Resolving land combat

[miketr]

This brings to mind the following question; how are land battles being resolved right now?  With the naval ones its fairly clear as one of the many mini-naval systems like seekrieg is being used.  I can offer suggestions in general terms what went on and when but to be specific I need more information as to how land battles are moderated.

Michael

[P3D]

I had to say that resolution of land combat depends on the actual moderator. In the system I am using I haven't yet implemented armored cars yet.
Naval combat is much clearer and simple compared to land combat. If anyone has a suggestion what wargaming system we could use that is not much time consuming, you are welcome.

[Tanthalas]

the one I was useing is Very time consuming (took 3 hours to set up a battle that lasted almost 8 hours)

[miketr]

Something like this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_in_Flames

Now the total world at war setup where you doing economics, naval and air phases, over the entire globe its not a fast game.  But it can handle a great deal in terms of whats going on.  One thing is to get the full flavor of it we really need to create military leaders to handle the ARMY HQ's.

I would suggest we use that or any odds based, strategic level combat resolution.  WiF has a number of E-maps for things like GameBox.

Michael

[Korpen]

I had to say that resolution of land combat depends on the actual moderator. In the system I am using I haven't yet implemented armored cars yet.
Naval combat is much clearer and simple compared to land combat. If anyone has a suggestion what wargaming system we could use that is not much time consuming, you are welcome.

TOAW might be an option (http://www.navalism.org/index.php?topic=1410.msg13987#msg13987 )
While resolution is quite fast (and can be made by the players themselves), creating the scenario might take quite a lot more time.

[P3D]

WiF is unfortunately has not the required resolution.

TOAW3 might be the solution. I looked at it and it's apparently much more flexible than I expected. and has a lot of scenarios (even WWI) available, and the maps could be used too.

Korpen, could you look it into a bit bigger detail? Should we go to battalion level, how much modding it would require, etc.

The game cost $30 to DL BTW.

[Korpen]

WiF is unfortunately has not the required resolution.

TOAW3 might be the solution. I looked at it and it's apparently much more flexible than I expected. and has a lot of scenarios (even WWI) available, and the maps could be used too.

Korpen, could you look it into a bit bigger detail? Should we go to battalion level, how much modding it would require, etc.

"Home Before The Leaves Fall 1914" got to be one of my favorite scenarios for TOAW, and i think the game works well for the period.

As for what level scenarios should be created at, i would answer that it depends on what kind of battle is played out. If there is a battle on some island with fairly small numbers of troops then battalion level sounds good, if it is a great war in Europe or North America with 20+ corps on each side, the divisional level sounds more fitting.
Basically the scale can be set so that the scenario is interesting to play.

Designing a pure PvP scenario in the context of navalism is a bit easier then designing a stand alone scenario, as there is no need to fiddle with AI orders, waypoints and priorities.
This also reduces the need for play balance tweaking, as navalism makes the groundwork for a scenario.
The single most time consuming thing would most likely be drawing the map if the scenario takes place in an area were it is not possible to steal a map from an existing scenario.

If a map is available, and the players involved have detailed ToOaE;s available, it should hopefully only take a day or two to cobble together a scenario. Esp. if one minimise the amounts of events.

There are quite a number of sites with scenarios and discussion forums around
www.tdg.nu for one.

[P3D]

The TOEs will have to be fixed by the rules somehow if we are going down to smaller level, otherwise people will have ahistorically overequipped units.

Can the save be edited as a scenario?

[Korpen]

The TOEs will have to be fixed by the rules somehow if we are going down to smaller level, otherwise people will have ahistorically overequipped units.

TOAW work with equipment, and build unit strength out of that (together with some other factors, such as unit supply and proficiency), so a detailed org chart is needed in any case. The scale do not affect waht is in the units, only at which level the utis are displayed in game.

If one seeks perfect balance, then one way to handle this could be to assign all the equipmet avalible to a corps, and then allow the players to organise the corp based on that, but i think it is a boring option. ;)

Can the save be edited as a scenario?

Nes, not directly, but i know some people did that in the past, will have to ask how it was done.

[miketr]

I have not played the Art of War 1, 2 or 3, but that said I have not been impressed with any scalable system for trying to jump between Strategic and Tactical level.  N3 is a strategic level game and I am not sure why we would need to deal with anything below the Brigade level; of course that is just my opinion.

Any particular reason P3D you guys are against a pure strategic solution to your needs?

Michael

[Korpen]

I have not played the Art of War 1, 2 or 3, but that said I have not been impressed with any scalable system for trying to jump between Strategic and Tactical level.  N3 is a strategic level game and I am not sure why we would need to deal with anything below the Brigade level; of course that is just my opinion.

Any particular reason P3D you guys are against a pure strategic solution to your needs?

Michael

Well TOAW never touch either the tactical nor the strategic level, it (as the name implies) take place on the operational level.
And the jump from strategic to operational level is not that long.

[Ithekro]

I've kept it too simple.  One Die roll per day (a D12), and take the results off of that (scaling one side toward 1 and one side toward 12 and do degrees from their until 6 and 7 were you have stalemates for X number of days (a D30).  It was way too simple but was a time saving messure.

[P3D]

As the strategy aspect is handled differently, the resolution must be on the operational level. Doing some battle simulation, I'd say that smallest unit should be somewhere in the 1000-5000 range. That means Bn or Rgt level unless we are playing trench wars.

[miketr]

As the strategy aspect is handled differently, the resolution must be on the operational level. Doing some battle simulation, I'd say that smallest unit should be somewhere in the 1000-5000 range. That means Bn or Rgt level unless we are playing trench wars.

If you guys want to try to handle multi corps battles / campaigns at that level I bow before you in awe. 

Michael

[The Rock Doctor]

Seems counterproductive to me to invest that much time and effort into a detailed battle when the rules fundamentally assume that a corps is a corps, regardless of who it belongs to. 

In doing the Chinese/Swiss stuff back in '01, I just used the GURPS mass combat rules, factoring in a few things like weather, artillery, terrain, and such.  It made for quick and easy results - precisely what the sim needed.