An IDEA For A Tournament-feedback desired

[Wreck]

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There would be 4 large VLs on every map, CENTRALLY located to assure that timid play results in big points for an aggressive opponent.

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I don't think you would need quite that many flags. A normal 1500 point battle might have about 600 points worth, I would estimate. Having more points in flags does mean it will be worth fighting hard (and taking losses) in the individual battles, though. Which keeps things hard overall.

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Rather than "safe zones", which are a problem since it would be impossible to prevent players from moving into their opponent's safe zones (or firing into them)

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I don't think it would be that hard to have effective safe zones. Just as long as the safe zones are clearly marked.

I agree that it would be nicer to get rid of them entirely, but I don't see how else you can count the survivors of a battle.

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Five games will take at least 5 months to finish. This is a problem I'm thinking about.

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At TH we just finished a tourney of 6 rounds in less than 2 months -- 1 week/round. How about you make it TCP only?

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I think we can find enough players that are willing to play one side or the other exclusively.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Me too. And I like the team aspect of it.

[Treeburst155]

Jarmo, mortar crews would be barred from consideration for new tanks. As long as no units actually leave the map I think I can tell what type of crews survived. This is addressed below in reply to Deke's post.

Deke wrote:

I would go so far as to say reduce the initial force to 4000 points and give everyone 500 points after each battle that can be used or accumulated for unit purchase. **End Quote

I'm not sure going this far would encourage enough conservation. Players would get 2,000 points extra this way. With just 200 points in replacements/reinforcements players can plug (at least partially) gaps in their force makeup but they must really take care of their forces. There would be a constant weighing of victory points against force conservation.

If a player takes a real bad beating in a couple games he will indeed be hurting in his last battle. I think all players will be able to field a respectable force for the first 4 battles, at LEAST the first three. There is a problem here however. If and when a player does run out of forces he will not be very motivated to play his last game or two. I would say in this case that a 90-10 victory be awarded to any player who has yet to face an opponent who drops out. Scores like that would probably result anyway. A sporting player would stick it out since his final opponent may be also be severely depleted. If I can only field 500 points for my last battle I still should play on since my opponent may be in the same boat.

Deke wrote:

Caveat to the tourney would be speed of play. Players will need/want to finish each battle before starting another. Perhaps a smaller scale would be better? **End Quote

Perhaps each battle should consist of 1,000 points max units with all other things being scaled down accordingly. Turn limits could be set at 20 turns. My only problem with smaller battles is that a couple of lucky AT shots can win the game since only a few tanks would be in each battle. This is a somewhat minor concern however when compared to the time problem. After all, there is luck in combat.

Deke wrote:

Regarding fractional squads, perhaps it would be appropriate to take the total number of men left in squad types and then round up. This would represent men returned to duty or not really hurt in the battle.

EG I start with a Coy of Allied 44 infantry (9x10) and at the end of the battle I have a total of 63 men left. I get back 7 full squads. **End Quote

I like this idea. This helps the player who had a rough game a little bit with the rounding up.

Deke wrote:

How would you handle HQ’s? I would suggest allowing the player at his option to fill them out from the ranks of surviving squad members before the round up. This would represent “field Promotions”. *shrug* Slam me on this one, I’m shooting from the hip. **End Quote

This is a real hairy one. All regular platoons and partial platoons should start a battle with HQs IMO. Perhaps I should just GIVE the players HQs for all their surviving platoons/partial platoons. Battalion, Company, and Weapons HQs would be reinstated IF they were at MORE than 50% strength at the end of the battle. If not, they are eliminated and the player has to buy these types of HQs out of his 200 point reserve allotment buy purchasing a unit and deleting all the troops.

Deke wrote:

Crews, isn’t it possible to identify a crews weapon by cross-referencing the leader name with the weapon after initial purchase? I don’t know, again just a thought. With the proper tracking system in place I think this could be done. If it works you could handle crews per squads above. **End Quote

This is an interesting idea IF the crews retain the name of their leader after they have been relieved of their vehicle. I haven't noticed one way or the other on this. If true, this is the way to go. If not, then vanilla tanks for any crew is in order. Hopefully this wouldn't promote getting cheap crewed units knocked out to gain tanks. I don't know if this would be a worthwhile gamey strategy or not, but it may be. Mortar crews would have to be prevented from turning into tank crews.

[Jarmo]

The crew thing would plague all kinds of cheap crewed units, not just mortars. Infantry guns, flak trucks, whatever.

Then artillery. This tournament would be very artillery friendly, spotters dont suffer casualties often in my games. You could probably use the same 240mm spotter in every fight. Don't know if that'd be a bad thing though.

[Treeburst155]

Regarding "safe zones":

There is nothing to stop a player from entering safe zones, especially since these zones would have cover on their borders. A player could theoretically move undetected along the border of the safe zone. I think a big enough back field will work for withdrawals. If the enemy can get at your guys in the backfield then your withdrawal might not be too successful. It sounds realistic to me.

Crews: Crews will have to be kept track of as far as what type of weapon they crew in order to prevent what Jarmo brings up. Either that or crew remnants will have to be dealt with a different way than offering vanilla tanks. If leader names carry over to crews after knockout/abandonment they can be tracked. If not, some other solution to crew remnant needs to be found.

TCP/IP only: This might be a very good idea. Players could be given two weeks to finish their games. The less time the tournamnent takes the less likely there would be drop outs due to real life which would mess up a tournament like this real bad IMO. Dropouts due to depleted forces are not a problem. The dropout would likely have suffered a 90-10 defeat anyway. I'm for TCP/IP only in this one.

[Thomas Norton]

Now this is how good games are born. Keep up the great work men. We will all benefit from it.

Tom

[Treeburst155]

It should be noted that Tom above inspired this whole thing with an email he sent me. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be pursuing this now.

On TCP/IP: I think fairly liberal time limits should be allowed. With the element of force conservation to be dealt with there is lots to think about. Players could play the game over several sessions in two weeks.

[xerxes]

The team aspect is fantastic.

I'll suggest a huge twist to this, hear me out before you think I'm crazy.

For each team (allies/germans) have a non-playing "general". The general selects the initial "army" and then doles out forces for each divisional commander. As a divisional commander loses forces, they request reinforcements for the next battle. The reinforcements are assigned by the general. If a general runs out of reserves he can call up more green troops. The general can also issue orders to the divisional commanders (ie. perserve your armor) though the divisional commanders would make their own choices.

It would separate force selection from actual operations.

The general would have to be a very knowledgeable player.

Just some random thoughts.

- xerxes

[Wreck]

Regarding HQ and infantry replacements: as long as we have the small allotment of points for replacements, I see no reason to treat infantry specially. Infantry replacements should be priced by the man. If you have a squad with 8 riflemen dead, you can buy new men for ~2 points each, so, 16 points total and it is as good as new. LMGs cost a bit more of course.

If the games are going to be set up by hand, you can allow partial units (i.e. platoons missing squads, or squads missing men). If the games are going to be set up in the QB generator, then we will have to require complete platoons. But that is OK -- that's what the 4000 points of forces are for. A player should be allowed to combine partial squads if he likes, but it should not be required.

[Treeburst155]

Wreck wrote:

Regarding HQ and infantry replacements: as long as we have the small allotment of points for replacements, I see no reason to treat infantry specially. Infantry replacements should be priced by the man. If you have a squad with 8 riflemen dead, you can buy new men for ~2 points each, so, 16 points total and it is as good as new. LMGs cost a bit more of course. **End Quote

I'm not sure I understand this. I think you're saying that remnants should be carried over until a whole new unit of that type can be purchased rather than rounding up. This would be fine but HQs present a problem. Regular platoon HQs need to be purchased with squads to be their leaders and they must be purchased at full strength. There could end up being squads without leaders I think. This gets somewhat involved and needs more thought. It would be much easier just to GIVE leaders to the regrouped remnant rifle platoons, and let all remnant rifle platoon and weapons platoon HQ survivors be tallied and turned into Weapons platoon leaders with no rounding, but fractions carried over. Battalion and Company COs would be restored if they were ABOVE 50%. If not they are eliminated and must be repurchased if the player desires. There could get to be an overabundance of weapons platoon leaders using the above method.

Wreck wrote:

If the games are going to be set up by hand, you can allow partial units (i.e. platoons missing squads, or squads missing men). If the games are going to be set up in the QB generator, then we will have to require complete platoons. But that is OK -- that's what the 4000 points of forces are for. A player should be allowed to combine partial squads if he likes, but it should not be required. **End Quote

I don't believe you can delete individual men from a purchased squad. You can only delete squads from platoons. HQs must be purchased full strength also.

EDIT: Easier way of dealing with HQs of all types. If they are above 50% they are restored to full strength. If not they must be purchased with replacement points. Keep in mind this would FORCE players to purchase rifle platoon HQs since you can't delete the leaders and leave his squads. No big deal IMO. I would update the inventory with leaders that would be free (>50% survived), and also add the necessary leaders for remnant reorganized platoons that are leaderless with the points being deducted from their replacement allotment.

[ 08-17-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Wreck]

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I'm not sure I understand this. I think you're saying that remnants should be carried over until a whole new unit of that type can be purchased rather than rounding up.

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Not a whole new unit. Just whatever men/weapons are needed to bring it up to TOE. So if a German squad, for instance, loses 8 men but keeps its LMG it will still be reasonably cheap to buy the replacement.

The big advantage here over any kind of rounding up (or down) strategy is that it has no breakpoints that will tempt players to do funny stuff. For example, if you promise to give a player a platoon HQ for a platoon if it does not have one after a battle, then you are in essense making all platoon HQs in the battle into late-battle suicide squads.

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This would be fine but HQs present a problem. Regular platoon HQs need to be purchased with squads to be their leaders and they must be purchased at full strength. There could end up being squads without leaders I think.

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Just require that all infantry entering a battle do so in full platoons. Problem solved. People can hold shot-up platoon HQs in their reserves if they want, or use them for replacements for other HQ units.

[ 08-17-2001: Message edited by: Wreck ]

[Treeburst155]

Wreck, you're talking about sub-dividing the squads' point value. This could get hairy. What percentage of the total squad cost would the LMG represent?

[Treeburst155]

Tally all survivors in each unit type. Make as many whole units of each type as possible. Squads would be considered whole units for infantry. Distribute the rifle platoon HQ survivors (after building to full strength) among the rifle platoons as far as they will go. Force the player to buy any additional platoon leaders they need for platoons/partial platoons. All fractions for all unit types carry over until a whole unit of that type can be purchased.

This method keeps players from fiddling with their remnants to such a degree that I can't figure out what they've done with them. Players will just use the updated inventory I send them after each game. The fractions I wasn't able to use will be listed for the player's information but I don't think he should be allowed to manipulate fractional units as it would be way too hard for me to figure out what he did with the fractions. If allowed, the player would actually be updating his own inventory. Not good IMO.

BTW, crews can be traced to their weapons using their names so crews would be restored to their original weapon type when there were enough survivors of that type.

I think all the problems concerning how to integrate survivors back into the inventory of a player are solved by the method above.

Crew issues are solved because we can track by name.

All HQ issues are solved since specific HQ types will be kept track of and made availabe as soon as there are enough survivors of that type of HQ. I do think Battalion and Company HQs should be restored to full strength if they are over 50% at the end. Less than that and they are a remnant waiting for more remnants of Battalion and/or company HQs.

In short, every live man counts at the end except for company and battalion HQs who can lose a little bit for free. (Co HQs could lose 2 men for free, and Bat HQs could lose 3). I don't think this little freebie would result in suicide Battalion HQs. Lose 4 guys and you won't see your Bat HQ next game unless you buy another one. In fact, you would have to buy another one and have it suffer casualties if you ever wanted to recover that remnant. Treating Co and Ba HQs like the others won't work because the loss of a single man would relegate the HQ to "fractional remnant" status and people aren't going to buy a bunch of those units to provide more fractional remnants.

[ 08-17-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Wreck]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Wreck, you're talking about sub-dividing the squads' point value. This could get hairy. What percentage of the total squad cost would the LMG represent?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Riflemen and SMGs tend to cost about 2 or 3, for normal infantry. LMGs cost 9-10 or so. MP44s cost 4. Those are rough approximations. I am sure I could figure out more exact numbers with a little work. All we really need is for the charges for these things to be close to (but less than) the "real" costs and we are fine.

[Treeburst155]

Why not just carry over fractions and make new units available as the remnants of a type hit full strength for that type? This allows players to spend their 200 points per game on fresh units (minus the rifle platoon HQs they would be forced to buy). By preserving fractions every man maintains value without resorting to purchasing partial squads out of the replacement points. There would just be a small number of men not available for the next fight. No more than 11 riflemen, 3 Platoon HQ members, 5 HMG crew members, 1 AT team member, 1 mortar team member, and so on.

Problem/Solution: Arty spotters missing a man should be restored for free like higher lever HQs so they can be used in the next game. Fully eliminated spotters would of course need to be repurchased.

[ 08-17-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[ 08-18-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Wreck]

[woops]

[ 08-20-2001: Message edited by: Wreck ]

[Wreck]

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I'm not sure I understand this. I think you're saying that remnants should be carried over until a whole new unit of that type can be purchased rather than rounding up.

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Not a whole new unit. Just whatever men/weapons are needed to bring it up to TOE. So if a German squad, for instance, loses 8 men but keeps its LMG it will still be reasonably cheap to buy the replacement.

The big advantage here over any kind of rounding up (or down) strategy is that it has no breakpoints that will tempt players to do funny stuff. For example, if you promise to give a player a platoon HQ for a platoon if it does not have one after a battle, then you are in essense making all platoon HQs in the battle into late-battle suicide squads.

This would be fine but HQs present a problem. Regular platoon HQs need to be purchased with squads to be their leaders and they must be purchased at full strength. There could end up being squads without leaders I think.