Tournament question

[Ace Pilot]

I was reading the “Deliberately Unbalanced Scenarios” thread (interesting discussion) and was wondering if anyone is running a tournament using Operations instead of Battles.

Some background. In the DUS thread, the point is made that the overriding goal in each battle is maximizing your score (not necessarily beating your opponent). In an unbalanced scenario, this could possibly mean halting an attack after achieving only some of your objectives, since pressing ahead would likely cost more than it would gain. While this attitude addresses the concept of force preservation to some degree, I would think that playing Operations would add more weight to the force preservation concept. After all, a panzerschreck with just one round left is worth risking in an effort to take out an AFV – unless you can get him back with more ammo later.

Thoughts? Comments?

Ace

[Treeburst155]

The only problem with operations, as far as RoW style tourneys are concerned, is the time it would take to play just one operation. How long is a short operation? 50 turns or? TCP/IP tournaments would probably work.

Treeburst155 out.

[WWB]

Other structural problems abound:

1) scoring them

2) too many permutations to really balance them.

WWB

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

Other structural problems abound:

1) scoring them

2) too many permutations to really balance them.

WWB

But I thought the whole point of the ROW tournament was to use a scoring system that made use of unbalanced scenarios?

I'll admit I was thinking each battle in an Operation would substitute for each Battle in a tournament, but I guess there is no way to score the individual battles in an Operation. Maybe BFC can change this and make this a possibility?

[Treeburst155]

Balance isn't really a problem (except maybe for some players ), but scoring is. You could score the first battle OK; but after that, everyone is fighting a different battle. The whole operation would have to be treated as one giant scenario for scoring purposes.

Treeburst155 out.

[Ace Pilot]

Treeburst,

I thought my idea fell apart on being unable to score the individual battles of an Operation. But you say there is way to score the first one? I can't figure that out. How would you do that?

Thanks,

Ace

[Treeburst155]

Well, the first battle would be the same for everybody. Players would all have the same forces and setup zones to work with. They would all be presented with the same exact situation in the setup phase. This would not be true in the future battles of the operation. Oh, I see what you mean. There would be no score after the first battle. :eek: Um...you can't score even the first battle.

What might be fun is to play operations in a "relay race" type thingy. Players would be split into teams. The number of team members would be equal to the number of battles in the operation. Each player would play one battle of the operation. For example, player #2 for each side would inherit the operation from player #1.

The victor would not be an individual. The whole team would win or lose.

This would of course take quite a bit of time because the battles would have to be played in succession; but it could be interesting. Also, it would not be a time demanding event for anyone involved except the players that are actually playing their battle. The guys who play the last battle could have a four month wait. In the meantime, they can enjoy the updates and AARs, and cheer on the team.

Here is what it would take IMO:

1) Fairly short operations with fairly short battles (4-5 battles, 20 turns each)

2) Quick turn-around PBEMers ONLY (at least two files per day)

3) Non-playing players would get the game files (at least the movies) so they can follow along while they await their own battle.

Hmmm....if we played several operations at once, most players could have at least one active battle simply by staggering the battle numbers they play for each operation.

This kind of competition could handle a lot of players too. Hmmm...

Treeburst155 out.

[ November 15, 2002, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[CombinedArms]

But to throw a bit more cold water on the idea (now that TB has come up with a typically flexible and ingenious idea that just might make it work)--aren't operations in CMBO, at least, viewed as basically flawed, anyway?

There are lots of problems with operations, including where the no mans land line is drawn, the ability of both sides to stack all their units on the front line (no setup zones), the absence of flags, etc. I, for one, have pretty much stopped playing CMBO operations for this reason. Rumor has it the CMBB has somewhat, but not completely, cured the problem, but I dont' know this first hand. Anyway, if operations are problematic w/in the CMBO engine, why go to the trouble of building a tourney aroudn them?

It would be a LOT of trouble to administer, but something like Wreck's new Campaign rules might be a more interesting alternative--I know there are also people playing PBEM campaigns but I havent' investigated that either..