The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)
nodicenoglory.com
nodicenoglory.com
They seemed interesting, and I came away with two main observations:
1 - A game can take a very very long time. Turns might even take days or weeks on particularly elaborate ones. Thus there is a major time commitment during which you must leave the game out and setup for an extended period of time.
2 - My first thought when encountering these was "why aren't they just using a computer?". But I quickly learned that the ability to spread out a map, that might be many square meters, and see everything happening on it at once, without having to slide a monitor's viewport around (or zoom in and out) has a number of massive advantages -- and (at the time I was looking at this) there's really no display technology today that can replicate this.
I feel like both of these observations have changed significantly with the advent of cheap, high-resolution, networked AR/VR headsets. I don't think I'd want to wear one entirely for the length of time a game might take, but we're much closer now to having truly digital versions of this that eliminate many of the downsides.
The Campaign for North Africa is probably the most extreme example of this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campaign_for_North_Afric...
A "proper" game requires 10 players and an estimated 1500 hours.
Which I guess makes it a game only in the theoretical sense.
Today any group playing it is more likely to play it using (the open source tool) VASSAL (here is the free module to download to play CNA: https://vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:The_Campaign_for_North_...). I saw a thread on a wargame forum just a few weeks ago looking for players to start up a new game. Playing online probably makes it a bit more likely to be played (but also less fun than to gather around a huge table IRL?).
(Aside: By tradition, an old "gentlemens agreement", between the wargaming community and wargame publishers, when playing a game online with VASSAL every player is expected to own a physical copy of the game. You are not supposed to download the CNA module to play it for free without owning the game. There is no DRM or other attempts to police who plays what, but as long as the system is not abused too much the publishers are happy and most keep allowing those tools to exist. It is a nice contrast to how copyright is handled elsewhere, including in more mainstream tools for playing online boardgames. I guess it is only possible in a small niche hobby like that, and possibly only because the tradition started last century before there was big money in selling digital versions of boardgames.)
I think you might be under-estimating how long a 1500 hour game is. A person who works 8 hours a day works 2000 hours in the course of a year.
And if the game's in-person, there's travel time - it's not like a computer game where you can do a 1-hour session every evening for 4 years.
Even a the longest RPG adventures like "Dungeon of the mad mage" (famous for people getting bored without completing it) tend to be less than 500 hours.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/20/us/dungeons-and-dragons-l...
(A bit extreme maybe, but I heard of shorter campaigns, but still lasting for at least a decade of regular play.)
And I think you underestimate how dedicated some people can be to playing games like CNA. It is a big game, but it is not absurdly long compared to other big board wargames.
Here is a BGG thread from 2010 (well before CNA became a mainstream meme?): https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/580214/
Note how the thread starts out "25 years after playing my last game of CNA".
So called "monster wargames" was a trend around 1980, toward the sudden end of the era of board wargames being almost-mainstream. I do not know if CNA was the biggest of all, but I think not. It was part of starting the trend, but later games were probably bigger and longer.
https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/42904/the-biggest-of-the-...
One of its flaws is that it makes you, in the role of the commander (or one of five commanders, anyway), keep track of:
> "[If using the full rules] every individual plane and pilot in the three year campaign."
This is madness! A real commander wouldn't keep track of this, so why must the player? This level of zoom-in is typical of tactical wargames, where it makes sense, but it's nonsense for traditional "cardboard" grand strategy wargames without computer assistance. So it makes total sense that playing this would take more than the actual Campaign for North Africa, since in the real deal those commanders wouldn't track every individual plane.
I don't think this was made to be actually played, and I struggle to believe anyone has actually finished it, regardless of some internet claims.
P.S.: related :
https://www.filfre.net/2020/01/master-of-orion/
> [...]
> Because getting seven friends together in the same room for the all-day affair that was a complete game of Diplomacy was almost as hard in the 1960s as it is today, inventive gamers developed systems for playing it via post; the first example of this breed would seem to date from 1963. And once players had started modifying the rules of Diplomacy to make it work under this new paradigm, it was a relatively short leap to begin making entirely new play-by-post games with new themes which shared some commonalities of approach with Calhamer’s magnum opus.
> Thus in December of 1966, Dan Brannon announced a play-by-post game called Xeno, whose concept sounds very familiar indeed in the broad strokes. Each player started with a cluster of five planets — a tiny toehold in a sprawling, unknown galaxy waiting to be colonized.
> [...]
> In practice, Xeno played out at a pace to which the word “glacial” hardly does justice. The game didn’t really get started until September of 1967, and by a year after that just three turns had been completed. I don’t know whether a single full game of it was ever finished. Nevertheless, it proved hugely influential within the small community of experiential-gaming fanzines and play-by-post enthusiasts. The first similar game, called Galaxy and run by H. David Montgomery, had already appeared before Xeno had processed its third turn.
> [...]
I think it's different to CfNA in that this game simulates an actual campaign with clear goals, but that endgame cannot be reached in a reasonable time by any owner of this piece of cardboard. I'd say that's bad game design...
Sandbox doesn't mean no end goal(s), though you typically get the option to continue playing past the end goal(s).
This is why I’d love a wall size monitor.
Except whenever a "is VR worth it?" post comes up here, half the comments are people claiming that's what they use them for.
He has a high end VR device, not an Oculus (I forgot which though). His chair is weird and positioned weird. He uses a counterweight in his headset. And so on.
Not for me, in other words.
Well, duh, would you use one of the cheapest laptops available for work ? (Unless for dogfooding purposes.)
(As an aside, in my work experience of more than 2 decades, almost every workplace provided me entry level laptops/computers. Only relatively recently have they started handing out MacBooks or similar equipment. You can do work with entry level laptops in a way you absolutely cannot with entry level VR headsets).
Though I think I get what you mean, and also Oculus isn't "entry level" (maybe the first consumer one would qualify today, I have (had ?) one and I can't imagine reading lots of text with that low resolution !), that would be the headsets without 6 Degrees of Freedom (or badly working ones).
And this was for development.
As for the Oculus, I own an Oculus 2 and recently tried an Oculus 3, and while I don't know if calling them "entry level" is fair, I definitely wouldn't want to do any serious work with them, or spend a long time wearing them. For (some) gaming? Sure. Though I get dizzy easily. I do enjoy Beat Saber though!
--
[1] for some reason, hardware procurement at most jobs I've worked (until relatively recently) had it backwards. They thought higher screen resolutions were for "watching movies and playing videogames", while lower resolutions were for "serious work". In fact, it's the opposite: 720p is more than enough to watch movies on a tiny laptop screen, while productivity requires more screen real estate! And as for videogames -- average GPUs at the time I was having these work discussions struggled with anything more hi-res than 720p, so thinking that higher resolutions were "for gaming" was a total logical disconnect. Oh well, I cannot complain now; since the advent of the MacBook for Serious Work (tm) all of these problems seem to have gone away.
But then laptops aren't for serious work, that's what desktops are for ! (And nothing wrong with 1080 lines (though I prefer 1200) for a typical size desktop monitor, especially if using more than one screen.)
Where is that? I haven't seen a desktop at any workplace for more than 10 years, possibly more. Closer to 20 likely. And I mean anywhere -- neither small startups nor bigger businesses. Nobody used desktops for work, serious or otherwise. I'd say the only people I know who still use desktops are hardcore gamers (and not even most of them, either!).
In any case, we're getting sidetracked. My main point was that even these entry-level laptops are better than an Oculus headset for working. My experience, YMMV, and all the standard disclaimers.
I play game called Command: Modern Operation^¹ which can barely be a called a game, but rather a military command simulation at the operational level masquerading as one for civilian mil-sim nerds such as myself to toy around with.
There is a "Pro" version^² with all sorts of data-analysis and integration with other equipment/software that, according to their website, used by a surprisingly long list of military organizations. In practice, I have no idea how much it actually is used as I don't work in the defense industry.
I'm sure there are other tools out there like this, but this is the only one I've used before. If you like these kind of things I highly recommend it. It's the kind of game that comes with a 400pg ebook if that's your kinda thing. Personally, it tickles my autism just right.
[1]: https://command.matrixgames.com/?page_id=5002 [2]: https://command.matrixgames.com/?page_id=3822
I didn't intend to imply that they only used computers these days, just that they are used sometimes.
Though after looking over my comment once more, I see that it definitely reads that way.
Thanks for correction and extra info! If you have any more, please share as I find this all fascinating.
Then I got hooked on Rule the Waves recently. Matrix games publishes the latest game in that series as well (from last year): https://www.matrixgames.com/game/rule-the-waves-3
It is a game mostly about staring at a spreadsheet, showing all the ships in your (usually early 20th century) fleet and their most important data, plus the current budget for your navy. There is ship-design and fighting (2D) real-time battles as well, but mostly staring at a spreadsheet.
I loaded it up once and decided that I really wasn’t into games I had to study for.
I'm very much a fan of what I like to call "spreadsheet strategy" games. So if you any other recommendations, I'd love to hear them.
Been playing lots of logistics-heavy games like Factorio, Dwarf Fortress, X4: Foundations, HoI4, and Aurora 4X lately. Tried to learn Empire/Imperium, but I had to shelve that goal to focus on work.
For some reason I really love games that I end up spending more time learning and thinking about than actually playing.
[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel
[2]. The Art of Wargaming: A Guide for Professionals and Hobbyists by Peter P. Perla (Author), R. Dawn Sollars (Illustrator)
[3]. https://spyscape.com/article/meet-the-cia-spy-who-creates-wa...
https://www.amazon.com/United-States-Naval-College-Wargame/d...
My second recommendation is CG Lewin's "War Games and their History". It is a bit lighter on the history of military professional games, even if there is a chapter or two on that, but the chapters on non-professional wargames are amazing. The author has a personal collection of games going back to the 19th century and the book is full of photos and descriptions of obscure games that I really enjoyed reading about and that I never found in any other source. It covers games up to around 1950, so it does not get into any of the more well-known modern history of wargames (starting with Avalon Hill in the 1950's).
One little writeup I could find on it: https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/real-li... . Little blurb from the page:
The Game, as it was to become known, took over the top floor of the building, which came to look like a cross between a school gym and a child’s nursery. The floor was covered in linoleum and divided into painted sectors. On this make-believe ocean, the Wrens moved miniature convoys – model merchant ships and their battleship chaperones – according to directions given by the officers taking part in the exercise. But while the Wrens were permitted a bird’s eye view of the play area, the naval captains were allowed only occasional peeks through holes in canvas booths, arranged at the side of the playing field, positioned to recreate the limitations of visibility at sea.
...During the post-mortem that followed each game, all of the players would be treated to a bird’s eye view of the battle. The officers could at last see the tracks of the U-boats drawn on the floor in green chalk, set against the movements of their own ships drawn in white, and learn from the umpires whether or not they had managed to sink any submarines. Often, the officers would realise that they had made numerous dreadful mistakes during the Game, which might have resulted in the loss of their ships in earnest combat.They are not supposed to be "fun". They are supposed to be analysis tools. Their goal is different to a wargame for hobbyists, where "playability" is usually a greater factor than the simulation of real war concerns.
That's why it's OK that in a single day you can get one or two turns done. It's not a game, people who attend these exercises are doing work-related stuff.
That's why it's also "not in stores".
https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=11199...
I used to PBEM an old, VBasic-coded 4X game called VGA Planets. We usually did 1 turn per week!
(VGA Planets was a terrible game for all sorts of reasons. But we still managed to have fun)
Game does sound very cool, but lol, author has different game-playing expectations than I do.
P.S.: The most recent thread for MP Civ4 on the biggest Civ forums is literally this :
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/new-returning-players...
> Please note this is a long term commitment of multiple months requiring you to play a turn every day. We all realize life happens and when it does we just ask you post and ask for an extension.
There are rules within the game engine to disambiguate in which order some interactions resolve. If I remember correctly, the classic boardgame Diplomacy plays the same way (all orders are simultaneously, with some precedence rules for conflicts).
- Orders can be executed either immediately
(you select a unit, tell it to move to another tile, it moves immediately, which also changes the state of your fog of war, or even starts combat),
or during turn processing on the server/host
(you select a unit, give it an order, but it will only execute it during turn processing).
- Play can be either sequential turns (one player after another), or simultaneous turns (everyone at the same time).
- Play can be either in real time, or in hotseat / by transferring saves (either to the next player, or the server/host).
All of the 6 combinations are in theory possible, though of course some are more common and make more sense than others, and will be more supported than others. For instance various Civilizations support both sequential or simultaneous turns (Later Heroes of Might and Magic even support simultaneous until players meet, then sequential !), and Space Empires 4/5 supports both immediate or delayed orders.
Then it gets even more complicated depending on whether the tactical combat happens directly on the strategic map, or is instanced on separate, tactical maps. Some games even have instanced combat where the game becomes an RTS when unit groups meet ! (Like Total War or Sword of the Stars or Space Empires 5.)
I have played PBEM with sequential turns and 1 turn per day, though of course these games then tend to limit the number of players.
You cannot buy it in a store. You need to work for the DoD to have access to it.
From the article:
The real core mechanic is how dice are used in the game. The dice act as an instant adjudicator and the system uses different sizes of dice that can be adjusted during game play.
The map and counters also encode a lot of rapidly accessible state information. Using a computer would require all of this state info to be maintained in the computer, which would be a very different game, probably without the person to person interactions that make the game what it is.
A lot of the value of these games is the human interaction of several people working closely around the same table, not sat at separate screens interacting via the systems rather than each other. These sorts of games have real value for training senior decision makers whose day job is all about personal interactions, e.g. gold or silver commanders in a blue light emergency response scenario. They need to get into the syndicate room and immediately start to discuss how to respond to a crisis, not learn a new game interface.
The alternative is to get together and play for a long day or weekend, but many games are much too long for that. I played one earlier this month with six other players (in two teams). We started in the morning and played til late in the evening, but we did not get halfway through the game. It was enough to see what side was likely to win. That is the usual outcome in my experience.
More common these days is to use a tool like VASSAL (https://vassalengine.org/) to play those games online.