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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)

#21

Post by Suppafly »

ekianjo wrote: post #17
chaostheory wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Except whenever a "is VR worth it?" post comes up here, half the comments are people claiming that's what they use them for.

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

#22

Post by the_af »

MrMember wrote: post #10
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…

>A game can take a very very long time. Turns might even take days or weeks on particularly elaborate ones. Thus there is a major time commitment during which you must leave the game out and setup for an extended period of time. The Campaign for North Africa is probably the most extreme example of this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campaign_for_North_Afric... A "proper" game requires 10 players and an estimate…

I don't think anyone is on record as having completed a single game of Campaign for North Africa. Likely not even the author.

Which I guess makes it a game only in the theoretical sense.

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

#23

Post by ranger207 »

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.

It's about the face-to-face decision making and teambuilding. The lack of a computer is also somewhat of a bonus as it forces players to be intentional about processes, because in battle the computer probably won't be able to handle every process that comes up and so experience doing it by hand is useful

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

#24

Post by the_af »

It may not be immediately obvious, but these are not "games" in the hobbyist sense of the word (though I suppose hobbyists may get interested, though access to this one in particular seems to be restricted to the military) but "simulations" for teaching and training.

They are not supposed to be "fun". They are supposed to be analysis tools. Their goal is different to a wargame for hobbyists, where "playability" is usually a greater factor than the simulation of real war concerns.

That's why it's OK that in a single day you can get one or two turns done. It's not a game, people who attend these exercises are doing work-related stuff.

That's why it's also "not in stores".

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

#25

Post by the_af »

Suppafly wrote: post #21
ekianjo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>a VR headset is hardly a replacement for an actual monitor especially for long periods of time Except whenever a "is VR worth it?" post comes up here, half the comments are people claiming that's what they use them for.

I had a conversation with someone from work who uses VR to work exclusively (meaning, he doesn't use a normal monitor or keyboard for work) and it turns out his setup is really different from what I imagined.

He has a high end VR device, not an Oculus (I forgot which though). His chair is weird and positioned weird. He uses a counterweight in his headset. And so on.

Not for me, in other words.

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

#26

Post by the_af »

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.

It's not a game and it's not supposed to be fun. It's a military simulation, a tool for military people. 2-3 turns in one day may be entirely within reasonable range for military analysis.

You cannot buy it in a store. You need to work for the DoD to have access to it.

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

#27

Post by the_af »

dhosek wrote: post #20
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?

A work day of military people using this wargame as a simulation tool for analysis.

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

#28

Post by cl42 »

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.

If you're curious, here's a 165-page Taiwan war game run across multiple scenarios and events: https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargamin...

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

#29

Post by defsectec »

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…

I'm pretty sure that these days the more modern military wargames done by legitimate organizations, that aren't physical simulations (a.k.a. laser tag for grownups), do use computers and have integrations with full-size flight sims and data analysis tools.

I play game called Command: Modern Operation^¹ which can barely be a called a game, but rather a military command simulation at the operational level masquerading as one for civilian mil-sim nerds such as myself to toy around with.

There is a "Pro" version^² with all sorts of data-analysis and integration with other equipment/software that, according to their website, used by a surprisingly long list of military organizations. In practice, I have no idea how much it actually is used as I don't work in the defense industry.

I'm sure there are other tools out there like this, but this is the only one I've used before. If you like these kind of things I highly recommend it. It's the kind of game that comes with a 400pg ebook if that's your kinda thing. Personally, it tickles my autism just right.

[1]: https://command.matrixgames.com/?page_id=5002 [2]: https://command.matrixgames.com/?page_id=3822

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

#30

Post by chaostheory »

ekianjo wrote: post #17
chaostheory wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Have you actually tried it?
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