Hi,

Happy New Year everyone !

Another year, another Wargame of the Year election, so for the 6th
time we all get a chance to pick our top 3 games of the past year.

Again there's a Grand Prize for you to win : Matrix Games has
graciously offered a free pick of any game in their catalogue, even of
a game not released yet, to one lucky participant.
And to make it absolutely clear : voting for their games will *not*
increase your chances of winning it (*).

The Rules :

1) 1 (wo)man, 1 post - all votes in the open, no emails.
2) The game must have been published in 2009 or late 2008 =96 in other
words : if you think a game published late in 2008 didn=92t get a fair
chance last year, feel free to add it.
3) Post your 1st, 2nd and 3rd place choices - 1st place gets 5 points,
2nd gets 3 points, 3rd gets 1 point.
4) Votes must be in before midnight (GMT) January 14th, 2010
5) In case of a tie, the award is shared.
6) People who for various reasons don't want to post an open vote can
send me a mail - these votes will *not* be counted for the purpose
of this election, but I'll post a separate result if the number of
entrants is significant.
7) I've temporarily unplonked a couple of posters so that I see
everyone's votes.

This is what's at stake for the developers - again created by Daniel
Lamb :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25663989@N07/sets/72157623035339710/

To refresh your memory on what games got published this year :

Supremacy at Sea - WW2
Battle Group Commander: Episode One
Crown of Glory 2 - Emperor's Edition
Empire : Total War
Musket and Pike : Renaissance
Civil War Battles - Chancellorsville
War in Europe II
Military History - Commander : Europe at War (PSP / DS)
Theatre of War 2 - North Africa 1943
Close Combat - The Longest Day
Distant Guns 1.5
Squad Battles : Dien Bien Phu
Total War in Europe : War on the Southern Front (WSF)
Ancient Warfare : Alexandrian Wars
Horse and Musket: Volume I, Frederick the Great
World War 2 - Time of Wrath
War in the Pacific - Admiral's Edition
Combat Mission : Shock Force - British Forces
Distant Guns : Jutland Expansion Ship Pack 1 - US North Sea 1916-17
Hearts of Iron 3
Operation Barbarossa - The Struggle for Russia
March to Baghdad
Ironclads - High Sea
Eagle Day to the Bombing of the Reich
Imperium Mini: A Brief History of Rome
Gettysburg Day One : The Fight for the Heights
The History Channel - Great Battles of the Middle Ages
Warship Combat : Navies at War
Napoleonic Battles : Austerlitz
For the Glory
Field of Glory
PT Boats : Knights of the Sea
Theatre of War 2 - Centauro addon
Empires of Steel

If you think I missed one (or several) feel free to add them - this is
not a list of nominees.

My vote :

1st place : Warship Combat : Navies at War - got an hour to kill ?
Like naval warfare ? - then this is your game.
2nd place : World War 2 : Time of Wrath - has come a long way since it
first got released and is now the best hex-based ETO game out there.
3rd place : Fight for the Heights - cheap, easy, fun

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

(*) This is how the winner of the game from Matrix Games will be
decided :

1) Every entry/voter is given a random number by me
2) When the election is over I zip this list, password protect it and
send it to Mr. Beretta and everyone else asking for it - without the
password.
3) I'll ask Mr. Giftzwerg to pick and post a number between 1 and ...
4) I release the password, so Mr. Beretta and everyone else can check
who won the game.

I vote for WiTP: AE as my first choice and WC:NAW as my second.  No
third selection.

In article <96c525c3-3324-4f7c-8bba-6cd09182c562
@j19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>, eddysterckx@hotmail.com says...

> My vote :

1)  WC:NAW
2)  [none]
3)  [none]

It's the "bullet vote" for the clear winner, IMO.

-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"[W]hat I can't wrap my head around is that it took the President four
days to acknowledge what he termed a 'catastrophic' national security
failure, but Cheney criticizes the administration's handling of the war
on terror and they have a rapid response on the White House blog in a
matter of hours? Priorities!"
                                              - Mark Hemingway

On Dec 31, 9:27=A0pm, "eddyster...@hotmail.com"
<eddyster...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Happy New Year everyone !
>
> Another year, another Wargame of the Year election, so for the 6th
> time we all get a chance to pick our top 3 games of the past year.
>
> Again there's a Grand Prize for you to win : Matrix Games has
> graciously offered a free pick of any game in their catalogue, even of
> a game not released yet, to one lucky participant.
> And to make it absolutely clear : voting for their games will *not*
> increase your chances of winning it (*).
>
> The Rules :
>
> 1) 1 (wo)man, 1 post - all votes in the open, no emails.
> 2) The game must have been published in 2009 or late 2008 =96 in other
> words : if you think a game published late in 2008 didn=92t get a fair
> chance last year, feel free to add it.
> 3) Post your 1st, 2nd and 3rd place choices - 1st place gets 5 points,
> 2nd gets 3 points, 3rd gets 1 point.
> 4) Votes must be in before midnight (GMT) January 14th, 2010
> 5) In case of a tie, the award is shared.
> 6) People who for various reasons don't want to post an open vote can
> send me a mail - these votes will *not* be counted for the purpose
> of this election, but I'll post a separate result if the number of
> entrants is significant.
> 7) I've temporarily unplonked a couple of posters so that I see
> everyone's votes.
>
> This is what's at stake for the developers - again created by Daniel
> Lamb :
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/25663989@N07/sets/72157623035339710/
>
> To refresh your memory on what games got published this year :
>
> Supremacy at Sea - WW2
> Battle Group Commander: Episode One
> Crown of Glory 2 - Emperor's Edition
> Empire : Total War
> Musket and Pike : Renaissance
> Civil War Battles - Chancellorsville
> War in Europe II
> Military History - Commander : Europe at War (PSP / DS)
> Theatre of War 2 - North Africa 1943
> Close Combat - The Longest Day
> Distant Guns 1.5
> Squad Battles : Dien Bien Phu
> Total War in Europe : War on the Southern Front (WSF)
> Ancient Warfare : Alexandrian Wars
> Horse and Musket: Volume I, Frederick the Great
> World War 2 - Time of Wrath
> War in the Pacific - Admiral's Edition
> Combat Mission : Shock Force - British Forces
> Distant Guns : Jutland Expansion Ship Pack 1 - US North Sea 1916-17
> Hearts of Iron 3
> Operation Barbarossa - The Struggle for Russia
> March to Baghdad
> Ironclads - High Sea
> Eagle Day to the Bombing of the Reich
> Imperium Mini: A Brief History of Rome
> Gettysburg Day One : The Fight for the Heights
> The History Channel - Great Battles of the Middle Ages
> Warship Combat : Navies at War
> Napoleonic Battles : Austerlitz
> For the Glory
> Field of Glory
> PT Boats : Knights of the Sea
> Theatre of War 2 - Centauro addon
> Empires of Steel
>
> If you think I missed one (or several) feel free to add them - this is
> not a list of nominees.
>
> My vote :
>
> 1st place : Warship Combat : Navies at War - got an hour to kill ?
> Like naval warfare ? - then this is your game.
> 2nd place : World War 2 : Time of Wrath - has come a long way since it
> first got released and is now the best hex-based ETO game out there.
> 3rd place : Fight for the Heights - cheap, easy, fun
>
> Greetz,
>
> Eddy Sterckx
>
> (*) This is how the winner of the game from Matrix Games will be
> decided :
>
> 1) Every entry/voter is given a random number by me
> 2) When the election is over I zip this list, password protect it and
> send it to Mr. Beretta and everyone else asking for it - without the
> password.
> 3) I'll ask Mr. Giftzwerg to pick and post a number between 1 and ...
> 4) I release the password, so Mr. Beretta and everyone else can check
> who won the game.

Ok, time for my votes..

1) World War 2 - Time of Wrath - I agree with Eddy...amazing what some
patching can do.
2) Empires of Steel - A little pricey for what it is but I have been
in the mood for a new, full featured take on Empire and Empire Deluxe
Enhanced Edition was a step backwards, in my opinion.
3) Warship Combat : Navies at War

> even of a game not released yet

Choug... troispointstoum...ohug... lmedystvith... stogne... Choug...

My votes:

Crown of Glory 2 - Emperor's Edition
Total War in Europe : War on the Southern Front (WSF)

1 - Warship Combat : Navies at War
What else to say? Thanks NWS for giving life to my "Conway" books! An 
excellent game all around with great potential for future expansions.

2 - Total War in Europe : War on the Southern Front (WSF)
A strangely overlooked game, with an "Europa" feeling, decent AI and a lot 
of scenarios.

3 - Supremacy at Sea - WW2
I juggled for a while between this one and WitP: AE. At the end I decided to 
recognize the effort to explore brave new waters. By no means polished, and 
still unexpectedly unrealistic, but an interesting experiment and a good 
omen for things to come.

The "good, but..." prize
War in the Pacific - Admiral's Edition
Love it or hate it, WitP:AE has its charm. Pity that the great potential for 
smaller scenarios/campaigns was lost in the quest for the 355th Chopsticks 
Brigade.

Just for the record, these are the war/strategy games that I played in 2009, 
with my satisfaction expressed in 1-5 stars (games I played *only* for 
review purposes are not included):

WC: NaW * * * * *
SAS: WWII * * *
Fightning Steel + Thunder at Sea * * * *
Dominions 3 * * * * *
HPS: War on the Southern Front * * * *
HPS: Moscow '41 * * *
HPS: Danube Front '85 * *
TOAW III * * *
John Tiller's Campaign Series * * *
Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin * * * *
War in the Pacific * *
War in the Pacific: AE * * *
Medieval II: Total War + Mods * * * *
Harpoon Classic: CE * *
Galactic Civilization II Gold * * * * *
Sins of a Solar Empire * * * *
For the Glory * * * *
EU III Complete (up to "Heir to The throne): * * *
Supreme Ruler 2020 Gold * * *
AI War: Fleet Command * * * *

Other notable games in 2009

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Dragon Age
Trine
Left 4 Dead
The Lost Crown
The Path
Cryostasis 

> My votes:
>
> Crown of Glory 2 - Emperor's Edition
> Total War in Europe : War on the Southern Front (WSF)

Sorry, cut these two lines from my post: for some reason I forgot to delete 
them from the 2009 list posted by Eddy. My votes start with 1 - WC: NaW. 

1. Hearts of Iron 3
2. Empire: Total War
3. .... nothing 

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:27:13 -0800 (PST), "eddysterckx@hotmail.com"
<eddysterckx@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>Happy New Year everyone !
>
>Another year, another Wargame of the Year election, so for the 6th
>time we all get a chance to pick our top 3 games of the past year.

	My votes:

	1. empty
	2. Empire Total War
	3. HOI 3

	A terrible year for wargaming. No real wargames are worth
getting on my list honestly. I love WITP very much but in all honesty
WITP:AE is just a minor upgrade of the game that is already 4-5 years
old, and already got it's deserved share of awards and praises
(including mine). It would not be fair to praise WITP:AE, *again* -
how long? 5 years? after the initial release - in my opinion.

	Distant Guns versions and expansions... what to say.... I was
very supportive of everything Norm did, but even I gave up on the Nazi
digital download scheme. It's not the issue of ethics or money for me,
it was just too much hassle to bother.... very stupid from the
developers really.

	Empire TW is excellent game, but even though I was praising it
on this group recently, I feel it's unfair to put it here simply on
the grounds of development budget. It's like Avatar 3D competing on
some indie movie festival - just.... sorta out of place, regardless of
whether you think movie was good or not.

	Well I do happen to think Empire IS good, it's just not
good/fair enough to be given the first place from me, so I give it a
second place.

	HOI 3 - I don't play Paradox games, but they deserve award for
perseverance and dedication.

	It's a sad day when best placed game on my list is a big budget,
big publisher product. It's nice to see that historic wargame can be
made on the big budget and be a good seller, though.

I only bought two games that were released this year, so they get 
nominated by default:

1. WCNAW
2. Napoleonic Battles: Austerlitz
3.


Holdit

Hi

I didn't play much last year and bought only one game: CC TLD


My vote (what I probably will still buy after some patches):  Eagle Day 
to BTR


Michael

"Diarmud" <arnie.horta@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:69585ceb-a316-43e1-baef-6b126ad339aa@e20g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...
> On Dec 31, 9:27 pm, "eddyster...@hotmail.com"
> <eddyster...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Happy New Year everyone !
>>
>> Another year, another Wargame of the Year election, so for the 6th
>> time we all get a chance to pick our top 3 games of the past year.
>>
>> Again there's a Grand Prize for you to win : Matrix Games has
>> graciously offered a free pick of any game in their catalogue, even of
>> a game not released yet, to one lucky participant.
>> And to make it absolutely clear : voting for their games will *not*
>> increase your chances of winning it (*).
>>
>> The Rules :
>>
>> 1) 1 (wo)man, 1 post - all votes in the open, no emails.
>> 2) The game must have been published in 2009 or late 2008 � in other
>> words : if you think a game published late in 2008 didn�t get a fair
>> chance last year, feel free to add it.
>> 3) Post your 1st, 2nd and 3rd place choices - 1st place gets 5 points,
>> 2nd gets 3 points, 3rd gets 1 point.
>> 4) Votes must be in before midnight (GMT) January 14th, 2010
>> 5) In case of a tie, the award is shared.
>> 6) People who for various reasons don't want to post an open vote can
>> send me a mail - these votes will *not* be counted for the purpose
>> of this election, but I'll post a separate result if the number of
>> entrants is significant.
>> 7) I've temporarily unplonked a couple of posters so that I see
>> everyone's votes.
>>
>> This is what's at stake for the developers - again created by Daniel
>> Lamb :
>>
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/25663989@N07/sets/72157623035339710/
>>
>> To refresh your memory on what games got published this year :
>>
>> Supremacy at Sea - WW2
>> Battle Group Commander: Episode One
>> Crown of Glory 2 - Emperor's Edition
>> Empire : Total War
>> Musket and Pike : Renaissance
>> Civil War Battles - Chancellorsville
>> War in Europe II
>> Military History - Commander : Europe at War (PSP / DS)
>> Theatre of War 2 - North Africa 1943
>> Close Combat - The Longest Day
>> Distant Guns 1.5
>> Squad Battles : Dien Bien Phu
>> Total War in Europe : War on the Southern Front (WSF)
>> Ancient Warfare : Alexandrian Wars
>> Horse and Musket: Volume I, Frederick the Great
>> World War 2 - Time of Wrath
>> War in the Pacific - Admiral's Edition
>> Combat Mission : Shock Force - British Forces
>> Distant Guns : Jutland Expansion Ship Pack 1 - US North Sea 1916-17
>> Hearts of Iron 3
>> Operation Barbarossa - The Struggle for Russia
>> March to Baghdad
>> Ironclads - High Sea
>> Eagle Day to the Bombing of the Reich
>> Imperium Mini: A Brief History of Rome
>> Gettysburg Day One : The Fight for the Heights
>> The History Channel - Great Battles of the Middle Ages
>> Warship Combat : Navies at War
>> Napoleonic Battles : Austerlitz
>> For the Glory
>> Field of Glory
>> PT Boats : Knights of the Sea
>> Theatre of War 2 - Centauro addon
>> Empires of Steel
>>
>> If you think I missed one (or several) feel free to add them - this is
>> not a list of nominees.
>>
>> My vote :
>>
>> 1st place : Warship Combat : Navies at War - got an hour to kill ?
>> Like naval warfare ? - then this is your game.
>> 2nd place : World War 2 : Time of Wrath - has come a long way since it
>> first got released and is now the best hex-based ETO game out there.
>> 3rd place : Fight for the Heights - cheap, easy, fun
>>
>> Greetz,
>>
>> Eddy Sterckx
>>
>> (*) This is how the winner of the game from Matrix Games will be
>> decided :
>>
>> 1) Every entry/voter is given a random number by me
>> 2) When the election is over I zip this list, password protect it and
>> send it to Mr. Beretta and everyone else asking for it - without the
>> password.
>> 3) I'll ask Mr. Giftzwerg to pick and post a number between 1 and ...
>> 4) I release the password, so Mr. Beretta and everyone else can check
>> who won the game.
>

1. CMSF: British Module
2. WCNAW
3. Field Of Glory

RobP
www.AncientArmies.co.uk 

eddysterckx@hotmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Happy New Year everyone !
> 
> Another year, another Wargame of the Year election, so for the 6th
> time we all get a chance to pick our top 3 games of the past year.
> 
> Again there's a Grand Prize for you to win : Matrix Games has
> graciously offered a free pick of any game in their catalogue, even of
> a game not released yet, to one lucky participant.
> And to make it absolutely clear : voting for their games will *not*
> increase your chances of winning it (*).
> 
> The Rules :
> 
> 1) 1 (wo)man, 1 post - all votes in the open, no emails.
> 2) The game must have been published in 2009 or late 2008 � in other
> words : if you think a game published late in 2008 didn�t get a fair
> chance last year, feel free to add it.
> 3) Post your 1st, 2nd and 3rd place choices - 1st place gets 5 points,
> 2nd gets 3 points, 3rd gets 1 point.
> 4) Votes must be in before midnight (GMT) January 14th, 2010
> 5) In case of a tie, the award is shared.
> 6) People who for various reasons don't want to post an open vote can
> send me a mail - these votes will *not* be counted for the purpose
> of this election, but I'll post a separate result if the number of
> entrants is significant.
> 7) I've temporarily unplonked a couple of posters so that I see
> everyone's votes.
> 
> This is what's at stake for the developers - again created by Daniel
> Lamb :
> 
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/25663989@N07/sets/72157623035339710/
> 
> To refresh your memory on what games got published this year :
> 
> Supremacy at Sea - WW2
> Battle Group Commander: Episode One
> Crown of Glory 2 - Emperor's Edition
> Empire : Total War
> Musket and Pike : Renaissance
> Civil War Battles - Chancellorsville
> War in Europe II
> Military History - Commander : Europe at War (PSP / DS)
> Theatre of War 2 - North Africa 1943
> Close Combat - The Longest Day
> Distant Guns 1.5
> Squad Battles : Dien Bien Phu
> Total War in Europe : War on the Southern Front (WSF)
> Ancient Warfare : Alexandrian Wars
> Horse and Musket: Volume I, Frederick the Great
> World War 2 - Time of Wrath
> War in the Pacific - Admiral's Edition
> Combat Mission : Shock Force - British Forces
> Distant Guns : Jutland Expansion Ship Pack 1 - US North Sea 1916-17
> Hearts of Iron 3
> Operation Barbarossa - The Struggle for Russia
> March to Baghdad
> Ironclads - High Sea
> Eagle Day to the Bombing of the Reich
> Imperium Mini: A Brief History of Rome
> Gettysburg Day One : The Fight for the Heights
> The History Channel - Great Battles of the Middle Ages
> Warship Combat : Navies at War
> Napoleonic Battles : Austerlitz
> For the Glory
> Field of Glory
> PT Boats : Knights of the Sea
> Theatre of War 2 - Centauro addon
> Empires of Steel
> 
> If you think I missed one (or several) feel free to add them - this is
> not a list of nominees.
> 
> My vote :
> 
> 1st place : Warship Combat : Navies at War - got an hour to kill ?
> Like naval warfare ? - then this is your game.
> 2nd place : World War 2 : Time of Wrath - has come a long way since it
> first got released and is now the best hex-based ETO game out there.
> 3rd place : Fight for the Heights - cheap, easy, fun
> 
> Greetz,
> 
> Eddy Sterckx
> 
> (*) This is how the winner of the game from Matrix Games will be
> decided :
> 
> 1) Every entry/voter is given a random number by me
> 2) When the election is over I zip this list, password protect it and
> send it to Mr. Beretta and everyone else asking for it - without the
> password.
> 3) I'll ask Mr. Giftzwerg to pick and post a number between 1 and ...
> 4) I release the password, so Mr. Beretta and everyone else can check
> who won the game.
> 

1. WCNAW
2. Field of Glory
3. WW@ - Time of Erath

1. Warship Combat : Navies at War--a very good game in a very bad
year.

2. Total War in Europe : War on the Southern Front--a good game in a
very bad year.

3. War in the Pacific - Admiral's Edition--a very ambitious and pure
super-grog game in that same year.

My votes are:

1.  Ancient Warfare: Alexandrian Wars
2.  Total War in Europe: War on the Southern Front
3.  Field of Glory

Most of my purchases this year were for games published a while ago
such as BiN, Disaster on the Donets and Guns of August.  There wasn't
much around so I thought I would look back to games I missed the first
time round.

Cheers

Mark

I've bought only two of the games mentioned in the list this year (a
few more actually, but of older stock): Empire Total War for my son
and SAS-WWW2 which was a hughe disappointment.
So, what game(s) to mention for Wargame of the Year?

I've decided for:

1. Military History - Commander : Europe at War   as I bought the PC
version and want to give the developers my support;
2. Total War in Europe: War on the Southern Front    as that is a game
on my "to buy" list for the future;
3. Field of Glory    as that is also on my "to buy" list.

Bas

1. King Arther
2. TW:Empire
3: Dawn of War II

Bloodstar wrote:
> 1. Hearts of Iron 3
> 2. Empire: Total War
> 3. .... nothing 
> 
> 
What is wrong with you? I posted link in here when King Arthur was on 
Steam for only $19.99 and you didn't go buy it. If you like TW games 
then you will like King Arthur.

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:27:13 -0800 (PST), "eddysterckx@hotmail.com"
<eddysterckx@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>Happy New Year everyone !
>
>Another year, another Wargame of the Year election, so for the 6th
>time we all get a chance to pick our top 3 games of the past year.



1/. Empire : Total War      

Haven't stopped playing it ( with Darthmod added) since downloading it
on Xmas eve, best 15 quid I've spent lately.

2/.Warship Combat : Navies at War

Excellent game out of the box and being improved all the time, thought
it was a lock for my WOTY , but ETW pips it.

3/.March to Baghdad

A freebie , but so what. At least I downloaded it and read the rules.
That's more than I did for any other wargame this year.



Cheers


Peter Symonds

> What is wrong with you? I posted link in here when King Arthur was on 
> Steam for only $19.99 and you didn't go buy it. If you like TW games then 
> you will like King Arthur.

Thanks.
I will buy it, I just don't have time right now to play it. Nothing is wrong 
with me but don't feel to rush to buy games just like that because after 
playing games from 1987. you must know that I am a little bit how to say 
blase with games... I still love games but no adrenalin rush to buy all 
games immediatley.

I will buy King Arthur sometime later, for now I will play some HoI 3 (which 
I still didn't played!) 

Bloodstar wrote:

> Thanks.
> I will buy it, I just don't have time right now to play it. Nothing is wrong 
> with me but don't feel to rush to buy games just like that because after 
> playing games from 1987. you must know that I am a little bit how to say 
> blase with games... I still love games but no adrenalin rush to buy all 
> games immediatley.
> 
> I will buy King Arthur sometime later, for now I will play some HoI 3 (which 
> I still didn't played!) 
> 
> 
OK, but now you will have to pay higher price because that $19.99 price 
was just a one day deal. You could have bought it from Steam and 
installed it at any time in the future and not now.

"Cronos" <cronos@sphere.invalid> wrote in message 
news:hhou2g$sab$2@news.eternal-september.org...
> Bloodstar wrote:
>
>> Thanks.
>> I will buy it, I just don't have time right now to play it. Nothing is 
>> wrong with me but don't feel to rush to buy games just like that because 
>> after playing games from 1987. you must know that I am a little bit how 
>> to say blase with games... I still love games but no adrenalin rush to 
>> buy all games immediatley.
>>
>> I will buy King Arthur sometime later, for now I will play some HoI 3 
>> (which I still didn't played!)
> OK, but now you will have to pay higher price because that $19.99 price 
> was just a one day deal. You could have bought it from Steam and installed 
> it at any time in the future and not now.

And in 6 months it will cost $20 again.  A year after that it will cost $10. 
What's your rush?

> OK, but now you will have to pay higher price because that $19.99 price
> was just a one day deal. You could have bought it from Steam and installed
> it at any time in the future and not now.

Phew, western society, buy buy buy buy... You are based on consumerism.

Now again - I will buy whatever I want WHEN I want it. So please no pistol 
on my head to force me to buy something NOW.

Hello everyone and here is my vote:

1 - Field of Glory - Liked it, it's here, it works, it's fun, what
more can I say?

2 - Warship Combat : Navies at War - It looks quirky and old
fashioned, it has no fancy 3D, and yet when you sit down and play it
actually works and works well, get yourself a fleet and go sink the
opposition, fast, easy, pratical, with tons of ships to use.

3 - King Arthur the role-playing wargame - what to choose for 3rd
place? I got Horse and Musket and the Renaissance HPS game, but in the
end didn't played them much, I gave Total War a chance and shoved it
away with a feeling that in spite of all the new 3D effects nothing
really improved since Rome\Medieval and things actually got worse,
plenty of bugs, the damn map of Europe looks very beautiful on the
screenshots but is crap for managing your empire, computer controlled
forces still feel like dummies. So I'm choosing this, not historical,
but again, actually fun, lead your troops across an imaginary Britain
where proud knights tower above the peasantry and watery tarts hand
out supreme executive power gratis with every sword.

The DA wrote:

> And in 6 months it will cost $20 again.  A year after that it will cost 
> $10. What's your rush?
> 
I'm trying to promote a fairly new developer and get them some deserved 
sales so STFU.

Bloodstar wrote:

> Phew, western society, buy buy buy buy... You are based on consumerism.

Without our consumerist society the world economy would collapse and you 
would be back to ten block line ups to buy a loaf of stale bread. :)

>> Phew, western society, buy buy buy buy... You are based on consumerism.
>
> Without our consumerist society the world economy would collapse and you 
> would be back to ten block line ups to buy a loaf of stale bread. :)

Fuck your consumerist society :)

Now gimme a break would you? 

Bloodstar wrote:

> Fuck your consumerist society :)
> 
> Now gimme a break would you? 
> 
> 
You pinko-commie, go pirate King Arthur like most of you eastern block 
people do, I just realized that $19.99 is about a weeks wages to you so 
you can't afford it anyway.

"Cronos" <cronos@sphere.invalid> wrote in message 
news:hhqgu0$e95$2@news.eternal-september.org...
> The DA wrote:
>
>> And in 6 months it will cost $20 again.  A year after that it will cost 
>> $10. What's your rush?
>>
> I'm trying to promote a fairly new developer and get them some deserved 
> sales so STFU.

In which case, you're trying to promote your 'fairly new developer' to 
people who've been in the hobby for a lot longer than you and have seen 
companies come and go.

Much like yourself, you little tosser. 

"Cronos" <cronos@sphere.invalid> wrote in message 
news:hhru80$p0d$2@news.eternal-september.org...
> Bloodstar wrote:
>
>> Fuck your consumerist society :)
>>
>> Now gimme a break would you?
> You pinko-commie, go pirate King Arthur like most of you eastern block 
> people do, I just realized that $19.99 is about a weeks wages to you so 
> you can't afford it anyway.

You really are a cunt, aren't you? 

>> Fuck your consumerist society :)
>>
>> Now gimme a break would you?
> You pinko-commie, go pirate King Arthur like most of you eastern block 
> people do, I just realized that $19.99 is about a weeks wages to you so 
> you can't afford it anyway.

Hahaha. Idiot... I have 3000 original games left from my gaming business 
which I will sell these days... Maybe you are poor but not me :)

And how I have bought Empire: Total War and HoI3 on release if I can't 
afford it.

For you I am damn capitalist swine. Compared to you.

And welcome to my filter just because you are swine full of prejudice. 

In article <hhsbb3$icp$1@sunce.iskon.hr>, 
george.washington@microsoft.com says...

> >> Fuck your consumerist society :)
> >>
> >> Now gimme a break would you?
> > You pinko-commie, go pirate King Arthur like most of you eastern block 
> > people do, I just realized that $19.99 is about a weeks wages to you so 
> > you can't afford it anyway.
> 
> Hahaha. Idiot... I have 3000 original games left from my gaming business 
> which I will sell these days... Maybe you are poor but not me :)
> 
> And how I have bought Empire: Total War and HoI3 on release if I can't 
> afford it.
> 
> For you I am damn capitalist swine. Compared to you.
> 
> And welcome to my filter just because you are swine full of prejudice. 

I'm not sure why Georgie keeps bleating about "communism," given that 
there's nothing so socialistic as a child buying his games with his 
weekly allowance.  To hear him tell it, you'd almost imagine he could 
hold down an actual job.

-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"[W]hat I can't wrap my head around is that it took the President four
days to acknowledge what he termed a 'catastrophic' national security
failure, but Cheney criticizes the administration's handling of the war
on terror and they have a rapid response on the White House blog in a
matter of hours? Priorities!"
                                              - Mark Hemingway

On 4 jan, 12:45, Giftzwerg <giftzwerg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In article <hhsbb3$ic...@sunce.iskon.hr>,
> george.washing...@microsoft.com says...
>
>
>
>
>
> > >> Fuck your consumerist society :)
>
> > >> Now gimme a break would you?
> > > You pinko-commie, go pirate King Arthur like most of you eastern bloc=
k
> > > people do, I just realized that $19.99 is about a weeks wages to you =
so
> > > you can't afford it anyway.
>
> > Hahaha. Idiot... I have 3000 original games left from my gaming busines=
s
> > which I will sell these days... Maybe you are poor but not me :)
>
> > And how I have bought Empire: Total War and HoI3 on release if I can't
> > afford it.
>
> > For you I am damn capitalist swine. Compared to you.
>
> > And welcome to my filter just because you are swine full of prejudice.
>
> I'm not sure why Georgie keeps bleating about "communism," given that
> there's nothing so socialistic as a child buying his games with his
> weekly allowance. =A0To hear him tell it, you'd almost imagine he could
> hold down an actual job.

Somebody please explain to Mario that those 3000 unsellable old games
and $5 will buy him a latte at Starbucks.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

Somebody please explain to Mario that those 3000 unsellable old games
and $5 will buy him a latte at Starbucks.


Stupid Belgian monkey doesn't have a brain. 

> I'm not sure why Georgie keeps bleating about "communism," given that
> there's nothing so socialistic as a child buying his games with his
> weekly allowance.  To hear him tell it, you'd almost imagine he could
> hold down an actual job.


LOL 

On the 1 Jan 2010, "eddysterckx@hotmail.com" <eddysterckx@hotmail.com> 
wrote:

> Hi,

> Happy New Year everyone !

Happy New Year!

> Another year, another Wargame of the Year election, so for the 6th
> time we all get a chance to pick our top 3 games of the past year.

> Again there's a Grand Prize for you to win : Matrix Games has
> graciously offered a free pick of any game in their catalogue, even of
> a game not released yet, to one lucky participant.

A sensible change from previous years. In the end, how many people 
ended up winning what they already owned? ;-)

Anyway, my vote:-

1. WCNAW - got it as a Christmas present [1] and am enjoying it so 
far. Not as pretty as Dreadnoughts was, but I've found it to be very 
easy to pick up and play once I got used to the interface (didn't take 
long). Loads of replayability and it's being actively developed. I'm 
even working on a couple of scenarios!

Nothing for 2 or 3, the only other thing I bought in 2009 that would 
count as a wargame was Silent Hunter IV but I think that was a 
Mid-2008 release.

Notes:-
1. The deciding factor for me to choose the game over the other 
options I was considering was that the manual was available online. 
Once I read it I realised just how clever the game is and that made my 
mind up as it had answered the questions I'd had.

I did download the demo for WPP but decided WCNAW had more potential. 
Again the lack of an actual demo for COTA ruled that out although the 
sale price was very good.

-- 
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.

nospam@jades.org /is/ a real email address!

On the 4 Jan 2010, "eddysterckx@hotmail.com" <eddysterckx@hotmail.com> 
wrote:

<snip>

> Somebody please explain to Mario that those 3000 unsellable old games
> and $5 will buy him a latte at Starbucks.

Depends what they are. Some people will pay astronomical amounts of 
money for obscure Neo-Geo games that aren't even all that good. 
eBayers often have much more money than sense. If you look at the 
prices some D&S Models kits go for, you'd think they were made from 
etched Unobtainium rather than brass...

Hey, Mario! Don't suppose you've got Silent Hunter I Patrol Disc 3, 
have you? ;-)

-- 
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.

nospam@jades.org /is/ a real email address!

> Hey, Mario! Don't suppose you've got Silent Hunter I Patrol Disc 3,
> have you? ;-)

lol
Nope. ;-)))
But I have interesting customers who will buy everything and at an fair 
price. 

In article <49316ad450.jades@d.thurlwell.btopenworld.com>, 
nospam@jades.org says...

> > Another year, another Wargame of the Year election, so for the 6th
> > time we all get a chance to pick our top 3 games of the past year.
> 
> > Again there's a Grand Prize for you to win : Matrix Games has
> > graciously offered a free pick of any game in their catalogue, even of
> > a game not released yet, to one lucky participant.
> 
> A sensible change from previous years. In the end, how many people 
> ended up winning what they already owned? ;-)

Or winning one they didn't want.

:[


-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"[W]hat I can't wrap my head around is that it took the President four
days to acknowledge what he termed a 'catastrophic' national security
failure, but Cheney criticizes the administration's handling of the war
on terror and they have a rapid response on the White House blog in a
matter of hours? Priorities!"
                                              - Mark Hemingway

On the 4 Jan 2010, "Bloodstar" <george.washington@microsoft.com> 
wrote:

>> Hey, Mario! Don't suppose you've got Silent Hunter I Patrol Disc 3,
>> have you? ;-)

> lol
> Nope. ;-)))

Damn, worth a try! ;-) It wasn't out for long in the UK, and when I 
looked at importing it from the States SSI wanted more than the cost 
of the actual disc in postage. This was back in 1997, mind.

> But I have interesting customers who will buy everything and at an fair
> price.

Someone has NES Elite 1 listed on eBay for �25. Looks in good nick 
too. Original boxed PC FE2 for �19.99. Both Buy It Now. Wonder if 
they'll get any takers.

Someone's even got a boxed CD FFE up for �29.95 Buy It Now. God loves 
a trier, as they say.

-- 
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.

nospam@jades.org /is/ a real email address!

Bloodstar wrote:
>> OK, but now you will have to pay higher price because that $19.99 price
>> was just a one day deal. You could have bought it from Steam and installed
>> it at any time in the future and not now.
> 
> Phew, western society, buy buy buy buy... You are based on consumerism.
> 
> Now again - I will buy whatever I want WHEN I want it.
>

In other words, you too are a consumer who is free to purchase - or not 
- whatever it is that please you at a time you deem appropriate. 
Welcome to the Western World, comrade.  Enjoy your freedom while you can!


On topic:  My vote for #1 goes to WitP:AE.  (I didn't buy anything else)


-- 
"The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule 
it." - H.L. Mencken

" 'Going green' has turned into a vast industry in its own right - as 
well as a religion with its own brand of zealotry. For many, global 
warming is the secular equivalent of a biblical disaster sent by God to 
punish humankind for its errant (capitalist) ways. Those who embrace 
environmentalism as a faith have no interest in scientific and 
technological solutions to climate change - such as nuclear power - that 
do not include imposing drastic regulations on markets and curbs on 
consumption." - Cathy Young, Reason Magazine

The DA wrote:

> In which case, you're trying to promote your 'fairly new developer' to 
> people who've been in the hobby for a lot longer than you and have seen 
> companies come and go.
> 
> Much like yourself, you little tosser.

Waiting for a game to become cheap in the bargain bin is not supporting 
the developer at all. It is supporting your own wallet you greedy fuck.

How the hell would you know how long i have been here? I voted for the 
creating of this group, so once again, STFU!

The DA wrote:

> 
> You really are a cunt, aren't you?

Yes, but it is also called humor, sonny. Arf! Arf!

Bloodstar wrote:

> Hahaha. Idiot... I have 3000 original games left from my gaming business 
> which I will sell these days... Maybe you are poor but not me :)

Correction. If they are 3,000 games that came from Croatia they are 
3,000 shit games and have very little value.

Giftzwerg wrote:

> I'm not sure why Georgie keeps bleating about "communism," given that 
> there's nothing so socialistic as a child buying his games with his 
> weekly allowance.  To hear him tell it, you'd almost imagine he could 
> hold down an actual job.
> 

Unlike you, I don't need to work for the philistines and am a man of 
luxury. I just bought 28 games in the last 4 days. 25 from Steam sales 
and 3 from GamersGate sales. How about you?

"Cronos" <cronos@sphere.invalid> wrote in message 
news:hhu065$ntr$2@news.eternal-september.org...
> The DA wrote:
>
>> In which case, you're trying to promote your 'fairly new developer' to 
>> people who've been in the hobby for a lot longer than you and have seen 
>> companies come and go.
>>
>> Much like yourself, you little tosser.
>
> Waiting for a game to become cheap in the bargain bin is not supporting 
> the developer at all. It is supporting your own wallet you greedy fuck.
>
> How the hell would you know how long i have been here? I voted for the 
> creating of this group, so once again, STFU!

I am not in the business of 'supporting the developer'.  I'll buy what I 
like when I like.  Of course I 'support my own wallet' - don't you?

Why should wargaming be any different from any other luxury item?

On 4 jan, 17:25, Graham Thurlwell <nos...@jades.org> wrote:

> In the end, how many people
> ended up winning what they already owned? ;-)

None that I know - I try to make sure it's always either an upcoming,
unpublished game or a free pick. In fact : I turned a publisher down
this year just because a free pick was not an option for them.

Sometimes it doesn't work out that well though : IIRC Mike Cox who won
it in 2007 is still waiting for his signed copy of Battles from the
Bulge, though I think Arjuna offered him a beta in the meantime or
such.

> Again the lack of an actual demo for COTA ruled that out although the
> sale price was very good.

BFTB will have a demo.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

On 5 jan, 07:42, "The DA" <thedevilsadvoc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Cronos" <cro...@sphere.invalid> wrote in message
>
> news:hhu065$ntr$2@news.eternal-september.org...
>
> > The DA wrote:
>
> >> In which case, you're trying to promote your 'fairly new developer' to
> >> people who've been in the hobby for a lot longer than you and have see=
n
> >> companies come and go.
>
> >> Much like yourself, you little tosser.
>
> > Waiting for a game to become cheap in the bargain bin is not supporting
> > the developer at all. It is supporting your own wallet you greedy fuck.
>
> > How the hell would you know how long i have been here? I voted for the
> > creating of this group, so once again, STFU!
>
> I am not in the business of 'supporting the developer'. =A0I'll buy what =
I
> like when I like. =A0Of course I 'support my own wallet' - don't you?
>
> Why should wargaming be any different from any other luxury item?

Good point. I'm all for supporting your favourite developer(s) but I'm
also expecting something in return : entertainment.

Oh, and if you want to taunt Georgie some more : he's lying about
having voted for the creation of this ng. The only current posters who
did are Old Salt and Peter Symonds.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

> Happy New Year everyone !
>
> Another year, another Wargame of the Year election

Not sure if I am entitled for a vote this year, as I hardly ever play
wargames any more, but...

1. Empire: Total War (only one I bought from the list, so that will
have to do)
2. void
3. void

But 2009 was indeed a transition year. To mark a few noteworthy
events:

- The DRM battle ended, the good guys lost. But that's OK, I don't
care anymore. I still have reservations about Tages, though...
- Games are now ONLY bought through the net. No steenkin' CD's!
- Redownload rights are a plus for sale. My harddrives are frigile and
I never take backup's.
- I now check the offers on the e- tailers regularly every weekend.
Buy lots of discounted games, use more than I have ever done before,
in fact.
- Difficult interfaces and steep learning curves are not accepted
anymore, mark CC as highest complexity. If I cannot play it in half an
hour - without reading the pdf manual - I move on to the next one.
- Never read the manual anymore. This is really strange, as I used to
love bunkering down with a thick paper manual. Not anymore.
- Never gets upset anymore when buying a dud. It cost me a few coins,
so what? I didn't pay the full price anyway.
- Waited all year for that last patch for PC - Kharkov. I fear that I
will have to reuse this line next year...


Taken all in, it is a major shift in my gaming habits. Maybe it is a
sign of my mind slowly fading, I dunno.

All I need to look like a teenager is to start playing pirated games.

Thanks to all on the NG. I look in from time to time, and you are all
a great bunch. Even the one that must not be mentioned.

-Henius

> - Never gets upset anymore when buying a dud. It cost me a few coins,
> so what? I didn't pay the full price anyway.
> - Waited all year for that last patch for PC - Kharkov. I fear that I
> will have to reuse this line next year...
>

Forgot this:
- Hexes are out. Turn -based needs a very good reason.

Uh- huh. I think I just lost my right to vote..

-Henius

"The DA" <thedevilsadvocaat@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:tLednVnVt63CQt_WnZ2dnUVZ8iCdnZ2d@bt.com...
> Why should wargaming be any different from any other luxury item?
>

Luxury item? Is heroin a luxury item too? Gaming is an addiction. 

<eddysterckx@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:052872b9-cdb4-4d3d-8853-f72734a8160a@j14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
Oh, and if you want to taunt Georgie some more : he's lying about
having voted for the creation of this ng. The only current posters who
did are Old Salt and Peter Symonds.

Taunt me? Surely, you jest? It is me who taunts you. That's why you keep 
putting me in your kf. Even Mario has not kf me and it is because he claims 
I am racist and yet here his just a post or two up slagging you off because 
you are from Belgium.

And I did vote for the creating of this group but can't even remember what 
user name I had back then. But maybe Old Salt had me kf  and never got my 
vote email. 

"The DA" <thedevilsadvocaat@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:uuOdnW06DNtYCNzWnZ2dnUVZ8r2dnZ2d@bt.com...
> Much like yourself, you little tosser.

Hmm, who the hell are you? :) 

"Bloodstar" <george.washington@microsoft.com> wrote in message 
news:hhsbb3$icp$1@sunce.iskon.hr...

> And welcome to my filter just because you are swine full of prejudice.
>

You fucking hypocrite!

"Stupid Belgian monkey doesn't have a brain."

Sadly there was not much time or money for computer games, so......


1st Place  - Squad Battles : Dien Bien Phu
2nd Place - Napoleonic Battles : Austerlitz
3rd Place - Total War in Europe : War on the Southern Front (WSF)

Homeboy says sweep - but I really didn't buy any other wargames that I
liked.

In any case, happy new year.  Here's to BFTB releasing and me claiming
my Voting Prize from 2(!!) years ago.....

On Jan 6, 3:27=A0am, Henius <heniu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> - Never read the manual anymore. This is really strange, as I used to
> love bunkering down with a thick paper manual. Not anymore.

I thought I was the only one suffering from this.  I loved reading
manuals, now I can't get past 10 without falling asleep or losing
interest.

Must be an age thing.

Cheers

Mark

> - The DRM battle ended, the good guys lost.

Well, some big titles were released without nazi-DRMs: The Sims 3 and, IIRC, 
Dragon Age. HPS is removing the CD check from their games. Matrix, Shrapnel 
and AGEOD don't use Nazi-DRM as usual. Some online digital distribution 
services do: their loss, IMHO.

> - Never read the manual anymore. This is really strange, as I used to
> love bunkering down with a thick paper manual. Not anymore.

The manual must be good. Back in the day reading, for example, a manual by 
Microprose was a pleasure (I still have M1 Tank Platoon's one: a primer on 
modern warfare). A good manual shouldn't be a list of "how to", but 
something that puts you in the mood for some action/strategy/whatever - 
intermixing the "how to" with the meaty parts. This is a lost art.

The best manual out there today is the one for Dominions 3. I read it like 
it was a book and I sometimes re-read parts of it for the sheer pleasure of 
how the game and it's universe are presented. As it happens, it was written 
by Bruce Geryk. 

On 5 jan, 17:53, Henius <heniu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > - Never gets upset anymore when buying a dud. It cost me a few coins,
> > so what? I didn't pay the full price anyway.
> > - Waited all year for that last patch for PC - Kharkov. I fear that I
> > will have to reuse this line next year...
>
> Forgot this:
> - Hexes are out. Turn -based needs a very good reason.
>
> Uh- huh. I think I just lost my right to vote..

Nonsense. Everybody's got the right to vote - guys who've been posting
in here for a decade or people who started lurking 3 weeks ago.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

On 6 jan, 07:00, Garns <mgarnet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 6, 3:27=A0am, Henius <heniu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > - Never read the manual anymore. This is really strange, as I used to
> > love bunkering down with a thick paper manual. Not anymore.
>
> I thought I was the only one suffering from this. =A0I loved reading
> manuals, now I can't get past 10 without falling asleep or losing
> interest.
>
> Must be an age thing.

Maybe. Or maybe it's just that after so many games you get a deja vu
feeling when you see the same gaming concepts getting used again and
again and even a new manual becomes like a book you've already read a
couple of times and you start to see it as a waste of time.

That said, I do think most wargame manuals could be cut in half if the
developers started to *really* look into UI design.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

On 6 jan, 07:01, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reck...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > - The DRM battle ended, the good guys lost.
>
> Well, some big titles were released without nazi-DRMs: The Sims 3 and, IIRC,
> Dragon Age. HPS is removing the CD check from their games. Matrix, Shrapnel
> and AGEOD don't use Nazi-DRM as usual. Some online digital distribution
> services do: their loss, IMHO.

The only time I care about DRM is when it's about a title I'd want to
play years from today. So it's a non-issue for FPS games, and only an
issue for *good* wargames.

For 2010 the only problematic title I can see is Combat Mission :
Normandy.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

On 6 jan, 08:46, "eddyster...@hotmail.com" <eddyster...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> That said, I do think most wargame manuals could be cut in half if the
> developers started to *really* look into UI design.

.... and another thing : it=92s not just UI design they need to look into
so it doesn=92t take 3 clicks to perform an action you need hundreds of
times throughout the game, but also how to streamline things. For
instance : If I start to move a panzer unit into The Netherlands I
don=92t want to be told by the game that =93you need to declare war on The
Netherlands before you can move units into it=94, no, I want the DoW to
be made automatically. If reinforcements arrive in Berlin I don=92t want
to have to select the unit, put it on a train / perform strategic
movement and have it de-train somewhere, no I want that unit to
directly appear as reinforcements in a town of my choice.

Ok, back to ranting about manuals :)

What I don=92t get is that computer wargames these days have way bigger
manuals than boardgames or tabletop rulesets. You=92d think that in a
system where you can program the rules into the game and visually show
what can and cannot be done it would be the other way around, but it
isn=92t.

Did all micro-managing wargamers shift to playing pc wargames or is it
simply bad game design that they need manuals of hundreds of pages ?

Well, given that most pc wargames released today look like those SPI
games from that seventies infomercial I've pretty much made up my mind
about that.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

eddysterckx@hotmail.com wrote:
> On 6 jan, 08:46, "eddyster...@hotmail.com" <eddyster...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> That said, I do think most wargame manuals could be cut in half if the
>> developers started to *really* look into UI design.
> 
> ... and another thing : it�s not just UI design they need to look into
> so it doesn�t take 3 clicks to perform an action you need hundreds of
> times throughout the game, but also how to streamline things. For
> instance : If I start to move a panzer unit into The Netherlands I
> don�t want to be told by the game that �you need to declare war on The
> Netherlands before you can move units into it�, no, I want the DoW to
> be made automatically. If reinforcements arrive in Berlin I don�t want
> to have to select the unit, put it on a train / perform strategic
> movement and have it de-train somewhere, no I want that unit to
> directly appear as reinforcements in a town of my choice.
> 
And what if you actually didn't want to invade The Netherlands yet, you 
just mis-clicked?  Having the program remind you in that case would be a 
benefit.  From personal experience programming and tech support, even 
supporting highly trained users which most gamers aren't, its not 
possible to underestimate human klutziness.  Part of good UI design is 
protecting the user from themselves.

And that reinforcement unit, fine, it can appear in Warsaw to reinforce 
the Eastern Front.  Two weeks later.  And what if one week into that two 
week period the situation changes and now you really need it in Italy? 
If you're the one putting it on the train then you have the option of 
re-directing that train.  If its just the computer that places the unit 
in Warsaw then you don't have that option and you'd be complaining about 
that.

-- 
"The Internet lied again!"

On 6 jan, 10:49, Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net> wrote:
> eddyster...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > On 6 jan, 08:46, "eddyster...@hotmail.com" <eddyster...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
> >> That said, I do think most wargame manuals could be cut in half if the
> >> developers started to *really* look into UI design.
>
> > ... and another thing : it=92s not just UI design they need to look int=
o
> > so it doesn=92t take 3 clicks to perform an action you need hundreds of
> > times throughout the game, but also how to streamline things. For
> > instance : If I start to move a panzer unit into The Netherlands I
> > don=92t want to be told by the game that =93you need to declare war on =
The
> > Netherlands before you can move units into it=94, no, I want the DoW to
> > be made automatically. If reinforcements arrive in Berlin I don=92t wan=
t
> > to have to select the unit, put it on a train / perform strategic
> > movement and have it de-train somewhere, no I want that unit to
> > directly appear as reinforcements in a town of my choice.
>
> And what if you actually didn't want to invade The Netherlands yet, you
> just mis-clicked? =A0Having the program remind you in that case would be =
a
> benefit. =A0From personal experience programming and tech support, even
> supporting highly trained users which most gamers aren't, its not
> possible to underestimate human klutziness. =A0Part of good UI design is
> protecting the user from themselves.

Sure, but if I make a mistake, it's my fault and I can go back to a
previous game-save.

Protecting the user from themselves gave us those UAC messages in
Vista and I don't know about you but I turned that off immediatly as
it annoyed the hell out of me.

> And that reinforcement unit, fine, it can appear in Warsaw to reinforce
> the Eastern Front. =A0Two weeks later. =A0And what if one week into that =
two
> week period the situation changes and now you really need it in Italy?

Too bad - such is war - Clausewitz roars :)

> If you're the one putting it on the train then you have the option of
> re-directing that train. =A0If its just the computer that places the unit
> in Warsaw then you don't have that option and you'd be complaining about
> that.

Maybe. But maybe I'd like the developer to take his reinforcements
design a step further and not let the gamer decide where to send that
unit to at the moment the unit becomes available in Berlin, but 2
weeks later, with a free pick of eligable cities. Oh, sure, that's
maybe a bit gamey, but it does away with a lot of clutter and cuts
down on the micro-management. Simply highlight the available spots and
let the gamer pick one. That's 1 line and a screenshot in the manual
instead of 50 pages of reinforcement rules.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

In article <e5bb50b2-3688-49aa-91bf-b596db8ee624
@f5g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>, mgarnett02@gmail.com says...

> > - Never read the manual anymore. This is really strange, as I used to
> > love bunkering down with a thick paper manual. Not anymore.
> 
> I thought I was the only one suffering from this.  I loved reading
> manuals, now I can't get past 10 without falling asleep or losing
> interest.
> 
> Must be an age thing.

With boardgames, I ended up "bunkering down" and reading the manual 
chiefly because I couldn't find anyone to play the actual game against; 
the only fun that could be had was reading the frakking manual.

-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"[W]hat I can't wrap my head around is that it took the President four
days to acknowledge what he termed a 'catastrophic' national security
failure, but Cheney criticizes the administration's handling of the war
on terror and they have a rapid response on the White House blog in a
matter of hours? Priorities!"
                                              - Mark Hemingway

In article <088c334c-4735-459c-bf2d-
3c063fe2bbeb@p8g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, eddysterckx@hotmail.com=20
says...

> > I thought I was the only one suffering from this. =A0I loved reading
> > manuals, now I can't get past 10 without falling asleep or losing
> > interest.
> >
> > Must be an age thing.
>=20
> Maybe. Or maybe it's just that after so many games you get a deja vu
> feeling when you see the same gaming concepts getting used again and
> again and even a new manual becomes like a book you've already read a
> couple of times and you start to see it as a waste of time.
>=20
> That said, I do think most wargame manuals could be cut in half if the
> developers started to *really* look into UI design.

Maybe it's even simpler than that; most manuals these days are shitful=20
PDFs that are either wholly inadequate or barely adequate to explain the=20
nuts and bolts. =20

Perhaps I'm just becoming a crotchety ol' man here in my late 40s, but=20
there was something amazing about opening a new AH boardgame back in=20
1979.  The hand-painted mounted mapboards, the neat rows of colored=20
counters ... and a thick, well-written manual with "Campaign Analysis"=20
and "Designers Notes" and fulsome explanations of each individual=20
counter.

There was really something to read there.  It wasn't just a matter of=20
skimming through to find out what clicks are necessary to move Task=20
Group 58.2 to Guam; you could tell that the guy who wrote the manual=20
considered it an integral part of the game - and was paying as much=20
attention to real excellence as the guy coming up with Rule 12.7.A.

These days, the norm is some halfhearted, dashed-off effort typed in=20
WordPad and saved in Adobe Acrobat.

Consider an example:  my pick for Wargame Of The Year.  WARSHIP COMBAT:=20
NAVIES AT WAR is a great, classic game - it could have been my WOTY pick=20
in *any* year.  It might have beaten out STARFLEET COMMAND or FALLOUT in=20
a much wider competition.  And the manual for WCNAW is just fine as=20
things go these days; it explains what needs to be explained, and does=20
so clearly and succinctly.  So I'm absolutely not picking on WCNAW, it's=20
just an example of what I'm talking about.

Just think what kind of a manual would have come with WCNAW if it had=20
been released as an AH boardgame in 1978!  There would have been page=20
after page of ship listings, with line-drawings - plan and section,=20
probably - detailing the various classes of ships.  There would have=20
been charts and tables about the various artillery pieces mounted on the=20
ships.  There would have been scenario discussions, campaign=20
discussions, and general historical information about the battlewagon=20
era - as well as designers notes explaining the abstractions and=20
compromises in the design and what the designer's arguments for them=20
were.

<shrug>

--=20
Giftzwerg
***
"[W]hat I can't wrap my head around is that it took the President four
days to acknowledge what he termed a 'catastrophic' national security
failure, but Cheney criticizes the administration's handling of the war
on terror and they have a rapid response on the White House blog in a
matter of hours? Priorities!"
                                              - Mark Hemingway

In article <80d7ac37-043e-446b-adaa-5e16ad78990f@
22g2000yqr.googlegroups.com>, eddysterckx@hotmail.com says...

> Did all micro-managing wargamers shift to playing pc wargames or is it
> simply bad game design that they need manuals of hundreds of pages ?
> 
> Well, given that most pc wargames released today look like those SPI
> games from that seventies infomercial I've pretty much made up my mind
> about that.

Here's an observation; the PC games that need the thickest manuals *are* 
the ones that look like 1970s boardgames.

Consider two examples:

(1)  COMBAT MISSION

Start the game.  Pick a scenario.  Pick a side.  Look, a map; trees, 
roads, houses.  OK, these little things are soldiers, I guess.  Click 
one.  Ah, a box appears and shows me that it's three guys with a 
machinegun and two carbines.  OK, what can I do with them.  Right-click 
maybe?  Aha.  Context menu.  All right, I want them to move forward.  
Click "Move".  A line appears!  OK, pull it to where I want them to go 
....

(2)  GUNS OF AUGUST

Start the game.  Pick a scenario.  Pick a side.  I'm in a "phase" of 
some kind.  The map is pretty much empty.  WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO NOW?!?!

Weird.  Sophisticated PCT or WEGO systems need little explanation.  
Hexes-turns-charts games need elaborate hand-holding ... which you 
rarely get.

So I'd say, "Yup, you're right; it's bad game design."


-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"[W]hat I can't wrap my head around is that it took the President four
days to acknowledge what he termed a 'catastrophic' national security
failure, but Cheney criticizes the administration's handling of the war
on terror and they have a rapid response on the White House blog in a
matter of hours? Priorities!"
                                              - Mark Hemingway

In article <4b445cb2$0$1610$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>, dtravel@sonic.net 
says...

> And what if you actually didn't want to invade The Netherlands yet, you 
> just mis-clicked?  

What if you *do* want to invade The Netherlands ... but the idiot 
designer built the game such that you can't cross the border in Phase M-
17.3 unless you declared war *three fucking phases ago*?!

-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"[W]hat I can't wrap my head around is that it took the President four
days to acknowledge what he termed a 'catastrophic' national security
failure, but Cheney criticizes the administration's handling of the war
on terror and they have a rapid response on the White House blog in a
matter of hours? Priorities!"
                                              - Mark Hemingway

On 6 jan, 12:59, Giftzwerg <giftzwerg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In article <088c334c-4735-459c-bf2d-
> 3c063fe2b...@p8g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, eddyster...@hotmail.com
> says...
>
> > > I thought I was the only one suffering from this. =A0I loved reading
> > > manuals, now I can't get past 10 without falling asleep or losing
> > > interest.
>
> > > Must be an age thing.
>
> > Maybe. Or maybe it's just that after so many games you get a deja vu
> > feeling when you see the same gaming concepts getting used again and
> > again and even a new manual becomes like a book you've already read a
> > couple of times and you start to see it as a waste of time.
>
> > That said, I do think most wargame manuals could be cut in half if the
> > developers started to *really* look into UI design.
>
> Maybe it's even simpler than that; most manuals these days are shitful
> PDFs that are either wholly inadequate or barely adequate to explain the
> nuts and bolts. =A0
>
> Perhaps I'm just becoming a crotchety ol' man here in my late 40s, but
> there was something amazing about opening a new AH boardgame back in
> 1979. =A0The hand-painted mounted mapboards, the neat rows of colored
> counters ... and a thick, well-written manual with "Campaign Analysis"
> and "Designers Notes" and fulsome explanations of each individual
> counter.

You should see the stuff they put out now - all of the above and now
in full color and glossy pages. Production values are through the roof
these days.

Recently bought the "Black Powder" ruleset for the horse & musket
period and it's a 150-page book. But not 150 pages of army lists,
crt's and countless pages of die roll modifiers. No, the actual rules
can probably be summarized on 2 pages, but the book is filled to the
brim with period information on tactics, formations and unit
organization and stunning visual examples of what they're talking
about - all in full color print on strong glossy paper. And I haven't
spotted a single typo, nor is there an errata page that I know of.

They and other publishers have found out that people are prepared to
pay good money if what they get in return is the very best in
production values.

http://www.warlordgames.co.uk/?p=3D3071

Compare that to the bugfests with incomplete manuals which get
released in the pc wargame world and you start to realize why I play
less and less pc wargames.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

In article <8cb22197-d747-4519-99d3-a258e288b881@
26g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>, eddysterckx@hotmail.com says...

> Compare that to the bugfests with incomplete manuals which get
> released in the pc wargame world and you start to realize why I play
> less and less pc wargames.

Lemme know when they get around to including an opponent in the box.


-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"[W]hat I can't wrap my head around is that it took the President four
days to acknowledge what he termed a 'catastrophic' national security
failure, but Cheney criticizes the administration's handling of the war
on terror and they have a rapid response on the White House blog in a
matter of hours? Priorities!"
                                              - Mark Hemingway

On 6 jan, 14:17, Giftzwerg <giftzwerg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In article <8cb22197-d747-4519-99d3-a258e288b881@
> 26g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>, eddyster...@hotmail.com says...
>
> > Compare that to the bugfests with incomplete manuals which get
> > released in the pc wargame world and you start to realize why I play
> > less and less pc wargames.
>
> Lemme know when they get around to including an opponent in the box.

So what you're saying is that the day you find a couple of guys in
your neighbourhood willing to play wargames once or twice a week after
dinner to scratch that wargaming itch is the day you dump pc
wargaming ?

Isn't that a sad testimony to the current state of pc wargames ? A
crotch because of geographical limitations instead of the prefered
platform offering an experience you can't find in the boardgame
world.

There's no way a boardgame or tabletop system can let you fully
refight the Battle of Britain or Jutland or any number of other
campaigns and engagements that are simply impractical on anything else
but a computer. But what do we see when the BoB or Jutland is brought
to the computer : that they've made them equally unplayable. Aaargh.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

In article <58d3cc81-2329-4f06-9f48-27f851509586
@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>, eddysterckx@hotmail.com says...

> > Lemme know when they get around to including an opponent in the box.
> 
> So what you're saying is that the day you find a couple of guys in
> your neighbourhood willing to play wargames once or twice a week after
> dinner to scratch that wargaming itch is the day you dump pc
> wargaming ?

Well, not exactly.  My schedule is pretty weird, sometimes.  What I need 
is a guy willing to stop by tonight at 8:27 for 36 minutes, and then 
come back tomorrow morning at 4:48 for 13 minutes, then skip a day and 
drop by Friday afternoon at 4:17 for 12 minutes, returning at 9:33 for 
121 minutes.

Oh, and these are not hard / fast times, so the guy pretty much needs to 
be on-call 24 hours a day, arriving at less than 60 seconds notice for 
however long a period I can spare.

> Isn't that a sad testimony to the current state of pc wargames ? A
> crotch because of geographical limitations instead of the prefered
> platform offering an experience you can't find in the boardgame
> world.

To be fair, though, the really good computer wargames do offer things a 
boardgame will never match.  HTTR / COTA would take a team of about 20 
people in three different rooms to game out manually.  And that's not 
even mentioning CALL OF DUTY or IL-2.

> There's no way a boardgame or tabletop system can let you fully
> refight the Battle of Britain or Jutland or any number of other
> campaigns and engagements that are simply impractical on anything else
> but a computer. But what do we see when the BoB or Jutland is brought
> to the computer : that they've made them equally unplayable. Aaargh.

Exactly.  Which is why the STEEL PANTHERS experience is so frustrating.  
They had a nifty, SQUAD LEADER-sized, manageable game system where it 
actually made a difference where you sited that 37mm PAK ... and they 
"upgraded" it by cramming units on the board until it's unplayable.

You know, there was a time when I thought STEEL PANTHERS was ten times 
the game CLOSE COMBAT was.  Now it's clear how wrong I was.

-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"[W]hat I can't wrap my head around is that it took the President four
days to acknowledge what he termed a 'catastrophic' national security
failure, but Cheney criticizes the administration's handling of the war
on terror and they have a rapid response on the White House blog in a
matter of hours? Priorities!"
                                              - Mark Hemingway

On 6 jan, 15:00, Giftzwerg <giftzwerg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In article <58d3cc81-2329-4f06-9f48-27f851509586
> @h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>, eddyster...@hotmail.com says...
>
> > > Lemme know when they get around to including an opponent in the box.
>
> > So what you're saying is that the day you find a couple of guys in
> > your neighbourhood willing to play wargames once or twice a week after
> > dinner to scratch that wargaming itch is the day you dump pc
> > wargaming ?
>
> Well, not exactly. =A0My schedule is pretty weird, sometimes. =A0What I n=
eed
> is a guy willing to stop by tonight at 8:27 for 36 minutes, and then
> come back tomorrow morning at 4:48 for 13 minutes, then skip a day and
> drop by Friday afternoon at 4:17 for 12 minutes, returning at 9:33 for
> 121 minutes.
>
> Oh, and these are not hard / fast times, so the guy pretty much needs to
> be on-call 24 hours a day, arriving at less than 60 seconds notice for
> however long a period I can spare.

You'd be amazed how quickly you can adapt a busy  schedule to
accomodate a scheduled wargame if you really want to :)

> > Isn't that a sad testimony to the current state of pc wargames ? A
> > crotch because of geographical limitations instead of the prefered
> > platform offering an experience you can't find in the boardgame
> > world.
>
> To be fair, though, the really good computer wargames do offer things a
> boardgame will never match. =A0HTTR / COTA would take a team of about 20
> people in three different rooms to game out manually. =A0And that's not
> even mentioning CALL OF DUTY or IL-2.

Goes without saying - these are examples of wargames that play to the
strengths of the computer, where, as I said, the computer becomes the
*prefered* platform.

.... and how many games do we get like that ? Once every year, if we're
lucky.

> > There's no way a boardgame or tabletop system can let you fully
> > refight the Battle of Britain or Jutland or any number of other
> > campaigns and engagements that are simply impractical on anything else
> > but a computer. But what do we see when the BoB or Jutland is brought
> > to the computer : that they've made them equally unplayable. Aaargh.
>
> Exactly. =A0Which is why the STEEL PANTHERS experience is so frustrating.=
 =A0
> They had a nifty, SQUAD LEADER-sized, manageable game system where it
> actually made a difference where you sited that 37mm PAK ... and they
> "upgraded" it by cramming units on the board until it's unplayable.

In a journal entry back in 2004, the Grigsby guys were talking about
Steel Panthers IV. It's amazing to see that they've almost exactly
followed the roadmap they've outlined 5 years ago, so who knows SP IV
might be next ...

http://www.2by3games.com/devjournal/journal20041109.html

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

On Dec 31 2009, 9:27=A0pm, "eddyster...@hotmail.com"
<eddyster...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Happy New Year everyone !
>
> Another year, another Wargame of the Year election, so for the 6th
> time we all get a chance to pick our top 3 games of the past year.
>

I'm going with..
1. WW2 Time of Wrath. Along with Eddy I too agree its a great hex
strategic game. I didn't know you liked it Eddy:)
After that I'm hard pressed to find another.
Other than Fallout 3 and now Kings Bounty Armored Princess which I
love..but not wargames..yet the strategy is still there. I have my
cannon fodder in the last one.:)

I judge by how long I play a game..obviously the more addicting..the
better the game.


2. I did play a lot of Empire Total War

3. Commadr at War

4. PT boats because I love the boats so much and its the ONLY one so
by default I might have to list it..but it does lack so much.

Thats it. All I played. The rest I played for 5 min so they're out.

eddysterckx@hotmail.com wrote:
> On 6 jan, 10:49, Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net> wrote:
>> eddyster...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>> On 6 jan, 08:46, "eddyster...@hotmail.com" <eddyster...@hotmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> That said, I do think most wargame manuals could be cut in half if the
>>>> developers started to *really* look into UI design.
>>> ... and another thing : it�s not just UI design they need to look into
>>> so it doesn�t take 3 clicks to perform an action you need hundreds of
>>> times throughout the game, but also how to streamline things. For
>>> instance : If I start to move a panzer unit into The Netherlands I
>>> don�t want to be told by the game that �you need to declare war on The
>>> Netherlands before you can move units into it�, no, I want the DoW to
>>> be made automatically. If reinforcements arrive in Berlin I don�t want
>>> to have to select the unit, put it on a train / perform strategic
>>> movement and have it de-train somewhere, no I want that unit to
>>> directly appear as reinforcements in a town of my choice.
>> And what if you actually didn't want to invade The Netherlands yet, you
>> just mis-clicked?  Having the program remind you in that case would be a
>> benefit.  From personal experience programming and tech support, even
>> supporting highly trained users which most gamers aren't, its not
>> possible to underestimate human klutziness.  Part of good UI design is
>> protecting the user from themselves.
> 
> Sure, but if I make a mistake, it's my fault and I can go back to a
> previous game-save.
> 
Oh, so now we have to program an auto-save too!  :-P

> Protecting the user from themselves gave us those UAC messages in
> Vista and I don't know about you but I turned that off immediatly as
> it annoyed the hell out of me.
> 
I don't buy OS betas, so never used Vista.  :D

>> And that reinforcement unit, fine, it can appear in Warsaw to reinforce
>> the Eastern Front.  Two weeks later.  And what if one week into that two
>> week period the situation changes and now you really need it in Italy?
> 
> Too bad - such is war - Clausewitz roars :)
> 
Hee.

>> If you're the one putting it on the train then you have the option of
>> re-directing that train.  If its just the computer that places the unit
>> in Warsaw then you don't have that option and you'd be complaining about
>> that.
> 
> Maybe. But maybe I'd like the developer to take his reinforcements
> design a step further and not let the gamer decide where to send that
> unit to at the moment the unit becomes available in Berlin, but 2
> weeks later, with a free pick of eligable cities. Oh, sure, that's
> maybe a bit gamey, but it does away with a lot of clutter and cuts
> down on the micro-management. Simply highlight the available spots and
> let the gamer pick one. That's 1 line and a screenshot in the manual
> instead of 50 pages of reinforcement rules.
> 
It takes you 50 pages to write "Reinforcements appear in your capital"? 
  Explaining to the player how the list is generated may take 50 pages 
but "they always appear here" is easy.

-- 
"The Internet lied again!"

On 7 jan, 00:31, Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net> wrote:
> eddyster...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > On 6 jan, 10:49, Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net> wrote:
> >> eddyster...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >>> On 6 jan, 08:46, "eddyster...@hotmail.com" <eddyster...@hotmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>> That said, I do think most wargame manuals could be cut in half if t=
he
> >>>> developers started to *really* look into UI design.
> >>> ... and another thing : it s not just UI design they need to look int=
o
> >>> so it doesn t take 3 clicks to perform an action you need hundreds of
> >>> times throughout the game, but also how to streamline things. For
> >>> instance : If I start to move a panzer unit into The Netherlands I
> >>> don t want to be told by the game that you need to declare war on The
> >>> Netherlands before you can move units into it , no, I want the DoW to
> >>> be made automatically. If reinforcements arrive in Berlin I don t wan=
t
> >>> to have to select the unit, put it on a train / perform strategic
> >>> movement and have it de-train somewhere, no I want that unit to
> >>> directly appear as reinforcements in a town of my choice.
> >> And what if you actually didn't want to invade The Netherlands yet, yo=
u
> >> just mis-clicked? =A0Having the program remind you in that case would =
be a
> >> benefit. =A0From personal experience programming and tech support, eve=
n
> >> supporting highly trained users which most gamers aren't, its not
> >> possible to underestimate human klutziness. =A0Part of good UI design =
is
> >> protecting the user from themselves.
>
> > Sure, but if I make a mistake, it's my fault and I can go back to a
> > previous game-save.
>
> Oh, so now we have to program an auto-save too! =A0:-P

Nah, a clever programmer will just trigger the "SaveGame" function
with a formatted timestamp through a timer component. Sounds
complicated, but in my default programming language that's 1
additional line of code.

.... and a really clever programmer will let the gamer set the timer
interval for the save in the game's option screen :)

> > Protecting the user from themselves gave us those UAC messages in
> > Vista and I don't know about you but I turned that off immediatly as
> > it annoyed the hell out of me.
>
> I don't buy OS betas, so never used Vista. =A0:D

One thing I learned regarding laptops : don't mess with the OS that
came pre-installed on it. My current gaming machine is a laptop
running Vista and I'm generally pleased with it ... after I disabled
all those clever features designed to "help" me.

> >> And that reinforcement unit, fine, it can appear in Warsaw to reinforc=
e
> >> the Eastern Front. =A0Two weeks later. =A0And what if one week into th=
at two
> >> week period the situation changes and now you really need it in Italy?
>
> > Too bad - such is war - Clausewitz roars :)
>
> Hee.
>
> >> If you're the one putting it on the train then you have the option of
> >> re-directing that train. =A0If its just the computer that places the u=
nit
> >> in Warsaw then you don't have that option and you'd be complaining abo=
ut
> >> that.
>
> > Maybe. But maybe I'd like the developer to take his reinforcements
> > design a step further and not let the gamer decide where to send that
> > unit to at the moment the unit becomes available in Berlin, but 2
> > weeks later, with a free pick of eligable cities. Oh, sure, that's
> > maybe a bit gamey, but it does away with a lot of clutter and cuts
> > down on the micro-management. Simply highlight the available spots and
> > let the gamer pick one. That's 1 line and a screenshot in the manual
> > instead of 50 pages of reinforcement rules.
>
> It takes you 50 pages to write "Reinforcements appear in your capital"?

Nope. But explaining to the gamer how to put those units on trains,
following up on where they are currently + the added possibility of re-
routing them to elsewhere as you suggested will. Don't get me wrong -
I'm sure there's a lot of gamers who'd love to play "German railroad
manager" inside a Eastern Front game, but I'm not one of them.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

On 6 jan, 20:23, HR <mars...@comcast.net> wrote:

> 1. WW2 Time of Wrath. Along with Eddy I too agree its a great hex
> strategic game. I didn't know you liked it Eddy:)

I'm a closet hex-gamer :)

So much so that when I see a number of people giving votes to War on
the Southern Front, a game I totally ignored, I've got it marked as
"to investigate a bit"

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

On Jan 6, 6:46=A0pm, "eddyster...@hotmail.com" <eddyster...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> On 6 jan, 07:00, Garns <mgarnet...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jan 6, 3:27=A0am, Henius <heniu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > - Never read the manual anymore. This is really strange, as I used to
> > > love bunkering down with a thick paper manual. Not anymore.
>
> > I thought I was the only one suffering from this. =A0I loved reading
> > manuals, now I can't get past 10 without falling asleep or losing
> > interest.
>
> > Must be an age thing.
>
> Maybe. Or maybe it's just that after so many games you get a deja vu
> feeling when you see the same gaming concepts getting used again and
> again and even a new manual becomes like a book you've already read a
> couple of times and you start to see it as a waste of time.
>
> That said, I do think most wargame manuals could be cut in half if the
> developers started to *really* look into UI design.
>
> Greetz,
>
> Eddy Sterckx

Good point.  Quite a few manuals these days waste so much space
preaching the obvious ("This is the Save button, you click it to Save
your game") or are so vague it seems like an afterthought.

UI design does seem to be made more complicated than it needs to be.
I still struggle to understand why some developers move away from
"standard" Windows design paradigms and reinvent the wheel.  For all
the faults (perceived or actual) with Tiller games, the UI (although
"ancient" looking) is very easy to use.  You can pretty much dive in
and "use" the game without the UI getting in the way* and **

*Note - I agree it's an ancient looking UI that could do with a good
face lift but it does "just work".
**Note - It also helps that the UI doesn't change between games.  I'm
not condoning this, only looking at it from a UI perspective. (SSG
games like BiN, BiI and Battlefront "sort of" have this but
advancements are retrofitted to older games.

I contrast look at the Ancient Warfare games from HPS, I love the
games but gee, what on earth were they thinking when the designed the
UI to give order to units.  What the hell is wrong with a right clck
option.

Cheers

Mark

On 7 jan, 11:33, Garns <mgarnet...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I still struggle to understand why some developers move away from
> "standard" Windows design paradigms and reinvent the wheel. =A0

Oooh, if you wanted me to start ranting this is the perfect move :)

Major pet peeve of mine.

> What the hell is wrong with a right clck
> option.

Indeed. Not to single WC:NAW out again regarding this but the UI
there ... to put it differently : the very first (space) game I
programmed in Turbo Pascal 1.0 had a similar interface. That was back
in 1983. I'd be hard pressed to even program such an interface these
days. ok, ok, it's "functional" and underneath that horrid interface
is a really good game but still ...

Ok, rambling on : CM:SF on release : to give orders to a unit you had
to left-click it (very intuitive) and then hit the space bar to get
the orders menu (huh ???) - they've now changed it so that right-
clicking the mouse also shows the available orders but what were they
thinking originally ???

So what games get this right ? There's 2 games I can readily think of
that only require the mouse to play and have a slick, clean interface
with all relevant information right there where you need it, not at
some other corner of the screen as per HPS and SSG default (sorry,
ranting again) and those games are Strategic Command 1 and Commander :
Europe at War and I love both these games.

There are others too - the Command Ops engine from Panther Games -
I've given dozens of demos of it and never needed more than 5 minutes
to explain the interface to newbees but really good UI designs are
scarce in this hobby.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

On Jan 7, 3:33 am, Garns <mgarnet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> UI design does seem to be made more complicated than it needs to be.
> I still struggle to understand why some developers move away from
> "standard" Windows design paradigms and reinvent the wheel.

Another example of this would be WiTP's attempt to change the window
scroll function.  When a seemingly standard Windows menu appears, one
would expect the scroll bar on the right to function like it does in a
zillion other Windows applications.  Click on it and the window pages
down one page at a time.

In WiTP, the page moves exactly to the point down the window wherever
you click on the scroll bar and there is no way to advance one page at
a time.  Just what was so wrong with the universally known process
implemented by Microsoft in the first place?!

Sigh...

On 7 jan, 12:00, "eddyster...@hotmail.com" <eddyster...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> There's 2 games I can readily think of
> that only require the mouse to play and have a slick, clean interface
> with all relevant information right there where you need it, not at
> some other corner of the screen as per HPS and SSG default (sorry,
> ranting again) and those games are Strategic Command 1

Now at GoG - Good Old Games - for $10

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/strategic_command_european_theater

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

eddysterckx@hotmail.com wrote:
> On 7 jan, 00:31, Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net> wrote:
>> eddyster...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>> On 6 jan, 10:49, Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net> wrote:
>>>> And that reinforcement unit, fine, it can appear in Warsaw to reinforce
>>>> the Eastern Front.  Two weeks later.  And what if one week into that two
>>>> week period the situation changes and now you really need it in Italy?
>>> Too bad - such is war - Clausewitz roars :)
>> Hee.
>>
>>>> If you're the one putting it on the train then you have the option of
>>>> re-directing that train.  If its just the computer that places the unit
>>>> in Warsaw then you don't have that option and you'd be complaining about
>>>> that.
>>> Maybe. But maybe I'd like the developer to take his reinforcements
>>> design a step further and not let the gamer decide where to send that
>>> unit to at the moment the unit becomes available in Berlin, but 2
>>> weeks later, with a free pick of eligable cities. Oh, sure, that's
>>> maybe a bit gamey, but it does away with a lot of clutter and cuts
>>> down on the micro-management. Simply highlight the available spots and
>>> let the gamer pick one. That's 1 line and a screenshot in the manual
>>> instead of 50 pages of reinforcement rules.
>> It takes you 50 pages to write "Reinforcements appear in your capital"?
> 
> Nope. But explaining to the gamer how to put those units on trains,
> following up on where they are currently + the added possibility of re-
> routing them to elsewhere as you suggested will. Don't get me wrong -
> I'm sure there's a lot of gamers who'd love to play "German railroad
> manager" inside a Eastern Front game, but I'm not one of them.
> 
But you're going to have those strategic movement rules anyways....

-- 
"The Internet lied again!"

On 7 jan, 23:49, Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net> wrote:
> eddyster...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > On 7 jan, 00:31, Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net> wrote:
> >> eddyster...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >>> On 6 jan, 10:49, Dimensional Traveler <dtra...@sonic.net> wrote:
> >>>> And that reinforcement unit, fine, it can appear in Warsaw to reinfo=
rce
> >>>> the Eastern Front. =A0Two weeks later. =A0And what if one week into =
that two
> >>>> week period the situation changes and now you really need it in Ital=
y?
> >>> Too bad - such is war - Clausewitz roars :)
> >> Hee.
>
> >>>> If you're the one putting it on the train then you have the option o=
f
> >>>> re-directing that train. =A0If its just the computer that places the=
 unit
> >>>> in Warsaw then you don't have that option and you'd be complaining a=
bout
> >>>> that.
> >>> Maybe. But maybe I'd like the developer to take his reinforcements
> >>> design a step further and not let the gamer decide where to send that
> >>> unit to at the moment the unit becomes available in Berlin, but 2
> >>> weeks later, with a free pick of eligable cities. Oh, sure, that's
> >>> maybe a bit gamey, but it does away with a lot of clutter and cuts
> >>> down on the micro-management. Simply highlight the available spots an=
d
> >>> let the gamer pick one. That's 1 line and a screenshot in the manual
> >>> instead of 50 pages of reinforcement rules.
> >> It takes you 50 pages to write "Reinforcements appear in your capital"=
?
>
> > Nope. But explaining to the gamer how to put those units on trains,
> > following up on where they are currently + the added possibility of re-
> > routing them to elsewhere as you suggested will. Don't get me wrong -
> > I'm sure there's a lot of gamers who'd love to play "German railroad
> > manager" inside a Eastern Front game, but I'm not one of them.
>
> But you're going to have those strategic movement rules anyways....

Let me expand on this a bit more. Totally agreed that an Eastern Front
game needs some sort of strategic movement rules. We're talking a
strategic level game here. There's 2 different ways a developer can
look at this :

1) bottom up : in order for a unit to move you need railroads, so a
detailed railroad network enters the game, then you also need rules
for track width conversion, railheads, track destruction by partisan
attacks and repair. German units not in enemy zoc can move up to x
hexes to a railroad blah, blah, blah etc.

2) top down : historically whenever a German unit was scheduled to be
moved strategically, the Germans managed to do this without too much
delay. So why have (visible) railroads in the game ? Put an arbitrary
limit on it and simply let the German player pick x units each turn to
move to any supplied major city he occupies. Done.

Ok, the first has a lot more period chrome to it and lets the user get
involved in the nitty gritty of what strategic movement of units took
in those days. The second is for those of us who want to game-out the
Eastern Front in a couple of evenings, not a couple of months.

Sure, there is a middle ground there, and I can recall a couple of
boardgames which managed this briliantly - The Russian Campaign for
instance - but we both know that when the average pc wargame developer
tackles this subject he's going to go overboard on this. Overboard
according to my taste that is.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

> If I start to move a panzer unit into The Netherlands I
> don�t want to be told by the game that �you need to declare
> war on The Netherlands before you can move units into it�,
> no, I want the DoW to be made automatically. If reinforcements
> arrive in Berlin I don�t want to have to select the unit, put it on
> a train / perform strategic movement and have it de-train
> somewhere, no I want that unit to directly appear as reinforcements
> in a town of my choice.

Well, that would depend on the rules. For example, if you need to spend 
political points to declare war, then a box asking "Declaring War on The 
Netherlands costs X PP - Do you want to do it?" makes sense. Also, if 
reinforcements can be subject to interdiction airstrikes (or partisan 
activity) while trundling towards the front, then both the need to entrain 
the troops and choosing a route becomes part of the overall strategy.

It is different than having to do things that in real life would fall 
outside the pureview of the level of command portrayed in the game (i.e. 
choosing what type of train cars the troops need). 

On 8 jan, 10:45, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reck...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > If I start to move a panzer unit into The Netherlands I
> > don=92t want to be told by the game that =93you need to declare
> > war on The Netherlands before you can move units into it=94,
> > no, I want the DoW to be made automatically. If reinforcements
> > arrive in Berlin I don=92t want to have to select the unit, put it on
> > a train / perform strategic movement and have it de-train
> > somewhere, no I want that unit to directly appear as reinforcements
> > in a town of my choice.
>
> Well, that would depend on the rules. For example, if you need to spend
> political points to declare war, then a box asking "Declaring War on The
> Netherlands costs X PP - Do you want to do it?" makes sense.

... or you could program it such that declaring war on some minors
automatically increases the "war readiness" of the US or the USSR and
totally forego the design and UI clutter mentioned above.

> Also, if
> reinforcements can be subject to interdiction airstrikes (or partisan
> activity) while trundling towards the front, then both the need to entrai=
n
> the troops and choosing a route becomes part of the overall strategy.

Depends on the scale. In a tactical and even operational game one
needs to worry about such things but in a strategic level one ???

It's the old "you're not playing Hitler/Stalin, you're really taking
on the job of everyone at OKH/STAVKA when you play this game"
discussion all over again.

Everyone's sweet spot of what level of detail he wishes to manage is
different and I know that I'm fairly slanted to one side and in a
minority on this.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

On 08/01/2010 10:25, eddysterckx@hotmail.com wrote:
> .. or you could program it such that declaring war on some minors
> automatically increases the "war readiness" of the US or the USSR and
> totally forego the design and UI clutter mentioned above.
>
> It's the old "you're not playing Hitler/Stalin, you're really taking
> on the job of everyone at OKH/STAVKA when you play this game"
> discussion all over again.
>
> Everyone's sweet spot of what level of detail he wishes to manage is
> different and I know that I'm fairly slanted to one side and in a
> minority on this.
>

Couldn't agree more. I much prefer the game mechanics to be as hidden as 
possible and to let the player get on with the "interesting" part of the 
game. Taking two examples of the Battles XXXX series and the Airborne 
Assault series. In the former I get into the mindset of adding up 
numbers in stacks of how to play the game and the latter allows me to 
think about which of my resources are best used where. I know which I 
prefer. I think it boils down to do you want to play a computerised 
board game or a game designed for a computer.

On 8 jan, 11:41, JAB <nocha...@nohope.com> wrote:
> On 08/01/2010 10:25, eddyster...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > .. or you could program it such that declaring war on some minors
> > automatically increases the "war readiness" of the US or the USSR and
> > totally forego the design and UI clutter mentioned above.
>
> > It's the old "you're not playing Hitler/Stalin, you're really taking
> > on the job of everyone at OKH/STAVKA when you play this game"
> > discussion all over again.
>
> > Everyone's sweet spot of what level of detail he wishes to manage is
> > different and I know that I'm fairly slanted to one side and in a
> > minority on this.
>
> Couldn't agree more. I much prefer the game mechanics to be as hidden as
> possible and to let the player get on with the "interesting" part of the
> game. Taking two examples of the Battles XXXX series and the Airborne
> Assault series. In the former I get into the mindset of adding up
> numbers in stacks of how to play the game and the latter allows me to
> think about which of my resources are best used where. I know which I
> prefer. I think it boils down to do you want to play a computerised
> board game or a game designed for a computer.

Yup.

And to hammer the same stupid point once again : it's more like
computerized boardgames *from the seventies*. From a time when
attacking with 5-1 odds was a guaranteed victory with only a possible
Exchange result if you rolled a '1'.

These days boardgames have much more uncertainty build into them. From
your opponent playing a "our sniper kills the enemy commander - attack
fubars" card to fog of war through blocks so you have only a vague
idea of what you're attacking.

If only computer wargames *were* designed like modern boardgames I'd
be a much happier puppy.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

In article <w9D1n.79544$813.74181@tornado.fastwebnet.it>,=20
reckall@hotmail.com says...

> > If I start to move a panzer unit into The Netherlands I
> > don=92t want to be told by the game that =93you need to declare
> > war on The Netherlands before you can move units into it=94,
> > no, I want the DoW to be made automatically. If reinforcements
> > arrive in Berlin I don=92t want to have to select the unit, put it on
> > a train / perform strategic movement and have it de-train
> > somewhere, no I want that unit to directly appear as reinforcements
> > in a town of my choice.
>=20
> Well, that would depend on the rules. For example, if you need to spend=
=20
> political points to declare war, then a box asking "Declaring War on The=
=20
> Netherlands costs X PP - Do you want to do it?" makes sense. Also, if=20
> reinforcements can be subject to interdiction airstrikes (or partisan=20
> activity) while trundling towards the front, then both the need to entrai=
n=20
> the troops and choosing a route becomes part of the overall strategy.

This seems a staff function that should occur at some level below that=20
of the player.

To use this example, if I'm playing a grand strategic game as Germany,=20
I'm effectively "Hitler."  If I declare to the *generalstab* that I=20
intend to send the panzers across the Dutch border on May 1, then there=20
should be a "von Ribbentrop" function somewhere that will handle the=20
diplomatic issues (one wonders what these could possibly be, given a=20
totalitarian state crushing a weak neighbor...) and assorted paperwork.

Similarly, if OKW (IE, me...) has decided that the 162nd Infantry=20
Division, currently forming up in Bavaria, will be assigned to Army=20
Group South, then why would it appear as a counter anywhere else but the=20
railhead assigned to AGS?

> It is different than having to do things that in real life would fall=20
> outside the pureview of the level of command portrayed in the game (i.e.=
=20
> choosing what type of train cars the troops need).=20

I'd say it's part of the same thing. =20

And this is the way *everything* in real life works.  Last year, $ork=20
decided to establish a new business unit in some previously-idled office=20
space.  The Big Boss didn't have to issue some sort of detailed plan of=20
how this was going to happen, he just told the staff what he ultimately=20
wanted.  As the IT director, it was up to me to provide the IT=20
infrastructure; I drew up a plan, got the budget approved by the=20
controller, and set the thing up.

But some game designers would require a player in the Big Boss's=20
position to enter the "IT menu" and start "buying servers and=20
switches."  Then he would have to purchase *furniture*.  How does this=20
make sense?

--=20
Giftzwerg
***
"Winter Could Be Worst in 25 Years for USA...
CHILL MAP...
Britain's big snow shuts cities...
GAS SUPPLIES RUNNING OUT IN UK...
Elderly burn books for warmth?
Army drafted to rescue 1,000 snow stranded motorists...
Vermont sets 'all-time record for one snowstorm'...
Iowa temps 'a solid 30 degrees below normal'...
Seoul buried in heaviest snowfall in 70 years...
Midwest Sees Near-Record Lows, Snow By The Foot...
Miami shivers from coldest weather in decade; Florida Gov Signs=20
Emergency Order ...
Cold snap spurs power rationing in China..."
                        - Global Warming News, Drudge Report

In article <73ece1fc-06c4-4eda-9b98-2b10399c7b79
@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, eddysterckx@hotmail.com says...

> > Well, that would depend on the rules. For example, if you need to spend
> > political points to declare war, then a box asking "Declaring War on The
> > Netherlands costs X PP - Do you want to do it?" makes sense.
> 
> .. or you could program it such that declaring war on some minors
> automatically increases the "war readiness" of the US or the USSR and
> totally forego the design and UI clutter mentioned above.

I really don't have a problem with a box popping up explaining that my 
de facto declaration of war on Holland will cost me 14 diplomatic points 
or some such trivia, but I go batfuck when the box tells me, "Invading 
Holland requires a declaration of war in the Diplomatic Phase" ...

.... which was two phases ago.  I guess "von Ribbentrop" mistook the 
movement of 400,000 troops towards the western front as some sort of 
large-scale exercise?

> > Also, if
> > reinforcements can be subject to interdiction airstrikes (or partisan
> > activity) while trundling towards the front, then both the need to entrain
> > the troops and choosing a route becomes part of the overall strategy.
> 
> Depends on the scale. In a tactical and even operational game one
> needs to worry about such things but in a strategic level one ???
> 
> It's the old "you're not playing Hitler/Stalin, you're really taking
> on the job of everyone at OKH/STAVKA when you play this game"
> discussion all over again.

That's a rationalization of bad design choices.  IMO.

> Everyone's sweet spot of what level of detail he wishes to manage is
> different and I know that I'm fairly slanted to one side and in a
> minority on this.

I got your back, bro.  I'm so slanted on this issue I've fallen over.

-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"Winter Could Be Worst in 25 Years for USA...
CHILL MAP...
Britain's big snow shuts cities...
GAS SUPPLIES RUNNING OUT IN UK...
Elderly burn books for warmth?
Army drafted to rescue 1,000 snow stranded motorists...
Vermont sets 'all-time record for one snowstorm'...
Iowa temps 'a solid 30 degrees below normal'...
Seoul buried in heaviest snowfall in 70 years...
Midwest Sees Near-Record Lows, Snow By The Foot...
Miami shivers from coldest weather in decade; Florida Gov Signs 
Emergency Order ...
Cold snap spurs power rationing in China..."
                        - Global Warming News, Drudge Report

On 8 jan, 12:56, Giftzwerg <giftzwerg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> then there
> should be a "von Ribbentrop" function somewhere that will handle the
> diplomatic issues (one wonders what these could possibly be, given a
> totalitarian state crushing a weak neighbor...) and assorted paperwork.

One wonders indeed - so I looked it up :)

The actual content of the telegram send to the German envoy to be
given to the Dutch :

"Announcement of deployment of enormous German military force.
Any resistance completely futile
Germany guarantees European and extra-European possessions and the
dynasty, if any resistance remains absent. Else danger of complete
annihilation of the country and the form of government.
Therefore demand urgently appeal people and forces and demand
establish contact with German military commanders
Motivation: we have irrefutable proof of an imminent threat of
invasion by France and England in Belgium, the Netherlands,
Luxembourg, which has long been prepared with the joint knowledge of
the Netherlands and Belgium. Purpose: advance to Ruhr area"

-

I *really* enjoyed the "Any resistance completely futile" bit - that's
sooooo German :)

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

In article <90884e00-9c8d-4b5d-897b-
37ca9a52c2df@q4g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, eddysterckx@hotmail.com 
says...

> > then there
> > should be a "von Ribbentrop" function somewhere that will handle the
> > diplomatic issues (one wonders what these could possibly be, given a
> > totalitarian state crushing a weak neighbor...) and assorted paperwork.
> 
> One wonders indeed - so I looked it up :)
> 
> The actual content of the telegram send to the German envoy to be
> given to the Dutch :
> 
> "Announcement of deployment of enormous German military force.
> Any resistance completely futile
> Germany guarantees European and extra-European possessions and the
> dynasty, if any resistance remains absent. Else danger of complete
> annihilation of the country and the form of government.
> Therefore demand urgently appeal people and forces and demand
> establish contact with German military commanders
> Motivation: we have irrefutable proof of an imminent threat of
> invasion by France and England in Belgium, the Netherlands,
> Luxembourg, which has long been prepared with the joint knowledge of
> the Netherlands and Belgium. Purpose: advance to Ruhr area"

> I *really* enjoyed the "Any resistance completely futile" bit - that's
> sooooo German :)

"You will be assimilated.  Resistance is futile."  
                               - The Borg Collective

But a better question may be what time the Dutch received this message, 
and where the lead panzer was in relation to the border at that minute.

I'm thinking, "several miles past it."


-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"I am less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from
and correcting these mistakes to make us safer."
                                    - President Barack Obama
"<laughter> I'll bet you are, particularly since you're to blame."
                                    - Giftzwerg

On 8 jan, 13:38, Giftzwerg <giftzwerg...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> But a better question may be what time the Dutch received this message,
> and where the lead panzer was in relation to the border at that minute.
>
> I'm thinking, "several miles past it."

A couple of thousand German paratroopers were attacking The Hague,
planning to capture the Dutch government, before the message had even
arrived. They got wiped out by a Dutch counter-attack which also
destroyed over a hundred Ju52 transport planes. Forget about Sealion
right then and there.
That and an almost similar experience on Crete cured Hitler's taste
for airborne ops.

Case Yellow against The Netherlands is a real Clausewitzean battle
where the Germans managed to destroy the Dutch will to fight without
defeating their army - the politicians surrendered an almost intact
army.

In the Mega Game replay of Case Yellow we played last year things
turned out eerily similar on the political front : the politicians
freaked out, the queen + cabinet left the country, came to their
senses, re-entered the country while the military guys, with some help
from the Belgians in holding the line, managed to scrape together the
forces for a single counter-attack and directed it straight into the
rear of the single German panzer division rendering it out of action.
The guys were very pleased : they knew they had 1 good counter-punch
in them and made maximum use of it.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

In article <MPG.25b0e9d631fb9b48989708@localhost>, giftzwerg999
@hotmail.com says...
> 
> I really don't have a problem with a box popping up explaining that my 
> de facto declaration of war on Holland will cost me 14 diplomatic points 
> or some such trivia, 

I would have a problem with this, not because it gives the player too 
much information, but because it gives the player information that is 
too precise. I'd much rather see something like, "Your declaration of 
war is going to make diplomacy with other states more difficult, etc" 
and (inside the engine) deduct a range of diplomatic points between x 
and y with perhaps even various penalties being applied to subsequent 
diplomatic dealings depending on the foreign state involved.

Holdit


-- 
"But, for sheer thrill-a-minute stuff we turn to King Muley Hassan of
Morrocco. His contribution to brighter chess was to use prisoners from 
the royal dungeons [as pieces]. What made his games prime-time viewing 
was that captured pieces were beheaded on the spot. And you thought 
American Football was rugged. The prisoners must have taken a keen 
interest in Muley's opening repertoire. Gruesome (but not necessarily 
accurate) legend has it that he was particularly fornd of the Danish 
Gambit."
-The Even More Complete Chess Addict

On 8 jan, 14:24, Holdit <holditREM...@THEindigoCAPS.ie> wrote:
> In article <MPG.25b0e9d631fb9b48989708@localhost>, giftzwerg999
> @hotmail.com says...
>
>
>
> > I really don't have a problem with a box popping up explaining that my
> > de facto declaration of war on Holland will cost me 14 diplomatic point=
s
> > or some such trivia,
>
> I would have a problem with this, not because it gives the player too
> much information, but because it gives the player information that is
> too precise. I'd much rather see something like, "Your declaration of
> war is going to make diplomacy with other states more difficult, etc"
> and (inside the engine) deduct a range of diplomatic points between x
> and y with perhaps even various penalties being applied to subsequent
> diplomatic dealings depending on the foreign state involved.

In other words : behind the scenes a developer can make things as
complicated, or realistic if you will, as his little heart desires,
but in the interface to the gamer he needs to keep in mind who this
gamer represents and would have known or would have to deal with IRL

And it=92s at this point that many developers go overboard and present
the gamer with countless info-boxes and messages on which he needs to
click =93ok=94 to continue his game. Aaaargh.

Thank Zeus there=92s a solution for this : a configurable automated
button-pushing utility :

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23023-order,4-c,harddisk/descript=
ion.html

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

1st: Warship Combat : Navies at War

No second or third place

In article <c28a159f-e900-4146-bf61-
f702767a15ce@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>, eddysterckx@hotmail.com 
says...

> Case Yellow against The Netherlands is a real Clausewitzean battle
> where the Germans managed to destroy the Dutch will to fight without
> defeating their army - the politicians surrendered an almost intact
> army.

You can make (if not so well...) the same argument for France a bare few 
days later.  

"Clausewitzian" French politicians surrendered.  Many "Jominian" 
wargamers find that the fight can be continued ... probably.  Another 
point in favor of your "art of war" dichotomy.


-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"I am less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from
and correcting these mistakes to make us safer."
                                    - President Barack Obama
"<laughter> I'll bet you are, particularly since you're to blame."
                                    - Giftzwerg

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:27:13 -0800 (PST), "eddysterckx@hotmail.com"
<eddysterckx@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>Happy New Year everyone !
>
>Another year, another Wargame of the Year election, so for the 6th
>time we all get a chance to pick our top 3 games of the past year.
>
>Again there's a Grand Prize for you to win : Matrix Games has
>graciously offered a free pick of any game in their catalogue, even of
>a game not released yet, to one lucky participant.
>And to make it absolutely clear : voting for their games will *not*
>increase your chances of winning it (*).
 
1. Empire Total War
2. -
3. -

BP

In article <MPG.25b14284e5bfe111989686@news1.eircom.net>, 
holditREMOVE@THEindigoCAPS.ie says...

> > I really don't have a problem with a box popping up explaining that my 
> > de facto declaration of war on Holland will cost me 14 diplomatic points 
> > or some such trivia, 
> 
> I would have a problem with this, not because it gives the player too 
> much information, but because it gives the player information that is 
> too precise. I'd much rather see something like, "Your declaration of 
> war is going to make diplomacy with other states more difficult, etc" 
> and (inside the engine) deduct a range of diplomatic points between x 
> and y with perhaps even various penalties being applied to subsequent 
> diplomatic dealings depending on the foreign state involved.

Agreed ... but only to the extent that wargame designers *are* going to 
program-in some sort of uncertainty-based routine that replaces "lose 14 
diplomacy points" with a more realistic, rational calculus that takes 
this sort of thing into account.

In other words, if the sum total of a declaration of war on The 
Netherlands is "Lose 14 <x> points," then you might as well just tell 
me; it's not like I can't look at the "Diplomacy points" line-item.

-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"I am less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from
and correcting these mistakes to make us safer."
                                    - President Barack Obama
"<laughter> I'll bet you are, particularly since you're to blame."
                                    - Giftzwerg

On Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:13:22 -0600, BP <reply@newsgroup.please> wrote:

>1. Empire Total War
>2. -
>3. -
>
>BP

	I don't know how many votes ETW got so far but I pity poor Eddy
if he'd have to announce it as a winner (or even as a second or third
placed game) :o)

On Jan 9, 5:11=A0am, Oleg Mastruko <oleg@_REMOVE_bug.hr> wrote:
> On Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:13:22 -0600, BP <re...@newsgroup.please> wrote:
> >1. Empire Total War
> >2. -
> >3. -
>
> >BP
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 I don't know how many votes ETW got so far but I pity poo=
r Eddy
> if he'd have to announce it as a winner (or even as a second or third
> placed game) :o)

Why ?

Did it ever bother me to be in a minority opinion on anything else ?

You know what I *really* thought when the votes for ETW started to
come in ? Well, almost all developers and publishers proudly display
the war-historical badge they won at their forum/website - and what I
thought was : CA is going to look at this badge and say "you're fringe
lunatics from *where* ?"

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

1.  Field of Glory
2. Computer War in Europe
3.  Warship Combat:  Navies at War 

1. Warship Combat: Navies at War
2. Field of Glory
3. Squad Battles: Dien Bien Phu

(dis)Honorable Mention goes to Storm Eagle Studios for that terribly
obnoxious email campaign (I got six of these!) from whence this quote
came: "It is up to you to vote with your dollars if you would like to
continue seeing this type of game development." I voted with my
dollars by purchasing WC:NAW rather than putting up with your
horseshit. Thanks!

shawn

In article <05f0480f-ed99-4136-baec-
ed6d24fc375a@m25g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>, 3point1415926535@gmail.com 
says...

> 1. Warship Combat: Navies at War
> 2. Field of Glory
> 3. Squad Battles: Dien Bien Phu
> 
> (dis)Honorable Mention goes to Storm Eagle Studios for that terribly
> obnoxious email campaign (I got six of these!) from whence this quote
> came: "It is up to you to vote with your dollars if you would like to
> continue seeing this type of game development." I voted with my
> dollars by purchasing WC:NAW rather than putting up with your
> horseshit. Thanks!

I sent back a nice missive expressing the hope that their DRM-poisoned, 
Nazi-eLicensed form of "game development" would soon be gone from the 
surface of the earth.

-- 
Giftzwerg
***
"I am less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from
and correcting these mistakes to make us safer."
                                    - President Barack Obama
"<laughter> I'll bet you are, particularly since you're to blame."
                                    - Giftzwerg

Not sure if the vote is still open, I've been on the road for the last
month. 

1)
2) For the Glory
3) WitP-AE

I can't really put either of those at number 1 since they're basically
mods for older games and I haven't gotten around to buying the naval
game everyone else is drooling about. 

Since we don't have a 'worst game' category, I'm also going to throw
out my vote for worst release I've seen in a long, long time. Matrix's
BoB-BtR re-release. 

Rgds, Frank

> (dis)Honorable Mention goes to Storm Eagle Studios for that terribly
> obnoxious email campaign (I got six of these!) from whence this quote
> came: "It is up to you to vote with your dollars if you would like to
> continue seeing this type of game development." I voted with my
> dollars by purchasing WC:NAW rather than putting up with your
> horseshit. Thanks!

Yup, same here. In a way it is the most intelligent thing SES did ever. 

1)War in Europe II
2)For the Glory
3)Warship Combat : Navies at War

Charlie