The perfect wargame

[Graymane]

Probably off-topic and irrelevant, but I was thinking about what game combinations I would really like to see and I game up with TOAW + WITP + HOI. TOAW for the land combat game, WITP for the naval/air game and HOI for the editing/strategic choices. That would probably be close to my perfect game.

WITP - War in the Pacific (Matrix Games)
HOI - Hearts of Iron (Paradox Games)

[golden delicious]

Hearts of Iron doesn't have enough detail to interface with TOAW. You'd need a production system which worked at the level of individual items of equipment.

[Graymane]

Well, none of these games would really work together, I'm talking fantasy and pipe dreams here =) Take what you like about your favorite games and combine them into a single game, what would your favorite combos be? Assume you are a billioniare, can hire the best game programmers around and have the rights to any of the games in question =)

TOAW - I like the operational level and the ability to do individual equipment/formations etc etc etc. All the good things we like about TOAW.

WITP - I like the air/naval and logistical stuff it models.

HOI - I like the ability to mod the game and the scripting system it has. I also like strategic level planning and choices.

[Boonierat]

The perfect game would be all-in-one where you could choose to play at Strategic level (HOI2), Operational level (TOAW), Tactical level (SPWaW or Theater of War) or FPS level (ala Brothers in Arms), changing back and forth at will [:D]

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Boonierat

The perfect game would be all-in-one where you could choose to play at Strategic level (HOI2), Operational level (TOAW), Tactical level (SPWaW or Theater of War) or FPS level (ala Brothers in Arms), changing back and forth at will [:D]

I think that one is called...Life!
[:D]

[Boonierat]

Nah, it's called TOAW IV, and you should already be working on it [;)]

[dayrinni]

I would like to program my own perfect wargame. I have the skills(BS in Computer Science) to do it (hex based or rts), but the time is another issue. I was throwing the idea around in my head if I could find a few people on some wargaming forums to form a team and start designing/programming. but hey.

Anyways, I'd like basically the strategic and tactical level. For example, the upper level would be running the country: developing _custom_ weapons and armor and everything. Then production, cities, taxes, the whole thing. Then on the tactical level you'd go into something that would be similiar to either Panzer General/TOAW3, or CnC: Red Alertish (A note on this: I was thinking up some really cool ideas on how to model divisions and units in real time so it wouldn't be a zerg rush, but that's a different discussion! Though if anyone wants to hear more I'll ramble on haha). That would be really cool I think. There would also be a lot of options that the AI would handle all of the things you didn't. For example, if you don't want to focus on developing your own technology, you'd just tell the AI to do, but if you really loved making up your own divisions, knock yourself out.

Thats my 2 cents.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Boonierat

Nah, it's called TOAW IV, and you should already be working on it [;)]

Who said we weren't?

Of course, if we were, I couldn't tell you about it, and if I could tell you about it, I wouldn't, and if I did, it would be in person, you'd be swept for bugs, mikes, and recorders, it'd be by the faintest whisper, my overgrown moustache hiding my lip movement, on a moonless night, and I'd publically disavow any confirmation of the conversation that never happened...[:-]

[freeboy]

As one of the first, the first?, players to complete a pbem complete pearl to end of JApan WITP, the naval model is TERRIBLE imo, the air model needsto be tweeked , too much supply use too easily... and absolutely no decent model for surface combat..
Add a decent navel emulator, even one that used odds for interceptions as the old Third reich did. HOI2 actually did an intersting job as the navies moved in "real time"

My fantasy TOAW4.. or 5 would be a plotted wego with reactive moves by mobil forces, sweet

[cdbeck]

All someone needs to do is use TOAW III to make a Battle for Arrakis scenario using the BioMod to make Sardaukar, Fremen Partisans, Sand Worm Cavalry, Ornithopters, Harkonnen Soldiers, set it on a desert map with Spice fields, Sietches and Arakeen, and that would pretty much encompass the perfect wargame...

I've got plots within plots...

If you walk without rhythm you wont attract the,
Son of Montfort

[TPM]

Hmmm...great question. I agree with the combination of HOI and TOAW...but I wouldn't have two "systems" where you do strategic things, then do tactical, etc. Get rid of the regions in HOI and put in hexes...the scale would be somewhere in the range of 1 hex = 50-100km. Yeah, that would be a cool game...all of HOI's political/strategic/industry-production wizardry combined with TOAW's superb land-warfare engine.

Specifically, here's what I'd really like to see in my dream game:

1. Besides handling production, etc., I'd like an AI that can handle subordinate military tasks so that I can concentrate on the broad strategic issues. Example: The Italians need help in North Africa. I look over my units, I pick the Rommel HQ unit, some other Pz divisions, and give them the order to land in Tripoli. That's it, I don't do anything else. I don't find the units and direct them to a port, I don't put them in the boat, I don't delay the operation because one turn I forgot to move them. The AI arranges the whole thing--it grabs Rommel and the divisions from wherever they are, gets the nearby transports and finds the best route. I am notified if there are problems, or maybe the AI presents a couple of options. After he arrives, then I give him another order. I want to make broad strokes, I'm tired of clicking this unit and then that one, etc...(as you can guess, I won't be playing FiTE any time soon)

2. Simple, flexible chain of command. You can make any chain you want, attaching units freely. You've got 1 Div. and 2 Div., put them together and call it 1 Corps...then make that unit part of 1st Army. And then I can simply give the order to 1st Army to take that city, and I'm not clicking around. "People's Tactics" has the kind of command structure I'm talking about...simple, practical, flexible.

Well, this post is ridiculously long...and I could go on too...anyway, those are my thoughts on a dream game...

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: TPM

Hmmm...great question. I agree with the combination of HOI and TOAW...but I wouldn't have two "systems" where you do strategic things, then do tactical, etc. Get rid of the regions in HOI and put in hexes...the scale would be somewhere in the range of 1 hex = 50-100km.

I tried something similar a while back using pen and paper strategic rules. Dividing the map up into subsections like this really doesn't work at all- leads to all kinds of nonsense like units being pinned against the map edge and destroyed. One needs a big strategic map from which you can take sections for each operational scenario. This works quite well in the game I'm currently running.

[TPM]

I was just thinking there would be no subsections, or edges (besides north and south at the poles)...it would just be a huge coninuous world map as in HOI or World in Flames, etc...there is no separate "battle map" or whatever.

[Widell]

ORIGINAL: dayrinni
I would like to program my own perfect wargame. I have the skills(BS in Computer Science) to do it (hex based or rts), but the time is another issue. I was throwing the idea around in my head if I could find a few people on some wargaming forums to form a team and start designing/programming. but hey.

You're welcome to check out the OTGW project (Shameless plug!). Will take forever to complete, if it's ever going anywhere near complete, but I have fun crunching some code now and then.....

[Bombur]

If the naval model of TOAW is improved and production is added the wargamer´s dream will be created....it wouldn´t be difficult to intoduce these elements from the Old Pacific war (not WiTP which is too much detalied), I guess.

[Graymane]

@ Widell Hmm..that link don't work for me.

@freeboy well, i haven't played a ton of naval based games, but WITP seems pretty cool to me. It models all the different ships and aircraft and it does have a better supply model than most where you have to actually move stuff around and use different ship types to do it. It seems more akin to TOAW than most other games. The HOI naval model is [8|] in my own opinion. Everything in HOI moves in real time =) Although the new "booster pack" to HOI 2: DD features an improved naval and air AI supposedly as well as allowing ships to have brigade attachments now (you can 5 on a BB, for example).

My biggest knock against taking HOI seriously as a war game (it is a great strategy game though) is that all the units are generic. It is much more risk-like than anything else.

[Graymane]

@ everyone - what is really wrong with the sub-system idea? It is essentially what the Total War series does. You have a strategic map and then you have the tactical battle map. For me, that would be an operational level one. I do understand about map edges, but you have the same thing in any war game with a square field.

I think it probably would have something to do with the level of detail you want to play at as well. Maybe you just want the computer to handle the battles while you focus on strategy.

[Widell]

ORIGINAL: Graymane
@ Widell Hmm..that link don't work for me.

Strange, site is definitely up and running. Maybe another try later on?

[rhinobones]

Perfect war game  .  .  .  hmmmmmm.  This is pure fantasy, but it’s a fun thinking exercise.  Starting with the current TOAW III baseline I would:


1. Add options to select either UGOIGO or WEGO for scenario design.  Scenarios would obviously only be playable in the mode in which they were designed.
2. Add an option in the editor for the scenario era/age, cavemen thru Star Wars.  The selector would make adjustments to the game engine for combat resolution, movement, hex size (10 M thru 100 Km), graphics set, units set, and some other stuff TBD.
3. I would do away with the traditional hex system and instead use “dots” to symbolize the centers of what we now know as hexes.  Maybe even add a bunch of “invisible” dots between visible hex dots just to make movement smoother and deployment more realistic. Of course if somebody wanted to actually see the hex grid, that would still be available.
4. Add a random scenario/game generator.  To make a “random” scenario the player would select the sides, armies and the percentages of water, rivers, mountains, fields, etc that the scenario map would contain.  Maybe even have a default selector if the map is to be Easter Island, Eastern Front (for FitE fan boys), Western Front, Godzilla, Mordor, The Tio Grande Bean Field War  .  .  .  etc.
5. Unit re-attachment to a new HQ
6. Add the capability to connect scenarios into a campaign game. 
7. Add a true air, land, sea recon and interdiction capability
8. Add default events (loop, if/then statements, capture/lost statements, etc) that can be called up as required, slightly edited and plugged into the event structure.
9. A bunch of small stuff that would make this post senseless.

Of course all of the current TOAW III capabilities would be retained.

I’m sure there are more things I could ask for, but this seems to be enough. 

Regards, RhinoBones

[TPM]

ORIGINAL: Graymane

My biggest knock against taking HOI seriously as a war game (it is a great strategy game though) is that all the units are generic. It is much more risk-like than anything else.

Not sure what you mean by this...there are a million different units in HOI aren't there? Mountain divisions, paratroopers, light tanks, etc. The game has some flaws, but I don't think "simple", which could be used to define Risk, is one of them. Or maybe you mean that the German infantry should have different characteristics then the Russian, etc.? Kind of like Starcraft, etc.?