Re: Up Front

From: hall@rocky.bellcore.com (Michael Hall)

Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1991 21:17:05 +0000

In article <1991Apr14.040833.10417@ariel.unm.edu> tkogoma@triton.unm.edu (Gym Z. Quirk) writes:
>Has anybody figured out a way of PBMing _UP Front_ by AH?
>
>If so, I would be interested in playing...

As much as I love Up Front, I think PBM Up Front would be pretty lousy.
Consider that a typical game will last around 50 turns, and that a lot
of bookkeeping will be necessary without the crutch of real cards. However,
I'd be willing to try anything once.

See the current GENERAL (volume 26, number 5) for a series replay.  You can
use their notation to transfer information and keep a record of the game.
For example, here's the first row of the game record for Italy in the
series replay (unfortunately it takes two rows of 80 columns):

Turn Group A      Group B                Group C             Group D
#1   0/Op/2-2-3F  0/Op/4-4-3-3-5D-4L-4A  0/Br/3-3-3-2-2-2-3L 0/Op/1-1-3S

Hand         Action      Discard
     M/M/Cw/F5-13 en/MF/en/en -/-

The above means the following. It's turn 1.  Group A is at range chit 0
in the Open; the men have morales 2, 2, and 3, and the last man has the
flamethrower. (I would advocate using the numbers of the men instead, and
using the campaign charts, from my article in that issue, to look up morale
and panic numbers - or flipping through the personality cards.)  Groups
B, C, and D are similar (Br=Brush, D=Demo Charge, L=LMG, A=ASL, S=SL).
The hand is two movement, a cower, plus a fire card that requires 13 to
use and delivers 5 firepower.  (I would either use the numbers of the cards.)
The actions he takes, respectively for each group, are to entrench, move
forward, entrench, and entrench, and no discards.

Now obviously, some more information needs to be added, such as the results
of the entrechment attempts and whatnot, and some information should be hidden
from your opponent (such as the cards in your hand.)

Drawing cards is the major problem.  Here's a few possible solutions:

* Allow a computer to draw cards for the players from a finite deck. This
   avoids a lot of problems, but then you have the big problem of keeping
   this single computer program running.

* Draw cards from an finite deck. Each player would use different
   random number generation techniques.  Perhaps both could use the stock
   market results, but then each would have different techniques of mapping
   to numbers 1-(number of cards left).  The exact techniques would not be
   revealed until the end of the game, so that neither player could know the
   other player's cards.  You have a list of the cards, and you mark each
   as it is revealed - when you need to draw a new card, you get a random
   number and count down the list of cards until you hit that number.  If
   a player plays a card drawn by the other player, then you could handle
   this in a number of ways - you could say that both players have the card,
   or that the other player's card counts as a cower, or allow the other player
   to get a free draw to replace the card.

* Draw cards from an infinite deck. As above, each player would use different
   random number generation techniques, but he would always be drawing from
   the full pool of cards, and could potentially draw many copies of the same
   card.  I like this better, as PBM with finite decks would allow for some
   pretty nasty card counting.  You could make up a big chart containing all
   the information on all the cards, so that you don't have to carry around
   the cards.

* Abstract away the cards - you would "roll" on different charts for
   picking actions, resolving RNC's, etc.

Michael Hall                | Basic strategists do it with luck.
{rutgers!} bcr!flash!hall   | Card counters     do it with penetration.
hall@rocky.bellcore.com     | Shuffle-trackers  do it with determinism.

References

Up Front
tkogoma@triton.unm.edu (Gym Z. Quirk)
Sun, 14 Apr 1991 04:08:33 +0000

Referenced By

Up Front
tkogoma@triton.unm.edu (Gym Z. Quirk)
Sun, 14 Apr 1991 04:08:33 +0000