How should i use the attack helo effectively?

[James Sterrett]

Finally got around to checking, and it appears that battalions are *not* penalized vs brigades.

Test:

1 Rlue HQ, 1 Blue battalion of RCP 50, 1 Blue brigade of RCP 50.

1 Red HQ, 2 Red brigades, each of RCP 50.

Line them up so all 4 combat units move forward, creating 2 meeting engagements, one of them bn vs bde, one of them bde vs bde, all in clear terrain, all units with green C2, full logistics, etc.

Everybody drops to RCP 42 after the combat (but only blue retreats - which is a bug.)

 

[Dr Zaius]

Bear in mind that the numbers assigned to the various units in DA are almost entirely worthless. If you break them down unit by unit, you will find the numbers simply don't pass the common sense test and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

There are a couple of RCP generators floating around somewhere, they may even be in our downloads section (I can't remember if they are or not). These may help a bit, but I have yet to see a really serious attempt to rectify this.

Having said all that, you have to understand we're dealing with some heavy duty abstractions here. Assigning a value to an armored brigade as a numerical representation of its "strength" is never going to be a terribly accurate or fair way to judge such things. It could, at least conceivably, be somewhat accurate as a measure of relative strength, so long as only 'like items' were compared in this manner. But that's not how DA functions.

An infantry unit could have a "strength" of, let's say, 10. An armored unit of similar size, 12, etc. This simply does not take into account the vast number of variables and characteristics that make up a given unit's combat effectiveness. Where it gets really abstract is when you start directly comparing an AHB (attack helicopter battalion) with a strength of 14 to a mechanized infantry battalion with of strength of 12. These units are so completely dissimilar in every way so as to make any direct comparison virtually meaningless.

And as I understand the internal DA mechanics, the program makes no distinction between a battalion of infantry and a battalion of armor. The only difference it makes is their movement rate. If both have a strength of 40, they will be roughly equivalent on the battlefield once engaged.

The bottom line is that DA's mechanics are highly abstract in nature, much more so than most other wargames of this scale. TOAW units, for instance, have about 20 or 30 unique characteristics and abilities which are tracked and make up the unit's final "strength." Even then, these numerical ratings are only there to give the player a general idea of the unit's true combat capability; the actual results in combat are based on many other variables. DA is much more straightforward and simplistic in this regard. In DA one unit has a strength of 20 and another has a strength of 30. And aside from their movement rate and the type of units they can attack and defend against, that's about it.

 

[James Sterrett]

Yep, it's heavily abstracted. If it's a maneuver unit, 10 RCP = 10 RCP, no matter what is inside.

(However, maneuver units will beat the crap out of support units even if the maneuver unit is substantially weaker. 10 maneuver RCP != 10 artillery RCP in direct fire combat.)

There's a substantial philosophical divide between DA and TOAW on this point.

TOAW (along with most wargames) operates under the assumption that tracking more data improves the accuracy of the simulation. This is valid, if you have managed to validate the set of all possible interactions between variables you have in use. More detail doesn't necessarily mean more accuracy; it means there are more equations, more data, and more interactions between them to check for accuracy. (I'm not saying TOAW is good, bad, or indifferent in this regard.)

DA assumes that an aggregated abstraction will do the job just as well (and, obviously, it doesn't take this as far as it might - though many boardgames do, with a single integrated "combat factor" for units.) This is valid if the abstracted number is chosen well, and it's a heck of a lot easier to test to see if the results are in a valid range because there are fewer cases to test and fewer equations interacting.


In terms of traiing, if the outputs of the simpler model are in an acceptable range, then it both forces and allows the student to focus on the key decisions - a bad plan cannot be saved by clever company tactics when all the units are battalions. Thus, who is to blame when a plan fails is generally clearer. (Which doesn't stop us hearing a lot of complaints, generally completely contradictory - {your choice of system} is too fast/too slow/too weak/too strong/ etc.)


Wargamers seem to be detail fiends by instinct - see the steady growth of systems such as Squad Leader or Star Fleet Battles from an initial elegant concept into a sprawling mass of rules. (I'm as guilty there as everybody else, with homebrew wargame designs you should be glad will never see the light of day because I didn't know when to stop adding cruft. Incendiary ammo means you need fires which means you need fire trucks which means you need to simulate the water system.... :shock: Embarrasing but true.)

 

[bongotastic]

Yeah, its easy to zoom into the fractal and lose the big picture. This is one of the things I like about DA, it intentionally remains above that. This is good for as long as the results are reasonably reproducing what would happen in reality.

To get around this, I am experimenting with the convertion of engagements from DA to TacOps. Once the engagement is resolved, convert back into DA and move on. Of course, you do this only for engagements where there is a reason to believe that tactics or technical details MUST be modeled.

One day I may even get around to wrap this into a mini-MBX...

christian

 

[Dr Zaius]

And James hits on an important point: more detail does not always equal more accurate results. Fair enough.

But just to muddly the waters a bit (who me?), I will throw this into the mix. Accuracy is really only a small portion of what games are all about. Making the game fun is 90% of it. So if more detail and more "equations" help to do that, then there may be an argument for adding them in. If, on the other hand, the extra detail ends up amounting to needless complexity and actually detracts from the gaming experience, then it should probably be left out.

I believe "design for effect" is the term most commonly used to explain this.

DA is quirky in some respects and highly abstract in others. But it also boasts a level of detail in certain areas that, in my book at least, sets it apart from the crowd. DA really is a worthy addition to the serious wargamer's collection. There are some significant additions and/or enhancements I would make, particularly to the interface. But the chance of that happening is very small as the subject matter is just not popular among gamers (not even wargamers) and I think Jim Lunsford is frying other fish at the moment.