Referee AAR

This scenario was a test of using the new SimPlot Viewer for displaying player information in a multi-player game. Also tested was a PBEM process that Tony Eischens and I came up with for using the HarpGamer forum to play a blind game. I say both tests were a success.

SimPlot Viewer

SimPlot Viewer was created by me as an off-shoot of SimPlot. Most of the code is the same, but Viewer allows players to add their own graphics (range circles and suspected but unconfirmed enemy unit locations). The original SimPlot was meant to be a one-player application, but it quickly evolved into a multi-player/referee capable app. With those changes came code problems that threatened to spiral out of control when I tried to use it for both a referee and individual players in the same game. The major problem is that Harpoon4 deliberately denies information to players until they earn it via various sensors. Ultimately, I had difficulty separating all the different kinds of information for each player when, as a referee, I had access to all of it. Viewer solved that by importing player dedicated files that only contained the information the referee says they should have per H4 rules.

HarpGamer Forum

Tony offered to use the HarpGamer forums for hosting PBEM games. Well, since everyone has equal access to the forums, a way to deny opposing players access to each others information, orders, and files had to be found. The solution, if I understand it correctly, was to place each player(s) into restricted groups that would not see and therefore have access to the opponent forums/topics. I suggested allowing everyone else the opportunity to access all player forums so they could follow along. I think Tony created a very workable system and I look forward to using it again.

The Scenario

I wanted a small unit scenario to test the above processes. The Red Star Over The Gulf - First Strike scenario fit the bill. While similar to the introductory scenario Gulf Escort Deja-vu, it used USSR units instead of US (it doesn't always have to be US, does it? ).

The USSR was Blue player (eeustice) and Iran was Red player (Yishten). Just to quickly summarize, Red player saw an advantage in both missile and gun capability. This meant staying out of Blue SAM range and engaging with his limited missile complement followed up by gunfire. Attacking the Blue escort was the only way to achieve success without making severe sacrifices (namely the Red warship). I suppose in the real world, outright attacking a Soviet warship would likely provoke a strong military response that would be unfavorable to Iran. Although the scenario rules did not prohibit this aggressive tactic, it would be interesting to see how well Iran could achieve the goal of attacking the merchant without inflicting severe damage to the escort first.

The attached file below is the final SimPlot turn file that also has the range circles I was using to determine when certain events take place (such as detection and weapons fire). The file must be viewed with SimPlot and not SimPlot Viewer.

A big thanks to both players and Tony for making this test a success. I will be running another game either later this month or in early January.

turn_1909.txt