Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: dicke bertha

It is absurd that Matrix has no official person to answer the community's questions about future development,

Well, the funds they have available to support what is ultimately a fringe product are extremely limited- possibly zero.

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

A wargame is an engineering project

Really? I mean.... really?

It's comic to imagine if the game was a bridge and if Curtis was designing it.

He'd look at the Golden Gate, insist that the cables were just for decoration, and that the only thing that mattered was that the piers be big and strong. There'd be nothing you could say that would dissuade him. He'd take no interest in -- would have no awareness of -- the actual physics of the problem. It'd be a matter of big piers. That would be obvious.

Forget about improving TOAW. We'd never have gotten out of the Stone Age with this guy.

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: dicke bertha

It is absurd that Matrix has no official person to answer the community's questions about future development,

Well, the funds they have available to support what is ultimately a fringe product are extremely limited- possibly zero.

Yeah. Surely we can do better than Curtis, though. It's a shame, as he has some areas of expertise I don't have -- but otherwise...

He's a disaster.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Lessee...I give a few examples of wargames that manage to achieve historical results by completely altering historical reality.

You insist that if a wargame produces historical results, it must accurately reflect historical reality. Never mind any examples to the contrary.

You might as well assert the world is flat. It's actually a more defensible proposition.

To the extent that the wargame altered reality that would be reflected in some of the metrics. As I said, given enough metrics, the game's accuracy can be established.

This is in contrast to a book, where there is no need to get anything right. A book can be total garbage and there's no way to tell. That's not true for a wargame, because it actually has to work. That fact gives wargames more legitimacy than any book can ever achieve.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Sure -- action at sea. That's why I'm averse to simply reducing the range of ships. I'd rather not further ruin the accuracy of TOAW's naval model (which is pretty shaky to begin with). Not to mention, I'm sure warships bombarded targets near the shore from whatever distance from the target they found convenient. I wouldn't be surprised if the West Virginia chose to conduct its bombardment of the beaches at whatever from 20 km out at sea.

And that would be targets that are no more than 100 feet wide, moving erratically, and needing a huge number of hits to be sunk.

All that would be required to support inland would be a radio and a ground observer. Both would be readily available. There is no rational reason why ships wouldn't be physically able to support to the limit of their range.

However -- for whatever reason -- warships rarely seem to have bombarded targets deep inland, and if they did, I'm not aware of it ever having had a decisive effect.

Therefore -- although I'm confident you won't be able to wrap your head around the concept -- one shouldn't be able to do it in TOAW. It's not historically valid to have an Operation Exporter where the Commonwealth blasts its way up to Beirut simply by shelling the hell out of any Vichy troops within 20 km of the coast. That's not what happened. The Allies weren't able to drive the German defenders 30 km inland across the front at Normandy. Etc. More like 5 km. Hence my proposal.

Your evidence does not rise to the level of proof that it couldn't be done.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Usual story. I state a point of view, and produce evidence to support it. You produce no evidence whatsoever -- and are certain that you are right.

Your "evidence" was troops marching less than 20 miles a day. Not enought to cause real fatigue. It is obvious that if the troops were marching continously (without stopping) their rate of march would eventually drop off. That's just physiology.

Furthermore, if you would actually read the post I made, you would see that I was not decreasing the lowest value for foot movement. What I was doing was shifting the determining factors from "50% supply + 50% readiness" to "10% fuel + 90% readiness".

When I said that foot movement rates should be more dependent upon readiness, I meant relative to supply. The reverse should be true for motorized movement rates. Currently, the same formula is used for both.

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Really? I mean.... really?

Absolutely. It has to actually perform a task - it has to actually work.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

It's comic to imagine if the game was a bridge and if Curtis was designing it.

He'd look at the Golden Gate, insist that the cables were just for decoration, and that the only thing that mattered was that the piers be big and strong. There'd be nothing you could say that would dissuade him. He'd take no interest in -- would have no awareness of -- the actual physics of the problem. It'd be a matter of big piers. That would be obvious.

Forget about improving TOAW. We'd never have gotten out of the Stone Age with this guy.

Notice that practially every post from Colin Wright is literally filled to the brim with personnel insults. Doesn't really bother me, but ever notice how thin-skinned he is?

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

It's comic to imagine if the game was a bridge and if Curtis was designing it.

He'd look at the Golden Gate, insist that the cables were just for decoration, and that the only thing that mattered was that the piers be big and strong. There'd be nothing you could say that would dissuade him. He'd take no interest in -- would have no awareness of -- the actual physics of the problem. It'd be a matter of big piers. That would be obvious.

Forget about improving TOAW. We'd never have gotten out of the Stone Age with this guy.

Notice that practially every post from Colin Wright is literally filled to the brim with personnel insults. Doesn't really bother me, but ever notice how thin-skinned he is?

Actually, I kind of like the free-fire zone principle. Normally, I try not to apply it though, because (a) others don't like it, and (b) it pretty much guarantees we won't get anywhere.

But in the current case, (a) you certainly set ground rules that gave me carte blanche, and (b) I can't imagine you proving amenable to either reason or evidence regardless of how it was presented.

When I am arguing with some one that is keeping a civil tongue in their head -- Vahauser or Golden Delicious, for example -- I do my best to do the same. Moreover, in the case of such individuals, while one rarely 'wins,' the discussion does cause both parties to refine their point of view. Some clarification and logical development does occur.

However, there's not much chance of that in your case. Other than the waste of time, there's nothing to be lost.

What I wrote does pretty much describe the spectacle of Curtis 'improving' TOAW. There's the same willful refusal to understand how wars have usually gone, and to understand the actual principles driving their outcome. The difficulty is not that it cannot be considered an engineering problem, but that you're hardly approaching this as an engineer.

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Usual story. I state a point of view, and produce evidence to support it. You produce no evidence whatsoever -- and are certain that you are right.

Your "evidence" was troops marching less than 20 miles a day. Not enought to cause real fatigue. It is obvious that if the troops were marching continously (without stopping) their rate of march would eventually drop off. That's just physiology.

Sigh. In TOAW, the troops can't march more than about 20 miles a day -- not unless the unit has been supplied with so much transportation equipment that its movement rate is getting inflated beyond the leg movement rate. A fully rested unit of rifle squads will have a movement rate of about 35 km per day. That's 21 miles.

So indeed the unit speed would drop off if they were force marching. But they can't force march in TOAW in the first place.

You really have taken a logically indefensible position here. Surely even you can see that.

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay




Your evidence does not rise to the level of proof that it couldn't be done.

TOAW is not about what could or couldn't be done. It is about what usually was done. That's what determines unit and weapons capabilities.

Michael Witt knocked out 64 British tanks in one day with his Tiger I. Obviously, this 'could be done.' Should we rate a Tiger I accordingly? When he crossed the Somme, Manstein led his leg infantry corps on an advance where it covered over a hundred kilometers in two days. Should we up the default movement rate for rifle squads accordingly? Chuck Yeager shot down five German fighters in one day in his P-51. Rate the P-51 and set air combat mortality accordingly?

No...we want a simulation that is as accurate as possible. The best way of getting that is to simulate what usually did happen -- not what 'could have happened.'

No doubt generals would have been happy to have had properly placed, correctly timed sixteen inch shells crashing into the position they were about to attack 30 km inland. However, since they rarely got that in real life, they shouldn't be able to get it in TOAW.

It's not complicated. You just refuse to see it.

On the ship thing. I was checking Curtis' barrel thing, and he's right: at least the big guns do wear out fast.

One thing that happens right now is that ships resupply in any ocean hex. That means they can just sit off a front and keep banging away.

As well as restricting their fire to coastal hexes, it'd improve matters if they could only regain supply if they were in an anchorage. It's not a complete fix -- but it would at least give players an incentive not to pound away with them if they wanted the ships to be useful for providing defensive fire support.

This would become even truer if the supply model was altered to reflect the greater impact of running out of supplies on mechanized and artillery units. If your ships were virtually useless once they ran out of supplies and had to go park themselves in port for a few turns to recover, you'd have an incentive not to just keep blazing away.

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Absolutely. It has to actually perform a task - it has to actually work.

Yeah, but, by God there are dozens of scenarios that "work" yet are total junk.

It's like saying that a statue is an engineering project because it has to stand up. Well sure but...

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Absolutely. It has to actually perform a task - it has to actually work.

Yeah, but, by God there are dozens of scenarios that "work" yet are total junk.

It's like saying that a statue is an engineering project because it has to stand up. Well sure but...

Just speculating here, but so much of what Curtis says is obviously driven by egotism as opposed to any concern for external reality. This isn't to say the rest of us are paragons of impersonal objectivity -- but at least we're able to keep a weather eye cocked on the facts of the matter.

I don't think Curtis can do that. It's my feeling that he has told himself that his scenarios are fine scenarios because they produce historical results -- therefore, this is has to be the yardstick. He doesn't even want to think about whether they're actually simulating what actually happened. See that Waterloo discussion for a good example.

He can't revise his dogma concerning what is or isn't a good scenario. To do so would force him to cast a critical eye upon his own work.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Just speculating here, but so much of what Curtis says is obviously driven by egotism as opposed to any concern for external reality. This isn't to say the rest of us are paragons of impersonal objectivity -- but at least we're able to keep a weather eye cocked on the facts of the matter.

I don't think Curtis can do that. It's my feeling that he has told himself that his scenarios are fine scenarios because they produce historical results -- therefore, this is has to be the yardstick. He doesn't even want to think about whether they're actually simulating what actually happened. See that Waterloo discussion for a good example.

He can't revise his dogma concerning what is or isn't a good scenario. To do so would force him to cast a critical eye upon his own work.

Well, notably when it comes to situations where TOAW is well-suited, Bob's scenarios work out pretty well. I'd rank him as one of the better designers in the history of the game for what it's worth. But he really has a hard time accepting that when one steps outside of the game's comfort zone, historical results are not evidence of simulation.

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Just speculating here, but so much of what Curtis says is obviously driven by egotism as opposed to any concern for external reality. This isn't to say the rest of us are paragons of impersonal objectivity -- but at least we're able to keep a weather eye cocked on the facts of the matter.

I don't think Curtis can do that. It's my feeling that he has told himself that his scenarios are fine scenarios because they produce historical results -- therefore, this is has to be the yardstick. He doesn't even want to think about whether they're actually simulating what actually happened. See that Waterloo discussion for a good example.

He can't revise his dogma concerning what is or isn't a good scenario. To do so would force him to cast a critical eye upon his own work.

Well, notably when it comes to situations where TOAW is well-suited, Bob's scenarios work out pretty well. I'd rank him as one of the better designers in the history of the game for what it's worth. But he really has a hard time accepting that when one steps outside of the game's comfort zone, historical results are not evidence of simulation.

I'd say one has to look honestly at what one did to get the historical results -- as the SPI games I mentioned unintentionally demonstrate. In TOAW, there's a disc scenario that hammers the Japanese with 60% shock. I imagine it could well produce historical results -- but I doubt if it could be accurate. That the designer had to use 60% shock suggests just the opposite. It must be totally out of kilter otherwise.

Also, obtaining historical results doesn't provide a blanket justification for everything in the scenario. I have a Holland 1940 scenario in the works, and it happens to have a unit of Hs-123's. If I felt like it, I probably could give them an AP rating of 50 without materially affecting how the scenario plays out. It would not follow that that rating of 50 was justified.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Sigh. In TOAW, the troops can't march more than about 20 miles a day -- not unless the unit has been supplied with so much transportation equipment that its movement rate is getting inflated beyond the leg movement rate. A fully rested unit of rifle squads will have a movement rate of about 35 km per day. That's 21 miles.

So indeed the unit speed would drop off if they were force marching. But they can't force march in TOAW in the first place.

You really have taken a logically indefensible position here. Surely even you can see that.

The fact that they can't force march is irrelevant. There are other sources of fatigue: Combat losses. What matters is that units can reach a condition of extreme fatigue, just as if they had force marched. That's what 33% readiness represents.

It's your position that is indefensible.

And, if you would actually read the post, you would see that I'm not changing the maximum impact of that fatigue. What I was doing was backing out most of the impact of supply on foot movement.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Your evidence does not rise to the level of proof that it couldn't be done.

TOAW is not about what could or couldn't be done.

Of course it is. Historical commanders make this decision; players make that decision. That's what wargaming is all about. And there has been no evidence to suggest that what you are seeing is anything other than command decisions - if it's even that. My gut feeling is that it's mostly a mirage. Just because you can't find an explicit example is not proof of anything. We already have that Soviet counterexample.

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Yeah, but, by God there are dozens of scenarios that "work" yet are total junk.

See my definition of "work", though. Use as many metrics as necessary. If it really is junk, then it will fail multiple metrics. This is a feedback loop that only wargames have. That's why, all else being equal, they're better than books.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Actually, I kind of like the free-fire zone principle. Normally, I try not to apply it though, because (a) others don't like it, and (b) it pretty much guarantees we won't get anywhere.

You're the only one in free-fire here.

But in the current case, (a) you certainly set ground rules that gave me carte blanche, and (b) I can't imagine you proving amenable to either reason or evidence regardless of how it was presented.

No. You set the ground rules, even before this discussion began. Readers can see for themselves. This discussion started with post #75 in the FITE Opinions thread. Check out Colin's insulting comments in posts numbers 62, 64, 69, 78, 79, and 88 in that thread. They continued in this thread with 682, 709, 712, 717, 721, 739, 755, 756, 757, 762, 763, 769, and 774.

It's just the way you operate.