BattleTech fan since the early '90s, game design enthusiast since forever.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Initiative

The fastest ways I've seen to resolve initiative are preplotting (secretly record all unit declarations simultaneously) and the playing card method (each unit acts when its assigned card is drawn).

What I'm going to propose is not as fast.
  1. Before the game, assign point values to all units (say, BV2/100, round up). Multiply all units in the lower valued force by a factor which brings their total even with the higher valued force. Round any unit valued at less than a single point to tenths of a point.
  2. Some units may be required to declare before standard initiative begins. They do so now. If both players have such units, the players alternate as in step 4.
  3. At the beginning of any phase in which initiative matters, each player may designate any enemy units as "exempt" from standard initiative.
  4. Each player secretly records declarations for as many of his own non-exempt units (at least one, assuming he has at least one non-exempt unit) as he wants, and tallies up their point values. Both players reveal and resolve those declarations.
  5. The player whose tally is lowest openly declares actions until his tally exceeds his opponent's. Repeat until all non-exempt units have been declared.
  6. Declare actions for "exempt" units, alternating as in step 4. (Given that players will tend to "exempt" enemies they don't care about, these could be resolved quickly and simultaneously.)