What about marking out a section on the pond, as "the hill" and only let 5 ships play at once. The person controlling "the hill" the longest wins. Or is that like something thats just undo-able?
The biggest problem that I see is that it defeats the general goal of trying to get more ships involved, if you're limiting to only 5. Why not make the whole pond "the hill" & let everybody play? JM
How would you control it for the longest amount of time then? I see most of what you are saying though.
How would you control a small portion of the pond? Naval combat is all about controlling "the sea". "Control" means to secure its use for yourself while denying its use to your enemies. How would you define "Control"? Does it mean the total absence of enemy vessels from the water? If so, for how long? For some defined length of time, or should "Control" be achieved the instant NO enemy vessels are on the water? How about the ability to travel between "Point A" & "Point B"? That's part of what the scenario designer needs to consider. Objectives need to be defined specifically. In other words: What, exactly, are the conditions that must be satisfied to determine a winner? Incidentally, you might want to check out various clubs' "Last Man Standing" scenarios. In general, they're pretty similar to what you're suggesting. The goal to winning all of them is to have the last ship afloat at the end. Some use the whole pond, others partition out a segment of it. JM
In online multi player games king of the hill senarios score by how much time you rack up with a max ammount of time for the senario. then its tallied after the game and a winner is posted. how you would do this with out a computer is beyond me. seems like convoy and fleet battles are the only senarios that will work with these boats.
A basic rule that I've used for many years, to design software applications is this: Never ask a computer to do something that I wouldn't, or couldn't, do myself. One way to track ships' times on the water/in battle without a computer is to keep a simple hand-written log. Designate somebody who doesn't have a ship in the battle as the log keeper. Give them a sheet of paper with each ship listed down the side and multiple blank columns, & a clock or watch. As each ship enters or leaves the water, the keeper writes down the time in one of the blank columns. At the end of the day, for each ship, subtract the Enter Battle Time from the Exit Battle Time. This can be a great job for somebody who's joined a club but doesn't have a ship ready yet, to give them something meaningful to do & help keep them interested & involved. Depending on the complexity of the scenario, more helpers of various types may be needed. Look at the need for helpers as opportunities instead of obstacles. How many times have we seen somebody get interested, but for whatever reason, their interest fizzles? Somebody who hasn't yet made the investment of time & money that an operational warship represents is much more likely to quit & move on. Giving them something useful, interesting, & relevant to do can help keep them engaged in this critical period. Compare warship combat to other sports, such as a foot race or bicycle rally: In those other types of events, you need people to lay out the course, set up equipment (barriers, cones, tables, start/finish lines, banners, etc.), register participants, keep track of times, etc. The personnel needs for staff & support extends well beyond just those running or cycling. In fact, if the event staff is limited to just primary participants (i.e. those actually running or biking), then the size of the event itself is self-limiting due to the fact that people can only do so much, & if they're also the ones who are running/biking/warship combat, their time is severely limited already. Convoy & fleet battles as we currently practice them now are the only viable scenarios, only if we require all events to be self-managing. In other words, as long as it's a requirement that there be NO non-battling support (is it?), then the size & complexity of scenarios are very limited. JM
