Also very much agree with this.
I like games with an angle, as I said before, but I like them when they’re designed well enough that it comes out through the play rather than as paragraph long footnotes in the rules or big designer’s notes in the rulebooks.
I am not sure I can agree with “wargames being best when they focus on military campaigns”. On the contrary, I find they become a high-technology version of the “picture books” and military novels which were so popular in the late nineteenth century, that essentially glorified war as a gentlemanly contest.
Also, and exclusively from the standpoint of game making, very little is left to innovation as if our understanding of military matters has progressed since the 1970s, is in the dimension of acknowledging the constraints imposed on military operations by political imperatives and in having a more balanced picture of the capabilities of combatants.
Let’s discuss a concrete example, taken from “Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive - October 1966 to October 1967” by George L. Mac Garrigle
Late on the evening of the twelfth Walker’s men encircled Ben Cui II,
completing the seal just before daylight. South Vietnamese officials followed,
assembling the inhabitants for questioning by a National Police
team. Most were elderly people or children. After the police segregated
all men between the ages of fifteen and forty-five for further interrogation,
government officials organized a hamlet festival, known to the
Americans as a county fair. The officials made speeches about the need
for the people to support the Saigon government, distributed safe-conduct
passes and how-to-surrender leaflets, provided a meal, and generally
attempted to befriend the people of the hamlet. Meanwhile, a U.s.
Medical Civic Action Program (MEDCAP) team consisting of a doctor
and medical assistants treated 190 villagers who had minor illnesses.
All the while, the 2d Brigade searched the hamlet. Although the troops
found few weapons and military stores, the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese
effort resulted in the capture of twenty-seven Viet Cong and the discovery
that Ben Cui II was a requisition processing point for COSVN’s 82d Rear
Service Group.
How can you separate the political from the strictly military when the two are inextricably intertwined as in the example above? This is highlighted by Mac Garrigle as one of the major events in Operation Attleboro.
It depends on exactly what you are modelling. For instance, pacification results from the MEDCAP won’t be able to be displayed over a 20-25 day campaign. Better said, I am not modelling that aspect.
Now, having said that the discovery of a cache in my game will lead to an uptick in MACV interest in the operation, increasing the likelihood they will reinforce it. it also may have resulted in the discovery that Hidden Movement marker contained a 82nd Logistics Group Unit.
Personally, that particular HMM that McGarrigle is describing had a cache, but no 82nd Logistics Group unit. The US sure wishes that it did. That would mean more VPs. :)
You can’t separate them, if you are intending to construct a viable narrative and contribute to the broader discourse about the war. How, though, do you do that effectively and appropriately in a game? I am arguing that, for the most part, you can’t, though some game designers can certainly craft game-like experiences that simulate some of the broader elements of the conflict. By and large, though, I find that the medium of wargaming lends itself mostly to approaches to emphasize the fighting itself, and less to the broader political, cultural, or social context. One may differ, for sure; there are games that put the player in the role of a high-level political leader, and attempt to simulate a lot of things beyond the battlefield. In my opinion, very few of those attempts are successful, and most game designers simply do not have the academic chops to both design a workable game and create a gamer risk/reward choice cycle that not only works as a mechanic but also functions didactically.
Most games I’ve played over the years that try to deal with political aspects of a war tend to not do justice to the complexity of that part of the struggle, and often just end up confusing things. You can do it if you keep things at a fairly abstract level, like not allowing some macro decisions or forcing others, to replicate the historical parameters in which the fighting happened, but beyond that, you no longer really have a wargame as I understand it, but a political-military simulation, and the standards for those are much different IMO than for a wargame trying to replicate the conditions of, say, one campaign or battle.
Most games dealing with the US’s War in Vietnam conflict deal with it from the macro-Strategic level, sometimes verging towards Politico-Military, or the very tactical. Nick Karp’s title is unique in that it deals with the Strategic Conflict, but at a BN level. Lots of granularity. Also lots of game.:)
What is lacking, and why I wanted to design this, is the Operational-level modelling of Campaigns and Battles in the conflict. It’s kind of amazing actually, as that is usually the first thing designed again and again in other conflicts. It really shows how the Historiography has been obsessed with the macro. The Military History was woefully neglected for decades.
Its interesting. I think conflicts at this bring to the surface the question of “who is the player?” usually we play some odd omincent ghost , part general, part air commander, part country leader, part god. With Vietnam in particular this question of role stands out like a sore thumb as both sides operational and unit commanders had their hands tied in more ways than most wargames portray.
I will also note the fog of war so often limited solely to the Allies in Vietnam wargames was also present and often even worse for the PAVN forces who were very often completely surprised tactically. But for hex n counter the “what the hell is happening?” question many commanders on all sides faced really is tough to model. I far prefer command & comms rules for this rather than trying to replicated hidden information with the cardboard.
For my design that was the first question. The Answer was “the Commander of Operation Attleboro” and “the Commander of NLF Forces in War Zone C”. Everything follows on that, essentially. One of the reasons both sides have influence on, but no control over or certainty of their reinforcements.
Thats great! I think by asking and answering the question you made a big step. Its strange how many wargames dont ask this of themselves.
It’s one of my pet peeves in all games, actually. “Blucher arrives at 1200.” Really? :)
Unfortunately Hidden/Limited information is the most accurate representation of most of those issues at this scale.
As well, it depends on what stage of the war you are talking about (who is hidden, and why). That is something, fates preserve me, that I hopefully will be toying with in future titles.
Yes, I think playing as the commander of a limited military formation (a division, a regiment, a corps, whatever) works best. The higher echelon stuff may give you some interesting gaming, but it’s not what I consider a wargame per se, though YMMV. More importantly, while it is hard enough to develop a tactical or operational game that is historical, playable, elegant, and workable, it’s even harder to do that for bigger geo-political and cultural simulations. The level of research and the need to translate that into workable systems without skewing or warping everything in some way is pretty daunting, and I just don’t think it’s that rewarding.
This has helped defeat Vietnam titles. It’s about operations, not formations. But the Fulda Gappers can’t wrap their heads around that. :)
I’m being a bit facetious with you here Wombat, obviously. :) But not about the issue. No joke there.
Sure, you can substitute an operational commander, or a task force, or whatever, as long as it is clearly defined, limited, and focused on the battlefield.
Just for you @TheWombat and @vyshka as well, is this counter.
That is an ASA counter, at a facility on top of Nui Ba Den Mountain. And yes, it has an in-game effect. :)
MI, represent!
Good luck. if you can get that to work as a solo friendly mechanism you get bonus points :)
Hidden Movement actually aids me when I play solo. It’s impossible to track what is inside them, even when you play the other side. :) Keeps it a surprise.
This system has hidden information and C & C rules. If you don’t pass the efficiency check, you may not launch the attack you wanted to. It’ll launch, just with some complications. As well, the game has Observation rules to “expose” hidden movement markers. No targeted attacks without Observation.
Semper Veritas.
Funnily, searching that phrase brought up an Amazon page for the unit crest for my old battalion in the 1st Cav.
Is that Latin for “In the Motor Pool”?
Well, yeah, ASA served tactcal/operational missions as a key part of its mission, so good to see them there in your game. Reminds me of the ASA song, which I can’t remember all of, but which had lines like “Blue is for the water we won’t go near” and “Red is for the blood we shed/That is why, we wear no red.” Funny, self-deprecating stuff that belied the crucial mission ASA played, and in places like 'Nam, where they took real risks like any other soldier.
Part and parcel to displaying that impact is the interplay with Hidden Movement Markers (Counters which may, or may not, have VC/NVA counters inside them). Ahem, @Rod_Humble :)
From Unlikely Warriors: The Army Security Agency’s Secret War in Vietnam 1961-1973 (Crap, I forgot to add that to my Bibliography…)…
This was in May 1968 after they had expanded the facility beyond the Relay/ELINT/SIGINT stuff I represent in '66 into a full-fledged huge station.
The attack ended with 24 KIA, 35 WIA, 1 Prisoner. NSA got spooked at the facility’s vulnerability and they mandated that thing be shut down. Pretty tough position to hit, and required a LOT of planning and preparation. Funny how it became a priority target for a sapper attack after a full on station was built there and not before. Lots of folks can have an intelligence advantage…
ASA fought that war like everyone else, Let’s not even start to talk about the guys supporting SOF who were nabbed as prisoners countrywide from Trail-monitoring posts. Some people I know are still convinced that the Warsaw Pact encouraged the PLAF and PAVN to specifically isolate those facilities and take prisoners.
Let’s say, the war in Vietnam 1965-1975 at the operational and strategic level.
I think this is a pretty good example of military operations being influenced by political considerations in Vietnam. In this particular case you have a Battalion of US infantry pretty much coordinating with South Vietnamese Police to lock down a suspected logistical base of the PLAF. That’s one battalion less in the field, which is a substantial force. If you don’t cover operations like that in some way, which is thematic and consistent with the rest of the gameplay, what you end up is with a weak tea game. Same thing, but coming from the other side, for COIN games that postulate themselves as “alternative” to wargames where more straightforward combat operations dominate gameplay.
What is missing, or hard to come by, is the testimony of the analogous operations ran by the Vietnamese Communist Party forces in South Vietnam. I am pretty sure that the BBQ at Ben Cui wasn’t the happiest meal ever had by the villagers, but I am also quite sure - looking at what Mao’s revolutionary handbook suggests - that the PLAF and the NLF were not known for their doctors or for handing out free barbecued pork belly meals.
For the most part… at the tactical level, where you would have to portray the actual face of war, no, not really. In that case, the appropiate format would be along the lines of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. Only that, in my opinion, would be respectful and proper. It would also be a very painful watch.
At a slightly higher level I do think game designers should portray these political constraints in some way, and could totally get away with it, provided it fits the theme of their games. For instance, operational games covering US forces in World War II should send a pretty stingy negative reward when losses are high. You don’t sacrifice the citizens of a democracy without paying a political post. Similarly, games covering the Nazi-Soviet war in the Eastern Front, that do not model the interference of the two “masterminds” at the top of the hierarchy on both sides, end up being a whitewash of hindsight and some pretty bland game outcomes.
One example of a game that gets away with the interplay of the political and the operational/strategic is, in my opinion, the best high-level operational wargame made in the last 25 years (better even than my beloved OCS)
and why is that? Because of this counter
That could be the name of a brand of eau de cologne in Indonesia, btw.
I am not going to steal Pat’s thunder, but what I have seen from his rules, I think he can totally get away with conveying political imperatives interfering with the conduct of military US operations in Vietnam, in a way that is both respectful with the subject matter, educational without insulting anyone’s intelligence, engaging as in thrilling, and thematic as in consistent with the scale and content of the game.
