Scenario design musings

[JonS1]

Hi Folks,
One of the persistent issues with N'44, and longer campaigns in particular, seems to be the apparent inability of the German player to set up defense lines comparable to those acheived in 1944. This is borne out by results in the Scen Database: of 44 games recorded where the scen had more than 100 turns, the Allies won 27 to the Axis 14 (3 draws). In a scen with over 100 turns the Allies averaged 108 points, while the Axis only averaged 70.

In part this is due to an endemic problem with wargames, namely that both sides know what the other is doing, what they have, and what their goals are. This means that, for example, the US player can drive hell for leather S from OMAHA and SW from GOLD in the certain knowledge that the German players has nothing - or not much - in that area. This is compounded by the lack of restrictions on how units organise themselves for battle. Players can race motorised AT units all over the place, using them to lead the charge and seize terrain, when in practice platoon commanders would tend to tell COs who tried to order that as a matter of course to "have sex and travel". however, in the longer scenarios it seems to be made much worse due to the sheer length of the game, and the Allied ability to crush the Germans in the inital landing battles, speed inland, and prevent an effective defence later on.

It's also due in part to relative unit strengths, but that's easy enough to adjust.

Simplistic supply models also have an effect, though that, too, can be mitigated by using explicit supply.

It is also, I think, due in large part to the fact that things in wargames simply happen so fast. Units have a movement factor based on what is essentially their best speed, but in practice this becomes their average speed and it means they can get far more done in a day than any real-world military unit could dream of.

Having pondered this for some time, I'm coming around to the idea that instead of 8 x 2hr day turns and 2 x 4hr night turns, N44 might play better with 6 x 3hr day turns (with the dusk/dawn flag ON) and 1 x 6hr night turn. This would be accompanied by slight changes to, for example staking limits (making it higher), but otherwise everything - notably unit speeds - stays the same.

This would have the immediate effect of cutting some 30% of the turns, dropping the campaign from 750 to some 525 turns, making the campiagn somewhat more tractable. In any given day it would similarly reduce the distance a unit can move by some 30%.

It'd also reduce the number of moves the allies get before German reinforcements show up. However it would reduce the night from 20% of turns to 14% of turns, although that would be somewaht mitigated by the dusk/dawn turns.

I'm curious to hear what other designers and players think of this as a proposal. I understand that Modern Campaigns makes use of 3hr daylight turns by default, so it'd be interesting to hear from people that can compare-and-contrast the two systems.

Regards
Jon