CONTROL PROCESS ADVANTAGE DISADVANTAGE GENERAL SCHEME 1. Umpire Impartial judge, one person does coordination, campaign designer is arbiter. Ability to get a final decision expeditiously when problems or conflicts arise. Game can be moved along and prodded. Some players dislike being subject to umpire. May question his objectivity/ability. Sometimes the umpire may drive the game into places the players don't like. 2. Use Commercial Game Pre-packaged game materials. Standardized materials and frame of reference. Cuts down a lot of work. Can significantly reduced need for an umpire. Many "scope" issues already worked out. Control system already well play-tested. Such games matched to table top resolution are indifferent solutions at best. Game mechanism usually not directly translatable to table top armies and fleets Separate "linkage" rules will have to be developed. Also require space to set up and maintain and each player must own a copy, which inflates cost Chief disadvantage is you are playing a game "to play a game" 3. Home Built Control system Tailor made to scope, armies materials, players, and situation at hand. Can adapt or use some facet of commercial games more satisfactorily. Requires a LOT of preliminaary work and design, and probably several play-tests as well. Extreme danger in using without play-test. 4. Proctor does it all Least work of all for all concerned and can get started immediately No complex control or record keeping required. Costs are low. Players must have detailed and at times exhaustive knowledge of the period and situation. Depends on flair for dramatic not always possible in competing players. MAP AND GEOGRAPHIC ISSUES 5. Area Move Easy to control by number list easy to gauge contacts and terrain, scouting, economics etc. Easiest of all to use on computer. Best suited to IWG or large scale campaigns. Building in "uniqueness" of each battle is problematic. Some degree of randomization is required. Does not give a very realistic "feel" to commanding. Difficult to craft special situations or special actions. 6. Vector Move Feels most like real-life. Ease of crafting unique situations and allows super-detailing of environment. Good for very small and highly detailed campaigns. Real-life inspection possible. (Topographical map) Lot of work required to set up and draw maps. Very difficult to control and record position and movement. Disagreements likely. 7. Real Terrain Most Historically accurate The whole club might not have the requisite terrain type and numbers to recreate a battlefield. 8. Terrain system Ease of construction of a general battlefield. Battles may become statistically uninteresting, difficulty of reproducing historical scenes. May require special rules when you do. TIMING ISSUES 9. Real Time Continuous Don't have to keep track of time. Elapsed Earth days are elapsed game days. Takes a long time to play, World War II would take 6 years. Problem of interest. 10. Scale Time Can compress time, Game moves faster. A lot of intervening "detail" is lost. 11. Linked time Most realistic, campaign time linked to table top time. You may be taking longer to fight an action than it took in real life. TSS for example could take more than three days to play. EVENTS 12. Resolve Each contact Most accurate and fair, also provides a wide range of events. Takes a lot of time! May be stuck resolving dozens of small contacts and be exhausted before main event. 13. Selection of Resolution Allows only a few large or important events to be gamed. Moves game along. Resolves small actions abstractly. Generally, small interesting actions get edited out and these may be the most rewarding. Requires some sort of resolution process and case rules. These must be fair and produce acceptable (if not totally satisfactory) results to both sides. 14. Player Resolution Allows satellite resolution of events by two concerned players Speeds game along but still allows for wide range of actions. Very difficult to coordinate many groups of players and there is a control issue when question of who fought who where first comes up. Also, loss of standardization of rules, events and process. FORCES 15. Order of Battle Historically accurate and most lifelike, feel of commanding actual units. Lot of record keeping if historical feel is to be maintained. Paperwork log-jams. Real problem that figures might not be available in type and quantity. 16. Force Pool Point System Generally accurate but conceptual difficulties arise. Easier to control and track. Some Inflexibility. Force pool use rules may be cumbersome due to lack of figures. 17. Block System Avoids figure availability problem. Very easy to track. Not very flexible. Harder to track losses or decrements of power - losses relating to battlefield units. TIMING ISSUES 18. Move/Counter Move Easy to manage, Possible to construct a lot of case rules. Puts heavy emphasis, depending on how rules are structured, on first or second moving player. 19. Simultaneous move Realistic and allows initiative and special actions Difficult to coordinate. 20. Alternate Ease of play Depending upon how the rest of the rules are constructed it may give one side an unfair advantage FEEDBACK ISSUES 21. Observation Reporting Low work and coordination. Each player responsible for his own. Very difficult to archive or develop consistent records. (You are there or you don't see it!") Conflicts likely to occur 22. Structured Reporting One version for all. also generally more accurate. Requires a lot of special programming on computer or forms. Much coordination work for the umpire (if any) 23. No Reporting Actually the most historic once dispositions basic status and troop of a player are achieved. Rumor and fog of war very well represented. You are on your own. REQUIREMENTS ISSUES 1. Do you have the required soldiers readily available for ALL situations? 2. Do you have the required terrain readily available for ALL situations? 3. Do you have enough committed interesting players enough to carry it through? 4. Do YOU have the time? If the answer to any of the above is "NO" then forget it! More Campaigns or Campains? Campaigns or Campains: Introduction Campaigns or Campains: The Proctor System Campaigns or Campains: Vector Movement System Campaigns or Campains: Scourge of God Outline Campaigns or Campains: Control Method Comparison Table Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #78 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com