4525

I mostly agree with this.

I do not think the tactility is the main problem. That can be substituted with good UX design. My favorite example is Blood Bowl 2, which feels as good if not better to play on the computer than with the phisical version (its budget is also an order of magnitude over a computer wargame, though, but theoretically it’s doable).

So, for me it’s not the checking the table or reading through the sequence of play, as it is the fact that every single rule always goes through a player’s head. If you are super familiar with a system you are no longer checking the SoP and you know some chart results by heart, yet the experience is satisfactory. Checking the charts is a stopgap for not being able to remember all the rules most of the time.

No, the important part is that you are 100% aware of the rule set and thus the consequences of your actions. Once a computer starts enforcing, its easy to stop paying attention to the rules, and that’s when the experience changes and things feel more like in autopilot. In Blood Bowl case, for example, I play with the rule book PDF open to double check stuff I might be unsure of.that way my experience keeps being very similar to the tabletop one, but players who refuse to read the rules keep feeling the game is too random or unfair (or just not accesible).

The procedural physical play is a way of reinforcing player control of the game.

I think the way to translate this to computer games would be with an aggressive UI that keeps reminding the player of every rule as the player moves through a turn, in advance of the player action. Sort of why Shenandoa’s games have a combat predictor or why Unity of Command shows supply so explicitedly. They make the rules obvious as you play so you can’t play without taking them into account.

4526

Twilight Struggle does this without putting the mechanics in your face, because you have to know exactly what you can and can’t do, but the point is taken: if you don’t know where you can place eligible influence, you can’t play the game. So you have to know the rules and be thinking of them.

I disagree, though, that showing you the rules is sufficient to make them meaningful: as in Costikyan’s B17 example, no amount of interface magic could make up for the fact that you were just hitting “next” to get each result.

4527

You are right. It’s not enough (but probably necessary and/or helpful) specially in extreme cases like that with no player input (95% of the game is just procedure).

I don’t think most solo wargames can translate to computer easily, if at all. Maybe there’s something about the solo tabletop experience that is indeed inherently physical (I know I play them to get away from the computer).

4528

Yeah, I do think the opacity of computer games is an issue. While I’ve had my share of rules disputes and misinterpretations over the years, it was all part of the process. Trying to figure out what to do within the parameters of the rules and game systems, which you can see and understand in front of you, is part of the fun. With a computer, it’s all FM as we used to say (fucking magic).

4529

As someone who is into and has done games, history and design, and development but expressly is not a coder, programmer or engineer, this is my oh, so off the cuff personal two item wishlist for computer wargames (assuming historical here):

Opacity - See that A3R mod up there? The guy put combat factors and movement factors/ranges blatantly on the “counters”. Sure the system has 100+ factors in some listing that the program crunches to resolve combat. And it is nice to be able to see that. But easily comprehensible shorthand for the player is priceless. Consumers don’t care about the number crunching, they just want to make informed choices in-game.

Save the AI for the Tutorial-Make the game multiplayer. Any game that doesn’t emphasize MP I know, off the bat, will be a tissue paper game. The whole “its a puzzle just to figure it out. Now get a new game!” Thing is old. Sustainability and Service. AI will not endlessly challenge me in my game for 30 years. I’ll be dead before it happens. Oh I know, techhies…blah blah…around the corner…blah blah. Will I be buying it for 30 bucks in 10 years? No way. Save the AI for Sci Fi. Give me a well executed MP experience. Sell it as such. Invest in the servers, forums, and DLCs to keep the MP Wargame vibrant and current.Focus on Turn based (or maybe WeGo). Forget RTS

4530

I understand your desire and don’t disagree. But you have to understand that most PC gamers play solo and demand a competent AI. Look at Matrix WIF. A game that was designed first without an AI, and still has none, and it really hasn’t taken off. And people still saying give us an AI.

The best experience is always against another human, but the vast majority almost always play solo against the AI. Just a fact of existence.

4531

Understand, but this is a continuation of the discussion previously about mediums merging; to wit-the “boardgame” becoming technologically indistinguishable from the “PC Game”. Design as a methodology not aimed at a specific medium. So there is no “PC Games” and “Board Wargames”. In that world, someone would just design a solo game for you, or those who share your preferences. Not “PC Games must be…”. Or “PC Gamers prefer”. Just “Multiplayer Wargames” and “Solo Wargames”.

If mediums are merging, or immaterial, then developers must target different audiences, not merely use tropes or philosophies from 25 years ago.

4532

I don’t agree that AI should be ditched, though. I think the idea of the AI being a virtual human player should be ditched. The point of a wargaming Ai, to me, is not to provide a competitive opponent in the sense of challenging you to win the game. The AI should challenge you to plan and execute a historically valid, sound (in terms of your side’s historical doctrine, say), and effective plan at whatever level the game operates at. If the AI can do that, by defining good and bad options according to realistic parameters, and punishing mistakes, while executing a historically valid, doctrinally realistic plan of its own, I’m good. I don’t care if I win nine times out of ten, as long as the game forces me to approach the historical situation being simulated in a realistic and valid manner.

In this context, you can have games that are grossly unbalanced against the player, allowing you to simulate a lot of historical combats that were, like most battles or campaigns, anything but toss-ups, because your "winning’ is seeing how well you can do with the tools and systems that would have been available historically… The AI would have to be capable of doing the same, which would be a daunting task, but not so much on the coding side as on the data identification, acquisition, and contextualization side, as the developer would need to build in effect an expert system applying a set of concepts adapted from historical practice for the use of the computer.

AI sucks because people want it to replicate another human playing the game. I want it to replicate what the historical command structure of the side I’m facing would have done in response to my actions. I don’t need it to be brilliant, or think out of the box, just execute stuff like the General Staff trained it to do, so to speak. Most wargames fail abysmally at this. There is so much effort put into getting the AI to play the game that there’s nothing left to work on getting the AI to replicate history.

Now, if you are into wargaming to beat the other guy, to try out wild and woolly strategies and outfox your opponent, human to human is the way to go; that’s the game in wargaming. Me, I’ve never given a rat’s ass about that. I’ve always been on the historical simulation side of things. I don’t care if, as the Germans in 1944 in France, I lose 99 out of 100 times trying to hold of Ike and his invasion. As long as the game makes me use the tools and abilities available to the Germans in that campaign, and uses the Allied forces historically, I’m good. My personal victory would be doing better than the Germans did historically, using the same tools.

I realize this is probably a pipe dream. Although I do think this type of AI is vastly easier than replicating actual human beings playing a game, it is research and analysis intensive and frankly probably not cost-effective. It is probably also of little interest to most folks buying games, so it’s probably also financially suicidal. But I do not want to give up the idea of using computer wargames as this sort of interactive historical experience. As it is, I usually play both sides of a wargame, because most AIs are too focused on simplistic “go for the VPs” type actions, and have zero conception of doctrine, historical capabilities or psychology.

4533

All good points, but I agree with this, which is the thesis.

My point is that if all the mediums are merging, why have a “one size fits all” PC game genre? Ditch replicating a Human. One type of genre focuses on multiplayer. Another on solitaire gaming. Instead of the Jack of all trades/master of none approach we see now.

I’d argue that, because of current market dynamics, the MP crowd has more untapped sales in it at present. The Solitaire crowd has been (tepidly, and imperfectly) served so far by the current “PC Wargame” genre.

4534

I will be answering roughly chronologically and in a staggered fashion: my partner is already giving me the look of “don’t dare to spend the day in an Internet discussion”.

I feel my posts have been misunderstood. To that I lay blame, fair and square, on well entrenched cultural archetypes (starting with ancient the stories of “animated statues” rampaging through a temple) and the current media landscape which I find it is being maneuvered by some clever social media operators into embracing medicine men that sell snake oil or are astroturfing their products.

My point of view on applications of AI - and in that my views are just that of part of the field, I am more than sure that some of my colleagues would probably violently disagree with me - is that seeking to create “simulacra” of human intelligence is ultimately pointless exercise for Computer Science and Engineering. It may well be a very interesting exercise from the point of Philosophy, Theology and Psychology, as achieving such human mimicking machines would probably “answer” quite a few questions on those fields of intellectual endeavour. Rather than concentrating on “replacing” humankind, we should focus our efforts into finding ways to enhance humankind, for instance, having AI’s to play an advisory role and extending the reach of our wills providing robust, efficient autonomous systems which we can trust to perform according to our intent.

Whether either program will entail “good” or “bad” outcomes is yet to be seen. AI systems are objects, which are wielded by a human hand. That in turn is animated by a human mind driven by desires, emotions and knowledge.

Having put out that out of the door, I will answer to @Navaronegun two points regarding “opacity” and “saving the AI for the tutorial”.

In both cases I actually mostly agree :)

Regarding Opacity, I do certainly see AI to provide that assistance to provide informed decisions, and this goes well beyond the “supply planner” for OCS I was talking about before. Systems like that have limited scopes and degrees of autonomy (such as activating or highlighting certain aspects of the user interface) and still are valuable applications of AI into video games and war games more generally. I would say these are “easier wins” and more meaningful to players than the synthetic homunculus that the @TheWombat correctly identifies as having sucking way too much effort in war games.

While opacity is good for players - there’s no fuss and they get right away to interact with the machines of compulsion that games are - I think it is absurd to dismiss the “nuts & bolts” of how things actually happen when thinking about how to push the envelope.

I don’t care how my car implements the control of the revving of my engine, or how Toyota engineers use AI to optimize fuel consumption - it is not central to the task of driving. Yet both things, I would argue, greatly enhance the experience of driving: I get less tired by having to deal with the clutch and the gears, and my wallet and the environment are happier as I do have less of an impact with my activities. Knowing that those things are possible, and demonstrably have a positive economic impact (in a broad sense of economic), I think is valuable information for investors, entrepreneurs and engineers.

Going to video games let’s think for a moment about the combination of two very technical things: high fidelity 3D computer graphics and reliable computer networking. Certainly, the specific aspects of how either of these things are implemented are irrelevant to 99% of the players of the games that represent 99% of the monetary value in the video games industry. Also, both of those problems were seen in the early 1990s as being super hard. In the late 2010s, I can go and download Epic’s Unreal Engine and Unity and start cracking crafting videogames at a fraction of the cost it had 15 years ago. Another matter is whether doing that is a sound investment of your time!

So much for the techie blah, blah, blah @Navaronegun - technological advancements that overturn markets and challenge our assumptions have happened in the past, are happening now and will happen in the future.

Regarding saving the AI for the Tutorial I think you’re right: the point of games need not to be just to be playing against a computer. They can be about playing with the computer, as both a partner and adversary, and I do certainly think their value is greatly enhanced with besides computers, we partner with or confront humans to play these. Yet the reality is that some will find themselves more than satisfied with the Tutorial, and will become to them pretty much the Game.

I do agree that there is a huge gap in the market when it comes to MP historical war gaming: HexWar died (?) a while ago, and I receive the odd email from a yahoo mailing list with people lamenting that and asking for a replacement. There may well be other communities out there expressing similar needs, and probably many of those who play HOI4 could play other stuff as well as you suggest.

I look forward with interest to see someone jumping at that opportunity.

4535

I agree wholeheartedly Wombat.

4536

I think that the “doing better than History vs. beating a human” dichotomy is a false one: plenty of (board) wargame victory conditions are based on doing better than the historical result. Doing this against an AI or a human seems irrelevant.

I also disagree that mediums are merging. The whole point of that article is false. Digital wargames include more and more detail because the audience sees this as verisimilitude. That audience is much more about an “immersive experience” (though I hate that term) in which more and more detail is part of world building. The boardgame audience likes elegant systems because (a) they facilitate face-to-face play and (b) they can be directly appreciated as the players are implementing the mechanics themselves. Sure, there is audience overlap, but I disagree that solo digital wargamers would just play boardgames if they could find opponents.

4537

Where do you see the overlap?

4538

I was mostly referring to computer wargames, where the level of historical fidelity (as opposed to counting numbers of rifles or belt buckles) is generally well below the quality evidenced in board games. Also, I’m referring to an either/or sort of thing. In boardgames, by default, you don’t have to make the choice because you have the other person to play against. In a computer game, you can go either way. If you go with an AI, I think it does become quite the dichotomy. And even board games usually do it with victory points as you note, which still is a paradigm of gaining more points rather than doing something according to doctrine/circumstances/history. I suppose I’m sort of suggesting that, in the absence of a competitive purpose, you don’t need scoring per se, but rather a holistic performance assessment.

4539

Uh, me?

4540

Ok, so with me that’s 2.

Seriously,.where do you see it?

I play both, but I look for the same types of experiences in both. Not some “solo digital land” for one and a MP experience for the other. I like to play the same types of games on both mediums.

4541

I hate to say it, but even though I admire and like to look at boardgames, still, I have zero interest in playing them. I have absolutely no desire to actually set up maps and counters and move pieces around any more. Nada. Physical pieces, at least, but I’m even growing pretty unenthusiastic about traditional boardgame paradigm computer games, too. I just find most of them so tedious for some reason.

4542

Well, you are undoubtedly quite disappointed in one or the other, then. I can’t get out of solo play what I want out of face-to-face, because one of the most important things to me in boardgaming is the back-and-forth with my opponent, talking about the mechanics, the design, and how we are experiencing the game.

That and the post-game scotch.

4543

Sure, which is exactly why the “convergence of design” thing is nuts.

4544

Well, no, I am not quite disappointed by the online version of multiplayer, because I do get that feedback and interaction. Sometimes via Skype/Discord in vox, or chat as well. It is is different face to face, and I enjoy that as well, in a different way. But I think here you are purely talking a Brooski preference, not an audience preference. That’s OK, but it doesn’t speak to a market.

The Scotch, I miss. I am trying to do more of that. Medical experts tell me that in moderation, I should find it bracing and tasty. :)