I started thinking that alot of the confusion in some of my topics was due to the difference between Strategy games and Wargames. I admit that alot of this is my fault, as I should have really made a clear difference between the two. The trouble is that most strategy games couch themselves in military clothing. This in turn I believe makes some players feel that they understand the concepts that the military uses. But this is sort of akin to saying that by playing chess, you understand the concepts behind war. In reality, Chess, though claimed as an early wargame tool, is more an intellectual exerciser. While some concepts may be applied to warfare (the importance of maneuver, and defending weaknesses) the implementation is drastically different. I think Strategy Games try to pass themselves off as wargames, as they try to model situations that a country faces when going to war. In other words there are economic and technological, as well as military considerations to be made. But ultimately, I think that they don''t model warfare very well at all. In their own way, they have very tactical concerns, as well as some basic strategy. But the differences in how RTS designers approach their game design is radically different from how a wargamer would design a game. I personally am in search of a good Warfare Simulator. In truth, I''m more interested in what military science people would call, "the Operational Art". This tends to mean how tactics are used to implement the greater strategy. Here''s two good links I drudged up after some web searching: http://dde.carlisle.army.mil/authors/stratpap.htm http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/5-4-anal.htm look at the first one especially, it really defines strategy in a military sense, and the second link is from a Wargame designer from both a paper and pen and computer background (he used to work for SPI, which was a former branch of Avalon Hill I believe) The interesting remark the author made was that the simpler a game was, the more it sold. However, the core group...the ones that had a guaranteed market preferred the more complex games. In other words, the fickle crowd wants it easy, the hardcore want it complex. I''m not really sure if I made the distinction clear between strategy and wargaming (since I''m sleepy ) but I''m wondering how many people are interested in what really simulates war, rather than strategy per se?

wow, I was doing a little research on real wargaming projects....you thought the computer indsutry has lots of acronyms? Check this out:

http://www.strategypage.com/prowg/mand21.htm

I also found this interesting tidbit from the same website:
http://www.strategypage.com/prowg/default.asp?target=pwpdifferences.htm

"Methodology. Professional and current commercial wargames shared the same techniques until the end of World War II. At that point, most professional wargames began to use a more technical approach, attempting to quantify everything and deal with the resulting avalanche of algorithms and calculations
by using computers. It took several decades before computers were powerful enough to provide reasonable coverage of the enormous number of things taking place on the battlefield. At that point, the 1970s, several high ranking officials in the Pentagon wondered if these simulations of modern combat could,
say, replicate well documented battles from World War II. The dismal results of these tests had two effects. One was to remind everyone how dangerous validation could be. But it was also realized that somewhere along the line history had been purged from professional wargames and maybe it would be a good idea to refer to the past when trying to predict the future. Commercial wargames were doing this with embarrassing regularity. The operations research/quantify everything approach still holds sway, but there is more readiness to learn from historical models as well. But you will find that there is still a sharp divide between the quantify and historical schools. This has the effect of further slowing down the design of current rofessional wargames to accommodate these debates."

I know it''s an obvious point, but are you aware that a game known as "The Operational Art of War" actually exists?

ld

Yeah, but I''ve only played one of the series, the rising sun series. It''s good, but it''s a bit too abstract in the unit models, plus, while I think turn-based games do a better job in the realism area currently, I think that RT is the way to go.

Still the amount of detail in the OAOW series is very good. Read that first article again, and it REALLY explains all the varying degrees of strategy, and a union set between what most people lump together as strategy and tactics (Operational Art lies somewhere between Strategy and Tactics....and that article also mentions Doctrine, which is even higher than strategy).

quote: Original post by Dauntless
I started thinking that alot of the confusion in some of my topics was due to the difference between Strategy games and Wargames.
...
I think Strategy Games try to pass themselves off as wargames, as they try to model situations that a country faces when going to war. In other words there are economic and technological, as well as military considerations to be made.

But ultimately, I think that they don''t model warfare very well at all.

Exactly. I would like to see (or make) some Strategy games move more towards the military considerations. You don''t have to lose the economic and technological considerations, just reduce their relative importance. Most of my suggestions in RTS threads are aiming at this point. (Although I seem to be misunderstood by most.)

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quote: You don''t have to lose the economic and technological considerations, just reduce their relative importance

Or make the economy/technological part stand aside from the combat part. The importance of economy and technological advances can remain the same (perhaps even become more important) but please let me deal with it outside of ''real-time''.

Wargames are a proper subset of strategy games - I don''t see how they could be separated.

I think Dauntless is using popular terminology, rather than factually accurate terminology. Besides, you could consider several first-person shooters to be warfare games, and they wouldn''t be strategy in the way it is meant here.

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Silvermyst-
I know exactly what you mean about managing military and socio-economic matters simultaneously. No real world situation has this, and I think it''s not just ludicrous but actually a bad idea (God I love that ad of a king with a trowel in his hand while the barbarian horde is attacking). I don''t mind having battles in real time but socio-econmic concerns in turn-based play however.

Argus-
Yes, wargames are strategy games, but strategy games aren''t necessarily wargames. So they can be seperated. Catholics are Christians but that''s not the same as all Christians are Catholics. So wargames are a different "flavor" of strategy games.

Kylotan-
As I pointed out to Silver, I don''t mind economic and social considerations if they are not simultaneous to the battles. Trying to be a President and General at the same time isn''t fun and just leads to frustration. I''d like to do one or the other, or have them semi-seperated

I guess I don''t mind so much, as long as it doesn''t become a click-and-scroll fest. I like doing everything myself, as long as the interface is sufficiently powerful.

Note that I never complain about the amount of micromanagement in games though, so I am not necessarily the kind of player many of you are aiming at. I thrive on detail.

Having said that, playing cooperative Age of Empires was fun, where I dealt with the combat side and my partner dealt with building up the settlement.

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