Episode 345: Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa

[Rob Zacny]

Three Moves Ahead 345:

Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa

Bruce and Troy "I know his ideas are weird but let's just hear him out" Goodfellow are joined by Rod Humble to talk about Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa. The latest entry in the Decisive Campaigns series adds intriguing elements of roleplaying into the wargaming formula as the player attempts to sway, cajole, and stay on the good side of superiors and fellow staff.

Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa, War in the East

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[DukeofChutney]

I was um'in and arr'in over this vs War in the East in the Slitherine sale, bought GG's War in the East, we will see if that was a good choice.

 

Interesting discussion in the middle on the evolving nature of wargames. I'm fairly young for wargamer (28) and i'm in the more abstraction camp. I picked up Command Modern Air Naval recently hoping for nail biting decisions on whether to sink the Belgrano or whether to risky my carrier group in a frontal challenge or using more fabian tactics. In reality its a game far more about the benefits of aim 9 side winders over vampire missiles or optimal sub buoy deployment. I think in boardgames the tide is turning with far more light or middle complexity wargames coming out these days. Most companies with the exception of MMP, produce more light games that focus on specific elements of a campaign rather than total simulations. I'm not sure there is much evidence of this trend in the video game market though. There is a view that the modern wargamer has less patience and time for the longer games in the board realm. I think there's an element of truth in that at least.

 

edit: also +1 for Rod becoming elite regular panelist.

[hexgrid]

Rod was definitely good, bring him back as far as I'm concerned.

 

I'd love to hear some episodes on different games' treatments of specific theaters in specific wars, and a "here's some interesting games that deal with the eastern front in ww2 in different ways" would be fascinating.

[misesfan]

I love Bruce and have been agreeing with most of his opinions for about 30 years now.  But.... He is completely off the mark with his analysis of the game except the UI issues that should be rightfully thrashed.  For example, he makes the statement that a portion of the rules can be 'shut down' as a design flaw (in DC:B - you can bypass all the moral decisions...). I am sure that Bruce remembers back in the day in which Squad Leader presented rules with Programmed Instruction - you learned the rules in chunks and large portions of the latter rules were 'turned off..' I think its an excellent design decision and is applicable to a wide variety of game models and still appropriate today.  Tom Chick would say that this is bad design?  You know him much better than I, but I am not sure about that statement. 

 

Another example, Bruce states that he doesnt understand how the decision process models how Hitler may change his mind and swing south to take out the Ukraine as what actually happened.  However, the game does model this - its a random event and may or may not occur.  I dont think that playing as Halder you should be able to predict the whims of the fuhrer...  He wants some Ukranian grain - whatcha gonna do?  Also, the discussion meandered from an initial description of the the artillery rules  - the point being made that artillery can be denied in a random fashion (or something like that, I couldnt follow the Hogans Heroes reference. However, thats not true - Artillery is applied to an army or division as a force multiplier - and.... as I love hearing the peeps on the show say... its very historically accurate)

 

Great show and I dont want to nitpick the entire thing, as I really enjoyed it!  Probably because I disagreed with Dr Geryk so vehemently - and that doesnt happen very often.   Thanks guys

[spacerumsfeld]

Hello Ludwig von Mises!

 

Thanks for the great feedback.  I'm only going to disagree strenuously on one point: Programmed Instruction is only meant to teach you the game, not to codify a set of rules for those scenarios.  Once you learn the rules, Guards Counterattack is meant to be played with all the rules, not just the initial rules presented via PI.  Furthermore, Programmed Instruction doesn't just turn off this rule or that rule at random - the scenarios require a certain subset of the rules that build upon each other, which is a long way from the disconnection of pretty much any rule system you want.  If computer wargames did this kind of rules teaching, I'd be very receptive to it - but computer wargames can't even be bothered to have proper tutorials (and I include Decisive Battles in this as watching a separate video is not a tutorial).

 

As for the other two points, I'd have to go back and listen to the podcast again but you may be correct that you understand the game better than I do at this point.  I think we're probably on the same page regarding our overall impression of the game, which seems to be that we both like it.  Now if we can just get them to fix the UI.

 

-Bruce

[ilitarist]

This game reminds me of my personal project. I imagined it'd be administrative wargame with you being some dictator's first minister. All you do is paperwork, approving or disapproving requests during the war. The goal was to balance winning the world, not being shot for disagreeing with dictator too much and not getting a revolution. In the end I couldn't find good enough model for managing war without moving stuff on the map and managing politics without adding Crusader Kings there. Couldn't make it a strategy game - it was either a solvable system, a random mess or overcomplicated mess going back to the usual wargame formula which was the opposite of the initial goal. In the end it worked like interactive fiction, text quest.

 

So I wouldn't think that DCB would be a better game without personal control over appointed generals. You'd have to fill the hole left by absence of microcontrol. I don't even think it'd be easier. If generals themselves command units they'd need to add AI with personalized behavior mirroring commander traits. Not an easy thing to write, not an easy thing to balance. And you'd have to let player think he has some control, not just rests in the hands of AI.