Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Jason Petho

For example:

Using the top five most played, Talonsoft scenarios, I thought it might be interesting to see how the original Talonsoft designers used the time scale within their scenarios.

Tank Graveyard at Minsk by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 18 = 108 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~10 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 2 days) = 600 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 33.3 minutes per turn

Giants on the Vistula by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 20 = 120 minutes
Actual Battle length: 9 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 36 hours) = 540 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 27 minutes per turn

Rest Steel at Fedorovka by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 14 = 84 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~11 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 3 days) = 660 minutes
Designer modified time scale: ~47 minutes per turn

Storm 5-5-5 by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 12 = 72 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~4 hours = 240 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 20 minutes per turn

The Battle is Joined by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 20 = 120 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~8 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 16 hours) = 480 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 24 minutes per turn

More examples, all from Rising Sun:

Action in the Solomons by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 25 = 150 minutes
Actual Battle Length: 12 hours (at least) = 720 minutes
Designer Modified Time Scale: ~29 minutes per turn

Trouble Along the Ilu by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 20 = 120 minutes
Actual Battle Length: ~6 hours (at least) = 360 minutes
Designer Modified Time Scale: 18 minutes per turn

Edson's Ridge by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 21 = 126 minutes
Actual Battle Length: ~6-1/2 hours = 390 minutes
Designer Modified Time Scale: 18.5 minutes per turn

Take Buna Mission by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 23 = 138 minutes
Actual Battle Length: 12+ hours (actually more than 10 days) = 720+ minutes
Designer Modified Time Scale: ~31 minutes per turn

And so too for many others...

You've been playing the Campaign Series with "elastic time" for so many years, you just didn't realize it! [;)]

Crossroads has a good term for it: Active Turns.

In between the effective Active Turns are the periods of inactivity, where units stop to regroup, get their bearings, await further orders, rest, resupply, eat (during the Battle of Edson's Ridge, "Kokusho's men came upon a pile of Marine supplies and rations. Not having eaten adequately for a couple of days, they paused to "gorge themselves" on the "C" and "K" rations") -- the natural battlefield lulls. Dynamic turn lengths and elastic time allow us to model that indirectly, abstractly.

Elastic time doesn't just allow us to model the natural battlefield lulls; it also accounts for the unrealistically high lethality of the game's combat model. With 6-minutes-per-turn strictly applied, and 12+ hours day-long engagements, in the Campaign Series one side or the other -- or both! -- would all or nearly all be usually wiped out.

Again, review my statistical analysis of game turns, all games (see above), where even the longest scenarios last just 6 hours (60 turns) in game terms, most typically ~2 hours (~20 turns), not even half a morning or half an afternoon of real time. In the early Talonsoft years, when scenario designers were under the direct sway of John Tiller, it's obvious that time is not to scale, that we are not to take the 6-minutes-per-turn literally. Otherwise, we are supposed to believe that the Campaign Series models battles on fast forward?

6 minutes per turn? If that's the Gospel Truth, then Doug Bevard and all the rest were a band of heretics!

Nobody on the current Dev Team proposes to create scenarios where "each turn = 24 hours"; of course not. No need for hyperbole, no need for reductio ad absurdum arguments. And no need to cite what other dev teams may or may not do with their games. We design the Campaign Series and design scenarios without reference to others, but do it on our own terms and, in truth, respecting the game's accepted "scale".

Just for the record: Dynamic Day/Night (and Visibility) and "elastic time" are not my ideas: They were to fulfill wish list requests by the Dev Team. Requests that, in the main, within reason, I wholeheartedly agree with.

Anyway, it's just one new feature among many new features. Stating the obvious: You don't like it, you don't use it, don't play scenarios adopting the new capabilities. Continue making scenarios and playing the game in your accustomed manner, as you like it. What's to stop you?

I'm going to crawl back to my Man Cave now.

Happy Holidays, everybody!

ORIGINAL: berto
You've been playing the Campaign Series with "elastic time" for so many years, you just didn't realize it! [;)]

Fine! I believe it. I've got no problems with "elastic," "active" or any other term you want to call it. It's just semantics? All examples were game turns that clocked in at under 1 hour. Based on the evidence from the cited scenario examples, I agree and would call that staying within acceptable (believable) perimeters.

ORIGINAL: berto
Nobody on the current Dev Team proposes to create scenarios where "each turn = 24 hours"; of course not. No need for hyperbole, no need for reductio ad absurdum arguments.

I never stated that the current Development Team proposed creating scenarios with each turn = 24 hours. However, there was another person participating in this thread who was looking to re-create the battle of Dien Vien Phu (57 days and nights) using the JTCS engine. So, I thought my example using each turn = 24 hours to be a more modest one?

ORIGINAL: berto
And no need to cite what other dev teams may or may not do with their games. We design the Campaign Series and design scenarios without reference to others, but do it on our own terms and, in truth, respecting the game's accepted "scale".

Berto - That's fine. Good for Matrix! Thanks for your clarification. I used that example because I thought it illustrated the dangers of thinking about scale as an after thought... and not as part of an integrated and essential first step in the development of a game system.

ORIGINAL: berto
Just for the record: Dynamic Day/Night (and Visibility) and "elastic time" are not my ideas: They were to fulfill wish list requests by the Dev Team. Requests that, in the main, within reason, I wholeheartedly agree with.

Please note that I never stated that these referenced components were your idea Berto. Please don't get so defensive! You guys are doing a great job here and I appreciate all the hard work and dedication underway to make these updates / changes happen!

ORIGINAL: berto
Anyway, it's just one new feature among many new features. Stating the obvious: You don't like it, you don't use it, don't play scenarios adopting the new capabilities. Continue making scenarios and playing the game in your accustomed manner, as you like it. What's to stop you?

Understand! We are free to pick and choose what new features we like and want to use. Perfect! No worries Berto! I think it is important to think about game scale and time frames whenever new game functionality or new units are introduced into the JTCS game system. Other players share my concerns too. We can all state our opinions here? Fair enough? Again, I will repeat myself. The Development Team is doing a fantastic job. Thank you all! I'm looking forward to the update in February 2014! [:)]

Thanks for the post, Mike. And you're welcome.

2014 is going to be a banner year for the Campaign Series, the dawn of a new age. Apart from any new games or any new features, I've got deep code and software engineering plans like you wouldn't believe!

To one and all: Happy Holidays!

ORIGINAL: berto


Thanks for the post, Mike. And you're welcome.

2014 is going to be a banner year for the Campaign Series, the dawn of a new age. Apart from any new games or any new features, I've got deep code and software engineering plans like you wouldn't believe!

To one and all: Happy Holidays!

Hey Berto: [8D]

Happy Holidays to you and your family! Make sure you take some "down time" and crawl out of your "man cave" to spend time with family and friends! [;)]

Family and the holidays are highest priority, to be sure. Good music, at church and at concerts, too.

The Campaign Series? I've been at it virtually non-stop (with just a one week break last July) since March. For the next week and a half, no coding!! I will be running automated crash tests, though. [8|]

And -- shhhh! -- returning to play WITP:AE for a bit. [:-]

RR, the amount of time in CS is arbitrary. It is not set in stone as six minutes of REAL time, it is abstract as are some other aspects of the game series. A game turn can be any be anything from six minutes (as stated in the manual) to 30 minutes. Lighten up my friend, it is just a game. Just sayin'. [;)]

Wow,

What a vivid discussion on this hot item! I like the idea of 'elastic time turn' and use it in effect by the development of H U G E scenario's.
Beside variable (or dynamic) visabilty, I also apply variable ground conditions (dry, wet, mud, snow) and variable supply.
So far, these items had to be set by altering the .btl-files during play. Could they also be incorporated into the scenario-editor? That would be much more elegant!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you,

Hajo Baltjes

ORIGINAL: resinslinger

RR, the amount of time in CS is arbitrary. It is not set in stone as six minutes of REAL time, it is abstract as are some other aspects of the game series. A game turn can be any be anything from six minutes (as stated in the manual) to 30 minutes. Lighten up my friend, it is just a game. Just sayin'. [;)]

Lighten up? Give me a break.

250 meters per hex and six minute turns are in stone. It is how far a unit can move and shoot. That is the manual. It is how you select what grid you use when you design a map. Or, do your maps not reflect 250 meter hexes?
Where you got "up to 30 minutes" was no where in the scale of CS or any original manual.

Elastic and abstract are BS excuses, in my book. You cannot have arbitrary in CS. Guns shoot and do damage based on the amount of time, space, etc. that was in the original scale.

When you "just say" something, you should know about what you are speaking.

Please, refrain from smart a$$ attempts to "school" me ... please. I know how to design games all the way back to early board games. There, and here, scale has meaning.

Educate yourself before you try to put down others.

Just sayin'

RR

RR, I would like to respond to your comments but a good friend of mine advised me not to and I will take that advise. I hope you have a Great Christmas and a Wonderful New Year. Chris (CS and MW dev team member).

ORIGINAL: baltjes
I like the idea of 'elastic time turn' and use it in effect by the development of H U G E scenario's.

Beside variable (or dynamic) visabilty, I also apply variable ground conditions (dry, wet, mud, snow) and variable supply.

So far, these items had to be set by altering the .btl-files during play. Could they also be incorporated into the scenario-editor? That would be much more elegant!

Thanks baltjes, those are neat ideas and I think would again be of use for designers working on larger and / or longer scenarios. I will add those to the wish list items. No promises though!

I earlier made a wish for three different snow to be available: shallow, medium and deep. Deep would be the default so all earlier sceanrios would continue to play as they are. Medium and shallow would mean less movement resistance.

Merry Christmas to you as well!

Someone made a mod with light snow spots on mud for Bulge scenarios. I have it in my Mods folder. It would be nice to have your 3 in the game though with the addition of effect on speed and distance. Within the 6 minute time frame of course :tongueincheek:

Further to the scale issue, there seems to be general agreement that a hex is 250m.
Think of two adjacent hexes, each with a tank therein. How far apart apart are the tanks?

Politically?

Very droll.[;)]
I keep politics to other fora. They could be water tanks.

ORIGINAL: K K Rossokolski

Further to the scale issue, there seems to be general agreement that a hex is 250m.
Think of two adjacent hexes, each with a tank therein. How far apart apart are the tanks?

In theory it could be anything from 1cm to nearly 500 meters (less the size of the respective tanks), depends where they are nominally within there allotted 250m hex. [;)]

Indeed. So we have an uncertainty of 1/2km inherent in the game or scenario. Does it matter?

This is why I hope we have a game someday that is not dependent on hexes. Since I do not write or understand program coding, I have not a clue how to do it. However, I do understand the workings of a game when it comes to the rules that govern that game. I wrote several rules years ago for Squad Leader "Iron Cross" and "Crescendo of Doom" that were published.

ORIGINAL: K K Rossokolski

Indeed. So we have an uncertainty of 1/2km inherent in the game or scenario. Does it matter?

Not to me no, it is a uncertainty built into the abstract "scale of the game" and it is defined as such, most units can represent many individual items and they are not all occupying the same piece of ground but can be spread all over the hex.

So with the tank example above a 5 or 6 strength unit can be both 1cm and 500 m (or anywhere inbetween) away from a corresponding enemy tank unit at the same time call it Schroedinger's tank.[:D]

ORIGINAL: Otto von Blotto

So with the tank example above a 5 or 6 strength unit can be both 1cm and 500 m (or anywhere inbetween) away from a corresponding enemy tank unit at the same time call it Schroedinger's tank.[:D]

If you applied a hard attack strength of 32 against a Schroedinger's tank, hiding in a (big!) pillbox, did it die [&:]

[:)]

Petri

You wouldn't know until you cleared the rubble of the pillbox to find out until then it would be simultaneously alive and dead, near and far.
I'm going off-line for a few days, will send the Fury at viborg bay turn after boxing day.

Happy Christmas to all. [:)]