Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: wings7

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen

I searched one thread and found also this old one. On first post was said:

ORIGINAL: Missouri_Rebel

My fear is that along with everything else it seems that wargames will become increasingly more simple and lack depth.

How does War in the West address your fears?

What do you mean by "War in the West"?

Wargame. What did you thought?

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen

ORIGINAL: wings7

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen

I searched one thread and found also this old one. On first post was said:

How does War in the West address your fears?

What do you mean by "War in the West"?

Wargame. What did you thought?

I see now, I did not know what you meant that's why I asked!

Warspite1:

..unlike that other waste of money, Empire In Arms

an old thread indeed, but I'm curious:

can you please explain me why do you consider Empires in Arms a "waste of money" ?
it seem to me a very good wargame and I would like to buy it.. [&:]

thank you in advance for your precious help [:)]

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

unlike that other waste of money, Empire In Arms

an old thread indeed, but I'm curious:

can you please explain me why do you consider Empires in Arms a "waste of money" ?
it seem to me a very good wargame and I would like to buy it.. [&:]

thank you in advance [:)]


[/quote]warspite1

Well I bought it, never once got to play it (nothing worse than not understanding something that has just happened in game and not being in any way shape of form clear whether its my lack of understanding or another stupid bug), it was buggy as hell and within a relatively short space of time the forum became a ghost town...

No idea if its still supported or played by anyone - I long ago threw the game out.

thank you Warspite1: do you played it with other human players or only against the AI ?

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

thank you Warspite1: do you played it with other human players or only against the AI ?

warspite1

As I said, sadly it was so buggy and awful I never got to play it at all before I gave up in despair of it ever being sorted. I cannot even remember everything that was wrong with it but I think the AI was really bad.

Who knows, maybe they got it working?

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
How does War in the West address your fears?

War in the West (and East) is probably one of the worse offenders of computer wargaming's excesses. It utilizes all of a computer's horsepower to simulate incredible amounts of minutia, but the interface design might as well have been left in the 80s.

Reducing combat factors to large whole numbers, making the movement point allotment of a Panzer Division a constant integer, and having a unit's relative health be defined as "whole or half" only may be simplistic and unrealistic, but it also means that it's easy to understand and implement.

When you have to scan through an spreadsheet to look at which units need reinforcements, when you have to then set individual chit-units to "Refit" mode, and then have to wait multiple turns to before the Percentage TOE rises to a combat-capable level, that's a ton of busywork that didn't really enhance the experience of fighting a WW2 campaign much better than just assigning a limited number "reinforcement steps".

When you define a unit's combat strength as being dependent on that Percentage TOE, plus morale, plus experience, plus terrain, etc., but then don't give the player many tools to see what the final result is, or could be, across multiple units, different modes of attack, or with probabilities before launching those attacks, you're not adding a lot of value compared to leaving it up to a ratio, a Combat Results Table, and a die roll.

Wargames should be deep, there's no question about that. But I take issue when in the transition from a boardgame to a digital space, designers lose sight of the need to keep things intuitive.

And it's in this regard that I would call out games like Order of Battle and Unity of Command and even Vietnam 65 as being better designs and representatives of the genre, than War in the Pacific or AGEOD.

UI design is an increasing issue for wargames. People expect better and more intuitive UI's these days and some developers are struggling to give what is required. We're working with our developers to help solve these problems on a game by game basis and we are seeing a steady improvement but it takes a long time to make games with these higher production values so we're seeing a bit of a lull in releases as we try to get developers to give the modern audience what they expect. We're helping Ageod & 2by3 develop completely new game engines to allow them to make modern wargames and are talking to many more partners and expect to be working with them to create new engines in the not too distant future.

ORIGINAL: warspite1

unlike that other waste of money, Empire In Arms

No idea if its still supported or played by anyone
[/quote]

EiANW is still supported. [;)]

Empires in Arms is an incredibly awesome board game if you can get 5-8 people together to play it. Its on the same high level as World in Flames...although without the mass following.

It was the hope of many players of EiA that the computer version would be true to the board game, and even be a kind of players aid. But the computer version veered into a strange collection of house rules called Empires in Harms that few people played with or were even interested in, then on top of that the game was not programmed correctly.

Quite a sad story, hope this game is resurrected some day the way it should be...in its purist form.

Empires in Arms is a great game and i really enjoyed testing it[&o]

tt.asp?forumid=26&p=&tmode=1&smode=1

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

Reducing combat factors to large whole numbers, making the movement point allotment of a Panzer Division a constant integer, and having a unit's relative health be defined as "whole or half" only may be simplistic and unrealistic, but it also means that it's easy to understand and implement.

It´s not even unrealistic. It´s realistic in a somewhat abstract way, throwing out the unimportant little details. "It all comes out in the wash.", as Alan Emrich puts it. This is called Design for Effect, and I would like to see more of it. Makes for better balance, better gameplay, better AI.

PzGndr: EiANW is still supported.

I really appreciate it.. !!! [:)]

ps: EiA is for Empires in Arms - NW is for.. ??? [&:]

ORIGINAL: Tesuji

It´s not even unrealistic

Everything about wargames is unrealistic. I used to happily accept board wargames as realistic, but now I expect more realism but it can't happen. The raw computing power we have now raises expectations without being able to deliver that extra realism. Also, the plethora of relatively recent publications of soldiers' personal memoirs and revisions of original histories by modern historians has made me realise how naive my earlier concept of "reality" really was.

Having said that, take this from the expert... "War is a game both objectively and subjectively" - Carl von Clausewitz

Empires in Arms is a great game and i really enjoyed testing it

Zak, I'm not sure I would put that into your resume'.

1. Matrix EiA is NOT a faithful adaptation of the original EiA board game...the fact that ADG would allow that heresy is amazing. Grognards who have played and enjoyed the EiA board game find the differences hard to swallow if not completely unacceptable.
Solution to this is if everything could be mod'ed...especially the map back to the original game.
2. FULL of bugs from the release. I feel sorry for those who spent $60. I read there has been improvement in getting rid of the bugs and that there is an upcoming patch (version 1.21?) At $20 I might be convinced to give it a look.

ORIGINAL: zakblood

Empires in Arms is a great game and i really enjoyed testing it[&o]

tt.asp?forumid=26&p=&tmode=1&smode=1

warspite1

I am glad for you that your experience was a positive one Zak. For me sadly....

This was my first Matrix purchase and could have been my last, so bad was the experience. I stuck around only because I was waiting for MWIF. Glad I did because CTGW (when it first came out) and DC:B, have been excellent purchases and provided real value for money (and still providing value for money in the case of DC:B). But EiA could have ended it before it began; a total and utter waste of money.

Because of my EiA experience I sympathise hugely with those that bought MWIF and were not used to the board game (I had not played EiA on table top). Its difficult to get into a complex game, trying to learn the rules, understand the nuances, only to find bug after bug after soul destroying bug. I think most of us (certainly the majority) active on the MWIF site are former WIF board game players and so can see past the bugs or get around them so that we can play the game we love so much. But newbies?

The title of the thread is: The Future Of Complex Wargames Looks Bleak - well it is if game makers continue foisting buggy unstable games on the community. Surely there is no excuse for Wars of Napoleon to be released as it was?

Anyway, let's end on the positive - DC:B Fantastic game.

[:)]

ORIGINAL: stuart3

Everything about wargames is unrealistic. I used to happily accept board wargames as realistic, but now I expect more realism but it can't happen. The raw computing power we have now raises expectations without being able to deliver that extra realism. Also, the plethora of relatively recent publications of soldiers' personal memoirs and revisions of original histories by modern historians has made me realise how naive my earlier concept of "reality" really was.

Perhaps not your concept of reality is naive, but possibly your concept of realism.

"Realism" is in itself an idea, so what is realistic is, of course, a question of definition. Otoh, what is *real* is not a mere question of definition. If you believe that, you will run into a lot of walls. [8D]

Back to topic: *I* consider a wargame "realistic", if historical player actions lead to historical results, unhistorical yet plausible player actions lead to unhistorical yet plausible results and totally absurd player actions are impossible, because the engine doesn´t permit them.

Otoh, I do not care in the least for historicity in micro-detail, or even in the game systems, only in the relationship between action and outcome.

The future of complex wargames is pretty awesome. Look at Civilisation, XCOM, HOI, EU, Stellaris, Total War. These are complex strategy games that are hitting the top of the Steam revenue lists when they get released. Yes I know most of those aren't wargames, but they are strategy games that are very much not about 'instant gratification'.

The wider video games industry is swinging back to realising that there's a big market for serious strategy games out there and if wargame devs aren't willing or able to get a piece of that pie (and in that regard I'd say the two big issues the genre still needs to get over are 1) a UI from 1995 is not acceptable to anyone, and 2) complexity is worthless unless it feeds back into meaningful player choices), then they've nobody to blame but themselves.


PS. Oh as long as I'm making a list, 3) stop spending 10 years writing a special snowflake game engine by yourself that will inevitably look terrible and run badly. I think this applies to literally everyone. There's just no reason not to use Unity.

PS. Oh as long as I'm making a list, 3) stop spending 10 years writing a special snowflake game engine by yourself that will inevitably look terrible and run badly. I think this applies to literally everyone. There's just no reason not to use Unity.

There are a number of reasons. Top of the list is not having the time to learn, add to and fix an unknown language that does not do all the things I need it to do. Unity is great for RTS games, FPS games, and low level 3d wargames if you are familiar with it. Beyond that you would already have to be entrenched in it for the past 5+ years to want to use it. Unity is not overly mod friendly either. Require making extraction and encoding tools to pull info in and out. There are some nice games out there developed under Unity, but there are a bunch more that aren't. As a developer you need to go with what you know and works.

A good UI is one that can convey the important information to provide that feedback. There a fine line there between flashy, new, and useless and windows of information overload. There are both good and bad UIs out there, but far from a golden formula that works for all cases and conditions. Mainly because what you thing is great someone else thinks blows and vise versa. Leaves developers shooting for the middle of that bell curve.

I will agree 110% that strategy games and more old school deep strategy games are making a comeback and the mobile market succumbs to tap-tap freemium games.

It's a complex world out there and a one size fits all solution still alludes the masses. [8D]

ORIGINAL: Alchenar
The future of complex wargames is pretty awesome. Look at Civilisation, XCOM, HOI, EU, Stellaris, Total War. These are complex strategy games that are hitting the top of the Steam revenue lists when they get released. Yes I know most of those aren't wargames, but they are strategy games that are very much not about 'instant gratification'.

The problem is that strategy games are usually not wargames; their focus is different and they generally appeal to different consumers. Also, for one reason or another, I've been dissatisfied with most of the "complex wargames" I've bought recently--one reason being that they seem to continually get narrower and narrower in scope, and they come out, and are expanded, SO SLOWLY. Take your pick--CM, Flashpoint, Campaign Series--I like all of them, but every expansion pack, module, new game, etc. takes years to be released.

Also, I think that one problem is that as wargames get more complex, players get frustrated when the "complex wargame" for some reason fails to reflect/incorporate something that they consider important, thus splintering an already very small niche...

For instance, I really liked the concept of WitE, but stopped playing it fairly quickly because I just didn't think that the way it played out accurately portrayed the entire campaign in Russia (which often depended on a series of poor decisions on both sides which are unlikely to be reproduced by players with 20/20 hindsight).