Re: Tactical notes from Ben Rhome

[David Damerell]

Quoting Roger Burton West <roger+r...@nospam.firedrake.org>:
>Ben Rhome is posting tactical notes from what would have been the Clan
>Box Set Expansion: https://benhrome.wordpress.com/ . Pretty basic
>stuff so far, very reminiscent of the hints documents that used to be
>discussed here, but nonetheless interesting.

Sadly, too often I found it came down to "Arrange to be the player who
wins initiative".
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
If we aren't perfectly synchronised this corncob will explode!
Today is Second Tuesday, February.
Tomorrow will be Second Wednesday, February.

[David Damerell]

Quoting Roger Burton West <roger+r...@nospam.firedrake.org>:

>On 2013-02-16, David Damerell wrote:
>>Sadly, too often I found it came down to "Arrange to be the player who
>>wins initiative".

>It certainly helps a great deal, perhaps more than it should. Ashley
>Pollard favours a card-draw system (in effect, initiative per-'Mech,
>with the likelihood that not everyone will get to move in any given
>turn), but one could argue that that just replaces one sort of luck
>with another.

I'm not convinced by individual initiative - it fixes the problem with
"padding" initiative with individual cheap units (more of a problem the
cheaper individual units get - it became a bleeding ulcer for us in Silent
Death (which, yes, not a mecha game, but uses BTech's initiative system)
with the Coodardian Suicide Squad charging in in their Pit Vipers (to be
thought of as roughly a 10-ton Locust [1]) to be given a proper fighter if
they survived) but at the cost of sometimes being far more totally screwed
than you would be by standard initiative.

Off the top of my head, assuming we are allowed to have a computer at the
gaming table:

Roll individual initiative, but after the rolls, the computer
"karma-ifies" them so that both players' average roll is 7. You can't get
completely stuffed, but is there an equivalent situation where all my
heavies go first and all yours go last?

Or:
Assume an integer points value is assigned to each unit. Add up all the
players' points to make sums p, q for players P,Q. Count ticks from 1
to pq. Every tick, increment a count for each player. When your count is
equal to the points value of an unmoved unit multiplied by the other
players' points total, you either move that unit ("one of the units with
that points value") or commit to moving a more valuable unit. If you move
a unit, your count becomes zero. Ties are broken... somehow, in a way that
doesn't make the case where the players have identical forces degenerate.

This probably still produces basically degenerate behaviour in 2v2, but
how is it in Lance-size bashes?

>And of course there's Battleforce, but for some reason that doesn't
>satisfy me.

And apparently MWO went into open beta when I was asleep.

[1] Real Men pilot Atlases and BattleMasters. Real Roleplayers pilot
Ostscouts. Munchkins pilot 100-ton Clan OmniMechs. Loonies - "whee, I'm in
a Locust, shoot at me!". I admit to being in the 4th camp, especially if
it's 305x and the Awesome has been ruined.

[David Damerell]

Quoting Roger Burton West <roger+r...@nospam.firedrake.org>:
>>Off the top of my head, assuming we are allowed to have a computer at the
>>gaming table:

>Which crosses a line for me.

We already had one for eg:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~damerell/mason.brian.j/initiative?number=4

[actually there's a front page for "input the number of players" but it's
not publicly visible.]

That also runs as a Perl script on my Series 5; I can live with having a
Psion at the gaming table.

I think we really crossed the line with "playaide", though, a tool for
tracking movement and energy in Federation Commander. The plus side is we
are the only people who get the movement priority after deceleration
right, although perhaps getting a rule "right" that no other face-to-face
group can possibly implement correctly is arguably not playing the actual
game.

>* Use the existing roll system to generate a number of slots in
> order. (In 4-vs-4, ABABABAB or BABABABA; in 4-vs-2, ABBABB or
> BBABBA; in 4-vs-1, BBBBA or ABBBB. I'm using the Total Warfare
> system for uneven numbers.)

Surely this can be improved upon; in my view, the initiative system should
produce as even a result as possible, given that ultimately it does have
to tell _someone_ to go first. I'd either make 4v1 BBABB and have done
with it, or BBBAB/BABBB if we absolutely insist initiative must make a
difference. If the TW system is the "at least twice as many, etc" system I
remember, it really rewards initiative-padding by giving the player with
extra units their double-move at the very end.

initiative.pl attempts this but is a hideous bodge, so I'm not going to
even try and describe the algorithm.

>* Each player has a card per unit of his, which he puts face-down into
> his own slots (which all players can do simultaneously).

This stage needs to be time-limited somehow - not harshly, but enough to
prevent endless analysis paralysis.

>* The cards are gathered, still in order, and made into a pile.
>* The cards are turned one at a time, and each unit is activated in
> turn.
>* If you want to speed things up further, the pile is then used again
> to determine firing order (or in reverse, if you want to give the
> initiative winner a big advantage).

I wish I'd thought of that.

Definitely not in reverse order. Abandon the simultaneity of combat
results. Want to fire its guns first, before they get blown off? You've
got to move it first. This just cut initiative-padding off at the knees.
You might even allow players to either add best Piloting or subtract best
Gunnery from the initiative roll - in some situations, what you really
really want is to be first to fire, not last to move.

I might steal this for Silent Death, but - alas - it won't work quite as
well; fire is already ordered by Gunnery skill, and changing it to
initiative order will damage the utility of vessels with gunners (gunners
fire first, before pilots).

>>And apparently MWO went into open beta when I was asleep.

>I don't really see the appeal when we have MegaMek (which is free, and
>I can use any forces I like, not just what I've "earned").

Well, they stroke different urges; reimplementing the boardgame isn't the
same as being in-cockpit.

But... I tried MWO, and it seems to have the usual problem where basically
it's like playing a first-person shooter except sometimes you aren't
looking where you're going and run into walls; there's no real mecha
feeling to it.

>Don't get me started on 305x tech in general. (Or come along to
>Birmingham tomorrow and do it over beer.) I am an unashamed grognard
>where Battletech is concerned.

I resisted the urge to spend six hours on rattly DMUs, I admit.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Second Friday, February.
Tomorrow will be Second Saturday, February - a weekend.

[David Damerell]

Quoting David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>:
>Quoting Roger Burton West <roger+r...@nospam.firedrake.org>:
>>* Each player has a card per unit of his, which he puts face-down into
>> his own slots (which all players can do simultaneously).
>This stage needs to be time-limited somehow - not harshly, but enough to
>prevent endless analysis paralysis.

... and it does raise the question of whether that happens before or after
seeing the initative roll. Will before promote more analysis paralysis, as
people try to consider all possible outcomes (more than 2 in an n-way
game), or less because that becomes impossibly complex?

[David Damerell]

Quoting Roger Burton West <roger+r...@nospam.firedrake.org>:

>On 2013-02-18, David Damerell wrote:
>>... and it does raise the question of whether that happens before or after
>>seeing the initative roll. Will before promote more analysis paralysis, as
>>people try to consider all possible outcomes (more than 2 in an n-way
>>game), or less because that becomes impossibly complex?

>I was assuming "after". Here are the spaces on the table, you can see
>which are yours and which are the enemy's, and you have to fill yours
>with your units.

Certainly that was what I assumed, but I think it's worth asking if that
is in fact best. "After" might lead to a sort of "Well, he'll obviously
move his Archer first, so I'll move my Griffin, so..." analysis whereas
"before" means you have to have an ordering that fits either (any, in an
n-way game) result.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Second Saturday, February - a weekend.
Tomorrow will be Second Sunday, February - a weekend.

[David Damerell]

Quoting Roger Burton West <roger+r...@nospam.firedrake.org>:

>Well, a "fair" system would distribute each side's units evenly along
>a 0..1 line, such that with an odd number of units there'd be exactly
>one on the 0.5 mark, then use the roll to break ties. I could live
>with that; I think the main reason BT doesn't do it is that it means
>that the winner of initiative ends up having to move first if he has
>more units, and the loser may end up moving last if he has fewer.

When I was writing the initiative script I became leery of simple, obvious
approaches. This produces a very abrupt transition between 1, 2, and 3
units. In particular 2 v lots is odd. On the other hand, it doesn't have
the consequence you describe, unless someone has only one unit - with
2 or more units I have one at 0 and one at 1, and so does my opponent,
and hence the round is always bracketed by either AB...AB or BA...BA.

>And another: "How much damage did I take this turn? Do I need to make
>a piloting roll?" All of these things become easier and quicker if
>you're only worrying about the fire you just took, or the unit you're
>about to fire.

Particularly if the piloting rolls are immediate in effect, there's a real
incentive to push strong units up the initiative order so they're not
lying on their backs when their turn comes to fire, where otherwise it
wouldn't matter in the opening rounds because you'd just be ablating
armour. (This bit would work better in Silent Death, where even the first
turn's attacks may seriously degrade a unit's ability to return fire).

>I tried MW4 briefly when someone had it handy, and got the same
>impression. Not sure what _does_ give a mecha feeling; closest I got
>was Earthsiege/Starsiege.

Itty-bitty tanks and infantry buzzing about tends to help, and a nice
satisfying walking noise. :-)

I have reasonably fond memories of Heavy Gear II.