Chances of Winning

[markn]

It think part of the problem is that you never have two players of the exact same skill to judge the effectiveness of a fleet. The only real solution to that is to sit down and play with yourself.

I'm not so sure about that either. I think the best we can do is a consensus. If a lot of people point out an imbalance, odds are there will be some weight behind it.

In my neck of the woods Whitestar and I actually talk about how to help the other player whether its ship choices, manuevers or what have you. We actually have 2 sets of eyes for each fleet and try to do the best tactic for that fleet. This is one of the ways we test things. If I miss something, he may not. Granted this isn't perfect and it kind of why a consensus would be beneficial. The louder the screaming, the more likely it will get looked at. The only thing is, we need some constructive, effective way of baselining what is working and what MAY not be working.

At this point I also want to send kudos to Mongoose for always listening to everyone on the boards!

 

[markn]

markn,

I've played EA vs Centauri many, many times. Bad match-up. Full arc beams vs boresight just ain't fair, largely due to one fleet's ability to go on CAF! while the other dances around trying to line up a boresight.

I've played EA vs Minbari and run into roughly the same issue. Stealth is ugly, but you can get around it. The main problem here is being able to do enough damage when you do get through.

I've played Minbari vs Centauri which is actually a good match-up. The Centauri have a great, low-cost scout, a fighter that can go toe-to-toe with the Nial in a dogfight, and enough firepower to make a difference when they do get past Stealth.

I've played Vorlons vs Shadows and seen the same thing you have. Medium ranged weapons plus poor turning plus limited fire arc equals dead Vorlons.

I've played Shadows vs Vree and that's just really painful for the Shadows. Shadows can jump anywhere they like, but the Vree turrets are going to find them.

I've played Vree vs pretty much everybody and despite their fragility, they are one of the more brutal fleets in the game.

I've played combined League (Drazi, Vree, Abbai, Brakiri) vs Centauri and found that the combined League is a force to be reconed with except for the Drazi. I'd have done much better putting my one Battle point of Drazi elsewhere.

I've played Abbai vs most everyone. Again, a good solid fleet. They definitely have an achilles heel in their short range, but a smart admiral can get around that. In the one game of Abbai vs Vorlons that I got in, the Abbai wiped the Vorlons out with little trouble.

The Drazi, are, in fact, the one fleet I haven't really played with or against, but that's largely because nobody here has been foolish enough to waste their money on them. Overall the only two fleets that I'm worried about in terms of their being just a waste are Vorlons and Drazi. In every other case, the problems narrow down to one or two ships here or there that you just have to scratch your head at. A Tashkat is worth a War point? An Omega is the workhorse of the EA? A Corvan is a Patrol? The Torotha is the best the Minbari can come up with at Skirmish?

Great post, very constructive. Thanks B5freak.

 

[demonllamma]

Demonllama, please play a 5 point raid game with you as the vorlons and someone else (lets say Triggy for example) as the Shadows. Play 10 games if you have the time. Tell me how confident you are in your statement after that.

I really believe that your statement can apply to a lot of the B5 fleets but not to every fleet and not to every engagements. I also think imbalances happens a bit too much. If people can provide examples, like a previous poster did with the vree and minbari and brakiri/minbari then everyone has something constructive to consider. This is the first step for an improvement.

I think the other issue that really muddies the waters so to speak, is that most players only have experience with one or two fleets and only against one or two fleets. If they are balanced then you hear that everything is fine. Other people see different matchups that may not be balanced and it is those people who claim it isn't balanced. To a major degree, tactics and ship choices play a part but there is also the likelihood that there is an issue of balance in those matchups. Try my suggestion above and lets see what happens. The whole point is to try to identify if there is a badly balanced matchup, not whether there is balance or a lack of balance as that argument will never have an ending.

Personally, the only fleets I have not played are Drazi, Dilgar and Drakh. I think I have somehting against the letter d..... anyhow. For pickup games, we generally roll for PL or play 5 raid (most often we roll for it). I have played at least a half dozen games with every other fleet, and with my primary fleets, far more. And do you know what? I lose about half my games with every fleet I play! ASTONISHING! What the issue seems to be is that sometimes one fleet has a whopping 5% advantage over one specific fleet in one specific scenario while at the same time, if it was a lower/higher point game, the other fleet would have the same advantage. The arguments that I see are nonissues for me. Sorry, a minor advantage (yes, they are ALL minor advantages) does not 'ruin' game balance. The game is designed to be random point based from game to game, ergo it must be balanced accross several games, not just one. The tourney lists are an attempt to balance things at 5 raid. They are successful on the whole, however, when playing a random point/PL game, you should have variances. This is my oppinion, and you are more than welcome to have your own. I just don't like hearing that "I have no chance of winning if we roll too high on the PL chart." That's crap. It is a cop out because you don't want to face a more difficult situation. If you want a game where everything is the same, use the tourney lists and only play five raid.

 

[l33tpenguin]

Since I can't seem to make a real table in here, this will have to work. Provide your input based on your experiance. Deciding fleet is based on the side column. Responces are
Unk - unknown which side has the definitive advantage
Win - This side is almost always going to be victorious
Los - This side will almost always lose any fight between the two
Evn - A rather even match up, determined more by ship selection and player experiance
i.e.

----|Sha|Vor
Vor Los |Evn

Yes, some use of spaces might be required to keep the table lined up. stupid non standard sized characters. anyone know how to put this into a table for us to do or use a font like terminal?

----|Abb|Bra|Cen|Dil|Drk|Drz|Ear|ISA|Min|Nar|Rai|Sha|Vor|Vre
Abb
Bra
Cen
Dil
Drk
Drz
Ear
ISA
Min
Nar
Rai
Sha
Vor
Vre

 

[markn]

I just don't like hearing that "I have no chance of winning if we roll too high on the PL chart." That's crap. It is a cop out because you don't want to face a more difficult situation. If you want a game where everything is the same, use the tourney lists and only play five raid.

Fair enough but there is a number of people who have different feelings on this matter. Thanks for your input though....

PS - I don't expect everyone to agree with me.... :wink:

 

[CRC]

just use the CODE tag.

like this

 o| |o
 x|x|o
 x| |

 

[Ripple]

Two things that add to this...

We have vastly different experiences of the game based on the figures being used and the base sizes. I've found that using counters and FA scale figures allows me to have vastly more supporting fire from wingman and short range weapons. I didn't believe this would be much of an issue until I started to actually play it. Even maneuver becomes vastly more uniform as two ships boresighting the same hull don't have to be 3 to 4 inches apart (and thus on drastically different courses). The effectiveness of my abbai and drazi ships are much better with the smaller bases. I'm curently working with a borrowed Narn fleet and my vorlons to see if it applies to them as well.

Second is the scenarios being played. full campaign list vs the abbreviated trounament list will yield drastically different results in win loss records and those totals will differ from a true campaign account where victory can be achieved but cost you the campaign due to the number of ships lost.

Sean

 

[markn]

Two things that add to this...

We have vastly different experiences of the game based on the figures being used and the base sizes. I've found that using counters and FA scale figures allows me to have vastly more supporting fire from wingman and short range weapons. I didn't believe this would be much of an issue until I started to actually play it. Even maneuver becomes vastly more uniform as two ships boresighting the same hull don't have to be 3 to 4 inches apart (and thus on drastically different courses). The effectiveness of my abbai and drazi ships are much better with the smaller bases. I'm curently working with a borrowed Narn fleet and my vorlons to see if it applies to them as well.

Second is the scenarios being played. full campaign list vs the abbreviated trounament list will yield drastically different results in win loss records and those totals will differ from a true campaign account where victory can be achieved but cost you the campaign due to the number of ships lost.

Sean

I think these are valid points. I'd like address your second point a bit. I agree that your results will be varied from the 2 lists. My personal preference (and by no means do I think this is the only way to do it) is to start with balanced fleets (which the tourney list seems more balanced IMO than SFOS) and then alter the campaign game to suit the needs of the fleets being designed a specific way. In fact, my group (me and whitestar) allow extrapolations of SFOS ships that don't exist in the tourney lists but use the tourney list as a basis for those ships.

Once the core fleets are working smoothly, campaign rules should be written around the fleets, not vice versa.

 

[Triggy]

Demonllama, please play a 5 point raid game with you as the vorlons and someone else (lets say Triggy for example) as the Shadows. Play 10 games if you have the time. Tell me how confident you are in your statement after that.

LOL, being used as an example of tactical ability now...my job as an icon is nearly complete. As you say, so long as the commander is tactically competent, certain matchups are doomed almost from the start. However, thankfully there aren't many of these sorts of permutations.

What I would like to see is as suggested elsewhere in this thread and that's a pooling of suggestions for ship/fleet balance. I tend toward suggestions on individual ship balance as I believe most (if not all) fleets are fundamentally balanced but with one or two ships being too good or too bad for their PL. These can kill a fair list though such as the universally accepted Shadow Hunter and EA Sagittarius being overpowered and the Vorlon Heavy Cruiser, Drazi Solarhawk and Centauri Vorchan being at least a little underpowered (whether through hit points, manoeuvrability or firepower).

I'll be doing some number work over the next few days and coming up with some suggestions (all also using my gaming experience, having used every fleet using tournament lists at least once and several of them many, many times). I have my own suggestions for the Hunter, Sagittarius, Vorlon Heavy and Light Cruisers, each doing something small but significant and I'll look through the other lists to see what can be done and get feedback from you all.

 

[markn]

Demonllama, please play a 5 point raid game with you as the vorlons and someone else (lets say Triggy for example) as the Shadows. Play 10 games if you have the time. Tell me how confident you are in your statement after that.

LOL, being used as an example of tactical ability now...my job as an icon is nearly complete. As you say, so long as the commander is tactically competent, certain matchups are doomed almost from the start. However, thankfully there aren't many of these sorts of permutations.

What I would like to see is as suggested elsewhere in this thread and that's a pooling of suggestions for ship/fleet balance. I tend toward suggestions on individual ship balance as I believe most (if not all) fleets are fundamentally balanced but with one or two ships being too good or too bad for their PL. These can kill a fair list though such as the universally accepted Shadow Hunter and EA Sagittarius being overpowered and the Vorlon Heavy Cruiser, Drazi Solarhawk and Centauri Vorchan being at least a little underpowered (whether through hit points, manoeuvrability or firepower).

I'll be doing some number work over the next few days and coming up with some suggestions (all also using my gaming experience, having used every fleet using tournament lists at least once and several of them many, many times). I have my own suggestions for the Hunter, Sagittarius, Vorlon Heavy and Light Cruisers, each doing something small but significant and I'll look through the other lists to see what can be done and get feedback from you all.

Sounds good Triggy!

 

[Trotsky]

B5 Freak wrote:

I've played EA vs Centauri many, many times. Bad match-up. Full arc beams vs boresight just ain't fair, largely due to one fleet's ability to go on CAF! while the other dances around trying to line up a boresight.

A friend of mine has and I have also played EA vs. Centauri a few times. Two times in particular stick in my mind. Both times he was Centauri and I was EA and we were playing Air superiority. The first game (5 pt. raid using SFOS rules, second fight of a campaign, I believehe had a couple of Sulusts, a Darkner, and 2 Maximus, I had 2 Hyperions, 2 Olympuses, and a Nova). He slaughtered me because of placement. I basically put teh Hyperions where I should have put teh Olympuses.

Second game was 5 pt. Battle. He had an Octurion, 2 Sulusts (both with the 2 maximus escort other duties), a Darkner and a Balvarix. I had 2 Omegas, a Hyperion, a Chronos, and a Warlock. I place my fleets much better this time, keeping out of his arcs for the first turn (the Chronos and Warlock were in hyperspace). I jump in on his ass the first turn, line up on the Octurion. The Omegas slowly snipe the octurion while the Chronos weakens the Sulusts. I slaughter him, losing only one Omega.

There are definitely unfair matchups in this game, but I personaly don't think Centauri vs. EA is one of them. Of note, this is the first time any of my ships had survived a battle in the campaign (horrible, horrible luck) and so, while most of his had had refits, mine didn't. The main balance issue is that, in a campaign, the weaknesses and strengths balance out through the shear randomness of it all. In a one off, you don't have that advantage, and so the balance breaks down a bit.

Oh, and I always liked the idea of OGRE.

 

[Dag'Nabbit]

Whether or not its been stated, the Spirit of this thread is, from what I can gather:

With two equally skilled players, given two random races in a random priority level, do they both stand a fair chance of being able to select from the ships avaliable to them and put together a fleet with at least a reasonable chance of winning.

Now, What is the ratio of 'yes' to 'no' for that answer? Understandably things wont always be balanced as such, but if the given example above is only true less than 50% of the time, I think there is a problem.

My answer to this is that I need to know what level of skill both players are using. If both are new, green, and ready to make every mistake in the game, then no this game is not very balanced between certain fleets.

Now, flip to the other side of the coin, both Admirals are both very experienced with all the fleets with many games for each, and you will see a very different game. Some mistakes will still be made, and each one will be quickly taken advantage of. In this case, yes, I consider the fleets to be about equal.

 

[tiny]

i would have liked to have voted yes for this but cant.

I play with a group of friends that continually try to balance the game for the reason that it is not a well thought out game in the first place.
sure it is a great idea but thier has just been to many mistakes along the line to make it play able in a fair sense.

lets look at the Drakh Battle level carrier for example, a ship that carries more than a battle point worth of if it carries nothing but skirmish ships (lets face it the scouts wont be used much with these carriers as the are a bit below par with its counterparts from other races).

Ask your selves this what would you take
3 skirmish class ships
or
a carrier that carriers 4 skirmisk class ships for the same price of a single battle point.

the vree are another race that have been poorly thought about, sure they have low powered but turreted armour and yes they are super manuevrable at slow speeds but as a race they are no match for an equall matched opponent playing any other race except the raiders possibly raiders

my point is simple for this game to excell as a great war game there must be balance, and B5 a call to arms has anything but.

 

[l33tpenguin]

i would have liked to have voted yes for this but cant.

I play with a group of friends that continually try to balance the game for the reason that it is not a well thought out game in the first place.
sure it is a great idea but thier has just been to many mistakes along the line to make it play able in a fair sense.

lets look at the Drakh Battle level carrier for example, a ship that carries more than a battle point worth of if it carries nothing but skirmish ships (lets face it the scouts wont be used much with these carriers as the are a bit below par with its counterparts from other races).

Ask your selves this what would you take
3 skirmish class ships
or
a carrier that carriers 4 skirmisk class ships for the same price of a single battle point.

the vree are another race that have been poorly thought about, sure they have low powered but turreted armour and yes they are super manuevrable at slow speeds but as a race they are no match for an equall matched opponent playing any other race except the raiders possibly raiders

my point is simple for this game to excell as a great war game there must be balance, and B5 a call to arms has anything but.

Ouch... proofreading is your friend

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Ask your selves this what would you take
3 skirmish class ships
or
a carrier that carriers 4 skirmisk class ships for the same price of a single battle point.

What you actually mean is
"...a potentially volatile and fragile carrier with one Skirmish class ship emerging a Turn for 3 Turns, providing it isn't destroyed as a priority, and providing my opponent with twice as many VP if it is than any other Battle PL ship..."

Every race, and every ship, has good and bad points. Keep trying, and you'll figure out the tactics. Plenty of people quite happily and successfuly play the races you have written off.

Wulf

 

[B5freak]

Trotsky wrote:

Second game was 5 pt. Battle. He had an Octurion, 2 Sulusts (both with the 2 maximus escort other duties), a Darkner and a Balvarix. I had 2 Omegas, a Hyperion, a Chronos, and a Warlock. I place my fleets much better this time, keeping out of his arcs for the first turn (the Chronos and Warlock were in hyperspace). I jump in on his ass the first turn, line up on the Octurion. The Omegas slowly snipe the octurion while the Chronos weakens the Sulusts. I slaughter him, losing only one Omega.

A couple of thoughts. First, the Duty table only has provision for Haven escorts, not Maximus. I'm guessing that was a typo on your part. Second, where's the rest of his fleet? An Octurion is 2 Battle Points, the 2 Sulusts are 1, the Balvarix is 1, and the Darkner is 1/3 of a Battle Point. That's 4 and 1/3 Battle Points to 5. The Haven's help balance that out, but I'd still be curious as to where the extra 2/3rds of a point got off to. Fourth, I'm guessing you meant the Space Superiority scenario.

In this specific instance, I can easily see how and why you won. First, the Centauri player put all his eggs into one basket, a Fore Beam offensive with virtually no means of coverning his flanks. He also took a Balvarix, which is pretty much a thrown away Battle point given its short range, slow speed, and dogfight-focused fighters. By playing a late-era game in a scenario that gave you a minimum of 36" separation to start with and the ability to jump in, you were able to simultaneously deploy your fleet's primary offensive weapon (the warlock) within range of the enemy and outside of their primary weapon arcs, fire with said weapon, and keep the rest of your fleet outside the enemy's primary weapon range. I don't know what the crew qualities were like on the Centauri ships, but knowing the poor turning radius of the Octurion and Sulust, that would have left only the Darnker and Havens in any position to actually bring significant weapons to bear on the Chronos and Warlock. At that point, the Centauri were pretty much hosed.

I've used that same tactic against ISA and blown up a Victory using my Warlock. Next time, play A Call to Arms or Annihilation, a scenario that doesn't let you jump in. Alternately, try a pre-2261 fleet. I'm not trying to stack the deck, but I believe your second game is close to a best case scenario for EA vs Centauri.

 

[Davesaint]

Ask your selves this what would you take
3 skirmish class ships
or
a carrier that carriers 4 skirmisk class ships for the same price of a single battle point.

What you actually mean is
"...a potentially volatile and fragile carrier with one Skirmish class ship emerging a Turn for 3 Turns, providing it isn't destroyed as a priority, and providing my opponent with twice as many VP if it is than any other Battle PL ship..."

Every race, and every ship, has good and bad points. Keep trying, and you'll figure out the tactics. Plenty of people quite happily and successfuly play the races you have written off.

Wulf

Wulf,

I keep hearing about how it takes 3+ turns to get the 4 skirmish level ships off of the Drakh carrier. IIRC, you can start with 1 lauched during setup, use Scramble!Scramble! on turn 1 (it's only a 7 CQ check) to launch 2 on turn 1, and launch the 4th on turn 2. It seems to me if you have bad dice, you will have at least 2 out of the hanger on turn 1, and the likelyhood of the ship getting detonated on turn 1 in most scenarios seems pretty unlikely given the ranges at initial setup.

Dave

 

[Geekybiker]

I keep hearing about how it takes 3+ turns to get the 4 skirmish level ships off of the Drakh carrier. IIRC, you can start with 1 lauched during setup, use Scramble!Scramble! on turn 1 (it's only a 7 CQ check) to launch 2 on turn 1, and launch the 4th on turn 2. It seems to me if you have bad dice, you will have at least 2 out of the hanger on turn 1, and the likelyhood of the ship getting detonated on turn 1 in most scenarios seems pretty unlikely given the ranges at initial setup.

Dave

Especially so if there is terrain on the table. The Carrier just parks itself behind it and launches then goes hunting.

 

[Trotsky]

B5freak wrote:

A couple of thoughts. First, the Duty table only has provision for Haven escorts, not Maximus. I'm guessing that was a typo on your part. Second, where's the rest of his fleet? An Octurion is 2 Battle Points, the 2 Sulusts are 1, the Balvarix is 1, and the Darkner is 1/3 of a Battle Point. That's 4 and 1/3 Battle Points to 5. The Haven's help balance that out, but I'd still be curious as to where the extra 2/3rds of a point got off to. Fourth, I'm guessing you meant the Space Superiority scenario.

Yes, the maximus was a typo, they were Havens. I also did mean Space Superiority. And, the extra points I forgot about were 2 Maximus (I think). And your points are very valid, he only had a couple of ships managing to turn towards my flankers, and they got caught by my Hyperion's heavy laser. The Balvarix did help some (Saved one of his ships that was down to Crippled from my fighters), but you are right, it didn't help much. Also, the fact that his ships had gotten to spend experience while mine were all new didn't help me any!

As soon as I can make my way to Colorado to visit my friend again we'll probably try one of the scenerios that disallow jumping in.

 

[B5freak]

Trotsky Wrote:

As soon as I can make my way to Colorado to visit my friend again we'll probably try one of the scenerios that disallow jumping in.

Cool, I'm in Colorado Springs. If you find yourself headed to the Front Range, let me know.