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PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 8:54 pm 
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Just something for all of the Commanders and Adjutants to consider:

If you achieve a Major Victory in a 300 turn battle, you will receive 1 victory and 85 points;
........................................................ten 30 turn battles, you will receive 10 victories and 94 points;
..................................................fifteen 20 turn battles, you will receive 15 victories and 99 points;
...................................................thirty 10 turn battles, you will receive 30 victories and 114 points.

Those results can impact a lot of things including awards and promotions.

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PostPosted: Sat Dec 22, 2018 6:31 pm 
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Well obviously big battles have a disadvantage over smaller battles.
I guess you have drawn a conclusion out of this, your recommendations are?

Personally I would like to give points by how much effort a scenario is and not only by turns played. But that isn't easily determined as things like OOBs can be huge but how much of it is used depends on the scenario and sometimes even huge OOBs are used for small scenarios.
With reinforcements coming in you can not even easily determine the amount of men each side commands.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 2:50 am 
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1 - The difference is the Win/Lost Result (WLR) in the formula because in a 300 turn battle, you get it once but in thirty 10 turn battles, you get it 30 times. The divisor should be adjusted to make it more equitable (but I lost this discussion about 15 years ago).

2 - There is too much emphasis on won/lost and not enough on the quality of the wins. That is difficult to achieve but Commanders can pay more attention to such. For example, someone that takes two years to win a 300 turn battle that they were supposed to lose usually gets absolutely nothing, but over the same two year period someone who wins thirty 10 turn battles that they should have won anyway will get recognition in the way of medals, etc.

3 - If those two examples just happened to be recently graduated cadets, the large battle participant would remain a Lieutenant for two years while the short scenario participant would climb through the ranks like normal to Lieutenant Colonel.

4 - I can't speak for the Confederate side of the fence (been too long) but on the Union side, Army reports are based partly upon victories. An army full of short scenario guys looks a lot better (or worse if they are losing) in those reports than those that fight full battles.

5 - This same discussion can carry over to multi-player (MP) games where every participant gets the same number of points as if it were one on one battling.

6 - However, based upon the discussion in the Smoking Room on AI games in the future of the club, do we really need a point system anyway. We might need to think outside the box a bit. The basic question is 'what exactly does this club exist for and are we fulfilling that need'. If we are fulfilling it, no tinkering is necessary.

7 - The person who wrote the programs for the Department of Records hasn't been a member of the club for years. Ernie and maybe Joe/others know enough about the program to keep it operable but is anyone capable of doing a major change to the programs? That alone could dictate a 'don't tinker with it' policy. But if so, commanders could at least make recognition more equitable even if the system can't.

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Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 12:18 pm 
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nsimms wrote:
However, based upon the discussion in the Smoking Room on AI games in the future of the club, do we really need a point system anyway. We might need to think outside the box a bit. The basic question is 'what exactly does this club exist for and are we fulfilling that need'. If we are fulfilling it, no tinkering is necessary.


Hi, Ned,

The points are no longer important to me, but they were when I first joined the club. In the first few years I played all sorts of scenarios with all sorts of opponents. My favorite used to be Talonsoft South Mountain. Now I have two opponents with which I have rapport and play long scenarios.

I think when evaluating point differential between long and short scenarios you might also consider that for each scenario you have to rustle up an opponent, register the game and also the conclusion.

The couple of times I tried to play multi-player the games fell through because it was like herding cats. I imagine if you can organize reliable teams it could be very rewarding, but it will still probably take a lot longer to play a turn than a two-player game.

Anyway, a few points to consider. (NPI)

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 2:39 pm 
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nsimms wrote:
1 - The difference is the Win/Lost Result (WLR) in the formula because in a 300 turn battle, you get it once but in thirty 10 turn battles, you get it 30 times. The divisor should be adjusted to make it more equitable (but I lost this discussion about 15 years ago).

Makes sense to make short/long scenarios equal. I guess instead a certain value a percentage modifier could do the job.
The question here would be if we need to support playing certain games, if the club generally prefers to play smaller scenarios we should support playing more longer scenarios by granting more points compared to shorter scenarios and vice versa, so inequality might be useful even if it doesn't look fair on the first view. But for this we will need to see if the DOR can provide a statistic that allows us to draw such a conclusion.


nsimms wrote:
2 - There is too much emphasis on won/lost and not enough on the quality of the wins. That is difficult to achieve but Commanders can pay more attention to such. For example, someone that takes two years to win a 300 turn battle that they were supposed to lose usually gets absolutely nothing, but over the same two year period someone who wins thirty 10 turn battles that they should have won anyway will get recognition in the way of medals, etc.

Of course if the scenario designer did his job the Union should win if it did so in history. For example the Union should win Gettysburg and if the Confederate wins it that is surely more worth than a Union victory. But this conclusion can only be drawn out of historical scenarios. But the mass of the scenarios are variants & what-ifs who often try to equal the chances for both sides and to judge the quality of a victory here is hard if it's possible at all.


nsimms wrote:
3 - If those two examples just happened to be recently graduated cadets, the large battle participant would remain a Lieutenant for two years while the short scenario participant would climb through the ranks like normal to Lieutenant Colonel.

Indeed this discrepancy is bad in this example, but would a new member really start with a monster scenario?
The quick rise in rank by smaller scenarios has its benefits as new members likely stay with small scenarios for a while, if doing so is reward by a quicker rise in ranks it likely makes them more attached to the club what can only be good.


nsimms wrote:
4 - I can't speak for the Confederate side of the fence (been too long) but on the Union side, Army reports are based partly upon victories. An army full of short scenario guys looks a lot better (or worse if they are losing) in those reports than those that fight full battles.

But does that matter at all? I don't remember that we ever compared the victories/defeats of Union & Confederacy, and regarding awards it also seldom plays a role, at last for the Union the number of victories only plays a role for some game Ribbons and not even for the mass of ribbons.


nsimms wrote:
5 - This same discussion can carry over to multi-player (MP) games where every participant gets the same number of points as if it were one on one battling.

MG Mihalik is right here and it fits my assumption under point 1, rewarding the commitment of doing an MP is OK with me as these are played seldom. If now everyone sticks to it and pulls it through to the end it should really deserve more than just a fair point reward by splitting the OBD points under the team, rewarding MP game in such a way would surely kill any MP battles.


nsimms wrote:
6 - However, based upon the discussion in the Smoking Room on AI games in the future of the club, do we really need a point system anyway. We might need to think outside the box a bit. The basic question is 'what exactly does this club exist for and are we fulfilling that need'. If we are fulfilling it, no tinkering is necessary.

AI is really no topic for a club that fosters human versus human games. We surely fulfill fostering games between humans that but that doesn't mean we can't adjust the club to do it even better.


nsimms wrote:
7 - The person who wrote the programs for the Department of Records hasn't been a member of the club for years. Ernie and maybe Joe/others know enough about the program to keep it operable but is anyone capable of doing a major change to the programs? That alone could dictate a 'don't tinker with it' policy. But if so, commanders could at least make recognition more equitable even if the system can't.

Yea big question, but if we only talk about adjustments we might still be able to do so even without a programmer.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2018 7:08 pm 
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Hi Ned,

I would agree with you. There is a disparity there. Maybe an additional MV, V, D, MD point for each additional 50 turns played? In this case your 300 turn battle would result in an equivalent of 6 victories, draws or defeats. The points would remain the same but you would build up more battle totals for large/longer battles. Only risk here is that you would accumulate a lot of victories, draws or defeats scores in one category. If you lose a couple major battles your record could be tainted quickly.

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MG. Derek Hampel
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Army of the Tennessee


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