Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: SapperAstro

Perhaps I am blind, but are there any decent WEGO wargames out these days? I know about the Panther games, but since these are sold elsewhere, in an odd form, I haven't really bothered with any of the new games.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SapperAstro

I always like to own my games. I still have disks from the 90s that work (with a few work arounds due to operating system changes) even though the companies are long dead. Currently finishing off a campaign of Steel Panthers 1. Not bad considering SSI is long dead. Good Old Games, now that is an online operation I can respect. No DRM, just buy, download and play. All catalogued online in case you want to download it again later, or you can save all of your games to disk.

I think companies can be quite silly. Pirates crack their system on day 1, but the paying customer gets screwed having to run through hoops. Thankfully, Matrix hasn't gone down that path, with a simple key being the only hoop to jump through.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Thanks, Ranger Joe. So you think such a system is best with a large number of units? I'm inclined to agree.

quote:

ORIGINAL: altipueri

I like WEGO systems - Combat Mission;Ageod games; Campaigns on the Danube. But here is how Montgomery got his maps updated:


From Winston Churchill's "The Second World War". Chapter XXIV "Crossing the Rhine"

At 8 p.m. we repaired to the map wagon, and I now had an excellent opportunity of seeing Montgomery's methods of conducting a battle on this gigantic scale. For nearly two hours a succession of young officers, of about the rank of major, presented themselves. Each had come back from a different sector of the front. They were the direct personal representatives of the Commander-in-Chief, and could go anywhere and see anything and ask any questions they liked of any commander. As in turn they made their reports and were searchingly questioned by their chief the whole story of the day's battle was unfolded. This gave Monty a complete account of what had happened by highly competent men whom he knew well and whose eyes he trusted. It afforded an invaluable cross-check to the reports from all the various headquarters and from the commanders, all of which had already been sifted and weighed by General de Guingard, his Chief of Staff, and were known to Montgomery. By this process he was able to form a more vivid, direct and sometimes more accurate picture. The officers ran great risks, and of the seven or eight to whom I listened on this and succeeding nights two were killed in the next few weeks. I thought the system admirable, and indeed the only way in which a modern Commander-in-Chief could see as well as read what was going on in every part of the front. This process having finished, Montgomery gave a series of directions to de Guingand, which were turned into immediate action by the Staff machine. And so to bed.

* * * * *

The next day, March 25, we went to meet Eisenhower. On our way I told Montgomery how his system resembled that of Marlborough and the conduct of battles in the eighteenth century, where the Commander-in-Chief acted through his lieutenant-generals. Then the Commander-in-Chief sat on his horse and directed by word of mouth a battle on a five or six mile front, which ended in a day and settled the fortunes of great nations, sometimes for years or generations to come. In order to make his will effective he had four or five lieutenant-generals posted at different points on the front, who knew his whole mind and were concerned with the execution of his plan. These officers commanded no troops and were intended to be off-shoots and expressions of the Supreme Commander. In modern times the general must sit in his office conducting a battle ranging over ten times the front and lasting often for a week or ten days. In these changed conditions Montgomery's method of personal eye-witnesses, who were naturally treated with the utmost consideration by the front-line commanders of every grade, was an interesting though partial revival of old days.

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

don't think you can have too many hard assumptions. AGEOD used it (very well) for games running from grand strategy to operational, to low density (say Wars in America) to high density (Civil War 2).

Flashpoint has low and very high density scenarios and also calls into question whether wego order games can cope with relatively fast movement.

My view on this now is that you need to match up ground scale/time scale. A WW2 streategy Wego using say the Pride of Nations map would be a disaster, large areas/2 weeks turns and the wego mechanics?

quote:

ORIGINAL: MrsWargamer
If I could snap my fingers and make it so, ALL computer wargames would use WEGO in distint turn increments. WEGO is the only computer design element I've ever witnessed that lacks 'gamey' elements. It requires the gamer to actually have a plan, and to actually run with that plan. Because once you hit end turn, there's no option to pause and change your mind. No option to constantly alter decisions with feverish mouseclicking. The turn will resolve and you will have to just wait and see the results. We hardly seem to be making any real use out of the mechanical muscle of computers in our wargames.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MrRoadrunner
I play John Tiller Campaign Series almost exclusively against PBEM opponents. I play very little against the AI. I look over the map and objectives. I devise a plan and alter it as game conditions warrant. No plan ever survives first contact.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MrsWargamer

WEGO as a design isn't to hard to find, but, the designs using it are not always what the gamer seeks.

Combat Mission is WEGO. But it is fully 3d.
Combat Command is WEGO. It's a bit older, but age hasn't prevented Steel Panthers from being great, so Combat Command might interest you just as easily.
If you can get V4Victory running through DOS Box they were good designs.

Desert War will have an advantage as it is new software.

If I could snap my fingers and make it so, ALL computer wargames would use WEGO in distint turn increments. WEGO is the only computer design element I've ever witnessed that lacks 'gamey' elements. It requires the gamer to actually have a plan, and to actually run with that plan. Because once you hit end turn, there's no option to pause and change your mind. No option to constantly alter decisions with feverish mouseclicking. The turn will resolve and you will have to just wait and see the results. We hardly seem to be making any real use out of the mechanical muscle of computers in our wargames.