Wargamers?

[Leowind]

wow!! All these old board-gamers. Me and some friends in junior high/high school used to play quite a bit. Third Riech, Sniper (I think, SPI game), Luftwaffe, others I've now forgotten the names os. A bunch of us would always try to get these great big games going with a paper map of some sort where we'd each lead a country and engage in diplomacy with each other, and then use some appropriate board wargame to fight the wars. The prototype for Civilization

I think Sid must had secretly looked in on us and copied our idea

We never managed to finish one, though

Unfortunately, I sold all my old games, except one that was actually set up to play solitaire. I played far more board games against myself than against a real opponent. Never enough time to set up a game and finish it. Sure wish I had those old games at times, though. Nice to see there's still some interest (even if mostly nostalgic interest) in those old games. Used to play some D&D, too, though never had the miniatures-just paper. Still remember where my Hobbit-thief character was in our final game...

 

[GP]

I had buddies who had the Avalon Hill WWII game (can't remember name). And I had Starship Troopers

 

[Algernon Pondlife]

these are interesting sites:
http://www.tgs.co.uk/Default.asp
and http://members.tripod.com/~LCoat/

but this is THE site (here you can find references to almost any game that was ever published - at least in English language):
http://grognard.com/#contents

and these are also about board wargames:
http://www.consimworld.com/#kremlin
and http://www.hkl1.com/

I should have mentioned other favourite games I have: Hitler's War, War of the Ring, Outreach, European Theatre of Operations, Battle of the Bulge, Thirty Years War (SPI quad game).

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true

 

[Andu Indorin]

Thirty Years War (SPI quad game).

[/B]

Lutzen, Nordlingen, Rocroi, Freiburg; plus Breitenfeld (S&T 51 or 52, if I recall correctly).

What say we say we start a poll: "Five favorite wargames." ... (defining a "wargame" as one of that special breed of games that has little cardboard counters that when cats, dogs, young children, and dice thrown in frustration interfere, then the battle situation has irrevocably changed and cannot be retrieved.) "We few, we happy few."

 

[Algernon Pondlife]

Another game I have is really more like a table-top game: Seastrike. But it uses laminated cardboard pieces not models.

Conquistador is very good and "The Plot to Assassinate Hitler" is rather strange.

Another I have always liked is WWW's Kesselring, but the rules are unclear and some of the units don't match the rules so I'm never quite sure if I'm playing it right.

I'll bet there are lots of tales about obscure rules.

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true

 

[Dogberry_Old]

Boy.. Obscure Rules & Rules Lawyers, have I got some stories about those. Since they usually revolved around crucial fights, I am convinced that there is a bit of the sophist in all of us.

BTW..Waterloo I believe, was one of the first of the hex-type wargames, along with Stalingrad & Afrika Korps.The last is STILL a damned fine rendition of the North African Campaign.

Dog

 

[Exile]

DogB,
I know what you mean about rules lawyers and that was one of the main reasons I abandoned wargames and stayed exclusively with computer games. No matter how someone argues, if the computer allows it, it's legal.

I owned a copy of AK. It was one of my first wargame purchases many years ago and I have a soft spot for it. But I must respectfully disagree with you about it being a fine game. It was terribly unbalanced in favor of the Germans. I can't ever remember losing as the Germans, and I remember losing as the Brits several times. Eventually no one would play the Brits (or that game) anymore. Avalon Hill put out a lot of games, but many of the early ones were significantly unbalanced. Midway, Bulge, D-Day, all those "pink & blue" games tended to have that problem. Even France 1940, which came out a lot later, was almost impossible to win as the western allies.

Seems like it took awhile for the designers to learn play balance.

Does anyone remember Jutland? or Bismarck? or Anzio?

Am I dating myself?

Exile

 

[Andu Indorin]

Dunnigan's Jutland???

That takes me back the days before I even knew the meaning of a wargame. My older brother discarded the game went he went off to college. And here I was with some nifty looking overhead views of the British and German fleets, c. 1916; plus that speed and turning thing-a-ma-jig. ... That and a carpet floor in the basement and a steel dart board on the wall. Me and my friend gave whole new meaning to the old Parker Brothers' game "Battleship": it's a lot a more fun throwing around dangerous, pointed objects than saying "B7!"

(And, having grown up and read rules -- seemed like a good game; unfortunately, at that point, too much of both fleets had suffered irreparable damage to steel-point darts! Ah, the sacrilege!!!)

 

[Flatlander Fox]

Great stuff, brings back alot of warm memories...

Jutland was a great game, but it was pretty tough for the Germans to win. Bismarck (the later edition) you could play on the floor with Jutland style rules, and it was a bit more even. Me and my friend played an entire campaign style game with those rules, it took us almost seven months to complete!!!

As for the old pink & blue games, I will never forget Afrika Corps and the epic battles that were fought around the Quattara Depression and Beghansi. As for terribly unbalanced games, most of the games that are based on real battles were slanted historically in the favor of the winner. That's why I never really played those "real" simulation games too much. I am more of a fan of the abstract game, where I can create my own history.

Rules Lawyers... I had entered a gaming league one year, and was preparing to play a friendly game of Panzer Blitz with an opponent (Who considered himself Grandmaster of all games). Immediately he began quoting rules on line of sight and such during my first turn, and I was eventually beaten due to my lack of fine print knowledge (I had not been playing the game SOOO wrong, but I had overlooked a little utilized rule). So fast forward about six months, when said player was invited to a "friendly" game of Diplomacy. After turning in all of our orders, and upon reading them, it was discovered that instead of putting an arrow (->) to signify his army convoying somewhere, he had written "transported". After much begging and pleading, stating that he was not aware of "that silly rule" we all nearly reduced him to tears after chopping up his precious England.

He never came back to play with us again.

It almost made up for my humiliating loss in 'Blitz.

Almost.

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I'm so tired of being tired... Sure as night will follow day... Most things I worry about, never happen anyway...

 

[Dogberry_Old]

Play Balance is something that is often in the eyes of the beholder & still is. If you start counting the times when the game is abandoned early.. the picture changes quite a bit. Corresponding skill levels certainly do come into play also. Yes.. the early designers had a problem with getting it right, just like the present-day designers of computer games often do.

France 40 was an early Dunnigan Design & more in the nature of a simulation. I did not remember that he designed Jutland. I do remember that they sat the game up one time in the UNL ROTC building so they would have space to play it properly. I used to play ( & get beat by ) Tom Oleson.. the acknowledged Anzio master.

I knew Chris Crawford when he was teaching in a two year college near here ( Columbus NE )& working on Tanktics & "blind" games in general. He was one of the first to bring deeper design elements into computer games.

TSR was a minature wargames rules outfit before they did D&D .. and the rest is history.

Yes, there is a broad stream of participation & knowledge that flows into what we are doing today.. the wargame element of that stream is very strong.

Dog

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

Yes Dog, Jutland was a Dunnigan design, his first for the hill.

Tom Olsen, the Stanta Claus of wargaming, cause he was the nicest (and toughset to beat) guys to play against. I only got to play against him once, in an Oringins awhile back.

All the classics (The pink and blue) games had serious flaws, but play balence between them has been argued since the 60s. Afrika Korp always came down to that one die roll at Tobruk, and Waterloo always gave the AAP side the edge, and that CRT, with that A-Elim at 2-1 odds!

Exile and I had a talk about rules lawyers not to long ago, FF! Never could stand those guys, especially the SL/ASL crowd, whom had that whole rule book memorized, and would argue about the stupidist thing.

I see Algernon and Andu are well versed in the SPI games of the 60s-70s, but nobody mentioned one of SPI's best, PPG. My personal SPI fav was Conquistador, but all that paper work was a bother, and I always got the bounds wrong!

My fav AH was (big surprise) Civilization, but I also enjoyed VITP and Russian Campaign, and the very detailed Zucker designs for the Napolenic wars.

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[Andu Indorin]

PPG? I'm assuming you're talking about PGG, or Panzer Group Guderian; yes, that's definitely one of my all time favorites -- a wide-open "encounter" engagement with lots of mobility.

And I've always liked Conquistador; always wanted to see the Civilization system adopted for a Conquistador type game.

[This message has been edited by Andu Indorin (edited July 07, 2001).]

 

[xeven_god_of_helsibahr]

I've played risk and battleship. I want to buy some War Hammer figures (Since War Hammer is the only wargame on the market with a future.)...

 

[Dogberry_Old]

Think that I got Guderian with the S&T magazine. They had some good games & some real stinkers that came with the SPI magazine. HPS makes a game called Smolensk 41 based on that particular engagement. You can find players for it at theBlitz.org

Dog

 

[Flatlander Fox]

AoA, Squad Leader is one of those games that rewards rules lawyers I guess. That's why I never got into it too much. *ducks as things are thrown at him*
I didn't really like Civilization for AH either. I have a copy, but never play it. Once I started playing Civ for the computer, I realized even more how hokey it was. But I guess that's the direct ancestor of our beloved game, so we have to give it some credit.
Actually, games like Civ really torpedoed the board gaming world. So we are directly responsible for the demise of something that we loved. But I guess it's a pretty good trade-off. At least now I can find someone to play with

.

You guys must be pretty old to have played with the designers

!!!

Actually I wish I could have had an opportunity to play with people like that. I would have got my a$$ handed to me, but it would have been interesting to play with guys who had so much technical knowledge about games.

I can't think of many games that are actually finished to actual completion. Most times, one or the other just gives up, usually after a devestating die roll

.




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I'm so tired of being tired... Sure as night will follow day... Most things I worry about, never happen anyway...

 

[ComradeDavo]

I've played Warhammer (Games Workshop) on and off for 4 years now, i would recommend it for anyone who likes war games and modelling/painting. If any of you do collect, well i'm off to my 3rd Games Day this year so i might see you there!
Asides from that i've played risk, battleships and alike.

 

[Algernon Pondlife]

I didn't really like Civilization for AH either.

I have the original game as designed by Hartland Trefoil. I don't know what changes AH made, but th original is not only a great game, it was also totally innovative.

So was their other main game, 1829 a game combining business (stocks and shares) and the development of railroads. A game that you could choose to win by having the best network or the biggest company profits or the most personal wealth - or you could just play for the fun of it all. Ring any bells?

To get back to the subject, excellent as the original was, there was always going to be a practical barrier to extending it as a board game and, as I have said before, Sid's version was the full justification for the invention of computers.

Question:
Has anyone had a look at Aide de Camp? Conquistador is one of the games that have been implemented on it.

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

Yes, I was referring to Panzer Gruppe Guderian, it was just a typo.

Algernon, as far as I know, AH added "polish" to the original civ, and tweaked the play balence, changed some of the advances values, things of this nature. I feel it is still a fine game.

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[Lefty Scaevola]

The cardboard Civ was almost 100% random free. Everything after selecting the civ played and the almost irrelevant shuffle of the hides/ocher and iron/papyrus trade cards was determined by the players

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Gauis Mucius Scaevola Sinistra
Pontificator Pedanticus
Older, richer, and wiser than you.
Did I mention that I love the spellchecker?

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

How may of you guys ever maxed the score by having the 11 highest civ cards, the 6 bronze trade cards, 1 city, two farmers and 49 (?, the number of farmer/money tokens - 2) in treasury?
We quickly made a change to the scoring rules to make a city plus two farmers more valuable than 2 moneys.

I maxed the score (only used to determine ties when more than one player finished the civ track on the same turn) several times under each system. I am SO EFFETELY civilized!

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Gauis Mucius Scaevola Sinistra
Pontificator Pedanticus
Older, richer, and wiser than you.
Did I mention that I love the spellchecker?