Matrix Games Forums

Originally posted by Raverdave
Very good posts one and all.............I have no problem with the fact that there is a randomizer (electronic dice) built into every computer game...my beef is that I don't want to see it displayed. As I said, it destroys the illusion for me.

Ah, living your life behind a wall of illusion again, eh? Never glimpse the truth 'til it's far too late when you pass away...

Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1
I like dice with 6 sides.

And 10-sided die have succeeded sometimes, too.

I don't know about you, Les, but I have yet to see a computer wargame that has given me as much value as many of the old "dinosaur" paper-and-cardboard games. Try Victory's "Civil War" as a primary example of excellent wargame design.

How often was it actually played.

About the best yard stick by which a truely good game (in the eyes of the owner), can be measured.

I can measure the time spent playing various forms of Squad Leader through Advanced Squad Leader as well as Third Reich through to Advanced Third Reich, into the hundreds and thousands of accumulated hours over more than one decade.

While I have played some games a lot in some cases, I have played those two sufficiently, that I feel no hesitation in considering myself an expert in their designs.

So many computer games today, seem to have a run of fascination measured in a few months, and then the next "thing" comes along, and the previous game becomes just a dead issue.
I am sure that happened with some board games as well I suppose, but it seems to be so much more distinct with computer games.

I have owned Third Reich now for about 24 years.

I have read everything there is to read up about the game to try and improve my play.

When I first got online the first search I did was for fan sites of that game.

How many games have I played? Maybe 10.

Only 10

And that’s because it takes sooooo looooong to play. And it is so hard to find an opponent.

That amounts to about 140 hours (at 14 hours a game).

Then I discovered Close Combat 1. I played all 5 games of the Close Combat series and each game was an improvement over the last.

I played the games online regularly for 6 years.

One hour per game, three games a night for at least 3 nights per week spread over 300 weeks (conservatively 250 weeks)

That makes 2,250 hours and easily another 250 hours against the AI.

That makes easily 2,500 hours – perhaps as high as 3,000 hours.

The fact is that a PC game requires less effort to set up and it’s easy to find an opponent.

Set up is indeed easier, but being the whacko I am known to be, the setting up part was actually just part of the fun hehe.

Yeah I am also one of those guys that would give ya the creeps, because he systematically snipped off all the fuzzy corners off of all his wargame pieces hehe.

I have not played CC like you have, but I think I can see, that it will be a looooooooong time before any of the "cute" RTS titles out there can rival the play value so many have gotten out of CC.

As for Third Reich, I photocopied the map at 120% and pasted all the pages to heavy cardboard.

Then I used texta to paint all the rivers, beaches, mountains etc.

With a map that large the counters fit easily in each hex and your fingers do not bump the counters in the adjacent hex.

And I too cut off the fuzzy corners of each counter.

I am soooo glad PCs were invented.

Joe have you ever seen the awesome A3R map in person done by Charlie Kibler (sp?). It is an incredible creation (not to mention they corrected a number of vexatious hexes).

Nice colour and the hexes were substantially increased in size (was likely the size you ended up with).
Alas the map was unmounted in this case.

Buit the trade off was they also removed the charts from sections of the map, the players were wanting to use in the middle east as well.