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How many emails will it take to complete a full campaign game PBEM?

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

How many emails will it take to complete a full campaign game PBEM?

Are you familiar with Avogadro's Number? [:'(]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro's_number

Cheers, Neilster

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

How many emails will it take to complete a full campaign game PBEM?

How may licks does it take to get to the chewy center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop? Quite a few more than the three Mr. Owl claims.

I do not know the answer but I would think it would be quite a lot to be honest. Look at how long it takes to play a turn on the paper version of the game. Not only are you going to be sending your turn information, but you also have to talk amongnst your allies to negotiate Lend/Lease, turn objectives etc. so I see quite a lot of e-mail going on.

Jim Merson

Currently playing a couple of cyberboard games, which are more flexible than and requires less mail than MWIF will do (as you don't have to adhere strictly to the sequence of play)

We started in mid march and have reached J/A '40.
- 177 .gmv files(the file format of cyberboard) have been sent as email attachments
- 304 die rolls or messages sent via ACTS die roller
- A number of emails asking shorter questions like do you want to intercept
- In my other game the whole LOCVichy negotiation went on via instant messanger

CWiF takes about 700 to 800 emails to complete although a number of them are only small text messages without a file transfer.

MWiF, with the 'Standing Orders' system that has been proposed should dramatically reduce that number. perhaps to something like 300 as a guess. 36 turns with perhaps 7 impulses average in each at one email per impulse would be 252 emails.

Lars

I think MWiF will require more mails, as the more strict adherence to sequence of play.

I expect there to be two to three mails per impulse more if big naval battles occur (The current design doesn't allow for Standing orders for Naval battles so that part will slow down the game) and about three to four at end of turn.

Some background on the PBEM design:

The restructuring of the sequence of play uses Standing Orders to make almost all decisions for the non-phasing player. Basically, you define a set of rules (i.e., standing orders) for how you want to use your fighters, position planes during air-to-air combat, choose combat tables, inflict or take casualties, etc., and the AI Assistant implements your SOs (pun intended) on the other player's computer while he is the phasing player.

Die rolls are handled automatically by the MWIF program sending a request over the Internet to a neutral networked computer that rolls the dice for you and informs all players that the dice have been rolled. The program that rolls the dice is called eMWIF and pretty much only rolls dice. It knows that a game is in progress, who is playing which countries, and where you are in the game. That is all it needs to know to make the die rolls and keep everyone informed. By having the die rolls handled by a third party, players are unable (or less able) to cheat.

The use of standing orders reduces most impulses to a single email. You move all your units and conduct all the combats with the program using the opponent's standing orders and eMWIF for die rolls. As you proceed through the impulse, the program accumulates a set of transactions to be sent at the end of the impulse. This results in the opponent receiving a massive email for the entire impulse, which is then checked against the die roll information for the impulse the player has already recieved from eMWIF.

There are 2 exceptions to the above description for how an impulse is implemented. (1) Naval combat is high risk, high reward, so each naval combat requires an extra email. Automating the decision process for naval combat using SOs takes too much control away from the non-phasing player. (2) Players can agree to require additional emails during the sequence of play if they so desire. At the extreme, they could do away with SOs completely and require an email for every minute decision. That would make the game require thousands of email.

There are additional emails at the start and end of a turn, so I would give a rough estimate of 10 emails per side, per turn. Some of those emails would be done simultaneously (e.g., production). The number would vary depending mostly on the number of impulses and naval combats. If you are playing Global War all the way through to the bitter end, that's around 360 emails per person per game.

Warning! Warning! Nerd alarm! Nerd Alarm!

The correct average number of impulses in the game would be 255.6, so I have to correct Iomyrin there is an average 7.1 impulses per turn. [:-] Quite a good guess though. [:)]

Nerd alarm off.

ORIGINAL: JimMerson


How may licks does it take to get to the chewy center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop? Quite a few more than the three Mr. Owl claims.

The D&D inspired webcomic Order of the Stick recetnly did a great riff on that joke.

But, on a serious level, reading the Standing Orders report makes me feel a lot better about PBEM WiF. The game is quite intricate as it is in the board version.

ORIGINAL: MPHopcroft
...

But, on a serious level, reading the Standing Orders report makes me feel a lot better about PBEM WiF. The game is quite intricate as it is in the board version.

Tell me about it!