<t>Just because a problem is old doesn’t mean new ideas can’t be applied. Not long ago someone achieved the goal of inventing a better mousetrap using technology which has been around for thousands of years. I don’t know if the world beat a path to his door but the accomplishment shows even old ...

<t>SPI is known for two things, innovative game mechanisms and games of random quality, I don’t think this is a coincidence.<br/>
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In any case I didn’t say simulations of these thing hadn’t been tried, only that they either weren’t done well or proved to make games no one wanted to play. Random ...

<t>Well if the designer notes and interviews on SMG are to be believed it was less carelessness than a design decision for the sake of simplicity and game focus. <br/>
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The points I have made about accepted simplifications and absurdities are no different. The only reason movement is not ...

<t>This notion of realism in games which strikes me as so strange yet seems to be accepted by most people might be a fruitful field for further examination. Let me make it clear that the lack of realism I am going to point out does not bother me in the least, my attitude is the only true absurdity ...

<t>I think you begin to understand. Reality and a game or a film or even a book intersect at only a few points. It is bordering on the delusional to think that because ‘Gettysburg’ intersects on 100 points out of a million and some revised version of EiA intersects on 200 that it has significantly ...

<t>Chiteng<br/>
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You are quite right. I feel like a doctor endlessly repeating, "to lose weight you must consume fewer calories than you burn". <br/>
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Against desire, faith and hope I have only experience and reason and experience is telling me I haven’t got a chance - but I did point out ...

<t>If ‘pregame agreement’ is a synonym for ‘rules addendum’ I’m all for it. In the five or so games of EiA I’ve played which lasted long enough to be worthy of the name we changed the rules with every game. What we didn’t do is revise the rules by consensus during the game according to some notion ...

<t>'Le Tondu'<br/>
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Personal characterizations are not discussion they are, as Cicero pointed out, the resort of someone who knows their argument to be weak.<br/>
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Misrepresentations likewise, if you read my post again you will find I specifically point out that I do not exploit rules to ...

<t>From ‘Le Tondu’<br/>
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"No set of rules is ever perfect and attempts to circumvent them are always a danger when you wargame with players who have an extreme desire to just "win" the game -at any cost. These players don't care about history or the ethics of taking advantage of mistakes or ...

<t>Well that’s a very big question, to answer it would require me to virtually write a game outline. What I’m trying to get across is the idea that the approach to game design which takes simulation of unsimulatable events as it’s goal is wrongheaded. It may produce a briefly entertaining pastime ...

<t>No, not at all. I thought I made it clear in my first post but I’ll try again. I think you should look at the problem, the challenges, if you like, of real life situations and abstract them. These challenges don’t have particular times or places. Relying heavily on the character of a subordinate ...

<t>Let me reassure everyone that I think there is "no way in hell" Matrix will make the game I envisage. We all have opinions, which we value I’m sure, I was looking for ideas, specifically ideas about the problems with EiA’s design fundamentals.. <br/>
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It’s not that I don’t want AI, but I do ...

<t>I’ve got nothing against simulations, the many first person shooter sims on the market are a testimony to the potential of computer gaming, my problem is with simulations of a politico-military variety. I think they are a distraction and a waste of programming, I think this because they just don ...

Yeah, just like how everybody agrees on what’s reasonable in politics, punitive damage awards, stereo volume at three in the morning and divorce settlements.

Simple!

<t>I don’t doubt pre-game agreements can work, it depends what you mean by work doesn’t it? What I’m saying is they get you no closer to the goal of a historical simulation. You approach in one way (a silly move is forbidden) and you recede in another as an arbitrary rule is introduced (in a proper ...

<t>This is the can of worms I was talking about when I noted how difficult it is to reconcile game design with re-creation or simulation.<br/>
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What sense does it make to have pre-game agreements about actions, or to play the game according to some unwritten code of conduct? If you are trying ...

<t>Yes I’ve played it several times about twelve years ago. It wouldn’t be hard to stop a specific action but without a complete model you would still get unrealistic behavior, you’d just change when and how it occurs. You won’t get much closer to a recreation and you’d likely get a worse game if ...

<t>I think I understand what you want, the problem is to model it in a game, that’s what I meant by trying to realistically create all the forces and balance them as in real life. To use the example of the Portuguese blitzkrieg, in reality Britain could not have done this for several reasons, some ...

<t>On the ‘Re-creation’ Vs ‘Strategy’ and ‘Paper game’ Vs ‘Computer game’ poles I’ll mark you as strong re-creation, computer game.<br/>
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The problem with a re-creation of history in a game is you either have to model all the constraints on a player’s actions accurately and in balance (a ...

<t>We looked at ‘Stars!’ but passed it because it didn’t seem to differ much from the standard 4x model, which didn’t seem to offer much in the way of a strategy game.<br/>
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Strategy games are about decisions, the quality of the game is to a large degree dependent on the quality of the ...