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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

#41

Post by littlestymaar »

mr_toad wrote: post #20
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...

Arguably games like StarCraft include operational elements - managing and defending the peon line is as important as the front line.

It's still merely tactics though.

I'd say that managing your rally points and reinforcements (for terran, mostly) is the only thing that is related to operations, and it's a pretty limited part of both the game and what operations is about.

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

#42

Post by Sniffnoy »

This sounds a lot like the game played by the International Kriegsspiel Society (https://kriegsspiel.org/), which I think is worth noting in terms of other implementations of the same idea.

(Why do I not just say "This sounds a lot like Kriegsspiel?" Because there's so many different varieties of Kriegsspiel, not all of which work like this, so I'm pointing to a particular one that does.)

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

#43

Post by BrenBarn »

Way back in the day I downloaded this game called "The CRISIS Strategic Wargaming System". It was mostly a tactical thing, but it included a much more prominent role for supply lines and logistics than any other game I can recall. Unfortunately it was a "beta" version and apparently was never completed. I had looked for it a few times but seeing this spurred me to look again and I was able to find the old site on Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20060923152338/http://museum.sys... . I can still download the EXE so maybe I'll give it a try and see if it's similar to what I remember.

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

#44

Post by hermitcrab »

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...

I've played Polis a couple of times. It is brutally difficult (as in easy to lose, rather than difficult rules).

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

#45

Post by ashdnazg »

scotty79 wrote: post #36

There was this simple game where you were supposed to conquer all planets on the 2d map. You started with one planet that gradually built up ships over time. Then you could send some to any other planets but travel took time. Neutral planets had some fixed number of ships on them. If your fleet had more you captured the planet and it started building ships for you. To make the game fair maps were symmetrical and your…

I also thought about this type of game!

I have more experience with the discrete version - e.g., Konquest[0].

I think it's not very operational, as getting your ships to battle is as simple as saying go from A to B. Your operational choices boil down to whether you want to pass through planet C, to trade time for flexibility.

While it has perfect information over your own ships, I think the core idea can be easily adapted to have separate players controlling separate planets, with delayed communication, both for people playing this game and for an AI competition.

[0] https://apps.kde.org/en-gb/konquest/

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

#46

Post by Sander_Marechal »

deadbabe wrote: post #27
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.

I think it would be really cool to run a game like that

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

#47

Post by donavanm »

marc_abonce wrote: post #38
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…

> A Collection of Unusual Pedantry [...] ACoUP Tangential comment but only after reading your post I realised that acoup is an acronym for the blog's full name. All this time I thought it was "a coup" (like a coup d'état) and that "A Collection of Unusual Pedantry" was the blog's tagline.

“acoup” is also old french and middle english word along the lines of blow, strike, hit, overcome. Id always assumed it was the historic word myself.

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

#48

Post by scotty79 »

ashdnazg wrote: post #45
scotty79 wrote: post #36

There was this simple game where you were supposed to conquer all planets on the 2d map. You started with one planet that gradually built up ships over time. Then you could send some to any other planets but travel took time. Neutral planets had some fixed number of ships on them. If your fleet had more you captured the planet and it started building ships for you. To make the game fair maps were symmetrical and your…

I also thought about this type of game! I have more experience with the discrete version - e.g., Konquest[0]. I think it's not very operational, as getting your ships to battle is as simple as saying go from A to B. Your operational choices boil down to whether you want to pass through planet C, to trade time for flexibility. While it has perfect information over your own ships, I think the core idea can be easily ad…

> Your operational choices boil down to whether you want to pass through planet C, to trade time for flexibility.

I don't think that's true, at least when programs play it. Key to victory was making sure that you have enough of forces to capture the planet you are sending your forces to. It was always about having the right sized fleet ready and sending right sized fleet sometimes from multiple sources to capture the planet and increase your production as a result.

It's true that the game had perfect information, instant communication and no randomness in battle outcome. Are those necessary elements for something to be operations game or are those just elements that particularly interest you?

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

#49

Post by ashdnazg »

scotty79 wrote: post #48
ashdnazg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also thought about this type of game! I have more experience with the discrete version - e.g., Konquest[0]. I think it's not very operational, as getting your ships to battle is as simple as saying go from A to B. Your operational choices boil down to whether you want to pass through planet C, to trade time for flexibility. While it has perfect information over your own ships, I think the core idea can be easily ad…

> Your operational choices boil down to whether you want to pass through planet C, to trade time for flexibility. I don't think that's true, at least when programs play it. Key to victory was making sure that you have enough of forces to capture the planet you are sending your forces to. It was always about having the right sized fleet ready and sending right sized fleet sometimes from multiple sources to capture the…

That's a good point, the matter of timing different fleets from different sources to arrive at the same time is definitely an operational challenge.

I think it's a bit difficult to describe a game as purely strategic/operational/tactical.

Games can contain strategic/operational/tactical elements or choices, and I would say that a game where the vast majority of choices are operational can be called an "operations game".

When I played Konquest/Galcon, I felt that the biggest challenge was figuring the correct timing and order of expansion, which to me feels like strategy. It's very possible that AIs would disagree with me.

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

#50

Post by navane »

littlestymaar wrote: post #41
mr_toad wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably games like StarCraft include operational elements - managing and defending the peon line is as important as the front line.

It's still merely tactics though. I'd say that managing your rally points and reinforcements (for terran, mostly) is the only thing that is related to operations, and it's a pretty limited part of both the game and what operations is about.

A lot is about predicting when you will need which size of army and preemptively build the right size of production to be able to produce that, just in time.
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