What Next for WCS?

[vaalen]

This game is a triumph! I am so impressed with WCS as a company.

Which leads to the question, what will the next project be for WCS?
Perhaps the age of Victoria, Bismark, and Napoleon III?

Please let us know.

[Kingmaker]

HiHi
 
Quite a lot of previous feedback/comment indicates the 100yrs War would be good.
 
All the Best
Peter

[Anthropoid]

Hundred Years War would be awesome.
 
 . . . Vietnam would be cool too [:D]

[Gil R.]

Vaalen,

[Insert joke about The One here.] Thanks for your comments!

We can't say just yet what's next. As I wrote elsewhere recently (FOF forum, I think), our next project will probably be announced in 2-3 months when we issue a call for testers. I'll only say that this project is one that has been requested by a number of customers over the past few years.

[ptan54]

Hundred Years War would be medieval, less suited for hex combat with people forming in lines etc, more of a charge and hack and slash kind of warfare.

Bismarck and the wars of German unification would be awesome.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: ptan54

Hundred Years War would be medieval, less suited for hex combat with people forming in lines etc, more of a charge and hack and slash kind of warfare.

Bismarck and the wars of German unification would be awesome.

Hexes will work for any kinda combat won't they?

[Joram]

Redcoats on Mars?

[ptan54]

Yes but I tend to think of hexes as ideal for "organized" warfare. Form up your lines, have cavalry on your flanks etc. Not chaotic kind of warfare like the middle ages.

[morganbj]

My hope is that they'll eventually do Rome/Greece/Persia, et al.

[sol_invictus]

The period of The Wars of German and Italian Unification or the Roman Republic would be excellent. The Hundred Years War or Vietnam would be a miserable experience I think.

[Fullervc]

If a mid to late 19th century European game (ie wars of German and/or Italian unification) is next, could it somehow link to COGEE?  It could then simulate a Century of Warfare (oops...sorry OpArt!) in Europe.  Now THAT would be awesome!  I'd be willing to part with some significant bucks for that.
 
Any thoughts?

[vaalen]

C'mon Gil

Give us a clue. Add a little prophecy. (look what it did for Minbar)

COGEE has crossed a threshold of success that no Napoleonic Computer game has reached before. I can't wait for your next project!

Have mercy.

All the best,

Vaalen

[henri51]

For a Vietnam war, there is a scenario for Advanced Tactics (see the AAR on the AT forum) that is not too shabby.

Henri

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

ptan I'm scratching my headbone (no reference to Vaalan, rather Deputy Dawg) as too which Medieval battles you refer to that didn't have some form of organisation.

It is afterall I believe where the Division as a military Unit came from (someone can correct me there if I'm wrong) eg the Van of an army on sighting the enemy would/could split into 2 Division and move to the left of the field so as what was to become the centre could move up etc, etc.

One thing that might be interesting is that a 100yrs War version could maybe settle is the old "What if?",  Swiss pike v's English Longbow, 2 elites that never crossed swords.

Another point to maybe think on is that to a great extent Wars of German expansion etc are as has been suggested above, really just an extention of CoG EE in the form of tactics for the Battlefield eg Sadowa was a Napoleonic conceptial battle, the Politics/Economics again ain't really to far removed from CoG, whereas the 100 yrs War would provide all sorts of different problems to solve ... Mmmm, you can tell I'm rather keen on a 100 yrs war version can't you! [:D]

All the Best
Peter

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: Arinvald

The period of The Wars of German and Italian Unification or the Roman Republic would be excellent. The Hundred Years War or Vietnam would be a miserable experience I think.

Actually the best Vietnam PC game I've ever played was one of the scenarios for TOAWIII, which also uses a hex map system. There were actually two or three of them, but I cannot remember the exact name of the best of them. Boonie Rats was one of them.

I was thinking that a Southeast Asia map with off map boxes for US, China, Russia, etc. (sort of like the WWI main map right now) could be the primary gaming level, and then there would be a highly detailed hex map of Vietnam and adjoining areas (turned sideways so north is to the right) similar to the one in the TOAWIII scenario, 10km hexes I think?

Units would manifest much like they do in the COGEE Detailed Brigade level maps, but could be stacked to combine separate Brigades back into Divisions or divided into Battalions, so you could have as small as one battalion per hex. Apart from that, the FoF/COG engine would allow the game to be played much like it can be played with the existing TOAWIII mod/scenario, BUT, with allow national policy, politics, technology, propaganda, govt. public-relations, media-policy, diplomacy, economic policy, etc., etc. to also be simulated AND allowing for Army-Corp-Division level organization as in FoF, AND allowing for 'promotions/upgrades' of particular units as in FoF, AND allowing for supply distribution to be more accurately simulated, AND allowing for assignment of commanders at as low as the Division, maybe even Brigade level?

There could be certain events/victory developments/opportunities/constraints that were more or less hard-coded, and then a whole lot more of them that would in part depend on other events (some random, some highly probable) and/or player actions. What if Free Fire zones were never declared? What if the draft was never instituted? What if Kennedy were not assassinated? What if more effort was put into blocking media freedom of reporting body counts, etc.?

There are MANY subtle geopolitical, technological, operational type 'what ifs' that an engine like COG/FoF would faciliate and which an engine like TOAWIII requires be coded as fairly simple hiearchical event trees. Not to mention the ability with CoGEE for the player to custom promote, and custom organize his military, and to pursue particular tech/organizational developments in preference to others.

ADDIT: I'll have to check out the Advanced Tactics one thanks for that lead! The main problem I have with most all Vietnam simulations (including the wonderfully detailed paper and chit board game that takes up a bout a king-sized bed table to set it up) is that the standard paper-chit strategy game design has a pretty challenging time simulating all the social, political and policy factors that weighed so heavily, and force players to use only the units that were historically used.

An engine like Fof/COG would allow for a more detailed and subtle exploration of what ifs.

I agree with Peter that the German Wars period could be simulated with mods to COGEE, and that 100Years War would be a nice new elaboration of the system. One could play a minor warlord for example, and have to run a small French or English Fief (county? ? duchy?? I don't know what the term should be). The game could be populated with other Dukes, and Counts, and upstart New Men, and rogues, as well as Captains and Sergeants, and various other "leader" icons. Right-click on them and you can have limited interaction with them: form alliances, offer them jobs, challenge them to fights, recruit them to your faction, etc. Pledge fealty to a king or fight as an independent warlord, etc. The map could be effectively almost the same as the present COGEE map except with large fractions of eastern Europe and perhaps Africa chopped off and France and England and adjoining nations expanded into about twice or 2.5 times as many provinces.

In another scenario, maybe you can play a much higher-ranking aristocrat, maybe even the King.

Units could be built up by recruiting from local villages, weapons purchased at cities, etc. The smallest unit in the game might be a platoon. There could then be multiple "containers" Companies being able to hold up to 3 platoons (maybe more for certain techs/leaders/ethnicities whatever) and Regiments(?) being able to hold several Companies? At later stages of teh game maybe you could form Divisions with several Regiments in them? Other than that, the game could run almost exactly as COGEE.

[sol_invictus]

I am simply partial to military history pre-WWII.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: Arinvald

I am simply partial to military history pre-WWII.

An entirely reasonable 'bias!' [:)]

Me, I find it ALL fascinating . . . well with the exception of perhaps pre-Neolithic warfare, that period of human cultural evolution when warfare seems to have been at its highest frequency, and most acute intensity.

To me, the whole CONCEPT of a soldier is an amazing one, let alone that they can be organized into masses of hundreds and thousands, and compelled to suffer and fight and die by the tens and hundreds of thousands (let alone millions) . . . from a broad natural historical perspective, warfare since the Neolithic is utterly amazing. Pre-Neolithic "warfare" (which was in fact more like simple violence, as opposed to 'collective violence') was (based on what evidence we have) more epidemic, more chronic, and accounted for a higher proportion of mortality over long stretches of time (at least between 100,000 to ~10,000 in Europe).

While what came afterward was exceptional in (apparently) lowering the overall total population level mortality and morbidity from warfare and parsing episodes of collective violence into more brief and episodic periods, it also represented enormous transformations in the sheer scale of cooperation and the poignancy and generality of the sacrificies by soldiers which became more and more common.

[Randomizer]

Thirty-Years War...
 
Lots of interesting leaders and factions, National and mercenary armies, religious, economic, territorial and political war aims and rapidly changing technologies.
 
Not a fan of the Hundred-Years War, three major battles in a century sets a pretty slooooow pace.
 
Best Regards.

[Kingmaker]

HiHi
 
I mean more as a period rather than just that specific war Randomizer, pleanty of wars going on in the rest of europe & v's the Turks etc.
 
All the Best
Peter

[barbarossa2]

Randomizer!  30 Years War!!!!!!!!!  I like it!  It is perfect for the system!   Bingo!

Though I would also like to see a game on the Wars of Spanish Succession. Maybe this could be modded for that period relatively easily. Hmmmm... I wonder how many of the mechanics one can change. I would like to see the modder's guide!