Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start

From: gilette@obsidian.unice.fr (Gilette Serge)

Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1993 08:04:56 +0000

In article <219o86$csh@snook.ccr-p.ida.org>, desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) writes:
|> 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.

I know ASL, i play it.

|> 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.

No but is it realistic you know that you will be able to move exactly 4 hexs
in open terrain, that your exact range of rifle is 6, or that you have 2.5%
of chance of killing the squad crossing the street 100 m away behind a smoke
screen when your fire is conducted by Lt Stalher ?

My point was that when you have rules published, people try to think with the
rules in mind, not as they would think in reality. For example if you don't
use the bypass rule in ASL, you know that the enemy squad closing is to enter
the house and so won't be adjacent to you this turn and you use that fact to
think off your strategy. I agree that for any boardgame you're obliged to
publish the rules because you have no referee, which is wrong when you talk
about role-playing game, or computer moderated game.

|> 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

Completly wrong. For example in ASL you perfectly knows where the enemy forces
are, so you can move freely as you want until you close the enemy and then
prepare for combat. You don't have the fog of war, the doubt, the fear of
getting in some trap.

|> 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.

Are you kidding ? Any boardgame can me put into a computer game, and with more
realism, for the computer can hide information you shouldn't have (submarine
hunt game for example)

|> 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

WOW, you might be some kind of genius then ! I humbly apologise for me being
such an idiot who cannot in one combat guess a formula with 4 or 5 parameters.
I bet that if i write a formula, you'll never be able to found it in one
go, even if it's not a completly weird formula. If you want to make the test:

there are 4 type of units A, B, C, D, and 4 types of terrain : O, W, C, M
(open ground, wood, city, marsh), each unit is either regular or elite.

At that point you're unable to give me in ONE go the formula because of the
different type of terrain, unless you're some extralucid medium crap.

If you're still not convinced here is _one_ example :

Two regular A units an elite B unit and a regular D unit attack in a city
one regular C unit and an elite D unit. The result is that the defender
is to loose one unit.

David desJardins
Serge Gilette  | University of Nice |There's no difference between theory
------------------------------------|and practice in theory, but often a
phone: 92.94.26.41                  |great deal of difference between

References

Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gilette@obsidian.unice.fr (Gilette Serge)
Mon, 05 Jul 1993 09:04:28 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Mon, 05 Jul 1993 17:26:30 +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
Re: PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Mon, 05 Jul 1993 17:26:30 +0000
PBM design and formulae - a fresh start
gym@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Graham Matthews)
Fri, 02 Jul 1993 12:01:01 +0000