Tuesday 10 November 2009

TIME SCALE

With a ground scale of 1/300 it is necessary to keep the time interval used short enough so that it is not overly complex, where lots of things can happen within a turn that have to be synchronised. On the other hand if the interval is too short nothing significant happens.

My choice is for a game turn of 2 1/2 minutes which is composed of 5 movement segments. This is a result of considering the real performance of the trireme Olympia. She can turn 360 degrees in 2 minutes or so. Thus if I allow a 90 degree turn which is significant on the tabletop to be achieved in one movement segment and a complete circle to be steered in one turn this gives me my game turn length. In 30 seconds a trireme travels a bit more than its length at cruising speed, that is OK too. In 30 seconds an archer can shoot a few arrows and a ballista shoot once, that fits OK. It fits too with the time to run across a ship's deck, set an oar in or out etc.

Coincidentally 2 1/2 minutes is the old 'bound length' from original wargames :)

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