Quote from: Pierce InverarityThat depends on what one means by "important." You seem to say that so long as the division commander has the right battleplan, nothing matters below division level. But if those scattered grunts don't hold the tip of the bridgehead, that will have an effect higher up.

That´s undebatably true. Again: What is your aim in wargaming? (That was a general "you", just saying.)

Do you play out the engagement of the twenty swiss pikemen in the first row?

If there was a model for "real" wwii engagements, and you would choose to play something else, to explore the squad/grunt level: fine.

But the total lack of any modelling of the actual engagements of the second world war does pose some questions. And I have only ugly answers to provide.

The plethora of Bocage-crawling games should make us all curious.

Again, there are military realities that make squad/platoon level engagements [now comes the important part] as set pieces totally untypical.

A company fights, a batallion fights. A squad is an element in that. The platoon encounters the enemy, and the whole organism of the company/batallion reacts. WWII is mobile and fluid.

No set pieces with two platoons against each other. I mean, there might be instances and constructed situations where you have such things galore.
But they would be sought after and purposefully collected or constructed just in order to experience the highly artificial platoon vs platoon engagement.

It´s the wargamer´s encountASLization, I´d say.

(I´m purposefully hyperbolic here to drive in my point.)


So, if you really really want to experience a platoon level combat, so be it.
But if you want WWII wargaming?

I´m not sure they go good together.

Quote from: SettembriniNo set pieces with two platoons against each other. I mean, there might be instances and constructed situations where you have such things galore.
But they would be sought after and purposefully collected or constructed just in order to experience the highly artificial platoon vs platoon engagement.

Elliot, say something! I'm running out of arguments!

QuoteIt´s the wargamer´s encountASLization, I´d say.

lalala can't hear you

Take it easy.

If you embrace it and know about it, it´s at least halfway okay.

I play BattleTech, you know?
It´s Giant Robot Techno-Landser romanticism.

So why not have pure Landser romanticism?

I can´t have the pure Landser romanticism for several reasons. But, as long as one drops any pretentions, it´s definitely a fun-source.

EDIT: Just as Luke Crane has his OrkBoyz violence fantasies, so you are entitled to your GI/Landser grim-determination-fantasies.

Best I can do is disprove you empirically. When I see a battle report like this I want to play RIGHT NOW--

http://www.greatescapegames.co.uk/wrapper.php?w_page=BATTLE%20REPORT%20A

Except I will not ever play Waffen SS, nosirreebob.

I wrote and deleted several answers.

My answer now: I leave you to your own devices. Connect the dots, you are smarter and older than I am, so the repercussions should yield results I cannot anticipate/antedate.

I hope you saved your answers, 'cause I want to read them!

Never forget: I didn't serve a single day in the Bundeswehr, whereas I've always assumed you were a Zeitsoldat. So, my ground level knowledge is third hand, and in any case on an intellectual rather than gut level you're clearly right.

CC:E is a shitty game, and a shitty simulation.

The Borg tactical games are fun games and shitty simulation.

As for the other popular CCGs (mostly operational or strategic games produced by GMT), they're a mixed bag. The best ones - Hannibal, Twilight Struggle, Paths of Glory - are excellent. The things they bring to the table are:

Uncertainty - You don't know what your enemy is capable of doing, so you can't just crunch movements points and combat factors to come up foolproof plans.

History - The cards can include all sorts of historical chrome and options that are hard to incorporate into traditional hex and counter games without loads of tables (which pose their own problem re: unique events).

Tempo - You're only activating a portion of your forces each phase/round. That means each players takes a minute or two to perform his action, then back to the other player, and so on. Many players find this more agreeable than one player taking 25 minutes to move all of his units, then the other player doing the game.

Tension - Your card hand often presents you with agonizing choices. You have events you want or need to play, but you also need the OPs numbers on the cards to activate and move your units (or generate replacements/place political markers/ etc).

Quote from: Pierce InverarityElliot, say something! I'm running out of arguments!

In fairness, to the extent that the enthusiasm for all this stuff can be traced back to Squad Leader, I think it's important to note that John Hill, the designer, was very conscious of what he was doing, the sorts of compromises being made, and the overall "effect" he was looking for. You can read about this in the designer's notes and in The General from that era, including an article (by either Hill or Don Greenwood IIRC) on the development of 20th-century infantry tactics, and an interview/debate between Hill and Hal Hock, the designer of Tobruk.

Hill was well aware that he wasn't creating a precise model-type simulation; instead, he wanted to create an experience or impression of small unit tactics on the Eastern Front and post-D-Day Western Front. In addition to emphasizing morale (with break/rout/rally rules) and leadership, Hill fudged things like terrain scale to get the right "feel". So: all streets are 40m wide; flamethrowers have range of 80m (to be able to shoot across streets); the  Dzerhezinsky Tractor Works is maybe 8-10 hexes, when in reality it was big enough to fill 8 mapboards. (Check out that guy's blog, BTW!)

I do think Sett is exaggerating a bit though in comparing SL and its descendants (which aren't BTW mostly platoon-vs.-platoon, more like company-vs.-company) to playing out the first few ranks of a pike push. Post-WWI, small unit tactics particularly in urban areas are more likely to devolve decision-making to a fairly low level, particularly in well-trained armies. So regardless of whether the scenarios are cherry-picked or concocted to give unusually isolated situations, the types of stuff you're doing/experiencing as company commander probably aren't completely off the wall. Also note WRT Squad Leader these are very brief engagements; even with some fudging of the two-minute turn-scale, a typical scenario is less than an hour long. So this is "slice of combat" stuff; I'd look at the victory conditions not so much as "winning the battle" as representing the immediate objectives and urgency of the sides--encouraging the players to behave appropriately to their roles. In order to retain the feel of the experience within a more accurate context, you'd probably have to do multiplayer team stuff.

The closest thing I've heard of to overcome the paradox of wanting detail without decontextualization or excessive control (i.e., colonels do not move squads/platoons) is the The Gamers TCS system. It's platoon level with 125m hexes, but it has a system where you have to give general orders to formations, in advance, and then stick to them when moving individual units. I've only tried it once and didn't understand it at all (I didn't own the game), but it has a lot of fans.

Speaking of that, there are games all the way up and down the spectrum of scale. Turning Point: Stalingrad uses battalions. Storm over Arnhem is probably company-level, etc. Of course I'm showing my age by citing those examples but if you look for games on whatever scale, you'll find them.

That's a great blog, EL, thanks!

Quote from: Elliot WilenThe closest thing I've heard of to overcome the paradox of wanting detail without decontextualization or excessive control (i.e., colonels do not move squads/platoons) is the The Gamers TCS system. It's platoon level with 125m hexes, but it has a system where you have to give general orders to formations, in advance, and then stick to them when moving individual units. I've only tried it once and didn't understand it at all (I didn't own the game), but it has a lot of fans.

I have a Napoleonic game from The Gamers, Austerlitz IIRC. I think I once linked to a Richard Berg review of it. It is HORRIBLE. As a game, that is. It may be top notch as a Sim. The Russians are vastly superior in numbers, especially in artillery, but their commanders are incompetent, all lower ranks are inflexible, and by the time an order has travelled down to the front, it is either obsolete or the unit for which it was intended has long been routed.

Good clean fun, in a trainwreck sort of way.

Elliot, that´s very interesting.

If one is aware of what one is doing, it´s usually okay. And the ASL designers knew what they did, it seems.

Now I´m bound to seek out surely ultra rare HASL-stuff.

I thought John Hill claimed Squad Leader is meant to model tactical warfare as depicted in Hollywood movies. It was the enthusiasts who built the colossal monstrosity of ASL who have confused increased detail with increased realism.

I'm only talking about SL, not ASL. Hill knew what he was doing--though I don't think he ever said he was trying to emulate Hollywood. (Some other games aimed more clearly at that experience; I distinctly remember the Ambush designers talking about movies as inspiration, at a preview discussion at Origins.) He might agree that he was doing something like Hollywood at its best, though, i.e., working within the constraints of the medium to convey an impression in a way that you won't get with a just-the-facts account. (This is more or less the Hock vs. Hill discussion from around vol. 14 of The General.)

I think there was more than a little blurring of that vision as the series went on through the gamettes and into ASL, but I can't really work up much ASL-hate since I don't know the game well enough to form a strong opinion. And the progression of the gamettes (the original SL add-ons) is very seductive; once you know SL, there's no reason not to move on to Cross of Iron; only with the third gamette GI: Anvil of Victory (after COI and Crescendo of Doom) did things really get out of hand, and then ASL from what I've seen of it does have a few elegant simplifications some of which might be worthwhile alternatives even in the original game.

BTW most of (A)SL development after the original game was done by Don Greenwood.

Also, vis a vis fudging details to get the right feel, there are other "real wargames" that do it. Wooden Ships & Iron Men increases the lethality of cannon fire so the scenarios don't take as long; Submarine likewise allows subs to reload torpedoes faster than historically, at least in the Basic Game; Luftwaffe ramped up damage rates so that you could play out the entire American bombing campaign, essentially with one day's worth of raiding standing in for an entire month or something like that.

Or then there's Graphic Simulations' F/A-18 Hornet flight simulator, where they monkeyed with flight ranges so missions wouldn't take as long.

Basically real war involves a lot of tedium and waiting, so game designers tend to compress things to get to the exciting parts.

...which is not the problem. My main criticism regarding the bocage- hopping-games is what they define as interesting.

Again, if it was only the SL-family, no sweat. But the predisposition upon WWII games to be on that level of detail with the same implicit assumptions and design "choices" gives me reasons to wonder.

Hi all, I just saw this thread and thought I'd jump in to defend CC:E some.

When I first read about CC:E it didn't sound like a game I'd really enjoy.  A short while later I played a friends copy and was really blown away though.  In short, it's the most fun squad/platoon level wargame I've ever played.  Since then I've gotten my own copy and am planning on buying the available expansions in the very near future.  So what is it that I like about the game:

1) The rules.  They're available at GMT's website for free.  If you're thinking about this game, get them and read them.  Then read them a 2nd time.  It might take that 2nd time (it did for me) for them to click because they are very different than most other wargames you might be familiar with.  Once they do click though you realize how well written they are.  They are what rules should be: clear, organized, easy to learn from, easy to reference, and full of examples.  Any time I've had a rules question, I've been able to find an answer in the rulebook in mere moments.

2) The feel of small unit combat.  Contrary to what others have said here, I think CC:E does a really good job of creating the feel of small unit combat- a much better job than many games out there with more detailed and "realistic" rules.  In the initial example referenced in this thread, one might ask "well why the heck aren't my men shooting the enemy out in the open!?!"  Well in combat there could be lots of reasons- your men are reloading, their gun is jammed, they're suppressed, they're looking another direction at that moment, they misunderstood the orders given to them, they think the enemy are friendlies, and on and on.  CC:E does a great job of simulating many of the key elements of man to man combat- the importance of leaders, the critical value of cover and concealment, the powers and limitations of crew served weapons, and the enormous difficulty of exercising effective command and control in the middle of combat.  

3) Replayability.  The game comes with 12 scenarios, all of which can be substantially different each time you play because of randomly generated objectives.  On top of that you have a random scenario generator.  Add in the luck of the draw from the card decks and you have a game that is a different challenge each time.

Well I could go on, but I think that covers my basic points.  1) I think CC:E is a very well designed and enjoyable game and 2) I think it is about as "realistic" as any boardgame covering this topic can be.  

If you want a game with perfect information and total control of your forces at all times than this isn't a game for you, but then again a squad leader will never have either of those things in combat