Some of this should have been posted Sunday, but instead this post will be a bit longer than usual. If you missed them, part 1, part 2, and part 3. Go the read comments for part 1 if you haven't yet.

For a while, my main board game was Diplomacy. Diplomacy is a grand strategy wargame for 7 players where the objective is for a single player to conquer half of Europe. It is significantly different from most other wargames with heavy emphasis on negotiation and communication. While the rules for tactics are complex, most of this is due to the simultaneous resolution of orders. The real depth is in the strategic and interpersonal considerations, and the they are so entwined that they are difficult to completely separate.

Because each faction is roughly equal in strength, strategy in the game revolves around conducting agreements with other players and then executing those agreements. Agreements aren't binding so that bluffing and betrayal must be considered. The difference between a good and great diplomat is having the foresight to connect a long-term (3-6 turns) strategy to the current tactical and diplomatic situation. For our comparison to Blood Bowl, we can ignore the relational considerations as Blood Bowl only involves two coaches.

Most of the time, the tactics of a front in Diplomacy begin feeling like a kickoff (if everybody is aware) or elf ball (if the defender is surprised). Occasionally, one player will make a mistake and again the front will feel like an elf ball offense. However, most fronts feel more like a dwarven scrum where progress is slow and positioning is key. There is even an element of luck due to multiple combinations of useful orders leading to mixed strategies. More difficult to describe is similarity in the realtionship between strategy and tactics for both games. Before we try, let's update our working definitions for tactics and strategy to make them Blood Bowl specific.


Strategy in Blood Bowl: The plans of a coach to win the match. This includes the plan for each drive (including pass/loose run/cage and base cage/screen), roster selection, player development, and the overall frequency of scoring.

Tactics in Blood Bowl: The actions of players to execute the plan, particularly the active decision of a coach to roll dice. This includes player positioning (including dodges & GFI's), ball movement (including pickup, handoff, & pass), how to cage/cage break, blocking/blitzing, fouling, and the order all of these things are done in.


This gives us the line between tactics and strategy that we hinted at in part 2. It also allows us to define some interfaces or feedback loops between the current tactical situation and the strategic plans. The decision to score or stall each turn is an example of these feedback loops as it relies heavily on both tactical and strategic information. These feedback loops aren't our focus, so we will address them further in a subsequent post.

So now that we have all of this information, let's finish our comparison of Blood Bowl and Diplomacy. The feedback loops mean that adjustments for each turn's plan must be made. The tactical situation occasionally gives us a less common route (like bashing with elves) that actually provides a better chance a winning, but in most cases adjustments are much smaller (like changing the order of the actions). In Diplomacy, the board situation will often prevent large changes in strategy as effective backstabs require setup. The same is true for trying to alter a Blood Bowl coach's plans. For example, it is difficult to switch from a slow, bash-heavy run play to a quick pass even if your team (like humans) could theoretically do either. Players will be out of position, and the defending coach should be able to find a flaw to exploit. Instead, a successful coach will make small adjustments to the strategic plan when dice are poor just a master diplomat makes only small changes to the strategic plan when betrayed by an ally.

This still doesn't answer our question, "Does Blood Bowl emphasize tactics or strategy?" However, I feel like we are getting close to an answer, and I want to explore these feedback loops more.

Next time, we focus on feedback loops.

Sal-utations