More examples, all from Rising Sun:ORIGINAL: Jason Petho
For example:
Using the top five most played, Talonsoft scenarios, I thought it might be interesting to see how the original Talonsoft designers used the time scale within their scenarios.
Tank Graveyard at Minsk by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 18 = 108 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~10 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 2 days) = 600 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 33.3 minutes per turn
Giants on the Vistula by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 20 = 120 minutes
Actual Battle length: 9 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 36 hours) = 540 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 27 minutes per turn
Rest Steel at Fedorovka by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 14 = 84 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~11 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 3 days) = 660 minutes
Designer modified time scale: ~47 minutes per turn
Storm 5-5-5 by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 12 = 72 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~4 hours = 240 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 20 minutes per turn
The Battle is Joined by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 20 = 120 minutes
Actual Battle length: ~8 hours (being generous as it lasted nearly 16 hours) = 480 minutes
Designer modified time scale: 24 minutes per turn
Action in the Solomons by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 25 = 150 minutes
Actual Battle Length: 12 hours (at least) = 720 minutes
Designer Modified Time Scale: ~29 minutes per turn
Trouble Along the Ilu by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 20 = 120 minutes
Actual Battle Length: ~6 hours (at least) = 360 minutes
Designer Modified Time Scale: 18 minutes per turn
Edson's Ridge by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 21 = 126 minutes
Actual Battle Length: ~6-1/2 hours = 390 minutes
Designer Modified Time Scale: 18.5 minutes per turn
Take Buna Mission by Doug Bevard
Game Turns: 23 = 138 minutes
Actual Battle Length: 12+ hours (actually more than 10 days) = 720+ minutes
Designer Modified Time Scale: ~31 minutes per turn
And so too for many others...
You've been playing the Campaign Series with "elastic time" for so many years, you just didn't realize it! [;)]
Crossroads has a good term for it: Active Turns.
In between the effective Active Turns are the periods of inactivity, where units stop to regroup, get their bearings, await further orders, rest, resupply, eat (during the Battle of Edson's Ridge, "Kokusho's men came upon a pile of Marine supplies and rations. Not having eaten adequately for a couple of days, they paused to "gorge themselves" on the "C" and "K" rations") -- the natural battlefield lulls. Dynamic turn lengths and elastic time allow us to model that indirectly, abstractly.
Elastic time doesn't just allow us to model the natural battlefield lulls; it also accounts for the unrealistically high lethality of the game's combat model. With 6-minutes-per-turn strictly applied, and 12+ hours day-long engagements, in the Campaign Series one side or the other -- or both! -- would all or nearly all be usually wiped out.
Again, review my statistical analysis of game turns, all games (see above), where even the longest scenarios last just 6 hours (60 turns) in game terms, most typically ~2 hours (~20 turns), not even half a morning or half an afternoon of real time. In the early Talonsoft years, when scenario designers were under the direct sway of John Tiller, it's obvious that time is not to scale, that we are not to take the 6-minutes-per-turn literally. Otherwise, we are supposed to believe that the Campaign Series models battles on fast forward?
6 minutes per turn? If that's the Gospel Truth, then Doug Bevard and all the rest were a band of heretics!
Nobody on the current Dev Team proposes to create scenarios where "each turn = 24 hours"; of course not. No need for hyperbole, no need for reductio ad absurdum arguments. And no need to cite what other dev teams may or may not do with their games. We design the Campaign Series and design scenarios without reference to others, but do it on our own terms and, in truth, respecting the game's accepted "scale".
Just for the record: Dynamic Day/Night (and Visibility) and "elastic time" are not my ideas: They were to fulfill wish list requests by the Dev Team. Requests that, in the main, within reason, I wholeheartedly agree with.
Anyway, it's just one new feature among many new features. Stating the obvious: You don't like it, you don't use it, don't play scenarios adopting the new capabilities. Continue making scenarios and playing the game in your accustomed manner, as you like it. What's to stop you?
I'm going to crawl back to my Man Cave now.
Happy Holidays, everybody!