This is for a solitaire age of sail naval game.
I want to design a simple mechanic that will:
1. Track the total number of men available to crew the fleet at any given time;
2. Track the quality levels of that pool of men (X number available at Quality 1, Y number at Quality 2, and Z number at Quality 3);
3. Allow specific numbers of men having specific quality levels to be assigned to the specific ships in the fleet.
The mechanic will determine how many ships can be manned at any given time, the crew quality rating of each ship in combat at any given time, and allow for other events in the game to affect manning (sickness events, training to raise quality level, battle casualties, battle experience raising quality level, diversions of sailors to another command).
Bottom line: I want the player (in the role of the commodore) seeing he has a pool of, say, 250 sailors this turn, comprising 50 "A" quality sailors, 50 "B" Sailors, and 100 "C" quality raw landlubbers. He has a squadron of 6 ships, each with a different crew quota needed to sail and fight the ship. So there are all kinds of tradeoffs possible: Put all the "A" sailors in the best 2 ships, spread the best sailors out ammong all the ships to raise the general quality of the squadron, or even to idle certain ships this turn so that the remaining ships can be well and fully manned.
The challenge is how to represent a general personnel pool for the squadron that grows or shrinks, and the quality of the sailors within it. Then the assignments mechanism has to yield a manning level and overall crew quality rating for each ship, which it will use in combats.
I could imagine several parallel personnel quantity tracks, one for each quality level. But how to track the assignment of these to the ships, and changes to crew quality of a given set of assigned sailors, without a lot of bookkeeping?
Any suggestions welcome, thanks!
Great suggestions -- thanks!