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Cataphract: Medieval-fantasy roleplaying wargame, in the Black-Sea C. 1300

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Re: Cataphract: Medieval-fantasy roleplaying wargame, in the Black-Sea C. 1300

#21

Post by bee_rider »

GolfPopper wrote: post #4

The A Collection of Unusual Pedantry blog which the author references is an amazing introduction to this work of thinking (the challenges of military operations, and the forces that shape warfare and civilization). [1] If you're already familiar with ACoUP, or find Cataphracts fascinating, you might also enjoy Edward N. Luttwak's The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire of which one review says (and which I find a…

He writes about games from time to time. You can sense the friendly frustration. I wish he’d take a sabbatical from Professor-ing and, like, Creative Assembly could hire him to consult on a total war game.

Re: Cataphract: Medieval-fantasy roleplaying wargame, in the Black-Sea C. 1300

#23

Post by Maken »

bee_rider wrote: post #21
GolfPopper wrote: post #4

The A Collection of Unusual Pedantry blog which the author references is an amazing introduction to this work of thinking (the challenges of military operations, and the forces that shape warfare and civilization). [1] If you're already familiar with ACoUP, or find Cataphracts fascinating, you might also enjoy Edward N. Luttwak's The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire of which one review says (and which I find a…

He writes about games from time to time. You can sense the friendly frustration. I wish he’d take a sabbatical from Professor-ing and, like, Creative Assembly could hire him to consult on a total war game.

He himself seems more interested in Paradox games. I wonder what he will think about EUV.

Re: Cataphract: Medieval-fantasy roleplaying wargame, in the Black-Sea C. 1300

#25

Post by lupusreal »

reactordev wrote: post #2

Was totally interested until I read its play-by-post and he keeps track of all the troop movements and results. Not exactly what I had pictured in my head before I clicked the link. I don’t understand how people have the time to play things by mail in realtime. I want an evening escape, not a lifetime achievement.

Back in the day my buddies and I used to play Civilization 2 by swapping a floppy with the save file back and forth every day we met in school.

Re: Cataphract: Medieval-fantasy roleplaying wargame, in the Black-Sea C. 1300

#26

Post by yomismoaqui »

Kinrany wrote: post #19
yomismoaqui wrote: post #11

> there are a lot of games about strategy [..] and innumerable games about tactics [..], but very few about operations Operational wargames are a thing (at least on boardgames) https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/181039/favorite-operation...

Are there games in this genre that aren't historical?

Don't know... maybe you can pick one of them in BGG and drill-down by mechanics?

Re: Cataphract: Medieval-fantasy roleplaying wargame, in the Black-Sea C. 1300

#27

Post by deadbabe »

reactordev wrote: post #2

Was totally interested until I read its play-by-post and he keeps track of all the troop movements and results. Not exactly what I had pictured in my head before I clicked the link. I don’t understand how people have the time to play things by mail in realtime. I want an evening escape, not a lifetime achievement.

I actually got excited thinking it was play by mail but it was not. I was picturing weathered wax sealed letters arriving to your mailbox, written in an old school font, detailing outcomes of your decisions and how you wanted to proceed.

Re: Cataphract: Medieval-fantasy roleplaying wargame, in the Black-Sea C. 1300

#28

Post by bee_rider »

yomismoaqui wrote: post #11

> there are a lot of games about strategy [..] and innumerable games about tactics [..], but very few about operations Operational wargames are a thing (at least on boardgames) https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/181039/favorite-operation...

Lots of games that are billed as “strategy” are really more operations (or even tactics!) than strategy, right? I mean it is often the case in a strategy game that you just start out at war with everybody else, taking away the most important strategic decision.

Or, there are games like Civilization or Total war where, really, c’mon, you know it is just a matter of when, not if, you go to war.

Re: Cataphract: Medieval-fantasy roleplaying wargame, in the Black-Sea C. 1300

#30

Post by GolfPopper »

bee_rider wrote: post #21
GolfPopper wrote: post #4

The A Collection of Unusual Pedantry blog which the author references is an amazing introduction to this work of thinking (the challenges of military operations, and the forces that shape warfare and civilization). [1] If you're already familiar with ACoUP, or find Cataphracts fascinating, you might also enjoy Edward N. Luttwak's The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire of which one review says (and which I find a…

He writes about games from time to time. You can sense the friendly frustration. I wish he’d take a sabbatical from Professor-ing and, like, Creative Assembly could hire him to consult on a total war game.

He also has a great collection of his posts that are particularly useful for aspiring authors and rpg game masters:

https://acoup.blog/resources-for-world-builders/

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