spacerumsfeld

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Posts posted by spacerumsfeld

  2. Posted

    I enjoyed the episode. But I don't play board wargames, and so I have some basic questions about what makes the difference between these games. What goes into a game that's more than "this unit has this much offense, this much defense, can move this many hexes, has this much morale, etc"? It's maybe too basic for 3MA but even a 10 minute sidetrack discussion would probably provide a lot of information.

    I was thinking back over some of the older episodes and maybe answered my own question. For example the Vietnam game that was discussed a while back where what you did affected your "political capital" back home.

     

    Games can use very different mechanics to represent the same thing, and where one game might assign specific combat factors to each unit, another may not use numbers in this way at all.  For example, the game Ici, c'est la France is about the Algerian War for Independence against France (and an excellent game, by the way) and each unit is rated for both strength and morale.  Strength determines how many dice you roll in combat, while morale determines if you get any modifiers to the roll.  The result of the roll determines whether you inflict a "hit" or not.  By way of contrast, in the game Colonial Twilight, which uses a completely different system to simulate the same conflict, units don't have numbers at all.  There are just cubes which represent troops or police (depending on color) and cylinders that represent guerrillas.  Troops can eliminate guerrillas anywhere, while police can only do so in cities. How many guerrillas they can eliminate is influenced by terrain but is usually just 1:1 or 2:1.  The guerrillas, on the other hand, simply roll a die, and if the roll is equal to or less than the number of attacking guerrillas, they are successful.  So in Colonial Twilight, the representation is very abstract.  Other games might make combat even more mathematical, and incorporate different types of combat results (disruption in addition to outright elimination, etc.)  Many games have no hexes.  There are about as many ways to represent offense, defense, and movement as ways you can combine dice, hexes, cards, and cardboard :)

     

    I also was a bit miffed about the coy skirting around the different Gaugamela adaptations and would have appreciated a more low-level breakdown of their respective strengths and weaknesses.

     

    Sorry for the coyness - we really didn't want to ruin the surprise we have in store.  You'll get a very low-level breakdown shortly!

  3. Posted

    Mygaffer, you just listened to the teaser! :) In the interview Mark explains that this was a game to test a new deck and that Richard Garfield's cards consisted of blank cards with things written directly in them. So it wasn't a standard card that was a 20/20 Trample, it was some experimental card Richard Garfield made.

    Ok, no more spoilers from me! ;)

  5. Posted

    As a marketing thing, I have to think that being able to ask the questions is more enticing than being able to listen to the show, and if you make the show free for all it will advertise that perk to potential backers.

    That's a great point - thanks for articulating that. Maybe being able to ask questions is sufficient for Patreon purposes? And everyone could listen? Other backers have thoughts?

  6. Posted

    Great show!

     

    Any chance of recomendations from the books that Bruce and Mark mentioned?

     

    I asked Mark and he recommends American Warlords by Jonathan W. Jordan. http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/american-warlords

     

    I would recommend The Big Three: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin in Peace and War by Robin Edmonds. http://www.historytoday.com/max-beloff/big-three-churchill-roosevelt-and-stalin-peace-and-war

     

    Either one is a great starting place.

  11. Posted

    So in a way, Total War games are ones where they divorced production and battle into two separate 'games' but it also seem to always get bit (not a lot) of flak for the two not mashing up all that well.  But we all seem to want both detailed combat and infrastructure building represented in our war command themed games...

     

    Are we just cursed to want the impossible?

    I think the Dominions series has actually solved this problem :)

  12. Posted

    I believe the last time 3MA did a state of the RTS type episode it was with Soren Johnson right around the time Offworld Trading Company had been announced.  It has been awhile, so my memory is a little rusty, but my take away of Soren's broad point was something like this: The classic RTS model that we know from C&C, TA, and SC was the right gameplay model for its time. Rob mentioned that you only needed one disc to play with a couple of your friends, and to top it all off, internet connections were bad, and we didn't have matchmaking back then so we generally weren't aware of how bad we all were at these games. Once that became clearer that model became a lot less appealing to a lot of people. The RTS still has a ton of potential because games in real time offer certain strategic calculations that can't exist in turn based games, and these games are intrinsically a better format for multiplayer games, but designers need to let the old base building model die and invent new designs that successfully exploit the interesting strategic choices that exist in a real time game.

    The observation about how we didn't really know how bad we were at these games (for most people - Tom Chick taught me very quickly how bad I was at these games) because that information was masked by the lack of multiplayer is a great point. Furthermore, I think the base-building model is an inherently turn-based mechanic, because it is much more interesting to actually see each decision a player makes based on roughly equal resources: oh, I started building this resource enhancer, but he is using an equivalent number of resources to make a bunch of piddly military units. Oh, I don't have adequate defenses to counter that. That's much more interesting to see in process than it is to just see your base all of a sudden under attack.

  14. Posted

    How approachable is this game for new players? I bought Downtown a few years ago and while it had a neat design, it was also a bit overwhelming.

     

    Wing Leader is much, much more approachable than Downtown.  Not just because of the rules, but because of the fact that there are many fewer moving parts.

  15. Posted

    Listening to this podcast I was wondering is there any games about the Troubles in Northern Ireland similar to the ones Train created?

    Seamus, while there are several games about the Irish civil war, I do not know of any games about The Troubles. However, if you listen to my interview with Dave Kershaw from last year (https://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/episodes/vietnam-solitaire-with-dave-kershaw) who also has done an Irish civil war game, you can hear about the game he designed about the Orange Order marches.

  17. Posted

    This seems to be accounted for in the wikipedia article that the 3.7's were not as numerous, often attached directly to higher level HQs above division level, the system was much heavier than the 88, prolonged firing at low elevations were outside the design spec and strained the mounting gear.

     

    Not that they couldn't have developed the gun into an AT weapon (It actually ended up as the QF 32 pounder), but by late 1942 they had the famous 17 pounders available.

     

    In this day of multi-decade procurement programs, it's easy to forget how short the system development and deployment cycles in WW2 were.

     

    Like many Wikipedia articles, that one is poorly sourced, so I'd question whether they were actually fewer 3.7-in guns in North Africa in late 1941 than there were 88s.  Also, by late 1942 the question was settled: the British had problems handling the Germans in North Africa from early 1941 through mid-1942.  So I would argue that a solution found in late 1942 did not solve the acute problem.  

     

    Well, there's a much simpler explanation that makes a lot more sense- neither the Germans nor the Italians fielded a tank that couldn't be penetrated easily by the 6-pounder until Tunisia.  The 88mm was used as an expedient as the German 37mm was found wanting against some of the heavily armored French tanks.

     

    Also, I have a feeling that they would have suffered the fate of the US towed tank destroyers- an AT gun that heavy was nigh-useless in offensive operations and almost everyone was finding deficiencies in all towed AT guns as the war went into its last couple years, particularly those that demanded heavy movers.

     

    Yet the 6-pdr didn't appear until Gazala, (I think), so again, this is an example of a problem being solved later.  And I would argue that the fact that a tank "could be penetrated" by a given gun is not that significant in itself - it depends on the range at which the penetration takes place.  The big advantage of the 88 was the long range at which it could penetrate British armor, so that British tanks could often not effectively engage the AT guns.

     

    Also, the 88 was used very effectively in offensive operations in North Africa by capturing ground and then fighting defensively on the ground occupied.  This was the essence of German combined-arms tactics and I don't think was matched by the Allies in the war.  However, this was also largely due (I think) to the wide, flat terrain which allowed fighting at maximum effective ranges far greater than on the Western Front.

     

    This is all of course debatable, but I think the point is that it is hard to talk about any "technical superiority" without taking into account a lot of other factors that might not be considered strictly "technical" according to some people's definitions.  And the applicability of that to this episode is that how you internalize these facts, and to what extent, very much drives the way in which you perceive a game like this as being "historically accurate."

  18. Posted

    In north Africa the main quality difference between the allies and German tanks in the earlier months was that the Germans had 1 radio per tank, the allies didn't. Again this isn't always modelled but is far more important than the exact size of the tank gun or front armour. Aside from the radios, training and overall tank strategy doctrine however, there is little evidence that Panzer 3s and 4s were any better than Crusaders or Matilda tanks, at least according to a book on Wavell i read.

     

     

    It's really hard to separate these things, though.   The "one-radio-per tank" was more than just that - the French Char B was technically a good tank, able to stand up to a Panzer III, it had a one-man turret, so the commander had to serve as loader, gunner, and radio operator.  Even if the French had had radios in every tank, they couldn't have used them as effectively.  The Matilda was an adequate tank, but was quite slow because it was designed to support infantry.  Whereas the German combined arms doctrine in the desert was so far ahead of the British that it is almost impossible to imagine the Matilda functioning in the system the Germans used.   But you're right that it's about so much more than the equipment by itself.  I think the following quote from Correlli Barnett's superlative The Desert Generals shows how much perception can be driven by external factors:

     

    [t]he British also had a magnificent anti-aircraft gun, the 3.7-inch, no more of a conspicuous target than the 88 mm., and of even greater penetrative power.  In November 1941 there were in North Africa more 3.7’s than 88’s.  But the British never used them in an anti-tank role, either in Crusader or in later desert battles.  It was a depressing example of a streak of conservatism, rigidity and departmentalism in the twentieth-century British mind.  The 3.7 was an anti-aircraft gun. It was to be used therefore to shoot at aircraft. The two-pounder was supplied to shoot tanks.  And that was that.

  19. Posted

     I've always thought that the myths of technological prowess particular to Nazi Germany are an offshoot of the Lost Cause, adapted a bit for the modern era. The South will rise again because its cause is just and true, the Fourth Reich will come again because its science was strong and pure. I don't mean that people consciously think that, but there's a romance that surrounds a mighty foe once defeated, and mistaken impressions of advanced Nazi technology, maybe lost in the postwar diaspora of knowledge, are a little bit like Barbarossa asleep under the Kyffhäuser, you know?

     

    This is related to the "myth of the Eastern Front" and you're right, I think it does have a lot in common with the Lost Cause.  http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/american-history-after-1945/myth-eastern-front-nazi-soviet-war-american-popular-culture?format=PB

     

    We did an episode on this I think, but can't find it right now.

  21. Posted

    What's your impression of the update Bruce? I remember on the podcast there were some concerns about adding a weather system. Have the changes made the game more fiddly and/or random, or are there some good additions here?

     

    I kept delaying replying to this because I thought I would get to play enough that I could have a comment, but I have not been able to, yet.  Just too much work right now, unfortunately.

  24. Posted

    First of all - I love the 3MA podcasts. They are the "thinking man's" podcasts.

    And, I hate to be "that guy", but - I'm afraid - that is exactly what I am going to be. It is always a cheap shot to armchair generalize what was said on the podcast, and, I love different opinions, opposing opinions, polemic opinions.

    Having said that, I find myself always dozing off when Bruce Geryk starts to talk about his war (gaming) experiences and the inaccuracy of this game and that game, compared to his war stories. It feels like he is criticizing these modern day computer games for not being the games he is imagining in his head? To him, these games sound almost insulting?

     

    Don't worry about being that guy.  I understand what you mean.

     

    But I think you misunderstood my point.  My objections weren't about "realism," or as I understand realism.  Rather, they are about theme and mechanics.  The question was about how the game worked as a Pacific Theater game.  That's a very different question from "how realistic is this game."  As you rightly point out, no wargame is "realistic" because no one dies.  I think it was Kevin Zucker (former designer at Avalon Hill and for a long time now the head of his own company that makes beautiful, interesting games: Operational Studies Group) who said: the only way to make a wargame "more realistic" is to play it with the firm understanding that the loser will be shot.  So I get that.

     

    But wargames have to be about something, or there is no point in setting them anywhere, or calling the units "infantry" and "artillery."  A game may be a great game, but if your Japanese infantry could just as easily be called Roman legions, or Confederate cavalry, or my cats, then there isn't really any point in setting it in the Pacific.  That's what I was discussing

     

    My point about War in the Pacific is that it really captures what the Pacific war was essentially "about" which was the effective distribution and stockpiling of supply.  But to me, that makes it pretty tedious.  Up above, SamS says that the payoff is that after all that preparation, the combat is especially satisfying.  That's a completely legitimate (and frankly exciting) take on it, and I'd love to be in a position to experience it.

     

    I play wargames because I love history (and games), and playing games about history is all about touching history in a way I can't do with books or documentaries.  So for me, if I play a historical game, that game has to do something that captures the particular historical moment.  Games can do this with simple mechanics (like War at Sea).  War at Sea is an amazing game, completely "ahistorical" in the sense that it gives the Germans far too good a chance to win, but with very simple mechanics (having them move second, and giving them faster speeds which then factor into the disengagement mechanic) do a great job of demonstrating the essential problems of the North Atlantic campaign.  And I could teach it to a 10-year-old. 

     

    At the end of the show, I specifically mentioned that Troy didn't need to "apologize" for liking the game, because even though I don't think he was, it might have sounded like I was making some pronouncement about it.  I wasn't.  I was simply saying that as someone who loves history and how games depict it, I didn't find any particular history in the game beyond the fact that there were Zeroes and Kates and aircraft carriers and jungles.  Because the mechanics in Order of Battle: Pacific so poorly (in my opinion) evoked the historical period, I didn't like it.  Troy didn't find this to be as much of an obstacle, so he did.  That's why we're both on the show.

     

    Thanks for listening, and for your regular posts/comments.