What Next for WCS?

[Mus]

30 Years War, English Civil War and Warring States period of Japan could all be done using the same engine with slight rule variations.

[Gil R.]

To narrow it down marginally, I'm willing to state that when I wrote on the FOF forum two years ago that I had taken a deduction on a $150 reference book about ancient Greece and that if WCS didn't one day produce a game about Greece I would have just committed tax fraud, well, this next project will not be the one to restore me to the IRS's good graces...

(Actually, the book is goes for about $300, but I got it at half-off while at an academic conference.)

[ericbabe]

30 Years War, English Civil War and Warring States period of Japan could all be done using the same engine with slight rule variations.

We've certainly thought about these.  The Senguko period is a favorite of mine.  We should start separate discussion threads on what would have to change in the game to do each of these periods.  I doubt we could do any one of them as a full project -- there's not that much demand for the 30 Years War, unfortunately -- but something that's done like a mod with a little bit of programming/graphics support might be possible.

[yoshino]

>The Senguko period is a favorite of mine. 
 
Actualy It is Sengoku(War nations).[;)]
 
I'd like to the renaissance period in Italy peninsula in 15-16CE.the 30 years war and England civil war period also like.

[killroyishere]

I'd like to see Crusader Kings done with this engine. The ability to play every faction would be nice also.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: 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.

Maybe only three "major" battles, but TONS of skirmishing. If the scale were shifted to a much smaller level, and the goal was to build up a large force, and force the large battles, that could be cool.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

We've certainly thought about these.  The Senguko period is a favorite of mine.  We should start separate discussion threads on what would have to change in the game to do each of these periods.  I doubt we could do any one of them as a full project -- there's not that much demand for the 30 Years War, unfortunately -- but something that's done like a mod with a little bit of programming/graphics support might be possible.

Cool that the idea is possible.

Figuring out a good model for pike and shot combat, how to handle the possibility of purely melee combat, how to introduce archery into your fire combat model, etc would be tricky.

I wonder if I am in a small minority or if other wargamers would like to see you guys apply your talents at the Battalion/squadron/battery level. The lower you get the less abstract and more complicated it gets, but I think you guys did awesome in the transition from division level to brigade in vanilla COG to FOF and COG:EE.

[moose1999]

I agree, the brigade level combat in FOF is second to none.
I'd like to see more on this level - or even lower!
How low can you go...?!

[jhdeerslayer]

Roman Empire but no matter what it becomes I am sure it will be a good one.

[vaalen]

I'd like to suggest my own favorite subject- the wars of the Polish Commonwealth in the second half or the 17th century.

The Commonwealth began the period as one of the greatest,most powerful, most free, and largest countries in the world, with a unique military that routinely defeated much larger armies. The power of the Commonwealth was broken during this period. but it could have gone otherwise.

The period began with the great Cossack revolt, aided by the Crimean Tartars, that split the Ukraine from Poland.

It included the Swedish conquest of Poland by Karl X, using the elite Swedish army forged in the 30 years war, - and the Polish revolt that drove out the Swedes.

The period also included further wars with the Cossacks and Tartars(who at times switched sides to join the Poles), the Russians, and several massive Ottoman invasions, culminating in the great siege and relief of Vienna in 1683, which turned back the last Ottoman attempt to expand in Europe. It even included a Polish Civil War, which was a legal revolt done according to Polish Law.

Since most of the major players had very different armies, the tactical battles would be fascinating. Some of these battles would showcase the winged Husaria of Poland, who were the finest shock cavalry to ever ride the earth.

The solitaire challenge of playing the Commonwealth would be intense, as the Player would have to fend off many invasions at once, while having to deal with complex internal politics and the ever present danger of revolt and desertion.

I might add that there is a large community of gamers in Poland, Ukraine, and Russia who are very familiar with this period and would be very likely to buy and support such a game.

I recommend the movie 'With Fire and Sword" as a great introduction to the period.

[SlickWilhelm]

How about the CoG engine taking on the turmoil in South Africa in the 1800's? It might be too complicated to get into the various clan wars that took place with the rise of the Zulus under Shaka, but it might be ideal for the last half of the century. Competing factions would be the Zulus, the British, the Boers, the Portuguese...and even the Germans and French(and perhaps the Belgians)! Everyone competing for land, gold, diamonds. The detailed battle part of the game engine would be perfect for this era, too.

Would love to see the horns of my Impis surround the British columns in the detailed battle mode! [:D]

[barbarossa2]

Vaalen, I think if the engine can do Thirty Years war, it can--and should--include scenarios about the conflicts in Poland just after that.  I think WCS can and should do a 1525-1800 game about Europe.  I really think the engine is ready for it.  I mean, they don't need to add much more to it.  They would have to change the way tactical/strategic advances/experience gets handed out (to keep anyone from ever falling WAY too far behind...preventing a pike and shot Portugal from encountering a fully second stage Napoleonic Britain for instance).  They could do this type of a game after another highly commerical release (like FoF2).  Then merely doll up a CoG:EE2 and sell it all again with many additional scenarios.  I know I would buy.  Would anyone else here buy a WCS game centered on 1525-1900?

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: yoshino
Actualy It is Sengoku(War nations).[;)]

I've seen then "Senguko" spelling often, so have always assumed it is an acceptable spelling variant -- much like "medieval" and "mediaeval." Looking into it, you are right, it does not seem to be a variant spelling at all, just a widely used misspelling.

[Randomizer]

I would certainly buy a WCS game of the 16th through 18th Century but believe that about 1789 should be the end date.  The transition of European military technology and doctrine from 1525 through to the start of the French Revolution could be managed within the game systems by a detailed system of upgrades and unit attribute purchases.  However, once one reaches the start of the Industrial Revolution I doubt that the current economic model could handle the transition from rural agrarian economies where industry was in the hands of craftsmen and guilds to the urban industrial economies that followed.  I fear that managing such fundimental changes in the game system would create imbalances like those sometimes seen in the CIV franchise.  Likewise, since players have foreknowledge they may find gamey exploits to mortgage everything in order to attain industrial production upgrades that none of the real-life leaders could foresee or even desire.
 
I think that the advent of the railroad, telegraph and industrial mass production represents a developmental line that should not be crossed in a game such as this.  The technological leap was just too big and no matter what design decisions were implemented to manage the change, WCS would draw flak.  Better I think to avoid this transition and stick with incremental technological changes rather than deal with entirely new economic, political and military paradigms in the final quarter of the match.  End it around the time that CoG-EE starts.
 
I do think that the current military engine is robust enough to handle the transition from pike to musket, horse-pistol caracole to charge with sabre and lance and from bombard to field battery.
 
Likewise, changes in naval technology were largely incremental from 1525 to 1789 and the idea of fighting galley and galleass battles in the Med and Baltic is really neat!
 
Best Regards

[barbarossa2]

All very good points Randomizer.  I agree on every one of them actually. 

[vaalen]

Barbarossa2,

I would love to see such a game, but I fear the playtesting and research burden of so many different scenarios would be too much for the game to match the quality and stability of COGEE.

I really like the 1 month turn system and the detailed political goals,leaders, treaty system, etc, and would like them to stay.

What I would like to see is your proposal broken into several different games, which would allow WCS to address the particular details of each game without having to do too much at once.

The following games would fit in the time parameters of your proposal:

Mediterranean wars of the 16th century

30 Years war

The Polish wars 1648- 1690

The War of the Spanish Succession

Seven Years War

And many others

[kafka]

so, it looks like the next game will be based on the same engine. What I would like to see is an upgrade of this engine which will be able to handle the greater scope and complexity of modern times like WW1 and WW2. You should consider that there is not a single game on the market which deals with one of the great world wars on both the strategical and tactical level. I would like to see a game which combines the grand strategy layer (like teh HOI series) and (as an option)the battle resolution on the tactical layer (like the John Tiller's Campaign series)

[ptan54]

I think the engine can possibly handle the engagements of 1914 or 1918 which were mobile, but trench warfare like the Somme or Verdun would be quite difficult. You're just throwing men into machine gun nests....and this is the age where massive artillery barrages began way behind the line. Battlefields were a lot bigger than in the 19th century.

[Anthropoid]

I was thinking the same thing about early mobile WWI, OR the mostly mobile WWII period. But Vietnam I think would work well.

[Randomizer]

Fundamental characteristics of the Great War were the continuous front which in turn resulted in continuous combat.  Typically, in previous wars armies would come together, fight a battle that rarely lasted more than a couple of days and the main forces would subsequently disengage.  Contact between armies was generally continuous only between light forces such as pickets, cavalry patrols and foraging parties except during seige operations and sieges were usually local affairs.  Even the last great sieges of the 19th Century, Sevastopol (1854-55), Petersburg (1864-65) and Paris (1870-71) were conducted in a manner that Vauban and Napoleon would have found perfectly familier.
 
WW1 expanded the siege lines to a continental scale and combat became continuous because contact between manoeuver forces (as opposed to scouting forces) became continuous.  How does the game system handle Detailed Combat where combat is not only continuous but on a front hundred's of miles long?  Mobile operations when the continuous front was not solidly in place were rare in Europe so perhaps the system may be effective replicating events in colonial Africa or the Middle East where troop densities were low but the overwhelming tendency of machine-age armies was to spread until closed flanks prevented any further lateral movement.  Regardless of how the designers attacked the problems created by the inevitable static fronts and attrition warfare you probably have an ironclad guarantee of making a segment of the target audiance unhappy with the result and if you want evidence of that, witness the debate over the reasonable design decisions that created the teleported land units (excuse me, strategic movement after surrender) in CoG-EE.
 
I do not think that the FoF/CoG-EE system lends itself to this type of situation particularly well.  I do believe this to be an outstanding platform to recreate most pre-20th Century military and political situations as has been done already for the US Civil War and Napoleonic Europe.
 
Best Regards