CTKnudsen
Senior Member
I am currently involved in preliminary attempt to mesh an operational layer computer game with ASL in an effort to create a sort of a campaign battle generator to have an ongoing campaign.
Here's the website and forum for the op layer game, Theater of Operations: World at War, and here's the link to my first AAR where I try to do too much, and discuss how it turned out.
Anyways, to make a long story shorter, I find there are several issues that arise from making a semi-random scenario based off input from a operational layer system. Force Selection and TOE, map selection, and determination of victory in each tactical (ASL) battle seem reasonably easy to implement, although I will admit that in the AAR above I go about a lot of that the absolute wrong way, and thus learned some!
The biggest problem to me seems to be one of time/turn length. For each ASL scenario generated, the amount of operational time for the battle will be dictated by the op layer; a battle will take place in a set time frame, say from 1244 to 1400 hours.
Now ASL is meant to represent a two-minute turn. Standalone scenarios determine number of turns almost purely as a function of victory conditions; how many turns will it take side X to do VC Y, then trim to force a bit of time constraint on the attacker, then test. In CGs, scenarios are usually meant to represent action over a given block of time, usually a day, half-day, or period of a few hours' action. The standard here seems to be a variable 5-8 turn limit per scenario.
But in the developing system above, there will be several factors that are all (semi)random, that will be operating together, and which makes it problematic to say that 4, or six, or 5-8 turns will be ideal.
First, force selection will be generated by the operational layer, not a playtesting process, and sides may very well be poorly matched.
Second, maps will almost certainly be randomly generated, although a control as to the number of maps used will be in place based on the rough size of the battle area within the op layer, which is dependent to a degree on the size of the units involved.
Third, scenario (battle) victory conditions will be virtually non-existent; the only real metrics put back into the operational layer will be losses from each side, and amount of territory gained/lost.
So it seems as though there are several options. One is to just say that every battle involving one map will be five turns, two maps get seven, and three maps get eight, or something similar, maybe with a variable length. Or I could just assign a set variable length to every scenario regardless of other parameters. Or I could say that you get one ASL turn for every 10/15/20 Op layer minutes.
Now not helping things is the fact that I am really an ASL newb who's getting in over his head, so I don't have a dependable yardstick to say what is more or less likely to work.
So I throw it out to you, collected ASL grogs! What do you think? If you were to use Theater of Operations as a CG battle generator, what would you like to see in the ruleset for translating the Op layer into ASL terms?
Here's the website and forum for the op layer game, Theater of Operations: World at War, and here's the link to my first AAR where I try to do too much, and discuss how it turned out.
Anyways, to make a long story shorter, I find there are several issues that arise from making a semi-random scenario based off input from a operational layer system. Force Selection and TOE, map selection, and determination of victory in each tactical (ASL) battle seem reasonably easy to implement, although I will admit that in the AAR above I go about a lot of that the absolute wrong way, and thus learned some!
The biggest problem to me seems to be one of time/turn length. For each ASL scenario generated, the amount of operational time for the battle will be dictated by the op layer; a battle will take place in a set time frame, say from 1244 to 1400 hours.
Now ASL is meant to represent a two-minute turn. Standalone scenarios determine number of turns almost purely as a function of victory conditions; how many turns will it take side X to do VC Y, then trim to force a bit of time constraint on the attacker, then test. In CGs, scenarios are usually meant to represent action over a given block of time, usually a day, half-day, or period of a few hours' action. The standard here seems to be a variable 5-8 turn limit per scenario.
But in the developing system above, there will be several factors that are all (semi)random, that will be operating together, and which makes it problematic to say that 4, or six, or 5-8 turns will be ideal.
First, force selection will be generated by the operational layer, not a playtesting process, and sides may very well be poorly matched.
Second, maps will almost certainly be randomly generated, although a control as to the number of maps used will be in place based on the rough size of the battle area within the op layer, which is dependent to a degree on the size of the units involved.
Third, scenario (battle) victory conditions will be virtually non-existent; the only real metrics put back into the operational layer will be losses from each side, and amount of territory gained/lost.
So it seems as though there are several options. One is to just say that every battle involving one map will be five turns, two maps get seven, and three maps get eight, or something similar, maybe with a variable length. Or I could just assign a set variable length to every scenario regardless of other parameters. Or I could say that you get one ASL turn for every 10/15/20 Op layer minutes.
Now not helping things is the fact that I am really an ASL newb who's getting in over his head, so I don't have a dependable yardstick to say what is more or less likely to work.
So I throw it out to you, collected ASL grogs! What do you think? If you were to use Theater of Operations as a CG battle generator, what would you like to see in the ruleset for translating the Op layer into ASL terms?