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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)

#31

Post by chaostheory »

ranger207 wrote: post #23
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

I hope that they at the very least use a computer to calculate the outcomes of a battle.

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

#32

Post by irrational »

the_af wrote: post #22
MrMember wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Well, there is the recording of Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory.

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

#33

Post by DocTomoe »

defsectec wrote: post #29
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…

You would be wrong about that - boardgames-like wargaming is used by militaries all over the world, including the US.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0okOrVaLCA

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

#34

Post by livrem »

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…

I have quite a few books on this topic. Perla's was probably the first that I read and it is good, but to anyone interested in the topic I would first recommend Jon Peterson's "Playing at the World" ("A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games"). It's a book about how D&D came to be and covers many topics, but the section on wargames is very well researched and detailed (and I enjoyed the rest of the book as well).

My second recommendation is CG Lewin's "War Games and their History". It is a bit lighter on the history of military professional games, even if there is a chapter or two on that, but the chapters on non-professional wargames are amazing. The author has a personal collection of games going back to the 19th century and the book is full of photos and descriptions of obscure games that I really enjoyed reading about and that I never found in any other source. It covers games up to around 1950, so it does not get into any of the more well-known modern history of wargames (starting with Avalon Hill in the 1950's).

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

#35

Post by wrp »

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…

Within the wargaming community, keeping these games non-computerized is a deliberate choice. The main intent of manual gaming is to maintain awareness of all the variables you are manipulating. Another benefit to manual gaming is the ability of non-programmers to easily tweak the system. A good exposition of the manual approach to wargaming is Philip Sabin's Simulating War: Studying Conflict through Simulation Games (2012).

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

#37

Post by livrem »

defsectec wrote: post #29
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…

Played some Harpoon, the older series that Command: Modern Operations came from (long story: https://retroviator.com/harpoon/).

Then I got hooked on Rule the Waves recently. Matrix games publishes the latest game in that series as well (from last year): https://www.matrixgames.com/game/rule-the-waves-3

It is a game mostly about staring at a spreadsheet, showing all the ships in your (usually early 20th century) fleet and their most important data, plus the current budget for your navy. There is ship-design and fighting (2D) real-time battles as well, but mostly staring at a spreadsheet.

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

#38

Post by 9dev »

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…

The masochist in me wants to build a program to simulate the game and see how fast a computer can do it…

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

#39

Post by livrem »

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.

Back when I had more free time I played in some really long non-computer games like that. It was great to have a group that got together 1-2 evenings per week, played for a few hours to complete one or a few turns.

The alternative is to get together and play for a long day or weekend, but many games are much too long for that. I played one earlier this month with six other players (in two teams). We started in the morning and played til late in the evening, but we did not get halfway through the game. It was enough to see what side was likely to win. That is the usual outcome in my experience.

More common these days is to use a tool like VASSAL (https://vassalengine.org/) to play those games online.

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

#40

Post by tmountain »

Might not qualify, but a few years back, my team started playing diplomacy online. I had never played a game involving so much back channel negotiation, double crossing, and strategy. It had a funny effect on water cooler conversations because folks that I had a great relationship with would approach me with a noticeable air of disappointment as a result of some of my less than honorable decision making. I highly recommend this game to anyone with a group of friends looking for a turn based war game spanning many days.
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