12 ms·

The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now (2021)

116 points by cl42 2y ago

artem_dev 2y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A7JZ4MjIMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A7JZ4MjIMM 2h video about the game in great details by its creator Tim Barrick (July 2021)
Iprop 2y ago
I was the author of the article... AMA
jonplackett 2y ago
Think we killed it :(
- erikgahner 2y ago
  Sure looks like it. Here is an archived version: https://archive.is/c4XbV https://archive.is/c4XbV
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
te 2y ago
> "The turns do not take very long at all and teams of players can get in 2-3 turns in a normal work day." Game does sound very cool, but lol, author has different game-playing expectations than I do.
- Arrath 2y ago
  Yeah for real. So much for "one more turn" syndrome ala Civilization
  - BlueTemplar 2y ago
    It's not uncommon for 4X to be Played By E-Mail (or any other way to transfer save files these days), in which case 1 turn per day is a common agreement. 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-pitboss-game.690432/ 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.
    - Arrath 2y ago
      Oh I know, I've observed more day-by-day War In the Pacific Let's Play's than I care to admit.
    - rendaw 2y ago
      Is that one player per day, or all players complete 1 turn in a day? If the latter, how does that work with player turns needing to be made serially?
      - BlueTemplar 2y ago
        There are several concepts here : - 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.
- dhosek 2y ago
  Is that “in a normal work day” as in playing the game as their normal work day, or playing the game while they do their normal work over the course of the day?
  - the_af 2y ago
    A work day of military people using this wargame as a simulation tool for analysis.
- the_af 2y ago
  It's not a game and it's not supposed to be fun. It's a military simulation, a tool for military people. 2-3 turns in one day may be entirely within reasonable range for military analysis. You cannot buy it in a store. You need to work for the DoD to have access to it.
- ycombinete 2y ago
  In war games the terms “turn” and “round” are inverted from how board gamers usually use them.
bane 2y ago
I have a friend who is very into these types of games, having dedicated about 1200 sq ft of their home to them. The commercial ones are usually centered on specific historic battles, and often follow a sort of "script" where things happen at specific turns e.g. the introduction of new units or weather conditions, that sort of thing. 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.
- MrMember 2y ago
  >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. The Campaign for North Africa is probably the most extreme example of this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campaign_for_North_Africa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campaign_for_North_Afric... A "proper" game requires 10 players and an estimated 1500 hours.
  - the_af 2y ago
    I don't think anyone is on record as having completed a single game of Campaign for North Africa. Likely not even the author. Which I guess makes it a game only in the theoretical sense.
    - 2y ago
JoeDaDude 2y ago
The military has a long history of using war games for training, going all the way back to Kriegspiel [1]. At least one history book [2], has been written about the topic. However it is rare that these military training games make it outside of their domain and become available to the general public. A rare exception may be the games designed by Volko Ruhnke [3], who designed games for training the CIA (though these may not be war games per se, but rather games about complex geopolitical situations). Mr. Rhunke's experience led him to become a highly successful commercial game designer. [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel 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-wargames-for-spies-amateurs https://spyscape.com/article/meet-the-cia-spy-who-creates-wa...
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  Can't upvote this hard enough. I'm fascinated by large scale games of this kind and have a loose acquaintance with some people who run them, but it's a very tiny industry that's almost exclusively based around DC for obvious reasons.
  - rareitem 2y ago
    Are they online games or real life games (e.g. board games)?
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      I mean real life games, like the ones hosted by/for military and disaster planners. The only places I can think of on the west coast that might do that sort of stuff are the RAND corporation and the Naval Postgraduate school at Monterey.
    - JoeDaDude 2y ago
      I think it is a safe bet that they are mostly computer games by now, though there is a long history of using board games for training. That said, there was Freedom of Information Act request to uncover some of the games Mr. Rhunke developed for the CIA and they turned out to be physical board games.
chaostheory 2y ago
Even simultaneous turn based strategy games take hours. I cannot imagine the time commitment for non-computer managed strategy games. I also don’t understand the point unless it’s mostly about face to face interaction.
- cl42 2y ago
  I believe in this case that's very much the goal -- less about who wins, and more about the options/tactics debated to inform actual military battle prep.
- ranger207 2y ago
  It's about the face-to-face decision making and teambuilding. The lack of a computer is also somewhat of a bonus as it forces players to be intentional about processes, because in battle the computer probably won't be able to handle every process that comes up and so experience doing it by hand is useful
  - chaostheory 2y ago
    I hope that they at the very least use a computer to calculate the outcomes of a battle.
    - KineticLensman 2y ago
      > I hope that they at the very least use a computer to calculate the outcomes of a battle. 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.
      - chaostheory 2y ago
        This sounds extremely inefficient and even Luddite like. Having a computer involved wouldn’t reduce interaction. It would allow you to drastically increase the game speed.
kkukshtel 2y ago
For anyone looking to dip their toes into Wargaming, I encourage you to look at GMT Game's output. They have a ton of games like this of varying levels of complexity. The best way to get started is to try to find a game around a theme you're interested in. These games are all (largely) in stores: https://www.gmtgames.com/ https://www.gmtgames.com/
the_af 2y ago
It may not be immediately obvious, but these are not "games" in the hobbyist sense of the word (though I suppose hobbyists may get interested, though access to this one in particular seems to be restricted to the military) but "simulations" for teaching and training. 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".
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  Multiple turns per day is faster than your typical 3+ players 4X PBEM game, here a recent example for Civilization : https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=11199&pid=850965#pid850965 https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=11199...
  - the_af 2y ago
    True. I forgot PBEM! 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)
Barbara230 2y ago
[dead]
tmountain 2y ago
Might not qualify, but a few years back, my team started playing diplomacy online. I had never played a game involving so much back channel negotiation, double crossing, and strategy. It had a funny effect on water cooler conversations because folks that I had a great relationship with would approach me with a noticeable air of disappointment as a result of some of my less than honorable decision making. I highly recommend this game to anyone with a group of friends looking for a turn based war game spanning many days.
Giorgi 2y ago
That looks like civilization but as a board game.
anan474 2y ago
Can't open the page as of now, suspiciously look like just got attacked (they use wp). For anyone interested here the archive https://web.archive.org/web/20240630013513/https://nodicenoglory.com/2021/06/23/the-operational-wargame-series-the-best-game-not-in-stores-now/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240630013513/https://nodicenog...

116 points by cl42 2y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A7JZ4MjIMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A7JZ4MjIMM 2h video about the game in great details by its creator Tim Barrick (July 2021)

Iprop 2y ago

I was the author of the article... AMA

jonplackett 2y ago

Think we killed it :(

erikgahner 2y ago
Sure looks like it. Here is an archived version: https://archive.is/c4XbV https://archive.is/c4XbV

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

te 2y ago

> "The turns do not take very long at all and teams of players can get in 2-3 turns in a normal work day." Game does sound very cool, but lol, author has different game-playing expectations than I do.

Arrath 2y ago
Yeah for real. So much for "one more turn" syndrome ala Civilization
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  It's not uncommon for 4X to be Played By E-Mail (or any other way to transfer save files these days), in which case 1 turn per day is a common agreement. 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-pitboss-game.690432/ 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.
  - Arrath 2y ago
    Oh I know, I've observed more day-by-day War In the Pacific Let's Play's than I care to admit.
  - rendaw 2y ago
    Is that one player per day, or all players complete 1 turn in a day? If the latter, how does that work with player turns needing to be made serially?
    - BlueTemplar 2y ago
      There are several concepts here : - 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.
dhosek 2y ago
Is that “in a normal work day” as in playing the game as their normal work day, or playing the game while they do their normal work over the course of the day?
- the_af 2y ago
  A work day of military people using this wargame as a simulation tool for analysis.
the_af 2y ago
It's not a game and it's not supposed to be fun. It's a military simulation, a tool for military people. 2-3 turns in one day may be entirely within reasonable range for military analysis. You cannot buy it in a store. You need to work for the DoD to have access to it.
ycombinete 2y ago
In war games the terms “turn” and “round” are inverted from how board gamers usually use them.

bane 2y ago

I have a friend who is very into these types of games, having dedicated about 1200 sq ft of their home to them. The commercial ones are usually centered on specific historic battles, and often follow a sort of "script" where things happen at specific turns e.g. the introduction of new units or weather conditions, that sort of thing. 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.

MrMember 2y ago
>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. The Campaign for North Africa is probably the most extreme example of this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campaign_for_North_Africa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campaign_for_North_Afric... A "proper" game requires 10 players and an estimated 1500 hours.
- the_af 2y ago
  I don't think anyone is on record as having completed a single game of Campaign for North Africa. Likely not even the author. Which I guess makes it a game only in the theoretical sense.
  - 2y ago

JoeDaDude 2y ago

The military has a long history of using war games for training, going all the way back to Kriegspiel [1]. At least one history book [2], has been written about the topic. However it is rare that these military training games make it outside of their domain and become available to the general public. A rare exception may be the games designed by Volko Ruhnke [3], who designed games for training the CIA (though these may not be war games per se, but rather games about complex geopolitical situations). Mr. Rhunke's experience led him to become a highly successful commercial game designer. [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel 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-wargames-for-spies-amateurs https://spyscape.com/article/meet-the-cia-spy-who-creates-wa...

anigbrowl 2y ago
Can't upvote this hard enough. I'm fascinated by large scale games of this kind and have a loose acquaintance with some people who run them, but it's a very tiny industry that's almost exclusively based around DC for obvious reasons.
- rareitem 2y ago
  Are they online games or real life games (e.g. board games)?
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    I mean real life games, like the ones hosted by/for military and disaster planners. The only places I can think of on the west coast that might do that sort of stuff are the RAND corporation and the Naval Postgraduate school at Monterey.
  - JoeDaDude 2y ago
    I think it is a safe bet that they are mostly computer games by now, though there is a long history of using board games for training. That said, there was Freedom of Information Act request to uncover some of the games Mr. Rhunke developed for the CIA and they turned out to be physical board games.

chaostheory 2y ago

Even simultaneous turn based strategy games take hours. I cannot imagine the time commitment for non-computer managed strategy games. I also don’t understand the point unless it’s mostly about face to face interaction.

cl42 2y ago
I believe in this case that's very much the goal -- less about who wins, and more about the options/tactics debated to inform actual military battle prep.
ranger207 2y ago
It's about the face-to-face decision making and teambuilding. The lack of a computer is also somewhat of a bonus as it forces players to be intentional about processes, because in battle the computer probably won't be able to handle every process that comes up and so experience doing it by hand is useful
- chaostheory 2y ago
  I hope that they at the very least use a computer to calculate the outcomes of a battle.
  - KineticLensman 2y ago
    > I hope that they at the very least use a computer to calculate the outcomes of a battle. 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.
    - chaostheory 2y ago
      This sounds extremely inefficient and even Luddite like. Having a computer involved wouldn’t reduce interaction. It would allow you to drastically increase the game speed.

kkukshtel 2y ago

For anyone looking to dip their toes into Wargaming, I encourage you to look at GMT Game's output. They have a ton of games like this of varying levels of complexity. The best way to get started is to try to find a game around a theme you're interested in. These games are all (largely) in stores: https://www.gmtgames.com/ https://www.gmtgames.com/

the_af 2y ago

It may not be immediately obvious, but these are not "games" in the hobbyist sense of the word (though I suppose hobbyists may get interested, though access to this one in particular seems to be restricted to the military) but "simulations" for teaching and training. 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".

BlueTemplar 2y ago
Multiple turns per day is faster than your typical 3+ players 4X PBEM game, here a recent example for Civilization : https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=11199&pid=850965#pid850965 https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=11199...
- the_af 2y ago
  True. I forgot PBEM! 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)

Barbara230 2y ago

[dead]

tmountain 2y ago

Might not qualify, but a few years back, my team started playing diplomacy online. I had never played a game involving so much back channel negotiation, double crossing, and strategy. It had a funny effect on water cooler conversations because folks that I had a great relationship with would approach me with a noticeable air of disappointment as a result of some of my less than honorable decision making. I highly recommend this game to anyone with a group of friends looking for a turn based war game spanning many days.

Giorgi 2y ago

That looks like civilization but as a board game.

anan474 2y ago

Can't open the page as of now, suspiciously look like just got attacked (they use wp). For anyone interested here the archive https://web.archive.org/web/20240630013513/https://nodicenoglory.com/2021/06/23/the-operational-wargame-series-the-best-game-not-in-stores-now/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240630013513/https://nodicenog...