Surprise Points

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I am thinking of adding a table for possible surprise points for naval combat.

Below is a sample of what I have in mind.

For this example, the case is that only surface ships are in the sea areas, the weather is fine. the Axis has units only in the 4 Section box, and the Allies only have units in the 5 Section box.

Obviously things can get more complicated, but the actual code would take into account convoys, air units, unpleasant weather, section boxes included, etc.

Each cell in this table has a 1% chance of occurring.

What got me thinking about this was how often one side or the other gets 4+ surprise points. In this example, that occurs 25% of the time. If you measure the percentage as a function of at least one search roll succeeding, then it jumps to 25/70 = ~36%.

[Orm]

Isn't it the Allied side that has a 25% chance of getting 4, or more, surprise points? The odds for either side getting 4+ surprise points would be higher, right?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Orm

Isn't it the Allied side that has a 25% chance of getting 4, or more, surprise points? The odds for either side getting 4+ surprise points would be higher, right?

Yeah.[>:] I made a couple of mistakes in that mock-up. There has to be an air unit in the Allied Section Box 4. Which would change a bunch of the numbers.[:(]

And yes, there is a 39% chance of 4+ points, adding the the Axis and Allied together.

Which makes it 39/70 = 56% of 4+ points for one side or the other if a search is successful.

That was my main point: when a naval combat search succeeds, there is better than a 50% probability that one side is greatly surprised.

[Dabrion]

naval probs are the easiest to do, everyone can do multiplication in their mind.. spend time on real issues

[paulderynck]

Was that your first, or your first times your first post, Dabrion?

[Dabrion]

Not sure yet.. I will have to find the right square in a grid to answer that .. let me come back to you ..

[brian brian]

I rarely calculate % chances. I just consider the cost-of-failure vs advantage-of-victory vs how-much-choice-do-I-really-have-right-now.

In naval combat I just go with 50% chance of nothing happening, 25% chance of win for me, 25% chance of win for the other side, even when it might be 60-15-25.

[paulderynck]

Due to the wide variance in possible results, naval combat is one situation in WiF where you can often find both sides desiring combat.