At the present the Classical Matrix Game has a VERY primitive method for resolving battles (or any conflict for that matter). A players' argument says a conflict happens. Often it says what the outcome is. The referee can let this stand (resolution in a single roll) or say it triggers a second round of arguments. The referee looks at the situation and asks the player in the strongest position to make an argument about what happens. The referee rules on it's strength and the player rolls. If the argument succeeds then the conflict is resolved. If not, the second most powerful player argues. This goes on till someone succeeds in saying what happened. Paul Hayes has come up with an alternative method, which was discussed on the Matrix Gamer yahoo list. "Audacity" This is a rough attempt at coming up with a combat/conflict system for military MG's. All comments as always gratefully accepted 1) Each unit within an MG has a combat value (CV). CV's will normally range from 1-5 2) Additional CV's are added subtracted by the GM depending on the circumstances of a combat. eg. unit in defensive position = +2, unit unsupplied -1 3) The amended Combat Value is available to both parties prior to the combat. 4) Each player then submits an MG conflict argument. The arguments either add to it's own sides CV's or lowers the CV of it's opponents. A player must state the effect of the proposed argument e.g " My troops force march at night into an outflanking position to smash into the enemy as they rouse at dawn. They are taken completely by surprise and routed (-2 on enemy DRM). The chances of these argument suceeding are diced for as per normal MG rules. 5) 'disengage' and/or 'flee before combat' type arguments may also be submitted. If they fail however, the GM may penalize the failing side depending on the situation it leaves their troops in. 6) Final CV's are tallied and compared. Difference in final die rolls are noted. 0) Draw, each side may hold in position or fall back in good order 1-2) Minor victory, loser may hold position or fall back in good order 2-3) Significant victory, loser must fall back in good order 4-5) Major Victory loser falls back in disarray 6-7) Rout loser falls back in disarray 8+) disaster - losers force disintegrates Casualties The winner of the battle suffers losses equal to the casualty base of the scenario. minor defeats = casualty base plus 1d6% significant defeats = casualty base plus 2d6% Major defeats = casualty base plus 3d6% Routs = casualty base plus 4d6% Disasters = all survivors run away! winners lose half casualty base. In a draw, both sides lose. This table can of course, be amended depending on the range of CV's of units and the scenario being gamed. The Casualty base is also dependent on the scenario and would be expressed in so many d6%. eg Seven years war 2d6%, Verdun 5d6% % losses for both sides are always calculated on the strength of the lowest side. Eg it's the desert 1942. Casualty base is 2d6% 2 British Infantry Brigades (each CV3) pummel into a dug in Italian Infantry Regt (CV1) tactical modifiers are +2 for the Italian fixed defenses Starting CV's are 6 vs 3 (+3 to the Brits) In the argument phase the British successful pound the Italians with 25 pounders (+1)whilst the Italians luckily make some of the British advance blunder into a minefield at night (-2) Final result is British 5, Italians 3 Significant Victory for the British, the hill is taken. The Italians fall back out their trenches, probably due for a major pulverizing next turn without the benefit of field defenses! Losses are 5d6% For the Italians (say 20% of the infantry Regt) 2d6% of the Italian strength for the British. Each British infantry Brigade loses 3% of it's manpower. What do people think? Re: 'Audacity' as a title. Obviously the more audacious a player is, the less likely his argument is of succeeding. An argument to conjure up the entire Luftwaffe reserve of Stukas in support of the Italians would be far less likely to succeed, but would give a greater bonus in combat. does a player take a risk, or play safe? Dylan Alliata Paul is on to something. Figuring out what the casualties are of a matrix conflict is pretty difficult. Sometimes I wished for the use of the old Tactics II CRT. The die rolling seems a bit involved but, most games only feature a couple of battles anyway. I worked on something similar playtesting Dracula. I would suggest though that their be a limit on the die modification. Say a maximum of +2 or something like that. Although his system does have the advantage that a +12 modification would be rated with a low probability of success. My disagreement with him is over the results of that battle. I am sure the Italians did much better than the result he described. John Cash The more mathematical games get (+1 for defense, -2 for morale, divide by 6 for supply, etc.) the more in a fog I feel I am. Makes me recall what one of my grad school professors said: "Undergraduates intuit. Graduate students reason." So I'm surprised to find I understood most of Paul's description, and even more surprised to find Dylan's comments address the same points I would have: the difficulty of determining casualties in MGs, and the interpretation of results. As to the name, if "Audacity" puts the player more at risk, perhaps this is the wrong name. Maybe "Digression" (as in "better part of valor"). John Kantor Did I miss something? In the example, I didn't see a die roll for the combat itself - just a straight comparison of the CVs. But this is a good expansion of SCRUD. The % losses and combat results would be very useful for some types of games (and not for others). The real question is how you scale this up to a full-sized battle (for example in North Africa), giving the players some historical options but without it getting unwieldy. You'd still have to address the positions and actions of main bodies, flanks, reserves, etc. (Those are, of course, the very areas that SCRUD abstracts out.) Dylan Alliata I am pretty sure you missed something. The roll is on the matrix argument and the modifiers suggested in the argument. The modifiers are then applied to each side's CV and the difference between the two determines success of victory. This is not SCRUD, in scrud you roll the dice for each unit apply your modifiers and compare dice, high die defeats low die. The combat system in Risk is the prototype of all SCRUD systems. Paul's system is definitely not SCRUD. The other big difference is that in SCRUD a unit does not really have a CV, only a modifier. The die roll determines the CV in a scrud. Paul's system is a) simple b) seems realistic. Evenly matched sides will tend to draw. Clever arguments or generalship will give an advantage, but probably not a huge advantage, again realistic. Your second point about having to deal with troop movements and position. Given a map and positions players can submit arguments. In a matrix game you may need some software which is available, but in a face to face you would have the board. This is a real evolution in Paul's thinking about mixing matrix games with combat. Two cheers for Paul. For you yanks give him three we always over do it. I still can't figure out why the Italians who are dug in only get 1 and they get routed. Geeze, you'd think the British defeated the Italians in WWII. What's next the sinking of the Italian Navy? John Kantor Well, he does talk about DRMs (Die Roll Modifiers) which lead me to believe there's another roll involved. And he does say the following: "6) Final CV's are tallied and compared. Difference in final die rolls are noted." I'm not clear about how the die roll difference is used here. If it isn't, then I'd say the combat results are too flat, with little chance for major victories or better. It also doesn't give any relative means of judging what an argument is worth in terms of CV. (Why +2 in the example?) Of course, on the flip side, it also doesn't address the problem of how you adjudicate these arguments - particularly ones that ask for a +8. (Why argue for less?) >Your second point about having to deal with troop movements and position. Given a map and positions players can submit arguments Right, but the question remains: how do you break down the forces into a manageable number of groups for which to submit arguments? And how do you assign values to interrelationships (like the aforementioned reserves and flanking movements) which in a traditional game would be handled through movement on a map? SCRUD works precisely because it abstracts all of those factors out. Matrix game arguments, of course, excel in handling special circumstances (treachery, weather, leadership, morale, etc.). Paul's trying to come up with (dare I say it?) a more objective way of resolving combat. However, without a little more elaboration, all he's done is replace strong/average/weak with a number. What we need is a heuristic which will enable us to consistently apply those numbers in differing tactical situations. Paul Hayes Thanks for the comments on "Audacity" Firstly - do I see it as a replacement for SCRUD? yes. MG's need a quick and simple conflict resolution system. Audacity is not designed to play Drang Nach Osten as an MG, merely (?) to arbitrate conflicts in a simple, hopefully realistic, way. Some philosophy. 'Audacity' is meant to get around the tendency of MG conflict arguments all to say something along the lines of "I drive you from the field with minimal losses to my boys" or suchlike. In the classic game one conflict argument has to succeed, no matter if both are weak. 'Audacity' would allow both to suceed or fail and still resolve a conflict. DRM's = that was a typo. It should have said 'amendments to CV'. Clarification: There is only one set of die rolls in Audacity. These decide whether conflict argument succeed or fail. final CV's are calculated from them. Maximum die roll benefits should be dependent on the strength of the argument and the circumstances currently pertaining in the scenario. For Example, in Nam 45 Colonel Artois successfully argued for USAAF bomber support to arrive. If he had wanted to use that in support of a ground attack against the Vietminh in open terrain I would accept as a GM that would be a very strong argument (the USAAF are not doing anything else) with say a plus 3 addition to the French CV (Veteran Bombers in open terrain against an enemy without effective AA and no experience of facing air power). Remember; The Matrix is the Truth of the game. All arguments rely on this for both probability of occurrence and strength of occurrence. It may even be an idea for the GM to allocate the CV effect of successful arguments. The whole point of the system is to make players consider risk in combat tactics. Do you pin your hopes on the highly unlikely chance of divine intervention wiping out your enemy or expend your energies on digging trenches? Once again, it may be that failed arguments (e.g attempting a night surprise night attack) actually worsen a players position and CV. Cruel - but an option to consider. Mandatory Self Criticism Time I got to thinking about Dupuy on the way home last night and the 3:1 rule. What is more important is the ratio of force in the end, not the percentage difference. Revised outcome table should look like this winner/ loser final CV ratio Less than 2:1) Draw, each side may hold in position or fall back in good order 2:1) Minor Victory, loser may hold position or fall back in good order 3:1) Significant Victory, loser must fall back in good order 4:1) Major Victory, loser falls back in disarray 5:1) Rout, loser falls back in disarray 6:1) Disaster, losers force disintegrates This ratio argument also encourages players to produce arguments that weaken the other side, rather than strengthen itself. What about reserves etc? This should be covered in the players conflict argument. No need to overcomplicate, it would lose the beauty of the MG system! Casualties: I agree that losses should wherever possible be expressed in reductions to units CV's. This would obviously depend on the number of units per side involved in an average conflict. I'm stimulating a debate here - this is good. Anyone got any other new *simple* combat systems. Marcus, how are you planning to run combat in Pacwar?? Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #24 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Chris Engle. 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