Points balance

[Joe]

Hello,

Our game group has played about a dozen games so far. Most were Brit vs German with a couple of US vs German.  In all but one game the Germans won. Has anyone reviewed the point system because it seems it isn’t very balanced. Are we missing something here?  Its getting harder to get anyone to play at this point.

Thanks for any input.

[Nat]

… official points dont include speed!  which since day one has cause ????

But yeah … its an issue, CS (and lets be honest most of WL games) points are there for approximation rather than fine balance.  Most of their games are written as a framework for players to tweak and alter to fit their own club games.  Cruel Seas is especially written for scenario rather than pickup play.

Even Bolt Action, the flagship game system, doesnt gel well in tournaments without tweaking.

The best approach is probably something along the lines of (some or all of these):
– apply a 2 point per inch /knot of speed cost.
– set list building restrictions (ie max 1 Destroyer, no more than Y MTBs can have Z weapons, no more than L torpedoes)
– include target ships / lop sided missions, ie one player has to wipe out the enemy.. the other to do X mission so you can BOTH win (which would make it a game draw)… BUT put the player missions on a card in a deck, shuffle before drawing and keep hidden until the end of the game.
– lop sided points
– historical / realistic groupings
– terrain and or weather (try sinking a ship thats trying to navigate through some rocky outcrops with heavy rain)
– limit ammo, add reload times for bigger guns
– tweak torpedo rules
– auto lose if an MTB strikes its colours for tactical reasons (aka playing RAW Torpedoes)

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Nat.

[invisible officer]

My friends and I use historical settings  and judge the quality of the gaming by comparing original outcome with the game ones.

 

So if in our AMC Komet breakthrough games Komet survives its a German win. If it is lost its a British, even if all RN vessels are lost.

 

 

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[Joe]

Thanks for the ideas. I’ll get a hold of the  group and see what we can work out.

Any suggestions on where some historical channel battles are discussed?

Thanks.

[Nat]

Dont thing theres anything surface level… possibly an osprey book like “Churchill’s Channel War” or drachinifel / IO might be able to point you in a better direction

Apart from that maybe check out  YouTube, or you have to go deep diving in to Operations by Name /Location,  Unit history, work back from shipping losses that sort of thing.

(!) Alternative is do the same thing as Warlord does – take insperation from old comics from the 70s & 80s like ‘Commando’ or ‘Warlord’ for scenarios and game ideas

• This reply was modified 4 weeks, 1 day ago by Nat.

[invisible officer]

Even if You’re not fluent in German Rohwer / Hümmelchen  Chronik des Seekrieges  1939 – 45 is a great source.  Giving OOB for nearly all small channel actions. (And more all over the world)

There are also internet day by day chronicles like that.

 

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