Sparafucil3

I think the Q&A is wrong. But we live with it

A .50 is not a unit but I bet you would properly point out a unit manning an HMG can interdict out to 16 hexes.

I submitted a Perry Sez on this. There is no Interdiction. You can find it in Klas' collection.

Congratulations Christoffer!

I hope you all have fun. It was hard to choose between Supporting Fire and Bounding Fire, but I have never been to Bounding Fire and that means new people to meet. Perhaps next year. -- jim

Thanks!

My blog doesn't pretend to be able to teach good players how to play the game. I might occasionally surprise you with something but I don't expect that to happen very often, if ever. I am trying to help new players and middle-level players. Thanks for reading though. You are welcome to create and an article and I will post it for you.

I don't think I would add too much traffic (not that many people are reading my blog) but I don't want to create problems for you. -- jim

@CTABKA Do you have a link where your Leaflet House Rules are available outside of this forum? I don't want to flood the forum with people coming to look for the rules. If you do not have a link, do you mind if I post a copy of the most current on my blog? I am writing an article on OBA systems and I will be speaking about yours and I want to direct people to the rules if they would like to try them. I don't think it would be fair to expect them to sign up here, nor would it be fair to the forum members here to have to wade through a bunch of new people. Please let me know. Thanks! -- jim

FWIW, you need to change the wording of your rule too IMO: Red AND Black permanently removed and second red chit is drawn is a dead deck per this. Black OR Red and second red chit is also a dead deck per this. The same logic would hold for RED and/or RED. It is only your example which makes your intent clear. The rule should probably read something like: This is more in line with your example. Just my .02. -- jim

Thanks for letting me know your reasoning. I am working on an OBA article seeking to understand the various methods of altering the double-red issue. The one you use is one sometimes called "Modified Pleva" rules in the the US. Based on all my work, each of the systems are excellent protecting against double red. Each system can still pull nothing but red cards and still get no OBA. Systems that add red cards back into the deck are most likely to suffer from this. As the number of Red Cards becomes equal to half the black cards--for what ever reason--the decks become very chaotic. Adding Red cards to the deck makes this happen quicker. Each of these systems also do a very good job of staying close to the Standard model for 10 turn games or shorter. Systems that ADD Red cards break down from this point, significantly deviating from the Standard model. Which system is best depends on your design decisions. For these decisions, it comes down to your beliefs on how OBA "should" be done and there is no way to measure or quantify that. FWIW, all these systems try to protect the radio so I am not going to speak to that. It is worth noting that LHR won't even let the Radio malfunction, let alone break/X. PLEVA: I spoke with Steve. He had a couple of reasons for his method. First, he wanted to stop the double Red. But second, he didn't want OBA to EVER go away because once it does, the other side starts playing differently. He wanted the player facing OBA to always be under the threat of a new mission. His system accomplishes this. Steve is OK with the added red chits affecting EXTRA CHIT draws. His reasoning is there should be some price to pay for your OBA never going away. Borås: Based on your post, your reasoning sounds much like Steve's for his system. I did not include this system in my last graphic as it is not statistically different from Steve's system. The profile looks much the same and it responds much the same. LHR: Per Melvin's post above, there is a goal of stopping double red from stopping two Fire missions. It does this flawlessly. Melvin also worries about extra red cards effect EXTRA CHIT draws. His system accounts for this too. It is pretty elegant and, IMO, better than schemes which ADD cards to the decks. LHR1B: This system has all the same objectives of the LHR EXCEPT a belief that there should be two FFE at a minimum. Otherwise, it is exactly like the LHR rules. If you want to remain true to the "Standard" distribution of FFE, then LHR1B is the best system out there. If you think there should be 2 FFE, then the LHR is hands down better. If you worry about the effects of extra red cards on extra chit draws, then the LHR-based rules are best in class. If you want the OBA to ALWAYS be a threat, then either RED card addition system will work. The are relatively the same. If I were designing OBA today, I would use LHR1B. It remains truest to the original rules without skewing the resultant number of FFE significantly compared to the standard model. It also sidesteps the extra card problem. I would probably also maintain Melvin's "Radios don't break" position as well. I think that makes a lot of sense for something this critical to the game. Perhaps I would allow the radio to malfunction, make the repair dr 1 - 3/4, and a 6 would not eliminate the radio. But IMO, making OBA even more dicey than it already can be is a bad design decision.

Melvin, Could you write me a couple of sentences about what you were trying to do with your OBA system? What were your goals? What was your intention? What do you want it to accomplish? I am asking because I am going to write an article discussing the merits of all these different OBA systems to expose them to a broader audience. I don't want to misrepresent your intentions. Thanks. -- jim

IMO, you give scenario designers too much credit. I wish scenario designers would publish notes about how the OBA worked in playtesting. So many designers have said "you can win without the OBA". All that does is tell me the scenario is a dog if I get my OBA. Most designers I have met are not good players themselves.

LHR is much like car insurance: just because you didn't need your car insurance doesn't mean you aren't covered against accident. A simple statement like "75% of the time" doesn't cover it either. For ANY deck, the only failing pulls are RED RED, RED BLACK RED, or BLACK RED RED. Any other pull combination will have 2 BLACK before the second RED. So for a 5B/2R deck, the chance of failing to get 2 FFE is about 15%. For an 8B/3R deck its about 15%. For a 10B/3R deck, its about 11%. Now a 5B/3R deck--Russians with Scarce Ammo--has about a 28% chance of NOT/NOT getting 2 FFE. Broadly speaking, every deck which has RED cards < half the number of Black Cards (FRD) is likely below your 75% threshold. Any combination where the number of RED >= half the number of BLACK cards (FRD) is likely above your 75% threshold. Decks where the number of RED cards is equal to half of the BLACK cards come very close to your 75% threshold but are generally below it. Again, broadly speaking, unless the deck is inflicted with Scarce Ammo, the chances of using protection against the three bad sequences is generally below 15%. Of all the rules I have examined WRT OBA, the LHR are by far the best I have seen. I intend to adopt them in my game play with the modification for 1 BLACK chit I outlined above. To me, that is the perfect balance between protecting against 2 RED cards without making OBA more effective than the standard model.

There is no doubt there are many things that can't be accounted for in a simulation. The real game is too complex. Accounting for those differences and the model are up to the player. After all, your second chit is not of much use if it too, shatters off target, or suffers a string of bad DR, results in no effect. I am not trying to measure results. Imagine all the possible combinations of TEM and OBAs column alone. Then add in LOS requirements, conversion requirements, accuracy DR's, malfunction DR, and any other rule applicable and it becomes impossible to predict the outcomes. That way lays madness. I am trying to measure opportunities (BLACK Cards drawn) and show the possible range of outcomes measured in possible fire missions for those conditions. What all of that means and how it gets integrated into an ASL game is on the player. Thanks everyone for the reasoned discussion. Much appreciated. -- jim

So backing up my last post, here is one final table comparing Standard, LHR, LHR (allowing 1 BLACK), and Pleva Rules. Over long the long haul, the Pleva rules are unbalancing. The tipping point is somewhere between 8 and 15 turns. I do not know for sure if that tipping point is also deck dependent. The effect of adding cards on additional draws is also bad. The LHR do a good job of remaining close to the Standard rules for all ranges but one: 1 FFE fire mission. That is by design. But that design causes some variance relative to the Standard model. It does an EXCELLENT job making sure you get at least one mission (something like 1 in 10 billion chance to not get at least one). But in pushing for at least two missions, it does skew the expected missions to the right. You can see that in the graph below. The LHR +1B (using the LHR but allowing for only 1 Black). Is exceptionally close to the Standard model. You can clearly see how the Pleva model falls apart on long games.

They are close. They are nearly identical when you allow for one BLACK rather than forcing two. IMO, the best OBA system would be one which used the LHR and allowed for a minimum of 1 BLACK card. Any second Red before the FIRST BLACK get's shuffled back into the deck. Any SECOND RED after one or more BLACK cards ends the module. I can now show that empirically. Interestingly, this is effectively the same as saying "First Card is automatically Black" by SSR. -- jim

I know WHY they were created. I haven't talked about that because I agree with the reasoning and I thought it self evident. However, IMO saying the only comparison that matters is comparing the zero fire mission chance isn't fair at all. Take a look at the 8 turn game I showed above and look at the distribution of zero, one, two, three and four plus fire missions. There are nearly 14% more three mission games using the Pleva and Carlsson/Borås variant. The Carlsson/Borås is even worse in the 4+ mission line. Your Leaflet rules how ever show a very similar distribution to the Standard module in the three- and four plus mission lines. I would bet the 2 mission line would be very close too if you allowed the module to expire after 1 Black instead of 2 Black. IMO, for games under 6 turns long, any of these systems are pretty much interchangeable. The Pleva and Carlsson/Borås systems don't eliminate the chance of a RED card--which is their stated intention--but they do GREATLY diminish the likelihood. In that respect, both of these system CAN--but rarely will--fail with their stated intention. But at about 8 turns, the Leaflet system begins to emerge as the better system. I was pretty sure the "add RED cards" strategy would break down over time. Now I know where that is. I was not sure ANY system would be close to the Standard model but I now know that's false. The Leaflet system is a damn good change. I will try to run a comparison allowing elimination of the model after the first BLACK to see if it is even closer.

Here is an 8B / 3R deck. Also, because of the way random numbers are generated in python, I can force the same string of numbers from one test run to the next. As such, the ONLY difference between one run and the next is the changing of the test parameters. The allows me to see the difference the parameter makes and not have to worry about the vagaries of random numbers being different from one run to the next. Also, let me explain the Borås deck just in case. It is similar to the Pleva mod except it starts shuffling 2 RED cards back into the deck on the SECOND RED card, not the first like the original. My group used to calls this "MOD PLEVA". Klas explained it to me as the Borås method so I use that term here. In the 6 turn comparison, all of the methods are fairly close to the Standard deck and they all do a good job of protecting against zero missions. In the 8 turn column, all of the variations are pushing the limits of "fairly close" to the Standard deck. They are close to being no good. This is particularly telling in the Three Missions and Four Plus Mission rows of the data. The Borås method in particular seems to be more deadly. Perhaps later I will run some experiments to see where these models might break down. The longer the game goes, the more the Leaflet method should be preferred though. It is the closest to the Standard rules in the 15 turn game so it's deviation from Standard will be the lowest over the long run. Melvin: would you be open to some errata on your Leaflet rules? The first sentence of rule 11 should read: When attempting Battery Access for an OBA Module and no more than one black and/or red chit(s) have been permanently removed from the Draw Pile and the second permanently-removed red chit is drawn, return it to the Draw Pile instead, and that ends the Observer’s OBA actions for that Player Turn .. The "and/or" there means the deck should end on 1B and 1R which is clearly not your intent.

No simulation is perfect. There are assumptions being made to simplify actual game play. For instance, I don't think there is any way to accurately reflect the decision to convert or not convert. There is no accounting for LOS or extra card draws. I have no mechanism to account for radio malfunction and repair. How often should I cancel and FFE:1 and start a more important fire missions? Those are things you'll have to factor in on your own. Any judgements I made on their game impact would just be more assumptions clouding the results. My biggest desire was to explore the idea of chit draws inside the concept of the game turns, something all the previous literature ignores. When doing that, all of the systems are reasonably close to the Standard rules so as to be considered the same. The Leaflet rules are the best at protecting against zero mission games. The Borås rules due a better job of adhering to the the frequency of the Standard rules. The Borås rules and Leaflet Rules also protect to the composition of the deck when it comes to extra card draw possibilities. I am not trying to change anyone's mind. All of these systems are close enough together so as to be the same within some narrow margin of error. Any of the modifications do an excellent job of preventing ZERO fire missions for a double RED. After that, it all comes down to taste, and there is no accounting for that in any kind of simulation.

Hey guys. I have been doing some thinking on OBA and Klas pointed me to this thread (and Google translate helped too ). I too proofed the article Klas mentioned earlier and I recently re-read the Medrow's article. What strikes me about the upcoming article and Medrow's is they speak in terms of "card pulls" without explaining or considering what that ACTUALLY means. A BLACK card represents THREE player turns of activity (at least). On the first player turn, you draw a card, you place an AR, and resolved to an SR. On the second player turn, you convert the SR to an FFE:1, resolve it, and flip to to an FFE:2. On player turn 3, you resolve the FFE:2 and flip to an FFE:C. Finally, on player turn 4, you can draw another card. To pull 6 BLACK cards takes AT LEAST 18 player turns, a FULL 9 turn game. As such, both of these articles are a little divorced from the game's realities. So I wrote some python code to simulate the games. What you see below is what I see. First, the assumptions: I am not considering situations that require an extra card draw I am not worrying about accuracy, or break down for radios or phones I am assuming the player is smart enough to place his AR in LOS Looking at the image, Game Length is in FULL ASL terms. Yes, 15 is a lot of turns but you need long games to get to the "mathematically expected games" which are determined using "card pulls" Contact Num -- the number to roll <= for Contact. The script does account for the Maintenance DRM The script does account for loss of Contact when conducting actions Conversion Rate: this is a randomizing factor for conversion from SR to FFE:1. Where is 100, assumes you convert EVERY chance you get. Where it is 50, it assumes you would convert it 50% of the time or move it 50% of the time. IMO, 50% is too high but I am not sure what a more realistic number is for it. Black Cards is the number of Black Cards drawn on average. Zero through 4+ is the number of FFE:1's placed. On the Zero mission line, you can see things like .01 (7). This means .01% of 100K games resulted in zero missions. The number (7) is the actual number of games. Only a 5 Black/2 Red deck is being considered here. With those constraints, you can see the Leaflet rules are hands down better for long games. The correlate very closely to the Standard Rules. But those "Long Games" are 15 turns here. When we consider more realistic games (6 and 8 turns), the numbers become much more consistent across all the systems. In the 6 - 8 range, I think the Borås system is actually closer to the Standard rules. Each system is close in terms of Black cards, but the Borås system matches the zero/one/two/three/four plus mission total more closely than the other three. Again, this is just a 5B / 2R deck. I plan on completing 8B / 3R with a Contact Num of 8 (standard German) and then the American 10B / 3R (contact 8 ) tomorrow. After that, I may do all of the card draw possibilities. but only under "game conditions" . -- jim