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Old 05-19-2012, 06:33 PM   #4
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Default Re: Gettysburg scenario

Given the 100 turn structure proposed by JLV, maybe a reinforcement every 5 turns, with a reshuffle at 50 turns.

Option 1 -- fixed reinforcements
This gives a fixed set of reinforcements, but with random order.
1 Ogre Mark III
10 Heavy Tanks
10 GEVs
5 Missile Tanks
5 Heavy Tanks
5 GEVs
12 Infantry on 4 GEV-PC
5 Light Tanks
5 LGEVs
6 Marines on 2 GEV-PC

Shuffling after 25 turns (5 reinforcements) would give more randomness.

Option 2 -- somewhat random reinforcements
Make a bag with 10 classic counters: Ogre, 3 Heavy Tanks, 3 GEVs, 1 Missile Tank, 2 GEV-PC.

At the beginning of every 5th turn (5, 10, ...), draw a counter and set aside.
If Ogre, roll a die: 6 gives Mark V, 1-5 gives Mark III. Or, maybe get 1 Mark (d6).

If not Ogre, roll a die:
6 gives 2d6 of that unit.
5 gives 1d6 of that unit and 1d6 of another unit.
3-4 gives 1d6 of that unit.
1-2 gives 1d6 of the "light" version of that unit.

Missile Tank -- on a 6 maybe give 1 Missile Cruiser? On a 1-2, I don't know -- maybe some Mobile Howitzers?
GEV-PC -- always give 3 infantry per unit. On a 1-2, maybe swap Marines.

After 10 draws (turn 50), refill the bag.
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Old 05-19-2012, 06:37 PM   #5
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Default Re: Gettysburg scenario

Another possibility to balance the random Ogre: give the opponent an extra reinforcement group at their next opportunity (in 3-5 rounds).

An Ogre just showed up at this part of the front, so some reinforcements are diverted here (weakening off-board areas).
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Old 05-19-2012, 07:10 PM   #6
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Default Re: Gettysburg scenario

I grabbed your list and added a couple things. I'm using the modified list as the values for the kind of matrix I mentioned earlier. I'll show the example tomorrow. I'm developing a headache tonight.
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Old 05-19-2012, 08:15 PM   #7
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Default Re: Gettysburg scenario

Wow! This thing took on a life of it's own, didn't it?

First, let me say you folks are freaking amazing -- LOTS of great ideas floating around.

Second, let me note in passing that there isn't anything magical about 100 turns (which is six HOURS and 40 minutes of fighting) and was merely a number I grabbed out of thin air.

Third, another way to avoid a crushing reinforcement disparity is to "script" the reinforcements (if one side will receive an Ogre, the other ought to as well, and fairly rapidly thereafter), but then use a random TIME distribution to introduce your variability (e.g., the reinforcements could arrive on the "scheduled" turn, or on any turn up to 10 turns (to again pick a random number out of thin air) later or 10 turns earlier. You could introduce more variability still by rolling a die which would select one of six "sets" of comparable reinforcements (and, maybe victory objectives) so players wouldn't even know what they were getting until after the game started.

I used the "Gettysburg" paradigm on purpose, because one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" things that occasionally happen in real life (and would be way too freaky to believe in a fiction book) is that both sides reinforcements worked out very nicely so that as soon as one side got a major superiority, the other side would have a bunch of people show up (or a lesser number but in just EXACTLY the right location) to suddenly shift the whole balance of the battle, and just when that side seemed to be growing dominant, the other side would get enough troops to save the day, and so on....

Clearly a game of this size would need all four (and maybe a set of eight) maps and a LOT of counters to play.... Especially if you introduced some "terrain" variation by having players place certain buildings beforehand (especially if they have to do so before they know quite what the victory conditions and reinforcement groups might look like).... A game like this would make a good "demo" game at a convention (you could literally keep it going the whole convention long) with players dropping out and picking up as they like. (It would probably make a pretty crappy "tournament" game though....)
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Old 05-19-2012, 09:16 PM   #8
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Default Re: Gettysburg scenario

I thing there's a couple other ways to limit the impact of major reinforcements and turning them into overwhelming superiority. The first is to place a "cooldown" time on each reinforcement result. That is, take the following reinforcement table (probably too simple, but a good short example):

1) Ogre MK III; 5
2) 2 SHVY; 3
3) GEV-PC + 3 INF; 2
4) GEV; 1
5) HVY; 1
6) 2 LT; 1

The number after the reinforcement type is the cooldown - how many enemy turns have to pass before that reinforcement is available again. The 4-6 rolls are available every turn, since they're not major force multipliers. The GEV-PC + INF is only available every 2 turns, the 2 SHVY's every 3 turns, and the Ogre every 5. The key is that you still roll every turn, and if you get a result that is still cooling down, you get NOTHING. Yes, you could make it so that you don't even roll until the cooldown is finished, but that would mean that an Ogre showing up would prevent you from getting any reinforcements for a long time, and since it can only be in 1 place at a time you might just lose because it's stuck on the other side of where it's needed.

Unless you make all the possible reinforcements be roughly the same strength, you're going to have an imbalance caused by the die roll. This prevents it from becoming too lopsided without forcing it to be too tilted towards forced balance (which ultimately isn't very realistic).

The other thing I thought of was that there could be a hard limit on "high end" reinforcement results, after which they were treated as nothing. For example, in the above table let's say there's only 1 Ogre available, 2 sets of SHVYs, and 5 GEV-PCs, but unlimited GEV/HVY/2LT. This does a good job of simulating that there are only so many high-value assets "in theater", but there's always more basic armor available. Once all of the high-value assets of a particular type are engaged in the battle, you just don't get anything on the turn you roll one.

Thoughts?
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Old 05-19-2012, 09:27 PM   #9
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Default Re: Gettysburg scenario

Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Third, another way to avoid a crushing reinforcement disparity is to "script" the reinforcements (if one side will receive an Ogre, the other ought to as well, and fairly rapidly thereafter), but then use a random TIME distribution to introduce your variability (e.g., the reinforcements could arrive on the "scheduled" turn, or on any turn up to 10 turns (to again pick a random number out of thin air) later or 10 turns earlier. You could introduce more variability still by rolling a die which would select one of six "sets" of comparable reinforcements (and, maybe victory objectives) so players wouldn't even know what they were getting until after the game started.
I LIKE the idea that you could partially randomize WHEN you get reinforcements because even if you didn't know what you were getting, under the "old" method, you'd depend on getting SOMETHING that turn.

And you could partially script the reinforcements and keep them partially random by scripting in "groups" of reinforcements: First reinforcements (determine randomally between 3 possibilities), Second reinforcements (another small table of random possibilities), etc., etc.

So, and you'd need to playtest this a fair amount: a) You would only know that you'll get your "First Reinforcements" over a range of turns, like say somewhere in turns 4 thru 6, and that b) these "First Reinforcements" will be one of the three options on the "First Reinforcements Table" (determined randomly), and (get this) that c) these reinforcements will only show up entering the map from one of two (or three or four . . .) possible hexes previously designated, but decided at the time by random die roll.

So the timing, the composition, and the point of arrival are all semi-random. No session will EVER be the same as any other session.

A guy could get carried away with this. Maybe (for example) the third or fourth reinforcement would specify that one or more of these factors would NOT be random. Still endless possibilities.

And I agree with you on a very large mapboard and LOTS of counters!

Squeeeeeee!
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Old 05-19-2012, 09:55 PM   #10
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Default Re: Gettysburg scenario

I played an "Arnhem" style game a few years ago and one of the things we did was to take turns placing blank counters on the map and then roll to see who they belonged to after all the counters were placed.
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