Etiquette

[von Nev]

This is a great discussion.

When I play a scenario by PBEM (big or small) I tend to not look at the opposing dispositions. I enjoy the fog of war aspect of it where I do not know the inherent advantages and disadvantages of each side. I figure that on turn one I get a lot of information generally that helps. I then use the heck out of recon planes and recon spotting too. Also, I read a lot and therefore I have some "unavoidable" knowledge of how things looked in historical battles which I suppose helps.

This discussion is timely for me as this exact topic came up in a recent PBEM game where we were playing a scenario I had never played or seen. When I executed what I thought was was the logical strategy based on the setup and proximity of the enemy (I was on offense), my opponent commented that he was surprised I would do that. I asked why would I know to do something else and he indicated that if I looked at my opponents setup or used knowledge from playing it before I would have known that there was another axis of attack that would be more successful. I said that I did not look at it setups and he indicated that was unusual and that probably I was in the minority of PBEM players. It eventually ended with us agreeing to disagree.

Another aspect of this is how this approach impacts playtesting PzC games. In S41 and M44, the goal of playtesting a scenario was to see if a historic outcome in the general timeline was possible (not guaranteed) when two players of equal capabilities play eachother. My approach with a new HISTORIC scenario was not to look at the enemy setup and to enact a strategy based on either historic references or what was "most obvious" in my mind. That approach was played out and if the results were pretty balanced the scenario was usually considered good. But, as you know if you play a scenario several times from both sides you will find the "best" play to win that WILL take advantage of knowing exact enemy strengths, weaknesses, reinforcement schedule, etc. In playtesting once we get the original historic scenario "balanced" we then looked secondarily at how it could be "gamed" to win. It is then that we start to fix units or time units' releases or re-arrange individual units to prevent immediate breakthroughs. etc. This is really a challenge because at some point the possible outcomes grows exponentially (see larger scenarios and campaigns) and it is then impossible to test every outcome. In those two titles I playtested campaigns to turns 25 and 35 but the scenarios were over 100 and 90.

I guess what my point is is that when you consider playing a scenario, to know if it was balanced using players' first impressions, look at the reported games for the first month or so against players equally matched by the ELO rating. To find if it is balanced with pre-knowledge and experience playing it a couple of times see the overall rating after a couple of months with a sample size of about 10ish.

Just my $0.02.

Marty