[Consim-l] Analysis of Coral Sea

[Markus Stumptner]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2006, Mike NotSpecified wrote:
> Karl makes a very good point, I also noticied that the researchers built their 
> model on the first assumption that the historical outcome was average.  I 
> think we tend to do that with our wargames as well, achiving the historical 
> outcome is usually a minor victory, a major vicotry often requires 
> out-performing history by a wide margin.

This is indeed a good point, and I would argue that the Coral Sea results
certainly were not average - as far as 1942 is concerned, they were at one
end of the spectrum, with AA fire, fighter complements, and fighter
direction weak on both sides. (The other extreme is the Battle of Santa
Cruz, at the end of the year.)

Coming back to VG's _Carrier_, this is again a game that shows this effect
very nicely, to the degree that I recommend to beginners (since this a
solo game where players play the US/Allied side) to start with the Battle
of Santa Cruz and work their way forward to Coral Sea; at Coral Sea it is
typically much harder to protect your carriers (and, in fact, to win).

> The researchers were pleased that the historical outcome seemed to lie in 
> about the middle of range of outcomes their model produced, an exercise in 
> circular reasoning as that is how they built the model.
> 
> I'm not sure how you'd do it, but I would be more impressed by building a 
> model based on how you expect things to work, then running it and seeing if 
> the historical outcome ever appears.  If it never appears than your model is 
> wrong, but if it does appear, even way out on one tail of the bell curve, then 
> you might have something.  For instance, I'd assume historical Midway was not 
> an "average" outcome at all.  It might not be truly a "miracle", but certainly 
> it was a better than expected victory for the US

This reminds me of the developers of GMT's Zero! card game who insisted,
despite being warned by multiple playtesters, on starting out with the
Battle of Midway as the baseline.  I don't know what came out of the
discussion as I had to drop out due to lack of time.

Markus

Last 3 games played: Air Cav, Borodino '41, Borodino (Eagles of the Empire)
--------------- http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/user/mst/games/ ---------------
"Bakayaro! Bakayaro!"  ("Stupid Bastards!  Stupid Bastards!") -- Admiral 
Aritomo Goto's last words to his staff, October 11, 1942