Grognard Wargamer Thread!

One of the nice things at work is something called Red Hat Rewards, where people get a budget of points each year or some period, and they can give people the points for something they’ve done. The points can then be turned into gift cards and other things. So as a result of helping out another team with a problem a couple weeks ago I ended up with some points which has now translated into Amazon sending me Normandy '44 and MBT tomorrow.

Yeah the solo rules administering the enemy takes some time but I think the processes generally work pretty well and i’ve picked them up in EA:K very quickly.

The Germans have a different procedure for each turn and I think it generally works well. For example, on T1-2, if their armored units come up they have a ‘get the heck out of the barrage zone’ directive and then will kind of naturally form a line beyond it to salvage their position.

Yes, looking through the materials, I’m impressed by how he’s designed the AI to function conditionally based on the progression of the campaign. Makes sense, for sure, but it shows the level of complexity behind this. You have to create multiple AIs depending on the situation, and those will vary over the course of the 6-week battle.

Nice! You are going at this in full speed mode. :)

I need to slow down or the backlog will be as bad as Steam.

Strategic Command ACW is out on June 30th.

I, uh, have played several MP and SP games and I think it’s okay to say that I REALLY like it?

Following this one!

Wargame Design Studio will have a summer sale Jun 17 - Jul 4:

The Wargame Design Studio Summer sale this year runs from June 17th, 2022, to July 4th, 2022. Like prior sales, all titles are reduced by 25% to $29.95 from our normal pricing.

The only exceptions are the two titles released in the last twelve months, Civil War Battles - Forgotten Campaigns and Naval Campaigns - Kriegsmarine, that remain at full price.

Kiev '43 will be on sale for the first time and it plays better than most of the rest of their titles against the AI imo. Japan '45 and '46 are interesting and fun imo too. Apparently they weren’t great when first released, but they’ve put a lot of time into patching them and they play well now imo.

I really love how their games allow you to visualize these giant campaigns. I’ve learned so much just reading the accompanying docs and staring at the giant campaign scenarios. lol

I’m currently futzing around with a solo hot-seat Japan '46 campaign (some 600 turns long, though I won’t come anywhere near that I’m sure before I bail on it). Since the update that moved the graphics into the current updated look, the two invasion of Japan games are a lot more palatable. They are also reworking the '45 campaign as well.

These are pretty engaging as sandboxes for playing out a hypothetical invasion of Japan in the absence of the bomb. I find playing them solo hot-seat works best, because while the AI is actually ok as the defenders (ain’t much they can do for the first part of the game anyhow), it takes forever for the AI turns to process because of the defensive fire from your side. Like 20 minutes a turn long. The AI tends to fire a lot more often and with little regard for chances of success than a human will, so turns go by much faster playing both sides. And there is so much going on, over such a large area, that I find I can definitely forget stuff and surprise myself. But I am not playing for the competitive aspect of things–I mean, really, given the subject matter it’s mostly a matter of how many casualties the US will take, not whether they can defeat the Japanese–but more to game out the situation.

I find it interesting to try to keep formations together, carve out a bridgehead, all that stuff. From the Japanese side I find it a nice challenge to figure out how fast to withdraw from the beaches and how to position what few mobile reserves there are, etc. It’s not a fast process, and I only play a few turns a day usually, in between other stuff, but it is pretty cool.

I really should start doing that. Probably a majority of the board wargaming I did growing up was solo, as it likely will be now, but I don’t that I have ever played a computer wargame solo hotseat.

For a lot of the more traditional turn-based games it’s very much like solo playing board games. With the added benefit that even if you kind of remember where the enemy is, with a bit of mental adjustment (and taking time between turns) you can still get a decent fog of war experience.

Of course, it works best if your goal is more simulation and exploration than competitive play, naturally.

Here’s a documentary about bocage you might find fascinating.

GMT has charged my card for EotS 4th ed. Getting close!

I got that email as well.

Oh, just checked. Me too! That was my first P500 order ever. I remember thinking at the time that I’d be getting it in a few months. So naive.

I’ve been playing a learning (solo) game of Nevsky this week. So far I’m really enjoying the system. Teutons and Rus dead even at the end of the first half of summer.


July, 1240 - Bishop Hermann lays siege to the Russian fort at Izborsk.

With Almoravid and the L&C fest happening recently I was inspired to push around the pieces in Nevsky too. It’s a great game and I am glad to be drawn back into it. The hardest part about soloing it for me was the campaign decks. I had a harder time splitting my thought process with that particular game function. Of course the goal is to ultimately play this opposed.

Yes! I’ve been toying with some ideas for creating decks for solo play. Not a bot system but more of a way to add unpredictability to the order and selection of cards.

I’m going to play a Vassal game soon and am also eager to try it two-player.

Broke out an old classic today: 6th Fleet.

I like the system. It’s not too overly complex. I also like the designers that state: we did for gameplay reasons first (like the detection system).

I’m eagerly awaiting the reprints that are coming from Compass for this series.