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The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

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Re: The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

#11

Post by User23 »

bane wrote: post #7

I have a friend who is very into these types of games, having dedicated about 1200 sq ft of their home to them. The commercial ones are usually centered on specific historic battles, and often follow a sort of "script" where things happen at specific turns e.g. the introduction of new units or weather conditions, that sort of thing. They seemed interesting, and I came away with two main observations: 1 - A game can t…

> But I quickly learned that the ability to spread out a map, that might be many square meters, and see everything happening on it at once, without having to slide a monitor's viewport around (or zoom in and out) has a number of massive advantages -- and (at the time I was looking at this) there's really no display technology today that can replicate this.

This is why I’d love a wall size monitor.

Re: The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

#12

Post by pfdietz »

JoeDaDude wrote: post #8

The military has a long history of using war games for training, going all the way back to Kriegspiel [1]. At least one history book [2], has been written about the topic. However it is rare that these military training games make it outside of their domain and become available to the general public. A rare exception may be the games designed by Volko Ruhnke [3], who designed games for training the CIA (though these…

The Naval War College famously engaged in wargames in the interwar years. They were invaluable preparation.

https://www.amazon.com/United-States-Naval-College-Wargame/d...

Re: The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

#13

Post by rareitem »

anigbrowl wrote: post #9
JoeDaDude wrote: post #8

The military has a long history of using war games for training, going all the way back to Kriegspiel [1]. At least one history book [2], has been written about the topic. However it is rare that these military training games make it outside of their domain and become available to the general public. A rare exception may be the games designed by Volko Ruhnke [3], who designed games for training the CIA (though these…

Can't upvote this hard enough. I'm fascinated by large scale games of this kind and have a loose acquaintance with some people who run them, but it's a very tiny industry that's almost exclusively based around DC for obvious reasons.

Are they online games or real life games (e.g. board games)?

Re: The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

#14

Post by chaostheory »

User23 wrote: post #11
bane wrote: post #7

I have a friend who is very into these types of games, having dedicated about 1200 sq ft of their home to them. The commercial ones are usually centered on specific historic battles, and often follow a sort of "script" where things happen at specific turns e.g. the introduction of new units or weather conditions, that sort of thing. They seemed interesting, and I came away with two main observations: 1 - A game can t…

> But I quickly learned that the ability to spread out a map, that might be many square meters, and see everything happening on it at once, without having to slide a monitor's viewport around (or zoom in and out) has a number of massive advantages -- and (at the time I was looking at this) there's really no display technology today that can replicate this. This is why I’d love a wall size monitor.

You can do the same for much cheaper with a VR headset. A popular use for them is to simulate a movie theater or giant computer monitors for flat gaming.

Re: The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

#16

Post by cl42 »

chaostheory wrote: post #15

Even simultaneous turn based strategy games take hours. I cannot imagine the time commitment for non-computer managed strategy games. I also don’t understand the point unless it’s mostly about face to face interaction.

I believe in this case that's very much the goal -- less about who wins, and more about the options/tactics debated to inform actual military battle prep.

Re: The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

#17

Post by ekianjo »

chaostheory wrote: post #14
User23 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I quickly learned that the ability to spread out a map, that might be many square meters, and see everything happening on it at once, without having to slide a monitor's viewport around (or zoom in and out) has a number of massive advantages -- and (at the time I was looking at this) there's really no display technology today that can replicate this. This is why I’d love a wall size monitor.

You can do the same for much cheaper with a VR headset. A popular use for them is to simulate a movie theater or giant computer monitors for flat gaming.

a VR headset is hardly a replacement for an actual monitor especially for long periods of time

Re: The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

#18

Post by kkukshtel »

For anyone looking to dip their toes into Wargaming, I encourage you to look at GMT Game's output. They have a ton of games like this of varying levels of complexity. The best way to get started is to try to find a game around a theme you're interested in. These games are all (largely) in stores:

https://www.gmtgames.com/

Re: The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

#19

Post by Arrath »

te wrote: post #6

> "The turns do not take very long at all and teams of players can get in 2-3 turns in a normal work day." Game does sound very cool, but lol, author has different game-playing expectations than I do.

Yeah for real. So much for "one more turn" syndrome ala Civilization

Re: The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

#20

Post by dhosek »

te wrote: post #6

> "The turns do not take very long at all and teams of players can get in 2-3 turns in a normal work day." Game does sound very cool, but lol, author has different game-playing expectations than I do.

Is that “in a normal work day” as in playing the game as their normal work day, or playing the game while they do their normal work over the course of the day?
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