Hexes in SC3

[AlvaroSousa]

Hubert got bombarded with ideas from myself and Bill for SC3. So there are a lot of things on the list. What Hubert puts in is up to him. There have been strong improvements with the A.I. also in the last 2 expansion packs. I am the designer of them and had input on the internal A.I.

But a good game takes time to test correctly. All the ideas can't just be dumped in there in one shot.

[DSWargamer]

"But a good game takes time to test correctly. All the ideas can't just be dumped in there in one shot."

Truer words have never been spoken.

[SeaMonkey]

Alright, Big Al has checked in. I'm wondering Al, how receptive is Hubert and Bill going to be to build a truly innovative strategic wargame? And what is this Slitherine/Matrix support team really willing to commit to? Are we going traditional, or are we going to work this SC3 edition into something new?

We all know the weak mechanics of the naval SC have left us lacking and I'm sure everyone recognizes that SC3 will profit most from emphasis in this arena. Is there any current wargame models that lend thoughts of how the naval SC3 will evolve and do you have any idea of what the foundation for naval movement will be?

[KuniworthII]

ORIGINAL: DSWargamer

I am proud to say I have never cheated on my beloved hexes.

I have never slept with tiles.

Squares are ok, but tiles hurt the eyes.

Kuni what's Rambo's take on this?

Have'nt heard from Rambo in ages, last I heard he was going to a party dressed as sailor moon [;)]

Anyhow I know he posted back in the sc2 days that he did prefer hexes.

[Robert24]

ORIGINAL: StratComAl

Hubert got bombarded with ideas from myself and Bill for SC3. So there are a lot of things on the list. What Hubert puts in is up to him. There have been strong improvements with the A.I. also in the last 2 expansion packs. I am the designer of them and had input on the internal A.I.

But a good game takes time to test correctly. All the ideas can't just be dumped in there in one shot.

Totally agree, the level of effort put into testing has really helped the quality of SC2... I hope we can continue with that.

[norvandave]

ORIGINAL: SeaMonkey

Alright, Big Al has checked in. I'm wondering Al, how receptive is Hubert and Bill going to be to build a truly innovative strategic wargame? And what is this Slitherine/Matrix support team really willing to commit to? Are we going traditional, or are we going to work this SC3 edition into something new?

I would like to see something a little new, not just a rehash of SC1/SC2 with hexes. That's kinda why I suggested looking at what Civ 5 does, even if it is just for ideas.

[AlvaroSousa]

ORIGINAL: SeaMonkey

Alright, Big Al has checked in. I'm wondering Al, how receptive is Hubert and Bill going to be to build a truly innovative strategic wargame? And what is this Slitherine/Matrix support team really willing to commit to? Are we going traditional, or are we going to work this SC3 edition into something new?

We all know the weak mechanics of the naval SC have left us lacking and I'm sure everyone recognizes that SC3 will profit most from emphasis in this arena. Is there any current wargame models that lend thoughts of how the naval SC3 will evolve and do you have any idea of what the foundation for naval movement will be?

An accurate WW2 naval model is very hard to replicate. There was so much luck, tactics, and information gathering in WW2 naval battles that its very hard to accurately replicate. I gave my input to Hubert from my decades of experience. But one step at a time. I am not sure what he is including in SC3.

I think fleets should be in with abstract modeling of naval combat including target selection and naval airpower.
Fleet orders could be intercept, evade, escort, patrol.

Personally I liked how some board wargames handled naval battles with taskforces and missions. Die rolls determine what finds what and how the combat comes out. One of the largest problems is scale. Land based airpower has far more planes than a group of CVs. But CVs can fly more missions.

Just like a Stuka could fly many missions in a day or week while a long range strategic bomber mission not so many. Its hard to balance.

[Robert24]

ORIGINAL: StratComAl

ORIGINAL: SeaMonkey

Alright, Big Al has checked in. I'm wondering Al, how receptive is Hubert and Bill going to be to build a truly innovative strategic wargame? And what is this Slitherine/Matrix support team really willing to commit to? Are we going traditional, or are we going to work this SC3 edition into something new?

We all know the weak mechanics of the naval SC have left us lacking and I'm sure everyone recognizes that SC3 will profit most from emphasis in this arena. Is there any current wargame models that lend thoughts of how the naval SC3 will evolve and do you have any idea of what the foundation for naval movement will be?

An accurate WW2 naval model is very hard to replicate. There was so much luck, tactics, and information gathering in WW2 naval battles that its very hard to accurately replicate. I gave my input to Hubert from my decades of experience. But one step at a time. I am not sure what he is including in SC3.

I think fleets should be in with abstract modeling of naval combat including target selection and naval airpower.
Fleet orders could be intercept, evade, escort, patrol.

Personally I liked how some board wargames handled naval battles with taskforces and missions. Die rolls determine what finds what and how the combat comes out. One of the largest problems is scale. Land based airpower has far more planes than a group of CVs. But CVs can fly more missions.

Just like a Stuka could fly many missions in a day or week while a long range strategic bomber mission not so many. Its hard to balance.

StratComAI,
Cool, I do like your ideas. To balance - that may be the key. Can you categorize your ideas; don't list details; just the top line issues that need to be addressed?
-Robert

[SeaMonkey]

Generally speaking, I believe that naval movement and recon should be addressed by a dual system of areas(zones) filled with hexes. There will be "area" missions, like recon and patrol where success proceeds to actual battles that will be carried out by hex maneuver within the "area" zone. Only the naval-air units within the "area" zone will participate in the combat.

Movement ranges of naval vessels will reflect their ability to traverse the zones(areas) in the time allocation of an SC turn.

[AlvaroSousa]

Doing a naval system is tough. While things can be randomized in a board game and rolling dice is the excitement within a PC game that is different you need decisions that impact the battle but not make it tedious.

Like I find the naval system in the board game Advanced European Theatre of Operations interesting but its too tedious. And I find Matrix's War in the Pacific naval system too boring. Sure its full of detail but I have no control. Its all automatic. You set a fleet to do a mission, the enemy sets his to intercept and bam results.

I think players want some input in their fleet.

[wodin]

Thing with naval warfare is your really dealing with a tactical scale if you want total control of the battle and when your play a Grand Strat game this means it wouldn't work so it has to be abstracted..the best way to do this I have no idea..but I'm sure i can be improved on what we have had so far in games.

[DSWargamer]

Too often too many developers think it is a crime to represent something as an abstraction.

Is isn't a crime if the counter isn't an actual ship.

In Advanced Third Reich, the ships stayed in the port, and the missions were abstractions. You didn't move counters around, you made decisions based on how to employ the resources with an eye to when and where, but, at the end of the resolution, the player either won or lost the engagement the counter reflected the losses and the units remained where they were based.

We all know the history of the battle involved in the sinking of the Bismarck, but a game doesn't need to have a counter with the word Bismarck written on it to reflect the impact the Bismarck would have had, if the RN had refused to fight it out. In A3R the British player merely refuses to engage in simulated abstracted contesting of the effects of the Bismarck on the convoy system. If you don't fight, you suffer economic repercussions. The only time I want to see a counter with the name Bismarck on it, is when I am playing a game that is ONLY fighting that epic event and nothing else.

Ship and sub counters in SC1 only permitted crazy strategies which I saw plenty of. They were given odd sounding names, and merely reflected courses of action which has NOTHING to do with history at all. But the player was free to do it all because the counters were present and thus just something to fiddle with. France for instance, a popular action was to just cash in the whole damned fleet and use it to buy ground forces. Sell of the RN for troops and send the entire British military to France to shock the crap out of the Germans expecting there to be no real opposition. It also highlighted a dreadful weakness in the AI, as the AI simply couldn't relate to a preposterous action taken by a human mind to do something so utterly illogical. The AI never invades, so why waste units sitting in Britain eh.

The only way to simulate the battle of the Atlantic at the grand strategy level, is the A3R method. The moment the counters become identifiable units, you have basically chosen the wrong design. The AI will not succeed and the human will be free to think abusively ahistorically and there simply won't be any point in designing for history after the first turn of the game.

Hexes are fine for ground combat, but are nearly valueless for naval warfare. A tank runs out of fuel differently than a battleship. And in the middle of the Atlantic, let alone the Pacific, you won't be driving up to a fuel depot either. You can't resupply a battleship with an air drop. In A3R, a port held sway over an entire front. Being based in Gibraltar meant a force could influence both the Atlantic or the Mediterranean. It's why that annoying spec of land was so valuable.

[pzgndr]

The only way to simulate the battle of the Atlantic at the grand strategy level, is the A3R method. The moment the counters become identifiable units, you have basically chosen the wrong design. The AI will not succeed and the human will be free to think abusively ahistorically and there simply won't be any point in designing for history after the first turn of the game.

Well not quite. Speaking of A3R, my A3R mod for SC Global Conflict Gold version has adapted pretty well for the SC system. Yeah there are individual naval units that you move each monthly turn versus the seasonal turn allocation of naval missions, but I have found that this plays out ok. On average, results over 3 turns are consistent with the boardgame's seasonal turn. There's a chance for initial contact, build up to a major battle, and then disengagement. Works ok.

The AI will not succeed and the human will be free to think abusively ahistorically and there simply won't be any point in designing for history after the first turn of the game.

You should try my A3R mod. I have been routinely surprised by my own AI scripting, which is variable and nefarious. [;)] Check out Advanced Third Reich 1939 Campaign.

[wodin]

What DSW says..sums it up much better than I could.

[SeaMonkey]

No doubt, the naval model is going to be a challenging endeavor. I believe we approach it from real life characteristics and try to represent it in the game with far reaching thought to uncover the inconsistencies and consequences of the rules. So.....why do nations possess navies? A simple mission comes to mind, to exercise control over the Earth's aquatic basins. Where does that control eminate from? The answer that comes to my mind is through weapons platforms stationed on land masses in proximity of said basins and also deployed in/on those bodies of water.

I know we all realize these things, perhaps with a different definition or focus, but a simple concept is necessary to build a foundation on for the naval model. If we build a strong foundation, then the rest of the simulation will have a strong basis to accomodated the details and abstractions decided on.

Movement through the BoWs(bodies of water)was the first deficiency of SC, the maneuver system was OK, so how do you fix one and accomodate the other?

[AlvaroSousa]

Just a thought on a model.... I haven't presented it to Hubert.

Oceans - deep sea hex (hard to spot), coastal hex (easy to spot)
Fleet markers - you put your ships in fleet markers
Groups within a fleet marker.
Air Combat - CV and their escorts to attack and actively intercept - HIGH chance air combat, TINY chance surface
Surface Action/Bombardment - Surface ships to actively engage enemy units or bombard - MEDIUM chance combat
Raider - Any combat ship, SMALL chance of combat with ships or Air Combat group
Transport/Amphib - TRNs, AMPH, escorts - SMALL chance air combat, TINY chance surface combat

If you are in a coastal hex the chance increases significantly you are spotted. How well the spotting is determines what Group the opponent is capable of hitting. During combat a player has a choice of which enemy group to hit depending on the spotting.

Spotting is affected by the sea hex, other fleets in the area, planes on the coast.

This allows the players to set up easy fleets with some control and choices in combat. If it makes sense even allow when enemy unit to attack.

I haven't worked out all the details like what if I have 2 fleets in an area? Or how will they intercept?

So these are just ideas.

[SeaMonkey]

I like the "ocean" vs "coastal" hex characteristcs, maybe +evasion modifier for ocean and a minus for coastal in addition to what the unit has.

Fleet markers with group arrangements is very realistic. Are you talking about a CV "group" in the Fleet arrangement with the "chance" apects and if so, perhaps if the fleet is actively engaged by enemy surface units, there is a chance the CV group would retire(retreat) one hex and form new fleet marker? Eventually though, if enough enemy surface forces follow on and try to engage the CV group there should be some chance of success.

How do you resolve a "HIGH" chance CV group trying to intercept a "SMALL" chance trns/amphib one?

Maybe there should be a "right" click menu activation for a player's mission orientation choice for the fleet/group? Each choice has primary and secondary combat/evasion ramifications according to the "type" it qualifies under.

[AlvaroSousa]

A fleet would have a search #. and that search would determine which group it can attack. That was the idea.

Like lets say you have a fleet with a air combat, bombardment, and amphib group.

Air combat search 7
bombardment search 4
amphib search 1

an attack would generate a random #. The lower it is the more groups he spots. Representing that an ampbib group would stay way back out of harms way in the fleet. If he randoms between two groups he can only select the group he finds.

So if you had a fleet with just a raider group search 3. The opponent would have to generate a really small number to spot him. A raiser is looking for covoys not combat.

maybe I create an escort group in the fleet marker also. This is a modifier to only find raider groups and is only found by raider groups.

Its just a concept currently.

[Robert24]

Maybe stacking would work well in the naval part of the game. So, "Fleet markers <or convoy markers> - you put your ships in fleet markers..." makes a lot of sense.

Search might be a separate, dare I say abstract value, and a technology (or tied to existing air technologies) improves search. The farther you are away from a ship/fleet the less likely you are to conduct a successful search. Storms, and sea type (costal, deep ocean) might also be a search variable.

Create 3 separate intelligence technologies (land, sea, air). As sea intelligence technology increases so should random enemy ship locations be revealed.

Engineers to construct (as engineers do with forts) airbases and harbors. Airbases could have search values also.

"... why do nations possess navies?" Economics. SC2 and the convoy routes do a good job.

"... why do nations possess navies?" Support Armies. SC2 allowed navies to "warp" from one end of an ocean to another without fear of interception/interdiction. Have an automatic movement setting from where the fleet is to a destination point. Also, choose a tactic or formation to decease chance of interdiction like zigzag; takes longer, but avoids enemy.

CVs should not bump into a enemy naval unit. CVs should stop one hex from the enemy and attack if they want, or move on if they want.

[SeaMonkey]

If we could get a zone partitioned map then there could be a search efficiency(numerical) from all the various unit deployments in that zone. Each unit in the zone could have a search value divided by its strength to add to a search pool that when exceeding the opposition's ability to avoid disclosure(evasion factor) would reveal the units. It could be weather related and tied to certain tech levels.