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| An Upside Down World - Balancing on a Pin https://wargame.ch/board/cc/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5952 |
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| Author: | 927 [ Thu Aug 04, 2005 4:01 am ] |
| Post subject: | An Upside Down World - Balancing on a Pin |
AL, I LOVED your detailed thread on adjusting movement factors! You can count on me to listen closely to suggestions for future versions of the EAW/CCC engine. In my early days, I discussed options for the engine rather energetically. So, in pursuit of understanding your proposal(s) fully, I have a technical question for you. So that you will understand why I will ask you the question I ask, let me describe some of my assumptions. You and I are sometimes not on the same page ... so I think this is a good precaution. Over time I came to the opinion that Tiller had done a very good job BALANCING the scales of the engine for EAW-sized conflicts. For example, 5 minute time slices appear to do great justice to almost all the battles. And the 125 foot hex scale also seems to be a good "middle ground" for the size of these conflicts. A 125 foot scale would be EXCRUCIATINGLY detailed for battles commonly found in Napoleonic times - - but it's a nice fit for American battles prior to the civil war. (AL, I know you enjoy LARGE OOB's!) One of my struggles with which I have philosophically come to terms is that movement allowances for units per turn (infantry & cavalry) significantly exceeds the range of muskets. This leads to the issue of translating HISTORICAL tactics to the way the game has been scaled (balanced) for American battles. 1) In an open field and in full view, a unit can advance from outside musket range, to within musket range, and THEN melee - all before the opponent has another turn and can even fall back a single hex or refuse a flank. 2) Which means if the 5 minutes were a LITERAL measure of a unit's speed, then infantry would have walked at the leisruely pace of 1.7 miles per hour and STILL have achieved melee before the opponent could respond. 3) And it means that units are demoralized by musket fire (and even routed?) at the rather distant range of 250 - 200 yards. However, these occasional "oddities" are virtually required by the scale of American battles in this or any other engine! If we made the time slices smaller, the games would become quite long. And maybe infantry would only move 5 or 4 hexes per turn (which slows down game play!). If we make the hex scale smaller (from 125 feet to 100 feet or smaller) then the maps become huge, and the number of counters needed to represent the same armies would increase dramatically (since smaller hexes would have to hold fewer men per counter). It was my impression, and I'm hoping you can confirm or deny this impression, that the "5 Minute" time slice is a "proxy" for time elapsed... rather than a LITERAL 5 minute elapse of time. In other words, in a 5 minute turn, game units can only fire a volley once. But in the real world, they would be able to fire several volleys. And in the real world, they would be able to move much faster than 1.7 miles per hour. But these 5 minute turns are "average approximations" of the EFFECT a unit has against an opposing unit in 5 minutes. The firepower of muskets and cannons have been "tuned" to this scale - - to represent, over the length of the battle, what the general outcome would be ... and thus our tactics using the engine have evolved to fit these engine realities. So, AL, would you ALSO increase the range of muskets if we increased the distance/speed of your infantry movement? Personally, I would be very tempted to adjust firepower or the time per turn (or both) if we sped up units. But perhaps you would not seek these options. As far as I'm concerned, all such adjustments are an art form - - painting battle reality with various brush strokes - - to approximate what was happening on ancient battlefields. Tiller has done a wonderful job of painting his time frames and hex size to represent EAW conflicts. But I **love** fiddling with the OOB and parameter files to accomplish new effects. I look forward to better understanding the artistry you seek to accomplish with your own adjustments. Respectfully submitted, Lieutenant Brooks |
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