What Next for WCS?

[Anthropoid]

Yeah, it is difficult to imagine an overall game design that is better suited to WWI than the one that Calvinus and Ageod have devised in WWI: La Grande Geurre. Eventually we'll (hopefully) have a great game there once it gets all patched up [:)]
 
To me, the real strengths and innovative features of the WCS engine:
 
1) Synthesis of Strategic + Operational + Tactical in a very satisfying experience. This one point all by itself places WCS far and away above ANY other gaming designs that I am aware of. To take an example, WiTP and TOAWIII and yes, even Harpoon, are incredible engines, but NONE of them allow a player this much of a breadth of experience all in one package . . . actually WWI: La Grande will do a fairly good job on this point too, once it gets fixed . . .
 
2) Incorporation of real historical ecology, with enough flex for the player to be able to explore 'alternate' history what-ifs, but without so much flex that you wind up with the kinda totally comic book nonsense you get playing Civ
 
3) Excellent, well-balanced, complex-yet-simple incorporation of national, societal, political, diplomatic, infrastructural, technological factors into a wargame of uncommon exceptionality (see points 1 and 2 above). Sure, there is no rival at the operational and strategic military level to a game like WiTP, but can you experiment with TRUE alternate history scenarios that involve slightly different social/political/technological paths? No you can't. Now in the case of WiTP, NOT being able to run the U.S. production, tech-path, etc., is ENTIRELY reasonable from a game design standpoint. It would be too much a breach of history for an historical scenario like WiTP. But the point remains in principle. WiTP is an almost perfect design for THAT war in that geographic area. It would not suit for necessarily any other context. WCS-engine on the other hand is sufficiently open-ended and able to incorporate all the myriad dimensions (military, social, etc.) that it _IS_ suited to a wide range of topics.
 
4) Beautiful and elegant (if austere by current 'twitch-gamer' 3D-movie standards) graphics, excellent sound and music, exemplary look-and-feel, intuitive user-interface, plentiful hotkeys and other shortcuts, logical and helpful information presentation, extraordinary documentation
 
5) Brilliant design: Eric, Eric, and whomever else are the brains behind this operation are CLEARLY very insightful, creative, and inspired game designers who really DO THEIR HOMEWORK (are you listening Empire: Total Frustration??), and render a design that strikes a very reasonable (though it never satisfied all customers all the time) enjoyable, challenging, and engrossing way to 'play' the topic.
 
6) Game stability and resource frugalness. Lets face it, not all of us can afford a Cray Supercomputer with a $1500 graphics card, and many if not most of the 'hottest' games these days are pushing all of us toward that extreme end of the hardware spectrum. Not only does WCS strike a much more conscientious and 'gamer-friendly' approach, and write games with code that requires totally reasonable system specs, those specs are actually TRUE! You really can RUN THESE GAMES with a machine that is even at the LOW-END of the spec range, and still have RARE hangs, CTDs, delays, etc. I have _routinely_ played FoF and COGEE for HOURS with several other apps running (IE, Outlook, Excel, Powerpoint, Paint, Word, etc.) and I think I must have had two lockups during that entire time. Related to this, there are very few bugs and those that exist are exotic, obscure and minor points that will undoubtedly be fixed with finality in a patch. Compare this point (5) to some of the other games on offer these days, and right there WCS stands head and shoulders, levitating miles in the sky above the competition. 
 
I have the sense that the engine is also fairly moddable?
I applaud WCS and your beta-testers!!
 
Because I regard this group and their games as being such an exception to the general rule in the strategy war game market, and not just an exception to the crappy games, but even an exception to the GREAT games, I simply cannot say enough to promote, encourage, and cajole these guys to set their sights high, and embark on their next project with a sense of bold confidence and ambition. WHATEVER theme you adopt for the next one, you have given us all ample basis to feel confident that it will be exceptional, and push the envelope of strategy wargaming still farther!

[barbarossa2]

I have to agree with Randomizer's post completely. 
 
And I would have to say that WCS's engine would be completely out of place in WW1 or WW2.  That doesn't mean it is a bad system, but it is not suited for that period IMHO.

[kafka]

Because I regard this group and their games as being such an exception to the general rule in the strategy war game market, and not just an exception to the crappy games, but even an exception to the GREAT games, I simply cannot say enough to promote, encourage, and cajole these guys to set their sights high, and embark on their next project with a sense of bold confidence and ambition. WHATEVER theme you adopt for the next one, you have given us all ample basis to feel confident that it will be exceptional, and push the envelope of strategy wargaming still farther!

that's why I'm absolutely confident that WCS, should they decide to embark on the more recent history, ww1 or ww2, would design and implement an engine well capable of dealing with the characteristics of those time frames

[barbarossa2]

I have to say, I was not implying that WCS is not up to the task of creating a new engine for WW1 or WW2.  I was just saying this CoG:EE/FoF engine is not suited for it.
 
I am confident that WCS would do a decent job with WW1 and WW2 if adequately funded.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2

I have to agree with Randomizer's post completely. 

And I would have to say that WCS's engine would be completely out of place in WW1 or WW2.  That doesn't mean it is a bad system, but it is not suited for that period IMHO.

I think it would do just fine for the first 3 or 4 months of WWI, or the naval side of WWI, and could even be cool applied to dog-fighting (imagine if in each hex you could choose an altitude at 500ft increments!? and it was represented as a colored hex that shifted from bright green (5000ft above average for enemies) to bright red (5000ft below average for enemies) there would have to be some cool initiative checks quite often but it could be neat), and would also be JUST FINE for many WWII applications as well.

It is the trench warfare portion of WWI, i.e., from Dec 1914 to the end in the West, and to a lesser extent in the other theatres during the same period, for which Randomizer and I are saying WCS-engine is not well-suited, and would be a disaster to apply.

I can think of very few other contexts in military history of which I'm aware (and based on my limited knowledge) for which WCS-engine would be distinctly ill-suited, though it certainly may be better suited to some than others.

[Randomizer]

Given the quality seen with FoF and CoG-EE I have no doubt that WCS is more than capable of creating a system to model post-industrial combat but I really doubt that the current program can be adapted to do so while providing the same quality experiance that we have now.
 
One one the great triumphs of the COG system is that it lends itself very well to using 18th Century solutions to solve 18th Century problems.  Reading through the Forum here, one can often see where a player experiances difficulty because they are trying something that would work in 1944 but is just wrong for 1814.  If one makes the effort to learn a bit about how Napoleonic armies actually fought, the Detailed Combat (DC) model is accurate enough that using actual period tactics generally produces historically reasonable results.
 
There is an entire thread devoted to issues observed by grappling during naval DC but the reality of combat during the Age of Sail is that grappling during fleet actions was NOT a favoured tactic and that the superior force generally tried to reach a decision using gunfire alone, saving the boarding parties for cripples.  Grappling and boarding was popular in single-ship actions but practically every fleet action was decided by gunnery, I actually was unable to find any historic action that featured the sort grappling orgies that some are complaining about.  Frequently prizes would be shot to pieces, fit only for scrapping or hulking, in effect, they would disappear so there should be no surprise if the game replicates that.  If one fights their CoG-EE era fleets like a real-life CoG-EE era admiral, suddenly one will often see naval combat results that are also historically reasonable.
 
Some of the things people are posting appear counter-intuative because players are superimposing expectations from other eras and other systems onto the CoG model and when they do not see what they expect they default to the "it must be a bug" mode.  Those who cannot be bothered to learn how combined arms worked on Napoleonic battlefields might as well be trying to use magic dragons or main battle tanks because they will reject the combat results that they see regardless of how valid similar results might have been 200-years ago.
 
I do consider that CoG-EE simulates (rather than merely gaming) many aspects of late 18th Century European warfare but like all simulators, unreal inputs will result in unreal results.  I submit that CoG-EE (and FoF) make more demands than most games on the player and rewards those who play in a manner consistant with the times by producing results that are, in most cases reasonable for those times.
 
I think CoG-EE is an outstanding work and I am nowhere near familier with its depth and subtleties as I intend to be.  Whatever WCS comes up with next, they have the hook in me already.  Just $0.02
 
Best Regards

[Anthropoid]

I think you hit the nail square on the head with respect to playing the game the way it was intended to be played Randomizer. I know only a superficial amount about warfare but I do try to play it in 18th century style, and I think I generally tend to get neat, and hsitoric outcomes that are satisfying.

I really doubt that the current program can be adapted to do so while providing the same quality experiance that we have now

I'd enjoy hearing you elaborate on this point, as I have to respectfully disagree.

Consider a game like "Norm Koger's The Operational Art of War III" (TOAWIII). Obviously there are many dimensions represented here that are absent or only indirectly represented in the FoF/COGEE, or what we might term the "WCs-engine" (WCSE). But, at both a superficial, and I would argue even a more substantial level, the two engines are very similar. Both represent combat b/w military units of varying size using graphical icons on a hex map using a turn-based system. Units are characterized by number of personnel, movement allowance, morale, range of firepower, etc. In sum, "combat stats." Geometric orientations relative to other units (e.g., flanking, terrain effects, altitude, etc.) are key features. The AI is largely algorithmic, although the one in COGEE seems to me to be a bit less linear and able to make decisions in a wider array of random contexts. IIUC, the AI or more appropriately "programmed opponent" in TOAWIII must have some very specific instructions for any given scenario to perform adequately. Moreover, 'victory hexes' are crucial to both games, and individual unit supply is represented.

Here the overall similarities can certainly be broken down into specific disparities between the two systems, but my point is that: overall, they are the same type of system. Instead of each unit having a small database of weapons, squads, vehicles, etc., associated with it as in TOAWIII, in WCSE we have units that have "promotions" or in the case of FoF, specific weapons. Not a substantial difference IMHO. Not knowing how the code actually works, maybe I'm talking out my rear here, but . . . it would seem like adding additional complexity ala TOAWIII to WCSE units would not be impossible, and perhaps not even that difficult?

In TOAWIII "units" can be anything from a company level represented on hex maps that are quite small in scale (5km hexes IIRC being the smallest?) all the way up to effectively Divisions the Barbarossa Scenario comes to mind, I think the hexes there are more like 50km or maybe even more. WCSE is not as yet quite that diverse, but I would posit that, there appears to be no intrinsic reason why it could not be used to build scenarios/games that are equally as diverse. Indeed, here in one integral game we already have WCS providing us with the option to play detailed battles at either the Division or Brigade level!

In TOAWIII, hex maps are wholly human made, and there is no higher-scale "campaign map." WCSE has both a campaign scale, and randomly generated tactical hex maps. While it has not yet been done, I see no reason why modders would not produce detailed, rigorously rendered human-made hex maps for every single Napoleonic era battlefield, plus all those from the preceding and postceding wars, plus perhaps a few extras to be included in a "/Maps" folder and used in place of else in addition to random generated maps. A lot of work? Absolutely! Impossible in the long-run? Not at all. Coding the game to actually use those pre-made battlefield maps? I'll go out on a limb once again here and guess that it could be done.

Air combat in TOAWIII can be handled by the app, or you can send your air units to bomb specific hexes, or you can set them to air superiority, or tactical support, etc.

In sum, what I'm saying is this: TOAWIII engine cannot replicate the campaign+tactical synthetic scale of WCSE, nor can it replicate the military+sociopolitical+diplomatic+developmental (tech & infrastructure). WCSE could however, replicate virtually every major element of TOAWIII, PLUS, everything else that it does. Are we talking about adding different content to this exact same package when I say WCSE can replicate TOAWIII? No, not at all. Obviously, replacing all the units, graphics, stats, combat algorithms, national boundaries, etc. in WCSE with WWII era would be an ENORMOUS amount of work. Do I expect it to happen in the next project. No.

All I'm saying is: because of how innovative WCSE is, I am guessing it _could be_ applied to virtually any era in military history, with the one major exception of WWI trench warfare, and possibly others.

Certainly, I think that other periods that would be smaller steps in terms of change from late 18th and mid-19th century would be more appropriate next projects. But in the long run, I believe that an engine like this could be used to simulate MOST major miltiary topics throughout human history.

[Randomizer]

@Anthropoid
You have provided much food for thought but having gorged, I must now crawl away for a bit to digest it and maybe do some researching.  A caveat though, I do not own TOAW-III; back in the day I bought the entire TOAW-1 and 2 series with expansion modules and then bought TOAW-COW (Century of Warfare) but have flatly refused to do it all over again for the latest iteration just because the franchise changed owners.  Everything I have read indicates that the differences between COW and III are only incremental, rather like Malibu Stacey with a new hat...(and if you understand that observation you have spent too much of your life watching The Simpson's).

Best Regards

[Anthropoid]

TOAWIII is an awesome game

[Gil R.]

I applaud WCS and your beta-testers!!

I can certainly agree with the second part of that statement. We had an excellent group, many of whom were with us for the whole process -- no small feat, since the game came out more than half a year after we originally planned to release it. While a few testers are well known on this forum because they're active, not all of them are, and they played an important role not only in finding bugs, but in helping to shape our thinking, and thus the game's final form.

[Mus]

Can we get a hint as to the primary weapon of the period at least?

Sarissa? Longbow? Pike?  Musket with socket bayonet?

[&o]

[ptan54]

Using the FOF engine with COGEE upgrades would make sense for 1850s to 1870s. This was the age where firepower became more important than the bayonet and railways made a huge difference.

[jnpoint]

Most of all, I like a long timespan like EUIII! But less can do it. The COGEE engine, which is better than EUIII, with a long timespan - maybe 100 years - would be a hit (for me at least)! Do not get me wrong - I really love EUIII, but COGEE is just better!!

[barbarossa2]

I like the suggestions in here. But I think I am leaning towards Thirty Years war based on what I hear.

No one has mentioned the era of Frederick the Great and no one has mentioned the era of Marlborough.

Is this an accidental ommission?

What do people think about those three possibilities?