Grognard Wargamer Thread!

cannedwombat · 2018-09-12T19:51:18.386Z

Navaronegun:

cannedwombat:

It is not a high bar.

Maybe your standards are too high? I’ll say this with a good Vassal Mod for a quality game (say the COIN series) Hex Wars Mobile-trash really looks shabby in comparison.

There are some excellent VASSAL modules and they are your baseline for porting a board game to the PC. Give the buyer some reason to pay $14 instead of using something free. Otherwise…

Navaronegun · 2018-09-12T20:23:08.240Z

cannedwombat:

There are some excellent VASSAL modules and they are your baseline for porting a board game to the PC. Give the buyer some reason to pay $14 instead of using something free. Otherwise…

Hmmm…PC wargame/software folks consistently seem to have a rough time delivering even a Vassal-level of enjoyment. No (or bad) multiplayer, overemphasis on AI, overwhelming with nitnoid data, trying to make the perfect simulator, putting the code before the game…

What is that definition of insanity again?

vyshka · 2018-09-12T20:25:14.147Z

Why did they think it would be a good idea to go with Hexwars of all people? It should already be obvious that they can’t do a quality product.

Brooski · 2018-09-12T20:45:18.428Z

CNC

Navaronegun · 2018-09-12T20:52:20.752Z

That was quick. My personal record is 12 minutes.

Brooski · 2018-09-12T20:59:31.890Z

I cheated because I went over to a friend’s this morning and got a preview of him playing, which is where the camera got stuck and we had to abandon the game. We also noted the wrong range value on the archers. At that point I went home to see if I had the same issues on my machine and of course I did because they are machine independent. So I went ahead and refunded.

MiquelRamirez · 2018-09-12T22:06:12.196Z

Field of Glory 2 plays very well still.

MiquelRamirez · 2018-09-12T22:19:58.417Z

Also in good news, Unity of Command 2 is looking to shape up quite handsomely

Unity of Command – 5 Sep 18

Developer Diary 17 - The Double Header — Unity of Command

Hi there! Here’s a new post, finally, with two screenshots to make up for the lack of updates over the summer. The game is starting to resemble the real thing more and more, so there is a lot to talk … Continue reading →

I don’t love Western Front stuff so much, but these UoC games are pretty fun, have slick interfaces, more than decent AI and will have good MP integration.

strategy · 2018-09-12T22:28:56.824Z

Late reply regarding VQ and HIS: I own both; have played them a fair amount. Extremely thematic, very immersive, full of diplomacy and negotiation, very asymmetric, and - given reasonably skilled play - almost always result in a tight end-game. They’re among my favorite card-driven games.

TheWombat · 2018-09-12T22:47:12.973Z

I have a few HexWar games on IOS and man, they are bad. Bland, totally generic, and about as interesting as watching paint dry. Dull, gray paint.

Brooski · 2018-09-12T22:49:12.885Z

TheWombat:

I have a few HexWar games on IOS and man, they are bad. Bland, totally generic, and about as interesting as watching paint dry. Dull, gray paint.

I’ll bet they were cheap from GMT’s standpoint, though.

cannedwombat · 2018-09-12T23:30:21.460Z

So here’s a broad and probably unanswerable question I’m going to ask anyway:

How much does it cost someone like GMT to produce a war game? By looking at P500 numbers I’d guess $20k-30k. Anybody with some inside baseball knowledge on this?

Brooski · 2018-09-12T23:40:29.935Z

cannedwombat:

So here’s a broad and probably unanswerable question I’m going to ask anyway:

How much does it cost someone like GMT to produce a war game? By looking at P500 numbers I’d guess $20k-30k. Anybody with some inside baseball knowledge on this?

Depends on the size of the game and the size of the print run.

JoshL · 2018-09-12T23:51:15.758Z

Man, it’s sad that C&C Ancients game is bad. I love that game, but the set up and tear down cost is crazy. It’d be great to sit down and play an online match in 20 minutes. But nope! Guess I’ll wait for GMT to give the license to someone else.

Oh, and by the way, probably the best digital C&C game is still “Battlelore: Command”, which has the downside of being a fantasy game instead of historical, but it’s still C&C. And has online multiplayer.

CraigM · 2018-09-12T23:51:32.724Z

Absolutely. And the material, if it needs die cutting, the number of colors, the timing, the assembly and gluing.

At a baseline, using stock layouts and no special cutting materials (I.e. using Carte Mundi for standard card sizes) the first sheet of paper off the press is going to cost you about $1500 for a standard 4 color 2 sides print job. That’s if you are using a single form.

That’s just for plates, press make ready, coating blanket (for that matte feel), and minimal prepares prep time.

Add in any die cutting and it’s $600 minimum per form. If you use lots of non standard shapes (so different layouts) those costs are per form, which if you have lots of different materials may be a 3-4x multiplier.

cannedwombat · 2018-09-12T23:53:38.227Z

Well that would be the broad part of the question. I guess I can make it a little narrower.

Per GMT’s P500 page: it takes 700-750 copies to cover printing costs. So at $50/order that would be $35000 being your roughly break even.

That number goes up for bigger games of course, just looking for a baseline.

I’m most certainly wrong about the above figure, but I hope you get the gist.

Navaronegun · 2018-09-12T23:56:19.824Z

cannedwombat:

Per GMT’s P500 page: it takes 700-750 copies to cover printing costs. So at $50/order that would be $35000 being your roughly break even.

For them. Legion Games wants a P250. Depends on that business’ overhead and obligations. Not just Materials and printing.

CraigM · 2018-09-13T00:00:05.731Z

Well print is only a portion of that. One thing it seems they are doing, from seeing @Brooski collection, is using more standardized box sizes (which is a huge cost savings). Which means they only need new artwork. So for 750 boxes it’s probably about 2500-3000 for just the box, but that’s for a high quality print box, and is a significant savings. If they can run multiple print runs at the same time (say they have 3 games print ready at the same time) that number edges closer to $1800-2000 for the box.

Make ready is a thing, and those presses run a few hundred an hour at cost. You spend more time on make ready than running the job at those sizes.

The actual game itself? Depends on the number of materials. I’d wager the average probably comes in around 10k, presuming a rules insert, a board, and two forms for cards/ misc. if there is any custom diecutting bump that another 1-2k.

Total probably falls into the $10-15k range.

These are very rough estimates, but without looking at a specific game it seems about the best I can do.

Source: I worked in the print industry in production design and planning (boxes) for 11 years.

Brooski · 2018-09-13T00:01:30.155Z

GMT and Legion use completely different printers and have different cost structures. To get the economy of scale they get, GMT has to order large print runs (which are tiny compared to, say Asmodee). The Chinese printers are cheaper, but they required larger runs, and you then need to ship to the US. Legion uses a printer in Minnesota and has them drop the games off at Randy’s house.

Navaronegun · 2018-09-13T00:02:27.222Z

Yeah, one company to another isn’t apples to apples is what I was getting at. Spot on.