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IronManBeta -> (10/17/2003 8:18:26 PM)
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Hello there -
I can't comment on the particulars of Battlefields since I don't know any more than you at this point. The description below, however, is what I have been giving to our Flashpoint playtesters to tell them what FPG is all about. I hope you find it helpful!
Cheers, Rob.
1. This game is a revitalization and modernization of the venerable Simulations Canada designs based on the "Main Battle Tank" series of 1980 - 81. These games were the jewels of the entire SimCan catalogue - apart of course from the absolutely fabulous "Storm" series that were the output, cough, cough, of yours truly back then.
2. So what was MBT? The official description at the time was:
"1.0 INTRODUCTION: It is 1100 hours on November 11th, 1996. The area is central Germany, roughly the region bounded by the Harz Mountains, the Ruhr, Frankfurt, and the junction of the East German, West German, and Czech borders. You are the Soviet, West German, or American commander of a regiment/ brigade or battalion. The hypothesis is that World War Three has just broken out.
MAIN BATTLE TANK: CENTRAL GERMANY (MBTCG) is a fast paced, command-orientated game of modem grand tactical combat. Your main manoeuvre elements will be companies, though some specialist units, particularly reconnaissance, will be platoons. Air strikes, helicopters, off map artillery, and even nuclear attacks, may be on call. Your mission will be to hold or to take a geographic local within the combat area while minimizing casualties to your forces and maximizing damage to the enemy."
3. SimCan and Matrix signed a deal in the fall of 2001. The new description that Matrix came up with was:
"FLASHPOINT GERMANY - Matrix Games overhauls two classic Simulations Canada NATO vs. Warsaw Pact wargames into a full campaign. Originally a high speed, command-oriented, viewpoint style study of the first clashes of a Third World War in Europe, the system has been transformed into a Windows-compatible wargame with high-resolution graphics, expanded Orders of Battle and the option to play over the Internet and by email. Flashpoint Germany covers fighting across Germany in fourteen included scenarios, but the heart of the simulation is the “build your own” system that allows you to design conflicts between British, U.S., West German and Soviet forces."
4. I wrote this up when the FPG forum was launched:
"- the game is "grand tactical" (not tactical, not operational or strategic). In practice this means that we are far enough removed from individual vehicles and men that unit facing does not matter. These subunits will either be 'mission ready' or not, there is no tracking of internal state at this level. Weapon ranges still matter though (so the scale is less than operational) and logistics just barely matter (so it is not strategic).
- Manoeuvre units are companies and specialist platoons (engineering, supply, recce, etc). Each player will typically command a brigade on the attack or a (reinforced) battalion on the defence.
- The map is a stretch of the German countryside extending about 20 km by 15 km. Position is resolved to within 500m and is handled via a grid rather than a hex map. This is how the original SimCan did it, and indeed how the military actually does it now.
- The game can last up to 12 hours resolved in 30 minute turns (approximately!) but very few will last that long. In most scenarios the two sides will very cautiously try to feel out where the other side is located and then mount a rush to seize key terrain, get into the rear, or whatever. The unit density is far too low for a continuous line so the action is more reminiscent, say, of the swirling action of North Africa in 1942 than of the WW2 western front. Given the super-lethal nature of modern weapons, this period of close contact can be quite short. Then the players sort out what happened and if enough force remains try again. The game ends automatically when one side or the other drops below 20% of original strength. In the original game this could often happen within two hours of first contact!
- The viewpoint for the game is that of the overall commander. He is assumed to have a competent staff and is _not_ burdened with micromanagement of every little detail. (There are other games out there that do a fine job of that already.) We are trying to simulate the command experience in a way that is accessible to non-professionals and indeed makes for a fun and interesting experience for everyone. Anyone familiar with the old SimCan designs will know what I am talking about.... "
Final Notes:
- The game is now set in 1989 (realistically the last possible year for such a confrontation) although other "flashpoint" years will be added after the first release and as research allows.
- This is not a game where you move counters around so much as a game where you give orders and then watch the action unfold after a suitable delay. Gleaning information from fragmentary unit reports, guessing at enemy intentions, and mastering the various time lags unique to each kind of unit is critical to your success as a commander. You won’t know exactly in advance how far a movement can move, what it will be able to see when it gets there, or even quite when it will get there. Combat results are not calculable in advance and there is not a combat results table or other artificial construct for combat resolution. All combat is resolved as it occurs between individual weapons systems and platforms and combat results are either misses or mission kills for subunits (ie individual vehicles). You will learn by doing! War is an uncertain business and a lot of this ambiguity was designed into the original SimCan game and hence into this game. You will find it quite a different experience.
- I am keenly interested in the air, helicopter, electronic warfare, chemical and nuclear attack rules. They will all be there but at the moment are looking pretty simple. My intent is to get them in and working at a base level, and then ramp them based on player feedback. The viewpoint is that of the brigadier general and we will try to portray it in terms that he would see. This is definitely not a simulator where the player has to micromanage every little detail. There are other games out there I believe that offer this already. We want, dare I say it, to create a fast-moving, fun experience that models these things in an elegant and accurate, but not terribly time-consuming way. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
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