Re: Accumulator Contests

From: karamo <karamo_at_...>
Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 10:17:08 -0000

>
> I've been planning on writing this up for ages, but never
> got round to it. That's one reason why I was asking about
> Benedict's Extended Simple contests previously - they sounded
> similar and I wanted to check if they are the same thing,
> but they aren't quite.
>
> It occured to me that there are 9 possible outcomes of a
> contest - 4 levels of victory for each participant, and
> a draw. The four levels of victory are : Marginal, Minor,
> Major and Complete.
>
> Suppose we assign each a numerical value as follows :
>
> Marginal Victory = 1; Minor Victory = 2;
> Major Victroy = 3; Complete Victory = 4.
>
> To win an Accumulator Contest, you need to rack up a
> total of 4 'Victory Points' (VPs) over a series of simple
> contests, each scored as above.
>
> Obviously it is possible to win such a contest in the first
> round, but more usualy it will take several rounds, perhaps
> with each participant racking up a few VPs. This suggests
> a few variations on the theme.
>
> 1. First Past the Post - The first participant to get 4 VPs
> wins, regardless of how many VPs their opponent got.
>
> 2. Win Some, Lose Some - VPs cancel each other out. If you
> have 1 VP and I win 3 VPs, one of mine cancels yours out so you
> have 0 VPs, and I retain my remaining 2 VPs. To win, you have
> to score 4 more VPs over the contest than your opponent does. This
> could take quite a while, so I have my doubts about it.

What you could do is to aim at having the Complete Victory (4 VP) but with the right for the contestant having more VPs after round to stop the contest at any time.
Ex: you get 2VP (Minor Victory), over the first round. You have the higher VP (2 for you, 0 for the other contestant), so you can choose to continue the contest or not. Let's say your are not satisfied with this Minor Victory and decide to carry on the challenge. The next round, your adversary wins with a 3VP victory. At that stage, the adversary gets 3Vps, so a cumulative total of 1VP for him and 0VP for you. Now your adversary leads, and he can now decide to stop the challenge, leaving you with a Marginal defeat. You should have decided to stop the challenge at the first stage... So deciding to carry on can allow you a better VP level, but you are at risk of having the situation flipping over.

Alain.
http://karamo.nexenservices.com/glowar/rq.htm

>
> 3. Knockabout - The first to 4 points wins, but you can choose to
> use points you've won to cancel out your opponent's points,
> if you choose.
>
> I think some variation on a Knockabout Accumulator might be
> interesting. An alternative to each participant gaining
> Victory Points might be to inflict Defeat Points on the
> opponent instead - like wounds.
>
> On favoured variant of mine is that you can choose to either
> try and gain Victory points in a round, or try to inflict
> wounds, in the form of ability penalties. That's a bit clumsy
> though, as surely it should be possible to win a contest by
> wounding your opponent?
>
> One consequence of all this, is that it removes the aspect of
> the riskiness of a manoeuvre measured by APs.
>
> Suggestions welcome.
>
>
> Simon Hibbs