On Tactics and Turns

[Jeff Conner]

I recall an anecdote from my youth. I was taking a police rifle instructor class, much of which was learning how to shoot a rifle. If I took my time, thought about all the things I needed to pay attention to and made deliberate body movements, I was a pretty good shot. When I needed to speed things up to meet the time constraints established by the instructors, I threw rounds all over the place and was just awful. It was hard on my confidence as a shooter. I asked the instructors about this and was told in a gunfight, between the adrenalin and actions of the bad guy, you won't have time to be perfect. You need to practice until your muscle memory takes over and things become automatic. I have tried to follow this advice as much as my budget and time constraints will allow (which in the total scheme of things is really not all that much). I am not a more accurate shooter, but I am a bit smoother and consequently, a bit faster 20 years later.

Now, I am not sure how exactly this relates to Squad Battles. Time limits are as arbitrary in a war game as they are in shooting exercises. It is one person's estimate of how long it should take you to accomplish a task. Sometimes this person knows what they are talking about and sometimes they have expectations that may be unreasonable. But in real life, which both of these past times are trying to mimic, there are time constraints and failing them has consequences. Often the time constraints are not even known. Being able to accomplish a task faster and at an acceptable performance level is a valuable skill in almost all walks of life.

In the scenario design work I have done, both as a designer and a playtester, the number of turns is one of the most commonly used methods to try and balance a scenario. More turns is almost always an advantage for the attacker, fewer for the defender. It's an easy modification to make and the results can often be accurately estimated without having to do additional playtests.

And this leads to the point I should have made several paragraphs ago, if you truly believe that the vast majority of scenarios in the Squad Battles series are unbalanced, then perhaps you should make an effort to become part of the playtest team. There, your specific concerns could be addressed by the designer while there was an opportunity to make changes. And if you have concerns about some of the scenarios I have designed, feel free to drop me an email and let me know what they are. If changes are warranted, I will try and find time to make them for the next update.

Jeff