Home Forums General Game Design Some thoughts on the turn sequence

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  • #67841
    Avatar photoPhil Dutré
    Participant
    #67869
    Avatar photoOB
    Participant

    An interesting summary of what’s out there.  After years of WRG, DBA, DBM. DBMM I alighted on Piquet Field of Battle and its variants.  A very different system but I’m sticking with it. 

    OB
    http://withob.blogspot.co.uk/

    #67876
    Avatar photoNot Connard Sage
    Participant

    I have no problem with any flavour of alternate movement, but for the love of gods, can we kick the simultaneous moves thing** into the long grass?

    I don’t think I’ve ever played a game with sim moves that has been a success. No, I tell a lie, Gush’s WRG renaissance rules, but even they were an argumentative slog.

     

     

    **I almost typed ‘shibboleth.

    Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

    #68095
    Avatar photoHoward Whitehouse
    Participant

    I have no problem with any flavour of alternate movement, but for the love of gods, can we kick the simultaneous moves thing** into the long grass? I don’t think I’ve ever played a game with sim moves that has been a success.

    I used to watch a pair of players doing Johnny Reb about once a month. Each game consisted of  both players laying down their respective chits for each unit, turning them over, then Alpha Male player A bullying Beta Male player B into conceding every point of argument. It was painful to watch.

    I do all my own stunts.

    #68114
    Avatar photoPhil Dutré
    Participant

    I don’t think I’ve ever played a game with sim moves that has been a success.

    Simultaneous movement depends foremost on the attitude and honesty of the players, not on the rules. Amongst gentlemen players , it works. Amongst cut-throat competition players, it doesn’t.

    #81328
    Avatar photoOtto Schmidt
    Participant

    We’ve had several go-rounds on the top of Simultaneous Movement on my Society of Daisy List.  Most of the time we end up agreeing that anything but Igougo is not worth the candle. We started this again a few days ago. pretty much what we came up with was the same, but more useful perhaps was that while we could never get simultaneous movement to work what we came up was a “confused” movement might be as good. What I mean by “confused movement” was  that the enemy might or might not be able to react to it.

    One of the elements in this is that “Oh God! Anything but a Six!!!” has several elements that mitigate the situation to make simultaneous movment, perhaps, irrelevant. First of all it’s for the musket period and the range of all but artillery is 1 measure, which is the frontage of an infantry stand or regiment. This is 8″ This is either for the melee value or the fire value of units. While this may seem long for melee the turns are theoretically an hour long, and can represent several charges over short distance, back and forth with periods of firing, melee, sparring, rock throwing,  name calling.  all within that time. So yes melee range is fire range , and that tosses out the need for a lot of “fiddely” movement in other games. Granted here are some hot-shot regiments that have a range of two measures, but like artillery which goes up to 4 and 6 that’s a somewhat different kettle of fish. Further, because of the time period (18th Century) there’s no need for such things as overwatch etc.

    Overwatch is also not needed because of the movement system.

    The system uses initiative in which one side has it and the other doesn’t. The side WITHOUT  initiative moves second and can move up to one measure for infantry and guns and two measures for cavalry. The side WITH initiative can move as far as his “leedle ole heart desires” even from one corner of the board to the extreme opposite corner so long as he doesn’t enter a rough or very rough terrain area, or he comes within 1 measure of an enemy unit, in which case he must stop. So there’s no need for overwatch- he’ll be here soon enough! Firing comes after movement within that one measure area.  We did a lot of work and investigation and found out that “pass through” fire, that is where a unit enters the range of another but does not close with that unit simply did not expose itself long enough for an effective reaction or weight of fire and could ignore it. If it was close enough it would fall under the “within 1 measure” rule and would have to stop and get shot at normally.  Further once the initiative side has his fun with zipping all over the fields his flanks were still open to the enemy when he got close and the defender could make his charge or counter-charge or reaction to the enemy. if he made his movement roll.

    My interest in simultaneous move was only as a time saver. That is the side who was not moving would not have to sit there while his opponent piddled away the time finneckying with his troops. I solved this by the simple expedient of spending some cash on some egg-timers. A player could take all the time in the world with DECIDING what he wanted to do with his troops without limit, but once he started his movement he had one flip of the three timers to actually physically move it. Units he did not get to were not allowed to move, and any units still in their hands after the third timer ran out were taken off the field.

    It encourages decision and attention!

    Note that combat is entirely simultaneous and you can attack anybody within your 1 measure.

    In addition there is not only movement, but “maneuver.” In “movement” in order to move a  specific unit you must make the units’ movement value or less on the roll of a die. To this movement value you can add the value of any officer within 1 measure of the unit, thus if a line infantry unit has a movement value of 2, which means you have to roll a 1 or a 2 to move it, if you had a “4” rated officer within one measure you could add that officers value to the unit raising its value to a 6. However you must always have a possibility of a fail, so you can only really raise it to a 5. if you roll 1 to 5 the unit can move, if a 6, you fail. The officer is then tipped over to show he is used and can’t have his value apply to anything else. in Maneuver you are allowed to make a “command group” of however many officers you want so long as they are within 1 measure of each other, and the total is rolled against. If you make the roll you can move any unit within 1 measure of that group and do not have to roll for each unit. Thus if for example, Generals Potzunpans (2), The Prince of Saxe-Hillbilliehausen (1), General Knyppentuck  (1), and general Alt Macdonald (2) are within I measure of each other they can combine for a total of 6,  and roll one die, and if it is a 1 to 5 can move ANY unit within 1 measure as they want. (Remember though 6 there must always be a chance of failure.  The player added Knyppentuck  because he wanted him to move with the units.

    Note that with or without initiative the maneuver works for both sides and if the above group had initiative it could have moved as far they wished, even off the board, if the group did not have initiative infantry could move only one measure while cavalry could move two.

    This system works very well because

     

    1. There is no need for the folderol of movement chits or written orders, which invariably leads to cheating (look close with movement chits, you’ll find them squerreled under any bit of loose lichen or a stand ready to be flipped out to evade what the commander actually did, or the inevitable debate on what “Advance as Deemed fit”
    2. Units do not go into a complicated “do-se-do” of movement attempting to fake out the enemy and conform to the enemy action.
    3. Each side gets to do what they want, and be done with it. The person with initiative has the advantage of determining the point of action and making a bold stroke which makes the decisive attack and the enemy gets to counter it as best he can, usually with decisive effect.
    4. Everyone is busier than a one-armed paper hanger, even when not moving, and no one’s sitting around while the umpire goes through a long complicated “activation” sequence. Everybody moves at once and everybody’s eyes are scanning the table top to see ways of countering the move, or what has to be done next turn,  and if they’re not looking at that, they’re looking at the egg-timers hoping the sands flow faster or get stuck!
    5. In short excitement is the rule of the day.
    6. Then there’s the combat.

    The combat is simultaneous but quite unique so it does not drag through opposed rolls or looking up modifiers for each situation. I have not described this because it is not pertinent to the idea of simultaneous move.

    You don’t need complicated activation sequences of complex orders or chits.

     

     

     

     

    #81330

    What is Society of Daisy ?

    #81331
    Avatar photoPatrice
    Participant

    My skirmish rules work with what I call “friendly simultaneous movement”. The players tell what they intend to do, and they can change their mind when they hear what the others want to do (as if the characters were real people observing their opponents), then they move simultaneously their units by mutual agreement. With practice it goes fast.

    It allows very fast moves and adventures on the table. However I had to add many details in the rules for special situations which sometimes arise; and some gamers really don’t like it because it’s RPG-minded.

    http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
    https://www.anargader.net/

    #81333
    Avatar photoOtto Schmidt
    Participant

    Dear Painting Little Soldiers

    The Society of Daisy is a Yahoo group founded in 2000 and still going strong. It has 270 or so members and is devoted to humor, fun, whimsy, and fellowship in war games. It also is a source of devotees of Imagi-Nations in particular to get together and talk about it. It has very large photo archives and lots of rules and articles in its files.

    The rather odd name is from one of our members who had an army, Imagi-Nation of course , in which the leader of his army was always followed around the field by his pet cow, Daisy. We decided it was as good a name as any, and were tired of discussing what the list should be named. I had the link to subscribe copied but I seem to have lost it. Will copy it again and pass it along. The best thing to look for is SOCDAISY which is the official abbreviation.

     

    Here is the ‘Welcome” sheet which we welcome new members with which tells more about it.

    Welcome to Daisy. This is an odd group and an unusual one and it has always been so for the seventeen years of its existence. Long ago I said that Daisy had the social milieu of a basement group of friends gathered around the table, or a down at the heels gentlemen’s club. Certainly in daisy we do not have the anonymity of most e-lists and communities and we are very concerned with our fellow war gamers here as persons and as friends, and this means in the personal sense. Daisy is a small group of only about 270 or so souls who enjoy each others company and who enjoy the fun of war games. There has never been a flame war on Daisy, and while sometimes we can deal with weighty and imposing subjects, which finds members on extreme sides of the questions, we soon degenerate into frivolity and a non-serious approach to the hobby.
    Daisy is has been a source of friendship, support, caring, and social pleasure for our members. We generally tend to the whimsical and non serious and perhaps the most passionate debates we have had here have been on the composing of the perfect character for our imagi-nations and also who has the best looking women, Earth, Klingons, Romulans, or Vulcans.
    We also publish a quarterly PRINT newsletter, Saxe N’ Violence, which is going on it’s twelfth year, and seems to be going strong. We also are presently involved with some of the members in a campaign in 18th century Imagi-Nations which has table top resolution of battles and copious battle reports put on by myself. It’s 16 to 20 full color pages, no adds, and the costs are just to cover printing and postage. We have published in this full games, articles on constructing Imagi-nations, and reports and archives from campaigns and Imagi-Nations our members have made.
    We also run a convention at the Continental Inn in Lancaster PA in June, and 2018 will see the these of “Naval Warfare, Victory at Sea.” Themes at the convention don’t mean much. The emphasis is on fun, games, friendship, food, fun and good times and meeting new friends.
    But the most important part of Daisy, I feel has been the longevity of friendship and the low key approach to the hobby. We have an average of 260 posts a month. Being a group dedicated to humor and whimsy, Imagi-Natuions and imagination in the hobby, we don’t take ourselves too seriously and for us, War Games has always emphasized the “GAME” rather than the War part.
    So welcome again you wish, step forward and introduce yourselves, or if you prefer just lurk for a while. You will always find someone willing to cheerlead you, help or contribute.

    Make him feel welcome gang.

     

    #81334

    For me, I’ve tried all the major turn sequences and some of the variations.  For me, it comes full circle back to the beginning with Featherstone’s rules.  At the beginning, dice for initiative.  Winner chooses to go first or second.  If they go first, they move everything that they plan on moving.  The second player now does the same.  During the firing phase, units that did not move fire simultaneously.  Casualties removed.  Then units that moved fire.  Casualties removed.  Finally, troops in close combat fight.

    Morale checks are always taken at the beginning of the turn.  If a unit fails, the result is assessed as that unit’s move for the turn.

    The sequence makes initiative an interesting decision.  Sometimes, you will have situations where it will be advantageous to move first on one part of the battlefield and second on another.  As well, in order to gain the initiative again, you must beat the enemy’s roll.  A tie goes to the side which held the initiative in the previous turn.

    We played Quatre Bras at the brigade level to completion in 2015 in about 4 hours.  This included lots and lots of banter.  The game was quite relaxed and nobody left with a brain ache from too many calculations.

     

    John

    "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

    --Abraham Lincoln

    #81339
    Avatar photoDeleted User
    Member

    A thoughtful & interesting post, Phil.

    When I wrote my SYW rules, I used a Simultaneous mode. Our new Napoleonic rules (‘General D’armee’) use a fairly rigid Igo-Yougo.

    Both sets produce enjoyable games but one aspect of the latter system I like is with firing. Unlike in Simultaneous where both sides shoot before casualty removal, G D’a has the advantage of getting in your volley first, devastating your enemy & only receiving a limited volley back in return. Most satisfying….if you’re on the right end of the Firing turn.

     

    donald

    #81345
    Avatar photoOtto Schmidt
    Participant

    Dear Painting Little Soldiers

     

    Here is the link to sign on.

    [email protected]

     

    #81347

    Thanks – I failed at the captcha for some reason …most likely my eyes.

    #81356
    Avatar photoLes Hammond
    Participant

    In terms of speeding things up, I have simultaneous phase for anything not in contact, thereafter there’s an IGOUGO contact phase.

    6mm France 1940

    http://les1940.blogspot.co.uk/
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/386297688467965/

    #81367
    Avatar photoRoger Calderbank
    Participant

    The games I play have different variations on Igo-Ugo. For example, the Impetus family are unit-driven, whilst Lasalle is classic, but with an odd sequence. I’ve never been troubled by the time when my opponent has his turn. I need all the thinking time I can get.

    The most extreme turn sequence I play is in Sam Mustafa’s Maurice. In a turn, a player decides if there is going to be any close-range shooting, in which case both sides shoot. Then, the player can do one thing (move or charge or rally or bombard with artillery) with one ‘force’. After that one thing, the turn passes to the other player. So it becomes a question of priorities. I would like to move my cavalry round the open flank, but if I do that my infantry will be shot up in my opponent’s turn. So I’ll have to try to rally that infantry this turn and the cavalry move must wait.

    Some people don’t like such restrictions on what they can do, and it can result in some units not doing anything the whole game. On the other hand, the turns come round quickly, and each turn you have a significant decision to make.

    RogerC

    #81404
    Avatar photoAutodidact-O-Saurus
    Participant

    Hmmm….

    Perhaps I’m moving beyond the context of the discussion, but what about naval games? Is there still a general distaste for simultaneous movement in that genre? My personal preference for these games (as a designer interested in ironclads, galleys and age-of-sail stuff) is recorded moves (at least of intentions), in secret, and simultaneous movement. One of the reasons I like it is because the players are more actively engaged–the same reason I appreciate opposed dice rolls during combat resolution in unit based games. They’re not just sitting there watching their opponent. I want to keep the players actively involved during all phases of the game and simultaneous movement is one way of doing that.

    Self taught, persistently behind the times, never up to date. AKA ~ jeff
    More verbosity: http://petiteguerre.blogspot.com/

    #81451
    Avatar photoOtto Schmidt
    Participant

    Naval games can be much cleaner than land games when it comes to simultaneous movement. For my own part though I tend to give the initiative to the side with the higher maximum speed.  For example in my “Yo-Ho-Ho: Little rules for big ships” which is NOT a pirate game but an 18th century sailing ship game, the sequence of action is simple. It is a hexed based game  and the speed of the ship at the START of the turn determines the turn order. Thus a ship moving at 4 hexes which is the slowest ship given it’s attitude to the wind blah blah blah, moves 4 hexes and moves first. The next highest speed ship then moves as it desires, all the way up to the ship that can move up to 12 hexes racing along with the wind behind it.  A system of “puffs” and “gusts” can be used to snatch another ship and bring it closer, and so forth. When all ships have done moving  there is fire. Ships coming adjacent to an enemy ship are ruled to have “fouled” and must stop. A ship moving past an enemy two hexes away, if the non moving ship has a “puff” can pull the ship adjacent and stop it. A ship moving past an enemy two hexes away, if it has a “puff” can fire at the ship it is passing.

    In more modern games where ships steam and not sail, it’s essentially the same, though the puffs and gusts are not used.

     

    #81554
    Avatar photoPaul Howarth
    Participant

    I hadn’t realised this blog was up and running Phil. I will have a bit of a delve as there are things I’m interested in for some of my megagames. Cheers.

    #95520
    Avatar photoBrian Handley
    Participant

    Our own system (Maneouvre Group) which is “modern” for company level uses alternate elements activation but include a unique reaction phase and a spoting element.   This means that elements cannot go straigt round a corner and shoot first unless the enemy is not looking their way.  It does, as noted in the blog, allow simultanious moves by multiple elements provided they are in the same communications net.   However this limits the movement somewhat so it is not the same as giveing all the elements individual move to do as they wish.   It is an ideal system for serous players who put the time and thought into there planning and tactics.

    For the open  a six plck and play another game its unsuitable, but I do not aspire to such gamse I play Dominoes under those circumstances.

    #95522
    Avatar photoNot Connard Sage
    Participant

    Steady!

     

    Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

    #95564
    Avatar photoBrian Handley
    Participant

    Please sir I don’t play pretend soldiers, I simulate real soldies in some aspects as does any simulation, so it Not a Pretend Game (stamps feet righteously  as any 5 year old does.   After all, young folk know it all :-).

    #95576
    Avatar photoPrivate Snafu
    Participant

    For me, I’ve tried all the major turn sequences and some of the variations. For me, it comes full circle back to the beginning with Featherstone’s rules. At the beginning, dice for initiative. Winner chooses to go first or second. If they go first, they move everything that they plan on moving. The second player now does the same. During the firing phase, units that did not move fire simultaneously. Casualties removed. Then units that moved fire. Casualties removed. Finally, troops in close combat fight. Morale checks are always taken at the beginning of the turn. If a unit fails, the result is assessed as that unit’s move for the turn. The sequence makes initiative an interesting decision. Sometimes, you will have situations where it will be advantageous to move first on one part of the battlefield and second on another. As well, in order to gain the initiative again, you must beat the enemy’s roll. A tie goes to the side which held the initiative in the previous turn. We played Quatre Bras at the brigade level to completion in 2015 in about 4 hours. This included lots and lots of banter. The game was quite relaxed and nobody left with a brain ache from too many calculations.

    This is interesting.  I like this, but I feel that it would add some burden on the players with ‘bookkeeping’ per se.  You would have to note or mark all the casualties then allow the other player to shoot.  Once that is done remove all the casualties.  Half dozen units no problem, dozen- getting to be quite a few markers or notes, more than a dozen seems burdensome.

    My current desire is super simple fast.  I have 4 hours max to play a game and an hour is for quaffing and BS’ing.  Some flavor of random activation seems to work for me presently.  The IgoYougo style feels more and more like alternating annihilation where whomever gets the jump (initiative) tends to end up on top.

    I’m not half as experienced as half of you people with wargaming but I find that shooting is way over emphasized in most games.  IGYouG really brings this to the forefront.

    ___________________
    http://moveshootassault.blogspot.com
    https://sites.google.com/site/miniaturemachinations

    #95605
    Avatar photoirishserb
    Participant

    It is interesting how different our experiences can be.  The groups that I’ve gamed with over the years have used rules incorporating simultaneous movement since 1982.  By 1987 almost all of our games have done so.  There have been a small number of times where situations require some sort of initiative determination resulting in a particular unit moving before an opposing unit, but these instances are extremely rare, and where easy to resolve.

    For the older members of my first gaming group, our earliest games used various alternating movement mechanisms, but as we started using simultaneous movement systems, they just became the preferred rules.

     

    #95608
    Avatar photoHoward Whitehouse
    Participant

    Good grief man, does your group not understand that simultaneous movement rules are the best excuse for a rancorous argument our hobby has seen fit to provide 🙂

    I do all my own stunts.

    #95616
    Avatar photoNot Connard Sage
    Participant

    Good grief man, does your group not understand that simultaneous movement rules are the best excuse for a rancorous argument our hobby has seen fit to provide 🙂

    A good set of simultaneous movement rules can result in threats of violence, or actual fisticuffs. 🙂

     

    Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

    #95627
    Avatar photoPhil Dutré
    Participant

    Simultaneous movement is an attitude, not a set of rules!

    #95634
    Avatar photoPatrice
    Participant

    Simultaneous movements work quite well if RPG-minded.

    In fact, it really works if the game organizer is not a player himself/herself but acts as Game Master and has devised a scenario and a few surprise events for all players (and moves some NPC villagers etc).

    http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
    https://www.anargader.net/

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