"Tutorial" style game starting

[Jimmer]

I'm going to start a new game with rookie or semi-rookie players. We'll play it in three "phases":

- First, a 3-month game with no major power (MP) wars
- Second, a 9-month game with a couple of contrived MP wars (GB vs France, Russia vs. Turkey starting in April, and Prussia & Austria vs. France -- but no special alliance moves). Spain will remain at peace mostly.
- Finally, two full years of normal game play.

The three games will all be different games, hopefully with the same players. I'll be playing through the Google Group "TheArtOfWar". It will be open for reading by anybody, but for modification only by "members". This forum will be used for screenshots and reports of action, plus game direction.

NOBODY is going to "win" any of these three games. The purpose is NOT to win, but to learn. So, many of the normal nuances of competition won't be present. However, I will be adding in artifically-designed elements whose purpose is to simulate competition, without the competitive aspects.

The first game will be completely contrived. Almost every step will be scripted. The goal will be to learn the interface. We'll play through the March economic phase. The goal at the end will be that everybody has a handle on all of the interface stuff and how to use those pieces.

The war pieces of the game will be shown through minor country wars, not MP wars.

The second war will be equally contrived, but with a few less restrictions. There will actually be major power wars, although the scope of them will be strictly limited.

France and Great Britain (GB) will be at war at the start, and France will make no attempt to invade GB if an "accident" occurs in a blockade box. It wouldn't do to have the two big boys wind up at peace in a tutorial.

France will also go to war with Austria and Prussia in April 1805. Austria and Prussia will be allied by that time, so France will declare against one of them and the other will be called to allies, setting up the stage for a typical "France vs. the central powers" war.

Russia will declare war on Turkey in April, 1805 as well. There will be no calls to allies. GB and France will both be funding Turkey at $10 and $6 per quarter (including March), so Turkey can actually field a real army to fight with.

This will set up everybody being at war with somebody, except for Spain. Spain will remain neutral until July, 1805, at which time she will declare war on GB. This is so people can see the effect war has on the Spanish gold shipment, and some actual naval battles. Again, France will not invade GB with troops, but the Spanish will be their ally, so France MIGHT break out of port somewhere. That should allow for some heavy theatrics at sea.

Note that GB WILL be allowed to land troops in France. This will force the French to NOT use all of their land forces against Austria & Prussia.

The final game will be two years. We'll keep track of victory points, obviously (they can't be turned off). However, the goal will be to see what the effect of certain actions is. This game will be more "normal", without all of the contrived extra rules to keep things from getting out of hand.

I would prefer to have these games run all with the same seven humans. However, that may not be feasible, so we'll play that part by ear. If anybody is interested, please post your email address and whatever nickname you want to be known by here on this thread. I recommend you use a space or two between characters of your email address, so bots don't start spamming you. For example, instead of typing:

john.q.public@att.com

type

j o h n. q . p u b li c @ a tt .c o m

Once your email and nickname is in the group, you can erase the contents of your post (again, to prevent spamming).

The name of the Google Group will be "TheArtOfWar", and that's what I will title the threads for each of the three contrived games we play. Note that this group DOES already exist, but it is currently unavailable to non-members. I'll be changing that tonight from home (groups are blocked from work).

NOTE: If there are veteran players who want to play, and there are not enough rookies to hit seven, they will be accepted. However, remember that the goal is NOT to win, but to learn the game and its interfaces.

Likewise, observers will be welcome, as will "armchair generals". In fact, I would really REALLY welcome that kind of input. We're going to be making mistakes, some of them on purpose. Having multiple people watching and commenting will be really helpful. So, even if you are not IN the game, feel free to observe.

[ess1]

Yes please. Rookie.
sellickd @ sellickd. adsl24.co .uk
ess1

[isandlwana]

g o r d o n r a d i o l o g y @ a o l . c o m--rookie

Would love to play but I am away this weekend. If we aren't starting up until next week I would be interested. I played the board game years ago.

[gwheelock]

Jim; I would recommend STARTING with the bid process.  Let people try
sending in a couple of bids via the 'GAP program so that they can get
an understanding of how THAT works; too.
 
 

[Jimmer]

Thanks, gwheelock. That's a very good idea. I'll do that. And, I'll add in some conversation about what it does to a power's VP needs to be in the winner's circle.

[Jimmer]

I have a feeling it will take more than just two days to fill up, isandlwana. I'll keep your name, in case it goes past Saturday.
 
One more thing, folks: Please include your time zone. I'm US Central, GMT -6. This is not required, but would probably be really helpful. I'm not going to discriminate (the first seven to commit are "in"), but it will help us know when we might have to wait for the next power's turn.
 
Also, if your native language is NOT English (and, I include people from the UK in that -- not really), please note that in your post. It will help others know whether they have to slow down a bit in order to be understood.

[bjresq]

Jimmer,

I would be very interested in taking part. I am new to this particulr game, but not wargaming in general. That being said, this game is considerably more complex than most of the games I play, e.g. Columbia Block games, Memoir 44, SCS by The Gamers, POG etc.

my email addess is

Barry_Roy@hotmail.com

[Sokar99]

Heya,

I would love to take part in this. My email is:

w h e e l o c k _ m i c h a e l @ h o t m a i l . c o m

Thanks!

Michael

[timewalker03]

looking forward to the the games

[napoleon1066]

I would like to get involved, also.
I'm a rookie.



napoleon1066


EST

[Jimmer]

I have written invitations to all email addresses through post # 9. Those addresses can be edited out now, if desired.
 
By the way, I have a slight modification: The first 6 players to RESPOND will be playing. Not the first 6 who post here.
 
NOTE: I believe I have sent 6 invitations thus far. However, one person said they could not play this weekend (out of town or something). So, that leaves an opening still.
 
Also, I'm trying to figure out if I can host the game without playing in it.
 
Does everybody have a copy of EIAGAP.exe?

[Gunney]

Hi Jimmer,

I would be interested in this tutorial series. I am a novice. I am in US Eastern Time Zone.

Gunney

zippy 8923 at aol....

[Jimmer]

OK, we have seven. Now, I have to figure out how to host without playing. Unless I can't count, in which case we only have six.

Anyhow, the first thing to do is download the GAP (Game Assistance Program). It's available from the thread that's in the "pinned" threads section titled "Download the Game Assistance Program (GAP)". At last check, it was the bottom one. Erik Rutins started the thread.

Everybody grab a copy of that and install it. We'll do a couple of practice bidding rounds.

Before that, though, since this IS a tutorial, I'll explain how the bids work. Well, first, Victory Points (VPs) need explanation (get used to a spiderweb of rules layers -- it's what makes the game fun!)

VPs are earned once each quarter, in the economic phase. The number of VP earned is based upon the major power's current position in the Political Status Display (PSD). The attached picture shows the PSD at the start of the game. Look at Frances bar.

It shows that (were the econ phase happening right now), France would earn 9 VP.

The Political Status Adjustment (PSA) for France is -2. THis means that, after collecting VP, France will move two spaces to the left on the PSD.

Her Economic Loss Number is zero. This means there is no die to be rolled for potential loss of minor country control.

Finally, Frances current position is 31. You may notice the that table is numbered from zero through 39. The first group of 10 (zero through 9) are called the "Fiasco" zone. It has a red background, signifying a power in this zone is in big trouble. The next zone, numbers 10 through 19, is the "Instability" zone. A power in this zone can lose conquered minors. The "Normal" zone is next. The "Dominant" zone is the last one. The normal and dominant zones have no chance of losing minors. In fact, dominant status adds to the minor country control rolls that occur when someone declares war on a minor.

You may notice that the PSA numbers in the dominant zone are all negative numbers, and the PSA numbers in the fiasco and instability zones are all positive. This has the effect of migrating every power a little closer to the middle every turn. Of course, things never stay the same, but you can see that, if they DID stay the same, every power would end up in the middle area of the normal zone, collecting 7 VP per quarter.

Pay close attention to this display. Good players check it every turn. Excellent players check it nearly every phase, and they know what to do with the information. This is the heart and soul of the game.

Anyhow, all that was stated so you would know how VPs are collected (0 to 15 each quarter). Take a quick peek at the Victory Point Status display. The button for this is in the top row of small square buttons, 11th from the left. It shows that France needs 400 VP to win, GB 370, etc., down to Turkey needing only 315. To this is added the player's bid that was made for that nation.

So, if I had bid, say, 10 for Russia, then Russia would need 345 VP to win (335 normally, plus my bid of 10).

The game imposes a limit of 30 points to any bid. Furthermore, it is required that every bid made by a player is different from all the rest.

Typical bids among experts would be around 30 for France, 20 for GB and Russia, 10-15 for Austria, 5 for Spain, 2-3 for Prussia, and 1-2 for Turkey. At these levels any nation can win. For less experienced players, France, GB, and Russia should carry lower bids, as these nations are difficult to play, with a lot of opportunity to make mistakes that cost VP.

What the GAP program does is create a "bid file". You load the program, tell it you're a client (I'm going to be the host for these "games"), and enter your bids. To start with, just pick random numbers between 1 and 30, with none of them equalling any other. Or, pick 7,6,5,4,3,2,1 (although, don't EVERYBODY pick those, or the results will be quite boring). We'll all dump our bid files up to the TheArtOfWar google group, and then I'll run the compare routine. We'll do this a couple of times, so you can see how different bids stack up. It's straightforward in how it works, but it's like the rest of the game: Complex beyond what it appears to be at first glance.

For example, let's say you want to play France. Well, just bid 30, right? Sort of. IF you bid 30 for France, then the compare is done. BUT, remember that the bid for GB is resolved FIRST. So, what if you get GB instead, because you happened to bid high enough? Or, alternately, what if someone else has the same idea? (There's a roll-off.)

Nothing is guaranteed. Well, almost nothing. If you bid 30 for Prussia, you will almost certianly get it. But, you won't win the game. For ANY nation, bidding too high can cripple your chances of winning, simply because it increases the number of VP you must average in order to win.

In the board game, at the end of the game (when one major power crossed the "finish line" of VP), then all other MPs added in their current manpower totals (home nation and conquered minors only) to their VP total. This would sometimes cause them to also cross THEIR finish line. Thus, more than one player was likely to win.

The computer game does not work the same way. In the computer version, it's straight VPs all the way. In my games, though, I like to add in a house rule to match the original game rules, so that more than one or two players can win. It's a LONG game. Too long, in my opinion, to have six losers.

Anyhow, we'll do some bids, track the results, and see what that means for the various powers' ability to win. A good way to measure this is "average VPs needed per quarter to win". Using France as an example, and assuming the game goes the full 11 years, there are 44 economic phases. Let's say France's bid was 18. This means France needs 418 VPs to win, or 9.5 VPs per turn. Basically, France has to stay in the dominant zone the whole game (on average) in order to win.

Compare that to a bid for Turkey of, say, 1 point. Turkey needs 315+1=316 VPs to win, or ~7.2 per turn. Turkey can win the game just by staying in the middle of the PSD for the whole game, and also scores 8 8-pt turns! That's over 2 less than what France needed.

So, pick some numbers, enter them into the gap program, and let's see how they work (I'll post the results here). Post your bid files up to the group's files location.

[Sokar99]

Jimmer,

I haven't seen an email. Did I get skipped? Thanks!

wheelock_michael@hotmail.com

[Jimmer]

Sokar99,
 
I THINK I sent you one. But, I'll send another, just in case.

[bjresq]

Jimmer,
 
What is our next task? Are we going to another round of bidding - or are we going to move on to something else.  Sorry to be impatient, just looking forward to playing.
 
bjresq

[Jimmer]

When everybody replies in the other thread that they have learned enough about bidding, we'll move on.
 
Perhaps I should implement a time limit?

[Jimmer]

I think I will indeed implement a time limit, for the stuff that seems somewhat "obvious". So, from this point on, 24 hours after the last person posts a question, I'll move on to the next topic. I'll try to give warning what a "topic" comprises, though, because much of EiA is difficult to put in that perspective.

[napoleon1066]

I think that time limit is perfectly adequate.  Your description of the intial bidding process answered any questions I might have had.  Can't wait for the rest of the tutorial!

[Sokar99]

Hi,
 
Sounds good to me!
 
Sokar