This is true, I think. The thing I am arguing I guess is that computer games are not necessarily better at modeling historical events, even though theoretically I agree they could be extremely good at it. The trick is in getting potential to match up with actuality.
Quite possibly. It all depends on definitions, doesn’t it? Fidelity is a tough thing to define, outside of a strict engineering sense. I come at it from a background, among other things, in academic history and real-world intelligence/systems operation. When we were trying to understand the Soviets during the Cold War, we needed models that were faithful to how the Russians thought and conceived of things, as much as how many tanks they had. Trying to predict behavior or interpret actions was and is a complex thing. Historical wargames have the advantage of knowing what happened, and the huge database of information about how and why it happened. Computer wargame developers are often just as into and familiar with their subject matter as board game designers, but face a very different set of hurdles in translating this stuff to a game I think.
FWIW, I really appreciate the high level of discussion here. It’s not important whether we end up agreeing or disagreeing, really; the back and forth and the very good stuff you bring to the table in these posts is quite appreciate.
I consider online m/p (in wargames) to be such an infinitesimally small section of the market that I can’t really discuss it. It certainly isn’t driving design. Design drivers are solo digital vs ftf board, in which the markets and experiences are completely different.
This is true for m/p strategy games as well, I’d say - based on what I hear from other indie gamedev’s who’ve tried (or are in) that market. It’s just an extremely hard market to make money from - which explains why, despite having cult-like communities still playing the games, there has never been a real revival of VGA Planets or Stars!. Dominions is one of the few (if not only) exception to buck the trend that I can think of.
Tiller’s point that AI work doesn’t pay is true, though not only because the cost of good AI is too high. It’s just as much because really good AI is something that in many games would only be noticed (and appreciated) by a minority of the users. From what I’ve seen (as a customer), for most games, if there is one person who complains about bad AI, then there is usually 10 who think it’s just fine (but who are silent), and at least a couple who think the game is too hard. While it’s immensely satisfying to develop a strong AI, it’s just never going to be worth it vs developing an AI just strong enough to counter the majority of players in a satisfactory manner. The majority of players don’t play computer AI for the fun of being defeated by them (not even in Chess).
I agree with @TheWombat and @Brooski. A certain kind of fidelity can be found in raw number processing, but I’m unsure how useful that sort of fidelity is.
CMANO is a cool toy, but it allows you to use assets in ways that they would never be used in reality. Detail of simultaion has to imply either unrealistic control options or pretty hard AI driving the simultaion and restricted player control. But once you are restricting player control you can also simplify the simulation a lot without losing real detail at the statistical level. Unless simulation low unit count conflicts (vehicle simulations, basically) data is little more than chrome and a way for the designer to avoid running the numbers themselves and offloading the calculations to the computer.
While a game that tries to convey the situation through fitting rules to the desired outcomes will indeed not work if the fundamental assumptions on the historical situation changes (new research, etc) the same issue manifests itself with data-based models. Basically because very seldomly new data being available is qualitatively compatible with already available data. Sometimes you might find there’s a brigade unnacounted for in a battle that might help explain the historical outcome better, but most of the time, new data being revealed points to new datasets being needed, not elaboration on the already available ones.
Thus, new data being available does not imply it can be plugged into a complex model and the model will adapt. In most real use cases, the data itself is complex enough that new data requires new models anyway, and the data based approach becomes obsolete as fast as the cardboard approach.
Theoretically you can design a system that takes into account all possible data, including doctrine and psychological factors in every actor involved, but that’s a Matrix-style simulation we are talking about.
That most military-grade data-driven simulations rely on umpires says a lot about the flexibility of the data-based approach.
And all that is for predicting outcomes or to test possible models. Which are just two reasons why you want fidelity. Other reason would be to explore or teach the consequences of a situation as it is currently understood (and wargames are much better at this than at the former objectives), and for that prupose, a simplified, more abstract model can indeed prove superior single it’s “graspable” in a way a heavy data-based model is not. In this context, fitting rules to outcomes is indeed desirable.
Necro Re: Imperium Romanum (old thread)
Did you end up getting this? I played 2nd edition quite a bit back in Uni days, and still have fond memories of the game. Which is weird, because I do not recollect it being a good game and checking up on BGG, I see that I gave it a score of 3…
As I recall, it is a very logistics-heavy game, with supply and recruitment being both expensive and time-consuming. A typical scenario was spending 3-4 hours building up our armies and setting up supply lines until one of the sides felt confident enough to attack, then rolling a few dice to settle the big battle and (essentially) the game. I guess the reason I liked it was that it feels like a good simulation in my favorite period (within the limitations of paper and cardboard) - as a game, though…
The new version is not out yet. I will get it when it releases.
In the meantime I have played some Ancient World games (some with @navaronegun here in the forum, and some Ancient WArs (old S&T games that got expanded and integrated into a single system).
Ancient World I liked a lot, but it’s mostly strategical, with little operational thinking, due to infinite movement and long turn times. It is, I think, a good simulation of the period at a high level, but movement and supply are so easy that the operational concerns basically dissapear.
Ancient Wars is much more fun to play, but the ruleset is a little of a mess (it shows it’s 4 games put together, sometimes it’s not clear where rules apply, and the 5 distinct countersets are a mess). It feels very similar to Imperium Romanum II (which I have read the rules of, but not yet played since I’m waiting for III), if a little more specific at times.
My main problem with Ancient games is scale. If you have 1 year turns some conflicts go way too quick and the game must be strategic, since you can basically cross Europe in that time. If you go to monthly to seasonal turns, many historical conflicts become way too long to play in a reasonable time.
Panzeh
4572
I think having thought about SCWW2’s lack of stacking, i think many computer wargames that do feature it would do well to find a way to graphically represent the contents of a stack with the top counter. IMO, there’s not a whole lot of reason not to, given the ability of computers to change counters on a whim.
I also got a little bit of a laugh at how a mod for a Matrix game(A3R mod for SCWW2) shows you more about a unit on its counter than all the nice graphics and ‘better’ UI in games like Civ5 and 6, where essentially all you can really see is the graphical version of a unit’s hp- its advantages and disadvantages are gone. Unfortunately, most SCWW2 scenarios have the problem of having to dig into the stats to see a unit’s function.
Strategy games don’t need “HUD” level data and stat displays. Back to @Brooski’s point of more not equaling better.
As you also refer to. If they had stacking in that engine, it’d be close to an “all-timer” IMO. That and script choices that are multiple choice. If it had that, a scenario designer could really have a fantastic blank slate for Turn-based games.
I guess the Stallion has some life in him, yet!
“Ancient World”? Are these the Richard Berg games (Rise of Rome, etc) you’re thinking of? Don’t think I’ve played them, but my impression of them was that they were quite complex counter-fiddling games - these days I don’t have the time and patience for that kind of game.
I assume the Ancient Wars are the old John Miranda games? I remember playing those a bit back when I was working on trying to do an ancient PC strategy game on the subject, but - IIRC - they failed to really appeal to the part of me that enjoys history.
I played a couple of games of Pax Romana (also by Berg) a couple of years back and really enjoyed that. It doesn’t deliver terribly historical “results”, but for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, it delivers what I’d consider gameplay that “feels” right. One can get over screwed over badly by bad luck, though, which is a problem for a 6+ hours game, and the scale is strategic, of course.
It’s undeniably a hard task to create an ancient game on the operational scale (speaking from experience), as you mention - I feel like there should be some potential in a system based on variable turns (e.g., 1 year turns, but with a variable number of activations in each turn, depending on how the player activates his her units). And now I feel like sitting down and dragging out my design notes…gah.
I might argue that this is a feature, not a flaw. A common complaint of wargamers, especially PC gamers, is that there’s too much information. Real life commanders don’t have numbers, they have formations and their performance is not set in stone. So to some extent, not being able to make fluid statistical calculations in a wargame – not possible with a board wargame – can be seen as a positive development where players must develop a “feel” for their units, just like real life.
We have a PbF going on that is almost finished, if you want to take a look. The system is complex, but not fiddly at all. There are very few active staks in most scenarios.
This is exactly what the Ancient World system does. In my opinion is too broad a stroke, because each activation you can still move too much without the other player being able to do anything about it if you go around. You take loses because of attrition, but because combat ratios are not that important is not a huge issue. Too much mobility and no trace of supply restrictions most of the time.
Indeed. I suggest getting hold of the full system rules (the Ancient Wars Series Expansion rules), since those add quite a lot of depth. I like the activation system and the roll-to-march, as well as the different uses for stratagems. Not as complex a political system as the Berg games but does most of the work with a fraction of the rule overload. The advanced combat is a travesty, though, but the intermediate combat rules (basic combat with stratagems) does work nicely and models different troops types and superior generalship. It’s a pity the system is spread between 4 games and an expansion. It’s a mess and not very consistent, even when you put everything together, with maps with different styles and hex sizes and counters that don’t really match. A reissue homogeinizing everything would be quite interesting, I think.
I like what they did with the maps. I put together a homogeinized map to play the expansion scenarios (that take more than one map and are set in different time periods). The rules for city building and road networks changes over the time work really well, as does the depiction of tribal population vs. city settled nations. There are still some issues with incosistencies between scenario rules and system rules, though, that I had to choose how to resolve. The game does need tweaking, but it could have worked really well had it been fully developed, I think.
This is true. Real world commanders also have extensive staffs who filter and synopsise data to give them he information they need to make decisions.
Real world commanders also, when in simulations or exercises want that same filtered information, not “raw” data.
Panzeh
4578
That would make more sense if the info were meant to be hidden, but it’s just annoying to get at. Even if it were, if unit performance is not randomized, it’s kind of worthless to hide the info since it can be had anyway.
Look at Grigby’s War in the East. You have raw data for each unit, but also derived factors from the data. You can choose what to display on the counter. Yet you don’t get a specific CRT for combat, you just have to go with your gut and perhaps (I can’t remember now for certain) a rough estimate of the result. Unlike, say, SSG’s Decisive Battles system where you’re given combat factors, a customized CRT, and a virtual die roll. I find both games to be fine for me, but Grigsby’s system makes the experience more “realistic” as far as not enabling excessive factor counting as in board wargames.
And I recognize the “staff of thinkers” argument and have used it myself in other discussions. But that’s mainly an argument against “real time” games that make you control every army unit simultaneously. Not as much an argument against turn based games. And staffs still can’t give you definitive combat results ranges regardless.
I disagree. I think you can still be swamped by useless or immaterial detail. Turn based or RTS, it doesn’t matter.
Regarding variable combat range results, that is a function that I agree is desirable, but that is a game by game issue.
Personally, I don’t care for Grigsby, precisely because I think it jumped the shark on data overload. Especially WitW I want to be the commander. Not spend time as my J4. I’ll put up with being my own J2 and J3…to an extent…but after that, I am not interested. If that is the case, then give me OCS and a rulebook and the time to really slow it down. As well as an opponent who will be creative. Not a program.
Or TCS and we’ll write orders…and see if they get misinterpreted. THAT is realism. :)
Oh and my Staff example had more to do with discussing what real world commanders want/need. I have never met, worked for or taught one who wanted reams of raw data.
I think Grigsby’s series is the best thing computer wargaming has going. What’s yours?
I honestly don’t like much currently. Not for trying. Decisive Campaigns is decent. I am really enjoying Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe (certain mods, anyway) if you look further up on the thread. I was really pleasantly surprised by that title. Specifically 2 “official” player mods in the DLC: A3R and 653H.
As @panzeh and I have been back and forthing about; if the game had stacking and the script choices had more than Binary opions, it would be a pretty decent blank canvas for scenario design.
I will hand it to Slitherine, they really broke the code on Turn-based play overall with their PBEM++ system.
Other than that I am doing a LOT of Vassal of Boardgames.
Thanks, coming back to me now. Complexity did it in for me - no chance of finding an opponent. Plus it’s a Berg game - in theory, he makes the kind of games I should love with lots of chrome, but in practice I tend to bounce off a lot of them for various reasons. He ends up being a designer whose rule books I tend to love to read, but rarely play the game (though there are exceptions, such as PR).
I think the problem you describe in AW is as much an issue of the chit-pull initiative system, as the activation system itself, since it is a big part of what allows one player to do a ton of actions while the other stands still. It works a lot better in Pax Romana where you have multiple players (though still with the risk that one player has all their activations early, and is then hamstrung for the rest of the turn).
Do you have a link to where the files are available? I see the BGG page suggests that a reprint was in the works, but nothing seems to be present on the DG pages, and all the files on BGG seem pretty old. Didn’t see any files on Consimworld either - though didn’t trawl through all the posts.
Cheers mate, it’s been a good discussion!
