Rules that offer historically accurate movement rates – are there any?

[McLaddie]

The fact is, the table top is an abstraction both in size and complexity from real ground.  Once you distort all matter of spatial relationships with miniatures, regardless of scale, and then lather on structures that are even more absurd distortions on a typical wargame table, you’re playing a hopeless game of rationalization if you suddenly want time and space proportions to reflect anything akin to the real world.

 

Bob:

I think what makes this a hopeless game are the all or nothing beliefs that refuse to simply ask what military men of the time thought and did on the battlefield about space and time, about that hoary old D=R*T.  IF they didn’t worry about it, then we don’t need to either.  So, How did they view the issues and deal with them?  How can you portray them on the tabletop?

Of course, the table top is an abstraction. Any and all simulations are nearly total abstractions of the real thing. Wargame and simulation design have always been about relationships, proportions and ratios, not factoids.  However, those elements are far more versatile than presented by you. What makes such arguments circular is to present a rigid, unworkable definition and application of things as D=R*T and then argue that it can’t work.

This  all or nothing view of D=R*T as though it is an indivisible formula with only one application is a good example. The only other possible response seems to be the brilliance of admitting defeat and  ” creating a “believable illusion” of a ‘narrative game’… as though any game or simulation game can avoid being narrative, an illusion and ‘believable’ if it is representing something real, past or present.

Games that dealt with events and their sequencing, usually through the use of cards, but also with inventive means of progressive dice sequencing.   These designs created a form I call narrative gaming where the “truthfulness” and “reality” of a set of rules was in how the narrative unfolded and whether it seemed, as with any creative fiction, to reproduce for the user a sense of reality, history, a believable experience and a good “story.”  I call these designs Narrative Wargames.

Then lets deal with some design reality that has a lot to do with believability and that ‘sense of reality’, let alone a good story.  Whether cards, dice or or rigid, predictable  movement, any sequencing of movement requires that time + rate of movement = distance relationship.  Any game is based on that relationship among many others, whether Chess or LaSalle, Piquet or Empire.   ANY game sequencing requires a use of the D=R*T in some form.

There are many, many ways of representing that D=R*T in a wargame, not just one, but the relationship is unavoidable in game design.  If the game is supposedly representing the ‘illusion’ of reality on the tabletop there has to be some relationship between actual movement on the battlefield and a game sequencing of battlefield events.  To actually design any game, there has to be a D=R*T consideration involved regardless of scale or no scale, even if its Chutes and Ladders.  No one could claim that their game can be played in two hours etc. if they didn’t consider that formula in some way.  To pretend that you can sequence a battle without reference to some form of D=R*T requires one to use a lot of vague language such as ‘narrative wargames’ to avoid that simple fact.    Another fact is that  ‘Space and Time’ were critical battlefield concerns for military men, which is why they spent so much time on such issues.

If it is impossible to determine how far units traveled in X amount of time as a generalization, impossible to portray that relationship on the table top, then you can’t ‘believably’ sequence the game, if it supposed to represent something akin to real battles.

 

[repiqueone]

Bandit,

In a very real sense, L’Estoq’s march is a data point of one, by one group, in one battle.  I suppose one could propose a L’Estoq at Eylau rule, but  I think rolling for variable movement, or regulating time in a wargame by card fall, is as accurate as any method, and probably a better game mechanic, and a better representation of history.  Those mechanisms simply state L’Estoq started his travels at this point of the game, and ended up at his destination at a later point- the time is perhaps measured in gross terms by a typical turn length illustrating a given amount of time, but, even there, many designers have gone to turns that have varying amounts of events in them, or of varying lengths of time being represented.  It makes the issue moot.  It does illustrate that the gamer’s L’Estoq, and his Eylau, may vary, as well it should.

“Average”  when applied to troops on a variable wargame battlefield, is, in itself, an abstraction, and a strong mix of subjective estimation with a bit of fact.  Within a given rule set the movement must be proportional on some level between arms and armies, but I suspect that internal consistency is the rule, and little reason to think that different conceptual systems would illustrate movement similarly.  In fact 50% variation would be, in my mind, the most likely result-not a surprise.  Nor does that mean any one set is right or wrong on some ultimate level.  The best you can hope for is some form of internal consistency and I suspect that every gamer thinks his favorite set gets it right, largely because he accepts the conceptual environment and it  fits his preferences and prejudices, and he gives little weight to any considerations of true scale or D= R*T.  Of course, if artillery consistently outspeeds infantry, and cavalry is the slowest mover, the design has problems, but these things are seldom an issue with any rule set I’m aware of.

 

 

 

 

 

[repiqueone]

McLaddie,

My objection is not that considerations of time and distance are not factors in a good design, but that they are to be considered, in a historical wargame, especially based on events hundreds of years in the past, as a valid scientific measurement, but simply as a comparative judgement with very broad parameters.

So broad that threads that get down in the weeds about drill rates,  historical movements, etc. and attempt to make them any finer in their resolution than broad proportions and general statements on the level of Cavalry fast, infantry slower, artillery even slower is probably useless.

Such research can, of course, be rewarding to historians, hobbyists, and disertation writers, and may inform in the broadest possible way game designers, but, generally speaking are not very productive of much more than long threads on Napoleonic forums.

I think this is another example where both Sam and I, and you and Bandit are talking past each other to some degree.

 

[Bandit]

repiqueone wrote:

In a very real sense, L’Estoq’s march is a data point of one, by one group, in one battle.  I suppose one could propose a L’Estoq at Eylau rule

You insinuated that we were attempting to discuss “arcane facts” and claimed that no one ever showed how these arcane facts related to real battles. So I gave an example of one that related to the topic at hand: movement rates, and noted how it did have a material impact on the battle’s course of events and outcome.

Please don’t short me by indicating there is only one example supporting my statement and refuting yours simply because I only gave one. You didn’t ask for several…

I’ll touch on this again at the end regarding movement averages.

repiqueone wrote:

but  I think rolling for variable movement, or regulating time in a wargame by card fall, is as accurate as any method, and probably a better game mechanic, and a better representation of history.

You’ve made that clear but you haven’t provided any specific support for your conclusion. Why is it a better representation of history than… well, there isn’t a than because one hasn’t been specifically proposed, but it would radically strengthen your point to say why such methods are a good representation of history.

repiqueone wrote:

Those mechanisms simply state L’Estoq started his travels at this point of the game, and ended up at his destination at a later point- the time is perhaps measured in gross terms by a typical turn length illustrating a given amount of time

Actually all movement mechanics do this, it is in no way specific to card-driven or dice driven or variable turn lengths. All movement mechanics state that L’Estocq moved from X location to Y location at some later point.

repiqueone wrote:

It makes the issue moot.  It does illustrate that the gamer’s L’Estoq, and his Eylau, may vary, as well it should.

This I don’t follow. There is a presumption that the time it took L’Estocq to move from point X to point Y should vary. I’m questioning if it should.

repiqueone wrote:

“Average”  when applied to troops on a variable wargame battlefield, is, in itself, an abstraction, and a strong mix of subjective estimation with a bit of fact.

Of course it is an abstraction but it is not necessarily a “strong mix of subjective estimation with a bit of fact,” it is not subjective to say that I travel on average X MPH from point A to point B when driving. How accurate an estimate of my future average travel times will be depends on my sample size. You pointed at this as to my example with L’Estocq at Eylau but earlier in this thread each McLaddie and I have noted a couple examples. The question we’ve each posed is: if we find a whole bunch of examples where in T time under C circumstances a division of troops moved from point A to point B, a known distance of D, then it seems pretty fair to presume that units on the tabletop should move something similar to that average under similar conditions. We’re not talking about something exact, though everyone who objects refers to “exact” and “truth”.

No one has claimed anything about this stuff being an exact science, if I were doing so, I wouldn’t be talking about averages which are by their very nature – as you note – inexact.

repiqueone wrote:

In fact 50% variation would be, in my mind, the most likely result-not a surprise.

Why?

[Bandit]

repiqueone wrote:

My objection is not that considerations of time and distance are not factors in a good design, but that they are to be considered, in a historical wargame, especially based on events hundreds of years in the past, as a valid scientific measurement, but simply as a comparative judgement with very broad parameters.

This doesn’t make any sense to me.

repiqueone wrote:

So broad that threads that get down in the weeds about drill rates,  historical movements, etc. and attempt to make them any finer in their resolution than broad proportions and general statements on the level of Cavalry fast, infantry slower, artillery even slower is probably useless.

1st – No one is talking about drill rates, why do you keep referencing them?

2nd – Historical movements are data points. You’re polarizing them to the point of being meaningless. In order for someone to represent the proportional difference between the speed of infantry and cavalry – per your fast, slower, even slower comment – the person’s gotta have some notion of what those movement rates were. Otherwise the designer is just fabricating the relationship arbitrarily.

Consider this:

At Eylau Augereau’s VII Corps begins to breakup in front of the Russian guns. That happened about 9:30am, approximately 20 minutes after Augereau’s attack had stepped off. Murat’s cavalry charges in to save Augereau at about 9:50am. Just after 10:00am, the Guard Cavalry is sent in to save Murat. By 10:30am a Russian brigade has come forward across this same swath of land and is threatening Napoleon’s HQ, the Guard infantry and parts of Murat’s cavalry which have returned and reformed rebuff the Russian counter-attack.

So why are these not just inane details?

Because, as you say, the relationship between cavalry, infantry and artillery is important. So if we are attempting to represent *battles* as you say we are, then take off the timestamps, using whatever representation of time you like: cards, dice, turns, whatever, is the movement system used respectful of the proportions put forward by that chain of events?

Dice are neat because you can clearly determine likelihoods. It can be easily computed what percentage of the time a given “dice for movement” mechanic is likely to give various outputs. Therefore, you can easily know ahead of time if the dice driven movement outputs are going to be anything similar to the relationships the three arms had in practice.

I would guess that the overwhelming majority of the time all designers are doing is saying, “Cavalry fast, infantry slower, artillery even slower,” just as you do. But it does make a big difference if cavalry is 50% or 500% faster than infantry.

repiqueone wrote:

Such research can, of course, be rewarding to historians, hobbyists, and disertation writers, and may inform in the broadest possible way game designers, but, generally speaking are not very productive of much more than long threads on Napoleonic forums.

repiqueone wrote:

I think this is another example where both Sam and I, and you and Bandit are talking past each other to some degree.

I think the reason your last statement here is true is largely because of the preceding one. You seem to say that basically no research should be done beyond, as you say, determining that cavalry, infantry and artillery fall into the three categories of: fast, slow, slowest. But that is kinda ridiculous since that can be determined without any research at all. When you also say that it is important to represent the *battle* holistically – which I think indicates you agree representing a battle is a factor of understanding the relationships between various elements. How the heck does one understand the relationships well enough to represent them if researching them is a fruitless effort that can just be reduced to movement is: fast, slow, slowest?

In short, I don’t think McLaddie and I are saying anything about what mechanic should be used for movement beyond some vary general expectations:

1) Soult’s Corps on the tabletop should be able to move from his starting position near Napoleon’s HQ to the Pratzen Heights in similar to the same time he did it historically.

2) Soult should be able to do it as reliably as historical examples of movement support it happening. Hence the references to Picket at Gettysburg, the Allied 3rd Column at Austerlitz and L’Estocq, Augereau and Murat at Eylau.

You can measure time however the heck you want, turns that represent variable minutes, turns that represent strict times, cards, events, whatever. But if a bunch of examples can be found to indicate that moving ~1,400 yards in 20 minutes is expected and typical, then it should be expected and typical on the tabletop however you choose to measure distance and time.

[McLaddie]

My objection is not that considerations of time and distance are not factors in a good design, but that they are to be considered, in a historical wargame, especially based on events hundreds of years in the past, as a valid scientific measurement, but simply as a comparative judgement with very broad parameters.

So broad that threads that get down in the weeds about drill rates,  historical movements, etc. and attempt to make them any finer in their resolution than broad proportions and general statements on the level of Cavalry fast, infantry slower, artillery even slower is probably useless.

Bob:

I can appreciate that it is a comparative judgment. The question is how you create those parameters.  Considerations of time and distance are in all designs, good or bad.  For your game Zouave, you solve that equation R*T= D with  Rate[D12 rolls] * Time [the passage through each segment] = Distance the units can move.   But you have to solve that equation twice:  Is the R*T=D ‘believable?’   What you base that comparison on, I don’t know but I am guessing it has to do with what you believe players will consider ‘believable’.   That is a very broad generalization at best.

Now this thread wasn’t going down in the weeds.  It was an attempt to generalize, so we were talking past each other. That generalization of 75 yards per minute is somewhere between an ordinary and quick time rate of movement. Interesting, but it only shows that troops changed speeds.  However, that’s not surprising as it is a generalization of movement.  This thread was asking another group what they saw as a ‘believable’ movement rate for infantry over open terrain: The Napoleonic officers who fought the wars.  Here is one:

Page 284  Field Exercises and Evolutions of the Army  M.G. Henry Torrens  1824  [he is speaking of a brigade of eight battalions]

 27…In general, the line should be formed within 1200 or 1400 paces of a posted enemy, unless the ground particularly favours and covers an attacking force from the fire of his artillery, the enfilade of which is what chiefly prevents bodies in the column from approaching nearer; and troops in line will march over that space in 12 to 13 minutes,…  [Italics mine]

Twenty five years earlier, Dundas made the same generalization, only that it would be 13-15 minutes.  General Vernor made the same generalization in 1805 for the Marshal-vetted text for training officers.  That is the movement rate v. Riesswitz gave units in his 1812-1824 wargame. Now, if I find that other officers made the same generalization in other armies during the same period, I have something I can test as a generalization:  I found a number of battlefield examples that generally show the very same thing under the same conditions–with no exceptions so far.  With that, I have a something much tighter than your broad proportions.  It certainly is only one piece in a much larger jigsaw puzzle, but it is far from a useless generalization.

And in the end, is it really so much harder to create mechanics that match what military men of the period thought was ‘believable’  compared to current players’ notions of ‘believable’ military history?

Best Regards,  McLaddie

[repiqueone]

McLaddie, and for that matter, Bandit, I think I’m arriving right where Sam did earlier in the thread.  When one tries to converse with someone who speaks a foreign language, it doesn’t do much good to just talk louder.

I think both of you are speaking a language rooted in the olde Wargamese, with strong hints of the Napoleonic dialect first noted by readers of Empire and Legacy of Glory.  I’m glad to see it survives in some less traveled parts of the wargaming world, since so few people speak it any longer.

Most wargamers have moved on from the archaic tonalities of that language and it is seldom heard anymore.

I have never said, nor do I believe, that research is not part of a wargame design, I just don’t think that wargame design is an accretion of various anecdotes and quotes into a ruleset.  It is a creative process, a synthesis of fact and insight into a metaphor that people find captures the essence of a period’s military action.  That opinion varies from gamer to gamer, and designer to designer as to what sort of rules do this best.  Quite frankly, I’ve never found that a wargame was made immeasurably better by slathering on  random, undigested, anecdotal history, but it has often been made worse.

Perhaps you can provide the name of a ruleset that meets your criteria, perhaps one that you wrote and published?

Food for thought:  Do units on the advance move at a consistent, unvarying speed, in all situations, and are they constant in their actions, or more variable, ranging from the alacrity of a sensed victory to the timidity of doubt? If all you do is set an “average” speed any unit can flash across a wargame battlefield in a few bounds.

Does an army in the field in either looks or actions match the uniform books and drill manuals?  How close to ideal was a typical unit, brigade, corps in most of the Horse and Musket period?

I am saying that certain, broad…very broad…assumptions may be made by consulting the histories and manuals, but trying to get anything useful out of more and more niggling details of unprovable consequence is a fool’s errand.  We’re talking about human behavior on all levels under stress and duress.  There may be some general observations of value from reading the history of a period, but, for wargames purposes, the law of diminishing returns sets in quickly.

It’s rather like increasing the magnification on a telescope. At first, it magnifies and enlarges the image and makes it clearer, but every objective lens has a limit, and if you take the magnification beyond that point the image blurs out and loses all structure.   Wargames have a limit on their usage of arcane fact.

They are a game based on history, not history simulated as a game.  No one can seriously suggest otherwise.

[grizzlymc]

repiqueone

I think that Bandit and McLaddie are trying to find something that works like kreigspiel when moving troops, and perhaps bombarding units with arty but which feels like a wargame when manouvre is over and it gets down to the scrum.  As armies did not have a corps of button counting scribes, like much historical research, these things need to be assembled from what Paddy Griffiths would have called snippets.

You are probably right in saying that resolving the apparent disconnect between time and distance is not going to improve the game, but that is what these guys want to examine.  It is true that a large number of games in the eighties and nineties tried to model these things this way and failed, but if we shut every door with the graffiti “I went through here and failed” sprayed on it, we would be frantically harvesting our crops and dreaming of the post harvest raids on the neighbours with a view to nicking their winter store and grabbing an extra wife or two.

[repiqueone]

Agreed, Griz.  They may discuss it if they like, I’m just not sure that its ultimately very rewarding. ( That applies to extra wives as well!).

I have a great regard for the late Paddy Griffiths, whose books are unfailingly informative and thought provoking, but I believe, he, too, questioned some of these issues in miniature wargaming, and eventually gave up on miniatures because he couldn’t suspend his belief sufficiently.  BTW I have nothing against a good historical snippet, just as long as it isn’t treated as more than it is.

That is one danger of the niggling detail school that I believe some new approaches have neatly finessed-by simply treating time and distance in a more abstract manner, and allowing a greater degree of variability in wargame movement and combat and essentially making it a non-issue.  Instead of making your metal legions conform to a stop-motion study, you grant them the same freedom that units actually had-unpredicatability of future events, including distance travelled.  Once time becomes simply a turn of rough duration (my favorite is a half hour to an hour!) and we don’t get too caught up in what happened during that time, but rather that on turn 1 they were at point A and on Turn 2, they were at point B, and that distance was achievable, and in proportion to all other units on the table, then we can leave a LOT of silliness and micro-movement and management (which didn’t exist) well out of our games.

I suppose I have always been suspicious of excessively literal interpretation of events.  All too often the literal explanation was imposed on reality, and did not actually express anything real.  Sometimes a novel, or a work of fiction is more true than a data filled government report.  That’s why I have aleways leavened my reading of history with good novels…a little Fortesque, then some George McDonald Frasier! 😉

But each must find his own “Best Place.”

[Bandit]

repiqueone,

Why are you polarizing our views so much. We talk about if a specific thing is fairly knowable and what it might look like in broad generalities and you polarize the conversation by saying that we are attempting to relive 1970s and 1980s wargame design.

It is akin to me telling you that you and Sam are just making a new revision of Column, Line and Square because you’re still using dice, and dice is so a pre-modern wargaming era tool…

On the surface what you’ve said, paraphrased as “movement rates are unpredictable” isn’t untrue. But it depends on what you’re attempting to represent. It is like saying that the lights may not come on when I hit the switch – it is completely true, they may not. It is more likely they will than they won’t but both are possible. Note: I’m not saying that flipping the light switch and moving a division 1,400 yards in 20 minutes are equally reliable, but I believe one can get a sense of the reliability of each and you seem to be saying one can’t.

[Patrice]

OK guys. Different points of views are legitimate.

(Um, please don’t misunderstand me I mean no harm) Bandit you say that you are not convinced by some rules (Sam’s and other) because they do not seem logical to you (movements/time/etc);

and when some people react to this and say that it’s not so important, you feel that:

Bandit wrote:

people posting just to say they think the topic is stupid

I don’t think that the topic is stupid; but the exact meaning of “simulation” can vary. You may look for exact detail, etc, for a true simulation; other people may think that they have a good simulation without detail.

I post two pictures of wheat fields. Some people may prefer the first one (with every small detail right), others would prefer the second one (painting by Van Gogh). They are both right, because they choose what gives them a good feeling of the true thing – as wargamers may have different feelings.

 

http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
https://www.anargader.net/

[grizzlymc]

Patrice, if you are going to list them on E bay, you could get away with calling the upper one pro painted, but not the lower.

[McLaddie]

I think both of you are speaking a language rooted in the olde Wargamese, with strong hints of the Napoleonic dialect first noted by readers of Empire and Legacy of Glory.  I’m glad to see it survives in some less traveled parts of the wargaming world, since so few people speak it any longer.

Most wargamers have moved on from the archaic tonalities of that language and it is seldom heard anymore.

Bob:

One of the most popular games today is Black Powder, and the authors write:

“Naturally, we wish our game to be a tolerably convincing representation of real battles;…”

That is all Bandit and I were aiming for. Do you see that wish as an archaic wish, because from what I see, that goal is currently heard from a number of popular designers?  “Play the period, not the rules…”

That archaic box is something you and Sam keep putting us in.  We aren’t speaking an old language. The methods of developing generalizations I have been talking about here are 1. some of the basic methods used by simulation designers in developing workable–testable–generalizations and 2. NOT the methods used to develop games like Empire and Legacy of Glory or games twenty, or even ten years ago. That is easy enough to determine if you listen to what they and we are talking about.  But that isn’t what you two hear.  Just as we talk about developing generalizations and proportions based on the historical accounts, you instead hear us getting down into the deep weeds of discrete paces and factoids. You appear to be insisting that any way but yours is ‘useless’ and can’t be done, as though translating anything of Napoleonic military history into a game is impossible, but instead talk of illusions and narrative games as though you have discovered something new and unique in game development. You haven’t.

There is a big difference between being an advocate for a particular type of wargame or approach and quite another to spend time insisting that you hold the light of the hobby and we are on some old, useless side road attempting the impossible. And as usual, you and Sam have come into the discussion after a while to do just that.

I am continually surprised by some of the basic, rather obvious observations that Sam and you make concerning game design as something deep that proves our discussions are ‘useless’, such as the ‘crippling limitations’ inherent in choosing something particular to model with a game and that old hoary D=T*R being something relegated to ‘old wargamese’ rather that a basic element of any game or simulation.  That has been one basic area of discord with you and Sam.  The other has been your insistence that tabletop simulations are impossible, even though you stated that Piquet was a simulation back in the ye olde wargamese era.

I’m more than happy to discuss game design and/or simulation design with you. There are any number of basic system and mechanics commonalities regardless of the design road taken.  How do you create ‘believeability’  and ‘the illusion of reality’ with game mechanics?

Best Regards,

McLaddie

 

 

[Bandit]

Patrice wrote:

OK guys. Different points of views are legitimate.
(Um, please don’t misunderstand me I mean no harm) Bandit you say that you are not convinced by some rules (Sam’s and other) because they do not seem logical to you (movements/time/etc);

and when some people react to this and say that it’s not so important, you feel that:

My contention is that while I am not convinced that many rules have any real linkage between many of their mechanics and historical events, I don’t deride them as bad games for that. In fact, some of the games I play most often – by choice, commonly host and enjoy – fall into this category. I could talk all day about the various ways that Johnny Reb 2 fails to allow even the remote possibility of events occurring as they did historically because of a plethora of choices that I presume but do not know were made for sake of playability. I don’t throw Johnny Reb away or curse John Hill, Dean West and the other guys who worked on its development, quite the opposite, I regularly host games of it at my home!

Rather my complaint is, that I am not sure that I’ve ever gone to a thread discussing playability choices and derated it for not being historical but that others commonly do just that.

I’m OK with Sam and repiqueone (Bob?) implementing a different method. I’ll tell you that I have a lot of admiration for the little franchise that Sam has build frankly, it is something that really stands out and speaks to skills in several areas beyond creating a game or knowing anything about history. But it seems pretty wack to me that I start pondering aloud in a message board thread as to the implications of modeling movement after historical averages and the response from the two of them is that I’m stuck in the mud of historical minutia.

McLaddie and I are not talking about taking musket fire rates from a testing range and extrapolating them by the number of soldiers per rank and time per turn to determine a strict casualty figure. We’re saying, if it was dependable for a unit to move X distance in Y time, then it seems reasonable to explore doing that in a game. There isn’t an extrapolation in the examples we’ve given but our critics refer to extrapolation happening – I don’t get it.

Patrice wrote:

I don’t think that the topic is stupid; but the exact meaning of “simulation” can vary. You may look for exact detail, etc, for a true simulation; other people may think that they have a good simulation without detail.

Sure. I don’t dispute this. In fact I’d emphatically argue that it is necessary to reflect focus.

Patrice wrote:

I post two pictures of wheat fields. Some people may prefer the first one (with every small detail right), others would prefer the second one (painting by Van Gogh). They are both right, because they choose what gives them a good feeling of the true thing – as wargamers may have different feelings.

Yes, I agree with this, what I stipulate is that I don’t go and tell you that your method of painting is poor on the basis that “everyone else has moved on to better stuff”.

[repiqueone]

Patrice,

You hit the nail on the head!  It is, in effect, the Academy vs. the impressionists.  Perfect!  One captures the precise line and one the light!  Exactement.

[Bandit]

repiqueone wrote:

You hit the nail on the head!  It is, in effect, the Academy vs. the impressionists.  Perfect!  One captures the precise line and one the light!  Exactement.

Here’s where I disagree though, I don’t think McLaddie and I are purporting to even close to capture the precise line.

[McLaddie]

Patrice

OK guys.  Different points of views are legitimate.

Sure, but is that what is being said here:

The Academy vs. the impressionists.

For Bob and I suppose Sam from past comments,

The Academic POV is old and has been abandoned by game designers, now a “useless” and “pointless” exercise

Versus

The Impressionist POV which is “thankfully” dominate and apparently the only practical approach to game design.

Worse, Bandit and I are relegated to this former category without much thought or understanding.

Patrice, does that strike you as providing for equally ‘legitimate points of view?’  Can you see why we might not feel it is a meaningful dichotomy or appreciate being labeled?

 

 

 

[McLaddie]

I don’t think that the topic is stupid; but the exact meaning of “simulation” can vary. You may look for exact detail, etc, for a true simulation; other people may think that they have a good simulation without detail.

Patrice: The meaning of ‘simulation’ as a technical term can’t vary much, just as the meaning and category of ‘Post Impressionists’ can’t vary by much.  There are no ‘True Simulations’, only systems, whether game systems or not, that function as an artificial, but functional representation of something else.  It isn’t a matter of what’s your favorite color or whether you like photography over van Gogh.

I post two pictures of wheat fields. Some people may prefer the first one (with every small detail right), others would prefer the second one (painting by Van Gogh). They are both right, because they choose what gives them a good feeling of the true thing – as wargamers may have different feelings.

Some points:

1. As the viewer, you are welcome to enjoy the qualities of the two pictures without much effort. You can like the feelings one engenders more than the other.  However, the artists creating those two pictures, talking about the technical aspects of photography, composition, paint mixtures, and the materials,  your ‘good feeling’ is  a product of the final result, not all the thinking and emotions, technical skill and artistic creativity that went into it… so don’t confuse a discussion of one with the other.

2. As I said, the argument here seemed to be is that one picture [academic ‘style’]  is old news and artists have abandoned the art form [which is frankly impossible, so you can’t really show it anyway], while the other [impressionist style]  is the only good thing going in the world of art.

3. Both pictures are representative. In fact, a good portion of the pleasure in van Gogh’s work is seeing his perception of a ‘wheatfield’. We even know what wheatfield and what time of the day it was painted.  Many of the first viewers of van Gogh’s Wheatfield didn’t know what they were looking at until the gallery owner got the title up.  Then they could appreciate it for what it was.  That is doubly important with something created with abstract game mechanics and still representing something real as a wargame.

4. To riff off the quote from the Black Powder authors and apply it to the pictures above–which picture would you assume was theirs if they wrote “Naturally, we wish our picture to be a tolerably convincing representation of a real wheatfield”?    OR more to the point technically, if they said “Naturally, we wish our photo to be a tolerably convincing representation of a real wheatfield?”   That technical media distinction between a painting and photo is the same as between a simulation or wargame and just a game.  It isn’t a just some point of view that someone happens to have.

5. The question is all about what is being represented in the art.  The pictures reminded me of a photo of giant redwoods I saw in a gallery some time ago.  I like redwoods, I liked the composition.  However, the title beneath it read “An ant’s view of a wheatfield.”  Now, that is an unexpected POV of the redwoods. Imaginative and all.  Artistic license and all…and even harboring “Truth” in that art.   However, no one is going to say that photo is a ‘tolerably convincing representation of a wheatfield’ or ever think of the representation as anything but Redwoods without that title.  Representative art is like that.

There is an important difference between what I like and the technical qualities that make up that photo.  The same is true of simulations and wargames.  Wargames are very specific rules, systems and player behaviors that are combined to achieve certain goals.  They either succeed or they don’t in achieving those goals.  That is true whether I ‘like’ that particular style of game design or not.

I can tell you I like the left hand picture more than the other, but tell me which is a ‘tolerably convincing representation of the real Napoleon’?

To insist that both are legitimate representations [points of view] of the real Napoleon is to make a total  hash of representational art and any discussion of it.  That hash is something we see in a lot of game design discussions.

Bandit, I, and others weren’t even at the point of discussing game design and why other designers chose particular mechanics. We were simply developing a generalization from three different historical POVs, regulations, military officers, and battlefield performances.   To read Sam and Bob’s posts, you’d think applying generalizations to a historical wargame design is a ‘useless’ effort and very old, now abandoned by current wargame designers.  Or is it that we were trying to create a generalization of history?

 

 

 

[Bandit]

McLaddie wrote:

For Bob and I suppose Sam from past comments,
The Academic POV is old and has been abandoned by game designers, now a “useless” and “pointless” exercise
Versus
The Impressionist POV which is “thankfully” dominate and apparently the only practical approach to game design.
Worse, Bandit and I are relegated to this former category without much thought or understanding.
Patrice, does that strike you as providing for equally ‘legitimate points of view?’  Can you see why we might not feel it is a meaningful dichotomy or appreciate being labeled?

That sums up my gripe pretty well. Whatever perspective McLaddie and I are considering is being consistently labeled as “useless” and “pointless”. I don’t think either of us have declared such of the expressed opposing view point. We’ve said we don’t understand it in some cases, we’ve said we question it a lot, we’ve said that it isn’t the methodology we prefer and are seeking alternatives – but we’re not deriding it as useless or pointless.

Not to mention, we’re only trying to discuss a possible method, we’re not even discussing a specific implementation because way before the discussion got to specifics it was written off based on objections to past implementations that in most cases don’t even clearly relate to what we’re suggesting…

[McLaddie]

I think that Bandit and McLaddie are trying to find something that works like kreigspiel when moving troops, and perhaps bombarding units with arty but which feels like a wargame when manouvre is over and it gets down to the scrum.  As armies did not have a corps of button counting scribes, like much historical research, these things need to be assembled from what Paddy Griffiths would have called snippets.

You are probably right in saying that resolving the apparent disconnect between time and distance is not going to improve the game, but that is what these guys want to examine.  It is true that a large number of games in the eighties and nineties tried to model these things this way and failed, but if we shut every door with the graffiti “I went through here and failed” sprayed on it, we would be frantically harvesting our crops and dreaming of the post harvest raids on the neighbours with a view to nicking their winter store and grabbing an extra wife or two.

Grizz:  I agree that some answers to questions deserve to be reviewed from time to time. As  Bertrand Russell wrote in Understanding History:                  

“It’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”

However, I seriously doubt that you can tell what game I’m going to design simply because I am developing a generalization of infantry movement.  How is that conclusion different from simply painting a sign that says, “Don’t go that way, been there, done that?”  Actually, if I did design a game that had every infantry unit capable of  moving 75 yards a minute,  or 20, 30 or more inches across the table in one move, that would be something very, very new.

As armies did not have a corps of button counting scribes, like much historical research, these things need to be assembled from what Paddy Griffiths would have called snippets.

Actually–and Paddy and I passed letters across the sea about this–like those of today, military men of the Napoleonic period were just as interested in many of the same issues that wargame designers are.  You know, things like D= R*T and ‘in general’ how long it took an infantry brigade to cross 1200 paces. They talked about the battlefield applications just as often.  You just have to listen.  The problem has been historians who aren’t interested in such things writing most of the military histories in the past–or game designers for that matter.   That is why the new online accessibility of primary sources has been invaluable.  But as we are supposedly creating ‘historical wargames’, and history has always been assembled from snippets for the most part, it isn’t surprising Paddy would say that.

[grizzlymc]

I think thatn it is important to do two things in this hobby.  One is to keep lines of enquiry open, they may have been done before and discarded with good reason, but there may be an implementation of them awaiting inspiration.  As an example, by the end of the ’70s, many of us had read Fetherstone’s Advanced Wargames and concluded that dice controlled movement and chance cards were nice ideas but wholly impractical.  20 years later TFL came out and virtually made both mechanisms their own and have now spawned a few copycats.  Post detail rules may have swung the pendulum too far towards abstraction.  I don’t think so, but I am glad that someone is thinking about it.  Unlike chess, bridge and tennis, wargaming is a dynamic hobby.  I think one of the things that make GW and BF stick in grognards’ throats is the notion of a finished and definitive set of wargames rules.

 

Second, there is a wealth of snippets out there which needs to be organised.  It is rare that we get a book written in the period that chronicles the things we think are important.  Rates at which units covered ground is unlikely to be a best seller, but if there are forum threads, or better yet a blog page in which well read peolpehave assembled every reference to it, we have gone someway to unravelling the qustion of how armies fought.  If you would rather just get on and roll the dice, paint up your figs and devote some time to real life (a poorly thought out and tedious game) then fine, someone else is doing this and because of the internet he can share it at zero cost.

[Bandit]

grizzlymc,

Well put.

[grizzlymc]

Now, about VLB………

[McLaddie]

Second, there is a wealth of snippets out there which needs to be organised.  It is rare that we get a book written in the period that chronicles the things we think are important.  Rates at which units covered ground is unlikely to be a best seller, but if there are forum threads, or better yet a blog page in which well read peolpehave assembled every reference to it, we have gone someway to unravelling the qustion of how armies fought.  If you would rather just get on and roll the dice, paint up your figs and devote some time to real life (a poorly thought out and tedious game) then fine, someone else is doing this and because of the internet he can share it at zero cost.

Grizz:

I agree. Most of us do want to get on with it, and roll the dice.  How many designers have written that they have spent years researching the history in their particular wargame? Yet we never see any of it.  I find that a real waste.  I and some of my gaming friends have thought of having a Wiki-like repository where those snippets could be collected.  However, that too would keep us from the game table… so we haven’t gotten ‘a round tuit.’

[repiqueone]

[How many designers have written that they have spent years researching the history in their particular wargame? Yet we never see any of it. I find that a real waste. I and some of my gaming friends have thought of having a Wiki-like repository where those snippets could be collected. However, that too would keep us from the game table… so we haven’t gotten ‘a round tuit.’ [/quote]

McLaddie, I might reply to that with a remark asking how many Napoleonic pundits have written long threads on Napoleonic theory , but have never shown us a set of rules? Guess they never got ‘a round tuit’.

In a very real sense, a rules designer has no obligation to do anything but publish a set of rules to be judged by the wargamers who use them.  Most designers do write Designer’s Notes that state their approach and goals for a given set, and often provide a bibliography of their most used sources.  Most designers will argue, to a point, with people who take issue with their design choices.

What most designers find fruitless is going on and on over some point that has no real bearing on the design, it’s premises, or, in many cases, a usable application of history.  Most designers, who want an actual end product that is tangible and can be played, would echo your sentiment about getting too involved with the collection of data and finding they have no time to design or play wargames.

Designing wargames has very little to do with simply assembling snippets.  If that were the case, there would be a lot more rule sets being ” aggregated” by earnest collectors of factoids.  You need a firm grounding in history, an ability to cull the meaningful fact from a sea of “snippets”, an inventive turn of mind, a realization that there is a substantial difference between a game and a doctoral dissertation, and some level of interest in fun that moderates the natural inclination of the “expert” to a noble didactic mission.

My hobby is writing wargame rules, other people’s main hobby seems to be writing about writing wargame rules.

[Bandit]

repiqueone wrote:

I might reply to that with a remark that how many Napoleonic pundits have written long threads on Napoleonic theory , but have never shown us a set of rules? Guess they never got ‘a round tuit’.

I love that. That is the refrain against anyone who questions concepts used in print, “Well let’s see what you’ve published.”

Did you hear that much when talking to people about your past projects? Do you think Sam did? When Nappy’s Battles was being developed I wonder if it was ‘valid’ to question using the 1:60 ratio and using elements on the tabletop that weren’t battalions? Before Scott released Empire, think he had a moment where he said, “Everyone else is using a 1:33 ratio and using ‘bounce through sticks’ to range artillery fire… my ideas are probably stupid, I mean they aren’t even published yet, how could they be any good?”

Discent is patriotic and faith requires doubt, just so that before we create new we must question the old.

“What have you published?” is simply a way to raise one’s self up on a horse so they may show that they stand over others. Elevating their own views while reducing the value of others’ ideas.

You keep saying in various ways that Bill [McLaddie] and I are trying to go back in time and reuse some old, outmoded mechanic, even though we haven’t even discussed implementing a mechanic. You should consider that since your mechanics are published, known, static, they too are old, and whatever comes next is what’s new. Good or bad, success of failure, new is the next thing, not the last thing.

So quit calling something that no one has evaluated yet ‘old’. And in the days of exporting to a PDF in one click and selling on Wargamer’s Vault, don’t pretend that ‘being published’ is the end-all-be-all of a standard for validity. Someone could ‘publish’ this afternoon and its value would have nothing to do with the fact that they ‘published’ it.

[McLaddie]

McLaddie, I might reply to that with a remark asking how many Napoleonic pundits have written long threads on Napoleonic theory , but have never shown us a set of rules? Guess they never got ‘a round tuit’.

Bob:

I have had a Napoleonic wargame published, Bob. And I am quite confident that I have designed and commercially produced more simulation games and types of games than you have under far more rigorous requirements.  When you think that describing a design as a ‘narrative game’ separates it from other ‘types’ of designs when all games are narrative in their very construction–when you see the old hoary D=R*T as something unique to archaic games, I have to wonder what you have learned about basic game construction while designing your games.  Perhaps that’s the difference between hobby and professional approaches. Regardless of my background, experience and even if I was raised by Gypsies, that doesn’t change how games work and the elements of design.

In a very real sense, a rules designer has no obligation to do anything but publish a set of rules to be judged by the wargamers who use them.  

I wasn’t talking about designers being obligated to do anything. I was commenting on the years of research, work and discoveries designers have done that is simply lost to the hobby–that is a waste regardless.

What most designers find fruitless is going on and on over some point that has no real bearing on the design, it’s premises, or, in many cases, a usable application of history.  Most designers, who want an actual end product that is tangible and can be played, would echo your sentiment about getting too involved with the collection of data and finding they have no time to design or play wargames.

That is quite understandable. Whether that is most designers or not, I don’t know. I’m simply commenting on those designers have who have stated they did the research, often lots of it. It is a shame that no one ever sees all that work.

 

Designing wargames has very little to do with simply assembling snippets.  If that were the case, there would be a lot more rule sets being ” aggregated” by earnest collectors of factoids.

Yes and no. If the wargame is designed to represent some aspect of history, and history is the assembling of snippets, it cant be avoided.  However, that assembling isn’t necessarily collecting factoids.  Game design is assembling a system from game mechanics and materials.

You need a firm grounding in history, an ability to cull the meaningful fact from a sea of “snippets”, an inventive turn of mind, a realization that there is a substantial difference between a game and a doctoral dissertation, and some level of interest in fun that moderates the natural inclination of the “expert” to a noble didactic mission.

Gosh, there are more obvious conclusions we can agree on.  I believe that if we are going to design a Napoleonic wargame, knowing what the military men of the time did to ‘cull the meaningful facts’ [as opposed to factoids] from the sea of ‘snippets’/their experience could be far more pertinent to that “firm grounding in history” than my attempts at the same thing.  That is what I and Bandit were doing here.

So, obviously

1. Games are designed for fun, certainly if they are going to be played.  Wargames provide a wide variety of fun, but fun is the point.

2. Game design has some basics that are common to all games, wargames and simulation games.

My hobby is writing wargame rules, other people’s main hobby seems to be writing about writing wargame rules.

My Job until recently was designing simulation games for education and training. My hobby was and is wargaming and the study of history. So far I haven’t really written about particular wargame rules per se, but rather written:

1. In defense of simulation games as being possible and done all the time [not required] in response to designers who state such things are impossible, while claiming they design them, based on very inaccurate information about what simulations are.

2. In response to rather meaningless game design distinctions such as ‘narrative games’ or presenting basic game elements in all games as ‘new ideas’ or the opposite, an irreducible problem.

I only do that because I enjoy and value what can be done with simulations and games and hate seeing such misinformation being disseminated.

 

 

[repiqueone]

Bandit,

You have substantially misunderstood my posts.

As for my last post, I would ask you to put it in the context of McLaddie’s previous post to which I was replying. It was similar to many of his posts over the last decade adressed to Me, Sam, and others.

Look, I have no argument with anyone playing wargames however they choose to do so. De Gustibus is the watch word.  However, I do take exception with McLaddie’s pronouncements over at least two decades, that wargame designers aren’t as historical as they should be, never share their historical premises, and that approcaching wargame design, in any period, is primarily ferreting out startling new discoveries in historical meaning and little noticed fact.  Rather like the search for the Holy Grail, or the Fountain of Youth, and about as real.

One can alter how historical fact is used in a game construct, one can implement new and clever mechanisms for representing how events occur within the artificial construct of a game, one can invent insightful ways to pose decision points in an historical game, offering challenging, subtle, or indirect choices that cause a gamer to do more than simply measure, calculate, and roll dice.  One can encourage the reading of history by posing certain command and tactical issues in a game that cases the gamer to look to history for added understanding; What games are not really good at is serving as a substitute for well written history.  Books are better at that.

One can critique any given design for how it choose to represent history, but, in most cases, the history in wargame rules is reasonably accurate, and, within its internal logic, well rooted in the historical record.  The game may be simple or complex, fun or a bore, but that isn’t a function of the history, but the mechanics.

If you wander from table to table at a wargames convention, there are certain broad agreements on the history of any given period, and a LOT of lifting of ideas in mechanics from other rule sets.  There are games you couldn’t get me to play even if you paid me, and others I admire for their cleverness and fresh approach to portraying history.  That’s a subjective and personal judgement.  It usually has nothing to do with the history being more or less accurate, the discovery of some ‘Siver Bullet’ factoid, or being ‘More Accurate” on drill rates, but, rather the design, as a whole, being a good one.

It’s like a building.  Most structures use the materials of steel, concrete, glass, brick, wood or tile, and no one argues the basic laws of physics, tensile strengths, or rigidity, but some buildings are masterpieces and others are an ugly box built to hold people until it’s torn down.  The difference is the architect and his skills and creativity, and any gains from doing mineral analysis of the bricks, the smelting process of the steel, and the make of the saw that cut down the trees that provided the wood, may promise some minor gains, but the are not central to the quality of the building.  (A sidebar is that certain buldings deemed masterpieces have not been necessarily the sturdiest-see Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater”.)

Some people seem to think that they should critique architects and their buildings-by examing each brick’s chemical composition.

[repiqueone]

McLaddie,

It’s been a decade.  You’ve been stating your “professional” skills and stating your knowledge of the proper way to do game design in extended missives for much of that period.  You’ve made accusations and claimed all sorts of expertise. You’ve managed to drive most designers off forums out of pure exasperation with your dogged expressions of….nothing!

I think I know why Sam and others abandon forums where you hold forth, and it isn’t out of being in awe of your arguments.

As for your great portfolio of designs, Please direct me to a source.  I’m sure there must be some corner of academia that will harbor you, but I’d love to hear a title that could be read.  What was your Napoleonic Rule set btw?

Put up, or….?

[Bandit]

repiqueone wrote:

Bandit,
You have substantially misunderstood my posts.

OK…

repiqueone wrote:

However, I do take exception with McLaddie’s pronouncements over at least two decades, that wargame designers aren’t as historical as they should be, never share their historical premises, and that approcaching wargame design, in any period, is primarily ferreting out startling new discoveries in historical meaning and little noticed fact.  Rather like the search for the Holy Grail, or the Fountain of Youth, and about as real.

I will not claim to know of all of McLaddie’s posts over 20 years and what they said so I will not speak to them.

What you just described though, isn’t what has been represented in this thread by him or myself. You have clearly been addressing and arguing against those things, but with them not being in this thread or a part of this thread, you’re arguing against a ghost.

repiqueone wrote:

As for your great portfolio of designs, Please direct me to a source.  I’m sure there must be some corner of academia that will harbor you, but I’d love to hear a title that could be read.  What was your Napoleonic Rule set btw?

Put up, or….?

Based on this above, I feel like I didn’t misunderstand your posts at all.

[Patrice]

Woowww I am appalled about what my previous post has done

I was just suggesting that people may have different feelings and different views.

I have been (and still am, although less frequently) an historical re-enactor; and after many long and hard discussions in the re-enactments groups I was in, it became obvious that all re-enactors are not seeking for the same thing. Some give more importance to the right costumes and uniforms (even if drinking from plastic bottles); some just want to be in battle whatever is around; some want to sit in a friendly campsite and cook and/or taste (medieval/18th century/or whatever) cooking; some want role-playing and no modern things on view, etc.

And everyone is right (in his/her own point of view) and you can do a wonderful event with all these people together. But it can become very difficult if you keep them together around the same campfire all the evening long, when the public is gone and that each of them is wishing for a different context.

Back to wargames: we do not really disagree. But we are not playing exactly the same games?

http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
https://www.anargader.net/

[Bandit]

Patrice wrote:

Woowww I am appalled about what my previous post has done

Don’t worry Patrice, I don’t blame your post, I hope others do not either.

Patrice wrote:

Back to wargames: we do  not really disagree. But we are not playing exactly the same games?

We all seem to be able to agree that there are lots of games available to serve lots of audiences and that is good.

Sam only posted a couple times in this thread but he told me exploring the topic of the thread was a fool’s errand. Bob [repiqueone] seems to have been arguing against positions not expressed this thread.

I would like to talk about the ups and downs of handling movement in wargames without anyone telling me that the idea of discussing it has no value or compare it to specific methods used in the past which they dislike.

Anyone up for that?

[Bandit]

Bandit wrote:

I would like to talk about the ups and downs of handling movement in wargames… Anyone up for that?

To get us started back in that direction I’m just going to pretend someone said yes and post forward…

Let’s just say – so that we have a starting position for a potential mechanic – we’re dealing with the following:

Ground scale is 1″ = 150 yards.
Infantry move 7″ per turn, that’s 1.8MPH.
Cavalry move 9″ per turn, that’s 2.3MPH.
Average table depth is 4′, that’s 4 scale miles.
Artillery range is nominally something like a 1,000 yards so let’s say 6″ for easy math.

Both Sam and Mark (ExtraCrispy) noted that it is important that a defender may react to an attacker. OK, good point, presume our combat system handles that appropriately.

Next problem?

[repiqueone]

Oh, Patrice, don’t be too appalled. It is a Napoleonics Board, after all!

Wargame forum arguments often remind me of the argument in Gulliver’s Travels between people that opened eggs from the small end, and those that opened them from the large end.  Also, Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy offers one ur-typical example of a number of present day wargamers.

In truth, there’s usually more heat than light in these discussions, with a good portion of smoke as well.

Your observation about different ways to see a landscape are still the best comment on this thread and lent it great value it might otherwise lack.

I’m done here for the while, as all that’s necessary to be said has been said, two or three times over.  I think I’ll retreat to the more civilized realm of the 18th century forums.

 

Ps Bandit, short move distances make for really looooong games, unless you limit the total number of units to be moved to a small number.  When I see 4-7″ move distances in a set of rules, I plan to pack lunch and dinner.

[grizzlymc]

But it’s a well known fact that you should only open an egg from the fat end, all else is apostasy!

[Bandit]

repiqueone wrote:

Ps Bandit, short move distances make for really looooong games, unless you limit the total number of units to be moved to a small number.  When I see 4-7″ move distances in a set of rules, I plan to pack lunch and dinner.

Really? On a 4′ table moving 15% of the table width per turn makes for a long game?

I mean, this was what McLaddie was proposing earlier and what I was talking about, speeds that approach 75 yards per minute, and the first objections were it is too fast.

[Patrice]

Bandit wrote:

Really? On a 4′ table moving 15% of the table width per turn makes for a long game?

Um, was it already mentioned?

Bandit wrote:

I still don’t get the “battlefield is smaller” part. The figures are smaller than real men too, so are the trees. This is a question of proportionality which can be influenced and *to a degree* controlled through the rules.

Not trolling, but interested – I’m still interested in where this thread leads to.

The size of the table has an impact on the game…

http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
https://www.anargader.net/

[Shecky]

Ok, I’ll chime in…

Based on your statement:

Ground scale is 1″ = 150 yards.
Infantry move 7″ per turn, that’s 1.8MPH.
Cavalry move 9″ per turn, that’s 2.3MPH.
Average table depth is 4′, that’s 4 scale miles.
Artillery range is nominally something like a 1,000 yards so let’s say 6″ for easy math.

First, I’d probably go with 6″ and 8″ for movement – only because if you have terrain effects which reduce movement by 1/2 or 1/4 it’s easier for a player to calculate.

Next question I’d have is, how do units activate and what affects their movement, other than terrain. Meaning, do you expect the units to always be able to move up to their full rate. Do opposing units have some sort of ZOC or does movement abilities change within a certain distance of the enemy?

In all, I don’t have an issue with the scale or distance. I’d be more interested in knowing the command/activation mechanics, combat procedure, morale, etc.

 

[Bandit]

Patrice wrote:

Bandit wrote:
Really? On a 4′ table moving 15% of the table width per turn makes for a long game?
Um, was it already mentioned?

I was confused by Bob calling a 7″ movement rate on a 4′ table slow since it was originally criticized for being too fast…

So the typical game that I’d classify as “largely tactical”, units move substantially slower than 75 yards per minute. As you start approaching that speed, there gets to be a potential issue between the range artillery can shoot and the distance infantry and cavalry may move in the course of a turn based on how long your turn represents right?

In my example, artillery will shoot something like 6″ and infantry and cavalry speeds – based on a 20 minute turn – will outpace that. So the fire and combat systems used will need to address that so that the attacker does not receive the huge benefit of being able to “skip” being fired on by the defender.

Patrice wrote:

Not trolling, but interested –  I’m still interested in where this thread leads to.

The size of the table has an impact on the game. So the game system cannot be really proportional.

I think what you say it perfectly true on the surface. I think how true it is in any given situation can vary. If we say the typical wargame is relatively edge-to-edge figures, then yes, I’d concur, the table can’t be proportional to the battlefield because the table edges provide a defined space and natural flank anchor which did not historically exist.

Now, I would say that if we look at games where there is say, significant open table space on each flank. For instance, on an 8′ long table, leave no less than 18-24″ open on each side and consolidate everything towards the middle, now you have something similar to a real battlefield. To my mind the problem of the tabletop as a battlefield is that a real battlefield is potentially larger than the area fought over, the area fought over is just how it worked out.

I’d also argue this is contextual in that if you are playing a set piece battle where the opposing positions and frontages are already set – say Borodino and both sides are executing the historical plans – then it matters less. If you are playing Borodino but allowing both armies to approach the battlefield and setup differently, then it matters a lot but I believe it can be dealt with based on how large a table you use for the battle and what ground scale you use.

From a game design standpoint my notion is that different people are going to setup their tables differently so you can’t try to address all the different ways someone may choose to do it.

If we work on the case that most maneuver completes before the opposing battle lines reach 1,000 yards distance and we are willing to resolve any problems regarding defenders shooting advancing attackers through the combat system rather than by breaking the act of closing from 1,000 yards to 0 yards into a bunch of different turns, then movement is going to generally be laterally behind your own lines or straight forward to contact.

[McLaddie]

It’s been a decade.  You’ve been stating your “professional” skills and stating your knowledge of the proper way to do game design in extended missives for much of that period.  You’ve made accusations and claimed all sorts of expertise. You’ve managed to drive most designers off forums out of pure exasperation with your dogged expressions of….nothing!

Bob:

You always state things that I’ve done or said that simply aren’t true.  I have never stated anything like a ‘proper way of doing game design’.  At most, I have simply pointed out such things as your claims of you and others having developed ‘narrative wargames’ which on the face of it doesn’t mean much since all games are narrative, i.e. a progression of decisions and events with a beginning and end.   If there is an expression of nothing, that is it. That isn’t an accusation or some indication of a proper way of doing things. It’s a simple observation of fact.  It takes no expertise to see that.  I haven’t read any explanation of how Zouave other games you categorize as ”narrative’ are more so than games developed twenty or thirty years ago, like Empire, Napoleon’s Battles, Fire & Fury.  

 Bob, I haven’t managed to drive most designers off of forums… I can only think of one.   That kind of hyperbole and personal attribution are the things that makes these discussions so exasperating.  If it comes to that, you chocked up far more stifles on TMP than I ever did.  I apparently haven’t driven you off, because you came into this thread long after it started to declare the whole discussion pointless.  If I have stated my professional background, it is only because you have ignored the issues and challenged me on what right I have to say such things.  You doubt my ancestry, but neither you or Sam will deal with the game design issues involved.

So, how about discussing game design for a change, rather than pronouncements, personal characterizations while ignoring the game design questions. You can start with explaining how your ‘narrative wargames’ are different from earlier games  The narrative aspects could only be somehow more or less, because all game systems are essentially narrative in form, and all hobby wargames many of the same game mechanics. That isn’t stating anything about a proper way to design games.  That is an obvious quality of all games.  Am I wrong?  Where?

How about explaining how you, unlike us, have succeeded in avoiding employing that hoary old D=R*T in your designs?

McLaddie

 

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