Scoring

cbelva

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I have running a few small test on scoring in DA. Several people complained about scoring in the game during the now defunct tournament and I wanted to see if I could get a handle on the problem. I am not finished with my tests, but wanted to let you know what I found. First, there is very little in the electronic manual on scoring (in fact I found absolutely nothing). I remembered that Col Lunsford had discussed scoring is a post sometime back and did a search on this board and the DA discussion list. I found the following from him dated Feb 3, 2004:

Victory points are awarded for the following conditions:

1. Possession of objectives. Within the scenario editor, authors can
designate objectives and assign a victory point level for each
objective. Possession is determined by the player who has the most RCP
overlapping (with unit footprints) the objective area. Note: Authors
can assign possession at scenario start to a particular side or leave
the objective unassigned. The idea behind my use of objectives is to
provide for terrain-focused operations.

2. Casualties. VP are awarded/modified for casualties based on a
number of criteria:

a. Baseline Casualty VP. Points are awarded for any loss. Air
losses and PW losses are weighted heavier than other losses.

b. Force Ratio Modifier. Differences in the force ratios
(advantage) one side over the other affects the VP for losses. If I
have a 3:1 advantage over you, then every RCP I lose is worth more VP
for you than when you lose a RCP. Note: I implemented this modifier to
keep a player with a larger force from just expending battalions in an
attrition battle without suffering any consequences.

c. Force-oriented versus Terrain-oriented operations. If one side
is force-oriented, then they will receive more victory points for every
enemy RCP they destroy. Note: It is possible to have one side
force-oriented and the other terrain-oriented during a scenario.

d. Excessive losses. If a force loses more than their "maximum"
loss as directed within the scenario editor, their opponent receives
additional VP.

Hopefully, this sheds some light on the issue. I tried to develop a
good VP system; however, I always figured that discerning players, such
as you and other members of this group, would still debate the merits of
their operation and their challenges with their opponent. The VP system
is more important in solitaire play. In my mind, the ultimate battle
(fun and debate) would be one where the force objectives of the two
sides are so dissimilar that both sides could "win" by achieving their
objectives. Of course, the VP system might reflect the outcome as a
draw. There in lies the challenge of developing a really good VP
system.


I tested scoring by first setting up several very small scenarios just to see how scoring occurred on a small basic. I then ran a larger scenario noting which units took damage, how much damage they took, and ownership of victory locations. Honestly, except for 1 small abnormality, scoring appeared to work as Col Lunsford outlined it in his Feb 3rd posting.

The abnormality was that twice while running one of my small test scenarios I noticed that Blue losses dropped to a -1%. I checked the Blue force order of battle screen and found that several blue units had gained combat power a few tenth points above their starting strength points. (ie—They started with a combat power of 10 and was now at 10.1394). They were also showing 98% strength. I would like to note that on the previous turn they had taken loses and were showing at 98% (I don’t remember the combat power but it was less than 10). I found another post by Col Lunsford which may explain this abnormality. It was also posted on the Yahoo Discussion Forum also dated Feb 3, 2004. According to the article, Col Lunsford had added the ability for units to “regenerate combat power”. I will quote this section for your review.

“11. Regeneration of Combat Power. Units can now regenerate combat power to reflect unit maintenance and the return to duty of injured/wounded personnel. Units will regenerate 1% of their combat power per hour if the following conditions are true:

• Unit strength is less than 99%
• Unit is not suppressed
• Unit morale is average or better
• Unit logistics is greater than 20%
• Unit is not exhausted (fatigue level)”


I am guessing that since the unit was below 98% and met all the other criteria, it regenerated combat power allowing the unit to slightly increase its combat power above its starting setting. This is what appears to have affected the loss report for the blue forces and gave the -1 in the blue losses under the victory conditions.

Personally, I don’t see this as a big problem. I think it could be argued that units should not be able to “regenerate” its combat power greater than what it started with. If Col Lunsford every resurfaces, we should point this out and ask that it be corrected. However, I don’t see it impacting on game play or scoring that significally and should be something that either side in a game may see once in a great while. No, I did not see it happen every time a unit dropped to 98%. I only saw it twice thru numerous runs. I did not see it happen at all during the larger game that I played.

I keep hearing reports that people did not have confidence in the scoring of the game and decided to check it out. I hope that this helps. It would be good if some others can double check this and make sure I am not missing something.
 

KG_Norad

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Thanks for looking into this Cbelva. I heard a lot about this issue to but never had the time to look into it. I know I never really noticed anything myself on this. My problems stemmed from not having enough memory (for DA that is). Purely a system deal on my end. I could play the game but just barely, and half the time I could not see the play back because of this.

I would be interested in seeing what others have to say about this scoring issue.
 

John Osborne

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Cbelva,

I'm now working at CGSC, DLDC Sim Team and I have access to Col Jim Lunsford here. I will get in touch with him and see what I can found out. He is very busy with his work and he has to travel alot. I can't guaranted when I can get back to this topic but will ASAP.

John Osborne
 

cbelva

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John,

Congratulations on your job.

Since Col Lunsford is so busy, instead of hitting him picmeal with problems with DA, why don't we start a list of things people found during the tournament and then you can talk to him about it and present a list to him to see if he can do something to help us. I would like to try the tournament again and get more interest in this game. However, I don't think people will want to try until they feel confident with the program. I personally don't have any problems with it as is. I realize that there are some ways it could be improved, but I don't think it will happen. However, if there are some problems which are keeping people from playing, we can get them reported and hopefully fixed.

How about it people. If you know of any problems/bugs with DA which needs to be fixed, start a list here and if John can, he can present them to Col Lunsford.
 

Dr Zaius

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cbelva, that isn't the problem. Several of the scenarios are producing 20-40% casaulty ratios even before any combat has taken place! I have never been able to track this down.

Some players is the tournament reported weird behavior and instability running the game. I sent the complete scenarios to Jim for testing, but he never gave me any feedback. The scenarios ran okay for me I suspect it was some type of RAM issue.
 

cbelva

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Hey Don,

I didn't know that people were still getting the casualties before the sceanrio started. I thought that was fixed in his last patch. I was getting that until then. However, since the patch, I have not had a problem with it.

If it is still an issue, maybe John could bring that up to Col Lunsford?
 

Dr Zaius

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cbelva said:
Hey Don,

I didn't know that people were still getting the casualties before the sceanrio started. I thought that was fixed in his last patch. I was getting that until then. However, since the patch, I have not had a problem with it.

If it is still an issue, maybe John could bring that up to Col Lunsford?
Well, I thought it was fixed as well as I don't believe I get this problem. I also never had any problems running either scenario, but at least five of the tournament players reported problems.

I will run the scenarios again on my own PC to see if I see any problems.
 

cbelva

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Don, this may be a stupid question, but did those tournament player apply the June 8th supplemental update that Col Lunsford put out? I have not had a problem with scoring since then.
 

Gary

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I was running ver 2.0.3 as on 1 Jun 04. The game I played had some odd scoring , showing heavy losses to both sides before any combat started. I reported it to Col Jim but never got a reply.

Gary
 

cbelva

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On June 1st we all were getting the same odd scoring. On June 8th Col Lunsford posted a supplemental update to version 2.0.3 which corrected that problem. I have not seen that problem since applying the supplement. Have you applied the supplement? And if you did, have you had any odd scoring like before? That's my question. For people who were reporting odd scoring during the tournament, did they use the supplement? If they did and are still experiencing problems, we need to know that.
 

KG_Norad

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Kind of a side note...

Like Cbelva and Don I have not noticed the bug since, but like I said I probably would not have noticed it anyway so don't take that as gospel.

The issue is moot though. By then confidence was lost, as well as all interest. The tournament got bogged down and that killed it.

I think if there had been a delay due to any other reason then game performance maybe it could have been resurrected, but that is still a big maybe because loss of momentum is very hard to recover from in the best of circumstances. One thing is for sure...people get sick of technical issues real quick and are less motivated to come back to something that has to be tweaked an massaged constantly to get working...even if that is not 100% the case it will be perceived as such.
 

Dr Zaius

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I just tested both Northern Watch and Baghdad Fumble (the tournament scenarios) and I didn't get any problems at all in either. Both scenarios ran fine and the scoring seemed to be working correctly as far as I could tell.

I'm beginning to suspect that some of the players either didn't have the scoring add-on that Jim made for the v2.03 patch, or this was a performance issue. Some players are using older PCs with minimum RAM and that may explain part of it.

Both scenarios have now been uploaded to the archives. Feel feel to download them and please report any problems you may to both me and Jim Lunsford.
 

Gary

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Further to my last post. I had the supplement file installed. I'm running a pent4, 3.06 processor with 512 meg of memory. So its not just older machines that have experienced the scoring problem.

Gary
 

cbelva

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Thanks Gary. Which scenario was it and can you still duplicate the scoring error. I would like to see if I could duplicate it on my machine.
 

Gary

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I have tried to reproduce the scoring problem using Northern Watch. I tested as human v AI and pbem game. All seems to be ok. The pbem involved me playing as both the blue and red force commander. I could not reproduce the scoring error.

I wonder now if my oppent was playing with the most up todate software version. If he was not this could be a possible reason. Also with my trials everything was on my machine. If there is a problem arising from playing on different machines my trial will not have picked that up.

I think the next step is to try some real pbem games, ensuring that my opponent is using the latest software version. To that end anyone willing to give it a go?

cheers

Gary
 
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Dr Zaius

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I'm beginning to suspect this really may have been some form of human error (probably not having the right combination of patches installed). The last I heard from Jim Lunsford (which was a long time ago), he was unable to duplicate these errors. After more testing on my end, I can't seem to find anything wrong either.
 

Gary

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Don,

If it proves to be the case that the scoring problem is because not everyone was on the same software version, is there any chance the Opfor II tournament can be continued?


Gary
 

Dr Zaius

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Gary said:
Don,

If it proves to be the case that the scoring problem is because not everyone was on the same software version, is there any chance the Opfor II tournament can be continued?

Gary
Probably not, but we might start a new one using the same scenarios. I would like to see several of you play these scenarios and see if you find any errors. I'm especially interested in hearing from people who reported problems during the tournament.
 

Dr Zaius

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i take it that no one has found any errors, is this correct? I'm a little confused. :shock: We cancelled the tournament because veryone was having so many bugs and errors they couldn't get the game to run, now everything seems to be fine.
 

Hub

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Gary said:
I have tried to reproduce the scoring problem using Northern Watch. I tested as human v AI and pbem game. All seems to be ok. The pbem involved me playing as both the blue and red force commander. I could not reproduce the scoring error.

I wonder now if my oppent was playing with the most up todate software version. If he was not this could be a possible reason. Also with my trials everything was on my machine. If there is a problem arising from playing on different machines my trial will not have picked that up.

I think the next step is to try some real pbem games, ensuring that my opponent is using the latest software version. To that end anyone willing to give it a go?

cheers

Gary

Wish I had read this sooner. When I played Gary, I made sure I had the correct patches properly loaded before we started. I'm always careful about that, especially before I play PBEM. I for one have had plenty of problems with the game, before and after the patching(s). Since the game with Gary, the game is off my drive and on the shelf, and it can stay there. Sorry I blew the money on it, as with POA 2.
 
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