Is the Wargame Genre Killing Itself?

[Didz]

I think RavinHood makes an excellent point and really highlights the one I was trying to make earlier.

There are two types of player out there.

Those who used to be called boardgamers, who have been well catered for over the years by the computer industry and like RavinHood have little if any interest in fancy graphic's and 3D environments. Most of their game subjects have been done to death in the last 30 years of PC gaming and we are into remakes many of which include fancy front ends that are irrelevant or even damaging to the game play. There really is no need to force these people to buy high spec PC's to run games that they have already played on their existing equipment a hundred times.

However, there is still a huge untapped market of potential PC game customers whose interest would have been in tabletop wargaming and are looking for PC wargames with precisely these fancy graphic's and 3D envirinoments. These players have never been properly catered for by the gaming industry and so there is still a lot to play for in this genre. Not only that but these players are prepared to shell out the money for the upgrades and software if it provides them with the perfect wargame experience. I personally would gladly shell out several hundred pounds to be able to play a really well design Napoleonic Wargame.(as opposed to boardgame)

The problem as I see it is that companies like Matrix are trying to combine the two genres and in doing so are falling through the crack in the floor boards. Some of the games on the market at present are little more than enhanced versions of those published a decade or so ago. For boardgamers like RavinHood these new features simply don't pass the 'So What' test. Why buy the same game you already own just becuase it now includes video clips or something.

At the same time for tabletop players these games are still boardgames, except they now have video clips, but boardgames are still boring. So they go back to Medal of Honour, Warcraft3 or Totalwar.

In my opinion the future of computer wargames should now be in creating detailed Historical Roleplay systems which model the wargame environment in 3D format and allow the players to interact with each other and their troops to simulate historically accurate command and control. This was always the real holy grail for computer wargaming which somehow got lost after the initial rush to computerise Third Riech.

[Fred98]

I don’t understand your meaning

ORIGINAL: Didz

In my opinion the future of computer wargames should now be in creating detailed Historical Roleplay systems

Roleplay as in: Churchill, Patton, Rommel ???? Captain Smith of the 3rd Battalion??

These men had maps. They read reports and typed reports. Is that what you mean? Reacting to reports???

ORIGINAL: Didz

and allow the players to interact with each other and their troops to simulate historically accurate command and control.

Yes that’s consistent.

HTTR does that now. But the graphics are top down 2D

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

"I have to wonder how/why you anti-tech people ever purchased computers in the first place."

The answer is simple actually, my computer is a tool to me not a toy.

When I reformat the system (which I do periodically) games are basically the last thing back on it.

First things on are of course security concerns, then I update Windows, then I put on my fav chat program, but the main program on my computer is MS Office.
This machine is nothing to me if it can't run a decent word processor.

I also require it to handle a lot of video processing tasks.

I love my wargames, but they are just games.

Didz, you keep mentioning roleplaying, but I am unclear if you are using that term as a rolegamer would.
There is a connection. Gary Gygax (and some others of course) back in the early 70s (approx.) invented this genre with a game called Dungeons and Dragons. It was born out of an interest in giving personalities to miniatures on the table top gaming scene.

Thus rolegaming is a child of miniatures gaming, where as board games are basically a creation of their own moreso.
Obviously you can not miniature game out quite the scope of action you can on a board game. I can say for instance this counter is a tank, a platoon of tanks, a division of armour, an entire tank army, merely by what I write on the counter.
The terrain in a board game is whatever I draw it to be.
Computer wargaming, no matter what the method, is a child of board gaming.

Miniatures gaming and board gaming are actually separate more so than some might know if they don't really think on it long enough.

So to get back to your roleplay request. Is it that you wish to become a personality in the game, that has whatever forces under your command? Sort of a militarised version of a Dungeons and Dragons experience?

Because the moment you get much beyond running individual battles, which is about the tolerance level of the average 4x8 table if you think about it, you are stuck having to pretty much just accept that you have entered the realm of the board gamer.

We don't move groups of miniatures in our battles, we move groups of armies in our battles. We run the forces of entire nations in some cases.
That ain't going to happen on your 4x8 table, nor will it likely occur in a rolegame any time soon.

[Cap Mandrake]

Didz;

I don't think the MOHAA players are are largely "exportable" to turn-based wargames. First person shooters are indeed fun but, we all know, it is a whole new kettle of fish.

wwiionline starts to bridge the gap and can indeed be a blast if you can get past the waiting.

You do have a good point about "potential" young wargamers who might have been board-based players had they been given an opportunity.

[riverbravo]

ORIGINAL: Didz

In my opinion the future of computer wargames should now be in creating detailed Historical Roleplay systems which model the wargame environment in 3D format and allow the players to interact with each other and their troops to simulate historically accurate command and control. This was always the real holy grail for computer wargaming which somehow got lost after the initial rush to computerise Third Riech.

I think this quote sums it up very nicely.

While a couple of people seem to think Im ranting for a 'graphics on everything and screw the rest'...thats not the case.

With current technology I feel that they can add it all and the kitchen sink without taking away from gameplay one bit.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Yes, but what exactly does he mean by...

"Historical Roleplay systems".

It sounds like he wants Dungeons and Dragons on a computer using tanks and guns, instead of dragons and swords.

3d won't make that interesting, it will just be in 3d. If it was all that great, there would be line ups to play WWII Online.

[riverbravo]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

Yes, but what exactly does he mean by...

"Historical Roleplay systems".

It sounds like he wants Dungeons and Dragons on a computer using tanks and guns, instead of dragons and swords.

3d won't make that interesting, it will just be in 3d. If it was all that great, there would be line ups to play WWII Online.

Hmmmm,Im not sure about that one.

When we used miniatures to play we would sometimes implement a very small amount of role play.

If a soldier got a certain amount of kills or survived a few battles then they would get small upgrades like the better use of cover,better shot,maybe an extra bit of movement due to him gaining veteran status.We had a few more upgrades than what I listed but you get the idea.

We never went all out in the role play deal.

If people chose to role play a WW2 scenario hey,more power to them.As long as people are having fun with it...go for it.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

If a soldier got a certain amount of kills or survived a few battles then they would get small upgrades like the better use of cover,better shot,maybe an extra bit of movement due to him gaining veteran status.We had a few more upgrades than what I listed but you get the idea.

Yep, that is actually exactly where rolegames ie Dungeons and Dragons etc etc etc got its start from actually. Giving a little bit of detail to the soldiers.

Now I would not mind a full out rolegame design be made that starts out as serious military simulation roleplay, and doesn't wander off into fantasy land myself.

I would find it cool running the role of a military commander like what Rommel had at the beginning of his mission in North Africa for instance.
Doesn't have to be WW2 though. Military command would be interesting whatever the time period as long as they didn't turn it into some stupid farce.

I have never played Command and Conquer, and don't ever expect to. I have never played Starcraft and never expect to. There is only so much room in my level of interest for anything that removes to much of the historical from my wargaming.

Conducting the business of the Afrika Korps as Erwin "Les the Sarge" Rommel would be fun. But it would have to be a credible recreation of the conditions I was roleplaying within.
Achieving higher rank based on successful actions would be fun. Gaining occolades would be nice.

If there is no real history in the game, then why waste tme pretending it is even worth calling it a historical simulation.
Trouble is though, who wants to roleplay in a setting where nothing I do will actually have any real impact on the end result.
The player has to be capable of altering the war. But that tends to lead to problems typical of open ended gaming.

The only places I have seen this done well, are the online multi user persistent world based games.
To date, I think WWII Online is all there is.

Would be nice to fight in an Online Multi user world back in the time of Rome, or with Napoleon too I guess.

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: Joe 98
Yes that’s consistent.

HTTR does that now. But the graphics are top down 2D

Yep! I read about HTTR earlier in the thread and went and read through the AAR on the HRRT board.

It looks like a good game but as you rightly say its still essentially a boardgame. Using 2D graphics.

Imagine the same game when after checking the maps and radioing your orders through you can step out of the tent jump in your jeep and speed off to check out the situation at the front. Or where repports are delivered by frantic messengers fresh from the face of battle and desperate for orders.

[bradfordkay]

TalonSoft's Campaign series did this in a manner of speaking. If you played a campaign, you started out as a battalion commander and won medals and promotions based upon the results of your battles.

Even ASL had a taste of this in their "Hero" rules: if a (unit? commander?) performed especially well (got a couple of exceptional die rolls) then a hero unit was created. There are many ways to help the player become more involved with the game.

I feel that both styles of gaming (graphics intensive like CM and board game look alikes such as TOAW and UV) have a lot to offer. Small unit games tend to lend themselves to 3d graphics while operational and strategic games still require the 2d view - at this time. While I will continue to dream of a strategic/operational game of the Napoleonic wars that represents teh whole world in an isometric 3d view (allowing you to zoom in to see individual ships tacking against the wind and tides to maintain a blockade or deliver their troops - or see individual regiments marching in column up that dusty road) I realize that my present computer will never handle such a monster. It doesn't keep me from dreaming, though...

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

Yes, but what exactly does he mean by...

"Historical Roleplay systems".

Hmm! I've suddenly noticed everyone talking about me in the third person. Perhaps I've gone invisible. [&:]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

TalonSoft's Campaign series did this in a manner of speaking. If you played a campaign, you started out as a battalion commander and won medals and promotions based upon the results of your battles.

No! No! No![X(]

God help us thats not what I mean't at all. The last thing we need is silly gimmicks like that. We'll be awarding XP's and issuing magically enhanced muskets next.

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

It sounds like he wants Dungeons and Dragons on a computer using tanks and guns, instead of dragons and swords.

3d won't make that interesting, it will just be in 3d. If it was all that great, there would be line ups to play WWII Online.

AAARGHH! NOOOO!. I think certain people are getting hung up on stereotypes.[X(]

For your information Roleplay is a method used in all sorts of contexts from management training to military exercises.

All it means is that as a person you are placed in exactly the same environment and face exactly the same situation as another person whose role you are expected to assume.

Thus what I mean by Historical Roleplay is that you the player are placed by the computer in exactly the same environment as the character whose role you have chosen to play and given exactly the same resources through which to perform that role as your historical counterpart.

It doesn't mean you have to stick your hand in your vest and speak with a phoney French accent.

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

TalonSoft's Campaign series did this in a manner of speaking. If you played a campaign, you started out as a battalion commander and won medals and promotions based upon the results of your battles.

No! No! No!

God help us thats not what I mean't at all. The last thing we need is silly gimmicks like that. We'll be awarding XP's and issuing magically enhanced muskets next.

Damn. How do you delete posts on this board. I was hoping to tidy up by elminating my duplicate posting and now can't see how to do it.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Thus what I mean by Historical Roleplay is that you the player are placed by the computer in exactly the same environment as the character whose role you have chosen to play and given exactly the same resources through which to perform that role as your historical counterpart.

Errr hmmm Didz when I sit here looking at the computer screen or when looking at a board game, that IS actually what I am doing eh.

I mean you should have heard some of the epic games played between myself anbd a buddy. We had the period flags flying in the room, I was talking in character, my buddy was as well. We had on music that was relevant. Might have had some documentary footage going in the background, and I really was Stalin fighting off his facist swine forces

Now if you really want the flair of command, and want it more real than that, hmm a few years at the Royal Military College here (or whatever passes for same there), and then with luck, and they might just give you the experience you are looking for

Now I suppose I could sit here with charts tables pen and paper and be interacting with several other personages all acting out their own respective roles.
And we could fight out virtually any battle that is adequately documented.

And in the end, you will still have to settle for it looking like either a board game looking interface, or something like an online multi user gaming world experience.

After all, there is only so much you can do with an image displayed on a screen or board hehe.
Let me know when you figure out the software to run something like a holographic experience ala Star Trek though.

[bradfordkay]

quote:

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

TalonSoft's Campaign series did this in a manner of speaking. If you played a campaign, you started out as a battalion commander and won medals and promotions based upon the results of your battles.




No! No! No!

God help us thats not what I mean't at all. The last thing we need is silly gimmicks like that. We'll be awarding XP's and issuing magically enhanced muskets next.

Actually, all you received was a listing of what medals you had earned. If you got promoted, then, IIRC, you did get a larger force to command, but I could be wrong about that.

I personally hate "wargames" that allow silliness like a super upgraded musket that can hit any target at 500 meters, or that allow people to parachute onto the deck of an aircraft carrier in order to lay landmines that will destroy landing aircraft (I read about this happening in either Battlefield 1942 or WW2 online, I forget which). I don't mind a D&D game getting those silly upgrades, but a wargame had better allow me to use the historical units in an historical manner (though hopefully better than did their original commanders).

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Once played a rolegame (paper and pencil type) called Behind Enemy Lines.

Really nice design, you were part of a squad, and of course you operated behind enemy lines. The missions were humble and logical sounding.

First game I had set the guys up to go monitor road traffic. The plan being scout and count vehicles. The 2nd SS was due to drive by.

Well the dumb fools I had at the table (that all thought they knew something obviously), up and decided to attack the column as it went past.

Well after making very clear they were actually serious, I informed them they were all dead.

Or would be, but I didn't have the time or interest in gaming out 10 men vs the 2nd SS panzer division.

And it was clear, I was the only one in the room that could find his butt in the dark with both hands as far as skill with warfare was concerned.

It also explains why you won't find it hard to find guys "explaining" to you how they know "strategy" because they are good at playing the atypical RTS silliness.

I rarely carry on conversations with those particular sorts of individuals long. It's just to painful on the ears.

That sort of is part and parcel of the problem in designing a "good" game of command and control.
You will find your market gets smaller, as you get more and more "accurate" and true to "real" command.

Because a lot of the market, likely most of the market, think that games like the average shooters, actually teach you anything about real combat.

They don't.

Must of us in here know that, but most of in here, also make up a very small slice of military gaming.

I could tomorrow start writing a great book on a great WW2 rolegaming RPG design. But I would still have trouble eliminating that problem of what to do with the guys that either can't think, or never had any potential to realise, how dumb some notions truely are.

I never played Behind Enemy Lines again. It was unfortunate, but the lesson was very effective.

I also had an identical experience with the game Top Secret.

Most gamers (read guys) can't seem to step out of their penis envy, limited viewpoint, mine is bigger than yours style of gaming sadly.
Which is why I often find board games more satisfying.

When my panzers overrun Russia, and I claim victory in the game, I can jump up and down and hoot and holler and yell "you suck". And there is no ambiguity.
I also don't have to fret over guys claiming things they can't support.

Eventually, you have to accept, that in a game, it is sometimes better for it to be a rigid simulation. There are limits on how much value you can achieve in role play.

[riverbravo]

I wear a helmet when I play wargames,does this count as roleplaying?[;)]

I can see were a certain amount of roleplay would be good in a wargame.The right setting,scale,time etc mite work well.

But a complete full on role playing wargame....I dont know.

I hear were didz is comin from but the total imersion is hard to achieve.When my eyes leave the monitor or table top its hard to blank out what you are seeing thats not realated to wargames.

The only thing in my office were I type this stuff up that remotlely looks like anything from WW2 is maybe a globe and the wooden chair Im sitting in.

Ive had some miniature games were one of us or both of us put on helmets and started screaming at each other in accents of the country we are playing.These things usualy happen about mid-game when the beer really starts kicking in[:)]

How ever people chose to play a game is really up to them.I dont think there is any full on "right way" to play a game as long as you play by the rules.

That is one thing were pc games are kind of stubborn.You either play by the rules that the AI enforces or tough cookies.

I always kind of role play everytime I play a wargame.At times I would say I have decided my role before the game begins.Ok,I will be a ruthless commander and try to achieve victory at all costs or Im gonna play it safe...not the most intense RP method but it can be fun.

A strong role play element mite work in wargames.I would give it a try or at least look into it.The worst that can happen is I wont like it.

[mjk428]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1

"I have to wonder how/why you anti-tech people ever purchased computers in the first place."

The answer is simple actually, my computer is a tool to me not a toy.

When I reformat the system (which I do periodically) games are basically the last thing back on it.

First things on are of course security concerns, then I update Windows, then I put on my fav chat program, but the main program on my computer is MS Office.
This machine is nothing to me if it can't run a decent word processor.

I also require it to handle a lot of video processing tasks.

I love my wargames, but they are just games.

If you use your computer to handle video processing then it seems you would benefit from a high powered machine.

My computers are tools also; even the IRS admits it.

I don't have any toys but I have many games.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

High powered is subjective I guess.

I doubt I can run autocad. And I know I am not up to running games like EYSA decently.

But it plays movies just fine. And I am having no trouble processing all my vhs into vcd at the moment.

Some software is demanding to run, and some software is just needlessly demanding too.

There are no doubt plenty of fans of 3d in real time, but I just don't see why 3d is so vital.

All the wargames pre 3d craze were all perfectly fine wargames. They didn't require 3d then, so why do they require it now.

Oh I forgot, because if you don't make a game in 3d, how else will you be able to force people to upgrade machines that previously did not require it.

I would rather software designers become masters of using what they already have, before striving ahead needlessly to employ the latest new perk in hardware.

[riverbravo]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1


Oh I forgot, because if you don't make a game in 3d, how else will you be able to force people to upgrade machines that previously did not require it.

I would rather software designers become masters of using what they already have, before striving ahead needlessly to employ the latest new perk in hardware.

Force an upgrade?

More than likely the worst pc on the shelf at circuit city has more power than what you are running...or so it sounds.

Why would a designer hold back when even a crappy pc thats on the shelves NOW will run his game that will be done in 6 months?

The games arent being designed on a old pc I could almost promise that.

Why design for pc technology that is really old?

Why would a dev say "we cant do that,the pc's from 1999 dont have that much juice"?

[Didz]

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1
Didz, you keep mentioning roleplaying, but I am unclear if you are using that term as a rolegamer would.

Not sure what you mean by a rolegamer?

I am using the term in its generic sense, as in, playing a role. In the case of historical roleplay the gamer would be playing the role of say the Commander-in-chief of the blue army, or as in the example I gave earlier as the General Commanding the 7th Division of the Imperial Russian Army.

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1
There is a connection. Gary Gygax (and some others of course) back in the early 70s (approx.) invented this genre with a game called Dungeons and Dragons. It was born out of an interest in giving personalities to miniatures on the table top gaming scene.

Is that really what they believe?[:D]

I was wargaming long before Dungeon's and Dragons hit the streets and roleplaying games existed long before that game was launched. Nor did it have anything at all to do with the tabletop gaming scene at the time in fact its biggest selling point was that it was that all you needed to play it was the rule book, a pen and some paper. If I remember rightly that was actually printed on the front cover.

It was long after that before it was realised that more money could be made from D&D if players could be persuaded to buy figures to represent their characters and later still before the first Fantasy Boardgames were printed and Fantasy Wargames appeared. Even then the three hobbies were very much separate. Fantasy Boardgames were normally based upon recreating events from books, whilst Fantasy Wargames concentrated on massed battles with fantasy figures and D&D focused on underground dungeon crawls.

Players joined separate groups to play whichever caught their fancy and frequently despised each others chosen method of play. It was many years before players began to freely enjoy playing in multiple styles and by then Historical Wargaming was very much in the decline anyway.

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1
Thus rolegaming is a child of miniatures gaming, where as board games are basically a creation of their own moreso.

I fail to see any connection between miniatures gaming and Fantasy Roleplay.

There was certainly never any Fantasy Roleplay element to any of the Historical Miniatures games I designed or played.

The nearest the historical hobby got to that was the so called committee games where actions were decided by verbal debate which considered likely events and then went with the consensus upon the final outcome but they were intellectual exercises normally conducted by Military History Societies and frequently linked to studies by the armed forces.

Fantasy games whether roleplay or miniature based were universally shunned by wargamers in the early years as bringing the hobby into disrepute. At the time people like Brigadier Peter Young and J.P. Lawford were desperately trying to get the hobby accepted as a serious academic past time and secure regular TV coverage of games so anything that looked remotely like playing silly games was shoved as far away from the mainstream hobby as possible.

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1
Obviously you cannot miniature game out quite the scope of action you can on a board game. I can say for instance this counter is a tank, a platoon of tanks, a division of armour, an entire tank army, merely by what I write on the counter. The terrain in a board game is whatever I draw it to be.

Of course you can. At the height of the hobby wargamers were refighting whole campaigns and even wars using miniatures and just as a boardgame counter can be anything from a single tank to a whole tank army, so can a miniature tank model. It’s a simple matter of figure scale. Also I think you are confusing Wargaming with Miniature Gaming. wargamers used miniatures to represent units when recreating tactical actions on the tabletop but the hobby extended way beyond the the staging of one off battles. Those battles were normally part of a major campaign or even an entire war.

Likewise with the terrain, there is no limit to the what can be depicted on a wargame table and when the ground scale becomes too high to model in 3D the tabletop would double as a map table spread with a copy of the campaign map.

The only real difference was that whereas the detail and accuracy of boardgames was always restricted by the constraints of the hexgrid, wargame maps were normally accurate depictions of the historical terrain and frequently copies of historical maps of the period.

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1
Computer wargaming, no matter what the method, is a child of board gaming.

Yes. I remember getting very excited when the first computer wargames came out. The first one I ever bought was Third Reich. Which was brilliant.

At last you could avoid the monotony of spending hours laying out all the counters before you started playing and joy of joys of you hadn't finished by the time people needed to go home you could save it and carry on next session without the risk of the cat or the wife knocking all the counters out of their hexes.

But we naively assumed that once the computer became powerful enough the computer wargame industry would shift their focus to providing proper wargame programs. I remember early experiments with computer assisted games where the games were played with miniatures and the computer worked out the casualties etc. But it never caught on because the data input slowed the game down, it was quicker to use the factor tables and roll dice.

We looked forward to the day when the computer would handle all the aspects of historical warfare the tabletop gaming couldn’t model effectively. We reasoned that Computers could keep track of the location and movement of hidden units only reporting them to the players when they would truly be visible on the tabletop thus allowing the fog of war to be recreated.

The computer could track the dispatch and delivery of orders and messages only listing them when and if they arrived and it could monitor the progress of reinforcements secretly so that even the friendly general didn't know exactly when they would arrive.

We even imagined that at some magical moment in the future computers would be powerful enough to allow the entire campaign to be fought on the computer screen. Though at the time this was fantasy as most computers were still limited to green on black screens and very chunky coloured graphic's.

The sad thing is that now that its possible nobody seems to remember how to do it. The nearest anyone has got in my experience was 1813, but even ignoring the appalingly bad programming it was clear at a glance that the designers had no expereince of the correct technique for designing a large scale campaign as there were quite blatant design errors in the relationship between the scales used.

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1
So to get back to your roleplay request. Is it that you wish to become a personality in the game, that has whatever forces under your command? Sort of a militarised version of a Dungeons and Dragons experience?

No. Absolutely nothing like that, at all.

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1
Because the moment you get much beyond running individual battles, which is about the tolerance level of the average 4x8 table if you think about it, you are stuck having to pretty much just accept that you have entered the realm of the board gamer.

We don't move groups of miniatures in our battles, we move groups of armies in our battles. We run the forces of entire nations in some cases.

That ain't going to happen on your 4x8 table, nor will it likely occur in a rolegame any time soon.

No. Actually thats not true. It is perfectly feasible to refight an entire war without touching a hexgrid and before the world became dominated by computer boardgames we regularly did.

Perhaps, you aren't old enough to have been involved in mainstream wargaming before computer wargames started dominating the scene. But, both the military and private wargame clubs regularly staged major wargames recreating whole campiagns and wars. I myself ran one which covered the theoretical invasion of England by French Forces in 1812 and included not only the entire French and Allied armies but also the full naval campaign.

ORIGINAL: Les_the_Sarge_9_1
If there is no real history in the game, then why waste tme pretending it is even worth calling it a historical simulation.
Trouble is though, who wants to roleplay in a setting where nothing I do will actually have any real impact on the end result.
The player has to be capable of altering the war. But that tends to lead to problems typical of open ended gaming.

Yes. I think there are three levels at which wargaming works today.

1. Historical Re-Enactment

This is where you take a real historical campaign, research the background, terrain, troops and weapons etc and then re-enact the campaign to see if minor changes in strategy and tactic's can change the result.

2. Historical 'What-ifs'

This is similar to the above except have research the troops and weapons etc available you pose a historical 'what if' and then play through the scenario to see what might have happened. For instance the 1812 invasion of England campaign used historically accurate OOB's and fleets but assumed that Nelson had lost Trafalgar and Napoleon had not invaded Russia.

3. Recreating war

This is rapidly becoming the new definition of wargaming and basically reasons that any game which depicts war is by definition a wargame. Thus we find that Warhammer is now a Wargame as is Command & Conquer, Starcraft, MOH. Personally, I find this confusing but I suspect it makes good marketing sense.