"Strategic Wrapper" for SPWaW

[Arralen]

As we knwo the format in which games are saved (at least, we could know) as well as how the OOBs work and all the rest, wouldn't it be possible to write a "strategic wrapper" for SPWaW, where you could play on a strategic level, order armies around , set production, etc. etc., and have the actual fights generated as SPWAW scenarios ?

I not shure about this, but I think I read taht something like this has been done for either Fighting Steel or Janes Fleet Command

This shouldn't be too hard to do - after all, simple interface without any eyecandy should do, and it could be human vs. human at first, so one needn't do a AI for this (what of course would be great to have nevertheless)

Anyone out there shouting "Okay, I'll do it?"

Arralen

[Drake666]

Would be nice to see, but I dont think its to likely to happen.

[Hornet]

I have been thinking about that too. It
would make the game much more interesting
than they are now. Of course Matrix team
is too busy with their projects, but perhaps
someone else could do it. As Arralen said,
it shouldn't be too hard.

[Louie the Toad]

If I were doing this I would "borrow" the gaming system from a strategic out of print board game. I can see two choices. One would involve hypothetical countries. The first (but probably not the best) that comes to mind would be Avalon Hill's Blitzkrieg. I think of board games rules or systems because of the need for simplicity. I think that the system used would need to be simple but somewhat realistic so that it would generate tactical battles and would not become the focus of the game. I would use all of the production,supply and movement rules and maybe victory conditions. Possibly even the map !!!. I would decide what constitutes a unit for moving/fighting purposes and what constitutes a battle ground so that a player would be able to put multiple units into a battle (how would reinforcements work for instance).
This would be the easiest game to make of the two choices since no one can argue about the historical accuracy of hypothetical adversaries.
The second choice would be to borrow from an operational or strategic board game involving whatever theatre in which you wished to fight. (That of course would open the doors to the critics who would rather snipe than fight.)
My main PBEM opponent and I, with 85 years of wargaming experience between us have talked about this idea for computer tactical games. Before computer wargaming, we played and made strategic games that got us to the point of tactical fighting. We like it and would prefer having an operational or strategic overlay or wrapper because it makes the goals of tactical fighting quite evident and quite different than what we see now. For instance,running away to fight another day and in a better place becomes a useful decision that never comes up in a tactical game where we seem to fight down to the last unit. Most likely there would no longer be a reason to have any tactical victory hexes. You would fight for a vital crossroads or town because it was vital for your own victory plans. Knowing your own unit production capabilities would govern whether you took on an offensive or defensive mode and when and where you would do it. There is nothing quite like using strategy to create your own suprise attack on the enemy: A suprise landing behind his lines while you were pinning down his forces in a stalemate battle and at the same time launching a bombing campaign to decimate his production capability. It cant get much better than that.

[Desert Fox]

Well, I took one look at the topic and started to write a book of a reply. I love the idea of a strategic layer, but I think a lot of detail would need to be put into it.
We would need a map to move forces around on. We would need to have different strategic sectors on this map to make strategic movement possible. There would also have to be some rules for sector to sector movement. You can't run from Paris to Moscow without hitting Berlin on the way, unless you do an amphibious landing.
And who gets to select which sector to battle in? Should there be more than one core force? Maybe one to defend and one to attack? Or maybe there could be multiple core forces, each on the strategic level could represent a particular division of troops. Maybe you could order them around, and once you entered a sector with an enemy division, a battle would commence.
And what about production? Should it be sector based production points? IE, more sectors you own, more points you have. Or maybe it should be class based production in each sector? IE Belgium produces X heavy tanks, Y medium tanks, and Z infantry per month.
Now, if this is to be essentially a two player campaign, how do you deal with destroyed core forces? Should they be sent back to the capital to be rebuilt? Should they be eliminated from the game? Or should they be only weakened, with the assumption that it is a divisional force, with only a small portion of its units lost?
Could this be turned into a single player campaign? If so, should it be scripted, or should the player decide where he wants to attack? Or maybe he might decide that he does not want to attack, and regroup instead. But should the AI sit on its butt, or should it commence an amphibious operation to take the player by suprise?
And what about strategic intelligence? Should every player be omniscent and know where the enemy is at all times? Or should they be completely in the dark, until a battle starts anyways. But what about territory control? Wouldn't a player in France be informed if Russia had fallen? And what happens if you cut off an enemy division by surrounding them?
There are a lot of things to think about here. However, they are things that I would love to help out with, if someone believes it can work.