The General's Staff Report

Not too long ago, I posted a Staff Report detailing the lack of strategic thinking in my TPG2 playing. Basically, I said that in TPG2, excellent tactical thinking can overcome poor strategic thinking. I believe that is because TPG2 is a tactician's game. It is not designed to be strategic in scope. Your strategy is generally limited to 'should I place new units on the right or the left?' or 'should I go for the hill or the city first?'.

This has led me to the following: I believe that there are four rule sets used by players of TPG2. These rule sets are what guide us in our play and make us generals or cannon fodder. Note that these are not 'rules' (ie. shoot at MAs whenever you see one), but 'rule sets' (a combination of experience, common sense, and knowledge of the game, the other player, and the scenario that generates coherent plans from seeming nothing during our play.) A rule would say 'do not send an AC into an open field with a BZ'. A rule set would say, 'because of our knowledge of the AI's Opportunity Fire rules, we can move an ACMG within 5 hexes without getting shot at and use the MG option to kill the BZ'.

The rule sets that I have come up with for TPG2 are the following:

Tactical

This should be the primary rule set used by TPG2 players. It covers local maneuvers, fire patterns, defensive and offensive formations, and unit use.

Strategic

This is the first rule set that should be used by a player. It covers victory conditions, unit selection, intermediate goals, and global maneuvers.

Situational (or Personal) [this one was developed by Endgame, but it got me thinking]

These are rule sets that a person generates within himself usually (but not always) after multiple plays of a scenario or after being in multiple occurrences of a similar situation. Note: that when this rule set is used almost exclusively, the player generally loses. However, this can be the most effective rule set after multiple plays of a scenario.

Rules Manipulation

This is a rule set that covers the use of TPG2 as a simulation engine. These are the physical requirements of the TPG2 world and how the pieces interact with one another.

Which rule set is most important?

It is my belief that the rule sets follow this order of importance with some modifiers:

1. Tactical
2. Rules Manipulation
3. Situational (or Personal)
4. Strategic

What are the disclaimers?

1. The Situational rule set increases with importance after multiple plays of a scenario until it becomes most important.
2. The Tactical rule set is only most important on a group-of-units level (ie. Platoon or Company).
3. The Rules Manipulation rule set is most important on a unit by unit level (ie. one tank or one BZ).
4. It is possible to effectively ignore the Strategic rule set and still win a scenario.
5. The Strategic rule set increases in importance when dealing with campaigns, but not to the point of getting out of last place. (Why? Because the strategic requirements of doing well in a campaign are also covered by the tactical requirements of doing well in a scenario.)
6. The Rules Manipulation set is not most important because it is incomplete. That rule set does not tell you how to move your units most effectively or how to win the game.
7. This rules list is the ideal. Individual players will have their own version of this list that may never alter or it may alter multiple times within one scenario.

What does this mean to my playing style?

It has been my experience that play style within TPG2 follows these rule sets. Two examples (the best I have right now):

1. I play a very Situational way. I have a large mental junk pile and it allows me to play a great many scenarios as if I had played them before. I take pieces from the scenarios I've previously played and alter them slightly to the new scenario. Unfortunately, when I run into something that I'm not familiar with, I don't do as well and I have to play again and again until my Situational rule set learns the new information.
2. The Anonymous General plays in a very Rule Manipulation style. One example springs to mind. In Rommel's Bridges, Anon amazed us all with his astounding instant Brigadier General rank. He ignored the unwritten point of the game (control the bridges) and dove straight for the AI's reinforcement zone. When the AI lost his reinforcements, Anon was able to clean up. However brilliant this was in TPG2, I'm not sure it would be a good idea in a real war with that situation. It might work, it might not. I'm not picking on him, I just believe that this is how he plays. It is certainly not a bad way to play, he wins!

Should I change the way I play TPG2?

Why would you want to change? Do you want to get better scores at TPG2? I can't help you there. This is just talking about rule sets, not what the rule sets are. I'm describing wind, I'm not telling you how it works.

I listed what I believe the order of precedent for the rule sets earlier. This order would be the ideal with the stated modifiers. However, a player that plays around one of the other rule sets has this order altered and the list could be set-up in any of 16 combinations. For example: I play with the Situational rule set as my primary. The secondary rule set can vary, but it is either the Tactical or Rule Manipulation set. The Strategic set is way down on the bottom.

This explains why I have been thinking that I'm not using strategy in my play, I'm not. I'm using bits and pieces of all the past scenarios I've played to generate a composite image of how I should play any scenario (at least those, that I'm familiar with). I use a general knowledge of tactics and the rules of TPG2 when my experience fails me. And, very rarely, I get into a situation that I have no referents for and where strategy is more useful than tactics. In these scenarios, I'm in trouble. I recall one like that, Hell Road. The answer to the scenario was to let the AI have the points (from sitting on the RR tracks), but deny him reinforcements (by still having a unit in the city). That is Strategic solution. I may have figured it out... or not. I'm still indebted to Endgame for giving me the final clue I needed for winning Dano's Game as well. It's answer was also strategic.

As another exercise in wasted time, I've been considering this concept in the light of scenario design as well. The only players that I think I can develop a play style for with any confidence are myself and Anon. However, it should be relatively easy to generate a similar style of scenario design. Do you design scenarios based on Tactics, Rules Manipulation, Situational, or Strategy?

Several examples spring to mind: Rommel, it seems to me, generally designs scenarios based in Tactics. His Bridges and Cascade are excellent examples of scenarios that require the tactician's art both in design and play. Each scenario requires more tactical maneuvering than some other scenarios. However, because of the nature of TPG2, these types of scenarios are a little more vulnerable to the Rule Manipulation players.

Pense seems to design from a Situational (or personal) viewpoint (as does Endgame). The personality expressed in their scenarios are relatively constant and only their skill in design affects the finished product. You can tell a Pense game from the large number of reinforcements and airstrips. This isn't always the case, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb. Endgame's games (as someone once mentioned) tend to be terrain concentric and feature some primary feature that the player must use or work around.

Bobb has adopted a Strategic design mode that has frustrated me to no end. His scenarios are generally goal based. Do this thing before time runs out. Victory Points rarely matter. The available units change with what he wants to accomplish, but the end result is a strangely difficult scenario that forces the player to think ahead. The tactics in the scenario are straight-forward and simple, but the goal may not be net without careful consideration of all elements. For example, in Elephant Walk, the player is given a few ETs and a few AC and ACMGs, but the majority is infantry types. In a similar scenario, I would use the ACs as scouts (and to take the fire from hidden BZs) and use the ACMGs to kill the newly discovered enemy units. The ETs would act as front line support and the infantry would be place-holders. Instead, because of the limits in Bobb's scenario, I'm using the armored units as transports and the infantry as my primary attacking unit. Weird, but effective, in this scenario.

Should you change your scenario design style? Why? If you do it because you want to, then more power to you. Don't do it for any other reason.

What does all this mean? Not a whole lot really, but it's something that bears thinking upon. A lot of time is spent trying to divide things up into categories and groups. It really doesn't mean that much because everyone and everything is individual. However, if this does give someone some insight into his play or design style and maybe makes them a better player or designer, then it was well worth it.

Captain "Bervet Lt. Colonel" Kev