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Mac Linehan -> RE: The Immense Pleasure of Huge Wargames (4/15/2012 7:30:23 PM)
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ORIGINAL: treespider
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ORIGINAL: fcharton
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ORIGINAL: Blacksheep
I second the motion for CNA. I managed to get through five turns of that monster in my pre-pc days, and I look at it as one of my finest gaming achievements. The logistics lend themselves to a computer model not to mention the A2A combat (which took days in itself to resolve). Probably will never see it but I can dream.
Looks like lots of people had the same idea about CNA. I am not sure it would make a very good computer wargame, though.
Like many similar monsters, CNA implies a lot of small decisions by the players throughout the turn sequence. Unless you totally rework the combat and movement system, you won't be able to translate this into a WITP-like computer game: you'd end up with an incredible click-fest. The turn sequence also has a lot of player interaction, which complicates PBEM.
What might work would be a Vassal-like system, that would keep all the game files on one's machine (and therefore reduce the playing space), help with die rolls and resolution, and (perhaps?) could be played PBC (play by chat), in interactive sessions.
I have been toying with this idea for a long time, never really took the time to explore it in details, but I believe that would be the way to play "old wargames" again.
On the other hand, the design has lots of very interesting ideas, which could be used by computer games. For what I've seen, most computer wargames sort of "evolved" from ASL-like systems, where you get large scale result by agregating small scale figures. Many paper wargames followed a different, top down, route to modelling, that probably lends itself better to AI programming, and would most certainly result in games with a very different feel than the ones we play now.
Francois
I have Vassal but have never used it...do you have any experience with it?
treespider -
I played Squad Leader / Advanced Squad Leader from 1977 until 1990. Discovered Multi Man Publishing in 2006 thereabouts. Discovered the ASL module for the Vassal game engine. Studied the rules during the summer of 2007 (in the mountains, no computer) then, upon return to Denver, played ASL using the vassal module. It was absolutely outstanding. A Vassal module includes the game map boards, counters and markers. The player must still have a copy of the product with the game rules and charts. What is so awesome to me, is that the ASL board and pieces can be magnified, and I no longer have to manually setup and manipulate all the game counters. Plus, I just save and exit when done playing - something we take for granted with computer games.
I have the Vassal version of Gamers / MMP OCS2 "Enemy at the Gates" on my old AMD computer. I recall downloading it as freeware from MMP in 2009; don't recall any other details. Set it up and looked at it - very appealing, but have not yet had time to play it. If you would like a copy of the zipped game, please PM me. I would like to emphasize again that the download was free of charge at the time; thus I feel comfortable in making this offer.
Do hope that this helps. I have heard nothing but good about the Gamers / MMP OCS system. I am a hard core ASL player - but stopped in summer of 2009 to focus on WitP AE.
Mac
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