I see a lot of talk of scenarios and events, but this April's Scuttlebutt issue made me think. I know of a few other hobbies that use events/scenarios to determine the outcome of a larger Risk-like metagame, and I believe it's something that could definitaly be applied to this sport. A prime example would be the tournament gameplay for the first person shooter series 'Battlefield' (1942, Battlefield 2 or Battlefield 2042). http://www.bfewaw.com/ Instead of counting points per meet, a club could design a ruleset (or frankly use some wargame ruleset) to determine movement on a map, apply certain modifiers for suprise, weather, whatever and then use an applicable scenario to apply to the battle. Very easy to conceive with a web application. This would give more meaning to each battle fought, and potentially add more to the realism than a simple point count.
Outcome of the prior battle, or cumulative condition ("score", however defined), determines the starting conditions or objective(s) for the current battle. I think it's important to have (an) objective(s) for each side (personally, I think that just shooting holes in ships gets old after awhile, but I know there are others who don't agree). Whomever achieves their objective first (or at all, if they're mutually-exclusive; or most of their objectives if their are many; most/first, etc.) gets bragging rights as well as a more favorable position next time. For example, each side might have some number of "tasks" that they have to perform to get the "win". At the start of the season, each team starts out as evenly as possible. Maybe they get the same number of objectives selected at random, say 10 each. The side that gets the most objectives achieved, or achieves all of theirs first, might only have to do 9 things next time while the other guys have to do 11. I think that one of the great things about scenario scoring is that it can affect gameplay without changing anything about construction, so it really doesn't cost anybody anything. As long as raw scores are kept, you can even change the rules in mid-season if it turns out that there's some sort of imbalance that needs correcting, etc. JM
I have two concerns. First, would this idea be selective as to which ships get to battle? Second, my club does not do "axis vs allies" or other battles with consistent and predictable teams. How would you deal with teams where players switch sides every other sortie?
What could be done is something along the lines of a "red team" versus "blue team" and from a master list, the starting conditions and objectives of a battle or sortie could be determined based upon the objectives and outcome of the preceeding battle or sortie. Some such variables could include number of rearming allowances, quantity of supply runs per earned rearm, point values for successfully completed convoy runs, number of convoy runs required to meet a given objective, etc. Each objective variable could be affected by the ressults of the prior battle or sortie. Even further could be inter-club objectives. i.e. big gun axis must achieve x percentage of successful convoy deliveries out of y quantity of runs attempted in z minutes of action, or something to that effect. If enough different regional clubs could agree to a common ruleset for the modifiers (with factors to adapt them to the variations present from one pond to another), each of these could feed into objective determination or something such as task force allocation for an annual event such as NABGO. I wouldn't advise that it be so selective as to dictate the ships put onto the pond for a sortie; instead, it should specify which of the vessels in play are responsible for which objectives (simulating the division of vessels into taskgroups, each responsible for a particular mission, etc.). An example of assigning objective responsibilities could be that a team has ships divided into two taskgroups, one responsible for attacking merchant ships, the other for destroying a series of fixed targets. Within the two task groups, there could be cruisers and destroyers with an objective of ensuring that a percentage of the capital ships within their taskgroup are still afloat at the end of the action. Likewise, the battleships of the opposing team could be tasked with the objective of sinking a particular number of attacking vessels while the lighter ships could have the responsibility of keeping lost shipping tonnage below a certain amount. This would, of course, complicate the overall scene but could provide for more variation from one event to the next. Organizing a series of sorties into a sequence of objective-driven events that affect each other could also offer an opportunity to offset some of the "unevenness" inherent to running events involving forces of uneven strength/firepower and make the overall outcome more "fair".
Personally, I wouldn't be too keen on anything that keeps ships off the water. To me, the whole point of trying to make things more interesting/fun is to get more people engaged, & put MORE ships on the water. That's something that I think requires some care; to make sure that a scenario doesn't exclude anybody who wants to participate. It's probably a good idea to poll the combatants well in advance, though. There may be some who would like to get a breather, to repair & rearm, or just sit back & watch some other folks battle for awhile. That's a problem for trying to run something that goes over an extended time. For an extended "campaign" to work, people need to have some sort of "attachment" to their teams. An alternative might be to keep track of who belongs to the winning/losing team each time, then track ranks for a full year to see who's been on the winning end the most. JM
Here's one that I worked out quite awhile ago, that I think is very much like the Risk board game. Multiple ports are established around the perimeter of the pond. I've got a pretty easy way to make ports using floating booms made out of pool noodles. Each port represents some amount of land surrounding the pond (i.e. a "country"). Countries' boundaries are marked off using cones, flags, "Crime Scene" tape, etc. Teams start off "owning" 1 port each, to represent their "home" nations (variations may start with 1 or the other team owning more ports, depending on game objectives; maybe 1 home port for each nation represented in an alliance, etc.). All ports are "safe" zones, meaning that nobody is allowed to shoot out of, into, or within a port area. Teams may capture a port, and the surrounding country, by sailing an armed ship into the port, but only if there are no ships (armed or otherwise) belonging to the enemy currently in the port. Capturing a port secures it for your team & denies it to the other team. Also, once a team has claimed a port, the enemy players can not walk on the shoreline in the captured country; they must walk around. This makes it tough for enemy captains to line up good shots in the immediate port area because they can't get as close to the action as captains on the team that controls the port. A team that owns a port risks having it recaptured by the enemy if they allow it to become vacant (which battle conditions may require, making it necessary to make a tough decision sometimes). Any ship that sails into a port owned by the enemy team is captured unless the port is vacant, in which case the port is captured. Game objectives might be to capture all the ports, control a greater number of ports when the game is over, or capture the enemy's home port (which could be possible if they're out all over, trying to claim OTHER ports, etc.). Variations: Individual ports may have "resources" assigned to them. For example, 1 port may be a "fuel" port, another may be an "ammunition" port, yet another may be a "repair" port, etc. A TBD amount of tonnage must be delivered from various resource ports to a team's home port before that team is allowed to rearm, re-gas, change batteries, or repair ships. Gaining control of resource ports denies their resources to the enemy, potentially forcing them to take longer or more-dangerous routes to get what they need or force them to do without, just like in real war. A country may be invaded by land if a team can manage to stage some TBD amount of troops, ammunition, food, medical supplies, armor/trucks/etc. in the adjacent country. Maybe something like a 4:1 superiority ratio of attacker-to-defender in all defined categories, which would allow the defending country to build up as well as the attacker. All materials must be delivered by sea. Instead of declaring a winner each month (or whatever), allow the scenario to continue indefinitely. Next battle, pick up at the point where the prior battle left off in terms of who controls what. Keep it going until a winner is determined or the losing side concedes. Unbalanced scenarios can be created by giving the team with the fewest ships the most ports to start with. Or, give the team with the most ships the most ports, & give the "weaker" team an objective such as to capture 1 specific port, but don't let the defending team know which port is the goal. Another alternative where the sides are unbalanced is to do away with port capture, & allow only the weaker team to use certain ports as "safe havens". Plenty of other options can be figured out off the basic premise, I'm sure. JM
My concern with teams set anually is the buildup of unhealthy rivalry. It seems to me that if teams are axis/allies, then sometimes the effect is to have two separate clubs, and the rivalry and banter can build to "hard feelings later" levels. This seems to me to be a challenge for all clubs and formats in one way or another. As for balance, I've seen the traditional playground pick two captains and alter picks work well for producing fleets that the participants felt "fair" as the boat/skipper combos that were the most deadly got divyed up. And really boat/skipper is a better measure than tonnage, number, armament, etc in my opinion. For senarios where one team is outnumbered, out tonned, etc. If the players want the challenge, and can pick which side of the senario to be on... (as it seems no one wants to go on the water to be pointlessly slaughtered) say start the traditional way, give the captain for the high side first two picks... and then let players of similar rounds swap if they like. The same effect will occur if the teams are picked prior to the meet... The players decide to commit to that meet, and somebody doesn't show... or the Labrador Retriever chews up the newly skinned boat. I have always wanted to have the merchant raiders added in. I think that the traditional convoy system would be a hoot if the Germain raiders could capture the opposing ships in some way. One side could loose all their convoy ships if they don't track down and deal with the raider I'm also somewhat of a heretic, I've thought that one way to model how devestating subs were to merchant ships would be to allow them to ram merchant ships. Argh!!! flameproof suit on!! As for John's other ideas... I'm glad to see the topic being worked on. I'd be glad to give them a try once I get pondside again. I think having goals and subgoals would be a great way to emphasize the convoy aspect. And emphasizing these roles will provide a venue to get people building and on the water. I'd love to see BigGuns in a really good growth condition. And I think the traditional scoring system is in need of more than a little tweaking. A map and an Archon like system for taking territory seems to me to be a good direction to look into. Mike3
That can certainly be a concern. I think a lot depends on the individuals involved. For some people, a big part of the fun comes from the friendly banter back and forth. Sometimes people need to be reminded that it's only a game, & not real life-and-death warfare. I think that it's just a part of what a club has to do, to try to resolve whatever problems come up. That includes "personality conflicts" that can erupt between/among members, for whatever reason. The more people involved, the greater the likelihood that somebody is going to have an issue with somebody else. Clubs need to have strong leaders, who can recognize "situations" & take steps to control them before they become problems. JM
Personally, I hate even matchups. Many games are inherently balanced. In baseball, for example, both teams get a minimum of 27 batters sent to the plate; everybody plays on the same field, runs the same bases, and has the same strike zone. Combat isn't like that. In real life (i.e. 1:1 scale), it's practically unheard of to have an even matchup. I can't think of a single historical instance where opposing forces were evenly matched. Creating a favorable imbalance is, in fact, a fundamental aspect of warfighting theory (consult Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz, et al for plenty of related material). Nobody in anything close to their right mind starts a war with somebody unless they believe that they can defeat them handily. I understand the need, in a game situation, for a certain sense of equality & balance. However, I don't think that such equality necessarily has to take the form of evenly-divided forces (teams). Instead, I think of equality in terms of the ability & opportunity for each side to "win", with winning not necessarily defined the same way for each side. Consider the case of an aggressor country with a large military vs. a weaker neighbor. To the aggressor, "victory" may consist of completely conquering the weaker neighbor, taking over its government, and absorbing its territory into itself. On the other hand, "victory" for the weaker country may just be to survive with its government & economy mostly intact & still controlling 75% of its original territory. Two vastly different definitions of "victory", but reasonably achievable by each with the resources they have available. This is where the idea of team objectives comes into play. Rather than trying to achieve balance only through a technical evening of the sides at the start of the game, each side is offered some mutually-exclusive goal that they can reasonably achieve regardless of the technical balance of forces. In fact, I find that unbalanced scenarios tend to be a lot more fun than balanced ones overall. My favorite battle of all time is still an unbalanced commerce-raiding/defending scenario that was played several years ago. One team had a number of unarmed transport ships while the other side had none. I believe that the side with the transports had an edge in warships as well. The general objective was for one team to make some number of cargo-transits down the length of the pond and back. If they made their number, they won; if they didn't make their number, the raiding team won. Hole counts didn't matter for anything, nor did sinks, etc. Plenty of that sort of thing happened on it's own, though, as each team worked to achieve their goal & prevent the other guys from achieving theirs. Attrition eventually reduced the teams to 1 cargo ship vs. 1 raider. The
I just HATE "traditional" scoring, involving damage points. It has no relevance whatsoever to actual naval combat. Naval combat is all about securing the use of the sea for yourself & denying it to your enemy. How many holes get punched in ships has no bearing at all, & history has plenty of examples where sea control was achieved without firing a shot. Did the US Navy win WWII in the Pacific by scoring more "points" than Japan? No, they won it by achieving objectives and taking territory (land). It might be interesting to calculate the "points" scored by each side; the US took a pretty good hit, points-wise, at Pearl Harbor, I'm sure! Just for grins, I worked up a spreadsheet to score Jutland. I used typical Big Gun combat factors for the ships involved. Sinks only were scored, since I couldn't find any real reliable & consistent definitions of other damage. UK was charged with 45,100 damage points, while Germany had 50,750. That doesn't come anywhere close to telling the story of the battle, but it does tend to support the view that the battle was won by UK (as does the fact that the High Seas Fleet never sailed again, IMO, but that's a whole 'nother topic!). The biggest problem I have with damage-based scoring, though, is that it encourages non-participation. A timid captain can achieve a "technical win" by avoiding combat/contact, thereby avoiding damage. I think that's just completely backwards. People should be rewarded for putting their ships in harm's way! I think that the only valid use for damage scoring is to determine who has been the most active consistently & recognizing them for that achievement. Damage should be a badge of honor! Captains who, battle after battle, consistently get shot up the most, sunk the most, damaged the most, are in fact contributing the most for the enjoyment of all & they should be recognized for that fact & their behavior encouraged. 2 ships can circle each other all day long, hardly firing a shot or scoring a hit. How fun is that, for participant or spectator? Now, if those same 2 ships get together & mix it up hard, toe-to-toe, & fight it out "to the death", that's a lot more fun for all involved. Scenarios in general, & scoring in particular, should be designed to encourage the type of behavior that makes the game more fun for everybody (& I happen to think that trying to avoid getting sunk is missing out on a heck of a lot of the fun involved). Here's the only scoring system that I think makes sense (credit to "Conan the Barbarian"): "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women" scores 1 point; anything else scores 0! ;-) JM
Gentlemen. Remember this is a game a sport if you will. This in no way represents true naval warfare. We sit toe to toe in our fighting,. Decks are stronger than the hull armour. No plunging fire. No over the horizon firing. ECT.ECT. Go to the Civil War era if you want a more historical game and again I mean game. Least you can ram in that time period and not get yelled at.
Correct, as always. This is what it is. I've seen the light! Not only can it never be anything else, it should never be anything else. And what it is, is a tiny niche of the declining hobby of model shipbuilding. Anybody who might not be satisfied with the hobby as it exists now & forever must be driven away (if necessary, using enough energy that, if applied in a positive way, might actually accomplish something useful). Any & all change must be resisted, until the last lone R/C warship captain dies (still wondering what he can do to make others want to join his beloved hobby). Also, fragmenting the hobby into ever-smaller formats & sub-categories, pitting each against the other & attempting to draw membership from one to another, is a great way to keep the overall decline going at a good pace. Let's keep dividing that ever-shrinking pie into more pieces. Whatever we do, we should never try to go after part of a larger pie! JM
JM I have seen this fragmentation in my Civil War Living History groups and R/C infra-red combat tank clubs I have been in. You hit the mail on the head with that one. I would add to try to talk with people on why they are so disgruntled and see if there is a solution. Never do you want to just throw a person out if he or she has already invested time and money into this great sport. Some clubs just want to do things maybe differently. I know one cl;ub right now that is building destroyers,merchants.and subs.Do not be negative. Let locals do what they want.
This is actually the primary mode of game-play for my club here in Phoenix. We dont use "damage-based" scoring. Under our rules (for this scenario) it doesnt matter how many holes are in your ship, if it's not sunk there's no points awarded. Then the ships that are sunk are scored on a direct tonnage-points system. (ie: a ship with a displacement of 2,700 tons would award the team that sank her 2,700 points). We have a google earth map that has the entire ocean drawn up into territories. We've noted where all of the dockyards are and what production capabilities they had. We have a system for "capturing" islands that has to do with "supply points" brought in from transports. It's a very, very long method of gameplay, but it's also quite fun. It does take quite a bit of reading the rules to understand all of the ins and outs though. Its one of the most complex games that I've ever played, and I love it!
wow, that sounds like a lot of work, but must be pretty fun. Do you guys go through a whole campaign in a season, or how often do you do so? Sounds like fun.
basically we try to meet up about once every 4-6 weeks or so. we dont really have a "season" here...the weather is such that we can fight all year round. It only gets about as low as 48 degrees in the winter. (of course the tradeoff is 120+ degree summers...). Anyway, at a battle day we'll fight several sorties for the meta-game, for control over a specific territory on our map, and then after that we'll fight just "just for fun" missions. (Last man standing, team last man standing, capture the flag, custom scenario missions, etc). Our "Meta-Game" continues on until one team wins. It may take several years for that to happen. It was a lot of work to set up initially, but now that it's all set up it's fairly easy to manage with Google Earth and Excel.
