Supporting New Games

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

1) Don't fret about it Paul, several of the HQ guys have tried to get FoF up and running, these things just take time thats all, we'll get there :)

Not quite Paul,

2) All 5 Scenarios can be played by PBEM (Note 'Small setup' is basically a training game, just 1 Fed & 1 Reb Army in Virginia at start date, Early Nov 1861, can only be played at basic rules level, would be a goodun to get folk out of Bootcamp)

3) Leaving aside the 'Small setup' scenarios are,
a) Standard campaign, start date early Nov 1861
b) Southern Steel, Nov 1861
c) The Coming Fury, July 1861
d) The Coming Fury, (balanced economy), July 1861
Turns are full (unlike say Battleground were you have movement, Def fire, Off fire/Melee), and occur every 2 weeks game calendar time, on average taking c1hr depending on game situation and the amount of thinking you want to put in.

4) No minor victories etc its win or lose. That said can I suggest we do allocate points for a Draw, so folk can choose to agree a draw, say as an 'honour' thing in a close fought game or if someone had to pull out for domestic reasons, again upon agreement between both parties.

Other bits, I’ll try attaching a screenshot of the setup page for PBEM if it opens it may give you some background idea to the PBEM game setup.


  PBEM FoF setup.jpg (Size: 185.03 KB / Downloads: 9)

If you wish I could try and send you a copy (Zipped) of the ‘Basic Interface tutorial’, which would give some idea as to the games depth & complexity (far higher than Battleground, IMHO) it is basically a slide show based on screen shots moved on by hitting the space bar, and operates in Macromedia Flash player 8.

Hope this helps if not come back and I’ll try and answer any further questions.

All the Best
Peter

[Steel God]

2) All 5 Scenarios can be played by PBEM (Note 'Small setup' is basically a training game, just 1 Fed & 1 Reb Army in Virginia at start date, Early Nov 1861, can only be played at basic rules level, would be a goodun to get folk out of Bootcamp)

3) Leaving aside the 'Small setup' scenarios are,
a) Standard campaign, start date early Nov 1861
b) Southern Steel, Nov 1861
c) The Coming Fury, July 1861
d) The Coming Fury, (balanced economy), July 1861

What is the number of turns that each of these five scenarios lasts? If any are of variable length please give me an idea how many would routinely be required to complete the game.

4) No minor victories etc its win or lose. That said can I suggest we do allocate points for a Draw, so folk can choose to agree a draw, say as an 'honour' thing in a close fought game or if someone had to pull out for domestic reasons, again upon agreement between both parties.

Okay, so then it's just win/lose and draw. Would you suggest that given the scale and somewhat unique victory conditions, the winner of a scenario should really only recieve a little bit more than the loser. For example, Winner earns 60% of the points and loser 40%?

If you wish I could try and send you a copy (Zipped) of the ‘Basic Interface tutorial’, which would give some idea as to the games depth & complexity (far higher than Battleground, IMHO) it is basically a slide show based on screen shots moved on by hitting the space bar, and operates in Macromedia Flash player 8.

May not help but it couldn't hurt. Send it along.

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

What is the number of turns that each of these five scenarios lasts? If any are of variable length please give me an idea how many would routinely be required to complete the game.

The game is set up to play as 'Early' and 'Late' for each calendar month from the start date i.e. July 1861, or Nov 1861, so 2 turns a month, as the game could carry on past the historical end date of April 1865 theoretically the game could be open ended (I think Gils comments in the email with the tutorial attachment I sent you may be of help here).

How many turns to complete a game, Eeek, dunno, that will vary considerably depending on the skill of the opposing players. It maybe that the folk at GWS could be of help there as they will possibly have some idea from the Beta tests etc, sorry Paul I haven’t played it enough against enough different players to give an accurate answer

Lets make a comparison with BG Gettysburg that’s logged as 149 turns, personally I have only once gone into the 3rd day (and that was over mid-morning) either against a real player or the AI.

Okay, so then it's just win/lose and draw. Would you suggest that given the scale and somewhat unique victory conditions, the winner of a scenario should really only recieve a little bit more than the loser. For example, Winner earns 60% of the points and loser 40%?

OK lets try merging the 2 points here, if for a victory at G'burg or Chickamauga (arguably the hardest of the BG ACW battles) you receive 70 pts irrespective of how many turns it takes, then (and this is merely my opinion) as FoF is considerably more complex the points awarded for a victory should possibly be higher, say 100 or 120.

A Draw is easy, just make it half the victory points

For a defeat, Mmmm the loosing player is gonna have put in a hell of a lot of time and energy so the G'burg ratio of 70 to 10 may be somewhat paltry, could I suggest something along the lines of 120 win -30 lose might be a fairer balance, FoF plays at more than just the tactical level of G’burg/Chick etc. and that should possibly be reflected in the scoring

This is just a thought and may not be practical/fair, but in order to get FoF up and running how about just set it up something like suggested above, see how it goes, it can always be altered later when enough players start whinging about it not being reflective or whatever, then you can turn it over to them ... “Right Sunbeam come up with a better solution"

I know I keep banging on about this but I think it really would be good for the Blitz to have this in place before CoG EE comes out, I may well get egg on my face, but I really see it as a good recruiting field for the future.

All the Best
Peter

[Steel God]

Peter;

Your answers are actually not helping me sort this out because you're trying to answer more than I need. No offense intended, I know you're trying to be thorough.

For each of the five scenarios what is the MAXIMUM amount of turns that can be played? Is it LITERALLY open ended? Can the smallest scenario really play indefinitely between 2 matched opponents, or is there a LITERAL limit of X number of turns. For each of the five scenarios I need to know what X is. Surely the game will not let you fight the ACW through to 1870? :chin:

As for scoring, on our ladders points are awarded for a victory level, and not tied to an individual scenario. A Major victory is worth X points, and the sizes of the scenarios have modifiers associated with them. Those Size modifiers are tied to the number of turns a scenario lasts, which will hopefully make clear to you why I need the info in the above paragraph.

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Paul no offence taken, I have posted your question on the Matrix FoF MB, got 2 replies so far see below

G'day Peter, there are a couple of preferences that can stretch the game out, I have recently completed a game that ended in late July 1866, I needed 48 victory points to win. Also one of my preferences were, no time limit, meaning the CSA didn't get a bonus after a certain date, the exact date can't recall.
Ron

You can set the game up so there's pretty much no time limit. On standard settings though, the CSA will start getting victory points every turn from somewhere in spring 65, effectively ending the game in that year at the latest.

You can set the winning limit to 24 or 48 victory points, which of course has a great impact on the game's duration.
And as BASB said, you can turn the CSA victory point gain off and on.

I didn’t know you could alter the Winning vp total to 48, but at the moment it basically looks like it can be virtually open-ended depending how the PBEM game is set up.

Will update when/if I get anymore replies.

Looks like if Blitz wants to host FoF and later CoG EE they may have to make a command ‘Rules of Engagement’, something along the lines of the Early July start dates get X points based on the games possible length turnwise, ie start date Early July 1861 then x2 turns a month till end of April 1865 = 92 turns. Early Nov start dates x2 turns a month till end of April 1865 = 84 turns.

All the Best
Peter

[Steel God]

Peter;

Okay, let's ease our pain a little. Tell me how many turns each scenario would be if it ended with it's historical end date. I'll work from that and factor in a bonus if games progress beyond it.

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

As I reckon it, the 5 Scenarios would be as follows

‘Standard campaign’:
Start date Early Nov1861, (so 4 turns till end of 1861 + 24 turns for 1862, + 24 turns for 1863, + 24 turns for 1864, + 8 turns till end of April 1865); total (check my maths :)) = 84 turns.

‘Small setup’ (Training game) :
Start date Early Nov1861, = 84 turns

‘Southern Steel’
Start date Early Nov1861, = 84 turns

‘The Coming Fury’:
Start date Early July 1861, (so 12 turns till end of 1861 + 24 turns for 1862, + 24 turns for 1863, + 24 turns for 1864, + 8 turns till end of April 1865); total = 92 turns.

‘The Coming Fury’ (Balanced Economy):
Start date Early July 1861, = 92 turns.

Hope this helps, sorry it’s become such a pain Paul, there are Blitz players out there who know the game better than me, it may have gone easier if they could have chipped in more, but ...

All the Best
Peter

[Steel God]

Cheers Peter!!

That will do nicely actually, thanks. No apologies required, I enjoyed this almost as much as our debate on Duke William ;)

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Yer I saw the bit on your profile about Hastings and the inflamitary remark about one of our Kings :mad:, but, Noble beast that I am, I gritted my teeth and seethed in private :pullhair: . I didn't respond thinking we may have played that topic out, suffice to say IMHO :soap: Harold had more right to the English throne than 'The Bastard'.

All the Best
Peter

[Steel God]

Yer I saw the bit on your profile about Hastings and the inflamitary remark about one of our Kings :mad:, but, Noble beast that I am, I gritted my teeth and seethed in private :pullhair: . I didn't respond thinking we may have played that topic out, suffice to say IMHO :soap: Harold had more right to the English throne than 'The Bastard'.

Hmmm, you actually count that Usurper in the line of Kings then? I would have thought the history books would have expunged the stain by now. ;) Well, Edward certainly felt William should have it, and as we've discussed before, thankfully for Western Civilization, so did destiny and divine providence