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rodney727 -> RE: The Future Of Complex Wargames Looks Bleak (3/6/2013 12:20:32 AM)
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And geez only after seven years of development ..... Wonder how the programmers are taking this into account .. (See my previous post about the year 2031). Makes me wonder if matrix shouldn't hand this over to slitherine. Call me crazy but I do see slitherine outlasting matrix in the future...they seem to be open to more ideas and willing to implement them. I do not see ONE matrix game being planned for tablets or mobile gaming. Almost reminds me of a grandfather/grandson who are business partners.
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ORIGINAL: Missouri_Rebel
HoI 3 has much more than just generals. More of a tactical nature it seems and maybe too much micromanagement, but there is a lot of depth to the game. The scale is both smaller and larger at the same time than WiF. I have to admit that while I own HoI3 and its DLC's, I haven't actually played it that often.
But back to your VASSAL point. I think you may be correct. It might be the only hope for uber complexity as many old games have been made available through VASSAL.
An unnamed member contacted me by PM to discuss WiF. This person is an avid gamer and one very familiar with WiF. He stated that it might not be as good as many think it is. When I asked why, his response was this: (I hope he doesn't mind and of course he will stay anonymous)
My gripes with it are at both high and low levels. I'll start high and work down. Also, bear in mind that the last version I played was 5th Edition, and it's been in the last millenium. I'm sure they have improved a few things.
1. Physical Size of Game: It's too big to play unless you have a very large playing area. The main ET and PT maps are each 44 x 34 inches. Supplements add even more real estate.
2. Unnecessary Complexity: It seems to me as if the designers set about making their game as big as they could, and then designed the combat systems. Each type of combat (land, air, naval, sub, anti-sub, anti-air, etc.) requires a different resolution mechanic. IMO, the designers could have developed more realistic and smoother rules. Had they done so, it would be more playable.
3. It's a monster game. Takes forever to play. The expansions (ships in flames, planes in flames, jeeps in flames, etc.) only make it that much more complex and unwieldy. Now, if you can set up 2 or 3 44 x 34 inch maps for a year while you play one turn a night once a week (avg. wargame group), and you like monster games, it's probably okay.
4. For all of its complexity, it's not particularly realistic.
5. For at least five editions, the rules were just plain broken at several levels (can't remember details, only remember the frustrations of contradictory rules and in some cases, missing rules). I presume that the Internet has allowed them to address this problem to an extent.
Moving to a more tactical level:
1. Ground combat is very odd for the scale. They have an impulse system that governs all their game impulses, but it makes the entire game very unstable. If a particular turn goes long, one side can use it to trounce the other.
2. I intensely dislike the naval system. The game encourages players to just move their massive fleets out of port and park them in a blockade of enemy ports in perpetuity. This never happened, and is extremely unrealistic. (Gets back to my point about how complicated it is vs. how realistic it is.)
3. Many of the rules are out of proportion to the level of simulation. The result is something that calls to mind the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Summary of WiF Peeves:
A. More complicated than it needs to be owning to lazy system and unit design that never evolved through several editions.
B. In most practical gaming situations, it's unplayable because of its physical size.
C. It takes way too long to play it (especially since the usual Axis tactic is that if they don't win by the end of 1942, they give up and want to reset and play again, having just taken 2-3 months of game nights to get to that point—probably happens in other games as well, but it plagues this one as the Axis, if their wheels come off, cannot sustain a prolonged war of attrition because of the impulse system, which makes it impossible for the Axis to replace their losses to the level needed to compete in a long game).
For the record, when I complain about the complexity, I'm also an ASL player, so I'm not just whining—it's way more complicated than it needs to be to simulate what they're trying to simulate.
The root of the problems with the mechanics, I think, is the same as for Third Reich: Their 1st edition had a beer-and-pretzel countermix and mechanical system wrapped with a set of complicated rules the creates unrealistic situations because its the only way they could make the game work. Instead of slapping more and more expansions onto it while increasing the counter density and rules bloat, I think they would have been better served to review their individual subsystems and polish them.
Your response?
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