New "How To" at Wargamer.com

[kevinkins]

https://www.wargamer.com/articles/comma ... l-guide-1/

[SeaQueen]

I like this a lot. That being said, it's not necessarily "cheating" to not use missions in larger scenarios. Missions are a tool, which allow you to focus your attention where it's really needed. They can be used creatively to achieve exactly the effect you want.

Maybe you want to use AAW missions to build a wall of defending aircraft behind which you have bombers orbiting that you can manually attack with stand off missiles as time critical targets appear as a result of UAVs spotting them. In that case, I don't want to focus so much on the defending fighters, I just want to make sure they behave like I want them to. I want to focus on the UAVs and the bombers.

Maybe you want to manually navigate strike aircraft to pick your way through a little canyon, leading up to a target, while high altitude fighters patrol overhead to keep enemy fighters from slipping into the area, and medium altitude SEAD configured aircraft fire ARMS at pop up SAMs? In the case, I don't necessarily want to focus so much on maintaining the corridor as I do on the strike package its protecting. I just want to make sure it's properly resourced, and if it's not then I might consider turning around the strike package.

Maybe I want to use aircraft in a "swing role" mostly defending against aircraft, but maybe manually shooting missiles at small boat swarm?

Maybe I want a submarine to mostly just do sea control in an area "hands off" but then I might manually have him strike a strategic early warning radar site with land attack cruise missiles if the target pops up?

Maybe I want my AEW aircraft to automatically fly orbits on its own, but then I see a bunch of enemy fighters getting too close for comfort so I decide to pull it back to a safe distance manually?

I use AAW missions as a sort of "generic" mission a lot of time, just to get aircraft up and flying around a certain area. I might use them to represent a "push point" and then swap them off to the strike mission once all the assembled assets have arrived.

[BeirutDude]

I take the opposite approach and utilize missions as much as possible and then go hands on when necessary. A Battle Group Commander doesn't micromanage everything under their command or they won't last long!

[SeaQueen]

I don't disagree. I use missions quite extensively but I'll also devote my attention to fights as necessary. I've just found that going completely "hands off" is not only not cheating, but unrealistic. The AI is good, especially if you take the time to set all the different parameters smartly, but it doesn't do everything. It's particularly not very smart about doing multiple things at once (e.g. sea control AND strike). It's also not very good at coordinating and sequencing things.

It's important to manage things manually. Suppose I set up a SEAD patrol mission so my fighters can carve out a corridor for my bomber train to fly through. As things are developing I notice a SAM in the middle of the corridor but darnit, the fighters spent a lot of gas turning and burning with the SAMs and need to hit the tanker. I can either manually delay the bombers until the fighters are done tanking, or I can keep them moving and hope they can dodge the SAMs themselves (unlikely).

Or suppose I set up a bunch of DCA boxes to protect something. I notice that there's a hole in my screen. I can move aircraft around or launch some to fill it, but I have to do it by hand.

That's the kind of thing where manual control is essential, and it's not cheating, it's managing the battle.

Truth be told, you don't wear just one CO's hat in Command. You wear many, and depending on the size of the scenario, it can be quite a lot of hats. Missions help you stay on top of things for large scenarios, but it still needs to be played unless you want to devote a lot of effort to developing LUA scripts to perform the functions of an overall commander.

[BeirutDude]

I never said I was "completely hands off" and I believe we are in agreement with game play.

I have a problem with the mission aspect of design and what I like to call "Game Scenarios vs. Simulation Scenarios" The difference, IMHO, in the Game Scenario I give you a bunch of units and bases with a broad overview and no missions (regardless of the strategic/tactical situation postulated) and YOU set up missions the way you want. My problem is this ignores the fact that there would be CAP and AEW patrols, etc. I found that most "game Scenarios" drop you right into the action and do not allow a proper buffer for those patrols to get on station before the action begins (because "it's boring").

IN a "Simulation Scenario" (the way I look at it), you're the Commander and you have had your troops set up your operations when you walk into the situation (that morning?). You can adjust, or even redo, the missions assigned but that takes time. OR I allow a buffer of time before possible engagements so the missions and possible new loadouts the player assigns have time to become operational. So that is about a six hour buffer before engagement (which with time compression shouldn't be bad).

Another aspect of assigning missions is it give the novice a heads up when playing. Not everyone has the same experience as the devotees. [8D]

Personally I design simulation scenarios and not the latter.

[SeaQueen]

It depends. Personally, I don't like scenarios to start off with a whole lot of stuff already going on on the player controlled side, because very often I look at it and think, "that's wrong, that's a stupid thing to do." If it's done poorly then it's not necessarily any more realistic. Generally speaking, I'd prefer that on the player controlled side, people wouldn't try to think so hard. It's hard enough to tune things up on the AI side to be really smart. Adding a bunch of meaningless "noise" which I'll just have to rejigger isn't helpful or necessarily more realistic if it's not reasonably done in the first place.

Also, if the scenario is focused on defensive counter air, for example, and the whole thing is focused on placing, filling and managing CAPs, tankers and AWACS then maybe it doesn't make much sense to put whole bunch of other stuff up there to start with, because the point of the scenario is for the player to design their own defense?

I like your point about being able to rearm aircraft to suit your preferences. I agree with that. I also think it is very useful, especially in scenarios where there's a lot of satellites, ISR aircraft, etc. is for the scenario designer or player to crank back the clock, let it run for ~24hours before the scenario actually starts, just to build up a picture from the various sensors involved and generate a little better initial state, so that the player can make smarter decisions in the beginning. All I want is enough lead time (~12-24 hrs) so that I can build up and adjust my initial lay down to my satisfaction before having to launch any big push. That way I can set things up and plan. Ultimately, Command is a game of planning, and then adjusting those plans as the need arises. It's important to give players the time to formulate their plans.

I'm agnostic about game v. simulation scenarios. I'd like to think every scenario simulates something, whether that's a reasonable thing to simulate or not is probably debatable. In my mind, wargames in general exist on a spectrum between games and simulations. None is a perfect simulation, and if they lose the entertainment aspect ("game") then the immersion is lost, and the kind of learning that can occur in a war game doesn't occur. Command has a lot of "gamisms." You have perfect C2, for example. The AI sometimes does stupid things, like wander into known SAM bubbles for no good reason. That's all the game. It also has the potential to provide insight because it does capture a certain aspect of reality. Even a bad scenario can provide that sometimes. In one scenario someone gave me, I was annoyed with it, because the CVN started off underneath the enemy SAM bubble. Who does that? It makes no sense to be putting aircraft up just to get them knocked down again. None the less, the scenario generated discussion about the broader implications of these sorts of very long ranged SAMs, and how they not only can shoot down stuff from long ranges, but they also constrain people's freedom of action. That SA-21 with it's range of a couple hundred miles might be doing it's job and never have to fire a shot, because it forces the CVN to stand off more, which slows its sortie rate and limits the targets which can be struck. In that case, an unrealistic scenario provided as much insight as a realistic one, because they understood something they hadn't thought about before. Sometimes that's good enough.

[BeirutDude]

So agreed there is a balance to the “necessary missions” to provide a “simulation” and I’m taking the approach of backing away from the engagement area to give players the time to reorient as they like. That said, if I have a SAG within striking range of OPFOR submarine assets and the SAG Helios are sitting on deck and the land abased MPA are having lunch at the O Club then I have done the player of my Scenario a disservice. Now if I create an Alpha Strike for ta CVBG 24 hours in advance then I have also done them a disservice. In the first case I have provided an unrealistic situation given the tactical environment just to allow the player to set up their own missions. In the latter case that mission is fine for the AI but should be scrubbed so the player can set up their own.

[SeaQueen]

I don't disagree. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, however, to start a scenario with the player in a bad position. That might be what makes it challenging. In fact, I'm looking at a Poland defense scenario right now, and I have no idea how they are supposed to defend themselves. Just drawing range rings on a map suggests that as a consequence of geography and the ranges of the weapons involved in a hypothetical conflict with Russia, they're in a bad position. Defending Poland is a really tough task for NATO.

I think part of what makes a scenario good or not, has less to do with whether or not the player's been done a disservice, so much as an understanding of why they might or might not be in a bad starting position.

Defending a CVBG against a decisive attack is a fun scenario. That was the old 1980s Lehman-era Navy question, where they were concerned about an overwhelming, coordinated attack from surface ships, submarines and naval bombers. There's so many iterations you can do in terms of platforms, locations, time periods, etc. There's also a lot of different questions to be answered. Where do you put your DCA? What is your ASW plan? How do you plan to employ your SAMs? The player should have the opportunity to answer them on their own because each of those pieces is a part of the solution.

The trick is to give the player sufficient "indications and warnings" in the scenario briefing that they have a clear understanding of what they need to do (in this case, defend against an attack on their CVBG). It doesn't have to be complicated, just a simple statement like "Intelligence expects a decisive enemy attack within the next 24 hours." That tells the player two things; first that they need to defend, and secondly that they probably have a little bit of time to prepare themselves. That's fine, and it's also probably fairly realistic. So long as the scenario actually provides that, then everything is good.

[BeirutDude]

There is nothing wrong with “an unwinnable scenario” from the military point of view. That’s part of life and that’s part of the simulation. However if the designer has done their job even a player in the unwinnable situation can be rewarded with some type of victory based on the victory conditions. I’m working on a Nordkapp 1985 scenario right now and there’s no way Norway is going to win it, But if they do well against the Soviet SAGs and Submarine and sink a few they will achive a “pyrrhic victory.” Conversely if played from the Soviet side they are going to have to achive almost every victory condition to “achive Victory” even though taking Finmark is a given.

[SeaQueen]

I don't know if it's unwinnable (I guess that's for the player of decide), but it's certainly very very difficult, and I think the victory conditions are pretty good.

The way I write victory conditions is on a 100 point scale, representing the percentage of the job completed. The job might be to destroy the chemical weapons facility. Supporting that there might be several tasks including the destruction of the facility itself. It might look like this:

1) Destroy the chemical weapons facility
2) Destroy 30% of the strategic SAM sites defending it
3) Attrite the fighters by 75%

Then I weight each task by what fraction each task contributes to the percentage of the job to be done. It might look like this:

1) Destroy the chemical weapons facility - 50%
2) Destroy 30% of the strategic SAM sites defending it - 25%
3) Attrite the fighters by 75% - 25%

Then I use a LUA script to check periodically if any of those goals have been accomplished. If they have, you get points equal to the percentage of the job done. For a basically defensive scenario, I will start at 100% and then mark down as things you're attempting to defend are damaged or destroyed.

[BeirutDude]

How many points subtracted for a unit (especially high value unit) damaged or destroyed in the process?

[SeaQueen]

It depends. I might phrase a victory condition like "Lose no more than 25% of the allocated TAC AIR," and assign it an appropriate percentage. The idea is that a higher level commander wouldn't judge someone's victory based on whether or not any individual aircraft was lost, so much as they didn't lose too many in the course of accomplishing the task at hand. In terms of high value units, I might add a condition like, "Lose no more than 1 or 2 AWACS" or "Lose no more than 1 or 2 tankers." I then subtract points based on whether or not that condition was satisfied at the end of the scenario. Depending on the scenario it might be as much as 100% (e.g. You accomplished everything, but you lost a CVN or LHD in the process, so it was a completely hollow victory. You lose.)

In naval terms, you might gain points by delivering a group of CLF ships to the designated box. Each one might be worth 25%, if you bring all four to the box, you win! Then you might lose a percentage for losses incurred. If you do something like, "You delivered all 4 CLF ships to the box, but you lost a DDG in the process," I might knock off 33% (for example) for losing the DDG, or 25% for losing an LCS. That way a DDG is worth a little more than a CLF ship, and an LCS is worth less than a DDG, but so long as I get the ships there I still win, and I might be willing to trade an LCS if I can save a CLF. Huuum... that sounds good to me.

Over the course of playing it, sometimes I find situations where the numbers don't quite make intuitive sense, but it can usually be fixed by rethinking the relative values in the context of the scenario.

[BeirutDude]

So in my view a military unit has three values...

1. Its military value to the scenario. This you outlined well and this is where I'm going to say what you outlined is, to me, a game scenario

Now this is where the scenario gets its soul, the other values...

2. Its value in terms of the human life (if any)

So to clarify this. If an FA-18 is shot down the aircraft is worth what, say $25 million and is one of 12 in a squadron. So in military/scenario terms it’s relatively small in consequence but the possible loss of life is not a small thing to the nation. I take us back to the unfortunate shoot down and immolation of the Jordanian pilot. Now how many airstrikes has Jordan launched since that event? Or, an event I was in attendance for, the bombing of the BLT 1/8 HQ in Beirut. We lost 241 brothers with 60 seriously WIA. Yes the mission went on for a few months but that event/loss of life took the will out of the U.S. government to continue the MNF mission. Another example is the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano which IMHO caused the Argentine navy to largely remain in port for the duration of the Falklands war (that and to come to was to die). I could go on but when I factor in victory points into a scenario this is a factor in the decision. Would the loss of this patrol boat mean a lot in terms of the war effort, probably not but the loss of 10 sailors aboard would have a political cost.

3. National Prestige. To me a unit has a value in terms of national prestige which also weighs on it's worth. Again let’s go to that patrol boat, normally its loss would be shrug-able militarily, but what it if had SEAL Team Six aboard, arguably the most famous SEAL Team in the eyes of the public. Now its Victory Point values go way up beyond that of a mere patrol boat. Consider how many times the IGN/Japanese propaganda announced the sinking of the Enterprise and Saratoga! By 1943 and 1944 their value as carriers was greatly reduced with the introduction of the Essex Class but their value in the eyes of both the American and Japanese public were way out of value to their actual military contribution.

Another aspect to back up “national prestige”, why did we repair the Carrier Franklin after WWII? Or the Samuel B Roberts (an easily replaceable OHP)? The Stark (same as the Roberts)? The Princeton (maybe more reason to fix a Tyco in 1992)? Or the Tripoli, when we were getting ready to retire Iwo Jima Class LPHs and could have modified one to take the anti-mine Tripoli’s mission? My take is we weren't giving the enemy (or other enemies) the prestige of having sunk/destroyed an American naval vessel. We can argue the merits of this but I remember the 1980s/90s when it was a well-known secret in the fleet that these vessels were being fixed to keep the Iraqis and Iranians from being able to claim a kill.

So to me these things are some of the intangibles that take a scenario out of the game situation and begin to give it life as a simulation.

[SeaQueen]

I agree with all of that, but a lot of that has to do with the scope of the scenario too. In the cases you brought up, essentially marginal losses had outsized implications broader than the events in the scenario itself. They were so outsized, that they actually effected national policies.

There's multiple levels of warfare, ranging from the tactical to the strategic. You can win tactically over and over again and still lose strategically. One hopes that victory on the lowest levels of warfare contributes to victory on the highest levels, but not always. Sometimes they're decoupled. The Tet Offensive was an operational victory. The US and South Vietnamese forces fought back and recaptured everything that was taken by the Vietcong. At the same time it was a strategic loss, because of the way it was perceived in the US and the subsequent responses of multiple politicians. If I was making a scenario dealing with the Tet Offensive, I wouldn't judge someone's success or failure in a tactical or operational scenario, based on whether or not they achieved a strategic victory.

The reason is that strategic victory or defeat has to do with a lot of things which are beyond the player's control in Command. What is the nation's media strategy? How did they respond to the events? How was their response perceived? What is their strategic message? In a democracy, how prepared is the electorate to accept losses in a given conflict? Was the war sold to the public as "bloodless" or "video game warfare" (e.g. The Balkans or Somalia) or was there months of people telling the public that they should expect 30% casualties before the war happened (e.g. Desert Storm)? Are the nations in conflict democracies at all? How democratic are they (there are degrees of democracy)? Dictatorships can sometimes continue in warfare where democracies can't and vice-a-versa. Dictatorships are often fragile and disintegrate when they're no longer perceived as in control of the country. How credible is the national leadership? If the President is so immersed in scandal that most of the electorate wouldn't believe him if he told them the sky was blue, it might be a tactical or operational win, but people won't care what he says. How legitimate is the leadership of the powers in conflict? If they're not perceived as the legitimate leadership, then they might be winning battle after battle, but the subsequent casualties in their victory contribute to their unpopularity. How strong is their control over the media? Can they hush things up? Does it matter if they have control of the security forces and can just intimidate people into compliance with their agendas? Did the nation start off in favor of the conflict or did the leader enter into it without popular support? How deniable are events? If the Osama bin Laden raid had failed, would anyone have known it occurred? Are there other events going on which are shaping the perception of events? Are other actors spreading competing narratives? How effective and credible are they (e.g. Russian trolls, not very credible but very effective)? I can go on and on. These are all huge questions that would be better played out in another game, probably a very different type of wargame (matrix style?).

In order to bring that kind of thing into a Command scenario, one would need to make some pretty sweeping assumptions about the parties in conflict, the nature of their governments, their national leadership, their culture, the media, the behavior of other external actors, economics, their legitimacy, their control over their nations security forces, their internal politics, etc. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable making that kind of statement in my victory conditions. At some point it doesn't really shed any light on the problem presented by the scenario itself, necessarily, and probably says more about my own personal beliefs. These kinds of national policy questions might shape a Command scenario but they're not the subject of a Command scenario. Nav zones are a great example of that. You might also make a scenario victory condition something like, "Do not damage the historically interesting mosque near the target area," which might impact tactical level choices, like which ordinance to use (maybe I'll attack those guys with APKWS instead of a Mk-84). If you'd play the scenario exactly the same way, though, then it probably shouldn't be in the scenario. You shouldn't create a situation where the player is faced with, "You won! But oh wait! You lost because of things you have no influence over!"

[BeirutDude]

You shouldn't create a situation where the player is faced with, "You won! But oh wait! You lost because of things you have no influence over!"

You need to tell that to Col. Geraghty!

So I'm Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide here, I'm going to give you a hypothetical scenario please tell me how the unit should be valued 0-100 points.

The USS constitution is on a summer cruise with Senior/Master Chiefs and USNA Midshipmen aboard. He is going to Visit Haifa and is 30 miles from port when a major crisis with the Russians breaks out. The Moskva is within range and the USS Cooke is sent to provide protection. What is the value of the USS Constitution and why?

[SeaQueen]

ORIGINAL: BeirutDude

You shouldn't create a situation where the player is faced with, "You won! But oh wait! You lost because of things you have no influence over!"

You need to tell that to Col. Geraghty!

I'm sure he understands the idea well.

So I'm Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide here, I'm going to give you a hypothetical scenario please tell me how the unit should be valued 0-100 points.

The USS constitution is on a summer cruise with Senior/Master Chiefs and USNA Midshipmen aboard. He is going to Visit Haifa and is 30 miles from port when a major crisis with the Russians breaks out. The Moskva is within range and the USS Cooke is sent to provide protection. What is the value of the USS Constitution and why?

100 because if the Constitution is sunk you lose. That's your HVU. End of game.

[BeirutDude]

Those 50 24 and 32 pounders do you make her an awesome piece of machinery! [:D]

[SeaQueen]

ORIGINAL: BeirutDude

Those 50 24 and 32 pounders do you make her an awesome piece of machinery! [:D]

I can't argue with that.

[ExNusquam]

If you'd play the scenario exactly the same way, though, then it probably shouldn't be in the scenario.

What you're describing I've usually heard called Acceptable Risk Level (ARL). Usually it's split as Low/Medium/High, and will often govern operational level employment and possible unit-level TTPs. The ARL would often be set at the higher echelons, with caveats where it can be exceeded. Entrance into a MANPAD WEZ might exceed the ARL for a pre-planned target, but with CAS supporting TIC would flex to a higher ARL in order to employ. A good summary comes out of CNATRA P-825:

Some additional considerations that often arise in planning are:

a. Is target destruction required or desired? “Required” will lead to a higher risk mindset than “desired” and will shape the fighter’s gameplan accordingly.

b. Are friendly losses acceptable? In operations supporting a no-fly zone or other operations other than war, friendly loses are usually not acceptable. In a military operation, fighter losses may be acceptable, especially if target destruction is required or when defending high value assets such as the Carrier Battle Group. This means that your life and that of your crew depends on your ability to plan and execute effectively and with lethality.

c. Are merges acceptable? Often, the answer to this depends on enemy capabilities. Against a highly trained and capable adversary, skate mindset will probably be briefed as preferable to banzai.

The answer to these questions would be generally set above the operational level (and out of C:MANOs scope). One of the nice things about a wargame though, is that you can play with different answers to the questions. What does an operation look like with a higher risk of friendly losses? Civilian casualties? Compressed timelines?

[SeaQueen]

ORIGINAL: ExNusquam
The answer to these questions would be generally set above the operational level (and out of C:MANOs scope).

Sometimes, but not necessarily. They could be set by the scenario designer in the victory conditions (e.g. lose no more than 25% of the available fighters), or by the player based on context. You wear many hats as the player (and as the scenario designer), if the decision makes sense, then make it.

In my Poland scenario, I'm really frustrated by how an SA-21 site covers almost all of Poland. The result is that anything besides 5th gen fighters can't fly until that SAM site is down. Therefore, that SAM site MUST go. Figuring out some scheme to knock it out early is the first task I set for myself, and I'm willing to lose some fighters to do it, because if I don't, nothing else gets out or up to fight back the pending attack. Usually it involves a lot of JASSM and SDB. After that, I can begin the main business of the defense of Poland. That one SAM site sets the pace for everything else.