4 power battle

I feel that the US/Chinese side expertly split up the forces and went to battle, while the other side seemed a little lop-sided. I dont think there is a problem with reject ships, small ships can be fun to play, and apparently some people didn't get to use the big guns when they wanted to do so. Referring to them as rejects seems silly, as I had the smallest and slowest squad in this battle and I sunk 2-3 ships, because the ships I sunk were of similar caliber. Rejects ships are only rejects when they can harm a single other ship on the board. If they have a chance of hurting any other ship, then they are a viable option for the engagement.

I dont feel that theres a problem tim

you move your ships, roll the dice, do and take damage, sink and get sunk, its a game and thats the fun of it and its whole point. you can t always have the best units and win all the time.

hell I like being on the short end at times and try my best to fight my way out..thoses are some of the best games when you pull it off or get close. and some times you get pounded in the earth

Excepting Tsushima there may not be enough capital ships available - how many ships does a player need to command for it to be interesting? Is it better to command weak unprotected cruisers independently, or to command the 2 battleships at the tail end of a column with your only movement command being "follow the admiral"? The entire historic Spanish fleet for example has 6 capital ships, only 4 of which actually fought. This strikes me as a good command for one or two players, but is it too little for three? When a scenario has a smaller number of good ships should I limit the number of players - available slots going to the first to email me or the first to show up at my house?

I don't want people to take the trouble to drive to my house for a game and either feel that they are stuck with "reject" ships, or to arrive and find all the commands have been taken. I am interested in comments as to whether this is indeed a problem, and how you think it should be handled.

-->This is a significant part of the issues at hand. And, this delves into the aspect of personal preference. For myself, I have no problem with the smaller ships. I'm going to make it my crusade to get the most out of them as possible. 8O
It would probably help you Tim, to have a semi-definite number of people who are going to show. That way you can tailor the scenario to accomodate that number. An idea: Give each player 1 ship to command. That way, you can have everyone command a capital ship, and still see rules at work. We can work back up to squadrons and fleets further down the road.

"1) Murph is completely right on the "squadron" distribution for the games - it has been shown time and again that mixed squadrons of heavies/lights fair poorly..so invariably someone gets stuck with the reject ships that have no business being in the battle. Also - having nothing but these reject types leads to a player recklessness and desire to DO SOMETHING with them that is ahistorical."

This is an excellent point. With some nationalities in some periods it would be relatively easy to do - the Russo/Japs and the Spanish/US in the Atlantic for instance. For Sino/Japs or Spanish/US in the Pacific though there are just not enough capital ships available.

No one has complained about playing light ship commands, leading me to assume people must not mind it too much. Still I would think them far less interesting to play than the heavier ships. In the 4 power battle all five heavy Spanish ships went to one player - I was very surprised the players didn't at least split them between 2 players, giving the third player the best of the lighter ships. I also think they could have considered declining the 2 weakest ships in the fleet, although I suppose this goes against most gamers instincts.

-->again, this is a player issue. The way the fleets were broken down was entirely up to the players. Between myself, Bill, and Ron, we broke up the fleet as seemed the most logical. A fast cruiser squadron (me), the US monitors (bill), and the Chinese squadron (Ron). at the time, we thought that the Jap-Spanish fleet was broken down OK, but the fleet as a whole lacked coordination, and unified play. That was what killed them, not the quality of their ships, or the distribution of power between the fleets. I think a problme may be in teh scenario design. It looks as if the scenarios work best with a total of 2-4 players, and when more people show up, the squadrons get broken up in very ahistorical ways to accomodate them. We saw this is the Sunda Straight scenario. Another thing is that there are limited numbers of these big ships, and in order to get enough ships in to accomodate 4-6 players, you may end up fighting almost identical battles each time we play. Variation is finite in this.

"1) Murph is completely right on the "squadron" distribution for the games - it has been shown time and again that mixed squadrons of heavies/lights fair poorly..so invariably someone gets stuck with the reject ships that have no business being in the battle. Also - having nothing but these reject types leads to a player recklessness and desire to DO SOMETHING with them that is ahistorical."

This is an excellent point. With some nationalities in some periods it would be relatively easy to do - the Russo/Japs and the Spanish/US in the Atlantic for instance. For Sino/Japs or Spanish/US in the Pacific though there are just not enough capital ships available.

No one has complained about playing light ship commands, leading me to assume people must not mind it too much. Still I would think them far less interesting to play than the heavier ships. In the 4 power battle all five heavy Spanish ships went to one player - I was very surprised the players didn't at least split them between 2 players, giving the third player the best of the lighter ships. I also think they could have considered declining the 2 weakest ships in the fleet, although I suppose this goes against most gamers instincts.

Excepting Tsushima there may not be enough capital ships available - how many ships does a player need to command for it to be interesting? Is it better to command weak unprotected cruisers independently, or to command the 2 battleships at the tail end of a column with your only movement command being "follow the admiral"? The entire historic Spanish fleet for example has 6 capital ships, only 4 of which actually fought. This strikes me as a good command for one or two players, but is it too little for three? When a scenario has a smaller number of good ships should I limit the number of players - available slots going to the first to email me or the first to show up at my house?

I don't want people to take the trouble to drive to my house for a game and either feel that they are stuck with "reject" ships, or to arrive and find all the commands have been taken. I am interested in comments as to whether this is indeed a problem, and how you think it should be handled.

1. This is a failure of the players, not the rules IMO. Part of the perceived problem here is the distribution of ship types, as you pointed out. In the 4 power battle, I had command of the US cruisers, and they did their job. Not as well as they could, or should have, but well enough to scare off the larger ships in the end. I don't consider these "reject ships" at all. They can be quite effective and usefull if used properly. Part of the perception here is player experience and knowledge. Some people have only game experience with naval tactics, and only a general familiarity with the time period. Myself, my knowledge of the period is general only, so I am only passingly famailiar with the specifics of the ships. That's why I haven't commented on those specifications, such as armor and weaponry. What I don't understand here is, if these ships are to be included, why refer to them as "rejects" or state that they have no business being in battle? Either these are to be a set a complete naval rules, or it to be a glorified version of Naval War. Which is it? For me, I want a complete rules set. If I want to play Naval War, I'll play Naval War.

2. I agree here completely. As I said before, the best way to do this, is to pit identical squadrons against themselves. That way, the variations in ship type is irrelevant, and only the rules themselves matter.

3. The withdraws are player issues, not rules, or even scenario issues. I do agree that players tend to break off prematurely. This is a perception issue. Some, like Murph, are treating these scenarios as actual games, and not test play scenarios as they should be. In these games, a bit more recklessness is in order, to get more result data in. While a withdrawl may be a good decision for a campaign, it actually can hurt the design process as you pointed out. In teh 4 powers battle, the fight was still fairly even when the Jap-Spanish fleet ran away in a panic. That was player issues, and not one of the scenario or the rules.

1) Murph is completely right on the "squadron" distribution for the games - it has been shown time and again that mixed squadrons of heavies/lights fair poorly..so invariably someone gets stuck with the reject ships that have no business being in the battle. Also - having nothing but these reject types leads to a player recklessness and desire to DO SOMETHING with them that is ahistorical.

2) We are still at the point of debating things like, How much of an edge is shooting/resolving first? How much differance does a 1pt shift in to-hit numbers make? Should we have criticals? etc - As such what we really need to have is a couple of drag-out,smash up battles of the heavies. The closest we have had to a true battle-line slugfest was the Russo-Jap one which was heavily weighted to the Japs.

3) Yes - clearly lighter ships need to be included, but at the moment their inclusion seems to be preventing the sort of grinding engagement we need to see how some of this other stuff works. Fights where 1-2 cruisers get sunk in a volley or two and one or both sides withdraw don't tell us didly about where the rules are at.

As changes to the rules are made in some fashion almost session to session, I don';t see how we cannot still be in the playtest phase. The potential use of critical hits is a prime example. They need to be tested before fully implemented, thus we're still in the testing stage. Balance can be a matter of opinion. That said, balance is generally defined, for gaming as: 1. Two sides of equal, or identical strength; 2. Opposing sides of differing strength and weaknesses that cancel each other out. Neither definition is applicable to historical scenarios.

i guess it comes down to weather you feel thease rules are being playtested or played and what your definition of balanced is.

1. Perhaps, eventually. Right now, My familiarity with the period is skewed, mainly towards Space:1889, so I'm not 100% sure of myself in that regard. Give me a few more go rounds with things, and I'll have something circa 1900 (Taegu Forts maybe).

2. I think the last battle was even, even when we called the game. It was still a stand up fight, despite the loss of the Spanish cruisers. And, IMO, the results were decided as they should have been in a balanced scenario, by the tactics employed, and not the ship stats.

3. This is not so much an issue of design, but one of scenarios, and/or campaigns. And it is necessary to differentiate bewteen design issues, and scenario issues. Right now, as I see things, we're still in the design phase, and the scenario issue is secondary.

4. I agree. I think this will be very exciting to see played out. As I will have two of the smallest, and oldest fleets in the game, I look forward to the challenges that will provide me. I know going in that I will be out classed, and out gunned by every major power, and will need to work with those facts in order to survive.

"i enjoy the games but my feeling is that if people are getting together for the stated purpose o fplaying a balanced scenerio then the scenerio should be balanced."

Some considerations:

1. Anyone can suggest a scenario, and if someone felt comfortable enough to GM I would be happy to just be a player sometimes.

2. Although it is difficult to calculate, I believe the last battle was balanced. If there was enough intereste I would be happy to run it again. At the start of the scenario one player thought it was even, one gave a very slight edge to the US/Chinese, and Jason thought it favored the Spanish/Japanese. I don't see that light ships were unbalancing as both sides had a similiar number of light, medium and heavy ships. The battle was decided by the opening manuvers followed by the decision of the Spanish/Japanese command to disengage.

3. Many gamers prefer "even" battles, I eventually hope to have a points based system to create such battles. However I agree with Josh and others that historically uneven battles are the norm. Ideally victory conditions should reflect this, for instance if Cervera has even one of his cruisers escape the trap at Santiago it should be a Spanish victory.

4. I think a campaign system like what we are attempting with WW1 is possibly the best as players must grapple with limited intelligence, uneven encounters, and situations with greater or lesser rewards for standing and fighting.

The "what if" aspect is certainly one to be considred. Even so, I was under the impression that these were test play scenarios, and that the rules were being tweaked as we went along. If I'm wrong about that, please correct me. As such, the lighter ships must be integrated, or else the design as a whole will suffer. And, in order to do that properly, such ships must be included, or the rules set will be imbalanced, and broken. I think that the WW1 campaign will give people more of the opportunities to do what you're talking about.

And of course what you think matters. Feedback is the most important tool for a game designer. It's what finds the bugs and broken rules, and determines what needs greater explanation and detail. Personally, I haven't said much about the rules as yet, having only played in 2 games so far, and I'm just getting a feel for things. After another game or two, I'll be more comfortable to discussing specifics, rather than generalities.

The issue is, I suppose, one of design philosophy. What is the purpose behind designing the rules in the first place? IMO, if you are designing a set of historical rules, then "balance" is something that is a matter for scenarios, and not the rules themselves. One of the best ways to test rules, in a truly balanced manner, is to pit two identical fleets against each other. That is, for example, to pit the same Royal Navy squadrons against themselves. That way, there is no issue of differences in quality, only in the players. However, while that's good for testing the rules, gets incredibly boring for the players. Unless of course they have some unending passion for rules design, or an obsessive desire for perfection. IMO, a historical set of rules shouldproduce predictably historical results, 75% of the time, if players follow the historical path. That all said, I think it disingenuous to complain about balance, as that shouldn't be the purpose at this stage. The focus should be on making sure the rules set is solid, and to check for exploits and bugs, not on getting all navies equal.

we are not playing thease rules to merely simulate historic battles but to also play the wide variaty of possiblities that might take place in different historic outcomes. i enjoy the games but my feeling is that if people are getting together for the stated purpose o fplaying a balanced scenerio then the scenerio should be balanced. in my opinion the lighter ships can play almost too great a role in thease battles, since the big ships dont ussually sink the little ships can decide the winners. i feel that if the games are to be even then all ships should be comparable in guns and armor. as a side note ive noticed that in most scenerios there are players that seem to not have a very viable position or the sheer number of players makes a position unviable. in my opinion this should never occur in thease even fleet battles thats why we asked to play even battles. if we are playing historical battles i feel we should play with the ships that were there but if the intent is to have even fights then the opposing forces should be as balanced as close as they can.

now that i said that i think it dose not really matter what i think but what tim thinks since he is running the battles. of course anyone that is unhappy with his cenerios could attttept to get people together to play their own scenerios or to not play in tims.

I'm not so sure I agree. If these small class ships are to be included, then they must be part of the testing. Doing this early in the process better ensures that the integration of all aspects is smooth and works properly. Otherwise, you fall into the GW trap of producing one broken set of rules after another. In addition, as test players, you don't want to fall into the habit of using only the larger ships, as you never develope a feel for the smaller ships and their uses. as for balance, Phooey! The very nature of historical simulations is unbalanced. It has to be, otherwise it's a set of fantasy rules, that supposes that all sides are equal. Phooey! The vast majority of historical battles, be they land, air, or sea were not "balanced." The point should be to produce accurate results, with in statistical variation norms, and not "balanced" battles.

I'm not trying to suggest leaving them out of a campaign or "normal" battle - my point was merely that their inclusion in "test" battles seems to skew results.

If what we are trying to test is the "balance" of ships and the rules then it seems to me that a basic, straight up duel of capital ships is the first step.

Whether or not to include lighter units in a fleet action was a command decision. Some fleets threw in everything available, examples being both sides at Yalu and the Spanish at Manila. Sometimes ships were available but were thought to weak to use, Dewey for example left a couple of weak ships out of the Manila battle, both US fleets in the Atlantic consisted of capital ships while the lighter ships were on blockade duty. Some very weak ships participated in big ship battles, such as the armed yacht Gloucester in Santiago, and the auxilary merchant cruiser Saiko at Yalu - both ships so small and weak I didn't bother including them in the game. In the Russo-Jap war both sides used protected and light cruisers but kept them at a distance from capital ships most of the time - this could be simulated by keeping them off the board or just keeping them out of the way. Interestingly enough Carl's 2 Japanese cruisers which sunk were designed as battleship killers - certainly the intent of the designers was for there inclusion in fleet actions.

TBs are a special case, they were not committed except at night or rarely against cripples.

Of course we can design any kind of scenario we like for a supposed balanced fight. Still as I review the historic fleet actions lighter ships were present at all fleet actions in all three wars we have simulated. In the Russo-Jap war lighter units mostly kept their distance, in the two preceeding wars light units were closely engaged.

My suggestion to players is that if you have lighter ships that seem like a liability to you leave them off map.

What the battle report seems to indicate was that it was a basically meaningless skirmish, broken off before it could get "real". So naturally commander morale played a bigger role than any rules changes.

I'd like to suggest that perhaps the next "balanced" battle just dispense with all the light combatants - no PCs, CCs, TBs or GBs at all in the battle, assume they are off skirmishing someplace while the battlelines of ACs, BBs and Monitors duke it out.