[CONCEPTUAL] Board wargames as models
Alan Paull
wargames as "simulations" as opposed to "intellectual games", and there have
been occasional threads in which the whole concept of wargaming as
"simulation" has been disparaged. On the whole, as a (sometime) military
historian, I tend to side with the "anti-simulation" camp, because of the
critical importance of specific factors that are necessarily left out of
board wargames.
The problem is this: if we agree that board wargames are not accurate
simulations, can they (or at least some of them) be regarded as good models
of *something*? I have a gut reaction against Patrick Carroll's statement,
in Another Place (tm): "it was patently clear to me that ASL had *far* more
in common with
chess than with WWII tactical battles". After all, this an argument for
taking up chess :-).
Let's start with a definition or two. By the term model, I mean "a
simplified representation or description of a system to assist in making
calculations and predictions". The type of board wargame I'm talking about
is that which purports to simulate a conflict situation; I would exclude
the blatantly abstract (e.g. A&A), though I do accept that there is a grey
area, which it might prove difficult to agree upon. I would include that
line of "simulation games" that used to carry those hyped up pieces of copy
to encourage players to think they were "recreating history" or "following
in the footsteps of the Great Captains", those descendants of "Napoleon at
Waterloo" and the early SPI S&T subscription games.
A model doesn't have to be complex or indeed particularly accurate when
compared with the real world. Operational research and game theory have
their place in analysis, even though it can be argued that many of the
techniques used, particularly in the latter, are greatly divorced from
reality. I recall a piece of work I did many years ago, which analysed the
Waterloo campaign using game theory techniques, largely as a way to
demonstrate the limited value of game theory. However, limited value is not
no value. Perhaps board wargames also have limited value, but not no value,
as models.
Can board wargames be considered as models, using my above definition? They
are certainly simplified representations or descriptions, in that they
cannot cover all elements involved in a conflict situation. I would argue
that they are attempts to represent systems (conflict processes with
specific inputs and outputs). The crux of the problem may therefore lie in
the section "to assist in making calculations and predictions". It would be
easy to argue that the actual objective of the game is to make money for the
publisher, but I don't think it's necessary to be so cynical. At this point
it is useful to consider the players as part of the model. The players
objective may be to use the game to assist in making predictions, within the
constraints of the model. Multiple replays of the same game may then give
the players some insight into the real world situation, however hazardous
this exercise.
So, if board wargames can be considered as models, can we re-think or
rephrase the "anti-simulation" argument?
--
alan paull
<Sig>"The Goddess of Victory will bestow her laurels only on those who are
prepared to act with daring."</Sig>
Elliot Wilen
I want to bring up a couple of technical points concerning this topic,
which certainly is of interest to me.
First, semantic. You make a distinction between a model and a
simulation, in saying, "if we agree that board wargames are not
accurate simulations, can they (or at least some of them) be regarded
as good models...?" However, while you define "model", you don't
define "simulation", so it's a bit hard to grapple with the premise.
Second, logical. Suppose I skip over the above problem and insert a
commonsense understanding of the term "simulation", something like,
"a believable representation of real-life phenomena". I have to wonder,
if no wargame is a simulation, than what *is* a simulation? It seems
that a simulation is something which is designed to be perceived to be
like something else, but which isn't the thing it simulates. Has anyone
ever created a fully successful ("accurate") simulation of anything? I
doubt it. So either the commonsense understanding is meaningless, or
it must be accepted that things can be accurate simulations without
being perfect representations.
Maybe what you're getting at has something to do with the state of mind
of the participant? That is, the decisionmaking process, even the
emotional state, of a wargame player. Is the idea that a simulation
casts a player in a role, allowing him to experience the represented
situation more or less the way an actual participant would? If so, I
certainly see a distinction between such a "simulation" and a model,
which you describe as "a simplified representation or description of a
system to assist in making calculations and predictions." Most classic
wargames are certainly poor "simulations" in the sense that the player
doesn't really have a well-defined role--a single player often acts as
both overall commander and as multiple local commanders; traditional
IGO-UGO mechanics stress reaction and tactical decisionmaking over the
need to create a battle plan ahead of time; and there is of course the
problem of excessively complete information. But the same classic
wargames are probably better models (though still not great) than they
are simulations--the movement of troops and the outcome of battles are
often plausibly represented.
Anyway, I wouldn't wish to proceed without clarifying the concepts to
be discussed.
--Elliot Wilen
--
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P. Stoucas
I was about to call it quits here..... However, since you have taken the
brave step to start a thread under the [CONCEPTUAL] banner, well, I do
not want to commit.... high treason ! <g> So, here I am.
Here is a rather telling excerpt from J.F. Dunnigan's "The Complete
Wargames Handbook":
[Wargames versus Models and Simulations
One problem that has caused some confusion within the military wargaming
community is the use of the terms "wargame, "model" and "simulation." It
causes even more problems among civilians, who also hear the term
"conflict simulation" tossed about. Wargames are, like most games, also
models and simulations of real life events. The three terms are commonly
(and incorrectly) used interchangeably, but each term means quite
something different to the military wargamer. Wargames are usually
simpler than models and simulations because, as the names imply, a
wargame is something of a competitive game that is played while a model
is a more detailed representation of a specific military event. A model
duplicates a function in great detail and exactitude. A simulation is a
model, or collection of models, that can be more easily manipulated to
test "what if" questions. A simulation is a model that can move in many
different directions. A wargame is a playable simulation. A conflict
simulation is another name for wargame, one that leaves out the two
unsavory terms, "war" and "game."]
Hmmm, not _that_ enlightening, is it ? <g>
Now, Alan, you wrote:
[It would be easy to argue that the actual objective of the game is to
make money for the publisher, but I don't think it's necessary to be so
cynical. At this point it is useful to consider the players as part of
the model. The players objective may be to use the game to assist in
making predictions, within the constraints of the model.]
Actually, cynicism need not enter the picture at all. It is a matter of
specific "user" interests, I should think. You have constrained such
"user" interests to sharply focus only on issues having to do with
predictions. Therefore, play and immersive issues are totally absent from
the equation. If so, one has to formulate working "research" questions
such as:
- How many casualties are likely to be inflicted on Side A by Side B if
"we" were to run this conflict simulation for the equivalent of 4
straight days ?
- How long will it take for Side A to securely occupy City X ?
Well, the possibilities are endless. This brings up the subject of the
appropriateness and suitability of any particular conflict simulation
framework, including the key embedded model that contains the interactive
mechanics. I would imagine that depending on the "research" questions
that one has, such a framework may or may not be of much assistance
without any "user" modifications (sometimes, even _with_ such
modifications).
Whether the same conflict simulation framework has some value in terms of
the kinds of interactive (strategy) gaming or immersive experience that
many "players" seek is irrelevant and immaterial. The "user" interests
here are given and markedly distinct ! <g>
Alan, you also wrote:
[By the term model, I mean "a simplified representation or description of
a system to assist in making calculations and predictions".]
Since you have explicitly assigned a _purpose_ to the model, it stands to
reason that the designer may have built it to some contemplated "user"
specs. However, this does not mean that _any_ "user" would employ it in
ways contemplated by the model's "creator" and, more importantly, that
the "user" would want to ask precisely those "research" questions that
the designer expects.... This is particularly the case with conflict
simulation frameworks aimed at the civilian (hobby) sector. Once the
postulated "user" gets his hands on the conflict simulation, well, _he_
gets on the driver seat and all "objective" bets are off !
Finally, you wrote:
[Can board wargames be considered as models, using my above definition?
They are certainly simplified representations or descriptions, in that
they cannot cover all elements involved in a conflict situation. I would
argue that they are attempts to represent systems (conflict processes
with specific inputs and outputs).]
Yes, absolutely ! However, by your very postulation of "user" interests,
a "user" may be unable to utilise wargame X just because its embedded
model is ill-suited at assisting with certain types of predictive
"research".
By the way, I assume that you allow for both retrospective (alternative
historical paths) and prospective (plausible future paths) prediction,
right ?
Best Regards:
Panos Stoucas
psto...@istar.ca
Alan Paull
>You make a distinction between a model and a
>simulation, in saying, "if we agree that board wargames are not
>accurate simulations, can they (or at least some of them) be regarded
>as good models...?" However, while you define "model", you don't
>define "simulation", so it's a bit hard to grapple with the premise.
>
Thanks, Elliot, you make a good point. OK, a simulation could be defined as
something which "imitates the conditions of a situation", so, for instance,
a business simulation could put you in a similar situation to a chief
executive of a company, with access to similar information and even
environment. This definition differentiates simulation from model, and, I
hope, covers some of the nuances of the word "simulation" that cause people
problems.
>Second, logical. Suppose I skip over the above problem and insert a
>commonsense understanding of the term "simulation", something like,
>"a believable representation of real-life phenomena". I have to wonder,
>if no wargame is a simulation, than what *is* a simulation? It seems
>that a simulation is something which is designed to be perceived to be
>like something else, but which isn't the thing it simulates. Has anyone
>ever created a fully successful ("accurate") simulation of anything? I
>doubt it. So either the commonsense understanding is meaningless, or
>it must be accepted that things can be accurate simulations without
>being perfect representations.
>
I'll try to avoid commonsense understanding :-). I think that my definition
of simulation covers your point. With my (well, a dictionary definition)
definition, we can have simulations which have a range of success values.
Some can be more successful than others. Some people would consider ASL to
be a poor simulation of WWII tactical combat, or Hitler's War to be a poor
simulation of WWII in Europe. It would be possible then to compare board
wargames (or indeed any wargames in any genre) on the basis of how good or
bad they were as simulations. However, in some circumstances we would then
run into the buffers of "wargames aren't ever actually good simulations".
That's why I prefer to use the term "model" - a wargame might well be
(almost by definition) an inaccurate simulation, but it might be a good
model, even a predictive model.
>Maybe what you're getting at has something to do with the state of mind
>of the participant? That is, the decisionmaking process, even the
>emotional state, of a wargame player. Is the idea that a simulation
>casts a player in a role, allowing him to experience the represented
>situation more or less the way an actual participant would? If so, I
>certainly see a distinction between such a "simulation" and a model,
>which you describe as "a simplified representation or description of a
>system to assist in making calculations and predictions." Most classic
>wargames are certainly poor "simulations" in the sense that the player
>doesn't really have a well-defined role--a single player often acts as
>both overall commander and as multiple local commanders; traditional
>IGO-UGO mechanics stress reaction and tactical decisionmaking over the
>need to create a battle plan ahead of time; and there is of course the
>problem of excessively complete information. But the same classic
>wargames are probably better models (though still not great) than they
>are simulations--the movement of troops and the outcome of battles are
>often plausibly represented.
If we are to consider wargames as models, then the players' roles and state
of mind are very important. In board wargaming this is problematic, because
very often, as you say, the players don't have a single role, which tends to
undermine the wargame as a model of a conflict situation. The roles are
important, because you can design wargames in which players have multiple
roles which don't undermine the modelling aspect (map games at military
staff colleges for instance). Board wargames are poor at modelling this fac
et, because they often expect the players to act as senior commanders and
junior commanders, thereby giving both levels of command information, to
which they would not have access. This, coupled with finite odds-based
CRTs, leads directly to the typical unrealistic micromanagement of tactical
situations, which so offends the military historian in me.
I like to play board wargames with players who have an appreciation of the
historical background. This allows us to explore different strategies with
the same game - we play to win, but sometimes within the constraints of a
particular strategy. Doing this, we are using the game as a model. We
might say, "what might happen if the Prussians don't fight seriously at
Ligny, but use a rearguard action strategy, then join Wellington on 17
June?" Playing the game (preferably several times) is likely to give us
some insight into the viability of this strategy, and is even more likely to
tell us something about the model.
Alan Paull
>Here is a rather telling excerpt from J.F. Dunnigan's "The Complete
>Wargames Handbook":
>
>[Wargames versus Models and Simulations
>
>One problem that has caused some confusion within the military wargaming
>community is the use of the terms "wargame, "model" and "simulation." It
>causes even more problems among civilians, who also hear the term
>"conflict simulation" tossed about. Wargames are, like most games, also
>models and simulations of real life events. The three terms are commonly
>(and incorrectly) used interchangeably, but each term means quite
>something different to the military wargamer. Wargames are usually
>simpler than models and simulations because, as the names imply, a
>wargame is something of a competitive game that is played while a model
>is a more detailed representation of a specific military event. A model
>duplicates a function in great detail and exactitude. A simulation is a
>model, or collection of models, that can be more easily manipulated to
>test "what if" questions. A simulation is a model that can move in many
>different directions. A wargame is a playable simulation. A conflict
>simulation is another name for wargame, one that leaves out the two
>unsavory terms, "war" and "game."]
>
>Hmmm, not _that_ enlightening, is it ? <g>
>
You are too kind. It's a muddled series of statements that fails to clarify
what Mr Dunnigan means by the terms he uses. I don't have this book, but
perhaps it has better pieces elsewhere? A quick interpretation of this
extract leads me to think that Mr Dunnigan (for whom I have the greatest
respect as a game designer) has had contact with academics (or other
professionals) in this area, so has picked up some of the terminology, but
does not have sufficient understanding or experience of the academic area to
carry forward his argument. I should also point out quickly, that in my
view this understanding or experience is NOT important for game design, not
even for military wargame design.
>Now, Alan, you wrote:
>
>[It would be easy to argue that the actual objective of the game is to
>make money for the publisher, but I don't think it's necessary to be so
>cynical. At this point it is useful to consider the players as part of
>the model. The players objective may be to use the game to assist in
>making predictions, within the constraints of the model.]
>
>Actually, cynicism need not enter the picture at all. It is a matter of
>specific "user" interests, I should think. You have constrained such
>"user" interests to sharply focus only on issues having to do with
>predictions. Therefore, play and immersive issues are totally absent from
>the equation. If so, one has to formulate working "research" questions
>such as:
>
>- How many casualties are likely to be inflicted on Side A by Side B if
>"we" were to run this conflict simulation for the equivalent of 4
>straight days ?
>
>- How long will it take for Side A to securely occupy City X ?
>
>Well, the possibilities are endless. This brings up the subject of the
>appropriateness and suitability of any particular conflict simulation
>framework, including the key embedded model that contains the interactive
>mechanics. I would imagine that depending on the "research" questions
>that one has, such a framework may or may not be of much assistance
>without any "user" modifications (sometimes, even _with_ such
>modifications).
>
I agree. I think that using wargames as conflict simulation models to help
to answer questions at the level of detail you have suggested, is fraught
with difficulties and dangers. For these types of question you are almost
certainly better off analysing historical data (which might be available in
sufficient detail for the 20th Century, but isn't for other periods).
Wargames as models, I believe, can only look at much more general
uestions - is X more likely to win this major battle than Y?
[snip]
>Alan, you also wrote:
>
>[By the term model, I mean "a simplified representation or description of
>a system to assist in making calculations and predictions".]
>
>Since you have explicitly assigned a _purpose_ to the model, it stands to
>reason that the designer may have built it to some contemplated "user"
>specs. However, this does not mean that _any_ "user" would employ it in
>ways contemplated by the model's "creator" and, more importantly, that
>the "user" would want to ask precisely those "research" questions that
>the designer expects.... This is particularly the case with conflict
>simulation frameworks aimed at the civilian (hobby) sector. Once the
>postulated "user" gets his hands on the conflict simulation, well, _he_
>gets on the driver seat and all "objective" bets are off !
>
Of course. I was suggesting that wargames *might* be used as models, even
if we agree that they're poor simulations. I would be interested in
investigating the features of board wargames that help with the modelling.
What aspects enhance this feature, what detract? Particularly what actually
are we trying to model (which depends on the specific game we're looking
at).
>Finally, you wrote:
>
>[Can board wargames be considered as models, using my above definition?
>They are certainly simplified representations or descriptions, in that
>they cannot cover all elements involved in a conflict situation. I would
>argue that they are attempts to represent systems (conflict processes
>with specific inputs and outputs).]
>
>Yes, absolutely ! However, by your very postulation of "user" interests,
>a "user" may be unable to utilise wargame X just because its embedded
>model is ill-suited at assisting with certain types of predictive
>"research".
>
>By the way, I assume that you allow for both retrospective (alternative
>historical paths) and prospective (plausible future paths) prediction,
>right ?
Yes. I think the concept of Inherent Military Possibility/Plausibility is
useful here.
Camille Parisel
I think there is a kind of misunderstanding about models and
simulations :
[In my domain : computer science], A model is a description of a real
system. It may be an approximation or very accurate.
Then we use this model to perform a simulation of the real system. Upon
the simulation results and the data from the real system, you can say
how "good" is the model.
So in our case the model is the boardgame, the components and the rules.
The simulation is a game play. The results are the endgame (there can be
intermediate results). After a game you can compare the game results and
the history results and say how accurate is the model (not the
simulation).
I don't play historic wargame, but does this definition apply ?
- Camille
Patrick Carroll
express a few "gut reactions" to the preceding posts.
First, my impression (which may be dead wrong) is that what underlies this
whole line of discussion is a desire to rationalize wargaming. It's the old
notion that grownups can't stoop to "playing army," so if they play games at
all, they need a good reason for doing it--gambling, intellectual stimulation,
historical investigation, or whatever. Wargamers have this nagging suspicion
in the back of their mind that they may be just "playing army" after all; so
they start desperately grasping for proof that they're doing more than just
that. Well, I'd like to believe it too; but after many years of wargaming, I
don't. I think when you sit down to play a wargame, it's just like playing
Monopoly or any other game, except that this one happens to be elaborately
decorated in military guise.
Alan says he likes playing board wargames with other military-history buffs, so
they can experiment with different strategies. My question (and I think his
too) is: can you ever rely on your findings? If you do something in a Waterloo
game which causes the Prussians to miss linking up with their allies, and the
French end up winning the game, are you really *ever* going to believe that in
June 1815, Napoleon could have won the battle if only he had done what you did
in the game? At best, you've observed a semi-plausible causal relationship
(i.e., the best you can end up saying is that *maybe* if the French had done
such-and-such, the Prussians would've been delayed). But considering the
highly suspect commmand-control rules in a typical wargame (and the monumental
task of creating reasonable ones), you're only *guessing* that the French
*could* have done the thing historically. In the actual event, it may have
been impossible for some reason or other that's not reflected in the game.
Just speaking for myself--and admittedly more from an emotional level than an
intellectual one--I have to say that I spent many years laboring under the
delusion that wargaming was a valid way to experiment with and better
understand battles and military art/science; but in the end, when I took a
good, honest look at it, I realized I'd just been "playing army" after all.
The great, yawning gulf between the wargames I played and the military history
I read finally convinced me that recreational civilian wargames have next to
nothing to teach about war. In the case of ASL, I believe I'd gain a better
understanding of WWII tactical combat by following football on TV for a season.
How good a model of military history are wargames? I'd say such a ludicrous
and sketchy model as to be almost completely useless. Certainly unreliable.
One could do just as well (maybe better) by simply looking at battle maps and
imagining what else could have happened. At least that way, your imagination
is free of the artificial (and hazardously deceptive) rules constraints of the
game--free to focus on the real-life situation instead.
In short, I found that I could never be confident of the "predictive" results I
got from wargames. The more I played a game, the less I trusted the design as
a model; and my reading of military history always clashed markedly with the
game. In the end, I dismissed wargaming as merely a just-for-fun exercise in
historical fiction.
Alan Paull
Hi Camille, thanks for your input.
I'm familiar with this type of approach, but I haven't used the terms with
these definitions here. We're using "model" and "simulation" to mean two
different things - our model is a representation of a system to help with
making predictions, whereas our simulation is an imitation of the conditions
of a situation. So the model is in fact a separate system (with a purpose)
based on the conflict situation, while a simulation is more of an immersive
experience with a less well defined purpose.
Under these definitions, an instance of game play is one run of the model,
with all the weaknesses that one run has. So after a single game it would
be risky (to say the least) to compare game results with historical results.
As ever in this type of complex system, interpretation of the results is
difficult, and often subjective.
The Maverick
>
> Just speaking for myself--and admittedly more from an emotional level than an
> intellectual one--I have to say that I spent many years laboring under the
> delusion that wargaming was a valid way to experiment with and better
> understand battles and military art/science; but in the end, when I took a
> good, honest look at it, I realized I'd just been "playing army" after all.
> The great, yawning gulf between the wargames I played and the military history
> I read finally convinced me that recreational civilian wargames have next to
> nothing to teach about war. In the case of ASL, I believe I'd gain a better
> understanding of WWII tactical combat by following football on TV for a season.
Does anyone else see a pattern here:
Thread on ASL - Patronius writes about how wargames disillusioned him
Thread on miniatures newsgroup - Patronius writes about how wargames
disillusioned him
Thread about "wargames vs. wargaming" - Patronius writes about how
wargames disillusioned him
Thread about wargames as models - Patronius writes about how wargames
disillusioned him
Suggestion: How about just putting it in his sig file?
the Mav
P.S. Especially enjoyable in this installment of "I Patronius, My
Wargame Disillusionment" was the assertion that wargamers are
rationalizing against "playing army" followed by his rejoicing that he
has seen the light! :-)
--
Ace of Aces Collector's Guide
http://maverick.brainiac.com/aoa/index.html
Space and Fantasy Gamer's Guide
http://www.brainiac.com/micro/sfgg/index.html
Patrick Carroll
Yes, I do.
>Thread on ASL - [specifically, on how true-to-life ASL is, or how valuable as
a model of WWII tactical combat] Patronius writes about how wargames
disillusioned him [that is, how he discovered to his satisfaction that ASL is
not a very good model]
. . . and then, perhaps because he has nothing substantial to contribute, the
Mav just gripes that "Patronius" is whining.
>Thread on miniatures newsgroup - [specifically, a thread on realism in
miniatures games] Patronius writes about how wargames
>disillusioned him [that is, how he discovered, to his satisfaction, that
miniatures wargames are not realistic in the way most wargamers seem to want
them to be]
. . . and then, perhaps because he has nothing substantial to contribute, the
Mav just gripes that "Patronius" is whining.
>Thread about "wargames vs. wargaming" - [an open forum, where contributors
were invited to discuss their personal experiences with wargaming as a hobby]
Patronius writes about how
>wargames disillusioned him [at the end of a long post which also included
several comments on ways he *enjoyed* wargaming and still has fond memories of
it]
. . . and then, perhaps because he has nothing substantial to contribute, the
Mav just gripes that "Patronius" is whining.
>Thread about wargames as models - [i.e., realistic or valid representations of
historical events] Patronius writes about how wargames
>disillusioned him [i.e., how he discovered that wargames are not very
realistic or valid representations of historical events]
. . . and then, perhaps because he has nothing substantial to contribute, the
Mav just gripes that "Patronius" is whining.
>Suggestion: How about just putting it in his sig file?
Good idea. And "the Mav" can sign off with something like, "Aw, shut up,
everybody; I've heard it all before."
--Patrick
A couple domino sites I've enjoyed:
General info & links:
http://xs4all.nl/~spaanszt/Domino_Plaza.html
Windows downloads & more:
http://members.aol.com/DominoPage/
Bob Curtin
I've been trying hard to understand your conversation here, but the logic seems to be based on false premises -- starting from your definitions. First, your definition of "model:"
Let's start with a definition or two. By the term model, I mean
"a
simplified representation or description of a system to assist in making
calculations and predictions".
If a wargame is a model then the "simplified representation or description" of which you speak is not a depiction of any "system" but of reality itself. The system resides in the wargame and not in the thing in which it is attempting to model.
Let me see if I can use an analogy to illustrate what I think you mean. Take, for example, the computer models used by meteorologists. Programmers have created programs (games) based on known physical and meteoroligical data (battles) and have provided the meteorologists (players) a means to input data to predict future meteorological events (gameplay).
If this is what you mean by model, then given a painful credibility stretch, I'd say you have a point. But there is a huge difference between modelling a daily recurring set of physical phenomena and modelling a onetime battle where most of the uniqueness of the battle has to do with human interaction and blind luck. True, one can go to great pains to "model" material advantage/disadvantage, terrain features, weather, and all the rest of the stage upon which the grand show will take place, but one cannot model the psyche of the individual soldier, sergeant, colonel, or general in the battle and that, my friends, is where the wargame falls flat on it's face in any talk of "historical accuracy." All these human variables are disposed of by the roll of a di(c)e or the turn of a card, or by the futile "hard-wire" method where a designer will lock variables into the mix by triggering events with other events. As soon as one dismisses the role that the original humans had in the battle being depicted as mere data, then at that point historical accuracy ceases to exist. At that point, any reference to the term "model" becomes mere foolishness.
What you have left then, is a stage full of props. You have cardboard or lead cannon and uniforms and tanks and planes and ships and terrain features and "weather" and maybe even supplies. You have a stylized depiction of the material aspect of the battle -- the bodies, the hardware, the terrain -- but none of what the conflict was all about. All this, along with a detailed rulebook and OOB, is waiting for the players to use to do battle. Worse still is the fact that the people who are about to use these props -- the players -- have no stake in the outcome of the battle other than their bruised or massaged egos, and that there is a well defined (black & white) set of victory parameters, battlefield limitation, and timeframe, luxuries that the original participants were certainly without.
So then, what about a simulation? The Random House dictionary defines it (in our context) as:
simulation (sîm´ye-lâ´shen) noun
4. a. Imitation or representation, as of a potential situation or in
experimental testing. b. Representation of the operation or features of
one process or system through the use of another: computer simulation of
an in-flight emergency.
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third
Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version
licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution restricted
in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.)
An unplayed wargame is not a simulation, just as a bunch of guys standing around in uniforms at Gettysburg is not a re-enactment. It is in the playing of the game that the simulation takes place. But in the playing of the (board)game, the participants don't function in any kind of virtual reality but instead work within in a boardgame system of hexes, movement points, CRTs, phases, and all the rest of the trappings of consims. It is the players' imaginations filling in the virtual reality, not the boardgame. It is the Walter Mitty in us that makes us think that this pastime is more than the mere playing of a game.
So, in the crudest sense, you could call the playing of wargames simulations, but the accuracy of any resultant data would be absurdly suspect. If wargamers prefer to call wargames sims to raise their activity above that of mere game playing then so be it. But to assert that their gameplay is akin to historical research or that the playing of a wargame or "historical simulation" somehow will bring reliable historical data to the pool of human knowledge is foolishness.
That anyone would make of this exercise anything more than what it is
(the playing of a game) has always baffled me. What is this near
fanaticism in wargamers that makes them want their gameplaying activity
to rise to academic status -- to rise to the lofty heights of Shelby Foote
or William Craige. I will never be convinced that wargaming is anything
more than the playing of games which are based on war.
--
Bob Curtin
Worcester Area Strategy & Tactics Exchange
http://www.tiac.net/users/ten10ths/
"If God had intended men to join the Army he would have given us green,
baggy skin"
The Maverick
>
> Good idea. And "the Mav" can sign off with something like, "Aw, shut up,
> everybody; I've heard it all before."
Good idea.
--
"Aw, shut up, Patronius; I've heard it all before."
Neil Carr
wrote:
>Before I rush off to work this morning, I'd just like to jump in and briefly
>express a few "gut reactions" to the preceding posts.
>
>First, my impression (which may be dead wrong) is that what underlies this
>whole line of discussion is a desire to rationalize wargaming. It's the old
>notion that grownups can't stoop to "playing army," so if they play games at
>all, they need a good reason for doing it--gambling, intellectual stimulation,
>historical investigation, or whatever. Wargamers have this nagging suspicion
>in the back of their mind that they may be just "playing army" after all; so
>they start desperately grasping for proof that they're doing more than just
>that. Well, I'd like to believe it too; but after many years of wargaming, I
>don't. I think when you sit down to play a wargame, it's just like playing
>Monopoly or any other game, except that this one happens to be elaborately
>decorated in military guise.
This is the only reason you'll ever find me playing wargames. I don't
play them for any other reason than that I want a game about armies
clashing and smashing each other apart. I admit that I'm not much of
a wargamer, unless you consider the beer and pretzel level of detail
wargames. It's only been with some of the later systems like the card
driven systems of WtP, Hannibal, PoG and the block system from
Columbia that I would bother with the genre because before that there
was just too much fiddly detail.
I can see how others might focus on history, intellectual pursuit, or
some other detail obsession but I could never get motivated by those
angles. The level of detail I'm interested in would allow for a basic
level of decision making that would at least vaguely correspond to
what a general might have to deal with, but I don't want that to
outstrip a nice flowing game. The Gamemaster games, Supremacy, etc.
all do that for me. PoG and the East Front add a little more detail
that at least make me be able to imagine I'm a military leader pulling
his hair out trying to get his armies to perform well.
The way I see it any game (differed from gambling) is just like
sports, drama, comedy, etc. All of them are expressive human pursuits
founded upon some form of conflict. No matter what game, sport,
theater or whatever you participate in it requires the participants to
be induced with some kind of conflict, otherwise it would be boring.
Do or die, to be or not to be that is the question. People play
because they just recreate this tension over and over again.
I guess because I approach things from an imaginative orientation I
just can't stand abstract games. Where many people complain that the
game systems aren't accuratley real so why bother and just play
abstracts, I'm of the feeling that why bother playing abstracts when
they don't have enough crome on them to make you think you are playing
war.
In our group there is another gamer who likes SFB but for the complete
opposite reasons. He likes the tournament rules because he sees a
game with an interesting system that can be abstracted to a point
where he can play around in the system and see what it does. I
however like SFB because I like being a Federation Captain blowing
apart Klingon cruisers, and I think the impulse system lends itself
well to making me imagine that I'm in fact fighting a capital ship
space battle.
Neil Carr
Dallas MetroGamers
http://www.earthsea.com/metrogamers/
Alan Paull
<19991029083745...@ng-fw1.aol.com>...
>First, my impression (which may be dead wrong) is that what underlies this
>whole line of discussion is a desire to rationalize wargaming. It's the
old
>notion that grownups can't stoop to "playing army," so if they play games
at
>all, they need a good reason for doing it--gambling, intellectual
stimulation,
>historical investigation, or whatever.
There are plenty of good reasons, some of which you've listed. I don't
agree with your implication that playing "serious" games is somehow
childish.
I don't try to "rationalize" wargaming in the sense that you suggest - I'm
not that insecure! What I'm trying to do here is to challenge the notion
that wargames are totally unhelpful to the serious study of war. In a sense
I'm trying to discover whether there is merit in using wargames
(particularly board wargames, which have some advantages over other genres)
as models of conflict situations. Some may be suitable, some may not, and I
think it's quite likely that we would have to develop a specific version of
a game to get to a workable model for this purpose - but that's jumping
ahead.
>Wargamers have this nagging suspicion
>in the back of their mind that they may be just "playing army" after all;
so
>they start desperately grasping for proof that they're doing more than just
>that. Well, I'd like to believe it too; but after many years of wargaming,
I
>don't. I think when you sit down to play a wargame, it's just like playing
>Monopoly or any other game, except that this one happens to be elaborately
>decorated in military guise.
>
There are several genres of wargame which are certainly not just "playing
army" and are used as training aids in military establishments the world
over. The perpetrators tend to use more gradiose terms, like "conflict
simulation" or "map exercise", but they're wargames just the same - and
they do have useful outcomes. If you get a chance to participate in one,
try it, it can be extremely revealing.
>Alan says he likes playing board wargames with other military-history
buffs, so
>they can experiment with different strategies. My question (and I think
his
>too) is: can you ever rely on your findings? If you do something in a
Waterloo
>game which causes the Prussians to miss linking up with their allies, and
the
>French end up winning the game, are you really *ever* going to believe that
in
>June 1815, Napoleon could have won the battle if only he had done what you
did
>in the game? At best, you've observed a semi-plausible causal relationship
>(i.e., the best you can end up saying is that *maybe* if the French had
done
>such-and-such, the Prussians would've been delayed). But considering the
>highly suspect commmand-control rules in a typical wargame (and the
monumental
>task of creating reasonable ones), you're only *guessing* that the French
>*could* have done the thing historically. In the actual event, it may have
>been impossible for some reason or other that's not reflected in the game.
>
I don't think the *typical* wargame is going to be a good model for the
purpose I have outlined. I think we need to look at specific elements of
the good models, so that we can make a judgement about the development of
better models. You have pinpointed a key weakness, in command-control. I
would add another key weakness in the typical game, namely logistics.
However, are there good examples out there that could be used in place of
the crappy ones that we all know (and love:-) ).
>Just speaking for myself--and admittedly more from an emotional level than
an
>intellectual one--I have to say that I spent many years laboring under the
>delusion that wargaming was a valid way to experiment with and better
>understand battles and military art/science; but in the end, when I took a
>good, honest look at it, I realized I'd just been "playing army" after all.
Try reading de Jomini (if you haven't already) - I'm sure he would have
appreciated the idea of wargames as models! Don't you think that some of
the principles of the operational art of war could be learned on the table
top? Or do you think that the Prussian General Staff's use of kriegspiel
was just "playing army"?
>The great, yawning gulf between the wargames I played and the military
history
>I read finally convinced me that recreational civilian wargames have next
to
>nothing to teach about war. In the case of ASL, I believe I'd gain a
better
>understanding of WWII tactical combat by following football on TV for a
season.
>
I really think that ASL is an unfortunate and all-to-common example. I
would agree that *tactical* wargames have little to teach, unless the
players play with live ammo :-) But what of strategic wargames?
>How good a model of military history are wargames? I'd say such a
ludicrous
>and sketchy model as to be almost completely useless. Certainly
unreliable.
>One could do just as well (maybe better) by simply looking at battle maps
and
>imagining what else could have happened. At least that way, your
imagination
>is free of the artificial (and hazardously deceptive) rules constraints of
the
>game--free to focus on the real-life situation instead.
>
You can't have a "model of military history". That's far too vague, has no
inputs and no outputs. I would have to say that you *can* have a model of a
conflict situation, and it might well be a wargame.
Simply looking at battle maps does not capture the essence of a strategic
situation, which involves force deployment, logistics, command-control, etc
etc. If your imagination is free of the rules constraints, how does that
help? Surely you need a way to model the constraints of the situation.
Imagination is not a good guide to real-life situations. "Rules
constraints" within models are vitally important to real-life military
planning; and the only way to validate the model is to run it, which is what
happens in military planning.
Perhaps we are arguing here about the civilian vs professional type of
wargaming. I would agree that typical civilian commercial games are not
good models, especially for tactical purposes. But there may be good
strategic examples - and perhaps they can be made better for the
predictive purpose of modelling.
>In short, I found that I could never be confident of the "predictive"
results I
>got from wargames. The more I played a game, the less I trusted the design
as
>a model; and my reading of military history always clashed markedly with
the
>game. In the end, I dismissed wargaming as merely a just-for-fun exercise
in
>historical fiction.
>
>
Perhaps you haven't found the right type of wargaming, Patrick, if your aim
was to do it as more than a just-for-fun exercise. Personally I find both
approaches fun.
Patrick Carroll
was this morning. . . .
The question, IIRC, was: Can wargames be useful (though imperfect) models of
battle (or other kinds of military engagements)?
Well, they can almost certainly be models of battle. I wouldn't want to
dispute that point. In any military engagement, two opposing forces are
clashing, and each side is trying to "win" at the other's expense. The
specific objective(s) are often debatable and difficult to translate into game
terms; but in a broad sense, at least, we can say that a battle is a contest
which will result in a win, loss, or draw. Games and battles have that much in
common. And I think that's enough for us to be able to agree that yes,
wargames can be models of battle.
But can they be *useful* models? As Panos said in an earlier post, that
depends on what the players intend to use them for. If they're doing what I
originally set out to do--using them as a means of fully understanding how
battles work--it's hopeless. As Alan said to Panos, the best wargames can hope
to do is show broad, general things, such as who wins or loses.
I would argue that even the most general things are still suspect. What,
specifically, constituted the Anglo-Allied victory at Waterloo? Well, the
French army retreated from the field. So, can we say that the side that leaves
the field first loses? That does seem like a roughly good rule of thumb
(though it fails to account for Fabian tactics, battles of attrition, Pyrrhic
victories, etc.). But now we have to deal with the question What causes an
army to leave the field?
At Waterloo, Napoleon (and his army) abandoned hope of forcing the enemy to
leave the field first; so they themselves left. But what was it that prompted
that loss of heart? The arrival of the Prussians? The failure of the Old
Guard to break the enemy line? Or some complex of events and reactions that
historians will be debating forevermore?
And if we can't be sure what causes an army to abandon the field, we have to
make educated guesses and identify the factors that will be important in our
wargame/model of the battle. We might notice that a unit often loses heart
when it's outflanked, for instance, and therefore write "outflanking" rules for
our game. But we also notice that units with strong commanders tend to hold
their ground longer under trying conditions; so we introduce a "command
presence" rule too. Now we have to decide how much weight to give
"outflanking" vs "command presence"; and at this point, even if we've done a
lot of reading, we may just have to take a guess.
That process of making more or less arbitrary design decisions based on
educated guesses continues throughout all the subsystems and mechanics of the
game. So, what can the final result possibly be? At best, a weakly plausible
model of battle.
And how useful is that? As a form of entertainment, it might be *very* useful.
A wargame can be a rip-roaring pastime for those who are into it. But at the
other extreme, I'd say it's almost worthless as a serious model for historical
analysis. There's too much guesswork and "fuzzy logic"; and then all of that
has been converted into an artificial game form.
I won't say that wargames have absolutely zero use beyond entertainment. They
do usually demonstrate terrain effects, unit positions and movement rates, and
a few other superficial factors. If the mapboard and order-of-battle are done
well, players do get to see what the battlefield looked like and where the
opposing armies started out. That's something at least. But the moment the
game gets under way, all the game mechanics and subsystems kick in, and players
are dealing with a pretty wild "what if" scenario. The longer the game goes
on, the further the situation deviates from what happened historically--so it
becomes iffier all the time, making the end result less and less credible.
So, if you're setting out to test who would've won the battle of Waterloo had a
certain strategy been followed, by the time you get to the end of the game the
very best you can say is, "Well, *if* this game-design is anything like the
actual battle, and *if* all the decisions we made along the way corresponded to
decisions that could really have been made in June 1815, then it *appears* that
this strategy would *likely* have succeeded/failed." To me, that's too weak to
be worth considering.
One test of the game design that's often suggested is to play out the
*historical* moves and see if the historical result is achieved. I see three
main problems with that: (1) historical records are usually insufficient to
guide players to duplicating every historical move of every unit; (2) the
combat mechanics of the game are usually so stylized as to be very difficult to
compare to historical combat results as reported (presuming that the results
were reported accurately in the first place); and (3) even if you managed
somehow to perform this test, it still wouldn't prove that the wargame/model is
capable of demonstrating other *actually possible* historical outcomes (in
fact, we don't know for sure if there *were* any other outcomes possible
historically, though we usually presume there were).
For the reasons sketched out above, I myself have decided that recreational
civilian wargames are not useful for much besides entertainment. They don't
model historical battles well enough to correspond (except in the most
superficial way) with what I read in history books. And for that reason, I've
decided that my time can be better spent reading the books and just *imagining*
what else might possibly have happened. I think that if I just give my
imagination free rein, after doing some extensive reading and map studying,
I'll end up with a much better handle on the historical situation than I'd ever
be able to get from any existing wargame.
Just my two cents' worth.
Patrick Carroll
>Where many people complain that the
>game systems aren't accuratley real so why bother and just play
>abstracts, I'm of the feeling that why bother playing abstracts when
>they don't have enough crome on them to make you think you are playing
>war.
That's certainly a valid & understandable point of view.
My answer (just expressing another point of view, not meaning to argue) would
be: if I'm going to play a "serious" game (one that's so complex you have to
work at learning & playing it), I want to study and practice and get good at
it, and uncover all its mysteries and nuances. It's easier to do that in an
abstract game, because it's uncluttered with "chrome." Furthermore, there's an
extensive body of literature available on some abstract games (e.g., chess and
bridge), and that can be a big help in guiding me to mastery of the game.
As to the experience of "playing at war," I do that sometimes too--but only if
I can do it within an hour or so, without having work at it. Nowadays, that
means computer games. I like loading up a cool PC game and just playing around
with it for the imaginative fun.
But if I'm going to take a game seriously, it's going to be a game like chess
or bridge--a game that seems worth working at and trying to master.
I also think military history is something worth working at. And *if* wargames
were better as educational devices, I might be able to regard them as
instructive models of military art/science/history. But they're not, so I
can't.
Patrick Carroll
>agree with your implication that playing "serious" games is somehow
>childish.
I don't recall implying that. On the contrary, I think playing a serious game
like chess or bridge is very "adult."
>What I'm trying to do here is to challenge the notion
>that wargames are totally unhelpful to the serious study of war.
As I said in another post (one that I just posted before I read your reply), I
wouldn't say they're "totally unhelpful." But I'd say recreational civilian
wargames are *almost* totally unhelpful--and often misleading.
>There are several genres of wargame which are certainly not just "playing
>army" and are used as training aids in military establishments the world
>over.
Sure. And those may work and be quite useful. But I don't see that kind of
wargame becoming a popular hobby, or even a common tool for the amateur
military historian. I thought we were just discussing actual, published
wargames here.
>I don't think the *typical* wargame is going to be a good model for the
>purpose I have outlined. . . .
Do you think a wargame that's useful & reliable for the amateur military
historian could also be fun enough to appeal to the casual wargamer? Or would
most wargamers find it so dry or difficult as to be boring or unplayable?
>Simply looking at battle maps does not capture the essence of a strategic
>situation, which involves force deployment, logistics, command-control, etc
>etc. If your imagination is free of the rules constraints, how does that
>help?
By enabling me to recall the actual, real-life constraints that I've
encountered in my extensive reading. Instead of being limited to the specific
(and artificial, and quite possibly false and misleading) constraints of the
game rules, my imagination can travel back through various books I've read,
documentaries I've seen, and so forth.
Of course, those things might also be false or misleading. But it still
strikes me as more reliable than strait-jacketing my imagination into a
particular model (wargame).
>Surely you need a way to model the constraints of the situation.
>Imagination is not a good guide to real-life situations.
What other guide do we have available? Any model we create comes from
accumulating data in our mind, organizing it in a way our imagination tells us
reflects "how it really works," and devising ways to present it.
Imagination creates models/wargames in the first place. Giving our imagination
a free rein just keeps us detached from taking any model/wargame more seriously
than is reasonable.
>Perhaps we are arguing here about the civilian vs professional type of
>wargaming. I would agree that typical civilian commercial games are not
>good models. . . .
Good. Then we agree.
--Patrick
Richard Heli
> I was about to call it quits here..... However, since you have taken the
> brave step to start a thread under the [CONCEPTUAL] banner, well, I do
> not want to commit.... high treason ! <g> So, here I am.
Damn!
;)
Kevin J. Maroney
>It's only been with some of the later systems like the card
>driven systems of WtP, Hannibal, PoG and the block system from
>Columbia that I would bother with the genre because before that there
>was just too much fiddly detail.
As a point of record, the "block system" from Columbia is not a recent
creation; it dates back to the early 1970s.
--
Kevin J. Maroney | Crossover Technologies | kmar...@crossover.com
Games are my entire waking life.
Alan Paull
>Gentlemen,
>
>I've been trying hard to understand your conversation here, but the logic
seems
>to be based on false premises -- starting from your definitions. First,
your
>definition of "model:"
>
>Let's start with a definition or two. By the term model, I mean "a
>simplified representation or description of a system to assist in making
>calculations and predictions".
>
>If a wargame is a model then the "simplified representation or description"
of
>which you speak is not a depiction of any "system" but of reality itself.
The
>system resides in the wargame and not in the thing in which it is
attempting to
>model.
>
I would not be foolish enough to attempt to argue that we are modelling
reality! However, you are right, I ought to define the system that the
model is attempting to represent.
I am using a generic system definition here, not one specifically derived
from computer science or any other discipline. A military conflict
situation can be considered as a system whose PURPOSE is to resolve that
conflict. It involves INPUTS of military forces, supplies, etc, and OUTPUTS
of casualties, destruction of property and the movement of those forces,
which can be interpreted in terms of success or failure for one side or the
other. The overall DECISION-MAKING SUB-SYSTEMS of the system reside in the
command organisations of each opposing side. The PROCESSES consist of the
deployment of forces, the use of supplies, etc, as well as any actual
fighting. Each side has its own PERFORMANCE-MONITORING SUB-SYSTEMS,
consisting of higher commands who hire and fire, troop training systems,
etc. FEEDBACK is obtained through reports from appointed officials (usually
components of the command sub-systems). The system exists within an
ENVIRONMENT, which includes physical variables (weather, terrain, etc),
political variables (those political systems controlling the military),
cultural variables, etc.
The military conflict system I have described above is not reality. I would
choose to include within the system under consideration only those aspects
which I believe to be important and significant to the military conflict
that I was modelling. Other things I would choose to leave out. Once we
have decided on the system under consideration, we can then build a model of
it. Of course, the assessment of the model might lead to a questioning of
these assumptions, and therefore to changes in the model. And furthermore
we can make amendments to the systemic view that we are taking, if we judge
that other elements are important.
For instance if we were to model the Waterloo campaign by constructing a
wargame, we might well consider it unnecessary to include in the model the
political situation in Paris, even though that was critical to Napoleon's
activities during the Hundred Days. That choice does have a direct bearing
on the military situation, because Napoleon judged it necessary to leave
Davout in Paris, rather than to give him an operational role at the front.
In this case I have elected to define my system boundaries fairly tightly,
so that command appointments are external to the system, and so are not
included in the model.
>Let me see if I can use an analogy to illustrate what I think you mean.
Take,
>for example, the computer models used by meteorologists. Programmers have
>created programs (games) based on known physical and meteoroligical data
>(battles) and have provided the meteorologists (players) a means to input
data
>to predict future meteorological events (gameplay).
>
>If this is what you mean by model, then given a painful credibility
stretch, I'd
>say you have a point. But there is a huge difference between modelling a
daily
>recurring set of physical phenomena and modelling a onetime battle where
most of
>the uniqueness of the battle has to do with human interaction and blind
luck.
I agree, but I would contend that there *is* sufficient evidence to be able
to spot patterns, to see causes and effects, in a word to *analyse* the
situation. Battles are unique events, but that is not the same as saying
that there are no similarities between them and no evidence, so you can't
model them. On the other hand, as I have pointed out elsewhere in this
thread, modelling battles comes with its own difficulties, owing to the key
interplay of extreme human emotions, so I would prefer to restrict this
modelling discussion to the strategical level.
>True, one can go to great pains to "model" material advantage/disadvantage,
>terrain features, weather, and all the rest of the stage upon which the
grand
>show will take place, but one cannot model the psyche of the individual
soldier,
>sergeant, colonel, or general in the battle and that, my friends, is where
the
>wargame falls flat on it's face in any talk of "historical accuracy." All
these
>human variables are disposed of by the roll of a di(c)e or the turn of a
card,
>or by the futile "hard-wire" method where a designer will lock variables
into
>the mix by triggering events with other events. As soon as one dismisses
the
>role that the original humans had in the battle being depicted as mere
data,
>then at that point historical accuracy ceases to exist. At that point, any
>reference to the term "model" becomes mere foolishness.
>
Although I agree that one cannot really model the psyche of the individual
soldier, I can't agree with your argument that follows this statement. Much
as I hate to say it, extensive American analysis of the WWII campaign in
Italy has shown that it *is* possible to include human behaviour on the
battlefield within a model and to get meaningful predictive results.
Admittedly they did not determine the influence of human behaviour directly,
only indirectly by factoring in as many other elements as they could think
of, but there does exist a viable model (the Quantified Judgement Model),
which can be applied to this particular theatre and will give reasonably
consistent and reliable results, for instance for the effect of surprise. I
t has also been applied to Arab-Israeli conflicts where some people have
claimed that it has also given reasonably consistent and reliable results.
I'm not prepared to defend this particular model, because I believe it has
only very limited usefulness - it relies on very extensive data, which is
applicable only to the theatres that have been studied. However it has been
shown that it can be done. I would say that it should be much easier to
model at a strategic level, because there should be less critical elements
at work, and at high command level, fewer human interactions. The human
interactions on the battlefield itself can to some extent be averaged out,
on the basis of historical research.
The fact that the role of humans is depicted as "mere data" does not
invalidate any historical accuracy. "Mere data" is all that historians (or
modellers) have to go on.
[snip final para re models]
[snip section on simulation]
I entirely agree that wargames are not simulations. This argument has been
rehearsed often. That's why I've concentrated on whether some wargames can
be considered as good models, rather than as simulations.
As an aside, I would also mention that this whole issue is not a burning
one! I enjoy wargames primarily as games not as models. I just wonder if
there's any mileage in this whole concept .......... , so I'm interested in
any counter-arguments.
Alan Paull
>OK, let's see if I can be a little more objective during my lunch hour than
I
>was this morning. . . .
>
>The question, IIRC, was: Can wargames be useful (though imperfect) models
of
>battle (or other kinds of military engagements)?
>
>Well, they can almost certainly be models of battle. I wouldn't want to
>dispute that point. In any military engagement, two opposing forces are
>clashing, and each side is trying to "win" at the other's expense. The
>specific objective(s) are often debatable and difficult to translate into
game
>terms; but in a broad sense, at least, we can say that a battle is a
contest
>which will result in a win, loss, or draw. Games and battles have that
much in
>common. And I think that's enough for us to be able to agree that yes,
>wargames can be models of battle.
>
Interesting. I have said elsewhere that models of battles are probably the
most difficult to construct and least useful ones of all military conflict
models.
>But can they be *useful* models? As Panos said in an earlier post, that
>depends on what the players intend to use them for. If they're doing what
I
>originally set out to do--using them as a means of fully understanding how
>battles work--it's hopeless. As Alan said to Panos, the best wargames can
hope
>to do is show broad, general things, such as who wins or loses.
>
I'm certainly not proposing wargames as a means of fully understanding how
battles work; no-one can do that. But we could hope to take an existing
model (game) and add or subtract or modify it to make it into a better
model, which might be useful. And even existing games can do a bit better
than just who wins or loses.
For instance it is noticeable that in most games of the Waterloo campaign,
the French have better than average chances of winning the campaign. It is
also generally accepted by historians (and was by the protagonists at the
time) that the French probably should have won the campaign. These two
pieces of information are not unrelated - some of these games are reasonable
models of at least some aspects of the campaign. It is also interesting to
note that more respected "map exercise" games (i.e. non-board wargames,
involving umpires and historical experts), which are less reliant on the
flaws of the board game genre also tend towards the same conclusion.
>I would argue that even the most general things are still suspect. What,
>specifically, constituted the Anglo-Allied victory at Waterloo? Well, the
>French army retreated from the field. So, can we say that the side that
leaves
>the field first loses? That does seem like a roughly good rule of thumb
>(though it fails to account for Fabian tactics, battles of attrition,
Pyrrhic
>victories, etc.). But now we have to deal with the question What causes an
>army to leave the field?
>
These are very Tolstoy-style comments, Patrick. It is quite easy to narrate
the circumstances of the defeat of the French army at Waterloo, and
therefore to explain why the French were defeated.
>At Waterloo, Napoleon (and his army) abandoned hope of forcing the enemy to
>leave the field first; so they themselves left. But what was it that
prompted
>that loss of heart? The arrival of the Prussians? The failure of the Old
>Guard to break the enemy line? Or some complex of events and reactions
that
>historians will be debating forevermore?
>
I hope you are not going to suggest that there is controversy here. If so,
please refer particularly to John Keegan's "The Face of Battle". The
retreat of the French at Waterloo was certainly not inexplicable.
>And if we can't be sure what causes an army to abandon the field, we have
to
>make educated guesses and identify the factors that will be important in
our
>wargame/model of the battle. We might notice that a unit often loses heart
>when it's outflanked, for instance, and therefore write "outflanking" rules
for
>our game. But we also notice that units with strong commanders tend to
hold
>their ground longer under trying conditions; so we introduce a "command
>presence" rule too. Now we have to decide how much weight to give
>"outflanking" vs "command presence"; and at this point, even if we've done
a
>lot of reading, we may just have to take a guess.
>
"educated guesses"
"identify the factors that will be important"
These are bits of your argument that I would expand upon, not use as a
reason to ditch the argument. Your conclusion logically should not be the
we just have to take a guess, because, as you have already mentioned, we
have identified some evidence (and can even sometimes get hard quantitative
data to back it up).
>That process of making more or less arbitrary design decisions based on
>educated guesses continues throughout all the subsystems and mechanics of
the
>game. So, what can the final result possibly be? At best, a weakly
plausible
>model of battle.
>
I disagree that we are making arbitrary design decisions (at least I would
hope not to, lest I end up with an entirely incredible product). Our
educated guesses can be based on evidence.
[snip]
>So, if you're setting out to test who would've won the battle of Waterloo
had a
>certain strategy been followed, by the time you get to the end of the game
the
>very best you can say is, "Well, *if* this game-design is anything like the
>actual battle, and *if* all the decisions we made along the way
corresponded to
>decisions that could really have been made in June 1815, then it *appears*
that
>this strategy would *likely* have succeeded/failed." To me, that's too
weak to
>be worth considering.
>
Your ifs and buts may well be capable of assessment. My central question
remains "Is it possible to take a board wargame, tweak it a bit, and have a
decent predictive model?" Your argument has not yet convinced me that it's
not possible - you have stressed that an existing commercial game is
probably not a worthy model, which I would tend to agree with, but do we
throw the whole concept out?
>One test of the game design that's often suggested is to play out the
>*historical* moves and see if the historical result is achieved. I see
three
>main problems with that: (1) historical records are usually insufficient
to
>guide players to duplicating every historical move of every unit; (2) the
>combat mechanics of the game are usually so stylized as to be very
difficult to
>compare to historical combat results as reported (presuming that the
results
>were reported accurately in the first place); and (3) even if you managed
>somehow to perform this test, it still wouldn't prove that the
wargame/model is
>capable of demonstrating other *actually possible* historical outcomes (in
>fact, we don't know for sure if there *were* any other outcomes possible
>historically, though we usually presume there were).
>
I agree. It's very difficult to validate the model in this way. It's
better to validate it using a variety of similar historical circumstances
and see if it works there.
>For the reasons sketched out above, I myself have decided that recreational
>civilian wargames are not useful for much besides entertainment. They
don't
>model historical battles well enough to correspond (except in the most
>superficial way) with what I read in history books. And for that reason,
I've
>decided that my time can be better spent reading the books and just
*imagining*
>what else might possibly have happened. I think that if I just give my
>imagination free rein, after doing some extensive reading and map studying,
>I'll end up with a much better handle on the historical situation than I'd
ever
>be able to get from any existing wargame.
>
>Just my two cents' worth.
Fair enough.
Patrick Carroll
>I'm certainly not proposing wargames as a means of fully understanding how
>battles work; no-one can do that. But we could hope to take an existing
>model (game) and add or subtract or modify it to make it into a better
>model, which might be useful.
Oh, I'm sure that's true. And little by little, it seems to have happened over
the history of board wargaming (and wargaming in general, for that matter). I
certainly appreciated each such improvement I saw come along. And I could even
forgive SPI for being so darned innovative that for a while it seemed every new
design just *had* to be different than anything that had come before--because
such innovation might lead to further improvements.
But the question is, how far can such improvement go, and what happens in the
end? Some designers have bent over backward to produce thoroughly researched
and highly accurate "models," only to find that the game was rejected by
publishers or by the masses of wargamers. Gettysburg '77 is pretty clearly a
better model than the most recent (Smithsonian) Gettysburg--but even Civil War
buffs like me shied away from the advanced game of G-burg '77.
Among computer wargames, Harpoon gets kudos for realism & accuracy; but it's
shunned by most players for being too difficult and not enough fun.
There seems to be some competing interests among wargamers. A handful want
wargames that can serve as good models of battles or campaigns, but most seem
to prefer fluid, exciting, detailed wargames--even if they stray decidedly away
from history and into fiction or fantasy.
Then there are military think-tanks, where accurate, effective models are
highly prized. But those are mainly for work, not play.
My interests that relate to wargames are twofold: (1) mental exercise (problem
solving), and (2) military history. Most any classic game (e.g., chess,
bridge, etc.) provides me with plenty of mental exercise. But no commercial
wargame I know of is reliable enough to satisfy my interest in military
history. So, since wargames stray too much into the realm of historical
fiction for my taste, I don't bother with them unless I can do so quickly &
easily (e.g., by playing a small Panzer General scenario or something).
>I hope you are not going to suggest that there is controversy here. If so,
>please refer particularly to John Keegan's "The Face of Battle". The
>retreat of the French at Waterloo was certainly not inexplicable.
Read it. And I still say there's controversy. Nobody, including Keegan, has
fully explained the how & why of the French defeat at Waterloo--or any other
historical event, for that matter.
>"educated guesses"
>"identify the factors that will be important"
>These are bits of your argument that I would expand upon, not use as a
>reason to ditch the argument.
OK--if that's what you want to do. But as I suggested above, I think the end
result of that is a wargame that won't appeal to many wargamers--and probably
*still* won't be satisfactory to amateur military historians either.
Christian Killoran
Bob Curtin <ten1...@tiac.net> wrote in message news:3819BE51...@tiac.net...<much snipped>
That anyone would make of this exercise anything more than what it is (the playing of a game) has always baffled me. What is this near fanaticism in wargamers that makes them want their gameplaying activity to rise to academic status -- to rise to the lofty heights of Shelby Foote or William Craige. I will never be convinced that wargaming is anything more than the playing of games which are based on war.
Since you will never be convinced, I certainly won't try to persuade you otherwise. The question that keeps coming to my mind, however, is why have so many successful armed services in the last century used "wargames" as a learning tool and a predictive device?
Even during the conduct of a global war, Admiral Yamamoto (who presumably had other important things to do) of the Imperial Japanese Navy felt it was worthwhile to "wargame" his proposed invasion of Midway in 1942. Those of you reading this thread know the results...the point here has nothing to do with the results of that "game" nor the outcome of the ensuing engagement, but the fact that a professional warrior understood that "playing army" was worthwhile as a predictive device. Even today, the US armed services make extensive use of "wargames" as a tool for officer training.
So for my own part, when evaluating the value of wargames, I'll just have to consider the source of the various arguments. That is, professional soldiers vs. disillusioned gamers.
P. Stoucas
It is good to see you here in this thread, the first one to be launched
under the [CONCEPTUAL] banner ! <g>
Right at the outset, Alan has limited the scope of this thread to a
hypothetical interested party that would want to utilise some beefed up
board wargame framework to engage in calculation and prediction. Thus,
all other potential wargaming interests have been theoretically
suppressed in the interest of sharply focussing our thoughts. All this
notwithstanding, Neil (Carr), Bob (Curtin) and you have mentioned other
strategy gaming and immersive interests that can be at play in wargaming.
As we all appreciate, wargaming interests will be our "bread and butter"
here at the [CONCEPTUAL] corner. To this effect, I will invite everyone
to take some time and kindly point their Internet browsers to:
http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/zones/strategy/covarc/feb99/ca.html
http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/zones/strategy/covarc/apr99/ca2.html
This is a most interesting two-part article by Bruce Geryk entitled "Why
We Play Wargames" (Games Domain Review). Here is a very tantalising
morsel from it:
[In any case, a wargame that is not based on the best research is not
necessarily a bad game. So-called "beer-and-pretzels" games may be good
games, but, and this is the key to the whole discussion in my mind, they
do not make believable vehicles for imaginative transport. This is why
hardcore gamers disdain them. Hardcore gamers are the ones with the most
"detail-intensive" imaginations. They are quite different from, say,
role-playing gamers, who connect to abstract impressions and flesh them
out themselves. Hardcore gamers need to connect to specific historical
details. If these details are missing (or worse, they are wrong) then the
hardcore gamer's imaginative experience is significantly diminished.
There is an interesting connection here between historical detail and the
"imagined" detail required in "hard" science-fiction games, but once
again I'm straying. And once again the territory is interesting. Another
potential column.]
Please note that I would substitute Bruce's term "hardcore gamer" with
"historical simulationist and occasional gamer".... <g> Also, it is quite
interesting to discern who "we" are according to Bruce.
Patrick, please notice that Bruce's choice for a title was ""Why We Play
Wargames". Now, as a long term goal, I would be delighted if we would get
to a point around here where we could discuss things as if the following
topics have been tossed at us from, well, god knows where:
Why do "we" buy or obtain wargames ?
Why do "we" tinker with our wargames ?
Why do "we" study our wargames ?
Why do "we" play our wargames ?
Why do "we" abandon our wargames ?
For a thread that has been around for about 24 hours we are not doing too
bad at all. Already, we have material around to discuss for a... year. I
am not _really_ ready to suggest that we move over to talk.consimworld.com
lock, stock and barrel yet ! <g> <g>
Bob Curtin
There's a very simple answer to this question. The type of "game" systems used were/are vastly different and more complex than commercial games, especially in the last half of this century when computers took the place of sandboxes. The two cannot be compared. (And as I said in a previous post, the level of accuracy drops dramatically the further down the ladder of rank you go, from strategic to tactical exercises.) Also, there were no attempts to recreate an historical battle, but rather to test the feasibility of a particular strategy based on current intelligence, or to test the abilities of the trainees to think on their feet. Yamamoto certainly didn't tell his opponents what his objectives were, how much material was involved, when and if reinforcements were to be expected, and when the attack was going to start.
The Germans' use of (board/sandbox) wargames was not so much to train officers in particular tactics or strategies but to train officers to think quickly and improvise in fast-moving situations. Any theory resulting from wargame data was tested in real-world battlefield games.
Christian Killoran wrote:
e. The question that keeps coming to my mind, however, is why have so many successful armed services in the last century used "wargames" as a learning tool and a predictive device?
--
P. Stoucas
You wrote:
[You are too kind. It's a muddled series of statements that fails to
clarify what Mr Dunnigan means by the terms he uses. I don't have this
book, but perhaps it has better pieces elsewhere? A quick interpretation
of this extract leads me to think that Mr Dunnigan (for whom I have the
greatest respect as a game designer) has had contact with academics (or
other professionals) in this area, so has picked up some of the
terminology, but does not have sufficient understanding or experience of
the academic area to carry forward his argument. I should also point out
quickly, that in my view this understanding or experience is NOT
important for game design, not even for military wargame design.]
Luckily, J.F. Dunnigan's "The Complete Wargames Handbook" is on-line at:
http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents.htm
Irrespective of my views regarding the contents of this book, I am of the
opinion that the [CONCEPTUAL] corner cannot ignore its existence and
impact. First off, many "historical wargamers" consider this book as
their "bible". Furthermore, quite a few "grognards" dogmatically repeat
simplified versions of the contents of certain of its passages while
conveniently ignoring others.... It is only a matter of time before the
[CONCEPTUAL] corner gets visited by one or more "Dunnigan historical
wargamers" or, even, "Dunnigan grognards". From past experience, I have
come to the conclusion that the only way for one to have a chance at
effectively communicating with such gentlemen is to be able to quote
their "intellectual progenitor" ! <g> The second reason why J. Dunnigan's
book could be important to us around here is as an issues agenda. Its
author has done a very good job at touching upon the many and diverse
areas and issues in (historical) wargaming. Therefore, we stand to gain
by becoming somewhat familiar with this book's contents.
Alan Paull
>http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/zones/strategy/covarc/feb99/ca.html
>http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/zones/strategy/covarc/apr99/ca2.html
>
Thank you for these links, Panos. Most enlightening, if inconclusive.
Bruce is careful to make it clear that there is no invalid approach to
wargaming - he states that historical accuracy (and a particular *level* of
accuracy) is important to some gamers, while others couldn't care less and
just want a good playable game. These are important statements, and they
relate the "wargames as models" concepts to the *purpose* of playing.
I play wargames basically because it's an enjoyable pastime with a
connection to military history. I tend towards the grognard school, because
it helps my suspension of disbelief if the game is as historically accurate
as possible. For instance, I have no great problem playing a historical
scenario in which it's pretty obvious that one side's going to lose. Many
WEG Tank Leader scenarios spring to mind - there is still something
satisfying about a "forlorn hope" attack that you have to do, because that's
your orders, especially when you can at least *pretend* that you've done
better than your historical counterparts.
>For a thread that has been around for about 24 hours we are not doing too
>bad at all. Already, we have material around to discuss for a... year. I
>am not _really_ ready to suggest that we move over to talk.consimworld.com
>lock, stock and barrel yet ! <g> <g>
>
I wonder, however, whether this *particular* topic will advance further?
Alan Paull
>Luckily, J.F. Dunnigan's "The Complete Wargames Handbook" is on-line at:
>
>http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents.htm
>
>Irrespective of my views regarding the contents of this book, I am of the
>opinion that the [CONCEPTUAL] corner cannot ignore its existence and
>impact. First off, many "historical wargamers" consider this book as
>their "bible". Furthermore, quite a few "grognards" dogmatically repeat
>simplified versions of the contents of certain of its passages while
>conveniently ignoring others.... It is only a matter of time before the
>[CONCEPTUAL] corner gets visited by one or more "Dunnigan historical
>wargamers" or, even, "Dunnigan grognards". From past experience, I have
>come to the conclusion that the only way for one to have a chance at
>effectively communicating with such gentlemen is to be able to quote
>their "intellectual progenitor" ! <g> The second reason why J. Dunnigan's
>book could be important to us around here is as an issues agenda. Its
>author has done a very good job at touching upon the many and diverse
>areas and issues in (historical) wargaming. Therefore, we stand to gain
>by becoming somewhat familiar with this book's contents.
>
>Best Regards:
>
>Panos Stoucas
>psto...@istar.ca
>
Point taken, Panos. I can see I shall have to be a little more careful with
my words in this connection :-).
Alan Paull
>Christian,
>
>There's a very simple answer to this question. The type of "game"
>systems used were/are vastly different and more complex than commercial
>games, especially in the last half of this century when computers took
>the place of sandboxes. The two cannot be compared. (And as I said in
>a previous post, the level of accuracy drops dramatically the further
>down the ladder of rank you go, from strategic to tactical
>exercises.) Also, there were no attempts to recreate an historical
>battle, but rather to test the feasibility of a particular strategy
>based on current intelligence, or to test the abilities of the trainees
>to think on their feet. Yamamoto certainly didn't tell his opponents
>what his objectives were, how much material was involved, when and if
>reinforcements were to be expected, and when the attack was going to
>start.
>
While I would agree that recreation of historical battles was not the
purpose of such training exercises, I would certainly take issue regarding
the complexity of such systems. Before the advent of computer-based games,
map exercise games (on the basis of evidence of those used at Sandhurst)
were less sophisticated than commercial games in their mechanics. This was
largely because they concentrated on command-control aspects, which was
their major objective. Dissatisfaction with the "game mechanics" aspects
led directly to the albeit peripheral involvement of commercial game
designers in the development of better "professional" wargames. So,
military educators certainly believed that there was mileage in comparisons.
I would not go so far as to suggest that civilian board wargames are
suitable as training aids for military personnel (although that is already
happening), but I would have thought that a professional in this field who
overlooked the resource, as an aid to development, was being very
short-sighted.
>The Germans' use of (board/sandbox) wargames was not so much to train
>officers in particular tactics or strategies but to train officers to
>think quickly and improvise in fast-moving situations. Any theory
>resulting from wargame data was tested in real-world battlefield games.
>
Of course. But this training had to be within a realistic command
environment, which required a model of appropriate strategy and tactics (an
implementation of doctrines). It is also worth bearing in mind that the
primary use of "real-world battlefield games" was to test out movement and
logistical systems. Almost all such games and field exercises in the period
between the two world wars were totally unreliable, because without live
ammo, the controllers effectively had to decide on the outcome of combat
prior to it happening.
Christian Killoran
Patrick Carroll <domi...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:19991029134423...@ng-bk1.aol.com...
<much snipped>
> For the reasons sketched out above, I myself have decided that
recreational
> civilian wargames are not useful for much besides entertainment. They
don't
> model historical battles well enough to correspond (except in the most
> superficial way) with what I read in history books. And for that reason,
I've
> decided that my time can be better spent reading the books and just
*imagining*
> what else might possibly have happened. I think that if I just give my
> imagination free rein, after doing some extensive reading and map
studying,
> I'll end up with a much better handle on the historical situation than I'd
ever
> be able to get from any existing wargame.
Patrick, I would suggest your rejection of wargames as useful learning tools
is more a reflection of a bias on your part than a universal truth. From
your previous posts, I have gleaned two themes:
a) Since a wargame cannot re-create a historical event in it's entirety, it
has no value at all other than vicarious entertainment, and
b) You find military history books to be a better medium than wargames to
learn about war.
(please forgive me if my effort to be succinct has distorted your views.)
As for a): I will be the first to admit that no wargame can accurately
simulate its intended subject, no matter how "detailed." A game is an
interpretation of a historical event, that's all. The game's designer has
made decisions about the factors of a battle/campaign/whatever that he feels
were important to the actual outcome. This is the same kind of decision
making process that occurs in all historical works. If the logic of your
argument is accepted, one must also accept that ALL history in ALL forms is
useless, because no historian has access to all of the factors that
influenced any past event.
As for b): As a teacher, I am confronted daily with a large diversity of
learning styles among my students. Some are able to read history books and
learn well from them. Some are somehow able to listen to me lecture and
learn from that. Some derive the most benefit from conducting their own
historical research and synthesizing the results. Most of them, however,
benefit from a "hands on" approach to discovering history and I have found
few mediums better than games to give them this opportunity. The proof is,
as they say, in the pudding-the test results of my students who have
participated in historical gaming have been much higher than those who have
not. On this basis alone I am prepared to state that wargames have definite
educational value.
It's possible Patrick that your own expertise in military history has grown
beyond a wargames ability to teach something to you. It's also possible
that your own learning style tends more toward the more contemplative and
passive medium of reading. But to project your own biases onto wargames and
to declare them as useless for all but entertainment is a gross
overstatement.
P. Stoucas
You wrote:
[I just wonder if there's any mileage in this whole concept .......... ,
so I'm interested in any counter-arguments.]
and
[I wonder, however, whether this *particular* topic will advance further?]
Oh, _yes_, it will, count me in for the long haul ! <g> I believe that
what is happening is that we are progressively becoming better acquainted
with one another here at the [CONCEPTUAL] corner, as befits _friendly_
dialecticians who are not terrified of multi-paragraph posts....
You also wrote:
[I entirely agree that wargames are not simulations. This argument has
been rehearsed often. That's why I've concentrated on whether some
wargames can be considered as good models, rather than as simulations.]
Alan, I agree completely with you on this. However, I think that we
should get into a bit more detail as the realities of consimworld.com
seem to loom large around here..... Over at consimworld.com, a common
theme encountered is the one that differentiates between wargames and
conflict simulations. Sometimes, the differentiation is made at the level
of "the things in themselves". Other times, the differentiation focusses
on issues of "user" outlook and methodology rather than on the "tools"
themselves. However, something much more interesting is going on there.
It appears that the "conflict simulationists" want to "do it like in the
modern US military". An obvious corollary to this is that such interested
parties consider the computer to be an integral part of _any_ conflict
simulation exercise worth its salt.....
Given the fact that we want to explore some tough methodological
questions re: _board_ wargame "models", I am of the opinion that we
should distance ourselves from professional military or military-like
points of view for, at least, awhile. Such points of view invariably
introduce the computer into the scene one way or another ! Now, the
(historical) use of _board_ wargaming by the professional military _is_
an interesting topic by itself. However, I would urge that we keep this
under wraps (as an "advanced topic") for the time being.
Alan, if you accept my recommendations, we may be able to make some
methodological progress by starting with simpler concepts and
progressively building upon them. As a prelude to this possible
direction, here are a few suggestions:
1) Let us consider the _actual_ warfare to be essentially "unknowable" in
philosophical (essentialist) terms.
2) Let us consider the "board wargame system" to be a thematic
interpretation of actual warfare comprising of maps, counters, rules,
charts and the like where the expectation is for the "user(s)" to somehow
bring all these seemingly disparate components together....
3) Let us consider the "purposive board wargame model" to be a collection
of "board wargame systems" where each such system (or variation thereof)
has been developed and perfected with an eye towards addressing specific
questions of either professional or amateur historical research utility.
What do you say Alan ? Do you find all this reasonable so far ?
Patrick Carroll
>It's possible Patrick that your own expertise in military history has grown
>beyond a wargames ability to teach something to you. It's also possible
>that your own learning style tends more toward the more contemplative and
>passive medium of reading. But to project your own biases onto wargames and
>to declare them as useless for all but entertainment is a gross
>overstatement.
What I actually said was:
>I myself have decided that
>recreational
>> civilian wargames are not useful for much besides entertainment. They
>don't
>> model historical battles well enough to correspond (except in the most
>> superficial way) with what I read in history books.
Perhaps I should have added "(to me)" after "not useful". You're quite right.
For some people, wargames might be useful educational devices. But they're not
for me. Or perhaps they were for me in the past, up until my knowledge of
military history outstripped what I found in the typical wargame.
I still suspect that the potential for wargames as historical models is
severely limited--simply because first of all, they're games, not history. As
long as designers take that "game first" approach (which is probably necessary
for marketing & enjoyment by most wargamers), the opportunity for modeling
historical events will be strait jacketed.
However, there's no doubt that wargames do model historical events (battles,
campaigns, wars, etc.) to some degree. And to that degree, they can serve as
educational devices.
As someone who's *not* a teacher (nor a parent), I'll just say in passing that
I myself would never have the patience to instruct someone whose level of
expertise and style of learning makes wargames a terrific educational medium
for him. (That's not to denegrate the hypothetical individual; rather it's
just a comment on my own impatience.)
Patrick Carroll
(just from the "I" portion of "we"):
>Why do "we" buy or obtain wargames ?
I did so compulsively for many years, periodically selling off a batch, only to
start buying new ones. Each time I tore off the shrinkwrap, I hoped & expected
that this would be *the one*--the perfect wargame, which would satisfy me for
life. But each game fell short after a while, prompting me to pursue yet
another new wargame interest. There was always the hope that the "state of the
art" of wargame design might have taken a quantum leap.
>Why do "we" tinker with our wargames ?
Whenever I did it, it was an attempt to improve some perceived flaw in how the
game mimics the historical event(s) it's based on. That, in turn, would help
facilitate my suspension of disbelief and enable me to regard the game as a
valid exercise in military history/art/science. Unfortunately, I always felt
guilty about tinkering with published, standardized rules; so if I had to
tinker with a game, I'd be sure to eventually abandon it.
>Why do "we" study our wargames ?
I've long thought of war as one of the most dramatic phenomena on earth--a vast
test of survival & success under the most trying conditions, with thousands of
lives at stake and the fate of nations hanging in the balance. Since war was
(to me) thus a worthwhile study, wargames (insofar as they could be models of
military-history events) were too.
In addition, wargames are a sort of "military chess"--worth studying just as
complex problem-solving exercises.
>Why do "we" play our wargames ?
"For fun" is the short answer. "Escapism" is another. I've never played them
mainly to be sociable; I've usually been drawn to playing by the fascination
with problem-solving or the connection with military history.
>Why do "we" abandon our wargames ?
When I was an avid wargamer, I abandoned them one by one when it became clear
to me that they fell short of accurately modeling their subject, or when the
game struck me as boring or overly demanding. Offhand, I can't think of a
truly *boring* wargame, though; each was fascinating once I got into it. Many
of them fell short of modeling their historical subject, however (SPI's "Thirty
Years' War" quadrigame, for instance, seemed like a silly experiment with
ZOCs). And many wargames were overly demanding (all I ever did with "Next War"
was punch out the unit-counters and *try* to read the manual).
In the end, I've pretty much abandoned wargaming altogether, for that twofold
reason: wargames tend to be more demanding (of time & effort) than they're
worth (as simulations of military events).
The PC is about my only remaining connection with wargaming. When the computer
takes over setup, number-crunching, and other demanding aspects of the game, it
becomes tolerable again. And then I'll play the occasional wargame just for
fun--even if it's ludicrous as a model of military history. I liked Panzer
General and its spinoffs, for instance.
So I guess, now that I think about it more, my main reason for abandoning
wargames has been that they were too demanding of time & effort. (But my main
complaint about them has been their inaccuracy as simulations--because if they
were top-notch simulations, they'd have then been worth all the time & effort
they demanded.)
--Patrick
Elliot Wilen
>Luckily, J.F. Dunnigan's "The Complete Wargames Handbook" is on-line at:
>
>http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents.htm
>
>impact. First off, many "historical wargamers" consider this book as
>their "bible".
Oh, yes, I pray twice a day, facing New York as I read passages from
this book.
>Furthermore, quite a few "grognards" dogmatically repeat
>simplified versions of the contents of certain of its passages while
>conveniently ignoring others.... It is only a matter of time before the
>[CONCEPTUAL] corner gets visited by one or more "Dunnigan historical
>wargamers" or, even, "Dunnigan grognards".
And I think it's ridiculous to think that I speak for JFD or vice-versa.
>From past experience, I have
>come to the conclusion that the only way for one to have a chance at
>effectively communicating with such gentlemen is to be able to quote
>their "intellectual progenitor" ! <g>
I think you'd be better off engaging what people are actually saying
than trying to pigeonhole them, or trying to represent their opinions as
being derived directly from those in JFD's book, so that you can use
the (dubious) tactic of attacking his statements as a way of arguing
with what what other people have to say.
--Elliot Wilen
--
Unless replying, please include the word "rabbit" in the subject line
when sending me email.
Want to ban junk email? Visit http://www.cauce.org/
Alan Paull
>As someone who's *not* a teacher (nor a parent), I'll just say in passing
that
>I myself would never have the patience to instruct someone whose level of
>expertise and style of learning makes wargames a terrific educational
medium
>for him. (That's not to denegrate the hypothetical individual; rather it's
>just a comment on my own impatience.)
>
>
As a further aside, I have a friend who is head teacher of a school for
children with special educational needs, particularly dyslexia. He has
found good results in teaching history using simple wargames - it is
easier to get the pupils interested with manipulation of artifacts (i.e.
game components) than with words, and they can *see* the progression of
events. From using the wargame as a model to spark their interest, they can
then move on to more conventional historical study, relating game outcomes
to "why?" questions.
Alan Paull
>Alan,
>
>You wrote:
>
>[I just wonder if there's any mileage in this whole concept .......... ,
>so I'm interested in any counter-arguments.]
>
>and
>
>[I wonder, however, whether this *particular* topic will advance further?]
>
>Oh, _yes_, it will, count me in for the long haul ! <g>
Anyone else can just killfile this thread, I guess :-)
>I think that we
>should get into a bit more detail as the realities of consimworld.com
>seem to loom large around here.....
I am totally unfamiliar with consimworld.com.
Over at consimworld.com, a common
>theme encountered is the one that differentiates between wargames and
>conflict simulations. Sometimes, the differentiation is made at the level
>of "the things in themselves". Other times, the differentiation focusses
>on issues of "user" outlook and methodology rather than on the "tools"
>themselves. However, something much more interesting is going on there.
>It appears that the "conflict simulationists" want to "do it like in the
>modern US military". An obvious corollary to this is that such interested
>parties consider the computer to be an integral part of _any_ conflict
>simulation exercise worth its salt.....
>
I'm from the UK, but I'm sure our military is doing *similar* things -
with slightly less money :-)
Computers certainly *can* make things easier in a number crunchy kind of
way, and if we were approaching this from an operational research angle, we
couldn't avoid them - but we're not. I would state clearly that we're
*not* carrying out a conflict simulation exercise. We're investigating
these questions (please comment):
What mechanics drawn from the board wargame genre work in terms of modelling
a military conflict situation?
What types of question should be addressed by our model?
What types of military conflict situation are we attempting to model?
What outputs do we expect from our model(s)?
>Given the fact that we want to explore some tough methodological
>questions re: _board_ wargame "models", I am of the opinion that we
>should distance ourselves from professional military or military-like
>points of view for, at least, awhile. Such points of view invariably
>introduce the computer into the scene one way or another ! Now, the
>(historical) use of _board_ wargaming by the professional military _is_
>an interesting topic by itself. However, I would urge that we keep this
>under wraps (as an "advanced topic") for the time being.
>
I agree.
>Alan, if you accept my recommendations, we may be able to make some
>methodological progress by starting with simpler concepts and
>progressively building upon them. As a prelude to this possible
>direction, here are a few suggestions:
>
>1) Let us consider the _actual_ warfare to be essentially "unknowable" in
>philosophical (essentialist) terms.
>
As a first step, to be re-introduced later?
>2) Let us consider the "board wargame system" to be a thematic
>interpretation of actual warfare comprising of maps, counters, rules,
>charts and the like where the expectation is for the "user(s)" to somehow
>bring all these seemingly disparate components together....
>
I think we have to be very careful where we are drawing the boundaries
around our "board wargame system", for the avoidance of doubt. I would
certainly include the "users" (players) as an essential part of the system,
representing specific, defined human elements. The precise elements would
depend on the actual theme. We need to return to this area.
I like your "thematic interpretation of actual warfare". These mechanics
represent inputs, structure and I guess quite a lot of process as well.
The system also needs some outputs. This is where I think we differ from
the traditional board wargame, because our outputs are not "victory /
defeat" in relation to pre-set victory conditions. We want to look at a
broad range of results, comparing them with expectations based on historical
outcomes.
>3) Let us consider the "purposive board wargame model" to be a collection
>of "board wargame systems" where each such system (or variation thereof)
>has been developed and perfected with an eye towards addressing specific
>questions of either professional or amateur historical research utility.
>
Succinctly put. At present, I think we're limited to amateur though.
We're really looking at a system definition here, of which your statement
forms the foundation. I would modify your statement as follows:
The board wargame modelling system [1] is a collection of sub-systems [2],
in which each sub-system has been developed with an eye towards addressing
specific questions of amateur historical research within selected military
conflict themes.
[1] "System" suggests purpose, structure, boundaries and context
[2] "Sub-systems" fixes the items firmly within the wider system and means
that they are also systems themselves
>What do you say Alan ? Do you find all this reasonable so far ?
>
So far, so good.
Elliot Wilen
>That anyone would make of this exercise anything more than what it is (the
>playing of a game) has always baffled me. What is this near fanaticism in
>wargamers that makes them want their gameplaying activity to rise to academic
>status -- to rise to the lofty heights of Shelby Foote or William Craige. I
>will never be convinced that wargaming is anything more than the playing of
>games which are based on war.
(I will not be spending much time refuting the claim that wargames
aren't capable of being realistic. My purpose here is mainly to explain
why realism is important to me--an answer to Bob Curtin's somewhat
hyperbolic question in the second sentence of the paragraph quoted
above. The broader issue of what realism/simulation/modeling is,
whether some games have/do it, etc., is being discussed elsewhere in
this thread.)
I do *not* expect or hope for my wargaming to rise to academic status.
(I do suppose that some of the wargaming done by professional military
institutions has achieved this status, in the sense that it uses
well-defined theories and methodologies, etc.)
I do often want more out of wargames than I might if I were to think of
them as "[nothing] more than the playing of games which are based on
war." This statement, or something like it, is often uttered by someone
who is tired of hearing someone else criticize one game or another as
being "unrealistic", with the implication, apparently, that any
comparison of realism, simulation, or modeling validity is pure
self-deception--"They're all just games--you can't tell me that
Bismarck is any more realistic than Battleship."
The thing about such a claim is that, first, it's almost certainly
false (assuming that we could figure out what it is exactly that
Battleship is supposed to represent). Second, the fact that Bismarck is
more realistic than Battleship is important to me, because a major
source of enjoyment in much of my wargaming comes from watching events
unfold in a realistic manner, and from making decisions based on
conditions which are analogous to the ones faced by the historical (or
in some games hypothetical) actors.
When I say that I enjoy watching events unfold in a realistic manner,
someone might chime in that I could get just as much enjoyment out of
watching a movie or reading a book--after all, I could then see how
things *really* happened. But what I get out of a game is more than a
narration or even a static analysis. I get a representation which
contains explicit (if abstracted) models of cause and effect. I don't
necessarily have to believe that the game is actually "predicting" an
alternate history. But if the game produces preposterous results or
contains models which misrepresent historical circumstances, it fails
to satisfy my desire for realism.
One example might be a comparison of Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader. In
Panzerblitz (standard rules), each side completes all firing and
movement before the other side does anything--there's no opportunity
fire. Combined with the requirement that units have to be "spotted" in
cover before they can be fired upon, this means that units can blithely
drive across open ground in range of enemy guns, as long as they finish
their move in covered terrain. Not very realistic. In Panzer Leader,
the nonmoving player can halt enemy units during movement to fire at
them--opportunity fire. More realistic, more satisfying to the part of
me that enjoys realism.
This example goes hand in hand with the other part of what I wrote--I
enjoy making decisions based on conditions which are analogous to those
faced by the actual participants. In a tactical game at a certain scale
I want some form of opportunity fire because it forces me to take
account of the need to provide overwatch fire for moving units--
something an actual commander would have to do.
Of course, both Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader are full of other
unrealistic elements, not least lack of virtually all command, control,
and intelligence issues (other than spotting). The point, however, is
that they can still be *compared* with regard to realism.
As for the C3I elements which are missing from both games--there have
been increasing efforts over the years to incorporate these elements in
commercial wargames, mainly in response to the desire of some gamers to
experience the same challenges and frustrations faced by actual
commanders. Some people think that C3I elements make games "less fun"
by taking away control of one's forces. That may be--for those people.
But although this may make the games less fun in the eyes of some, such
an opinion has no bearing on whether the games are (objectively or
subjectively) more realistic. And for some, "more realistic" means
"more fun".
In a similar vein, some people complain that "more realistic" games are
less fun because they are more complicated. Sometimes what is going on
is that people are making games more detailed, which makes them more
complicated--but not necessarily more realistic. (I'm probably the
thousandth person to say this, but I'll say it again: detail is not
the same thing as realism. I'll let someone else explain why they like
detail. I'm explaining why I like realism.) Besides that, realism does
not necessarily increase complexity. Even so, I'll grant that it often
does--but that still doesn't negate the fundamental point that some
people want realism. Whether they are willing to put up with increased
complexity to get it, is up to them.
To conclude, when people deny "realism" as a valid criterion by which
to rate games, they often do so in the course of deprecating the
importance some wargamers attach to realism. For my part, I believe
that games *can* be compared and critiqued (and modified) on the basis
of realism. Furthermore, realism is an important factor in my enjoyment
of many games, both because I enjoy watching the "model" operate
realistically, and because I enjoy making decisions based on
"realistic" inputs.
P. Stoucas
I can see that your bad faith and extremely unfriendly posting is continuing
unabated here at the [CONCEPTUAL] corner. Perhaps, you are not cut out to be a
_friendly_ dielectician.....
Let me make this crystal clear to you. If someone tells me that _his_ positions
_are_ J.F. Dunnigan's positions, I will have every justification to quote from
Mr. Dunnigan's writings to make my points, that is all.
Panos Stoucas
psto...@istar.ca
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elliot Wilen wrote:
>
> In article <381A9C...@istar.ca>, P. Stoucas <psto...@istar.ca> wrote:
> >Luckily, J.F. Dunnigan's "The Complete Wargames Handbook" is on-line at:
> >
> >http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents.htm
> >
> >Irrespective of my views regarding the contents of this book, I am of the
> >opinion that the [CONCEPTUAL] corner cannot ignore its existence and
> >impact. First off, many "historical wargamers" consider this book as
> >their "bible".
>
> Oh, yes, I pray twice a day, facing New York as I read passages from
> this book.
>
> >Furthermore, quite a few "grognards" dogmatically repeat
> >simplified versions of the contents of certain of its passages while
> >conveniently ignoring others.... It is only a matter of time before the
> >[CONCEPTUAL] corner gets visited by one or more "Dunnigan historical
> >wargamers" or, even, "Dunnigan grognards".
>
> And I think it's ridiculous to think that I speak for JFD or vice-versa.
>
> >From past experience, I have
> >come to the conclusion that the only way for one to have a chance at
> >effectively communicating with such gentlemen is to be able to quote
> >their "intellectual progenitor" ! <g>
>
> I think you'd be better off engaging what people are actually saying
> than trying to pigeonhole them, or trying to represent their opinions as
> being derived directly from those in JFD's book, so that you can use
> the (dubious) tactic of attacking his statements as a way of arguing
> with what what other people have to say.
>
T2Maverick
meanderings and the "Klatsch" seems to have consciously decided not to discuss
such wargaming! "Let's ignore the answer and then have a discussion around
it." Indeed!
the Mav
--------
aka thema...@volcano.net
http://www.volcano.net/~themaverick
T2Maverick
systems used were/are vastly different and more complex than commercial
games>>
As you feel qualified to contrast it with modern commercial games, please
describe the details of the "game" system to which you refer.
P. Stoucas
The "Klatsch" has a new name: the [CONCEPTUAL] corner ! <g> By the way, the present
thread is just the _first_ one to be launched under the [CONCEPTUAL] banner. If
posters want to start discussing other wargaming topics, they should feel free to
launch new threads under the same banner. However, such threads _may_ invite
multi-paragraph posts ! <g> talk.consimworld.com is the other main option, of course.
Best Regards:
Panos Stoucas
psto...@istar.ca
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T2Maverick wrote:
>
> Well said Christian... this point has been consistently ignored by Patronius'
> meanderings and the "Klatsch" seems to have consciously decided not to discuss
> such wargaming! "Let's ignore the answer and then have a discussion around
> it." Indeed!
>
Bob Curtin
With the utmost respect, I must point out that my main point is wargamers do not "...make decisions based on conditions which are analogous to the ones faced by the historical (or in some games hypothetical) actors." Wargamers make decisions based on game systems (i.e. odds ratios, movement points, CRTs, phases, etc.), as opposed to the decisions real commanders make in real combat situations. As I've pointed out in the past, the best you can hope for from a wargame (besides the fun and historical information found in the printed material) is that it might provide a player with some of the same problems faced by real-world commanders, such as how to defeat a superior force, etc., but the actual solving of the problem is done in game system terms and not in any connection to reality. The players imagination makes the jump from the rolling of a die to the firing of a weapon.
That the rules or structure of the game is trying to imitate reality is really not an issue. There is nothing inherent in a game system which simulates war. It is merely a structured way of moving cardboard around on a paper battlefield to create conflict. The added complexity of Bismark over Battleship does not make the latter more "real" than the former. It merely adds more color and definition, as if going from 16 color VGA to 256 color SVGA in computer terms. The "realism" is fixed between the ears of the player. The only connection to reality that exists in the playing of a wargame is that which resides inside the head of the player(s).
Elliot Wilen wrote:
The thing about such a claim is that, first, it's almost certainly
false (assuming that we could figure out what it is exactly that
Battleship is supposed to represent). Second, the fact that Bismarck is
more realistic than Battleship is important to me, because a major
source of enjoyment in much of my wargaming comes from watching events
unfold in a realistic manner, and from making decisions based on
conditions which are analogous to the ones faced by the historical (or
in some games hypothetical) actors.When I say that I enjoy watching events unfold in a realistic manner,
someone might chime in that I could get just as much enjoyment out of
watching a movie or reading a book--after all, I could then see how
things *really* happened. But what I get out of a game is more than a
narration or even a static analysis. I get a representation which
contains explicit (if abstracted) models of cause and effect. I don't
necessarily have to believe that the game is actually "predicting" an
alternate history. But if the game produces preposterous results or
contains models which misrepresent historical circumstances, it fails
to satisfy my desire for realism.
--
T2Maverick
Alan Paull
<19991031110052...@ng-fg1.aol.com>...
What a nutritious and tactical posting, Mav :-)
Alan Paull
<19991031103636...@ng-fp1.aol.com>...
>Well said Christian... this point has been consistently ignored by
Patronius'
>meanderings and the "Klatsch" seems to have consciously decided not to
discuss
>such wargaming! "Let's ignore the answer and then have a discussion around
>it." Indeed!
>
I'm a little confused by your posting, Mav. I wasn't aware of any specific
answers that we were ignoring - is there a part of Christian's post that I'm
missing here?
Alan Paull
Of course that's true, because we don't want to start a real war just to
test a particular model out. However, Bismark is a better model of the
system that we are trying to investigate than Battleship.
You say "the actual solving of the problem is done in game system terms and
not in any connection to reality". This statement seems to dismiss *any*
attempt by a game designer to model aspects of warfare as futile. To parody
this position, you might as well play Snap and call it a game of the
Waterloo campaign.
I've attempted to get around this problem area by being careful not to claim
any "simulation" territory. However, in both simulation and modelling any
"realism", as you say, is firmly in the minds of the players. I would hope
that useful thoughts might come out of their minds too. What the model
attempts to do, is to provide data, process and structure for those thoughts
to work on. I would hope, using this hypothetical board wargame model
constructed in order to provide useful insights, that the users (players if
you will) would also bring their own knowledge and understanding of the
theme to the model. Let's face it, a weakness of wargames as "realistic
models" is that players exploit the game mechanics for advantage regardless
of the historical likelihood of their actions. This is entirely acceptable
in game terms, but not particularly helpful in terms of modelling.
P. Stoucas
I am glad that you have agreed to set aside professional military issues
for the time being. I believe that we have a good chance of going some
places now.... <g>
I purposely brought up the professional vs. amateur historical research
bifurcation early on because I am of the opinion that it has the
potential to torpedo our methodological exercise unless we specifically
address it right at the very beginning.
As you know, in the post-WWII era, a debate has been raging about whether
history is a "science" (say like economics or sociology) or not. To boot,
many professional historians have taken the position that academic
history should only be concerned with "what happened, how it happened and
why it happened". The "interesting" question of "what could have happened
if" has been considered to be off-limits...... Now, men in the
professional military, being rather practically oriented, have been
developing their own body of knowledge under the "discipline" known as
"military science". This "discipline" has included concepts and
categories of "applied military history". As far as military thinkers are
concerned, "applied military history" can be dealt with as if it is
another social science, like economics for instance. However, the _key_
point here is this. Military analysts and planners are utilising "applied
military history" for a specific purpose, namely, to better fight the
wars of the _future_. In other words, the interest of the military
establishment in "applied military history" is essentially utilitarian
and prospective....
Alan, since we have decided to conduct this exercise by keeping
professional military issues at arms length, we are left with interested
parties whose historical research interests are "ends in themselves".
Now, some of these interested parties may not want to venture into areas
that are not sanctioned by academic historians. Others may decide to take
the plunge. Actually, amateur historical research interests may very well
include academic historical research ones..... So, _now_ I can certainly
go along with your recommendation to just consider amateur historical
research interests here. If anyone were to fault us for not being
academically.... correct, well, all we would have to do would be to point
to "applied military history" stripped of its military preparedness
utility, of course..... <g>
This brings us back to this suggestion of mine:
[Let us consider the _actual_ warfare to be essentially "unknowable" in
philosophical (essentialist) terms.]
To which you responded:
[As a first step, to be re-introduced later?]
I believe that I was not clear enough. What I was trying to say was that
we should adopt a social science approach to modelling here. In social
sciences such as economics and sociology, there is a general acceptance
of the philosophical position that the _actual_ subject matter of the
science involved cannot be mentally or symbolically recreated. Instead,
one develops models on a thematic interpretation of real life phenomena.
The success or failure of such models reside in their (in)ability to
assist researchers to answer specific questions.
Alan, when Bob (Curtin) writes:
[That the rules or structure of the game is trying to imitate reality is
really not an issue. There is nothing inherent in a game system which
simulates war. It is merely a structured way of moving cardboard around
on a paper battlefield to create conflict. The added complexity of
Bismark over Battleship does not make the latter more "real" than the
former. It merely adds more color and definition, as if going from 16
color VGA to 256 color SVGA in computer terms. The "realism" is fixed
between the ears of the player. The only connection to reality that
exists in the playing of a wargame is that which resides inside the head
of the player(s).]
he makes an "essentialist" argument. However, once we postulate a
"mythical" interested party that does not give a fig about "playability",
"immersion" and the like but is totally fixated on his amateur
historian's research questions, well, the landscape changes rather
dramatically. Thus, it is the relative success of a "purposive board
wargame model" to answer specific "user" put questions that would
establish its adequacy and utility in our present context and not some
overall assessment as to how closely such a tool "mirrors" the reality of
the battlefield.
Do you find the above "palatable" ? <g>
Alan Paull
>As you know, in the post-WWII era, a debate has been raging about whether
>history is a "science" (say like economics or sociology) or not. To boot,
>many professional historians have taken the position that academic
>history should only be concerned with "what happened, how it happened and
>why it happened".
Just to make it clear where I'm coming from - I'm a history graduate who
does not recognise history as a science (I would be prepared to argue that
one, but that's another whole bucket of worms).
The "interesting" question of "what could have happened
>if" has been considered to be off-limits...... Now, men in the
>professional military, being rather practically oriented, have been
>developing their own body of knowledge under the "discipline" known as
>"military science". This "discipline" has included concepts and
>categories of "applied military history". As far as military thinkers are
>concerned, "applied military history" can be dealt with as if it is
>another social science, like economics for instance. However, the _key_
>point here is this. Military analysts and planners are utilising "applied
>military history" for a specific purpose, namely, to better fight the
>wars of the _future_. In other words, the interest of the military
>establishment in "applied military history" is essentially utilitarian
>and prospective....
>
Perhaps the perspective is different in the UK. I think that "applied
military history" would get short shrift over here - perhaps because of
the close relationship between officer training, particularly army and navy,
with academic institutions; my own alma mater being King's London, which has
close links with both Sandhurst and policy staff at the highest levels. I
would agree that the professional interest of the military establishment is
not relevant to our study, which is restricted to historical themes only.
>[Let us consider the _actual_ warfare to be essentially "unknowable" in
>philosophical (essentialist) terms.]
>
>To which you responded:
>
>[As a first step, to be re-introduced later?]
>
>I believe that I was not clear enough. What I was trying to say was that
>we should adopt a social science approach to modelling here. In social
>sciences such as economics and sociology, there is a general acceptance
>of the philosophical position that the _actual_ subject matter of the
>science involved cannot be mentally or symbolically recreated. Instead,
>one develops models on a thematic interpretation of real life phenomena.
>The success or failure of such models reside in their (in)ability to
>assist researchers to answer specific questions.
>
I've been using a general inter-disciplinary "systems thinking" approach,
which I would imagine is compatible with yours, though the systems approach
is more heuristic than scientific.
>Alan, when Bob (Curtin) writes:
>
>[That the rules or structure of the game is trying to imitate reality is
>really not an issue. There is nothing inherent in a game system which
>simulates war. It is merely a structured way of moving cardboard around
>on a paper battlefield to create conflict. The added complexity of
>Bismark over Battleship does not make the latter more "real" than the
>former. It merely adds more color and definition, as if going from 16
>color VGA to 256 color SVGA in computer terms. The "realism" is fixed
>between the ears of the player. The only connection to reality that
>exists in the playing of a wargame is that which resides inside the head
>of the player(s).]
>
>he makes an "essentialist" argument. However, once we postulate a
>"mythical" interested party that does not give a fig about "playability",
>"immersion" and the like but is totally fixated on his amateur
>historian's research questions, well, the landscape changes rather
>dramatically. Thus, it is the relative success of a "purposive board
>wargame model" to answer specific "user" put questions that would
>establish its adequacy and utility in our present context and not some
>overall assessment as to how closely such a tool "mirrors" the reality of
>the battlefield.
>
>Do you find the above "palatable" ? <g>
I agree. Most will find our objective peculiar at the very least and so may
well put forward arguments against it. I think that the *theory* is
defensible now. A lot of work is needed to put flesh on it. For instance
it might be helpful to draw up a list of those types of mechanics that might
be workable.
Alternatively (and possibly a quicker and more practical approach) someone
might wish to identify a suitable theme, some relevant games and mechanics
and work from there - I suspect that the nitty-gritty real work might take
a while and some personal motivation.
Elliot Wilen
>Elliot (Wilen):
>
>I can see that your bad faith and extremely unfriendly posting is continuing
>unabated here at the [CONCEPTUAL] corner. Perhaps, you are not cut out to be a
>_friendly_ dielectician.....
>
>Let me make this crystal clear to you. If someone tells me that _his_ positions
>_are_ J.F. Dunnigan's positions, I will have every justification to quote from
>Mr. Dunnigan's writings to make my points, that is all.
Since I'm not aware of anyone who has said that his positions are JFD's,
you are quoting from JFD's writings because...?
Let me make it clear that I am quite interested in the subject of this
discussion. What I object to is periphrastic arguments which consist
largely of verbatim quotes and self-repetition.
P. Stoucas
You wrote:
[I agree. Most will find our objective peculiar at the very least and so
may well put forward arguments against it. I think that the *theory* is
defensible now. A lot of work is needed to put flesh on it.]
and
[I suspect that the nitty-gritty real work might take a while and some
personal motivation.]
I do not know about you, but I consider this iterative process to be of
_critical_ importance here. This is the _first_ thread launched under the
[CONCEPTUAL] banner and, hence, the earliest opportunity to show Usenet
_posters_ (communicative, by definition !) that a _friendly_ dialectic
involving multi-paragraph posts _can_ work. Now, Alan, I did not see the
two of us engaging in sterile polemics. I mean, we are _not_ talking _at_
each other. Instead, we are _conversing in good faith_ !! Well, the
[CONCEPTUAL] corner may very well be a short-lived experiment, _but_ at
least we tried..... <g>
If some posters here "find our objective peculiar at the very least" and
"put forward arguments against it", well, so what of it ? To the extent
that these arguments are put in good faith, we can only emerge better
informed by all this. As for patience and motivation, I do not think that
_friendly_ dialectics can work in their absence. Is this a tall order ?
Well, we will be finding out, I guess...... <g>
Alan, I shall return to our specific _friendly_ dialectic via another
post of mine.
Elliot Wilen
Alan Paull <al...@alanpaull.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>[In reply to Bob Curtin's article arguing against the notion of
> realism in wargames...]
>
>You say "the actual solving of the problem is done in game system terms and
>not in any connection to reality". This statement seems to dismiss *any*
>attempt by a game designer to model aspects of warfare as futile.
I agree. I could provide further examples, including cases where I believe
players make decisions based more or less on criteria which are analogous
to those faced by real-life actors, but that isn't the main point of this
post.
>I've attempted to get around this problem area by being careful not to claim
>any "simulation" territory. However, in both simulation and modelling any
>"realism", as you say, is firmly in the minds of the players.
I'm sorry, but I still remain puzzled by your distinction between
"modelling" and "simulation". I know you've tried this once, but can
you explain again, perhaps with examples, how you draw the distinction?
(I suggested earlier that simulation has more to do with placing
players in well-defined roles corresponding to the actual actors in
what is being simulated, while models simply provide outcomes based
on certain criteria--but I'm not sure how that relates to your
notions.)
Also, regardless of how you define "simulation" as distinct from
"modeling", doesn't a similar argument apply, to wit that games can be
compared as simulations, and that designers can meaningfully attempt to
improve the simulation value of games? (How might they do so?)
P. Stoucas
Thank you for telling be something about your academic background. I am
an economist. I, too, am of the opinion that history is not a science,
social or otherwise. Now, since our "mythical" interested parties view
themselves as amateur historians, we do not even need to invoke formal
social science methods. To this effect, you wrote:
[I've been using a general inter-disciplinary "systems thinking"
approach, which I would imagine is compatible with yours, though the
systems approach is more heuristic than scientific.]
I like that ! <g> So, here is where our "mythical" interested parties
stand as of now. They are single-minded in their pursuits of amateur
history research. They do not call themselves scientists or
professionals. Instead, they employ "systems thinking" in their
investigations which is quite heuristic. Most importantly, they are _not_
essentialists. In other words, they look at "systems formulations" as
tools for conducting specific investigations as opposed to symbolic
entities that, somehow, manage to "mirror" the full realities of armed
conflict.
Alan, before we revisit "board wargame systems" and "purposive board
wargame models", we need to talk a bit more about our "mythical"
interested parties. This is because, under our "purposive board wargame
model" approach (and theirs !), such interested parties are..... kings !
<g>
First off, let us visualise our typical "mythical" interested party as
comprising a few amateur historians that are geographically collocated
and have known one another for a while. This is going to help _us_
_tremendously_ down the line.... <g> Say that these gentlemen share some
common military history interest. Now, each one of these amateur
historians has developed his particular interest through reading books,
watching films, playing wargames, discussing things and so on.
At this point, we need to set aside another type of amateur military
history interest. Namely, we need to stay away from _totally_
historically counterfactual armed conflict (e.g., a NATO vs. Warsaw Pact
conflagration). The way to do that is to label it an "advanced topic" and
postpone discussion on it until much later........
We are now ready to return to our "mythical" interested party. By
definition, these gentlemen would be focussing on research investigations
of an amateur military history nature within the context of a
_historically recorded armed conflict_ (e.g., Waterloo).
At this point, I would like to throw in a quotation from one of my
on-line articles:
[......the main purpose of military history focussed wargaming, namely,
the accurate re-enactment of historically recorded armed conflict and,
perhaps, the "scientific modelling" of carefully chosen, "realistic", BUT
historically counterfactual ("what if") armed conflict variations.]
Within the context of our "mythical" interested party, I would change the
reference to "scientific modelling" to "heuristic systems modelling".
Alan, are you willing to live with the above ? <g>
The Maverick
>
> I'm a little confused by your posting, Mav. I wasn't aware of any specific
> answers that we were ignoring - is there a part of Christian's post that I'm
> missing here?
Whoops... tripped up on the AOL browser I was using while out of town.
;-) I was referring to Christian's point regarding the military use of
wargaming which he presented in response to Bob's assertion that it is
unusual to consider wargaming anything other than just playing games.
My comment referred to an earlier post in which it was suggested that
"military wargaming" be left out of the discussion.
the Mav
--
Ace of Aces Collector's Guide, The Definitive Reference Source
http://maverick.brainiac.com/aoa/index.html
Warren J. Dew
Wargamers make decisions based on game systems (i.e. odds
ratios, movement points, CRTs, phases, etc.), as opposed
to the decisions real commanders make in real combat
situations.
While this describes many wargamers, it does not describe the best of them.
Wargamers who pay all their attention to the mechanics of the game are usually
defeated when they meet those who focus more on higher level issues - such as
strategic objectives and operational doctrine - that are common to both the
better wargames and to real military situations.
Which brings us to Elliot Wilen's:
One example might be a comparison of Panzerblitz and
Panzer Leader. In Panzerblitz (standard rules), each
side completes all firing and movement before the other
side does anything--there's no opportunity fire. Combined
with the requirement that units have to be "spotted" in
cover before they can be fired upon, this means that
units can blithely drive across open ground in range of
enemy guns, as long as they finish their move in covered
terrain. Not very realistic. In Panzer Leader, the
nonmoving player can halt enemy units during movement to
fire at them--opportunity fire. More realistic, more
satisfying to the part of me that enjoys realism.
And yet, this type of 'realism' - an attempt to micromodel the details of
combat - leads exactly to the focus on mechanics, and the ignoring of real
combat decisions, that Bob Curtin notes.
I would argue that Panzerblitz is, in fact, the better simulation and teaching
tool, because use of applicable historical tactical and operational doctrine
results in at least as good an approximation of historical results as in Panzer
Leader, and the Panzerblitz scenarios better illustrate the reasons for those
doctrines.
I do agree that neither of these games illustrates the 'fog of war' well. My
experience playing 'blind' Panzerblitz with a gamesmaster, however, indicates
the addition of this factor does not change the overall flow of the game that
much. The game progresses much more slowly - at a rate much more closely
approximating the historical progression of the battles represented in the
scenarios - but if you are willing to play long enough, the end result is the
same.
Put another way, the compressed time scale of Panzerblitz - battles limited to
hours rather than days - is a surprisingly effective substitute for command and
control and intelligence limitations. So while the 'fog of war' is not
directly illustrated, it is, in a sense, indirectly simulated.
Warren Dew
Elliot Wilen
> an opportunity fire rule."]
>
>And yet, this type of 'realism' - an attempt to micromodel the details of
>combat - leads exactly to the focus on mechanics, and the ignoring of real
>combat decisions, that Bob Curtin notes.
I accept your criticism of my example. I'm by no means an experienced
PB or PL player but the example seemed an apt way of illustrating how
wargames can be made incrementally more realistic. Perhaps I could
defend the example by pointing out that although the use of opportunity
fire requires micromanagement of units, the effect of opportunity fire
on the decisionmaking process is to make the player pay attention to
controlling lanes of approach and avoiding "naked" assaults over open
terrain. But even that may be inadequate, especially if we want to keep
the player in a single "role" (overall commander) within the context of
the game.
Perhaps this really helps illustrate the difference between a model
and a simulation--it might suggest that PL is a better model in some ways
(in that it shows the effects of different tactical approaches better at
the company or battalion level) even though it's a poorer simulation in
other ways (in that it causes the overall commander to focus on details
that should be outside his concern and real ability to control).
In any case this is the sort of discussion that I am trying to argue
is meaningful in the context of wargames--and which becomes meaningless
if we accept the idea that realism (simulation, modeling) is purely
illusory.
Alan Paull
>So, here is where our "mythical" interested parties
>stand as of now. They are single-minded in their pursuits of amateur
>history research. They do not call themselves scientists or
>professionals. Instead, they employ "systems thinking" in their
>investigations which is quite heuristic. Most importantly, they are _not_
>essentialists. In other words, they look at "systems formulations" as
>tools for conducting specific investigations as opposed to symbolic
>entities that, somehow, manage to "mirror" the full realities of armed
>conflict.
>
OK, up to the final part of your final sentence. They are attempting to
model *relevant*parts* of armed conflict. They are using systems thinking
in order to help to choose which are the relevant and which the irrelevant
parts.
[snip]
>At this point, we need to set aside another type of amateur military
>history interest. Namely, we need to stay away from _totally_
>historically counterfactual armed conflict (e.g., a NATO vs. Warsaw Pact
>conflagration). The way to do that is to label it an "advanced topic" and
>postpone discussion on it until much later........
>
I agree. I doubt whether we will get onto that path, because it strays too
far from our sense of historical enquiry.
>We are now ready to return to our "mythical" interested party. By
>definition, these gentlemen would be focussing on research investigations
>of an amateur military history nature within the context of a
>_historically recorded armed conflict_ (e.g., Waterloo).
>
>At this point, I would like to throw in a quotation from one of my
>on-line articles:
>
>[......the main purpose of military history focussed wargaming, namely,
>the accurate re-enactment of historically recorded armed conflict and,
>perhaps, the "scientific modelling" of carefully chosen, "realistic", BUT
>historically counterfactual ("what if") armed conflict variations.]
>
>Within the context of our "mythical" interested party, I would change the
>reference to "scientific modelling" to "heuristic systems modelling".
>
>Alan, are you willing to live with the above ? <g>
>
This terminological stuff is very difficult, because there are overtones in
some of the words that you have used in this quotation that are subject to
misinterpretation. The specific words are "accurate" and "re-enactment".
"Accurate": We have already agreed that we are dealing with modelling
rather than simulation, because of the "reality" problem. By "accurate" we
mean "plausible within the historical context", which does require a
judgement call. An example of what I would term "inaccurate" modelling: In
a game I played once that was modelling the Arnhem campaign, the Germans
managed to reserve most of their tactical airpower for a single strike on
the allied columns moving up from Eindhoven. The game rules (as implemented
in this instance) were deemed to require a single chance of spotting the
relevant road (virtually stationary nose-to-tail vehicles for several
iles) - the Germans failed their spotting roll and the whole attack was
aborted. Now, it would have been a better model of the historical
circumstances if there had been several chances of spotting, even though the
mechanics of the model would not have had to mirror the actual German
command control mechanism. So, we are, I think, looking for plausible
models (or bits of models), with our plausibility checked against some
measure of Inherent Military Possibility, backed by specific historical
evidence.
"Re-enactment": I know what you mean. Unfortunately this term has a
specific alternative meaning (as I'm sure you know) within the wargaming
community.
I'm happy to use these terms with the above caveats, but it would be useful
to come up with an alternate way of encapsulating what we mean. It might
save misunderstanding later on. Something like this:
"the main purpose of our project (military history focused wargaming) is to
use high quality heuristic systems models to re-run historically recorded
armed conflict ......."
Does this suit our amateur military historian gentlemen better?
Patrick Carroll
>is meaningful in the context of wargames--and which becomes meaningless
>if we accept the idea that realism (simulation, modeling) is purely
>illusory.
>
>--Elliot Wilen
I'd say there are real and illusory components to most everything in life that
we can talk about. But if we can agree that a photographed nightscape is more
realistic than Van Gogh's "Starry Night," we ought to be able to agree that
wargame X is more realistic than wargame Y.
Then we can get on with the more meaningful part of this discussion: how can a
recreational civilian wargame be useful, as a model (or simulation or
whatever), to the casual wargamer or amateur military historian?
To the military, a sophisticated wargame can be useful for its "predictive"
value. There, realism is essential, because the main interest is in predicting
or demonstrating real-life actions and consequences--things that may very well
happen in real life, and which the military is constantly training for.
To the professional historian, concerned with what will be accepted as valid by
academia, it's imperative that at least the salient features of the wargame
correspond in verifiable ways with real-life historical data. Otherwise, the
historian is venturing beyond the proper bounds of his discipline, and dealing
with the imaginary.
But to us civilian amateurs, "the imaginary" is often quite acceptable. Fun
even.
Some wargamers want lots of realism because it lends verisimilitude to the
admittedly fictional pastime they're engaged in. But to this breed, it matters
little whether the "realism" is beefed-up Rambo-style realism or prosaic
historical realism. All that's required is that the wargame be convincing and
absorbing to the imagination.
But the amateur military historian won't settle for Rambo-style realism. He
also reads military history; and he wants the salient features of the game to
correspond to (or at least not undermine) the salient points he reads about.
When he plays a wargame, he wants to end up saying to himself, "Yes, this jibes
with what I've read; I can believe that what's happening in the game *could*
have happened historically."
I see a real tension between the two types of casual civilian wargamer I
sketched out above. A game designed for the "daydreamer" might be beefed up
with all sorts of artificial pseudo-realism to make a rip-roaring Rambo-style
game of it. But this would put off the military-history buff. A wargame
designed for the amateur historian ought to be a very cautious, conservative
design--and would probably end up being more abstract than realistic (for fear
of stumbling over any details the semi-educated designer might consider
including).
The real underlying question is, what do you really want from a wargame? If I
were offered a holodeck which could provide a perfectly detailed, interactive
(and modifiable) replay of actual historical battles and campaigns, I'd only be
attracted to it superficially, as a novelty. It's not really what I'm looking
for. I don't want all the details, all the realism; I just want the principles
and mechanics (and maybe a thin layer of chrome) that underlie actual
historical military operations.
In other words, I wouldn't care to actually follow along with Crazy Horse on
his way to Little Bighorn, then watch how the real-life event played out. I'm
more interested in knowing what factors gave each side its advantages and
disadvantages--how the winners came to win and the losers to lose--and whether
those factors can be boiled down to principles that apply to other military
operations as well.
To find out what actually did happen in a given battle or campaign, I can read
books, watch documentaries, visit battlefields, and so forth. To understand
game principles and mechanics, and master the discipline and know-how it takes
to succeed in a competitive situation, I can play chess. But what I want from
a wargame is a "model" (if you will) that links the two--something that
demonstrates the underlying principles & mechanics behind actual military
operations.
Thus, I *want* the wargame to be semi-abstract and semi-realistic. Too much
abstraction, and I might as well be playing chess. Too much realism, and I
might as well be watching a documentary or reading a book.
I want a wargame to be predictive in the sense that it reveals fundamental
principles of war--principles I can see demonstrated time and again throughout
military history. One such principle, for example, might be that frontal
attacks tend to be costly and rarely succeed--as demonstrated by Pickett's
Charge, the Somme, and other instances. If a wargame can reliably reveal or
demonstrate such principles, and provide me with the opportunity to experiment
with them, I'd say it's a "useful model" for this amateur military historian.
Unfortunately, in all too many games, it seems the principles of war have been
artificially "designed in" by someone who *thinks* he understands how war
works. So, a few "designed-in" principles are there to be demonstrated; but
the rest of the game is ludicrous, bearing little resemblance to what it
purports to represent. Ideally, there ought to be a way to just "miniaturize"
and abstract battles, campaigns, and other operations *without* "designing in"
artificial, subjective concepts; leaving players free to explore on their own,
unhindered by the designer's personal expression. But I don't know of any way
to achieve that.
Warren J. Dew
I accept your criticism of my example. I'm by no
means an experienced PB or PL player but the example
seemed an apt way of illustrating how wargames can
be made incrementally more realistic.
I do agree with your point, though I disagreed with the use of this specific
example for it. Perhaps a better example - certainly a more extreme one -
would be the contrast between the European theatre of Axis and Allies and a
game like Third Reich. A&A does have some minimal value as a simulation: the
Germans must attempt an early win through force, while the Allies can use a
more defensive strategy initially, and win through a long term production
advantage. The additional detail in Third Reich, though, permits the player to
learn some additional lessons, such as that proper operational use of
mechanized units exploits their mobility more than their armor.
That latter lesson is even more obvious when playing France 1940, another
Dunnigan classic, where the French have mechanized units that don't have much
better mobility than infantry units do (that's why they were called 'infantry
tanks'). Before this game was published, most historians felt that the French
only lost this campaign through strategic stupidity - after all, they started
with more tanks and more machine guns than the Germans.
Playing the game, however, shows that the German advantages were not so much in
their General staff as in their doctrine for the makeup and use of armored and
air units: The German tanks were concentrated in fast armored units, which
gave the German army a capability that the French essentially did not have, and
there were differences use of the air units as well. As Dunnigan says in his
design notes:
Motorization and armored vehicles were something else again.
The best way of determining their effectiveness was to simply
set the prototype game up and play it out. We soon discovered
(after double-checking our results with the historical record,
such as it was) that the position of armored and motorized
units was not as simple and straightforward as it appeared....
Many historians claim (or suspect, depending on how much they
want to commit themselves) that the Allies could have stopped
the Germans if only they hadn't let themselves be
outmaneuvered by the German advance through the Ardennes.
Our conclusion was that ... the Germans couldn't lose.
Dunnigan goes on to talk about how this lack of play balance was a real problem
from the standpoint of the game as a game. And the fact that it was discovered
during the development process, and were not preconceptions on the part of the
designer, I think addresses some of Patrick Carroll's concerns about the
designers' prejudices being artificially imposed on a game.
Getting back to Axis and Allies, a similar though less drastic contrast might
be made between the A&A Pacific theatre and the game Victory in the Pacific:
both capture the island hopping strategic feel of the campaign well, but the
latter adds interesting historical detail on how naval battles were resolved -
I'm thinking in particular of the 'night battle' versus 'day battle' issues.
Perhaps I could
defend the example by pointing out that although the
use of opportunity fire requires micromanagement of
units, the effect of opportunity fire on the
decisionmaking process is to make the player pay
attention to controlling lanes of approach and
avoiding "naked" assaults over open terrain.
In the case of Panzerblitz, though, the subtleties of the design actually teach
these lessons without explicit mechanics. Because you must move towards the
enemy to attack, and because a unit cannot move and attack in the same turn,
the defender necessarily gets a chance to shoot at attacking forces, even
without an explicity opportunity fire rule. The Panzer Leader opportunity fire
rule is largely redundant with the PanzerBlitz 'fire or move but not both'
rule.
A lot of really classic wargame designs have this feature: that such issues
are handled subtly and holistically, rather than in explicit detail. This
helps one focus on issues about the flow of combat that are best illustrated by
a game, rather than by a book; explicit detail tends to be about issues that
are already adequately documented in historical texts.
I find the more elegant and subtle games more replayable, as well: I'm pretty
sure I could play a legal game of PanzerBlitz now, despite having not played in
ten years; I'm certain if I tried that with Panzer Leader, I would forget some
key rules.
In any case this is the sort of discussion that I am
trying to argue is meaningful in the context of
wargames--and which becomes meaningless if we accept
the idea that realism (simulation, modeling) is purely
illusory.
Yes; we certainly agree on that.
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
Elliot Wilen
Patrick Carroll <domi...@aol.com> wrote:
>I'd say there are real and illusory components to most everything in life that
>we can talk about. But if we can agree that a photographed nightscape is more
>realistic than Van Gogh's "Starry Night," we ought to be able to agree that
>wargame X is more realistic than wargame Y.
Yes. To push the analogy, we can also agree that sometimes we prefer "Starry
Night" for its sheer esthetics (apart from realism), and sometimes we
might even consider that "Starry Night" captures some of the feel of
*a* starry night better than a photograph. My enjoyment of some games
is unaffected by concerns about realism (and that's never the sole
reason why I like any game), and different games can be "realistic" in
quite varying ways. (For e.g., the game Magic Realm, in spite of some
very stylized mechanics, can conjure up a quite vivid impression of
its--admittedly fictional--subject. Maybe something similar could be
said of the Up Front series--but I'm just guessing, having never played
any of them.) And of course, even within a fairly narrow definition of
realism as roughly congruent to "accuracy in modeling", one game might
be more realistic than another in some ways, less realistic in others.
Which goes to show that a discussion of realism is filled with pitfalls
if we aren't clear about what kind of realism we're talking about.
>Then we can get on with the more meaningful part of this discussion: how can a
>recreational civilian wargame be useful, as a model (or simulation or
>whatever), to the casual wargamer or amateur military historian?
>
>[snip military and professional historians]
>
>[Some wargamers want verisimilitude, while others want games which correspond
> to their understanding of military history.]
>
>I see a real tension between the two types of casual civilian wargamer I
>sketched out above. A game designed for the "daydreamer" might be beefed up
>with all sorts of artificial pseudo-realism to make a rip-roaring Rambo-style
>game of it. But this would put off the military-history buff. A wargame
>designed for the amateur historian ought to be a very cautious, conservative
>design--and would probably end up being more abstract than realistic (for fear
>of stumbling over any details the semi-educated designer might consider
>including).
Some problems with the use of "realistic" here. I think you're saying
that the wargame designed for the amateur historian is more abstract than
realistic, where "realistic" means something like "detailed and evocative".
But such a game is likely more "realistic" than the "daydreamer" variety
in the sense of providing a better predictive, analytical, or
descriptive model, or a better representation of selected
decision-making criteria.
Anyway, I agree that such a tension exists, and I'm becoming aware of
another tension--namely a tension between the desire to observe a realistic
model of events, and the desire to experience a realistic representation
of the problems facing a military commander. The first desire might be
thought of as characteristic of a "spectator" role--you want to observe
the conflict unfold "realistically". The second desire might be thought of
as an "actor" role--you want to make decisions in ways analogous to (even
if much simpler than) an actual commander. Ideally you might even want to
"perceive events" in ways analogous to an actual commander. The goals in
this approach might be, first, immersive or roleplaying, and second,
intellectual--the challenge of making decisions under certain constraints.
Someone whose interest tends more toward the "spectator" is relatively
untroubled by the issue of micromanagement of units, or the issue of
excessive intelligence, except insofar as it leads to unrealistic
behavior of the forces in conflict. An "actor" or "roleplayer" is far
more likely to prefer a game which allows him to use only the sort of
knowledge which the actual commander would have, and to control only
those aspects of the situation which the actual commander would be able
to control.
>The real underlying question is, what do you really want from a wargame? If I
>were offered a holodeck which could provide a perfectly detailed, interactive
>(and modifiable) replay of actual historical battles and campaigns, I'd only be
>attracted to it superficially, as a novelty. It's not really what I'm looking
>for. I don't want all the details, all the realism; I just want the principles
>and mechanics (and maybe a thin layer of chrome) that underlie actual
>historical military operations.
I also wouldn't want all the details. The game would take too long, for
one thing, unless I was playing a tactical simulation. For another
thing, as interested as I may be in military affairs, I'm not interested
in doing *all* the *work* that a real commander has to do.
>Thus, I *want* the wargame to be semi-abstract and semi-realistic. Too much
>abstraction, and I might as well be playing chess. Too much realism, and I
>might as well be watching a documentary or reading a book.
Again, problems with the use of "realism". Here I think you mean
something akin to "detail". At least, as has been argued, abstraction
is not necessarily the enemy of realism.
As for me, I want a wargame to be semi-abstract for the sake of
manageability (besides, abstraction is unavoidable), and semi-detailed
for the sake of verisimilitude (it needs to recognizably represent
something). Some degee of "modeling" is also necessary, for me, to
provide verisimilitude--it's not enough that some pieces have pictures
of Shermans on them while others have pictures of Panthers; they also
need to compare in strength in a way representative of an actual
comparison of the two vehicles (at least, assuming a micro-tactical
game).
Just *how* accurate I want the model to be is another question. I'm
tempted to say, "as accurate as possible, given the level of
abstraction and the focus of the model." That is certainly a topic that
interests me, in the sense that I enjoy speculating on the accuracy of
the models contained in one game or another and considering how they
might be improved. (This speculation is something that I find enjoyable
both as an amateur game tinkerer and as an amateur historian--since a
critique of a game model can be a jumping off point for understanding
historical phenomena.)
But I'll readily admit that there are situations which would probably
make pretty poor games if the games used accurate models. My response
is either to avoid such situations or to compromise where the "charm"
of the game itself wins out over the lack of modeling accuracy.
>I want a wargame to be predictive in the sense that it reveals
>fundamental principles of war--principles I can see demonstrated time
>and again throughout military history. One such principle, for
>example, might be that frontal attacks tend to be costly and rarely
>succeed--as demonstrated by Pickett's Charge, the Somme, and other
>instances. If a wargame can reliably reveal or demonstrate such
>principles, and provide me with the opportunity to experiment with
>them, I'd say it's a "useful model" for this amateur military
>historian. Unfortunately, in all too many games, it seems the
>principles of war have been artificially "designed in" by someone who
>*thinks* he understands how war works.
Hm. I'd say a number of games are good at demonstrating such things as
the importance of mass, the importance of simplicity in planning, the
use of mobility and interior lines, the benefit of pinning down the
opposing army with some troops while maneuvering with others (the
"hammer and anvil" approach), the importance of keeping a reserve, and
other principles.
As an aside, I think that many wargames do a better job of illustrating
these issues than chess, because chess has a fundamental "trappiness"
which often overwhelms all other considerations.
>So, a few "designed-in" principles are there to be demonstrated; but
>the rest of the game is ludicrous, bearing little resemblance to what
>it purports to represent. Ideally, there ought to be a way to just
>"miniaturize" and abstract battles, campaigns, and other operations
>*without* "designing in" artificial, subjective concepts; leaving
>players free to explore on their own, unhindered by the designer's
>personal expression. But I don't know of any way to achieve that.
Maybe you can provide some examples of these artificially designed-in
principles. I have my own ideas--such as instances where an advantage
is misrepresented for the scale and level of abstraction, such as
giving a simple combat bonus to one side's units when that side really
owed its superiority to mobility or command flexibility.
As for the rest--abstraction necessitates some degree of
interpretation--what to include explicitly, what to abstract out. So
you're right that there's no way to escape the designer's personal
expression. But I do think a designer can aspire to create an abstract
framework and then fill it in semi-objectively--e.g., here are the
factors which I will include, and here is how I will calculate them
based on the data. He will probably then test his framework and
interpretive methods, modifying them until they produce plausible
results. If the designer is open about the decisions made in the
creation of his abstract model, you can then play the game of "Okay,
given what this person thinks about the fundamentals of this particular
situation, what kinds of conclusions can we draw?" I suspect this is
one reason why the amateur historian wargamer keeps buying games--to
explore the topics which interest him from a multiplicity of
perspectives. But in this case the topic isn't just the subject matter
of the game, but the question of how to create a dynamic model of the
subject as a form of amateur exploration.
P. Stoucas
When I wrote:
[So, here is where our "mythical" interested parties stand as of now.
They are single-minded in their pursuits of amateur history research.
They do not call themselves scientists or professionals. Instead, they
employ "systems thinking" in their investigations which is quite
heuristic. Most importantly, they are _not_ essentialists. In other
words, they look at "systems formulations" as tools for conducting
specific investigations as opposed to symbolic entities that, somehow,
manage to "mirror" the full realities of armed conflict.]
you responded:
[OK, up to the final part of your final sentence. They are attempting to
model *relevant parts* of armed conflict. They are using systems
thinking in order to help to choose which are the relevant and which the
irrelevant parts.]
Yes, this is _so_ important for us that I hope you will forgive me if I
spend a bit more time on it ! <g> At issue here is the much... dreaded
term "realism". Within the _specific_ context of our present
methodological enquiry, things are rather clear. There can be no question
of an unrestricted, holistic and all-encompassing interpretation of
"realism" (i.e., creating a "mirror" of the _full_ realities of armed
conflict). The particular focus and orientation of our "mythical"
interested party definitely precludes such an undertaking. Like you have
suggested, these eclectic amateur historians will _use_ systems thinking
to _exclude_ armed conflict aspects that are _irrelevant_ to their
_specific_ research interests. However, some hobbyists may still be
confused about all this... discipline. Luckily, a most interesting
discussion currently taking place between Patrick (Carroll) and Elliot
(Wilen) in this same thread can effectively complement our dialectic here
! <g>
Patrick wrote:
[But the amateur military historian won't settle for Rambo-style
realism. He also reads military history; and he wants the salient
features of the game to correspond to (or at least not undermine) the
salient points he reads about. When he plays a wargame, he wants to end
up saying to himself, "Yes, this jibes with what I've read; I can believe
that what's happening in the game *could* have happened historically."]
and
[I want a wargame to be predictive in the sense that it reveals
fundamental principles of war--principles I can see demonstrated time and
again throughout military history. One such principle, for example, might
be that frontal attacks tend to be costly and rarely succeed--as
demonstrated by Pickett's Charge, the Somme, and other instances. If a
wargame can reliably reveal or demonstrate such principles, and provide
me with the opportunity to experiment with them, I'd say it's a "useful
model" for this amateur military historian.]
Elliot wrote:
[Some problems with the use of "realistic" here. I think you're saying
that the wargame designed for the amateur historian is more abstract than
realistic, where "realistic" means something like "detailed and
evocative". But such a game is likely more "realistic" than the
"daydreamer" variety in the sense of providing a better predictive,
analytical, or descriptive model, or a better representation of selected
decision-making criteria.]
and
[As for the rest--abstraction necessitates some degree of
interpretation--what to include explicitly, what to abstract out. So
you're right that there's no way to escape the designer's personal
expression.]
Alan, for the balance of our present methodological enquiry I will
refrain from using the term "realism"..... Think about it. We are dealing
with _board_ wargames here and, yet, we cannot entirely escape hobbyist
immersive desires and tendencies. Can you imagine what it would be like
to have a discussion like ours within the context of _computer-enabled_
wargames ? <g> <g> To boot, our postulated interested party is....
"mythical". Just think how hard it is for hobbyists "out there" (not in
this thread) who are into wargaming due to a combination of military
history, competitive strategy gaming and immersive interests to be
changing their hats all the time in response to the specifics of any
particular discussion.
In another post of mine I will get into the rather important issues of
"accuracy" and "re-enactment" within the context of historically recorded
armed conflict.
Patrick Carroll
>Again, problems with the use of "realism". Here I think you mean
>something akin to "detail". At least, as has been argued, abstraction
>is not necessarily the enemy of realism.
But wait a minute. Now maybe we're not in agreement after all. To me, the
basic reason a photo of the night sky strikes me as clearly more realistic than
Van Gogh's "Starry Night" is that the photo has more details in common with
what I see when I look at the actual night sky--more specific points on which I
can say, "Yes, this looks like that."
Let's introduce a third thing for comparison-a chart on which numerals or
geometric shapes represent the stars in the night sky. Even if I could see how
the chart matched up to the actual night sky (e.g., "This numeral 6 must stand
for that cluster of six stars, and this triangle apparently refers to that
semi-triangular cluster of stars over there"), I'd still say Van Gogh's
painting is more realistic than the chart. In fact, the chart is patently
abstract, not realistic. When I look into the night sky, I do not see numerals
and geometric shapes hanging there. Rather, I see something that looks a bit
more like "Starry Night."
Thus, the movie "Rambo" is clearly more realistic than the game "Firepower"
(FP)--even though FP is advertised as a realistic model of modern squad-level
tactics. I say "Rambo" is more realistic because I believe that if I had seen
combat in Vietnam, it would surely look more like what I see in the movie than
what I see on the FP game board.
Now, the designer of FP might argue that his game is clearly the more
realistic. And he'd probably do that by trying to explain how all the
abstractions in the game refer to real-world phenomena (just as the numerals on
the afore-mentioned chart refer to stars in the sky even though they don't look
anything like stars). But I could argue with every abstract point in the game
just as I could argue with the chart of the night sky (e.g., "Why did you use a
6 to represent this as a cluster of six stars, when it's obvious to me that
that cluster is connected to the cluster next to it, and you should've used a
15 to designate the full cluster?").
In the end, one has to give the chartmaker or wargame designer the benefit of
the doubt. We can say, "Well, that's just the way this designer chose to
represent the data; and given his viewpoint and means of representation, we can
say it's true to the actual military operation." But if we're going to call
that "realism," we might just as well say "Starry Night" is a *realistic*
representation of the night sky. Given Van Gogh's viewpoint and chosen means
of representation, it's true to the actual night sky.
I don't want to get right down to the philosophical nitty-gritty, because at
that level it gets very wierd. (There's the famous debate between Russell and
Frege, for instance, over whether names can ever truly refer to anything in the
real world.)
But even if we stand back and look at it just from an intuitive level, I'd have
to say Third Reich (3R) is more realistic than Axis & Allies (A&A) precisely
because 3R has more connections with the real-life situation it portrays than
does A&A. There are more specifics in 3R to which I can point and say, "Yes,
this matches up with that actual WWII phenomenon; this one matches up with that
one; and so on." The more such credible reference points there are, the more
realistic the game is. The fewer such credible reference points there are, the
more abstract (and consequently the less realistic) the game is.
So far, though, we're talking only about *credible* reference points. If
there's something in my actual mental picture of WWII which does not have a
corresponding reference in A&A, I'll just say A&A is *abstract* with regard to
that particular point. But if I find a *contrary* reference in a wargame
(e.g., in real life, aircraft movement is unaffected by terrain features, but
in the game airplanes move slower through the woods), then the game is
*unrealistic* (i.e., not credible) in that regard.
Thus, I'd want to draw a distinction between *abstract* and *unrealistic.* I'd
say chess is clearly an abstract wargame: it's suggestive of two opposing
battle arrays clashing on a field, but because it's so stylized, it's immune
from being criticized as unrealistic (e.g., "Real-life knights don't always
move in L-shaped patterns"). PanzerBlitz (PB), OTOH, *can* be criticized as
unrealistic: since a unit-counter passing through a series of hexes is
supposed to represent a group of tanks actually moving across the field, it's
unrealistic that the unit-counter can move up to and around enemy units without
the latter being able to shoot at the tanks--because on a real-life
battlefield, the enemy units most certainly would be shooting at the moving
tanks. If PB didn't want to deal with that particular, the designer should
have made it a more abstract (and less realistic) game. Since he didn't, the
game can be criticized as unrealistic (i.e., not credible, with regard to the
particular we're examining).
In short, for a wargame to be immune to criticism as "unrealistic," every
detail that constitutes an association with real-life phenomena must be an
accurate, credible representation of that phenomena. The more detailed a game
is, the more likely it is that some feature of the game will prove unrealistic.
Digressing back to our "Starry Night" analogy: it's hard to criticize the
painting as unrealistic, since it's just Van Gogh's impression, and we don't
know what his standards were; but still, the painting does look more like the
night sky than the abstract star chart, so we can call "Starry Night" more
*realistic* on that count. But we can criticize unrealistic elements of the
abstract star chart, once we understand the designer's standards (e.g., "You
used a numeral 6 for this cluster, but there are actually seven stars there.").
We can also criticize the photo (e.g., "The seventh star in this cluster
doesn't show up in the picture.").
Having rambled this far, it occurs to me that what I'm suggesting is a grid:
the X coordinate represents subjective-objective, while the Y coordinate
represents abstract-realistic. Chess is subjective-abstract; "Starry Night" is
subjective-realistic; the abstract star chart is objective-abstract; and the
photograph is objective-realistic.
When we consider a wargame, I think we have to consider both axes of the grid.
If we start giving the designer a lot of freedom for self-expression, the
wargame is going to end up being subjective (like "Starry Night" or chess),
which makes it immune from criticism for not matching up directly with
objective phenomena. But if we insist that the wargame be objective (like the
abstract star chart or photograph), then every referential detail of the game
must match up in verifiable ways to real-life phenomena, or the game must be
branded unrealistic.
So, once again, what do we really want in a wargame? Do we want it to be
subjective or objective, or somewhere in-between? Abstract or realistic, or
somewhere in-between? Which combination of these fundamental features makes
the wargame most useful as a model for us recreational civilian wargamers or
amateur military historians?
At the beginning of my wargaming career, I'd have chosen objective-realistic.
I couldn't imagine a wargame being useful to me unless it accurately portrayed
military operations in verifiable detail. But as I gained experience in
wargaming, I began to see that a lot of real-life phenomena has to be
abstracted in order to make it into a playable game that fits on a tabletop; so
I got used to a certain degree of abstraction. Then, as I gained even more
experience, I realized that the wargames I'd been playing are also more than a
little bit subjective: they tend to reflect the designer's understanding of a
situation, not necessarily the objective situation itself. Since the same is
true of battle reports or history books and their authors, I learned to
tolerate a measure of subjectivity as well.
But those compromises never really set well with me. I can see that they're
necessary, but there's a part of me that dislikes them.
I also noticed that as a game moves toward the objective-realistic extreme, it
becomes less and less playable and more and more demanding (of time, effort,
and other resources). Conversely, as a game moves toward the
subjective-abstract extreme, it *can* become more playable and less demanding,
since design standards need not be so rigorous. The older I get, the less
tolerance I have for highly demanding games (for instance, I refuse to learn a
new wargame every time I want to explore a new military operation/engagement; I
want one game that enables me to explore *all* operations/engagements). So,
over the years I've found myself drawing back closer and closer to the
subjective-abstract corner of the chart.
The subjective-objective axis concerns me the most. I can live with varying
degrees of abstraction. But once subjective elements start coming into the
picture, it annoys me if they're not my own. Anzio is basically Tom Oleson's
game; Squad Leader is John Hill's. I don't especially want to know what
Oleson, Hill, Dunnigan, Berg, or anyone else thinks about how war works. I'm
interested enough to read their articles or books and hear briefly what they
have to say; but I'm not interested enough to dedicate a large portion of my
time to playing their wargames and, in effect, seeing military history through
their eyes. I want to see military history through my own eyes. So for me,
unless a wargame can be nearly 100 percent objective, I'd just as soon that it
be nearly 100 percent subjective--i.e., dependent on my own personal
interpretation. The in-between degrees along that subjective-objective axis
are unsatisfactory to me (unless it's my own game design--and sometimes not
even then).
But again, the main thing that affects my decisions about wargames is how
demanding they are--how much time & effort I have to devote to learning &
playing them. A wargame is not very useful to me if it takes a day to learn it
and several practice games to get the hang of it--and then all it turns out to
be is a dubious "designer's view" of one particular battle; so that I have to
buy other games, and learn other rules, to explore other battles. That's too
much.
At the subjective-abstract extreme, it's possible for me to play chess and just
*presume* that its principles apply, indirectly, to all military operations.
At that level of subjectivity and abstraction, I could just as well choose
poker or any other abstract game, since all I'm getting is a sort of
"interactive metaphor" anyway. This extreme obviously won't be satisfactory to
many wargamers (in fact, being satisfied with it might be grounds for expulsion
from "wargamer" status). But it helps illustrate where the subjective &
abstract ends of the grid axes point; and that may help explain the whole
concept I'm trying to get across here.
--Patrick
P. Stoucas
I was very glad to see you agreeing to steer clear from totally
historically counterfactual armed conflict. This should sharpen the focus
of our methodological inquiry here even further.....
I believe that we have a "classic" starting point now. It is time to call
upon Mr. J.F. Dunnigan and connect some of his writings to our postulated
"mythical" group of amateur historical wargamers. I believe that Mr.
Dunnigan can effectively speak for/to them in the sense of encapsulating
the most salient features and aspects of (civilian) board wargames _of
the past_.
Mr. Dunnigan writes:
[A wargame is an attempt to get a jump on the future by obtaining a
better understanding of the past. A wargame is a combination of "game,"
history and science. It is a paper time-machine. Basically, it's
glorified chess. If you've never encountered a wargame before, it's
easiest to just think of it as chess with a more complicated playing
board and a more complex way of moving your pieces and taking your
opponents.]
Although our "mythical" amateur military historians are not interested in
"prospective" investigations, their "heuristic systems modelling"
approach seems to be compatible with Mr. Dunnigan's "combination".
Mr. Dunnigan continues:
[A wargame usually combines a map, playing pieces representing historical
personages or military units and a set of rules telling you what you can
or cannot do with them. Many are now available on personal computers. The
object of any wargame (historical or otherwise) is to enable the player
to recreate a specific event and, more importantly, to be able to explore
what might have been if the player decides to do things differently.]
Our "mythical" amateur military historians are assumed to agree with Mr.
Dunnigan's _medium_ definition of a board wargame. However, they reserve
the right to _store_ the game's rules, charts and tables in _electronic_
format if need be..... !! <g>
Alan, from now on, I will refrain from using the potentially confusing
term "historical re-enactment". Instead, I will be using Mr. Dunnigan's
"historical re-creation" ! <g>
Clearly, within the context of historical board wargames, there is a very
high degree of congruence between the objectives that Mr. Dunnigan talks
about and those ascribed to our postulated "mythical" amateur military
historians.
Mr. Dunnigan goes on:
[To be a wargame, in our sense of the word, the game must be realistic.
And in some cases, they are extremely realistic, realistic to the point
where some of the wargames are actually used for professional purposes
(primarily the military, but also business and teaching).]
Well, we now know better in this thread.... Similarly, our "mythical"
amateur military historians will _not_ be employing terms such as
"realism", "realistic" and the like. As for the professional uses of
board wargames, again, we have relegated them to the status of an
"advanced topic".
Now, Mr. Dunnigan has more to say to those hobbyists who approach board
wargames with strong historical interests. He writes:
[Analytic History, and What is a Simulation Anyway?
Two things that defined the wargaming scene in the early days, aside from
the flood of games, was the use of the term "simulation" rather than
wargame and the unique nature of the history articles in Strategy &
Tactics magazine. There were interconnected reasons for both of these
developments. The primary reason is that wargamers are not so much gamers
as they are very curious history buffs. While many military history
enthusiasts are content to read a book on battles and campaigns, watch a
good film on war or wander through battlefields, a wargamer wants to
measure and analyze things. When I started SPI, the name, Simulations
Publications, was chosen to represent an accurate description of what we
were doing, and what we felt wargamers wanted. What we were creating
weren't wargames, they were simulations. We were stuck with the
traditional term "wargame," but every one who created or used our "games"
knew better. We called them wargames, and let other call them wargames,
an incorrect term for an activity that was incomprehensible enough as it
was. It wasn't worth the effort to expunge inaccurate terms, although we
tried. Wargamers used the terms "wargame" and "simulation"
interchangeably. But the labels issue was small change compared to the
emergence of analytic history.]
Alan, I do not know about you, but _I_ would like to comment here, if I
may...... Mr. Dunnigan coins the term "wargamer" to mean "curious history
buff" with a peripheral interest in gaming. Interestingly enough, our
"mythical" amateur military historians would have no problem with this at
all, at least in their _postulated_ manifestation. Then, Mr. Dunnigan
suggests that the SPI (historical) wargames are, in essence,
_simulations_. He further asserts that his "wargamer" is a "military
history enthusiast" who instead of _just_ being "content to read a book
on battles and campaigns, watch a good film on war or wander through
battlefields", he "wants to measure and analyze things". Presumably, a
simulation enables such a "wargamer" to do the latter while a mere board
wargame does not.
This is something that we have not yet fully come to grips around here
(on behalf of our "mythical" friends, of course !). I mean, why is it
that these "mythical" amateur military historians find the (traditional
?) historical board wargames or simulations of the past (all of them ?
some of them ?) _inadequate_ for their _specific_ research purposes ?
This is something that will preoccupy us for a while, I think.....
Mr. Dunnigan continues:
[Analytic history is what a wargame was before it became a game. A
wargame is, after all, an historical account of an event in simulation
form. The subject must be researched and the data organized so that it
can be presented in a simulation format. That's analytic history. But
wait, what the hell is the difference between a wargame and a war
simulation? Often there's not a lot of difference at all. The main
purpose of a simulation is to present the situation so that you can
manipulate the key elements. This allows you to better understand how all
these elements interacted and, this is where the game element comes in,
play around with alternative strategies and tactics. This explains why so
many wargamers don't game at all, but simply study and manipulate the
game by themselves. Yes, two people can use a simulation as a game, many
do, and the game element is not ignored when putting these things
together. The game element is there whether you want it or not. It's the
nature of the beast. There are usually two sides in a military conflict,
both have numerous elements of the situation they can manipulate, thus
you have a game situation. Some wargamers enjoy the game element more
than the simulation and history aspects, but they are basically into the
history angle, otherwise they would play the more numerous non-historical
games. And that is what many early wargamers did when the fantasy and
science fiction games came along. These games were more game than
simulation, although a simulation element was present.]
Right off the bat, I would recommend that we drop all references to
"applied military history" in favour of "analytic (military) history".
Our "mythical" friends would be very appreciative, I am sure ! <g> In
fact, I would suggest that we try and view our contemplated "heuristic
systems modelling" approach as an aspect or manifestation or, if need be,
extension of Mr. Dunnigan's "analytic (military) history". Also notice
that Mr. Dunnigan explicitly allows for the re-creation of historically
recorded armed conflict within the confines of a historical conflict
simulation. Fortunately, given the "mythical" nature of our amateur
military historians and their presumed single-minded fixation on
conducting "research", we do not have to deal with the gaming and other
hobbyist interests that Mr. Dunnigan talks about.
Ok, Alan, here is where I will stop to take a breather. I am looking
forward to your comments ("accuracy" will be next ! <g>).
Warren J. Dew
Again, problems with the use of "realism". Here I think you mean
something akin to "detail". At least, as has been argued, abstraction
is not necessarily the enemy of realism.
Patrick Carroll posts, in part:
But wait a minute. Now maybe we're not in agreement after all.
To me, the basic reason a photo of the night sky strikes me as
clearly more realistic than Van Gogh's "Starry Night" is that
the photo has more details in common with what I see when I
look at the actual night sky--more specific points on which I
can say, "Yes, this looks like that." ...
I think Elliot is right in labelling this as detail, not realism.
Let's take another example. On the one hand, you have a photograph of the
night sky. On the other, you have a three dimensional block of lucite with
embedded points representing the positions of the galaxies in our local
cluster.
Which is more 'realistic'?
I'd argue that the lucite block is more realistic, or at least a better model.
What one sees when one looks up into the sky at night is a universe that is
three dimensional; the lucite block captures this, at the cost of collapsing
the vast majority of those pretty stars into one tiny point - the one
representing our own galaxy.
The photograph, on the other hand, has only a surface verisimilitude. It looks
like the night sky as viewed from one point of view, but lies grossly about the
actual distance relationships of the stars and galaxies that it pictures.
PanzerBlitz (PB), OTOH, *can* be criticized as unrealistic:
since a unit-counter passing through a series of hexes is
supposed to represent a group of tanks actually moving across
the field, it's unrealistic that the unit-counter can move up
to and around enemy units without the latter being able to
shoot at the tanks--because on a real-life battlefield, the
enemy units most certainly would be shooting at the moving
tanks.
Again, you seem to be looking for surface similarities, rather than a real
model. A game on the scale of Panzerblitz doesn't attempt to model whether or
not one unit counter is shooting at another. It only attempts to model whether
there is an effect on the target unit. If Panzerblitz can actually do a better
job of modeling this effect by treating combat more simply - say by permitting
attack resolution at only one point in the turn, rather than at multiple points
- added detail may actually degrade the accuracy of the model, despite
increasing verisimilitude. In my opinion, this is exactly what the Panzer
Leader opportunity fire rule does - improving apparent accuracy of detail, but
degrading the actual accuracy of the simulation.
But once subjective elements start coming into the
picture, it annoys me if they're not my own. Anzio is
basically Tom Oleson's game; Squad Leader is John Hill's.
I don't especially want to know what Oleson, Hill,
Dunnigan, Berg, or anyone else thinks about how war works.
I can't speak to Oleson or Hill - though I admit that Squad Leader always
seemed to me to be heavy on the detail without regard to the accuracy of the
simulation - but I think that in Dunnigan's case, you are not getting his
subjective preconceptions about how war works. Rather, you are getting the
less visible but deeper truths about how war works, truths that he discovered
in the course of designing and developing the game, and that one can gain an
understanding of by playing the game with Designer's notes in hand.
After all, unlike most game designers, a majority of Dunnigan's work has
actually been for the military, who have a certain interest in objective
discoveries about how war really works. After all, if they can understand it
well enough, it will help them make sure that it's the other guy dying for his
country, and not them.
Warren
Jeff Fisher
> <much snipped>
>
> The proof is,
> as they say, in the pudding-the test results of my students who have
> participated in historical gaming have been much higher than those who have
> not. On this basis alone I am prepared to state that wargames have definite
> educational value.
I know two ways that historical wargames can greatly enhance learning
even if they teach little directly:
1) Wargames can introduce people to unfamiliar periods and conflicts,
giving them a framework on which to hang further learning from classes,
reading, and documentaries, thereby improving comprehension and recall.
2) Wargames generate genuine interest in a period, a conflict, and its
participants, spurring additional study of those specifically, and
interest in history in general.
-- Jeff Fisher, Vancouver WA
To reply, replace ".dont_spam." with '@'
Patrick Carroll
>Let's take another example. On the one hand, you have a photograph of the
>night sky. On the other, you have a three dimensional block of lucite with
>embedded points representing the positions of the galaxies in our local
I agree the lucite block would be more realistic in the sense you mean. But
I'd question whether it's a more useful model for our purposes. As you
describe it, one could not look at the lucite block from a particular angle and
see precisely what he sees when he looks at the night sky--or what any human
being normally sees. Thus, the block provides a true-to-the-universe but
alien-to-the-human perspective. That's useful for space travel and such; but
it won't help me identify a few constellations tomorrow night.
A similar phenomenon can occur with wargames. For instance:
>A game on the scale of Panzerblitz doesn't attempt to model whether or
>not one unit counter is shooting at another. It only attempts to model
>whether
>there is an effect on the target unit. If Panzerblitz can actually do a
>better
>job of modeling this effect by treating combat more simply - say by
>permitting
>attack resolution at only one point in the turn, rather than at multiple
>points
>- added detail may actually degrade the accuracy of the model, despite
>increasing verisimilitude.
But to anyone who has ever played PB (without contemplating on the model as
deeply as you evidently have), it portrays small armored & infantry units
moving around on a patch of ground, firing at each other. And from that
ordinary human perspective, it seems weird that my little halftrack can run
circles around your 88 while the halftrack infantry thumb their noses at the
German AT crew. Evidently that bothered enough wargamers that PL "corrected"
the problem--and all subsequent tactical designs I know of (ASL, etc.) employed
a similar defensive-fire "correction."
So, I don't disagree with what you're saying, Warren. But I'm inclined to
believe that most wargamers are mainly concerned with the *relative* truth
about how war works, not with the *absolute* truth about it. In other words,
we want to see how things work within the context of a limited model--one that
portrays a slice of war from something like a spectator's viewpoint.
As a casual, amateur military historian and American Civil War buff, I'm
endlessly fascinated by "scenes"--like the Union divisions storming up
Missionary Ridge, or the cavalry clash at Brandy Station. But I'm bored to
tears by facts & figures about unit strength, desertion rates, supply
consumption, ammo expenditure, range & accuracy, kill ratios, and so forth.
Even if I could hope to comprehend all the actual mechanics of how Civil War
operations truly worked, I wouldn't want to. Not unless that understanding
could be presented in a simplified (and possibly even distorted) way that
satisfies the would-be spectator in me.
Above all, a wargame has to be fun and playable. To me, that means it has to
satisfy the imagination of a casual, recreational wargamer--one who's expecting
something of a spectator's viewpoint on whatever the game portrays.
For this reason, there may indeed be a fundamental difference between the ideal
civilian recreational wargame and the ideal military simulational wargame.
--Patrick
BC.
English is not my first language) :
Conflict resolution models map inputs (forces, weather, supply etc.) to
outputs ( possible outcomes). In a typical wargame, inputs are strength
(in men), and output losses. In a boardgame this is usually done with a
CRT, and various modifiers to the dice. More details in the simulation
would translate usually with lots of modifiers to the dices, thus
skewing the results up or down.
The theoretical reason for randomness in a model is that some factors
are not accounted for, and are independent of the inputs. A perfect
model would be completely deterministic (i.e. you have perfect knowledge
and can deduce the outcome). When a model grows in complexity, one would
expect the randomness (noise) to decrease : the variance of the output
should decrease with the number of factors taken into account.
So, in fact, we could say that some wargames are better models than
others if they significantly yield more accurate results, at the
possible price of more complexity. In fact, the trade-off between
complexity and accuracy should not be left to the designer, the best
model is the simplest that captures the characteristics of the reality.
i don't see the point in piling rule after rule, modifier after modifier
if the final result is still equally random, you could as well dispense
with the complexity.
In fact, the current trend in wargames seem to stick to simple
mechanism, easier game play, and more simple conflict resolution
systems... would you say they're worse than the complex ones or that
they essentially achieve the same degree of insight ? What would be the
point then to use sophisticated mechanisms ?
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Christian Killoran
Jeff Fisher <jeffry...@home.com> wrote in message
news:381FD8C3...@home.com...
> I know two ways that historical wargames can greatly enhance learning
> even if they teach little directly:
>
> 1) Wargames can introduce people to unfamiliar periods and conflicts,
> giving them a framework on which to hang further learning from classes,
> reading, and documentaries, thereby improving comprehension and recall.
>
> 2) Wargames generate genuine interest in a period, a conflict, and its
> participants, spurring additional study of those specifically, and
> interest in history in general.
Absolutely true. It's entirely possible that the real educational benefit
of wargames applies most to the "beginning" student of history, military or
otherwise. Some folks feel that this quality make such games inferior
sources for historical inquiry. I disagree, however, because I have never
been comfortable with the idea that "history is only for historians."
I rejected taking on a Ph.D. for similar reasons, feeling that history is
more important for the man in the street than for academics. The bashing of
wargames as serious history is analogous to the bashing of such "popular"
historians as Barbara Tuchman and Cornelius Ryan. It seems to me that the
contribution of wargames to historical study tends more toward insight and
less toward academic methodology - and that's always going to offend some.
Patrick Carroll
>model.
Actually, I want both, and I won't take one without the other.
If I commission a sculptor to make a model of a duck, and he comes back with a
monstrosity that looks like a splayed-out giraffe, I'm going to complain. Even
if he patiently explains that his model shows all the innards of a duck--all
the parts one can't normally see with the naked eye--and is therefore superior
to a mere external model, I'm going to reject his work. He may be right in
stating that the giraffe-like appearance is "merely superficial," but if the
thing doesn't look like a duck, I don't want it.
Same goes for wargames. If it doesn't have the look & feel of warfare when I
play it, I don't care how instructive it is as a model.
I'm not trying to sidetrack the discussion here, btw. I just think we ought to
keep our hypothetical "model" within reasonable parameters. We're talking
about "board wargames as models"--which means that first of all, the thing has
to be a board wargame (presumably with a mapboard, unit counters, and so
forth). On the surface, it has to have the look of a military operation from a
spectator's viewpoint. Beyond that, we can discuss what else the model is
capable of demonstrating or testing or predicting.
Patrick Carroll
Minnesota, USA
Paul Thronson
in Jr High. Is there much practical application? There is some. Learning is
learning.
Christian Killoran wrote in message ...
Alan Paull
>I'm sorry, but I still remain puzzled by your distinction between
>"modelling" and "simulation". I know you've tried this once, but can
>you explain again, perhaps with examples, how you draw the distinction?
>(I suggested earlier that simulation has more to do with placing
>players in well-defined roles corresponding to the actual actors in
>what is being simulated, while models simply provide outcomes based
>on certain criteria--but I'm not sure how that relates to your
>notions.)
>
I'm sorry I haven't got back to this before now - Other events have had to
take precedence!
I would consider a model to have more limitations than a simulation. A
model is an attempt to represent a series of events, so that outcomes can be
predicted if specific variables are changed. To this end, when constructing
a model, you have to be very careful about variables that are included and
those that are excluded. You must include all variables you consider to be
relevant, and of course any variables you want to vary. There are many
business games on the educational market that are reasonable models for use
for predicting events, such as "what might happen if I put up my prices?"
These aren't necessarily simulations, because they are often run straight
from a computer, with no "business environment".
Simulations on the other hand attempt to immerse the user within the
situation of a real life person in an event. So, if our business game model
were used to feed information into a business scenario, with people taking
on actual roles (e.g. Chief Executive, Finance Director, Production Manager,
etc) in a realistic setting (e.g. a mock Board Room), then we'd have a
simulation, not just a model. A less prosaic example might be the "crisis
simulations" that the Americans run, as a way of experiencing the atmosphere
of, say, the Cuban Missile Crisis. The major purpose of these simulations
is to give the participants experience of what it is like to be in that
situation (in a realistic but unrisky environment), so that if it happens
for real, they will be aware of some of the dynamics, particularly personal
dynamics. With a model, we're looking more mechanistically at varying
specific elements in a situation to see how the variations influence the
outcomes.
>Also, regardless of how you define "simulation" as distinct from
>"modeling", doesn't a similar argument apply, to wit that games can be
>compared as simulations, and that designers can meaningfully attempt to
>improve the simulation value of games? (How might they do so?)
>
Games *could* be compared as simulations, but a significant group of
wargamers object to this, on the good grounds that simulations of actual
conflict fall far short in the "fear factor" - reactions are bound to be
different and unpredictable, if someone is actually under fire, and you
can't simulate that. Personally I think that there are circumstances at a
strategic level in which simulation in a game environment is possible.
Bob Curtin
I have long thought that wargames would be useful tools in helping non-academic
types to absorb some basic frameworks upon which to base further reading.
I've learned more geography from board wargames than I ever did from school
texts, and the interest that the subject of the wargame sparked led me
to further historical reading. I gobbled up THE KILLER ANGELS
in a single night because of my interest
in Gettysburg, and read other memorable tomes such as ENEMY
AT THE GATES, SNIPER!, and CORREGIDOR,
among hundreds of others. The more
wargames I played, the more I realized that each game was just a part of
a much larger story, and I started reading books on the wars themselves.
Indirectly, wargames have introduced me to some memorable authors, incredible
books (THE BITTER WOODS, HITLER'S LAST OFFENSE
just on the Battle Of The Bulge alone) and have sparked a more general
interest in history itself.
Christian Killoran wrote:
Jeff Fisher <jeffry...@home.com> wrote in message
news:381FD8C3...@home.com...
> I know two ways that historical wargames can greatly enhance learning
> even if they teach little directly:
>
> 1) Wargames can introduce people to unfamiliar periods and conflicts,
> giving them a framework on which to hang further learning from classes,
> reading, and documentaries, thereby improving comprehension and recall.
>
> 2) Wargames generate genuine interest in a period, a conflict, and its
> participants, spurring additional study of those specifically, and
> interest in history in general.Absolutely true. It's entirely possible that the real educational benefit
of wargames applies most to the "beginning" student of history, military or
otherwise. Some folks feel that this quality make such games inferior
sources for historical inquiry. I disagree, however, because I have never
been comfortable with the idea that "history is only for historians."I rejected taking on a Ph.D. for similar reasons, feeling that history is
more important for the man in the street than for academics. The bashing of
wargames as serious history is analogous to the bashing of such "popular"
historians as Barbara Tuchman and Cornelius Ryan. It seems to me that the
contribution of wargames to historical study tends more toward insight and
less toward academic methodology - and that's always going to offend some.
--
Bob Curtin
Worcester Area Strategy & Tactics Exchange
http://www.tiac.net/users/ten10ths/
"If God had intended men to join the Army he would have given us green,
baggy skin"
Warren J. Dew
Warren says (in part):
>Let's take another example. On the one hand, you have a photograph of the
>night sky. On the other, you have a three dimensional block of lucite with
>embedded points representing the positions of the galaxies in our local
>cluster. . . .
I agree the lucite block would be more realistic in the sense you mean. But
I'd question whether it's a more useful model for our purposes. As you
describe it, one could not look at the lucite block from a particular angle
and
see precisely what he sees when he looks at the night sky--or what any human
being normally sees. Thus, the block provides a true-to-the-universe but
alien-to-the-human perspective. That's useful for space travel and such; but
it won't help me identify a few constellations tomorrow night.
Okay, I think we're in agreement here as to what the options are. The
difference may be just that I'm more interested in a tool for thinking
theoretically about space travel, while you want a more practical tool for
identifying constellations. Or whatever the equivalent is for wargames.
So, I don't disagree with what you're saying, Warren. But I'm inclined to
believe that most wargamers are mainly concerned with the *relative* truth
about how war works, not with the *absolute* truth about it. In other words,
we want to see how things work within the context of a limited model--one
that
portrays a slice of war from something like a spectator's viewpoint.
You may well be right in saying that my preferences are in the minority.
It brings to mind the first time I played Yaquinto's _Wings_ - a WWI tactical
aircraft game. We entered from opposite sides of the board, flying in each
others' general directions, making rolls to see when we spotted the other
person and could start to make maneuvers.
After about three turns of flying straight without spotting each other, I
commented, 'gee, this is starting to get really interesting.' My opponent
said, 'hm ... I was getting really bored.'
As a casual, amateur military historian and American Civil War buff, I'm
endlessly fascinated by "scenes"--like the Union divisions storming up
Missionary Ridge, or the cavalry clash at Brandy Station. But I'm bored to
tears by facts & figures about unit strength, desertion rates, supply
consumption, ammo expenditure, range & accuracy, kill ratios, and so forth.
Even if I could hope to comprehend all the actual mechanics of how Civil War
operations truly worked, I wouldn't want to. Not unless that understanding
could be presented in a simplified (and possibly even distorted) way that
satisfies the would-be spectator in me.
I can see that. My view, though, is that the interactivity provided in board
games can help one learn the underlying issues - the mechanics of the
operations - in a simple way without resorting to dry listings of facts and
figures.
In my _Wings_ example above, for instance, I was starting to notice that the
timing of who spotted whom would affect whether we would end up turning in the
same direction or in opposite directions to try to get shots at each other -
and that that would affect who got the advantage, because of slight differences
in our planes' capabilities. Basically, I was starting to learn about what I
would later find out were termed by fighter pilots 'nose to nose' versus 'nose
to tail' turns, turning battles versus flat scissors, and issues about how much
offset one wants in the approach depending on whether one's aircraft is 'high
thrust to weight' or 'low thrust to weight'.
I could never have learned that from a book about aircraft capabilities. I
could also never have learned it by playing even the best computer game, or for
that matter learning to fly a jet fighter; the tactical maneuvers are too
abstract from inside the cockpit, and things happen too fast.
I could have learned it from the classic text _Fighter Combat_ - if I had been
able to stick with it through all the boring parts. Playing the wargame,
though, made the learning process fun, and incidentally complemented the text
really well when I later read it.
... for wargames. If it doesn't have the look & feel of warfare when I
play it, I don't care how instructive it is as a model.
I want both, too, but I think my weighting of the two against each other is
different from yours. And I do think there are times when one has to make a
tradeoff between the two. I'd argue that the opportunity fire rule may be one
of them: if you really drove a halftrack in tight circles around an 88, the
88, with its manual traverse, would never be able to hit. But it might seem
unreasonable not to let it even try.
On the other hand, sometimes both can be handled in a mutually complementary
way by a sufficiently savvy game designer. Going back to Panzerblitz, the
Soviet tank units were much less effective on a per tank basis than the German
units because of the lack of radios: they had one per ten tanks, rather than
one for every tank; tanks within a Soviet company communicated through hand
signals and such.
Simply adjusting the units' combat values, though, would have resulted in
numbers that were very counterintuitive to anyone with any familiarity with the
tanks themselves. A unit of Pzkw IVs would have been twice as strong as a unit
of T-34/76s, in direct contravention to the historical consensus, not to
mention actual hardware comparisons.
This was solved elegantly by putting ten tanks in a Soviet unit, and only five
in a German unit. This allowed the assignment of strength factors that
represented the actual effectiveness of the unit - satisfying my simulation
concerns - while using numbers that reflect the capabilities of the tanks from
a hardware standpoint - satisfying a casual surface observation by someone
knowledgeable about the tanks involved. And the use of smaller units for the
Germans incidentally helped model the greater flexibility accorded low level
unit commanders in the German army.
It's simple and elegant game design solutions such as that that I really like.
It also helps avoid the rules bloat and attendant playability problems that
come with trying to model each such issue with its own special rule, as Panzer
Leader often seems to try to do. I've certainly played Panzerblitz far more
than I've played Panzer Leader, despite having owned them both for about the
same length of time.
Warren Dew
The Maverick
>
> In my _Wings_ example above, for instance, I was starting to notice that the
> timing of who spotted whom would affect whether we would end up turning in the
> same direction or in opposite directions to try to get shots at each other -
> I could never have learned that from a book about aircraft capabilities. I
> could also never have learned it by playing even the best computer game, or for
> that matter learning to fly a jet fighter; the tactical maneuvers are too
> abstract from inside the cockpit, and things happen too fast.
Similarly, a layperson will likely learn more about fighter combat from
thirty minutes of Ace of Aces (that includes the time it takes to learn
the basic game and play the first few games) than any other form of
"instruction" I can think of.
But since the Klatsch seems to prefer concentrating on the straw man
"flawed games", I expect we'll be shunned for bringing up games that
contradict these grand theories! ;-)
Patrick Carroll
>>
>> In my _Wings_ example above, for instance, I was starting to notice that
>the
>> timing of who spotted whom would affect whether we would end up turning in
>the
>> same direction or in opposite directions to try to get shots at each other
>-
>[snip]
>> I could never have learned that from a book about aircraft capabilities. I
>> could also never have learned it by playing even the best computer game, or
>for
>> that matter learning to fly a jet fighter; the tactical maneuvers are too
>> abstract from inside the cockpit, and things happen too fast.
>
>Similarly, a layperson will likely learn more about fighter combat from
>thirty minutes of Ace of Aces (that includes the time it takes to learn
>the basic game and play the first few games) than any other form of
>"instruction" I can think of.
>
>
>the Mav
That's a good point. As we continue to inquire into the question of how board
wargames can be useful models to the amateur military historian, we should
remember that most existing wargames already include *something* useful in that
regard.
The trick is how to cull the wheat from the chaff--or the "military model" from
the "chrome," as it were.
If I want to play Wings or Ace of Aces and benefit from the "valid, instructive
model" aspects of the game, how do I know where the validity of the model ends
and the potentially confusing "chrome" begins?
I've often ruffled feathers around here by insisting that a wargame ought to be
a 100-percent valid model if it's going to be worth its salt at all; and
otherwise it ought to be dismissed as sheer fantasy. OK, let's say I'm wrong
about that. What I want to know now is, if game X is 40% model and 60% fantasy
(or "decoration," or "chrome"), how do I zero in on the 40% and recognize the
valid model when I encounter it?
Or is it not even important to do that? I don't know. Maybe it's like
anything else in life: you take the mixed bag of reality and illusion, and
deal with it as best you can--enjoy it and learn from it any way you see fit.
I would think that when it comes to something like an instructive model,
though, the purpose would be more explicit and the standards more rigorous. A
textbook author, for instance, is going to make sure the reader can tell the
humorous asides from the serious instruction. But in a game like Third Reich,
I'm not sure there *are* any intentional "humorous asides"; and yet I can't
seem to take the whole game as a valid instructional model either. So, what's
happening there?
Patrick Carroll
Minnesota, USA
Bob Curtin
We enter into another level here. Your analogy of the photograph vs painting vs
lucite block is flawed in the most fundamental sense. The lucite block, though it
may show the relative positions (in the most general of senses) of either the stars
in a portion of our galaxy, or the galaxies in a portion of the universe. It could
not show both. So, looking at the lucite block model of a few thousand (out of
trillions) stars in a portion of our galaxy, the galaxies seen in the night sky
would be missing. Conversely, a model of a portion of the universe showing the
milky way and a few thousand neighboring galaxies (out of billions) would be devoid
of the stars in the night sky. Neither would be correct models of the night sky as
seen from the perspective of the painting and the photo and therefore wouldn't even
be as accurate as each of them.
The painting or the photograph, on the other hand, being a 2D representation of the
night sky, can show both. Nor would the lucite block be able to represent the
scale or relative distances involved, even in a lucite block a hundred miles on a
side.
I point this out because it is the same sort of trap that people who insist that
wargames are any kind of reflection of reality fall into. The "reality' exists not
in the components of a wargame, no matter how complex or simple. The "reality
exists twixt the ears of the player. The only thing complexity or "historical
accuracy" (or whatever you want to call it) does is to provide more information for
the imagination to work with.
Warren J. Dew wrote:
> Regarding realism, Patrick Carroll posts, in part:
>
> Warren says (in part):
> >Let's take another example. On the one hand, you have a photograph of the
> >night sky. On the other, you have a three dimensional block of lucite with
> >embedded points representing the positions of the galaxies in our local
> >cluster. . . .
>
> I agree the lucite block would be more realistic in the sense you mean. But
> I'd question whether it's a more useful model for our purposes. As you
> describe it, one could not look at the lucite block from a particular angle
> and
> see precisely what he sees when he looks at the night sky--or what any human
> being normally sees. Thus, the block provides a true-to-the-universe but
> alien-to-the-human perspective. That's useful for space travel and such; but
> it won't help me identify a few constellations tomorrow night.
>
>
--
Alan Paull
[snip stuff on "realism"]
>Alan, for the balance of our present methodological enquiry I will
>refrain from using the term "realism"..... Think about it. We are dealing
>with _board_ wargames here and, yet, we cannot entirely escape hobbyist
>immersive desires and tendencies. Can you imagine what it would be like
>to have a discussion like ours within the context of _computer-enabled_
>wargames ? <g> <g> To boot, our postulated interested party is....
>"mythical". Just think how hard it is for hobbyists "out there" (not in
>this thread) who are into wargaming due to a combination of military
>history, competitive strategy gaming and immersive interests to be
>changing their hats all the time in response to the specifics of any
>particular discussion.
>
Good. Much as I like discussing "realism", the arguments get a bit like
saucepans - circular and heated.
--
Alan Paull
>I believe that we have a "classic" starting point now. It is time to call
>upon Mr. J.F. Dunnigan and connect some of his writings to our postulated
>"mythical" group of amateur historical wargamers. I believe that Mr.
>Dunnigan can effectively speak for/to them in the sense of encapsulating
>the most salient features and aspects of (civilian) board wargames _of
>the past_.
>
Are these writings from The Book? It helps to know the context.
>Mr. Dunnigan writes:
>
>[A wargame is an attempt to get a jump on the future by obtaining a
>better understanding of the past. A wargame is a combination of "game,"
>history and science. It is a paper time-machine. Basically, it's
>glorified chess. If you've never encountered a wargame before, it's
>easiest to just think of it as chess with a more complicated playing
>board and a more complex way of moving your pieces and taking your
>opponents.]
>
>Although our "mythical" amateur military historians are not interested in
>"prospective" investigations, their "heuristic systems modelling"
>approach seems to be compatible with Mr. Dunnigan's "combination".
>
I agree only up to a point - really we've come from a similar direction,
but the philosophical and logical basis of our models are more coherent (but
our marketing and sales are unimportant!).
>Mr. Dunnigan continues:
>
>[A wargame usually combines a map, playing pieces representing historical
>personages or military units and a set of rules telling you what you can
>or cannot do with them. Many are now available on personal computers. The
>object of any wargame (historical or otherwise) is to enable the player
>to recreate a specific event and, more importantly, to be able to explore
>what might have been if the player decides to do things differently.]
>
>Our "mythical" amateur military historians are assumed to agree with Mr.
>Dunnigan's _medium_ definition of a board wargame. However, they reserve
>the right to _store_ the game's rules, charts and tables in _electronic_
>format if need be..... !! <g>
>
I think this is important for our purpose. Although we are not designing
computer models per se, we may well wish to use computers as a tool to aid
our process. We may wish to investigate this further at a later stage. I
know your comment here was really only on using computers to *store* the
material, but I see no reason not to have a computer-supported board wargame
model.
>Alan, from now on, I will refrain from using the potentially confusing
>term "historical re-enactment". Instead, I will be using Mr. Dunnigan's
>"historical re-creation" ! <g>
>
I agree that this is a better term.
[snip JFD on realism]
I wonder how much of this "analysis" by JFD was really marketing. It was a
strong ploy to present SPI board wargames as "serious" stuff, compared to
"normal" wargames. This ploy is especially humorous, when you compare the
relative sophistication of SPI games and, say, miniatures wargames in the
mid-70s. JFD is claiming SPI simulations as "analytic history". This claim
is all of a piece with the presentation of S&T, which included "serious"
(but amateur) military history, and "briefings" on current military
developments. I'm afraid I couldn't take this "simulation movement"
particularly seriously, because the games themselves were still just
wargames.
I guess I'm questioning the basis of JFD's historical and philosophical
credentials. <Duck and run for cover>
>Mr. Dunnigan continues:
>
>[Analytic history is what a wargame was before it became a game. A
>wargame is, after all, an historical account of an event in simulation
>form. The subject must be researched and the data organized so that it
>can be presented in a simulation format. That's analytic history. But
>wait, what the hell is the difference between a wargame and a war
>simulation? Often there's not a lot of difference at all. The main
>purpose of a simulation is to present the situation so that you can
>manipulate the key elements. This allows you to better understand how all
>these elements interacted and, this is where the game element comes in,
>play around with alternative strategies and tactics. This explains why so
>many wargamers don't game at all, but simply study and manipulate the
>game by themselves. Yes, two people can use a simulation as a game, many
>do, and the game element is not ignored when putting these things
>together. The game element is there whether you want it or not. It's the
>nature of the beast. There are usually two sides in a military conflict,
>both have numerous elements of the situation they can manipulate, thus
>you have a game situation. Some wargamers enjoy the game element more
>than the simulation and history aspects, but they are basically into the
>history angle, otherwise they would play the more numerous non-historical
>games. And that is what many early wargamers did when the fantasy and
>science fiction games came along. These games were more game than
>simulation, although a simulation element was present.]
>
Sorry for keeping so much of your post intact!
We obviously disagree with JFD on the definition of "simulation". He feels
that simulations are models:
"The main purpose of a simulation is to present the situation so that you
can manipulate the key elements".
We don't agree.
He does bring up an important point though, that we need always to bear in
mind. Our "mythical" amateur historians bring to the party all their
background knowledge of the theme. They are not mechanistic users of our
models, they are intelligent, knowledgable users. This will help us a lot,
when we start to discuss actually running the models.
>Right off the bat, I would recommend that we drop all references to
>"applied military history" in favour of "analytic (military) history".
>Our "mythical" friends would be very appreciative, I am sure ! <g> In
>fact, I would suggest that we try and view our contemplated "heuristic
>systems modelling" approach as an aspect or manifestation or, if need be,
>extension of Mr. Dunnigan's "analytic (military) history". Also notice
>that Mr. Dunnigan explicitly allows for the re-creation of historically
>recorded armed conflict within the confines of a historical conflict
>simulation. Fortunately, given the "mythical" nature of our amateur
>military historians and their presumed single-minded fixation on
>conducting "research", we do not have to deal with the gaming and other
>hobbyist interests that Mr. Dunnigan talks about.
I agree that "analytic military history" is a useful term. As a systems
thinker however, I have a gut reaction against the "a" word. Analysis
suggests splitting something up into its constituent parts, looking at each
of them, coming to some conclusions and then maybe putting the something
back together again. In systems thinking, we're more interested in "wholes"
than "parts". If we want to investigate something, we start by looking at
its environment, what system is it a sub-system of, what are its inputs and
outputs. This is often termed "systemic", rather than "analytic". As far
as I'm aware, this is not a mainstream historical approach - by which I mean
it's a Good Thing (tm).
I guess we are developing a methodology for "systemic military history".
Alan Paull
>The theoretical reason for randomness in a model is that some factors
>are not accounted for, and are independent of the inputs. A perfect
>model would be completely deterministic (i.e. you have perfect knowledge
>and can deduce the outcome). When a model grows in complexity, one would
>expect the randomness (noise) to decrease : the variance of the output
>should decrease with the number of factors taken into account.
>
A model does not have to include a random element, in which case you *might*
have a deterministic model, in the sense that you could deduce the outcome.
However, in a complex model, it might be difficult to deduce the outcome,
and, more importantly, it might be difficult to interpret one set of
results. That's why developers of models start simple and get gradually
more complex. It's only by running the simple model lots of times that the
dynamics of the model can be seen and understood. IMHO it's only by
understanding the simpler models that successful complicated models can be
built.
So, while I agree that, as a model grows in complexity, the random noise
decreases, the developer still needs to take great care in the development
process, especially over interpretation of the results.
>So, in fact, we could say that some wargames are better models than
>others if they significantly yield more accurate results, at the
>possible price of more complexity. In fact, the trade-off between
>complexity and accuracy should not be left to the designer, the best
>model is the simplest that captures the characteristics of the reality.
>i don't see the point in piling rule after rule, modifier after modifier
>if the final result is still equally random, you could as well dispense
>with the complexity.
>
You've made an important point. "Complexity for complexity's sake" is NOT
what we want. As we develop our board wargame models, we must always think
about the purpose of the model. However, we might still want a complex
model, in order to take into account factors that we consider relevant.
>In fact, the current trend in wargames seem to stick to simple
>mechanism, easier game play, and more simple conflict resolution
>systems... would you say they're worse than the complex ones or that
>they essentially achieve the same degree of insight ? What would be the
>point then to use sophisticated mechanisms ?
>
I admit I haven't yet started to judge seriously current board wargames as
models.
Alan Paull
<19991102131137...@ng-ck1.aol.com>...
[snip useful discussion of abstract versus realistic]
>So, once again, what do we really want in a wargame? Do we want it to be
>subjective or objective, or somewhere in-between? Abstract or realistic,
or
>somewhere in-between? Which combination of these fundamental features
makes
>the wargame most useful as a model for us recreational civilian wargamers
or
>amateur military historians?
>
If we are using a wargame as a model, it really depends on what we consider
the *purpose* of the model to be. If we have a "simulationist" purpose
(i.e. we favour an immersive style of model), then our purpose is rather
different from a model with which we are trying to evaluate predictive
outcomes. If we are looking at the latter, then whether the model is
abstract or realistic matters not at all. What does matter is if it yields
useful results.
So, to investigate the usefulness of wargames *as models*, we need to be
very clear about what we're modelling for.
>At the beginning of my wargaming career, I'd have chosen
objective-realistic.
>I couldn't imagine a wargame being useful to me unless it accurately
portrayed
>military operations in verifiable detail. But as I gained experience in
>wargaming, I began to see that a lot of real-life phenomena has to be
>abstracted in order to make it into a playable game that fits on a
tabletop; so
>I got used to a certain degree of abstraction. Then, as I gained even more
>experience, I realized that the wargames I'd been playing are also more
than a
>little bit subjective: they tend to reflect the designer's understanding
of a
>situation, not necessarily the objective situation itself. Since the same
is
>true of battle reports or history books and their authors, I learned to
>tolerate a measure of subjectivity as well.
>
I don't think you can avoid this objective-subjective topic if you take this
viewpoint. A designer has to have a level of understanding of the situation
before he or she can design anything; design decisions are not objective;
they reflect the designer's subjective understanding of the situation.
However they can be verifiable, because the models testers (players) can
check whether the model meets their criteria for plausibility. Testing
against historical outcomes is obviously a good starting point.
I'm not sure that you are really looking at wargames as models here. Your
presentation of the objective-realistic / subjective-abstract axes strongly
suggest that your interest is in wargames as immersive simulations, not as
Alan Paull
<19991102200642...@ng-ch1.aol.com>...
>I can't speak to Oleson or Hill - though I admit that Squad Leader always
>seemed to me to be heavy on the detail without regard to the accuracy of
the
>simulation - but I think that in Dunnigan's case, you are not getting his
>subjective preconceptions about how war works. Rather, you are getting the
>less visible but deeper truths about how war works, truths that he
discovered
>in the course of designing and developing the game, and that one can gain
an
>understanding of by playing the game with Designer's notes in hand.
>
>After all, unlike most game designers, a majority of Dunnigan's work has
>actually been for the military, who have a certain interest in objective
>discoveries about how war really works. After all, if they can understand
it
>well enough, it will help them make sure that it's the other guy dying for
his
>country, and not them.
>
I think it's quite significant that Dunnigan's work has been for the *US*
military. His work fits in well with the technocratic paradigm of the US
military. "How war really works" does not equate to the mechanics of
combat, especially technology-driven combat, in a wider European tradition.
It is noticeable too that modern military history (e.g. John Keegan's work)
is much less about the progression of technology and more about the reaction
of human beings.
I find this to be a particularly fruitful area for thought. Possibly less
so for board wargame design, though I'm open to suggestions. For instance,
looking at "tankie" games, I see the potential of games such as the "Tank
Leader" series in the modelling genre, as much greater than the more
traditional Dunnigan type of game.
P. Stoucas
My apologies for inserting this post at the "wrong place". Unfortunately,
my ISP News Servers have been dropping Usenet posts right, left and centre.
Thank God for deja.com.......
All quotations attributed to Mr. J.F. Dunnigan (JFD) are from his "The
Complete Wargames Handbook". Now, comparing JFD's overall approach to
ours, you wrote:
[.....really we've come from a similar direction, but the philosophical
and logical basis of our models are more coherent (but our marketing and
sales are unimportant!).]
and
[I wonder how much of this "analysis" by JFD was really marketing. It
was a strong ploy to present SPI board wargames as "serious" stuff,
compared to "normal" wargames. This ploy is especially humorous, when
you compare the relative sophistication of SPI games and, say, miniatures
wargames in the mid-70s. JFD is claiming SPI simulations as "analytic
history". This claim is all of a piece with the presentation of S&T,
which included "serious" (but amateur) military history, and "briefings"
on current military developments. I'm afraid I couldn't take this
"simulation movement" particularly seriously, because the games
themselves were still just wargames.
I guess I'm questioning the basis of JFD's historical and philosophical
credentials. <Duck and run for cover>]
I believe that a methodological investigation such as ours should steer
clear from the industry's concern for their bottom line. In any case,
given the postulated interests of the "mythical" friends of ours, I doubt
it very much that any wargame designer/developer would seriously consider
making money by specifically addressing the amateur military history
"research" needs of such potential customers.... <g>
Alan, your comments essentially lock us into:
1) Discussing why it is that our "mythical" amateur military historians
find the (traditional ?) historical board wargames (or "simulations") of
the past (all of them ? some of them ? just SPI's ?) _inadequate_ for
their _specific_ research purposes. This critique (of "analytic military
history") will preoccupy us for awhile, I think.....
2) Proposing and fleshing out a new approach better suited to satisfying
our "mythical" amateur military historians' "research" needs ("systemic
military history").
To this effect, I propose that we adopt the following terms:
a) Let us consider the "traditional board wargame system" to be a
thematic interpretation of actual warfare comprising of maps, counters,
rules, charts and the like where the designer's expectation is for the
"user(s)" to somehow bring all these seemingly disparate components
together via playing, studying and tinkering in support of an open-ended
universe of possible "user" interests....
b) Let us consider the "focussed board wargame system" to be a
"minimalist" variation of the "traditional board wargame system" where
all components of the former have been developed _just_ with an eye
towards assisting "pure" amateur military historians in investigating
_just one specific_ "research" aspect of armed conflict.
c) Let us consider the "purposive board wargame model" to be a collection
of "focussed board wargame systems" subject to varying degrees of
integration, overlap and common component utilisation.
At a minimum, then, we will be critiquing "traditional board wargame
systems" and we wiil be developing a methodological framework supportive
of "focussed board wargame systems" and their higher order cousins,
"purposive board wargame models".... <g>
Alan, you also wrote:
[{JFD} does bring up an important point though, that we need always to
bear in mind. Our "mythical" amateur historians bring to the party all
their background knowledge of the theme. They are not mechanistic users
of our models, they are intelligent, knowledgable users. This will help
us a lot, when we start to discuss actually running the models.]
_Absolutely_ !! Those who are somewhat familiar with my Internet rants
and raves will remember that I have been a consistent and vocal proponent
of "hobbyist wargamer empowerment". It was in _this_ spirit that I wrote
some time ago in the "progenitor thread":
[In essence, all of the _industry's_ headaches, heartaches, back biting,
labours of love and the like that go into the design and (commercial)
release of a particular wargame amount to a _big zero_ at the point of
purchase..... Unlike the _industry_ participants who consider their
masterpiece or nightmare a reasonably (?) completed project, the hobbyist
wargamer who is about to purchase the wargame is only embarking upon
_his_ open-ended project with it and, hence, starts at _point zero_ !
>From that moment on, it is up to the hobbyist wargamer to decide on a
wargame "appreciation" approach and pursue it accordingly.]
At least one poster thought that this was an attack on the industry...
<g> Basically, our "mythical" friends are "empowered hobbyist wargamers" !
Finally, you wrote:
[I think this is important for our purpose. Although we are not
designing computer models per se, we may well wish to use computers as a
tool to aid our process. We may wish to investigate this further at a
later stage. I know your comment here was really only on using computers
to *store* the material, but I see no reason not to have a
computer-supported board wargame model.]
Alan, this is music to my ears. I was rather conservative in my proposal
because I did not want to prematurely bring this up.... Luckily, we seem
to be birds of the same..... feather on this ! Great !! Again, quite a
few hobbyists know me by my unceasing efforts to popularise notions such
as "computer-assisted", "computer-enhanced" and "computer-enabled"
(virtual) board wargaming.... <g> <g>
I would be very much surprised if, at the end of the day, our empowered
"mythical" friends were not to seek the assistance of the electronic
medium....
Alan, are we on solid (common) ground so far ?
Patrick Carroll
>So, to investigate the usefulness of wargames *as models*, we need to be
>very clear about what we're modelling for.
>I'm not sure that you are really looking at wargames as models here. Your
>presentation of the objective-realistic / subjective-abstract axes strongly
>suggest that your interest is in wargames as immersive simulations, not as
>models.
Maybe . . . I'm not sure myself. I'm trying not to jump in too much here on
your discussion with Panos, because it sounds like you may actually get around
to discussing something of value one of these days, if we back off and give you
enough space to do it.
As for me, I'm still wondering what kind of "research" your "mythical amateur
historian" intends to do with board wargames--what purpose he has in mind, and
what "predictive results" he can expect to get.
At the outset, I made the (apparently false) presumption that you were using
"recreational wargamers and amateur military historians" just as a tag to refer
to the masses of wargamers--and that this discussion was to be about what real
wargamers can and do seriously achieve by playing the games. But evidently you
have something more specific in mind. So I'll just sit back and listen for a
while, as you and Panos finish laying out the groundwork.
As a longtime wargamer and military-history buff, though, I'm already worried
that what you're planning to get around to discussing is not something I'd ever
actually do anyway. It's beginning to sound like something only a
*professional* military historian/researcher (not an *amateur*--at least not in
the sense of the casual reader/armchair general) would be likely to do.
Patrick Carroll
Minnesota, USA
Warren J. Dew
Although we are not designing
computer models per se, we may well wish to use computers as a tool to aid
our process. We may wish to investigate this further at a later stage. I
know your comment here was really only on using computers to *store* the
material, but I see no reason not to have a computer-supported board wargame
model.
It's definitely true that computers can do a better job where detailed
mechanics are needed. Current flight sims are 'way more accurate than any
board game could ever hope to be.
On the other hand, I think it can be easier to learn from a game in which the
mechanics are exposed, and you can trace through the reasons why the game plays
the way it does - those reasons hopefully corresponding to reality.
I wonder how much of this "analysis" by JFD was really marketing. It was a
strong ploy to present SPI board wargames as "serious" stuff, compared to
"normal" wargames.
Well, on the realism versus playability scale, SPI games were certainly not on
the playability extreme.
However, I think S&T's publication schedule negatively affected the quality of
most SPI games. It's hard to do an adequate job on game development in two
months. Certainly my favorite Dunnigan games dated from his Avalon Hill days.
P. Stoucas
You wrote:
[At the outset, I made the (apparently false) presumption that you were
using "recreational wargamers and amateur military historians" just as a
tag to refer to the masses of wargamers--and that this discussion was to
be about what real wargamers can and do seriously achieve by playing the
games.]
Actually, I am _very glad_ that you made that presumption..... <g> Here
is why. As far as I am concerned, this thread is extremely important to
us around here irrespective of its specific subject matter. This is the
thread where we collectively proved that a polite, even friendly,
dialectic involving multi-paragraphed conceptual posts _can_ work despite
Usenet's well known inhibiting factors and contrarian poster attitudes
!!!
A potentially important byproduct is the occasional generation of topics
that could be discussed under the [CONCEPTUAL] banner in their very own
right. For example, the methodological dialectic that Alan (Paull) and I
have been pursuing has already yielded such candidates. Namely, at many a
critical juncture point, Alan and I either agreed on something
potentially arguable, even contentious, or we decided to treat it as an
"advanced topic". An interested poster may pick up the ball and run with
it utilising a sister thread within the [CONCEPTUAL] corner. Thus,
posters _could_ launch separate threads on:
- Whether military history is a science.
- The nature and use of board wargaming by the professional military.
- The nature of amateur historical research within the context of totally
historically counterfactual conflicts.
Patrick, in a similar vein, some other posters and yourself have been
engaging in another far more sweeping dialectic. The diversity of
hobbyists' interests and their attendant philosophical views has
dominated things here (and rightfully so). This kind of talk is a
_prerequisite_ to hobbyists ever attempting to have an in-depth
discussion on the Internet that may benefit all instead of annoying or
insulting all.... In fact, if hobbyists were to bother with things like
that, about 99% of cyberspace "nastiness" could be avoided in our
hobby..... Basically, I am hoping that more hobbyists will "empower"
themselves and start conversing with one another at some length, not to
"preach" to them but to enrich their own hobby pursuits through the
"magic" of the "friendly dialectic".
Patrick, you also wrote to Alan:
[I'm trying not to jump in too much here on your discussion with Panos,
because it sounds like you may actually get around to discussing
something of value one of these days, if we back off and give you enough
space to do it.]
Thanks for the understanding ! <g> Luckily, the broad dialectic that you
have been engaging in with the other posters is going to make things much
much easier for Alan and myself. I call this cross-fertilisation.... <g>
You also wrote:
[As for me, I'm still wondering what kind of "research" your "mythical
amateur historian" intends to do with board wargames--what purpose he has
in mind, and what "predictive results" he can expect to get.]
and
[As a longtime wargamer and military-history buff, though, I'm already
worried that what you're planning to get around to discussing is not
something I'd ever actually do anyway. It's beginning to sound like
something only a *professional* military historian/researcher (not an
*amateur*--at least not in the sense of the casual reader/armchair
general) would be likely to do.]
Patrick, at this point in time, the methodological exercise is more of a
conceptual feasibility study than anything else. There is no guarantee
whatsoever that "systemic military history" will work (even for our
"mythical" friends). However, at a minimum, we are going to be given the
chance to critique "analytic (military) history" without being rushed....
I kind of feel that we "owe" it to "our" hobby after 30 years or so ! <g>
By the way, I have no interest or intent whatsoever to either idolise or
daemonise Mr. J.F. Dunnigan in case someone "out there" gets the wrong
impression.....
Patrick Carroll
>on
>the playability extreme.
>
>However, I think S&T's publication schedule negatively affected the quality
>of
>most SPI games. It's hard to do an adequate job on game development in two
>
>Warren J. Dew
Indeed. I remember making almost exactly that remark to a friend when I first
heard about S&T, in the early 70s. I expected SPI to fail for that reason, and
I didn't buy any of their games for a couple years.
Toward the end of that decade I subscribed to S&T. But it always seemed very
strange to me. The game was supposed to *complement* the feature article,
providing more insight into the subject. But for me, the article always
*undermined* the game, showing it up to be a silly, superficial toy.
I liked some of the games--and some of the articles. But in order to enjoy
them, I had to keep them strictly separate.
I suppose it would've been better if I had had a different attitude toward the
games. If my attitude had been, "OK, let me play this a few times and see what
I can get out of it--and then put it away and wait for the next issue of S&T,"
then I might've thought it was all very cool. But there's no way I could take
such a casual attitude toward a game that difficult & time-consuming to learn &
play! Each time I delved into a wargame (be it a magazine game or a boxed
game), I was looking to see if it'd turn out to be my "game for life."
I mean, I could *still* be playing American Civil War, some two decades after I
first saw it. Had I stuck with that game exclusively, I'd still have many
years' worth of nuances to master. The same might not be true of Eylau or some
of the simpler games; but it's true of the average game.
And then there are monstrosities like Next War. I could still be just trying
to learn the rules to that one!
If we're talking about using games just as models to test or predict things, I
would hope the model is at least as easy to learn as a slide rule--and
preferably as intuitive as a pocket calculator. Otherwise it's not likely to
be used much (though it may attract a cult following).
Patrick Carroll
Minnesota, USA
Alan Paull
Thanks very much for your summary - I was about to post a summary of where
we have got to, but you've saved me the trouble! I think I may try to
summarise the whole of this thread at some point (as a kind of resume for
newcomers). However that will have to await next week, as I am away (and
unable to usenet) until Tuesday).
>Alan, are we on solid (common) ground so far ?
>
I totally agree with your summary of our ground. Personally I feel that we
have come a very long way.
We have dealt a lot, and quite correctly, with the philosophical and
theoretical foundations of our "board wargames as models" topic. I would
like very much to move on to one or two concrete examples, even though
(perhaps because?) they are likely to be contentious.
My own particular specialist spheres of military historical interest are:
the Napoleonic Wars and the English Civil War, though I have also studied at
considerable depth WW1, WWII European theatres. In an "academic" sense I've
covered what I term "the study of war and its impact on society" throughout
the period 16th C to present, though I would not claim to be an "expert" in
the whole of this period! In terms of board wargames I have many tactical
and strategic ones set in the Napoleonic Wars (as you might expect), and
have dabbled in design in this area (not to commercial standard though).
ECW games are v thin on the ground, though I have the makings of a couple of
designs myself - again scarcely commercially viable. WWII games I have
(doesn't every wargamer?).
Do any of these chime with your own specialist themes?
Alan Paull
>And then there are monstrosities like Next War. I could still be just
trying
>to learn the rules to that one!
>
Or Armada - the game with errata longer than the rules! I stopped
immediately after that one, which was a pity, 'cos I would've liked to play
a Spanish Armada game. I never even *attempted* to play Armada.
>If we're talking about using games just as models to test or predict
things, I
>would hope the model is at least as easy to learn as a slide rule--and
>preferably as intuitive as a pocket calculator. Otherwise it's not likely
to
>be used much (though it may attract a cult following).
>
I suspect we wouldn't get much more than a cult following, 'cos not many
people are likely to be interested in board wargame whose primary purpose is
predictive rather than competitive.
Warren J. Dew
I think it's quite significant that Dunnigan's work has been for the *US*
military. His work fits in well with the technocratic paradigm of the US
military. "How war really works" does not equate to the mechanics of
combat, especially technology-driven combat, in a wider European tradition.
It is noticeable too that modern military history (e.g. John Keegan's work)
is much less about the progression of technology and more about the reaction
of human beings.
Perhaps I was unclear about what I meant by 'accuracy of simulation' in
wargames.
I specifically do not mean games that focus on the hardware. To be an accurate
simulation, a wargame must produce accurate results - which of course means
that it must account for how human being act and react.
Indeed, in another post, I pointed out how Dunnigan neatly handled some of the
differences in tactical doctrine in PanzerBlitz. France 1940 provides some
additional examples: the mechanized units are handled at a lower level
(division vice corps, I think) to model how their commanders acted with greater
flexibility than the infantry; the German infantry corps are given a one factor
advantage (strength 7 versus 6 for the French) to account for differences in
individual initiative and training that permitted to Germans to attack more
easily.
If you are talking solely about the reactions of individual human beings -
well, I think those have to be abstracted in games where the units contain a
significant number of individuals.
Warren Dew
Warren J. Dew
I suppose it would've been better if I had had a different
attitude toward the games. If my attitude had been, "OK,
let me play this a few times and see what I can get out of
it--and then put it away and wait for the next issue of S&T,"
then I might've thought it was all very cool. But there's
no way I could take such a casual attitude toward a game
that difficult & time-consuming to learn & play!
Yes, unnecessary complexity was a major failing of most SPI games. For a board
game to be really accurate, the rules have to be relatively simple, or at least
elegant - so that the players can focus on tactics and strategy, rather than
hex counting and arithmetic.
If we're talking about using games just as models to test
or predict things, I would hope the model is at least as
easy to learn as a slide rule--and preferably as intuitive
as a pocket calculator. Otherwise it's not likely to
be used much ...
I'd agree with that. I think Panzerblitz comes close to meeting those
criteria. Then again, the only calculators I find intuitive are the RPN
calculators.
Warren Dew
Warren J. Dew
board wargame whose primary purpose is predictive rather than competitive."
I guess I'm in the minority again, there. I don't like to play games where the
sole object is to beat the other player(s); in such a game, at least one player
will be disappointed.
I prefer to play wargames against someone else who is also interested in
learning from the game. That way, we can both win.
Warren
Warren J. Dew
What I want to know now is, if game X is 40% model and
60% fantasy (or "decoration," or "chrome"), how do I zero
in on the 40% and recognize the valid model when I
encounter it?
For many games, this is a difficult question. Ideally, I think it would be
answered in 'designer's notes', such as were included with early Avalon Hill
games. For example, from John Prados' Designer's Notes for Third Reich (from
the second edition rules):
I will say at the outset that _Third Reich_ is not and was
not intended to be a strictly realistic simulation. I think
we should admit that at the level with which this kind of
strategic game deals any claim to strict realism is only
fakery. It seemed to me therefore that the only valid point
of entry in the direction of simulating an entire war would
be to take the total war efforts of the nations involved and
pit them against each other....
Throughout the design my intention has been to create a
simulation in which players would choose to execute the same
maneuvers as occurred in 1939-1945, but for their own
strategic reasons.... The basic idea was to have everything
occur naturally....
[much later]
the combat system is perhaps more faithful to the Eastern
Front than to France '40. The problem was mainly that
there was no way to open up the Western Front, not enough
land hexes....
the combat system is more faithful to the Eastern Front,
which was particularly known for the encirclement battles
which raged there.
There is also discussion on many other aspects of the game.
Unfortunately, by the fourth edition of the rules, the Designer's Notes had
been deleted while the rules themselves had grown from 12 sections to 52
sections. While I understand the business reasons for constantly updating the
rules - it gave gamers an excuse to buy extra copies of the game, generating
additional revenue - it's also what caused me to eventually give up on Avalon
Hill games: I had neither time nor inclination to learn a new set of rules
each time I played the game, even if I were not offended at the changes that
were made (which I usually was).
This is one of the reasons why I was actually somewhat optimistic when Hasbro
bought out Avalon Hill. Hasbro does not go out and reissue different rules to
Monopoly every couple of years; they issue different editions with the same
rules, instead. That gives people a chance to financially support their board
gaming operations while permitting me to continue to play the underlying game
that I learned as a kid. Hopefully Hasbro will be able to take the same
attitude toward their Avalon Hill rereleases, as well.
Warren Dew
Later, this seems to have gone out of style.
Patrick Carroll
>
>Warren
Me too. That's why about 90 percent of my wargaming has been solitaire. :-)
Actually, I've loved games with a passion all my life--but for some reason I've
always been averse to competition. I hate sports, and I'd never think of a
tabletop game as any form of sport (except in the pure sense of sport = casual
diversion). One great thing about wargames is that they're so complex you
don't really need competition--or even a real opponent--for them to be
interesting.
Patrick Carroll
Minnesota
Patrick Carroll
>each time I played the game, even if I were not offended at the changes that
>were made (which I usually was).
>
>This is one of the reasons why I was actually somewhat optimistic when Hasbro
>bought out Avalon Hill. Hasbro does not go out and reissue different rules
>to
>Monopoly every couple of years; they issue different editions with the same
>rules, instead. That gives people a chance to financially support their
>board
>gaming operations while permitting me to continue to play the underlying game
>that I learned as a kid. Hopefully Hasbro will be able to take the same
>attitude toward their Avalon Hill rereleases, as well.
>
>Warren Dew
After all these years, I can completely agree with you there, Warren. But back
when AH was alive, and I was an avid AH/SPI wargamer, I believed that every
re-release was one step closer to "the perfect wargame." It never irked me
that a favorite game was revised & reissued; what irked me was that it had
problems that needed to be fixed in the first place. As far as I was
concerned, the updates ought to have been free--just like SPI's "errata."
Until the Smithsonian series started coming out, it never occurred to me that a
re-release could possibly be a step backward or sideways. I was gullible
enough to believe everyone in the wargaming industry had a fanatical interest
in creating effective models (or simulations, or whatever) of events from
military history.
Naively, I wrote a long letter of complaint to AH when Kevin Zucker's
Napoleonic games started being axed. At the time, they were pretty clearly
some of the best Napoleonic board wargames around. I got a straightforward
reply from Shaw & Greenwood--all in business terms. My reaction was, "What's
business got to do with it?!" To me, wargames were too sacred to be scattering
before the swine.
But since I now see that wargames are really just games, I have to agree:
let's just hope Hasbro treats wargames more like Monopoly and other classics
have been treated over the years.
Patrick Carroll
Minnesota
Christian Killoran
Patrick Carroll <p55ca...@aol.comfilter> wrote in message
news:19991105213701...@ng-ca1.aol.com...
> Until the Smithsonian series started coming out, it never occurred to me
that a
> re-release could possibly be a step backward or sideways. I was gullible
> enough to believe everyone in the wargaming industry had a fanatical
interest
> in creating effective models (or simulations, or whatever) of events from
> military history.
Patrick, I'm curious. Why do you think the Smithsonian games were a step
backward or sideways? I'm more than willing to be open minded about this
issue, but I personally saw them as a step forward.
George D. Phillies
> news:19991105213701...@ng-ca1.aol.com... > Until the
> Smithsonian series started coming out, it never occurred to me that a
> > re-release could possibly be a step backward or sideways. I was
> gullible > enough to believe everyone in the wargaming industry had a
> fanatical interest > in creating effective models (or simulations, or
> whatever) of events from > military history.
Well, there are those of us who have been saying -- since the late 1960's
-- that historical realism -- not to be confused with complexity -- is an
undesirable feature in game design, and that designers should be
discouraged from studying military history, beyond the depth needed to
identify wars other people had forgotten.
George Phillies
who designed and produced "Fall of Manjukuo" (now out of print).
P. Stoucas
I believe that we have reached a point in our dialectic where we urgently
need to focus on military history _itself_. This is because what
"actually" happened in the past is not just "another joe" type of
historically counterfactual ("what if") variation but, rather, the....
"actual" thing ! In fact, it is recorded, researched and re-constructed
(i.e., historical) armed conflict that appears to provide the impetus
behind a good part of our on-going methodological investigation in this
thread.
Well, we will be needing a _specific_ example to help us. Luckily enough,
you have also raised this very same issue in your last post. I vote for
Waterloo. To this effect, your specific expertise re: the Napoleonic Wars
renders Waterloo an excellent prospect. Besides, our friend Patrick
(Carroll) told us:
[Just as I was about to choose chess, a friend bought Avalon Hill's
"Waterloo."....... To my young mind, it looked like Waterloo (and other
AH wargames) were the best possible choice for me. They were more
complex than chess (and thus presumably deeper and more
possibility-laden); and they seemed to be scientifically sound models of
historical battles as well. Thus, as I played Waterloo over and over,
for years to come, I'd be improving my skill at the game (just as I'd be
doing with chess), and I'd also be learning more and more about the
historical battle of Waterloo (and Napoleonic strategy & tactics in
general). I figured I'd be killing two worthwhile birds with one
stone....... But Waterloo wasn't quite my game......]
I would imagine that Patrick could make significant contributions here
for the obvious reasons.... <g>
Now, I am proposing that we take a close look at such a single historical
battle as opposed to a campaign or an entire war because I am of the
opinion that the latter types of armed conflict are higher order
historical phenomena and, hence, may not be the most appropriate backdrop
for our highly focussed but fledgling methodological investigations. On
the other hand, I would suggest that small scale tactical warfare should
also be avoided because of its presumed spatially and temporally
distributed and ubiquitous character (in a statistical sense). By this I
mean that any reasonable ex post "composition" of small scale tactical
warfare is not _necessarily_ historically counterfactual since,
statistically speaking, out of so many _actual_ small scale tactical
warfare stories that have actually unfolded historically (although
historians may not know of their specifics) one, perhaps, came quite
close to the "composed" one, thus rendering the supposedly sharp and
important distinction between historically actual and hypothetical events
theoretically problematic......
A single historical battle like Waterloo is well known and rather well
researched. Moreover, it is self-contained enough and unique enough to
serve the immediate needs of our methodological investigation quite well,
I should think ! <g> Besides, many historians and hobbyists consider
Waterloo to have been a "decisive" battle.....
A big chunk of mainstream historical research revolves around the
following generic types of "bread and butter" questions:
- When did something happen and where did it happen ?
- What did actually happen and who was involved ?
- How exactly did something happen ?
This is the _only_ area where I would unhesitatingly employ the term
"historical accuracy".... ! <g>
I would imagine that our "mythical" friends would be well versed in the
state of the art historiography regarding such "bread and butter" issues.
To be sure, gaps and interpretational conflicts would be part of the
historiographical landscape. The ultimate task of filling in the gaps and
going with this or that interpretation would befall our "mythical"
friends.... By the way, does Waterloo involve any significant and well
known controversies regarding such historiographical gaps and the like ?
{As an aside, I was always puzzled by the total absence of any interest
whatsoever on the part of mainstream "historical wargamers" in the
emergence of wargames that may be suitable for filling in certain
historiographical gaps. What I have in mind here are wargames embodying
an interpolative historical re-creation mechanism.....}
Perhaps the most controversial chunk of (mainstream ?) historical
research revolves around this additional generic type of question:
- Why did something happen ?
I would be rather hesitant to employ the term "historical accuracy"
here..... This area is subject to a lot of philosophising regarding
historical causation. When a professional historian makes a formal
statement on this or that aspect of a historical armed conflict and
invokes historical causation, he indirectly lays the groundwork for
considerations of alternative historical evolutions and timelines. Our
"mythical" friends, being _amateur_ military historians would be in
seventh heaven, being totally unshackled from the worries of crossing
that elusive no man's land into historically themed fantasy which
professional historians tend to abhore..... Again, does Waterloo involve
any significant and well known controversies regarding _historical
causation_ ?
In another post of mine I shall start critiquing Mr. J.F. Dunnigan's
"analytic (military) history" approach to wargaming always on behalf of
our "mythical" friends.
Patrick Carroll
>backward or sideways? I'm more than willing to be open minded about this
>issue, but I personally saw them as a step forward.
In terms of playability, they were a step forward. In terms of historicity, I
think they were a decided step backward.
I bought only two of them: Gettysburg and Battle of the Bulge.
Bulge '81 had been a pretty good intermediate-level wargame. I thought it did
a reasonable job of showing what that famous battle was about. The Smithsonian
Bulge, IMHO, is ludicrous: a viable German strategy is to do something the
Germans could never have done--attack furiously just to kill American units,
then retreat behind the Siegfried Line and hole up to the end of the game. The
"attrition points" in Smithsonian Bulge go a long way toward ruining the
historicity of the game; and there are other problems as well.
Gettysburg '77 was a masterpiece of historical wargame design. True, the
advanced game was unplayable (that is, even a Civil War buff like me would be
loathe to jump through all the hoops the advance game required), but it was
impressive nevertheless. The intermediate game was very good--perhaps not
quite as good as Bulge '81, but very good. And the basic game, I suppose, was
a decent intro wargame for newbies.
Smithsonian Gettysburg is, again, ludicrous. Artillery doesn't line up and
fire across the intervening ground at Cemetery Ridge, as it did historically;
instead, it trails along behind infantry & cavalry. That's just one of the
problems.
These two Smithsonian games are some of the best in the old AH line for
playability. But I think historical wargames ought to first and foremost be
true to history.
Patrick Carroll
Minnesota
Warren J. Dew
Well, there are those of us who have been saying -- since
the late 1960's -- that historical realism -- not to be
confused with complexity -- is an undesirable feature in
game design, and that designers should be discouraged
from studying military history, beyond the depth needed to
identify wars other people had forgotten.
I'm curious as to the basis for that feeling. Given that you distinguish
between realism and complexity - an important distinction, in my mind - it
doesn't seem to be the traditional realism versus playability dichotomy. Is it
a commercial one, as in 'historical realism doesn't sell, but complexity and
surface detail does'? Or is it the objections sometimes heard that 'wargames
can't be as accurate as actual history books, so they shouldn't even try?
Warren Dew
And how did you balance 'Fall of Manjukuo'?
Patrick Carroll
>
>Warren Dew
While we're waiting for George's answer, I'll jump in and add a little
something to the above-quoted sentiment. Not only can wargames not be as
accurate as actual history; by their very nature, wargames deal with *supposed
possibilities,* not with history per se.
When you package that in a more or less serious way (e.g., "This game can give
you what you'll never get from a thousand history books--the opportunity to
face the same decisions the great captains of history dealt with, and the depth
of understanding that comes only from actual hands-on experience."), you end up
fooling a lot of naive wargamers.
It's an easy trap to fall into. To this day, after growing up on TV westerns,
I still tend to think the Old American West was something like what I saw in
"Gunsmoke," "Bonanza," "Have Gun Will Travel," "Bat Masterson," and other
shows. And those TV shows were patently fictional. How much easier to be
swayed or influenced by a wargame that purports to be genuinely historical.
Historians may speculate about possibilities now & then, often as much for
amusement as anything else; but their discipline requires that they adhere
strictly to known facts wherever they're available. After all, who really
knows for sure what would've happened if Napoleon's Old Guard had managed to
strike a weak point in the Allied line at Waterloo and break through instead of
being repulsed? No one. Yet wargames routinely purport to demonstrate just
what would've happened in cases like that.
I'd have been happier if the ad for AH's Waterloo game had said something
honest, like, "Here's a fictional game modeled on a famous battle. As you
play, you can pretend to be manipulating all the infantry, cavalry, and
artillery units that Napoleon, Bluecher, and Wellington commanded. You'll see
how the battlefield was laid out, and you *may* even get a few insights into
how the battle was fought. In any case, if you like military history and
strategic challenges, you're in for many hours of fun!" That, I think, puts it
in its proper perspective.
Patrick Carroll
Minnesota
T2Maverick
p55ca...@aol.comfilter (Patrick Carroll) wrote:
<<I bought only two of them:>>
Nice of you to condemn the whole series on the basis of two titles. Mustangs
is a highly regarded introductory air combat game with an incredible assortment
of WW2 aircraft.
<<In terms of historicity, I
think they were a decided step backward.>>
Being that "they" (presumably referring to the only two you have experience
with) were designed to serve an introductory role in place of the AH
"Classics", I would think that they could only be seen as a step forward. But
once again you want to knock a game for something it wasn't designed to be...
BTW when you find an "introductory wargame" that is able to incorporate 100%
historical accuracy, let us know. It will be interesting to see if any
beginner wants to (or is able to) play it...
the Mav
--------
aka thema...@volcano.net
http://www.volcano.net/~themaverick