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Tactical Decision Games

Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 7:06 am
by 41spoons
Not sure how well known these are, but Warhammer Empire (the Empire forum) had a set of games run by some of the tactical masterminds on their forum. These decision games were basically the forum voting on army lists, deployment, movement, magic, etc. They always had an Empire "team" and an opposing "team" made up of forum members. They are interesting reads that allow you to think about tactics from another person's perspective. They really make you put your thinking cap on, and I feel that they could improve everyone's game, and drum up some excitement in the forum.

Here is an excerpt from Warhammer Empire:

What are all these Tactical Decision Game (TDG) threads that you see filling up the Tactica Board’s page? You have come to the right place for the answer.

Militaries use Tactical Decision Games as a way to train intelligence personnel and operators on their tradecraft of warfighting. A tactical problem is posed, time is given for choosing the best course of action based on the situation, and then it is discussed.

This methodology has been applied to Empire in Warhammer. Each TDG premiers a matchup between Empire and another army. The battle is stopped at key points and forum members are invited to discuss the best way forward at that point. Then the battle is fast-forwarded to another set of decisions.

Each TDG conducted has been a little different. Sometimes multiple teams have been formed and competed against each other facing a common foe….sometimes teams are formed to play the good guys and the bad guys. We try and strive to make each TDG a little different to keep up interest and to make it fun.

If teams are formed, the goal is not to “win,” but to share ideas and learn. TDGs are a great way to bridge the gap between normal tacticas that provide the “how to” beat an enemy and places like the Elector’s Forum where specific questions on tactics are answered. TDGs cover the middle ground- providing numerous scenarios of units facing each other that allow things to be learned that tacticas and normal forum posts don’t provide.


So as you can see, this is a very neat idea, and I haven't seen the equivalent on this forum (unless I missed it). The major catch is that it is a HUGE undertaking by the people who run it. Holy Hand Grenade did them on the empire forum and I can't even imagine how much work/time he put in, but they seem like they went over very well and people had a lot of fun with it.

Any way we could pull this off? Or has this been done before and I couldn't find it? I'd be willing to help in any way that I could. It might be too big of an undertaking, but I think it could be a great way to improve our understanding of the game, learn more about our armies as well as our opponents, etc.

Thoughts?

Re: Tactical Decision Games

Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 9:13 am
by Daeron
I think it's a terrific idea, and though I didn't follow the Empire forum a lot, I did look upon those threads almost with envy. They were simply great, though overwhelming at first.
I have no idea how much work it would require to start such an initiative... so I have no idea if it's feasible.

Would it be possible to launch such an initiative in cooperation with the Empire forum? They probably have a wealth of experience and know-how there. If they are available for such cooperation, we could learn a lot from them.

Re: Tactical Decision Games

Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 11:26 am
by 41spoons
That's a great idea and may be the best place to start. The guy that ran them, HHG, hasn't done one in a while if I'm not mistaken, but if we can get some interest on this forum and propose it to Warhammer empire, then we could maybe get it going.

Calisson might be a good "go between" if he has any interest since I'm pretty sure he's a member on that forum. He has a really great article stickied there about the balance and tactics of making an Empire list (a very good read if you haven't read it).

I think this idea combines a lot of what makes a Warhammer forum great. It has a social aspect, tactics, learning, understanding other viewpoints, etc. If we compete with another forum, all the better. It would give us a chance to pick the brains of the "greats" of another army. I'm by no means a "great" druchii (I'm actually pretty new to 8th and DE in general), but it's events like this that could make us all "great" or at least headed down the right path.

We should probably find out if there is enough interest on this forum before we reach out, but if enough people would like to try, I'll be more than happy to do my part to make it happen.

Re: Tactical Decision Games

Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 11:37 am
by Amboadine
Does sound like a good idea in principle. I will take a look at the Empire forum to get a better idea of the scope of one of these threads.

I am wondering if we could build on Daeron's idea of a collaborative effort, as a learning as to what is involved in conducting these tactical games, in effect Druchii.net becomes the 'opposition' team to the Empire forum. We give a consolidated feedback on how we would proceed and counter versus the Empire forums feedback.

I am certain there would be more than enough input from members here to make this a viable subject.

Re: Tactical Decision Games

Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 12:25 pm
by 41spoons
Here are some links to a TDG against a druchii list. In this particular game, they ran 2 different empire lists against the same DE list (a bit too much to keep up with imo). I feel like 1 list vs. 1 list is plenty. Still a great read, but we'd want to start with the 1v1. These give a good idea of what one of these would look like (just doubled) essentially

In order:

http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=43768.0

http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=43814.0

http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=43856.0

http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=43862.0

http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=43878.0

http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=43914.0

http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=43946.0

http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=43978.0

Hope I posted the links right...

Re: Tactical Decision Games

Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:57 pm
by Red...
These initiatives are always good in theory, but require a huge amount of commitment from folk in terms of time and energy. Without that, it just fizzles. So the operative question is less can it be done, but more does D.Net have enough contributors willing to take on that burden? For me, sadly not. But good luck if it does go ahead :)