Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Mon, 05 Jul 1993 17:26:30 +0000

Gilette Serge <gilette@obsidian.unice.fr> writes:
> Knowing with 100% precision what a result could be -> it's not a
> simulation game

Obviously you don't mean this literally, that it is not a simulation at
all.  ASL is the best available simulation of World War II squad-level
combat, but all of the rules are published.

Would it be a "better" simulation if the rules were not known at the
beginning of the scenario?  Is it more "realistic" to suppose that on
turn 1 the soldiers being modeled don't have any idea how effective
their weapons will be, but by turn 5 (a few minutes later) they suddenly
have a much better idea?  That doesn't sound very realistic to me
either.

The bottom line is that you can either choose to publish information, or
you can choose to keep it secret.  The former admittedly gives players
more information than would be available within the simulation.  The
latter also gives players more information than would be available
within the simulation, but preferentially based upon their degree of
previous experience with the game.

If the latter sounds better to you than the former, fine.  It sounds
much worse to me, and in my experience I enjoy it much less.  I don't
know what more there is to say.

> With boardgame you're obliged to know the rules because, you don't
> have a referee that will do all the computing for you, but when you
> have the chance of having a computer to hide this work and to give
> you a nice 'reality' feeling you should be happy about that and
> that you're not to bother learning rules.

Computers don't give a nice 'reality' feeling unless you are completely
blind to what is going on behind the screen.  The best strategy
boardgames (like ASL) are much more realistic than the best computer
strategy games, just because they are more complex and can model more
stuff.  Computer games are just not sophisticated enough to be realistic
in the way you want them to be.  Who knows, that might happen one day.
But it is a long long way off.

> A wargame as 2 type of units : infantry and cavalry, which can be either
> regular or elite, and we want to statistically know what are the formulas.
> we'll have to experience in the game at least 1000 x 4 x 4 combats
> to have an idea of what the formulas are, which is completly impossible
> in a game, as it's in real-life.

Your estimate is off by several orders of magnitude.  You obviously
don't have any idea of what you are talking about.  Probably I will need
_one_ combat to know a lot more about the formulas than I did before
that battle, if nothing was published.  Maybe a few.

David desJardins

References

Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gilette@obsidian.unice.fr (Gilette Serge)
Mon, 05 Jul 1993 09:04:28 +0000
PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Fri, 02 Jul 1993 12:01:01 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gilette@obsidian.unice.fr (Gilette Serge)
Mon, 05 Jul 1993 09:04:28 +0000
PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Fri, 02 Jul 1993 12:01:01 +0000