Originally posted by trauth116
You know if you find a certain medium to your liking - then - who really cares about a philosophical debate?
Sounds like "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like." (Just substitute "wargames" for "art.")
I work with an artist who says that old saying was a big joke back in art school, but the longer he works as an artist, the more truth he sees in it.
Anyhow, it's true that you can't leave human nature out of the equation. It may not be the main factor, but it has to be considered. For instance, nobody really likes all the number crunching that has to be done in some wargames.
I still distinctly remember the last time I played Panzer Leader. I was calculating the odds for an attack: "Let's see, I double the defender's strength for terrain, halve the attack strength for range . . . the AT's strength is quartered for weapon type, but the AFV's is only halved . . ." and then I stopped right in the middle of the turn, threw up my hands, and said, "This isn't a wargame; it's a number game!" I put the game away and never played again.
But OTOH, I also remember my first games of--uh, I forget the title, but it was one of the "V for Victory" computer wargames that Avalon Hill put out (or maybe "V for Victory" was the title). Anyhow, I felt like everything was speeded up to the point where I couldn't follow. I'd drag my units into position, maybe glance at the odds--having no idea how those odds were calculated--and click Go. Next instant, units are eliminated or retreating, and I'm dragging units around again. I soon got tired of it.
Same thing happened with the HPS game I just bought ("French & Indian War"). A map full of units that I have to drag around every turn, meticulously changing facing and formation. And although the combat parameters are right there in a drop-down menu, I never bother to look at them. I just click here and order a unit to fire, click there and order a unit to charge. There are too many units to move each turn for me to take time to study all the details for each one. So, it's just another game of dragging lots of units across a map.
I liked Norm Koger's "Age of Rifles," because it covers my favorite period. But after a while it started to feel like an elaborate capture-the-flag game; I was always making wild cavalry sweeps to grab victory flags--and they often paid off. Also, the AI sucked (I did try a PBEM game or two, but I soon tired of that). And most of the scenarios were so big that, once again, I found myself just dragging lots of units across the map.
Panzer General, simplistic as it was, was a lot of fun for a while. I preferred it to most serious wargames. I lost interest eventually, though, because--once again--most of the scenarios were so big that I had to drag a hundred or more units across the map every turn.
Sid Meier's Gettysburg was a surprisingly good game. I've never been a real-time fan, but I bought a cheap copy on eBay to see what it was like. It felt real--and best of all, I could give orders to a whole brigade or division and the unit would keep doing its thing until I jumped in and changed the orders. No more painstakingly dragging a hundred units across the map; I could just say, "All you guys, go here." That made even big-map scenarios palatable. I still had no idea how combat results were calculated, but I didn't care; my focus was elsewhere. After a while, though, I felt that I wasn't really playing the game; the game was playing me. All kinds of things were happening that I had no control over.
One final point: With the game "Master of Magic," I bought the strategy guidebook (one of the best strategy guides ever written for a computer game). I enjoyed the book as much as the game itself. It explained everything in detail, in a conversational tone. If I wanted to, I could've learned just how combat was resolved. But I never did. Know why? Because it was too complicated. Since the computer was crunching the numbers, the designers felt they could make the math very complex, thus giving a more realistic "feel" to the various unit types. But IMO the math was too complicated for a game, better suited for a simulation. So, I skimmed the section on combat resolution and then learned by trial-and-error.
In short, my problem with PC wargames is:
1. It's too easy to slip into laziness or sloppy play, since the computer handles so much.
2. The algorithms which make up the game engine are often undocumented, leaving players in the dark.
3. The algorithms are often much more complicated than in board (or miniatures) wargames--so even if they are documented, they're more than I care to study. In effect, such wargames attempt to be
simulations; and I have a hard time trusting any designer's model. So to me, all the extra complexity comes across as an elaborate snow job.