RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (Full Version)

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ravinhood -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/24/2007 1:46:22 AM)

That's fine SOM I'm really open to anything medieval and/or dark ages as long as it's done by Koios with those wonderful painted look so real minature figures. ;) After they had done Tin Soldiers:JC I thought sure we'd finally got a developer who was interested in and going to do ancients and medieval stuff for a long long time. I was shocked when I found out they went to WWII stuff. Nothing wrong with PC:OWS it's a different type of Combat Mission to me (without random generated maps or buy point quick battle system), but, it was decent enough. I thought maybe Erik might let them make a Medieval type game though since MTW and M2TW are so popular. Never know maybe someday.



Hertston -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/24/2007 5:12:22 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: ravinhood
I was shocked when I found out they went to WWII stuff. Nothing wrong with PC:OWS it's a different type of Combat Mission to me (without random generated maps or buy point quick battle system), but, it was decent enough.


Sales, presumably.. or in the case of Tin Soldiers, lack of them. WW2 just sells so much better than ancients among computer wargamers regardless of the quality of the game. I agree that PC:OWS is decent enough, but it still comes across pretty much as Combat Mission 'lite' and inferior to that series. Tin Soldiers, on the other hand was exceptional and unique. I don't know about just ancients and medieval; I thought there was was huge potential for a Napoleonic and ACW games as well.



Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/24/2007 9:42:45 AM)

Hello ezz, thanks for your list, but your idea of a 'lite' game must be very different from mine.

I've played all four versions of Sid Meier's Civilization, and was addicted to them for some time, but the game is full of chores, and it's always had a thick manual -- currently more than 200 pages. I don't play it any more; there's something very attractive about it, but I think it has fundamental design flaws.

SimCity is also full of chores, and it's not really a game: it's non-competitive. I think it's officially described as a toy. Admittedly, the manual is relatively modest in size: a few dozen pages.

I bought Railroad Tycoon, but I was so appalled at the complexity and the chores that I never played it. It has a 100-page manual. I wanted something like David Watts's Railway Rivals board game, which is much simpler and fun to play; it has two pages of rules. The rules are summarized even more concisely here.



ezzler -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/24/2007 3:36:29 PM)

Sim city was full of chores now you mention it .. all those pipes !!
Civ has plenty too , but easy ones that arent that burdonsome.

Railroads ..you must have bought a latest incarnation. it was very easy .. lay track and buy trains . select goods and the model pretty much did the rest.
A very SMART game generally.

For me where a game is LITE is the difference between say Carrier strike and Uncommon valour.
CS is just scout .. load weapons , assign strikes to targets and watch the results. 

UV needs proper task force consideration .. air cover .. boming missions .. training flights .. commanders to assign etc etc its got  a lot more detail at the cost of a lot more chores.

must confess my most played lite game is solitaire.

I am currently enjoying Armageddon empires by cryptic comet. Card and combat game.
Once the interface and some of the odd structures and armies rules are learnt it is good fun. There is an odd rule where an army in a fortification that is besieged automatically goes out of supply with very heavy penalties on the next turn , unless the seige is broken. It means that defensive structures have little impact in themselves and really need army size garrisons to be defended. 




Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/24/2007 4:17:55 PM)

My most-played lite game so far is Slay. I've been playing it for 12 years and continue to play it now and then. It's a good game, but it's semi-abstract with only a slight connection to reality, and it's very small and quick. Ideally I'd like something a bit more substantial and with more of a claim to simulate something.

I've also played Spider Solitaire sometimes in the past. It's more interesting than ordinary Solitaire, though that's not saying much.

I think there are plenty of simple and elegant board games around, but I haven't taken an interest because I don't have anyone to play them with face-to-face. However, I used to play board games by post in the 1970s and 1980s; I suppose these days it could be done more quickly and easily by e-mail. I should look into it.

It's a shame that there's such a lack of simple and elegant computer games. Perhaps because computer games are made by programmers accustomed to working on large, complex, and laborious programs, so it comes naturally to them to make large, complex, and laborious games?



Veldor -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/24/2007 11:32:48 PM)

Matrix's Hornet Leader certainly classifies as Wargame Lite with no chores.

Even though I "get" what your saying about Civilization and such having "chores".... I think one problem here is that chores is a point of view. Truthfully speaking anything in a game that you dont find fun is a chore. So even in a first person shooter or whatever if you might need to grind on grunts before you get to the medium weight bad guy. Or run back and forth to get some door open. I find those mostly boring and chore-like. Logistics/Supply such as implemented in Advanced Tactics is however fun to me and not a chore because its so integral to success in the game.

It's all a point of view but you've definitely pointed out that even simpler games can have many chores.



Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/25/2007 12:52:09 AM)

Hello Veldor, thanks for the recommendation of Hornet Leader; I must admit that I'm somewhat prejudiced against all games of modern combat, but that's my personal problem and I apologize for it. Perhaps I'd enjoy Hornet Leader if I tried it.

I'd define a 'chore' as any kind of decision that a real commander-in-chief would normally delegate to a subordinate. Either because it's relatively unimportant or because it requires relatively little intelligence; or perhaps both.

In the game of Civilization, many decisions that are important and interesting when you have only one or few cities become annoying and repetitive chores when you have many cities. So it is in real life, but in real life the leader of a great empire simply delegates these chores to others. And certainly he doesn't give detailed instructions to each of his many military units.

I know that some players enjoy doing chores and even clamour for more of them. Myself, I have little time to spare and I don't want to waste it on chores. I'd prefer a game from which the chores have either been removed, or are performed automatically by the program; leaving me to make the major decisions of strategic importance, which is what I enjoy doing. (I don't claim to be remarkably good at it, but nevertheless it's what I enjoy doing!)



Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/25/2007 1:55:00 AM)

-- double-posted because of Web hangup --



Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/25/2007 2:08:36 AM)

There's yet another kind of decision that I don't want to find myself making in a game. I don't know quite what to call it. It's a decision that the real commander-in-chief couldn't feasibly have made even if he'd wanted to.

Example: in Forge of Freedom, the player can and must decide exactly when and where to build economic resources, such as mines, plantations, and factories. It seems to me that in real life, in the USA or in the CSA, these would have been built because some individual or company decided that it would be profitable to build such a resource in that place at that time; and not because it was decreed by the federal government. This is not a game about the USSR.



hazxan -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/25/2007 2:43:42 AM)

Jonathon, it's an interesting point about a game player making decisions that no individual would make. I thought it was just me, but often when playing CIV, EU, HOI or any strategy game, I wonder just who it is I am supposed to be? On the surface maybe a silly question, but it's linked to what makes a chore rather than challenge.

For example, the commanders who decided to invade Normandy in WWII did not have to build every battalion, then form these in to brigades, then armies, control the air cover, build and fuel ever naval warship and transport, move all forces to the departing areas, then set their destinations individually etc etc . Labouring a point, but this is exactly what most strategic wargames expect you to do. All to often, I fail in these games because I forgot to follow exactly the required sequence of clicks and a couple of units got left behind or something. Feels like I'm being punished for not being OCD, rather than a bad strategist!

What I want is to be able to say (thinking specifically of HOI but most games are equally guilty) "I want these 8 divisions combined as my invasion force. I want them to sail from here, to here and invade". Wherever those divisions are right now, whatever transport is needed, I want an AI subordinate to manage the detail. This is more or less exactly what happens in real life, after all.

Having said that, I'm surprised you mention Civ 4 as having too many chores. All the other Civs, I agree, but I find Civ 4 relatively chore-free. Much of the game can be automated, the end game doesn't drag like it used to and there's options to use smaller worlds and larger 'time units'. Maybe if you have a humungous civ you'd have a lot of micromanagement, but I find either I've won before my civ is too humungous - or if it's a humungous AI civ, they've beaten me

Thanks for starting some really interesting discussion!



ravinhood -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/25/2007 3:40:57 AM)

This is why I like province games over hex based games when they are operational type games like HOI and Making History that I've been playing more of recently. But, what both developers left out that would have been great was to have a combine all units in this province button. It's tedious to have to click on one unit then combine with another and repetitive when a combine all units in this province button would have been so much easier. The other thing that Making History has is a "rally" feature. So, at least you can build all over your nation and have them rally to one province, but, you still have to click click click to get them all combined into one group of divisions. Too much clicking. Typically why I give a lot of games the click fest tag. Lord knows though a game like SC2/WAW will have more clicks than the number of licks in a tootsie pop. Being that as it may Making History is pretty streamlined. I can play a turn out in 2 to 5 minutes easy and there's not all that mess of a research tree like in HOI. Really Making History is so much like HOI it's almost the same except it's "turn based" and it has a better AI than the HOI series. I couldn't take Brazil in Making History and conquer Italy and the Germans like I could in HOI's. In fact I was pretty stifled in what I could do playing as Brazil. Got out 55 divisions and I was sucking hind tit for income. But, MH let's you play like a real world economy with a deficit like we have and every billion dollars of deficit you take a hit to production values and population growth and things of that nature. I try to keep a steay growing economy until 43 and then I unleash everything as there's only about another 100 or so turns to go.

One thing also that MH proved is that had Germany and Russia remained in good standing and Hiter hadn't of been an idiot, we'd all be speaking German and probably communists as well. :) In my game Germany and Russia allied very early and just swept the map. Of course they got Japan and Italy as allies, but, really didn't need them. It was a pleasure watching England get invaded as the Germans and Russians just wipe their navy off the map and then just horded in and took all of the mainland in a few turns. I had my little run in with USA cause I took Venezuela and had to fight them for the Panama Canal. I was a bit surprised that was it for USA vs Brazil wars except for taking out my navy and airforce and pestering my divisions with air raids (the cowards) I tried to leave at the Canal zone. Even though I moved everything out the AI never did try to take it back. I guess it's programmed more to fight the majors than mess with puny 55 division Brazil that couldn't even get off the mainland to do any more harm. lol There was no Pearl Harbor either and really most of the attacking came from Germany, Russia and Japan. I watched as I always watch the AI UK armies just sit in England and do very little but build up only to be destroyed as the Axis gets around to them. The US also was pretty passive only attaking into India and then was pushed back out. It made some attempts as the west coasts of France, but, well after England was gone there wasn't much the USA could do by itself. Then around the start of 44 I decided to patch to 2.03 (had already patched to 2.01) and it destroyed my "save" game files. LOL So, I lost everything and didn't get the see the ulitmate end of the USA in that one. But, I'm starting another one using patch 2.03 and hopefully the AI is "improved" like they always say it is don'tchaknow everytime anybody does a PATCH hahah.

But, On Topic, Making History has some chores, but, they aren't aggrivating chores to me like say a HOI or SC2/WAW. It's what I really wanted HOI to be, I really don't like that real time mess and 10 gazhillion research trees to have to follow. MH has really short and easy research features yet still get the same power and outcome as you would from a HOI. Plus for Brazil the MH guys really did their research work as it was a chore just to get basic and lite tanks and the first airplane before 44. Unlike HOI which I was actually giving techs to the MAJORS I was teching up so fast as Brazil lol. Hell I had power subs and Medium Tanks and amphibious assault and all the doctrines in HOI playing Brazil and would never see all that in MH. So, that's pretty accurate I think. Plus Argentina was even more powerful than me in MH at the start and in HOI I steamrolled them right off the bat, then chile and then poured into North South America. They did finally patch HOI in 1.06 to finally slow me down, but, that's all they did was just slow you down they didn't fix a thing. Some stupid organizationl/rediness crap that took you down to ZERO if you moved lol it was rediculously stupid and really ruined HOI for playing any minors after that. I just looked at Italy and they start out with a 54,000,000 deficit. Gotta love that. I hope they have good plow fields for food cause that's where the money is at in MH. People would love me for President as I had a positive Treasurey of over a billion dollars at one point. Everyone had a chicken in the pot an a car in the garage, but, of course my ARMS spending was atrocious haha like -79 for most of the game. I built up infrastructure mostly food and transit and built up factories moreso than research as I just felt it cost too much to put a lot into research and let my country become poor where people have to live on the streets or in the jungle or in boxes and trash cans.....oh wait...that's how the real majority of Brazilians have to live isn't it?? At least that's what they show us on those tv shows where they want you to send money to feed the children. The governmental game of MH is really quite fun and challenging to balance the budget and create an army with some power at the same time. By 44 though I was able to keep everything in the green. Arms, Goods, Food, Iron, Coal and Oil all at least +1 per turn. ;)



Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/27/2007 10:23:04 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: NotaGrog

What I want is to be able to say (thinking specifically of HOI but most games are equally guilty) "I want these 8 divisions combined as my invasion force. I want them to sail from here, to here and invade". Wherever those divisions are right now, whatever transport is needed, I want an AI subordinate to manage the detail. This is more or less exactly what happens in real life, after all.



Indeed. Well said.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NotaGrog

Having said that, I'm surprised you mention Civ 4 as having too many chores. All the other Civs, I agree, but I find Civ 4 relatively chore-free. Much of the game can be automated, the end game doesn't drag like it used to and there's options to use smaller worlds and larger 'time units'. Maybe if you have a humungous civ you'd have a lot of micromanagement, but I find either I've won before my civ is too humungous - or if it's a humungous AI civ, they've beaten me.



I agree that Civ 4 has some improvements compared with earlier versions, but it seems to me that the fundamental defects remain. In particular, combat is repetitive and boring and unrealistic, and if you turn off combat (which can be done) the game becomes static and totally boring. I decided in the end that the only part I really enjoy is the exploration and city-building near the beginning of the game, when I have few units to handle and the decision-making is interesting. But that part of the game is over very quickly, as soon as stable borders are established between the various civs.

"Much of the game can be automated" -- really? Perhaps I never learned to make the best use of the available facilities. But I don't think I'd like the later part of the game even with increased automation.



Zakhal -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/28/2007 2:55:21 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey
I agree that Civ 4 has some improvements compared with earlier versions, but it seems to me that the fundamental defects remain. In particular, combat is repetitive and boring and unrealistic, and if you turn off combat (which can be done) the game becomes static and totally boring.


The biggest strenght of civ4 is its modability. Have you checked the civ4 user made mods and scenarios? Mods (i.e Total Realism 2.0+) are lot more than just scenarios they change the game itself i.e remove unrealistic stuff like archer destroying tanks and add historical accuracy.

Mods:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=171

Scenarios:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=174

With all those mods and scenarions covering everything from fantasy to mediaval, civil war, ww1 ww2 pacific, modern and scifi the game itself is a treasure chest really. And you can get civ4 complete now pretty cheap and it includes both expansions.



marcusm -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/28/2007 3:03:01 AM)

Is it possible to mod the actual combat engine in Civ4? Did they open up that much?

Could Civ4 be turned into an actual wargame if the energy to do it existed? Just wondering how much
you can do with the Python script.


To me fun is most important in any game (I have work for the chores). In my book fun > realism (even in wargames). Obviously I still want WW2 to resemble WW2 but I can accept some compromises if the gameplay gets too boring.



Zakhal -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/28/2007 3:37:21 AM)

I have no idea. But thats of course what I hope too. The combat is usually the first thing that gets boring in any civ since civ 1 (colonisation and other variants included). Civ clones did more detailed combat many years ago.



marcusm -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/28/2007 3:39:32 AM)

Fall from heaven is otherwise my favourite mod but I am open for new stuff.



Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/28/2007 2:24:10 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Zakhal
The biggest strength of civ4 is its modability. Have you checked the civ4 user made mods and scenarios? Mods (i.e Total Realism 2.0+) are lot more than just scenarios they change the game itself i.e. remove unrealistic stuff like archer destroying tanks and add historical accuracy.


Thanks for the suggestion. No, I haven't seriously looked into the available mods; perhaps I should do. But I doubt that they can change the fundamentals of the game.

My main complaint about Civ combat is that it's repetitive and boring. When I've taken a few cities, the idea of taking another one is not fun at all. "Oh, not that again!"

Lack of realism is a secondary issue. But I point out that:

1. In the real world, battles don't consist of a series of one-on-one combats, fought one after the other. A real battle involves many units working in combination, simultaneously. Civ represents this very badly.

2. In the real world, each Civ unit would consist of thousands of men. Such units are occasionally wiped out to the last man, but it's a rare event. Much more often, they take losses, retreat, absorb new recruits, and fight again. In Civ, units are wiped out too often.

Basically, Civ treats a unit as though it were one person, which is nonsense given the scale of the game.



Zakhal -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/28/2007 2:32:10 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey
1. In the real world, battles don't consist of a series of one-on-one combats, fought one after the other. A real battle involves many units working in combination, simultaneously. Civ represents this very badly.


There actually was a combined arms mod to civ4 warlords but the author didnt keep it up so this mod is not compatible anymore with the latest patch. But the author is quite active modder (the latest civ expansion includes his ww2 mods) so this might just be an old version:

quote:

Dale’s Combat Mod v1.03!

Civilization. The Grand Strategy Empire Builder. Millions of fans World-wide. Millions of games played, Empires forged, and battles fought. Hang on a second, one versus one combat? In a game of grand strategic depth and complexity there’s a 25-year old concept such as one versus one combat?

WELL NO MORE!

Introducing Dale’s Combat Mod v1.03! Bombard your enemy units, improvements and cities using ranged bombardment, rain terror on the cities and units of your enemies with your cruise missiles and strategic nuclear warheads, play Nuclear Chicken with your super-power rivals with targeted nuke MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) systems, and last but not least, for the first time in the Civilization series, use full combined arms stack attacking to destroy the armies of your enemies!


quote:

4. Combined Arms Stack Attack:
By far this component of the combat mod is the most ambitious change attempted in Civ IV so far. Taking a mixture of the existing Civ IV un-modded one-on-one combat model and CTP2’s stacked combat model, a new model of combined arms stacks has been created. Now, your entire stack of units will battle an enemy stack of units, working in unison to eliminate the enemy. Your frontline troops will receive automatically air support, artillery support and ranged support. Flankers will automatically attempt to out flank the enemy to strike at their backlines. Fighters on carriers will automatically intercept enemy fighters, defending the fleet and striking at the enemy ships. Artillery will automatically bombard the enemy from the safety of their backlines, while melee troops take the brunt of the fight. Counter-battery fire will occur between archers and bombards. Cavalry will ride around the enemy frontline to harass their catapults. And more! Best of all, this can be easily defined using three XML definitions in the unit’s XML file.


quote:

. Combined Arms Stack Attack:
The combined arms stack attack (CASA) is in force at all times. You do not need to do anything to “use” this function. CASA will be automatically used in every combat. Simply create a stack of units of up to 20 units (plus 10 transported units like fighters making 30 in total for the stack) and attack the enemy stack. Combat will be resolved using CASA. CASA works in the following way:

Setup attackers:
a. Missile units perform attacks and explode into the enemy
b. Units arranged in four lines: air, bombard, ranged, melee + flanking
c. Only 20 units possible per line
d. Transported units which can attack (EG: fighters, marines, etc) are included
Setup defenders:
e. Units arranged in four lines: air, bombard, ranged, melee + flanking
f. Only 20 units possible per line
g. Transported units which can attack are included
Defence phase:
h. Defender air units scramble to dog-fight attacking air units, and if no air units to dog-fight airstrike attackers
i. Defender bombard units pick a target and bombard (preference on counter-battery fire on bombarders)
j. Defender ranged units pick a target and strike (preference on counter-battery fire on ranged)
Attack phase:
k. Attacker air units dog-fight defending air units, and if successful they airstrike defenders
l. Attacker bombard units pick a target and bombard (preference on counter-battery fire on bombarders)
m. Attacker ranged units pick a target and strike (preference on counter-battery fire on ranged)
n. Attacker melee and flanking units do battle with defending units



http://civilization4.filefront.com/file/Dales_Combat_Mod;69982



Zakhal -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/28/2007 2:36:58 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: marcusm
Fall from heaven is otherwise my favourite mod but I am open for new stuff.


Thanks for the tip! Thats quite an amazing mod graphics and music included. There is apparently a prequel for it too called the iceage that is is in the latest expansion pack.



Jonathan Palfrey -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/28/2007 2:39:07 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
Of our recent releases in grand strategy, probably the easiest to play is Commander: Europe at War.


I've now read through the Wargamer review of Commander: Europe at War, which is certainly most enthusiastic, and I see that the manual is 'only' 40 pages, which I suppose is relatively small by modern standards. But I look at the screenshots and see a large, detailed map with many units of different kinds scattered all over it; and I understand from the review that the game has quite a bit of complexity in it.

Probably I'd have liked the game when I was younger and had more spare time. I doubt that I have time for it now. I might download a demo version if I can find one somewhere.

Thanks anyway for the suggestion.

Twentieth-century wars tend to be inherently complex; I generally find it more comfortable to go back to the simpler days of infantry, cavalry, and artillery.



ravinhood -> RE: Looking for strategy games without chores (12/28/2007 9:59:41 PM)

Amen Jonathan that's why I love the ancient period so much. So many different types of weapons an armor an even cavalry units. All kinds of siege weapons. It was the best of times for wargaming. It's why I like to give all the units in RTW like 10 hit points each and high morale values. Watching the battles is fun when they aren't over in 2 seconds. Of course I have to give the archers unlimited arrows because of this lol.



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