For those who have played Minsk 44

[Krak]

I am trying to organise a game of the stock historical HTH campaign of Minsk 44 with a fellow blitz member. Consensus on this board is that the VP schedule is way too low, i.e the Russians should need to score a lot more points to win than the current VP levels. Can some of you guys give me a ballpark figure of what you think would be a fair VP increase for Russia to acheive. Lets face it the battle was a thrashing for Germany. We don't want to play a hypothetical action. Just the historical battle with reasonably 'fair' victory levels.

My intention is to simply modify the existing stock game with more balanced VP's. Upload to the this site and play it. Simple as that.

I will probably just average out the numbers that anyone may suggest in responce to this post.

Thanks for any help.

[Dog Soldier]

I would like that we do not clutter the DB with another scenario entry for such a minor change. Just use the agreed upon VP levels you come up with as a house rule and post to the existing scenario entry in the DB with your results of the game. Naturally, post to this thread if such VP levels work really well.

That will cut down on admin time and leave me with more time for games.

Thank you.
Dog Soldier

[Krak]

Will do

[Volcano Man]

...Can some of you guys give me a ballpark figure of what you think would be a fair VP increase for Russia to acheive.

Sure, IMO a good VP level is something like:

22000 25000 29000 36000

...this is what I have changed the _Alt campaign to recently. It is a "middle value" between the stock's vs. AI campaign levels and the stock's PBEM victory levels. A few people that played the PBEM version said the VP levels were too low, and the vs. AI victory levels are too high to play PBEM (since the Germans can simply exit units from the map to win), so these "middle" values seem just as good as any.

Once thing is certain, it is assumed that the Germans should be trying to hold objectives as long as possible and should also be trying to get units off the map to escape destruction, otherwise the stock vs. AI victory levels will be perfectly fine.

[Liebchen]

I would like that we do not clutter the DB with another scenario entry for such a minor change. Just use the agreed upon VP levels you come up with as a house rule and post to the existing scenario entry in the DB with your results of the game. Naturally, post to this thread if such VP levels work really well.

Won't that skew the statistics for that scenario? I, for one, like to look at the DB to see what games have been played the most and which have the (apparent) best balance.

[Dog Soldier]

Won't that skew the statistics for that scenario? I, for one, like to look at the DB to see what games have been played the most and which have the (apparent) best balance.

I do not think any skewing of results is created by having people not post a new scenario to the DB just because they used a set of house rules.

The biggest skew to using the DB results is the player's skill level. This is constantly changing. Players match up for a game. Unless they already know each other, the game could turn out to be hopeless for one side or the other or well matched due to differences in experience with the system, title, and scenario; in that order.
IMHO, knowledge how the OR's work is the largest contributor to setting up a scenario that can be as balanced as possible.

One of the features of the PzC/MC systems is no pre-game assumption survive first contact. :cool:

Dog Soldier

[Krak]

Thanks for the info Ed. I will go with the levels you have suggested.

As for house rules skewing the stats I don't think the odd house rule will make much difference. I rekon a fair proportion of games end in forfeiture anyhow, that will skew the stats more than anything else I think. :chin:

[Volcano Man]

Thanks for the info Ed. I will go with the levels you have suggested.

As for house rules skewing the stats I don't think the odd house rule will make much difference. I rekon a fair proportion of games end in forfeiture anyhow, that will skew the stats more than anything else I think. :chin:

If you both find that those VP levels are not adequate, then you can always agree to "adopt" the stock versus AI VP levels during your game. I have agreed to similar VP level changes during games. Anyway, I am curious to know the final score will be... about two years from now. ;)

[D-Day_Dodger]

I too like to go to the DB to find out which games are balanced before looking for an opponent. The problem, as I see it, with using altered victory conditions when reporting a completed game is that the next person who goes to the DB for that particular scenario will have no way of knowing which games, if any, had the VP values changed before being reported and so can not get an accurate estimation of the play balance.

To avoid this, I recommend players who use house rules for VPs should report play balance based upon the stock scenario VPs and not their own results after applying their own changes. That way others would know that the game truly is imbalanced and either avoid it or make up their own house rules.

Coming to this message board is also a good way to find out this information except that the answers are only available as long as that thread is available. I think the ideal solution would be to have a short comments section added for each game reported where players could leave their impressions of the scenario. This would be of real value to future players who are looking for information about what game to play next.

And as a final thought, is there a way to amend the game reporting format to include a field for actual games turns played? This would correct the problem of players getting over compensated for forfeited games.

[Mr Grumpy]

I too like to go to the DB to find out which games are balanced before looking for an opponent. The problem, as I see it, with using altered victory conditions when reporting a completed game is that the next person who goes to the DB for that particular scenario will have no way of knowing which games, if any, had the VP values changed before being reported and so can not get an accurate estimation of the play balance.

To avoid this, I recommend players who use house rules for VPs should report play balance based upon the stock scenario VPs and not their own results after applying their own changes. That way others would know that the game truly is imbalanced and either avoid it or make up their own house rules.

Coming to this message board is also a good way to find out this information except that the answers are only available as long as that thread is available. I think the ideal solution would be to have a short comments section added for each game reported where players could leave their impressions of the scenario. This would be of real value to future players who are looking for information about what game to play next.

And as a final thought, is there a way to amend the game reporting format to include a field for actual games turns played? This would correct the problem of players getting over compensated for forfeited games.

Some good points here, i don't know if the amount of turns played could be added to the reporting procedure, but i will ask.

As for your final point, there is no problem with players being over compensated for forfeited games as the rules clearly state (ROE 9) that a player can claim a major victory for a forfeited (or surrendered) game unless his opponent negotiates for a minor loss (ROE 10). ;)