Federation Commander

[JimDauphinais]

[JimDauphinais]

The matchups for the 4th and Final Round are as follows:

[mojo jojo]

Jim,

I'm curious about the details of a Gorn/Hydran draw. That's not a matchup that seems likely to end in a draw.

[The_Rock]

T1: I move 24, Jim moves 8, but cancels all his movement. Launches an R-torp.

T2: I move 24, he moves 8, but again cancels all but one of his moves. He launches 4 S, 4 F and fires some phasers. I evade the torps. Near the end of the turn, he launches a total of 6 Suicide Shuttles.

T3: I move 24, he moves 0. Near the beginning of the turn, he launches the rest of his Suicide Shuttles - a total of 14. I leave.

T4: I move 24, he moves 0. I destroy a bunch of his shuttles.

T5: I move 16, he moves 0. I destroy the rest of his Shuttles.

T6: I move 24, he moves 0. I close to force launches. I offer to continue past the 6-turn limit. This offer is declined, so the game ends as a draw, neither of us having damaged the other.

At this point the game can last another 2-3 turns. T7 will involve him launching about half his torps to keep me away. I will evade/gattling them. T8 will be the same. T9 will be me over-running and destroying all three ships. The outcome was certain, so I was not surprised when Jim declined to play past the 6-turn limit.

[mojo jojo]

Interesting. A Hydran fusion fleet might be the only one where a Gorn/Rom can hide in a corner and get away with this strategy.

1) Another Plasma/Drone race would be suicide hiding in a corner

2) A Dis/PC/IC/PPD/Hellbore race can carve them up over 6 turns at long range

3) Andros can easily get a few internals at long range while taking damage that's easy to dissipate

4) Feds are a little trickier, but I have to believe that even if they only get to range 12, they would still win an exchange of Phot/PH-1/Drones over just PH-1 alone for the Gorn/Rom

[The_Rock]

I think you over-estimate the abilities of the other Empires.

"A few internals" is not going to cut it.

Excerpted from the victory conditions:

If the point totals differ by more than 30 points, the player
with the lower total "loses" the battle. If the player with the
higher total has earned at least 150 victory points, he "wins" the
battle, otherwise he earns a "draw" (the other player still earns a
"loss").

So, a "few internals" remaining at the end of the game on at least 300 points of ships (assuming points are "the same" - they won't be, so there is some wiggle here) will put your opponent into the "loss" category, but it won't get you out of a draw. When squadrons get to 450 points, to get the +150 points you need to get a win, you are going to have to destroy 1/3rd of the fleet, or cripple 2/3rds of it.

This is just not very likely with any fleet - with the possible exception of a lucky Fed/Orion at R8 - against a plasma opponent playing for a Draw.

I agree with your comment as to playing against other plasma, but everything else is probably do-able. Against a Drone heavy force - mostly really only Kzinti, but some Klingon forces as well - you are in a better position to defend the drones if you are not moving. Your plasma and one-time horde of SS will still keep the opponent away.

There is no way your category 2 fleets will do anything to a squadron of plasma ships with no power concerns and 5-8 batteries per ship. there will certainly be no "carving up" over only 5 turns (the first turn in a tournament game, where one person is just sitting, sees range 25 at best and EM is available to make that worthless if deemed necessary). over 20 turns - maybe. But not over 5 effective firings (or worse yet, 3 for all those multi-turn arming weapons you listed).

If all you are doing is playing for a draw (or a win if your opponent decides to ram himself down your throat), a Loss/Draw, with a Draw/Draw being more likely, is pretty much your best case scenario in a 6 turn tournament game.

[mojo jojo]

Ok, didn't read the victory conditions. I didn't realize you needed 150. Having to make up 150 to get a win would be tough. 30 would be very doable.

1) Plasma I think we both agree would slaughter Gorn in corner.

2) Kzinti can get 24+ drones in the air with a typical 450 pt force. That should tie up the Gorn phasers at the very least. 3 ships can typically do 2-3 burnthrough in all except turn 1 on average since each ship probably has 4 dis and 4-6 PH1 which averages over 10 pts of damage at range 15. So you should be able to inflict 10-15 internals over the course of 6 turns just on burnthroughs which should be faster than he can repair. If you reach range 10, you can target weapons to make his repair more difficult. On turns where the drone wave hits, the 3rd Kzinti ship that's not targetted by plasma can get the range 8 shot and inflict even more damage.

However if you concentrate on 1 ship, you can get better results. His small ships are HDDs which have 3 batteries each, so he can block 9 per turn from 3 ships. Your ships do 12-14 on average at range 15, leaving 9-11 damage net per ship, even more for a ship that reaches range 8. 3 ships would do in the high 20's of net damage per turn from turns 2-6. I don't think a HDD can stand up to this punishment even if he constantly rotates shields. Other than his 1 shield, he only has 24 shields in each direction and eventually the damage will start degrading his ability to defend drones and maintain a plasma threat against a close approach.

3) Klingons would have to follow Kzinti strategy except they have fewer drones and thus might not risk 1 ship at range 8 since the Gorn might be able to fire back effectively.

4) Lyrans/Selts have more PH-1 so a higher net damage per round. A Lyran force at range 15 can average 14-16 per volley or 11-13 net after batteries to a HDD. A Selt force of DNL and 2 NCA has an astounding 11 PC and 30 PH-1. The HDD is completely toast over several turns.

5) ISC would have an easy time. Their fleet would hae 3-4 PPD plus plasma. Even without plasma, 3-4 PPD and about 20 PH1 should be able to damage a Gorn fleet at range 15 enough to win. With plasma, it's a cakewalk. IMO, they have the best chance at the 150 pt victory condition.

6) A Hellbore fleet likely has 12 HB, or 36 shots over 6 turns plus lots of misc PH shots. I can't see a HDD stand up to that kind of punishment.

7) The most likely Andro fleet is Int + 2 Cob. What they can do is to use a displacement attempt at Gorn ships and hope to draw it out of the corner by a decent number of hexes. If that succeeds, they should be able to inflict enough damage to win. It helps that the Int has 2 DDs, but there are only 2 directions that benefit the Andro for the displacement attempt.

Fed/Vudar have to get lucky with a range 8 shot. They tend to have lots of PH-1 to chew up Plasma, so they might be able to get to range 8 and unload Phot/IC without taking significant internals.

Bottom line, they might not get a win, but they can assuredly give the opponent a loss. And 20 turns seems like an unbelievably long time to defend against my Cat 2 fleets.

[The_Rock]

Yes, to most of the above, but none of those scenarios get you a win. They get your opponent a loss and you a draw. It is what I said would be your best case scenario.

If you are trying to win the tournament in most situations that is not going to matter much. In some cases, giving your opponent a loss might be worse, since that means you are adding a "0" to your tie breaker, rather than a "1".

I don't think those are the sorts of calculations that benefit a tournament.

[mojo jojo]

Well, the Rom/Gorn/ISC would win against a Rom/Gorn hiding in a corner. But I understand your point. However, most of these scenarios guarantee a loss for the Rom/Gorn hiding in a corner. A rational Rom/Gorn simply wouldn't use this strategy except against a Hydran fusion fleet or maybe an Andro fleet. Not unless he was determined to screw his opponent rather than trying to maximize his record in a tournament or perhaps try and help a buddy who has close to the same record as his opponent.

The fix might be to not have a 150 pt minimum to win. If you get 30 more than your opponent, you win and he loses. I think you still need the 30 minimum since fleets are of different point values and otherwise a fleet of 449 pts would have a small advantage over a 450 pt fleet. This fix might not help in the Gorn/Hydran matchup, but it should fix everything else.

[storeylf]

[The_Rock]

To me the only thing missing is a system of adjudication. I don't think points are a good way of dealing with things. I am, personally, not fond of turn or time limits, either, but I accept I may be in the minority there. As flawed as the adjudication system for SFB tournaments may be, having produced some controversial results over the years, it is still a lot better than a turn limit + points.

there are a host of odd things that happen or to which the TL+points is susceptible. There are games like the one in question - the actual outcome was never in doubt, only the time to execute it. There are also other odd situations. If I am a plasma player, for example, and I have played stand-off most of the game, and it is now turn 6. Since the game ends on turn 6 - why no just go for a range 10 bolt shot bananza and hope things work out.Chances are very good my opponent can't really respond in time and if I get lucky, maybe I can pull off a win. This is true of a bunch of other situations - all involving firing multi-turn arming weapons in a situation where they are not tactically warranted - in fact where doing so would be affirmatively a bad choice - but for the game artificially ending.

An adjudication system solves all of those oddities. You can leave the draw in (since we play swiss) so that the judges don't actually have to make hard calls - that should eliminate some (probably not all, or even most) of the controversy you'll find in people disagree about the right result. It allows for the judges to listen to the future plans of the players and then decide for themselves who is most likely to win. Again, the draw will be available for calls the judges feel are too close to make and while there will undoubtedly be some disagreements, it will still be better than what we have now.

It will also allow the judges to specifically discourage completely defensive play. Again, here, some judges will likely have a different take on what is or is not aggressive, but again, I think there will be a broad consensus in may cases.

In SFB, in my many many years of playing tournament SFB, I have only been in a very small handful of adjudications. Usually the players work it out for themselves. In SFBOL tournaments, this is more often than not resolved by just playing the game to completion, but for those that hit the time limit (or in this tournament's case - turn limit) and do not wish to play further, adjudication would be an option.

[storeylf]

Personally I woudn't play if there were any subjective opinion about winning/losing, and that is what adjudication is. Time/Turn limit and points is very clear and objective, everyone can work out what they need to do and how different matchups may or may not work out given those very clear conditions. We know up front what we have to do to win, and how long we have to do it, and can choose a squadron and tactics accordingly.

Neither would I consider playing in a system that got you disqualified for using tactics that someone didn't like. If someone is playing defensively and you can't beat it then accept the defeat/draw. If I want the points for a win then I should actually have to win, not complain to a judge and get into some argument with the other player who probably disagrees.

Then of course you get to the issues of who decides what was 'non-aggressive', that issue has come up before in discussion about plasma, why is launch and running whilst rearming potentially 'non-aggressive' and banned when fire photons and run is not? Or running from an overloaded photon ship 'non-agressive' whilst running from plasma is not. (Rhetorical question, can be a different thread if someone wants to discuss that sort of detail).

As to the odd scoring. Either get the rid of the possibility of draw-loss or change the points to:
0 = loss
1 = draw-draw
2 = draw - loss
3 = win

Which rewards handing the other player a loss at least. I favor getting rid of draw-loss personally.

[The_Rock]

Personally, no matter what system is used, I never like arguing from or against "I'm going to take my ball and go home."

[storeylf]

The ball isn't mine to take home. Other people come with the ball and I decide whether I want to play that particular ball game.

For a tourney/league/competition I just prefer games where both sides know upfront precisely what they have to do to win, and that there are going to be no third parties handing out win/loss based on their own subjective assessment. When I say prefer, I mean I'm not interested in an adjudicated game at all.

[JimDauphinais]

The issue from the game Paul and I played is now revealed (it is the issue I previously indicated would be discussed in a future topic).

Paul has fairly accurately laid out what happened in our game.

I don't feel my play crossed the line of being too passive until the last 3 turns where I should have been pursuing Paul's ships rather than sitting in place to reload Plasma. However, I do think with only 6 turns the ability to dump out tons of suicide shuttles with no reprecussions (sp?) is problematic in the tournament.

However, let us move that discussion to a new feedback topic so that we can have this one get back on topic.

The new topic is here:

http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=3769
_________________
Jim Dauphinais, Chesterfield, MO

St. Louis Area Fed Comm Group: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/STL_Federation_Commander/