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Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: food for thought (5/19/2005 4:13:11 AM)
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I have to agree with coregames that changes to the rules should be made very cautiously. The rules for the board game evolved over a decade and during that time changes were made to improve authenticity.
My background in board games goes back to the 60's and includes almost a complete collection of the games published by SPI (for those of you old enough). My board game playing experience includes tens of thousands of lost hours against live opponents over a period of 20 years. I have played WiF to completion against single opponents or with teams of 2 or 3 per side over 30 times and own at least 5 versions of the game from its original up to and including the deluxe version.
The balance between map scale, unit scale, and time scale is critical. Just a little tweak and things degenerate quickly. I remember one board game where the best strategy was to build fighters all the time because they were cheap and capable of destrying everything else on the board. The introduction of numerous divisional units (beyond what the board version of WiF permitted) strikes me as potentially dangerous in that it might upset the balance of units per hex. Now, I'm not against having more divisional units per se. I just am very leary of that solution to the problem of "defending Norway with a corps is excessive". Other solutions to that problem might be satisfactory without creating as large a disruption to the counter mix.
I really like the demo version's appearance and user interface. However, this is based on only a couple of hours of messing around with it and until I play a game/scenario all the way through I cannot judge its effectiveness/efficiency for PBEM or AI play.
As I see it the real problems with completing the game are handling the small decisions that the non-phasing player makes. These occur during sea movement, air combat, and land combat (retreats), to name but a few places. They are integral to the design! Discarding them, because they are difficult to implement smoothly for PBEM, is tempting, but could easily destroy the integrity of the combat system. The operative word here is 'smoothly'.
The AI is another large undertaking. Essentially, the programmer has to design an AI that will make all the decisions that a player makes and do so to handle every possible situation that might arise during play. That assumes that there is already code (software) in place the determines the possible moves and shortest path moves. Sequence of moves is a real problem especially since it requires coordinating air, sea, and land units. Which attack should be made first in a blitzkreig? So far I have only touched on the tactical considerations. There are also operational decisions for committing forces to different theaters and production schedules to support different planned operational objectives. The AI also has to deal with strategic concerns (declaring war and creating alliances) but by comparison the strategic decisions are few in number and much less difficult when compared to the tacticcal and operational decisions.
I speak from some experience here, having written and published 2 computer wargames in the 1980's (Atari 800 anyone?). The creation of the computer interface and sequence of play for PBEM is almost a pure design problem. It will require some cleverness and perhaps a stroke of genius but writing the code will be rather straightforward once the design is finalized. On the other hand, writing the AI will demand an intimate knowledge of the game: air, land, and sea tactics, the operational choices, and the strategic choices. How long did you play WiF before you could move the units around without doing somwthing really stupid? Was your first attempt at building units so brilliant that you still use it today? The learning curve for WiF is one of the steepest and longest for any board game I have played. The brilliance of its design and the extreme pleasure that comes from playing it lies in the intricate weave of its tapestry composed of the map, units, and rules. The AI opponent will have to understand the tapestry as well as the players it competes against or it will just be another "stupid AI".
This is my first post here. In case you didn't notice, I tend to be longwinded, and I thank you for your attention.
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