One Concern

[Chiteng]

Originally posted by Uncle Toby
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 is to expect a game to be able to simulate such a complex real life system.

Let’s look at the tip of the iceberg in EiA. The tip is of course a small part of the iceberg but it’s the most visible part as well as the bit one’s ship usually runs afoul of so it seems like a good place to start.

EiA is a game in which you allocate resources (money and manpower) wage military campaigns by moving across a map representing regions of Europe, the Mideast and North Africa and make diplomatic arraignments. The goal is to accumulate status points bestowed for controlling areas, winning battles and wars and directly through purchase. This is supposed to simulate Napoleonic era war, politics and economy.

The resources are key here so we’ll start with them. Revenue in EiA is fixed based on trading partners and areas controlled and the tax rate (which may be set at will for a fixed penalty in stability) an abstraction so gross as to be absurd. What state of that era or this could depend on revenues based solely on these factors? Manpower is a fixed number based on areas controlled, all manpower is of uniform quality whether you enlist 10% of what is available or 100%. The amount enlisted has no effect on the economy or on the stability (no draft riots in our game thank you). The availability and quality does not vary with the situation of the country (whether they are desperate or riding a wave of popular approval), more absurdities.

On to the military campaigns: Armies move at a fixed rate of speed (what army ever managed this?) They take attrition but are not slowed down by moving in massive numbers (traffic jams apparently kill in our fantasy world but do not delay). Orders are never misunderstood, no happenstance misdirects, rain, sleet and snow may kill but they do not throw off the reliable schedule of our dependable army of postmen. Disease is likewise commendably dependable, taking a predictable range of our army’s strength based on clearly printed factors within the range determined by a die with a laudably Platonic, unvarying six sides. It is no wonder so many can approach the genius of Napoleon within such constrained parameters.

Unrealistic as the armies are the navies take the prize. They not only move at a consistent rate but do so in any direction, regardless of the wind. Combatant ships are either cleanly sunk or unscathed by the sword of Mars and as ready to battle as the day they were launched. They are also built to a marvelously uniform standard, every ship having the value of one, every crew patriotically egalitarian in exhibiting the morale value of it’s nation despite disparate circumstances.

I could go on about the marvelously dependable public reaction to the making and breaking of treaties, the winning of battles and financial manipulations, but you get the idea.

The plain fact is to make EiA even remotely simulate Napoleonic era conflict you would either have to randomize things to the point of an unacceptable (in a game) lack of control or make it so incredibly complicated it would take months to learn and longer to play than the actual wars it recreates. More importantly every step towards realism would be a step away from game quality.

I’ll take a few unrealistic muskets any day.

Comparing Sid's carelessness to game design is silly.

[Uncle Toby]

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.

The points I have made about accepted simplifications and absurdities are no different. The only reason movement is not randomized is that it would irritate people not that it wouldn’t be realistic and not overly complicated. The only difference between the crushing complexities required to make a closer simulation of other points I’ve mentioned and the complexities accepted in the game is that the accepted ones do not reduce control. The final criteria for an acceptable complication is not realism but game control.

A central problem is the nature of what makes a good decision maker in a game versus what makes one in real life situations. In a game the parameters are set, the goals and how to achieve them, defined. Life on the other hand, requires the situation to be deciphered and even for definition to be imposed (one of the great things about SMG is that it has at least some of this quality, so rarely found in games). The goal is anything but clear and universally agreed. It is never possible to make the best move or even to know the right direction. A great decision maker knows how limited are the strands by which he commands the situation, command is more like riding some untamed behemoth than directing a machine.

Take one of the great leaders of the Napoleonic era, Admiral Nelson. His greatest accomplishments were due to his understanding that to do the unexpected gives such a great advantage that even if the tactic is, on the face of it a bad idea it will have a good chance of success. At Copenhagen, The Nile or Tafalgar if his enemies had dreamt he would do such things they would have destroyed him. How do you simulate that? How do you simulate thinking outside the box? Interestingly the closest way I can think of is a rules exploitation.

[Chiteng]

Originally posted by Uncle Toby
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.

The points I have made about accepted simplifications and absurdities are no different. The only reason movement is not randomized is that it would irritate people not that it wouldn’t be realistic and not overly complicated. The only difference between the crushing complexities required to make a closer simulation of other points I’ve mentioned and the complexities accepted in the game is that the accepted ones do not reduce control. The final criteria for an acceptable complication is not realism but game control.

A central problem is the nature of what makes a good decision maker in a game versus what makes one in real life situations. In a game the parameters are set, the goals and how to achieve them, defined. Life on the other hand, requires the situation to be deciphered and even for definition to be imposed (one of the great things about SMG is that it has at least some of this quality, so rarely found in games). The goal is anything but clear and universally agreed. It is never possible to make the best move or even to know the right direction. A great decision maker knows how limited are the strands by which he commands the situation, command is more like riding some untamed behemoth than directing a machine.

Take one of the great leaders of the Napoleonic era, Admiral Nelson. His greatest accomplishments were due to his understanding that to do the unexpected gives such a great advantage that even if the tactic is, on the face of it a bad idea it will have a good chance of success. At Copenhagen, The Nile or Tafalgar if his enemies had dreamt he would do such things they would have destroyed him. How do you simulate that? How do you simulate thinking outside the box? Interestingly the closest way I can think of is a rules exploitation.

I cant only think by your comments that you have never played very many SPI games. Such things can and were simulated.

[Chiteng]

Originally posted by Uncle Toby
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.

The points I have made about accepted simplifications and absurdities are no different. The only reason movement is not randomized is that it would irritate people not that it wouldn’t be realistic and not overly complicated. The only difference between the crushing complexities required to make a closer simulation of other points I’ve mentioned and the complexities accepted in the game is that the accepted ones do not reduce control. The final criteria for an acceptable complication is not realism but game control.

A central problem is the nature of what makes a good decision maker in a game versus what makes one in real life situations. In a game the parameters are set, the goals and how to achieve them, defined. Life on the other hand, requires the situation to be deciphered and even for definition to be imposed (one of the great things about SMG is that it has at least some of this quality, so rarely found in games). The goal is anything but clear and universally agreed. It is never possible to make the best move or even to know the right direction. A great decision maker knows how limited are the strands by which he commands the situation, command is more like riding some untamed behemoth than directing a machine.

Take one of the great leaders of the Napoleonic era, Admiral Nelson. His greatest accomplishments were due to his understanding that to do the unexpected gives such a great advantage that even if the tactic is, on the face of it a bad idea it will have a good chance of success. At Copenhagen, The Nile or Tafalgar if his enemies had dreamt he would do such things they would have destroyed him. How do you simulate that? How do you simulate thinking outside the box? Interestingly the closest way I can think of is a rules exploitation.

BTW Gary wrote Gettysburg the Turning Point almost 20 years
ago and avoided such glaring innaccuracies. So it isnt that hard to do.

[Uncle Toby]

SPI is known for two things, innovative game mechanisms and games of random quality, I don’t think this is a coincidence.

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 moves for instance have been done many times, usually taking the form of a randomized movement factor or randomized initiative. This is completely inadequate as a simulation as it allows you to make your move after you know how far you’re going to go. In reality you wouldn’t know until the delay had already occurred.

As to thinking outside the box, I know of no attempt to simulate this which was not simply ridiculous.

There have been lots of games about Gettysburg that avoided inaccuracies but none that did what SMG does as a game. I don’t know if this is a coincidence or not but if I have to choose I’ll take the game quality over the minutiae..

[Chiteng]

Originally posted by Uncle Toby
SPI is known for two things, innovative game mechanisms and games of random quality, I don’t think this is a coincidence.

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 moves for instance have been done many times, usually taking the form of a randomized movement factor or randomized initiative. This is completely inadequate as a simulation as it allows you to make your move after you know how far you’re going to go. In reality you wouldn’t know until the delay had already occurred.

As to thinking outside the box, I know of no attempt to simulate this which was not simply ridiculous.

There have been lots of games about Gettysburg that avoided inaccuracies but none that did what SMG does as a game. I don’t know if this is a coincidence or not but if I have to choose I’ll take the game quality over the minutiae..

Sounds like the old 'realism vs playability' arguments.
VERY VERY old arguments.
I dont play SMG specificly because of those unhistorical glitches.
So I guess we are polarized on these points.

[Uncle Toby]

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 problems can benefit from innovative thinking.

I think, for instance, games should be reclassified, defined not by their main mechanism or their theme (e.g. first person shooter, wargame) but by the main motive for play. It would then be clear we are interested in two different types of games. I in strategy games played for mental exercise, you in simulations played for imaginative association. The benefit of such a reclassification would be designers might finally stop trying to blend two game types that really don’t mix. They might even focus their attention on trying to make a game satisfy at least one audience rather than a mix, of value to no one.