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DSWargamer -> RE: Business News from Historicon (7/29/2013 3:50:05 PM)
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Ahh historical accuracy. What precisely is that though?
During the war, some of the most idiotic decisions were made, that had a profound impact on the war.
What if that brilliant, but also stupid Patton had not slapped the soldier, not insulted the Russians and managed to stay out of the doghouse?
It is interesting that even HE wanted to invade the Pas de Calais.
I often wonder, what would have happened if he had gotten to? Because the Germans sure expected it. And in real life, the US sure took a pounding on Omaha. Picture the invasion if it has gone against stiffer conditions.
The trouble with GAMES attempting to recreate history, is the games always leave out all of the stupidity.
Picture the Germans invading the Soviet Union and just granting the Ukrainians their independence from Stalin immediately? They hated Stalin plenty until the Germans and their mindless racism forced them to hate Germany more. But how do you mimic mindless racism in a wargame?
Hitler insisted the ME 262 just had to be a fighter bomber. Picture the war if in 43 he had just shut up and let the Luftwaffe have it as the fighter it really was. The bombers would have not been bombing flat anything any time soon.
Historical accuracy is not as easy as a lot like to make it seem.
If WW2 were run without all the insanity, the Germans always win. Yes boys, the Germans always win. We let Poland get trashed. We gave them promises and didn't keep them. But in a wargame, I can force the allies to do things that they never did. I have played games where immediately after the attack on Poland, the French attack the Rhine. But sadly, so many games are so devoted to timelines exactly as they happened, that regardless of what you do, certain events simply get forced on the player. But never because of the original reasons.
Stalin had a better army in Russia, but after butchering the men running the army, well of course it was not ready.
So many games just make it easy to invade Russia at the beginning. I don't think many realize, what would happen if the Germans attacked 3 months earlier, or a year later.
In Advanced Third Reich, the counters are not fixed in place. Every game requires you to set them up with maybe new thinking.
In most computer games, every time you play the game, the pieces will always be set up in the precise same way. It's why as nice a game as some are, the player can memorize the places the pieces will be and generate absolutely idiotic opening moves. Ok this unit goes here, attacks this unit there, gets this result and then you follow up here and here.
It doesn't matter whether the game is Strategic Command, or World in Flames, the games have finite opening moves.
The BEST way to play really good wargames, is to play something like Advanced Third Reich, with an interface program like Warplanner (made with A3R in mind) and eliminate the computer wargame never alters problem completely.
But the thing is, so many wargamers will scream and howl and complain if the game has no AI to play, because they can't find opponents.
Really, the thing is, wargaming has for the most part long been a loner game hobby, but, in the past, solo meant you pushed counters around on a map, by yourself, and no AI. You played both sides, and you tried your best to out do the best thinking for both sides you could come up with.
You are kidding yourself if you think most computer wargames are giving you 'great' wargaming.
You can play 3 months solid of War in the East solo vs the AI only to find out the AI had a worthless strategy all along.
Or you play for 3 months, and they release a patch that fixes a problem that has just rendered all 3 months valueless.
Or you can play something like Battle Academy, a design that is fairly good at recreating conditions, doesn't cry over animations, and isn't concerned that their is comic like artwork thrown in for amusement and can be played in a single sitting.
And if they release a patch it likely means nothing much as you have played scores of games any way already.
I defy you to defend any title on the market, which I can't rebut and illustrate how the argument isn't really valid.
And keep in mind, I have played so many hundreds of wargames, I have seen it all.
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