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A random question while we wait for CotA...

Has the RDOA/HTTR series influenced wargaming over the past few years? That is, have any other authors played HTTR then decided to incorporate one or more of its previously unique elements in their own games/series?

I myself was so impressed by HTTR that I remember thinking at the time that its release might truly be a turning point in wargaming. Specifically, I am thinking of the concept of simultaneous (but pausable) action combined with the lack of hexagons or other boundaries that define a unit's location (sorry I don't know the phrase that's normally used to describe the system). It seemed self-obvious to me at the time that this is the direction all wargaming should move in. My knowledge of the state of wargaming is decent, but not great. So I'm wondering if any of the grognards out there might have any thoughts about elements from HTTR that have spread to other titles. [:)]

John

You would think there would be more influence, but oddly enough it almost seems like HttR (and a few other titles like Combat Mission) exist in a strange bubble in the wargaming world. That is, games that promise new features and ideas and then actually appear on the market.

In fact, the genre seems to be suffering from a kind of paralysis. A lot of potentially interesting titles are locked in design limbo and dozens disappear after making all kinds of promises.

There are very few credible wargames out there and even fewer that are interested in getting out of the dark ages of wargames modelled on old board games. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm guessing it has everything to do with how the market is perceived. There seem to be no shortage of WWII FPS titles.

Cheers

Paul

ORIGINAL: cabron66
You would think there would be more influence, but oddly enough it almost seems like HttR (and a few other titles like Combat Mission) exist in a strange bubble in the wargaming world. That is, games that promise new features and ideas and then actually appear on the market.

Don't forget ProSimCo's games :

http://www.prosimco.com/tsatc.htm - the Star and the Crescent and
http://www.prosimco.com/tfw.htm - The Falklands War

Basically the same setup as HttR but with a rougher engine (from the demo). I've got the Star and the Crescent on order so I can have a good look at it and see if they've come up with some novel ideas and concepts.

ORIGINAL: cabron66
In fact, the genre seems to be suffering from a kind of paralysis. A lot of potentially interesting titles are locked in design limbo and dozens disappear after making all kinds of promises.

I would dispute that - it just takes a long time for titles to actually appear because it takes a lot of work to make them. HttR was released almost 2 years ago and only now is CotA nearly ready. And the Panther guys have worked really hard on it. Even the disappear part is a bit over the top : some games do disappear from the radar, but not dozens

ORIGINAL: cabron66
There are very few credible wargames out there and even fewer that are interested in getting out of the dark ages of wargames modelled on old board games.

Games released this year not modeled on a boardgame :

Civil War - Bull Run - Take Command 1861
http://www.madminutegames.com/thegame.htm
Demo : http://www.madminutegames.com/Downloads/CWBRDemo.exe

S.C.S. Dangerous Waters
http://www.battlefront.com/products/dw/features.html
http://strategyfirst.com/en/games/DangerousWaters/
http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?nid=2565

Silent Hunter 3
http://www.ubi.com/UK/Games/silenthunter3.htm

Cossacks 2
http://www.cossacks2.de/index.php?m=news&lang=en

Imperial Glory
http://www.eidosinteractive.com/games/i ... l?gmid=150
http://www.eidosinteractive.com/games/e ... l?gmid=150
http://forums.eidosgames.com/forumdispl ... orumid=130
http://www.imperialglory.com/main.htm
demo : ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/pc/games/gamersh ... ryDemo.zip

Falklands War : 1982
Demo : http://download.shrapnelgames.com/downloads/tfwdemo.zip
http://www.prosimco.com/tfw.htm
http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?nid=483
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/prosim/falklands_82/1.htm
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/blog/2 ... apor-ware/
http://www.wargamer.com/Hosted/lineofde ... ndswar.asp
http://pc.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r23453.htm

NWS : Battleships Zenith
http://www.navalwarfare.org/~content/bz.html
http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?nid=2171

NWS : Dreadnought Rising
http://www.navalwarfare.org/~content/dr.html
http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?nid=2171

Salvo
http://www.shrapnelgames.com
http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?nid=1866
http://download.shrapnelgames.com/downl ... emo_pc.exe

T-72 : Balkans on Fire
http://www.battlefront.com
http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ulti ... forum;f=46
http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/t72/

Stalingrad
Demo at : http://www.blackbeangames.com/?act=game ... d&ope=demo
http://www.stalingrad-game.com/en/

Squad Assault : Second Wave
http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?nid=1931
http://www.sa2ndwave.com/
demo : ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/games/PC/gamersh ... swdemo.zip

Interestingly enough some of the most innovative games *are* modeled after a boardgame but use new technology or a combination of genres :

Down in Flames for instance - using the Vassal approach - that's innovative.
http://www.battlefront.com/products/dif/

Crown of Glory - mixing grand strategy & tactical battles
http://www.west-civ.com/

or the soon to be released Histwar : Les Grognards
http://www.histwar.com/index.php

So, to sum it up - wargame development & evolution may not go as fast as we would like, but the genre is far from a stale un-evolving environment. If you want an example of a stale environment take FPS games. No innovation there since Quake 1.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

I think many gamers are very conservative. It applies to all genres; but in wargame terms, it means people feel comfortable with hexes and their d20roll combat resolution tables, if not straight board game rip-offs.

I played Talonsoft's Eastern Front 6-7 years ago, and I was frankly appalled that even back then with all the resources of a PC at their disposal and distribution good enough to just wander into a shop and find, they still represented a platoon as 6 strength points. It leads to terrible play. Odds even themselves out over time, but it can leads to all sorts of instances of ridiculous play. It's 2005 now and I don't think many wargame developers have got a great deal further, and I think they're propped up by gamers who don't want to change.

Stuff like Combat Mission and later HTTR really opened my eyes and showed that someone was trying to do something much more involved. I thought one big advantage to a heavily abstracted and simplified system was that it must be easier to program a really good AI. The tragedy is that all too often AI isn't any better, as HTTR amply shows.

i know its barely a wargame, but Age of Empires was fresh and exciting when it came out, little has changed since then as far as RTS style games are concerned, and that genre of clickfest is now old and stale for me.

CMBO and HTTR were fresh and exciting and innovative when thay came out, and that still are. IMHO the CM series has the lure of the ASL boardgame along with fear and excitement, with none of the roll this and look up x in table y to slow the game down.

after growing up with board and computer hex based wargames, HTTR initialy confused the hell out of me, the game system was alien, new concepts and choices that rewrote how to play a game.

CM and HTTR are some of the few games that let the PC do the hard work and let the gamer make the hard decisons.

i am really looking forward to COTA and the second generation CM games, oh, and CIV4 as i would still like to rule the world (Dr Evil type laugh)

I think HttR has had a lot of influence. It's success speaks for itself. But, like nutter, I had trouble getting used to the concept as I had started out on board wargames many years ago & then switched to computerized turn-based games like V for Victory & HPS's Panzer Campaigns. I know a lot of people don't like these type of games for many justifiable reasons. But, they lend themsleves well to PBEM play & cover a lot of different battles. I've met & made a lot of good friends playing PBEM. A lot more than I would have otherwise had I just sticked to board games. So, there's that aspect to wargaming that goes beyond just this game is better/more realistic than that one. I'm just glad that there's a lot of choices out there as Eddy has pointed out. I could be wrong, but I would imagine that eventually "hex-less" games such as HttR/CotA and the ProSim stuff will become the norm. I do hope, hoever, that it doesn't take 2 years after the release of CotA for another game to come out! [:)]

ORIGINAL: sterckxe
Don't forget ProSimCo's games

I betatested all of the ATF games and WinSPMBT. Shrapnel is one of the few exceptions to the rule. Pat and Curt and the rest do excellent work. Of course, the ATF engine is the market release of a military simulation used by Lockheed so realism is definitely going to be part of the deal.

As a side note, they're stuff is not influenced by HttR (at least not directly) although I know they are fans of the game. The scale and design of ATF is quite different.

I would dispute that - it just takes a long time for titles to actually appear because it takes a lot of work to make them. HttR was released almost 2 years ago and only now is CotA nearly ready. And the Panther guys have worked really hard on it. Even the disappear part is a bit over the top : some games do disappear from the radar, but not dozens

I'm not sure if we've understood each other here. Maybe the problem is our standard for what constitutes a credible wargame. HttR definitely belongs to the elite group of games that deliver what they promise in terms of realism, but I do believe it to be an elite group.

In a sense you are right because it is rare that titles from a major company disappear (even though a lot of them should), but I am also including projects put together by independant design teams. Of those, I promise you, there have been scads that have come and gone.

Your list of games includes some very good titles, but I am hard pressed to include HttR or Combat Mission in the same list. While they are all "wargames", only some of them are dedicated to realism and detail. Bull Run looks like a winner, but I have tried almost all of the rest and they are not the kind of games that I compare to your work or the work of BFC or ProSimCo. I am not familiar with Battleships Zenith.

The Falklands War is also based on the ATF engine and is a very good game. It should be. We worked very hard to make it so.

You'll get no argument from me on the staleness of the FPS genre (apart from a few exception like Half Life 2 which is a work of art).

Cheers

Paul

ORIGINAL: cabron66
I betatested all of the ATF games and WinSPMBT. Shrapnel is one of the few exceptions to the rule.
[...]
As a side note, they're stuff is not influenced by HttR (at least not directly) although I know they are fans of the game. The scale and design of ATF is quite different.

Despite the fact that AA:RDoA is out since at least 2002, I had the impression that BCT and ATF were released a bit before. I may be wrong though.

I would dispute that - it just takes a long time for titles to actually appear because it takes a lot of work to make them. HttR was released almost 2 years ago and only now is CotA nearly ready.

I'm not sure if we've understood each other here.

I think that the problem that Eddy underlines is that Airborne Assault is quite new (3 or 4 years), and that it take years of development to get to the point of a refined game engine, stable with flexible AI.
So we'll have to wait a bit to see games directly inspired by it.

Nevertheless he points a nice list of games (2 of them being Tanks and Sub sims, do you still call them wargames), but I find their inspiration being more from Age of Empires, Sudden Strike, Close Combat and Total War. Good news is wargame genre are finding new ways to express itself.

Seriously, who needs a grid these days on computers ? I like BiN though. [;)]

JeF.

One game I played to the point of exhaustion and burn out was Steelbeasts. Its a tank sim but it also has good features for playing and commanding from a map view.

Alas, I've seen no updates in years. I think its suppose to be out soon but I've quit checking for months.

I can get interesting in several different types of wargames. I play HttR, BiN, PzCampaigns, and have just started playing SPWaW again (and like it).



hank

Sadly, it does seem like PGs engine lives more in its own niche within a niche than having been a pivotal point for the genre and industry. Of course, that might not be a bad thing for PG, since other organizations might have more money and resources to apply to such an approach; also, they could start with a clean slate which sometimes is an aid to late comers to developing a particular type of software.

However, there were hints of what could be long before the current modern era of gaming. Sid Meier's Gettysburg was out in 1997, I believe. It introduced a hexless and realtime/continous/pausable battlefield with TAC-AI and STRAT-AI. Sid Meier was a genious. Perhaps, it also took someone who was general game developer as opposed to a wargame developer to have such moments of illumination. By the fourth game built on the same engine, Austerlitz: Napoleons Greatest Victory, a command hiearchy with friendly AI and orders had been introduced.

I've played Civil War Bull Run and talked with the developers and, of course, I know the PG developers. There are quite a few interesting similarities between MMGs (Mad Minute Games) and PGs engine/design. However, this is just coincidental. The MMG developers draw their inspiration from SMG/SMA and were both former developers for Break Away Games during the time of WNLB/ANGV.

So, although there are a few games out there also offering some similar features and concepts with PG's engine ... First, I think PG has the best implementation of friendly order/command implementation and the AI to support it. Second, as far as I know, PG has the best implementation of order delays in the battle process and no one else comes close.

I think the game I am most interested in seeing and what it brings to the table in this niche of a niche is Les Grognards. Particularly, they may break new ground in the area of friendly FOW. This is something that would be a nice inclusion in PG's engine, but is currently not feasible due to the CPU load penalty that it would require.

ORIGINAL: cabron66

You would think there would be more influence, but oddly enough it almost seems like HttR (and a few other titles like Combat Mission) exist in a strange bubble in the wargaming world. That is, games that promise new features and ideas and then actually appear on the market.

In fact, the genre seems to be suffering from a kind of paralysis. A lot of potentially interesting titles are locked in design limbo and dozens disappear after making all kinds of promises.

There are very few credible wargames out there and even fewer that are interested in getting out of the dark ages of wargames modelled on old board games. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm guessing it has everything to do with how the market is perceived. There seem to be no shortage of WWII FPS titles.

Cheers

Paul

I agree.

Name other ganes in development except ones by shrapel that have taken on this kind of engine?

Infact name a new wargame (not one of a series) thats in development (not by Matrix,HPS or Shrapnel) full stop? I can think of maybe two.

Madminute Games is still working on the sucessor to its Bull Run Game. They have a really good game there and you cant deny the Total War series has had an effect on Wargaming like it or not.

Indeed. I just read a review of the new Bull Run Madminute game in PC Gamer (UK edition). Note the following comment in that review:

"Like the brilliant Highway To The Reich, it understands that real generals aren't shepherds herding huge flocks of brainless soldier-sheep"

It's impossible to say whether Madminute were inspired by RDOA and HTTR, but it is quite likely that wargame designers will take a look at the Panther games, and see huge improvments in wargaming that they can incorporate themselves.

It is possible to say (read my above comments).

Also, the MMG developers, Adam and Norb, were unaware of the PG's engine and its features until I raised that in discussion with them.

I did manage a promotional swap of a couple of copies of CWBR and HTTR between the developers of PG and MMG, but I seriously doubt if anyone had the time to take to look the other's work. It seems only customers have such luxury of having disposable time to spend to examine the industry in general.

Not true. I did find time to install and run the tutorial of Adam's game and had a good time playing it too. I would recommend it to any wargamer. Alas I have not had anytime of late to get back to it nor other games for that matter. Too many people applying the lash here.[;)]

That's good to hear, Dave. {meaning that you did get to load CWBR up}

In a way, you can say that Dave, an Australian, was responsible for me, an American, purchasing CWBR. If I hadn't met Dave at the Gettysburg battlefield one day, I would not have developed such a keen interest in the American Civil War, purchased SMG, and ultimately purchased CWBR. Kind of interesting how things happen in life.

Aside from COTA, I think the next MMG offering and Les Grognards are two things coming up that I am most interested in. Sadly, I'll probably pass on Les Grognards, since my current desktop is three years old going on four soon.

Apparently Norm Koger's new land engine "Project Ivan" is RT so who knows where he found his inspiration [;)] Sounds like an exciting project to me!

One game I would like to see is a Civil War or Napoleonic wargame that was at the company level. The player would be able to stretch a box to certian limits that represented battle lines for his forces. In other words, when you look at a map of the Civil War, the armies fought in lines of men and artillery (skirmish lines; assault lines; defensive lines, etc). The interface would allow the player to place and direct the conduct of battalions and companies the way they really were on the battlefield.

Ok, 'nuff said. Gotta go.

I check back later ...

Hank

For the average Napoleonic action they almost never split battalions, I think, except for some skirmish lines, so I'm not sure there would be that much to be gained from company level. Not sure about US civil war.

I'm probably wrong on using company level units. The main point was being able to control the units (whether battalion or regimental, etc.) in the way they actually were. i.e., line them up and tell the to march to battle ... shoulder to shoulder ...

thanks

hank