(TFT) Wargame 4 --> Rick's comment's on Seth's reply.

[Rick Smith <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

On Thu, 2006-04-20 at 14:43, Sethkimmel@aol.com wrote:
> OUTSTANDING!!!! One thing I might want to add is whether a unit is from a 
> professional ancient army like the Romans for example, or a loose group of 
> warriors ...

  I intend that it should handle gracefully 
both professional soldiers and less organized
forces.

> This has to be reflected. I played some miniatures rules that had two ratings 
> for units. One was morale (green,average,elite) and the other was tactical 
> competence/training (poor, average, above average). Note my particular set of 
> rules had 5 levels, but I think 3 is plenty. Besides the usual '"junk" (peasant 
> levies, conscripts, etc.) and elites like palace guards, you could have a 
> green unit that could maneuver well but was easy to rout, or you could have an 
> elite unit that couldn't maneuver well or change formation well but was tough to 
> rout. Of course the best unit was an elite unit with the highest rating of 
> tactical competence/training. In the above examples if you assign the Viking unit 
> a mediocre or bad tactical rating, it could lose to the high level Romans 
> quite easily, even if the Romans are only average morale...

  On the other hand, green units that can maneuver
well and elite units that can't maneuver would be
pretty darn rare.  I wonder if it is worth the 
complexity of tracking the information given that
the two are usually not really orthogonal variables. 

  One idea I am toying with is using the following
ratings:  4 levels of quality for officers and NCO's
and a determination rating.  The 'Morale' of the
unit would arise from these.

  I would have one value for the officer quality
rating from 'A' to 'D'.  If the NCO's value is the 
same, no problem.  If it is better, put a line over 
the officer rating.  If it is lower, under line the 
officer rating.  

  You could use double over lines or under lines for
wider variations, but good NCO's tend to counter
balance poor officers and vice versa.  Also excellent
officers (or NCO's) help train up their counterparts
so you likely wouldn't loose too much by limiting the 
ratings to being within one step of each other.

  If you wanted 3 levels of training, put one dot 
above the officer rating for well trained troops,
no dot for standard level and a dot under the 
officer rating for poorly trained troops. 

  The reason for these coding gymnastics is of course
how to fit alot of info into a very small counter.


  Thanks for your thoughts Seth!
  Warm regards, Rick.
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