Turn systems?

[Spurious]

Well I’m at it again. Or rather, still at it. After faffing about with all sorts of dice probability calculations and many hours in the shower (not all at once mind you) thinking of things regarding the combat system for what I’m attempting to design, working out all the phases of resolving actions required and all that, I got stuck on a very fundamental point: how to alternate between the players.

From what I’ve found most discussion out there of turn systems is very much focused on smaller scale, shooting based fights where there’s a lot of desire for continuous action involving both players, where as I’m working on what’s essentially late medieval, large scale. In short the armies are divided into 3 to 6 groups of 3-9 units under a specific leader character (well, really them and their direct subordinates but for ease of use it’s smooshed into one entity). Which gives about as many pieces in play as something like a platoon level game where units are gathered as fireteams or squads. But instead of being individuals, the units are several hundreds people per unit, so each group (or van/mid/rear guard and the like) takes its turn doing a move and fight. So it is comparable in action economy but with the major difference is that the depiction of the armies is going to be much more lumbering and slow, lacking quick reactions and massed group on group ranged attacking concerns as the battlefield is hundreds of meters across.

So here’s what I’ve pondered about so far as for different possible systems of alternating control:

IGOUGO – the classic each player does everything with their army, possibly limited in some way via randomisation of how many units can act to add some friction.
Pros: simple, easy, doesn’t need additional assets created.
Cons: prone to leaving a player uninvolved for an extended time unless carefully managed.
It’s a possibility but I’m trying to avoid this out of… I dunno, spite? It’s probably spite. Also not a fan of doing the option that is checking initiative every turn, as it never feels good to be on the receiving end of the other player getting two goes in a row, even if you have some reactions so that you’re not entirely passive.

IgoUgo But Dice roll per group – roll a dice assigned to each commander, get a success and that group acts.
Pros: a lot of randomness as to what can act
Cons: a lot of randomness as to what can act
As one common example method of adding some friction, and whilst it could be moderated in expectations via bonuses so that good commanders get a better chance, or maybe have degrees of success, it has the potential to swing a lot depending on luck.

Chits in a bag method – each group commander would have their token drawn at random. Or each side has a token per group commander and can activate who they choose. Could also be by card draw with cards assigned to groups.
Pros: Simple, easy, random activation.
Cons: action economy favours player with more units, which may well not be appropriate given the limitations of command and control. Feels disconnected.
I think this one is also very ‘gamey’ in feel, as the mechanic is disconnected from the rest of the game system (without something like order dice being a thing so the token becomes a marker). But it does have good options for extra mechanics being added on, like maybe the player drawing the token nominating the unit to act even if it’s an enemy one drawn. Or adding in a turn over token to the mix to really mix things up and largely remove the everything acts bit.

Plain Old Alternating – determine who goes first then just alternate activating groups back and forth.
Pros: Very simple…
Cons: Gets messy with asymmetric unit counts requiring additional steps depending on the imbalance, doesn’t appear to have that much in the way of options for friction?
Multiple Initiative Alternating – Players nominate groups to activate and roll off to see who goes first.
Pros: bit more involved than plain alternating
Cons: all the same problems as plain alternating plus slows things down with more choices and dice rolls.
Neither feels right for what I’m aiming at. I don’t think it lends itself well to adding in limited amounts of units acting or a lot of other friction, unless I am missing something.

Activation by section – the Command&Colors (and others) style where a card draw indicates where on the battlefield (left/right/centre) and how much activates. Players can alternate draws.
Pros: presents some interesting choices through what acts. Very customisable in terms of what might happen.
Cons: Requires a lot of extra construction and careful management.
I quite like this one though it could be a pain to develop. Plenty of things that could be done with it though, like simple draw of single cards or draw a hand and play what you want, mix in some extra events to inflict upon either side, maybe make it cost some kind of commander related resource/have an ability to counter so it’s not pure draw luck but has requirements; but this all would add an extra, slowing, layer of gameplay that may not be appropriate for the overall flow. Very easy to over-complicate with ideas.

As you can see I am somewhat overwhelmed with options, but I am trending towards something that will allow for most but not always all units to act, to have player choice in the matter,  but to avoid slowing down the game with excess dice rolling and potential choice paralysis.

So what glaringly obvious things have I missed?
Is there one system you particularly prefer for any reason?
Are there turn systems you really don’t like or don’t feel are appropriate for the settings they’re in?

[Mike]

I actually don’t mind traditional IGOUGO, as often when one player is not going, they can nip out and put the kettle on, or pop to the loo etc.

[zippyfusenet]

Ima agree with Mike, and add that some further advantages to IGOUGO turn structure are:

* Allows  the player to coordinate his units’ movement, such as order a ‘general advance’, which is impossible in a game where only one unit activates at a time.

* Avoids (or at least limits) the problem of one unit which fails to activate blocking the movement of a chain of other units, such as a division in column on a road through a defile.

* In multi-player games, allows all players on the same side to act at the same time, and keeps all players on the other side involved, because they’re all facing an active opponent. I usually GM for a game club, so keeping six or eight players involved in the game is a priority to me.

* Avoids the problem, in multi-player games, of the ‘argument over who gets the next activation’ phase of the game turn. “I need it, I’m gonna get killed here if I don’t act!” “No! You got the last action! This one is mine!” etc.

* Speeds play a lot in multi-player games, and even in two-player games, because a player can quickly move all units to execute a plan, instead of having to re-evaluate the game situation every time another unit randomly activates.

The biggest drawback I see to IGOUGU is that it’s too predictable, and perhaps gives a player too much control over his force. I enjoy managing randomized activations in a card-draw or chit-pull game system, but I find these work best in two-player games, and slow multi-player games to the point that my players lose interest and focus.

You'll shoot your eye out, kid!

[Darkest Star Games]

I’m not a fan of pure IGOUGO, especially if the rules work where one side can lose a lot of his force before they can even participate in the game.

Recently tried this out for a imaginations medieval game and it worked reasonably well:

Players roll for initiative at the start of each turn modified by overall commanders bonus.  Each “unit” has an impetus, 1 worst to 6 best, and each number activates in turn from high to low with those of the initiative player being completed before the opposing player (i.e., player 1 has the initiative and can activate all of his impetus 4 troops before Player 2 activates any of his).

Each Leader within and army has a possible number of command points (i.e., roll #d6 or flip coin for each possible point at start of turn, basically 50/50 as to whether you get the point or not) that can be used to attempt to increase or decrease the impetus of a unit for a turn so it can activate earlier or later by rolling vs command skill per impetus jump (above unit skill the unit can activate, below skill it activates normally, on a 1 it activates 1 impetus later).  Thus an impetus 3 unit could activate during impetus 6 if the commander wants to burn 3 command point rolls.  Like wise can try to get an impetus 6 unit to activate downwards in impetus 4 if some other units needed to maneuver first.

In practice we played so you didn’t have to roll for a unit to activate in a later impetus than it’s attribute if the commander was within 12″.  As with some flying games there was a balance between striking first being best and going later in a turn being best at different points in a game.  Better trained units were more flexible than the rabble.

Still needs some work but I think he has something that can work well with the type of game he is aiming at.

 

 

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Chris Pringle]

I wrote a post a couple of years ago about the virtues of IGO-UGO which echoes some of the reasons others have mentioned above. A thought to address your Con about “prone to leaving a player uninvolved for an extended time”: how about if, when the active player moves a unit into range of the non-phasing player’s unit(s), the non-phasing player gets to have an “intimidation roll” that could have some adverse effect on the moving unit? Perhaps just halting it a bit further away; perhaps actually causing it to waver? And also with a chance of the opposite effect, the unit being approached could become a bit shaky. The probability of the various results would be some function of the troop types, quality, numbers, perhaps terrain.

Late medieval is not my period, so I may have misunderstood the nature of the warfare of the time, but it seems to me that could be a useful mechanism in several ways:

– keeping both/all players engaged

– injecting some unpredictability into an otherwise mechanical sequence

– capturing something of the nature of the warfare.

If you like the idea – you’re welcome. If you don’t – no offence taken!

[deephorse]

Spurious wrote:

IGOUGO – Cons: prone to leaving a player uninvolved for an extended time unless carefully managed.

Does this actually happen, because I’ve never experienced it.  When I’m not the ‘active’ player I’m very much involved in watching what my opponent is doing.  Which units are they moving?  Where are they moving?  How far are they moving?  Which ones are firing?  Have the factors been correctly calculated?  What score has the dice roll resulted in?  I’m watching like a hawk!

So if some of you may be ‘uninvolved’ when not the active player, what are you actually doing?  Just looking at the ceiling?  Reading a book?  Going for a walk?  Doing the weekly shop?  I’m pretty sure that many will be doing something similar to what I do, and so you’ll not be ‘uninvolved’ at all.

Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

[Sane Max]

Neil Thomas makes a good point about IGUGO – that if you read a battle history, it’s always “Von Potater did THIS…. Du Plessiosaur did THAT…..But Von Tempi’s Hussars did THIS so De Iceur’s Dragooons did THAT….”

IGOUGO rather neatly reflects this act-react process.

Plus it’s only a game, and in games you should get a turn 🙂

[Phil Dutré]

It also depends on the rest of mechanics.

Classic IGO UGO often is implemented with a turn consisting of various phases, in which all units do the same thing in sequence. E.g. First all units move, then they all fire, then they all melee, then they all check morale … Such turn sequences are often difficult to add new actions to. E.g. suppose you want  a unit to blow up a bridge. When does that happen exactly? Or suppose you want to fire first and then move? That’s impossible in such a turn sequence.

Unit activation systems are often designed such that units can do all their stuff, then the next unit does all its stuff etc. That’s inherently a more flexible approach, since now a “turn” is a single unit doing actions (and you can easily add actions or switch the order of actions), and not an action being imposed on all units as in classic IGO UGO. Thus, a unit-activation based approach allows for more flexibility, since a unit has to do all the things it might want to do before you activate the next unit. How you implement this unit-activation cycle (drawing chips, hand of cards, action points to spend …) is orthogonal to this.

See also my blogposts about this I wrote some time ago:

https://wargaming-mechanics.blogspot.com/2018/08/putting-units-or-actions-in-outer-loop.html

https://wargaming-mechanics.blogspot.com/2017/07/some-thoughts-on-turn-sequence.html

 

Overall, I feel that a classic IGO-UGO is more suited for large-scale games, with both movement and combat being more gradual, almost attrition-like. Unit-based activation is more suited for skirmish actions, in which you want sudden burst of activity on this side of the table, before zooming in on the other side etc.

[Andrew Beasley]

I’ve become enamoured of the dice bag / chit style BUT me games normall have the same number of units on each side and I was worried how it would work when the sides where very unequal.

Having tried a game where one side had 6 units and one had 4 units but are limited to moving any 2 per turn then the eight counters looked very lonely in the bag but actually worked well. The extra tension of seeing if the 2 counters came up was more than I expected and added a little more fun to the game.

I do use the counters as markers to show that unit has activated but just recently moved to smaller cubes due the size of the blank dice I was using to the blocks was a bit OTT.

The main changes you have to think about are the classic move / fire / fight sequence gets very mixed up as it applies to units individually but it allows for recovery of pushed back units if they have not been moved and that win offset the jumbled sequence more than enough.

[Phil Dutré]

Personally, I strongly prefer turn sequences using unit-activation (and with a fast turn-over rate between sides), since they allow for more focus on “where the action is”. It allows for a faster action-reaction cycle in relevant parts of the battlefield.

Another aspect is that unit-activation also is a solution for things such as overwatch and reactive fire etc. These are very difficult to do with fixed turn sequences, often leading to various reaction subphases within the main turn sequences. When you have unit activation – combined with a fast turn-over rate and flexibility of actions for a unit – such problems resolve themselves (although not always ;-)).

[Phil Dutré]

Andrew Beasley wrote:

I’ve become enamoured of the dice bag / chit style BUT me games normall have the same number of units on each side and I was worried how it would work when the sides where very unequal.

That’s indeed something to worry about when using unit-activation mechanisms. You want the amount of units a player can activate to be proportional to the total number of units, otherwise the games comes down to one player having a number of surplus units “in reserve” without being able to commit them.

Often the amount of chips, or required number to activate, or number of cards drawn, … are adjusted such that this works out.

[John D Salt]

One rather obvious option that has not yet been mentioned is simultaneous movement. This used to be a good deal more popular than it now is, either with simultaneously written orders (“Miniature Warfare” style) or SPI’s SiMov[tm] pads. As long as there is a limited set of possible commands, inverted orders chits are OK if you don’t object to the table clutter. I quite like the idea of limiting the number of orders a player can change each turn, along the lines of DBA’s PIP limits, but with the difference that an element that doesn’re receive a fresh order continues to bash on doing the last thing it was told.

Phil Dutré wrote:

Plus it’s only a game, and in games you should get a turn 🙂

…thus totally scrogging over any attempt at modelling surprise, initiative, or “getting inside the opponent’s OODA loop”. I very much like the “Vamp until the music stops” sequence of play used in “Crossfire”, but have yet to work out how to design similar mechanisms myself.

All the best,

John.

[Spurious]

Mike wrote:

I actually don’t mind traditional IGOUGO, as often when one player is not going, they can nip out and put the kettle on, or pop to the loo etc.

zippyfusenet wrote:

Ima agree with Mike, and add that some further advantages to IGOUGO turn structure are: [cut for brevity]

These are valid but don’t really apply for me. Large multiplayer games with time for any of that are not a luxury I’ve ever been afforded.

Darkest Star Games wrote:

I’m not a fan of pure IGOUGO, especially if the rules work where one side can lose a lot of his force before they can even participate in the game.

This tends to be a case with games where long range shooting attacks are more of a thing rather than where the back and forth of melee decides things, or ones that allow for a player to have two turns in a row (checking for initiative every turn types). I hate that too. It’s frustrating more than fun unless combined with a lot of reactions (like Force on Force) which I am not sure are appropriate for something partilarly large in scale.
The impulses system is one I forgot, unfortunately I associate it with Star Fleet Battles ugh. It would provide for some interesting alternation at the cost of a bunch of extra dice rolls and tracking. Still, not necesserily more so than some other options. And lends itself well to flavourful modifiers (impetuous leaders getting a bonus, cautions ones getting a malus and that kind of thing). Definitely going in the pile for consideration.

Sane Max wrote:

Neil Thomas makes a good point about IGUGO – that if you read a battle history, it’s always “Von Potater did THIS…. Du Plessiosaur did THAT…..But Von Tempi’s Hussars did THIS so De Iceur’s Dragooons did THAT….” IGOUGO rather neatly reflects this act-react process.

To me that just reads like alternating activations per unit :p

Phil Dutré wrote:

I feel that a classic IGO-UGO is more suited for large-scale games, with both movement and combat being more gradual, almost attrition-like. Unit-based activation is more suited for skirmish actions, in which you want sudden burst of activity on this side of the table, before zooming in on the other side etc.

Interresting, classic igougo (without some kind of limitation on control/actions) doesn’t feel like large scale battles to me as it’s more of a something continually happens with everything, where as from my readings historical battles have a large amount of not a lot going on and then there is a zoom in moment with decisive or at least attempts at decicive action.

[Spurious]

Andrew Beasley wrote:

I’ve become enamoured of the dice bag / chit style.

I went into this somewhat biased against them but the amount of options you have to mix things up with adding in things that are not simply a unit activates token has swung me quite a lot in their favour for possibilities.

John D Salt wrote:

One rather obvious option that has not yet been mentioned is simultaneous movement.

I think it’s lack of popularity over the past couple of decades or so was why it completely passed me by as an option; I’ve simply not encountered it except in reference. Thinking of OODA loops, I did rather enjoy the game Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm which did have a major mechanic in the time lag between when you get to make commands plus lag for implementation. It certainly provides for a significant amount of tension in wondering if you made the correct choices before seeing them play out, and required a significant amount of planning before even hitting the start button. Also interesting was that it was asymetric so each side was operating on different turn lengths, which could vary significantly depending on conditions during the battle (especially losses in command units). I’ve seen the developers run it on tabletop so despite complexity doesn’t explicitly require a computer to manage all the factors to make it playable. Though it might help.

[Andrew Beasley]

Spurious wrote:

Andrew Beasley wrote:

I’ve become enamoured of the dice bag / chit style.

I went into this somewhat biased against them but the amount of options you have to mix things up with adding in things that are not simply a unit activates token has swung me quite a lot in their favour for possibilities.

I’ve not played any games where actions outside movement are dependant on what is pulled out of the bag but I seem to remember that v2 of Steve Barbers Prehistoric Settlement rules had the bag determining skills the clans gained but it does raise a few nice ideas:

• Weather effects (or magic for the fantasy games)
• Shortage of missile weapons
• Unit morale modifiers
• Random events – I once saw a stage coach cross the battle field and the US troops had to divert to ‘save it’ from the bandits and a Tusk game had a volcano once!

The main issue being the cost of special dice compared to drawing a card and stacking those (Too Fat Lardies Sharpes Practise does something like this with flag cards from the play throughs I seen). It would be simple to use coloured blocks and a look up table rather than the special engraved dice 🙂

[John D Salt]

Sane Max wrote:

Neil Thomas makes a good point about IGUGO – that if you read a battle history, it’s always “Von Potater did THIS…. Du Plessiosaur did THAT…..But Von Tempi’s Hussars did THIS so De Iceur’s Dragooons did THAT….”

IGOUGO rather neatly reflects this act-react process.

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that a narrative presented through a linear medium such as prose should have a linear structure. That doesn’t mean it appears in the actual battles. Lots of battles will have interleaved processes requiring the narrator to employ phrases such as “meanwhile, in another part of the forest…” or “unbeknownst to Du Plessiosaur, the woods had over the previous hour filled with Von Potater’s scouts”, and there will be times when the real actors “miss a turn” because they have been surprised.

All the best,

John.

[Les Hammond]

I would like to think that when I’m the non-activating player in a multiplayer IGOUGO game, I’d be looking stuff up in charts, shouting out forgotten modifiers or checking esoteric nano-rules. I don’t know what the fuss is about with ‘not having anything to do’, at the very least I’d be thinking “what to do next”.

Anyway I’m mostly solo (so I’m always the activating player) and I have unit counters for both sides in a bag, that way I don’t forget which unit has activated already. Extra counters for units with increased activation probabilities can be added (poor units can be penalised too).

I like it random. I don’t see why the player should decide the firing order of his units (or indeed elements) as there is no such overarching control like that between or within units in melees/pitched battles once it hits the fan.

6mm France 1940

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[bobm]

with IGOUGO it’s worth considering two things:

1.  How much each tactical unit can get done in its turn

2.  Can the opposition “interrupt” what’s unfolding in front of them

Also with a game where each unit can (say) only do one thing in its turn then the rules can be easier to learn and the novice player will be making “smaller” mistakes before an opportunity arises to rescue the situation.

There's 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.....

[Whirlwind]

I don’t think anything resembling the Polemos ‘tempo bidding’ mechanic has been mentioned thus far?

[Whirlwind]

The boardgame ‘Ambush’ had a very neat unit activation system which could be adapted or pinched.  Every unit had a quality between 0-5 and had a counter to represent it and these were placed on a track; a die was rolled at the beginning of each turn which would determine if a given unit got two turns, one turn, or no turns (all the above possibly depending upon when a commander was present).  Units acting close together could effectively be directed by the highest one.  It was very intuitive but incorporated a lot of subtlety and complexity without being difficult to administer in any way.  Might be worth a look (my short summary really doesn’t do it all justice)

[Spurious]

It’s interesting how much IGOUGO systems vary in how clunky they can feel, and how susceptible they are to other influences on the process. Looking at the Warhammer 40k (3rd edition onward though I hear they’re now on an alternating activation system), a lot of editions had a problem where it’s entirely possible for one side to gain a critical advantage in the very first turn, due to nothing being able to prevent one player just blasting half the other’s army off the table. Similar could happen with Warhammer Fantasy with both shooting and magic if either were overloaded on, and then the problem with both that due to the complexity of the rules (or at least the plethora of special circumstance stuff to track) turns could be very long to resolve, with a lot of gradually moving units and rolls after rolls after rolls to resolve stuff so the classic problem is the other player sitting there doing nout but rolling saves and removing casualties for large amounts of time.
But then one of my favourite systems, A Fistful of TOWs, also is IGOUGO but streamlined mechanics means it is actually possible to be alternating every 15 minutes, and it’s got plenty of stages that involve both players; units on overwatch for one (which can also involve movement) and then simultainious exchanges of fire for regular shooting and close combat stuff. Plus you’re encouraged to make use of enough terrain that not everything is always going to be attacking. That’s probably worth an essay all on it’s own – terrain and how it affects the game’s pace.

Going back to my own faffing about with trying to design a thing:

I think in the case of my system given it’s not got a lot going on in the ranged attacks department until units are close, an IGOUGO system would be somewhat tedious. There’s not really the place for quick reactions to things, and a lot of what goes on is simply moving units and attempting to get decent positioning on what’s likely to be quite lumpy terrain. So a faster, chaotic alternating by groups mechanic seems warrented.
In this case I think I will go with a system of drawing cards; namely each group commander should be marked on a card (could use their banner or just a colour or number) and then that can be put into a small deck, and when drawn that unit goes. But to make things interesting the deck could be bulked out with a few other event or even non-event cards. I think Sharp Practice and other systems by those authors do something like this (I have played it once but it was years ago)?
I could also try throwing in cards based on commander traits, like if there is an impetuous commander, maybe they get more cards in the deck to give them a better chance of acting quicker. Or if a commander is disloyal, they might be subject to all sorts of events that would cover them delaying action or only half-comitting to it, like reshuffling their card back into the deck when first drawn.
As for units in reserve or attempting a flank move, since I wouldn’t want them guarenteed to come on in the first turn, maybe having them pass some amount of command tests before they can act would be appropriate? That’d be roll an arbitrary amount of successes as compared to their rating (somewhere around 1 to 6), so that poor commanders shouldn’t be sent on flanking moves because they’ll need more turns to generate the required amount of successes to get on the board.

 

[Whirlwind]

John D Salt wrote:

Sane Max wrote:

Neil Thomas makes a good point about IGUGO – that if you read a battle history, it’s always “Von Potater did THIS…. Du Plessiosaur did THAT…..But Von Tempi’s Hussars did THIS so De Iceur’s Dragooons did THAT….” IGOUGO rather neatly reflects this act-react process.

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that a narrative presented through a linear medium such as prose should have a linear structure. That doesn’t mean it appears in the actual battles. Lots of battles will have interleaved processes requiring the narrator to employ phrases such as “meanwhile, in another part of the forest…” or “unbeknownst to Du Plessiosaur, the woods had over the previous hour filled with Von Potater’s scouts”, and there will be times when the real actors “miss a turn” because they have been surprised. All the best, John.

A very, very good point.  Although since many players/writers explicitly reference wanting their games to feel like the narrative of the books they have read about the period, rather than attempt to create a simulation of the warfare of the period, this may be either a good or bad thing for a given player, I guess.

[Phil Dutré]

Drawing cards that specify what unit can act has the disadvantage that some scenarios won’t work, esp if there can be traffic jams, such as moving across a bridge with several units etc. Also, coordination between several units becomes much more difficult.

That’s why most unit-activation systems allow for some freedom by the player, and have group activation mechanics as well. Purely depending on unit-specific card draws means you can only play scenarios which have a low unit density and/or lots of manoeuvring space.

[Phil Dutré]

A different mechanic, not often seen in wargames, but which is fairly common in boardgames, is a timetrack.

Every unit has its spot kn the timetrack. The ‘earliest’ unit gets activated, and depending on what that unit does, it moves so many spaces backwards on the timetrack. Then the next unit activates etc. The timetrack can be a simple ordering, or can have different length intervals, etc.

I experimented a bit with a timetrack in miniature wargaming: http://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/2019/03/imaginations-in-42mm-12.html

 

[Darkest Star Games]

Ya know, these responses have given me a lot of ideas.  I appreciate that there are so many different views, ideas and insights.

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Author]

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