Strategy & Wargames - middlebrow autodidact "history buffs" who yearn to pull levers

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Strategy & Wargames - middlebrow autodidact "history buffs" who yearn to pull levers

«‹›162 »

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

look it was cool. Very superfluous and borderline useless but very cool.

# ? Sep 28, 2023 19:28

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 20, 2024 22:21

Typo: Aug 19, 2009; Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

so for HOI4, is there any point to using "planning feature" where you designate attack plan and the A.I executes it for you?

Cuz it's a confusing clusterfuck and I seem to be winning a lot more just by clicking my units forward while the A.I would randomly shuffle them back and force leaving provinces open

# ? Sep 28, 2023 20:09

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

you get planning bonuses if you use them. Its really good too.

# ? Sep 28, 2023 20:12

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Typo posted:

so for HOI4, is there any point to using "planning feature" where you designate attack plan and the A.I executes it for you?

Cuz it's a confusing clusterfuck and I seem to be winning a lot more just by clicking my units forward while the A.I would randomly shuffle them back and force leaving provinces open

you get planning bonuses that give a boost to your attack. you dont actually need to press the launch plan button and can just manually launch attacks and get the bonus but you do need to draw an offensive line somewhere

# ? Sep 28, 2023 20:14

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

tbf its immensely satisfying to watch a frontline disintegrate after you have it all prepped.

# ? Sep 28, 2023 20:15

Minenfeld!: Aug 21, 2012

The Hearts of Iron games are bad. The only passable one was 2's weird symmetrical multi-player scenario because it was designed to be fun.

# ? Sep 28, 2023 20:17

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

Hearts of Iron 4 is the way it is because of all the feature creep and expansions because Paradox needs to milk money.

But also because started with Europa Universalis 4 and then slathered it in World War 2 aesthetics when trying to make the game.

# ? Sep 28, 2023 20:56

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

i do hope they make EU5 sometime soon so i can play that specific time period again. i checked out and missed 20 expansions for 4 and now i dont know what the gently caress to do

# ? Sep 28, 2023 22:01

Cuttlefush: Jan 15, 2014; gotta have my purp

Raskolnikov38 posted:

i do hope they make EU5 sometime soon so i can play that specific time period again. i checked out and missed 20 expansions for 4 and now i dont know what the gently caress to do

piracy

# ? Sep 28, 2023 22:02

Endman: May 18, 2010; That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even anime may die

The Early Modern period really is the natural home for grand strategy games imo

# ? Sep 28, 2023 22:07

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Cuttlefush posted:

piracy

its more that there are now too many things i have no idea how they work and it eventually turns me to give up every time i try to learn

# ? Sep 28, 2023 22:14

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

You can't learn everything about EUIV because they keep adding bespoke hand crafted mechanics for one random province nation in every update.

Your only real choice is to just play the one tag you're interested in and learning how it works as you play.

None of that might be applicable to another tag should you decide to play something else.

# ? Sep 28, 2023 22:16

Fuligin: Oct 27, 2010; wait what the fuck??

Lostconfused posted:

You can't learn everything about EUIV because they keep adding bespoke hand crafted mechanics for one random province nation in every update.

Your only real choice is to just play the one tag you're interested in and learning how it works as you play.

None of that might be applicable to another tag should you decide to play something else.

yeah that owns though. i dont' play Eu nearly as much as HoI or CK or Vicky3 but when im in the mood for its particular map painting it always hits the spot.
Honestly all the paradox games are pretty good right now, for all their particular foibles, people bitch about them in proportion to their devotion

# ? Sep 28, 2023 22:46

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3: Nov 15, 2003

it was very funny playing a non-hre nation, learning that aggressive expansion doesnt matter, and then playing an hre nation

# ? Sep 29, 2023 00:51

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYspPUsLIE8

war thunder made a five minute short featuring subs and maritime patrol aircraft

# ? Oct 2, 2023 07:30

Mantis42: Jul 26, 2010

the focus tree alt history sandbox stuff in hoi4 is entirely a result of kaiserreich being as popular as it was in hoi2. that was a mod specifically designed so that pretty much any major power could switch ideologies and factions, and so hoi4 took the same path

# ? Oct 2, 2023 08:11

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

What would happen if Russia invaded Finland? I went to a giant war game in London to find out

quote:

Bush House in London is a narrow, imposing building that was constructed about a century ago from rugged limestone, which helped it survive a nearby missile strike during the second world war. It�s the sort of place you might choose to take shelter at the outset of a third world war and, fittingly, it is where dozens of Nato employees, as well as representatives of various global militaries, have gathered on a sunny summer afternoon to simulate the end of everything. In two vast top-floor conference rooms, an ambitious game � a war game, they call it � has been devised by academics from the department of war studies at King�s College London. Dr David Banks, the university�s war-gaming specialist, has invited me along to watch an imaginary conflict break out.

At 10am Banks, 44, who has silvery grey hair and a suit to match, takes to the stage in one of the conference rooms to address the assembled players. Some have been sent by their bosses as a training exercise; others are volunteers, here out of curiosity. They range from suited military-industrial types to soldiers in uniform; scruffy programmers to scruffier lecturers; women and men in their late 20s and 30s to greybeards carrying their coffee cups as though someone�s about to snatch them away. War-gaming appeals to all sorts of different people in different fields for different reasons, according to Banks. Politicians, ambassadors and their aides sometimes play these daylong games to �internalise lessons�. They might want to get better at reading diplomatic signals or making strategic decisions under pressure. Meanwhile generals, liaisons or others in the military sphere might enrol for bigger-picture reasons: to chance upon �surprising decisions, strategies or system dynamics� in a simulated conflict that might later be helpful in a real conflict.

Possibly one or two are here for the childish fun. War-gaming generally involves playing turn-based games with cards and maps, accumulating tokens and trying not to feel too silly while saying things such as, �Action that!� and, �What�s the combat readiness of the northern fleet?� At least three-quarters of the people assembled here are men. I hear North American accents, Scandinavian, eastern European. Most people have asked not to be named in this story, but I�m allowed to hover where I like, making notes. One Dutch guy wearing a colourful checked sports jacket is already complaining that there�s nowhere to smoke during breaks. One Italian dude, a ripped, thick-necked former marine, has crammed himself inside a suit for the day. His colleague from the Italian military has made a war-gaming faux pas by showing up with authentic stars on his shoulder. Not cool. War games are most useful and most enjoyable, I�m told, when there are no visible signs of rank � when real-world hierarchies are flattened and randomised by the fictional roles people are assigned at the start of the day.

It is 10am. Banks asks everyone present to imagine they are on the threshold of geopolitical catastrophe, somewhere a little beyond, though not that far beyond, our current perilous state. He fleshes out a scenario. Prolonged and humbling conflict in Ukraine as well as Finland�s recent accession to Nato has tested Russian pride to breaking point. Worsening matters, Nato has decided to press its advantage in the region by staging a military exercise on the Finnish-Russian border. China, Iran and India have made it plain: they�re not impressed by Nato. The Swedes are jangly, too. Spy planes, satellites and troop carriers are in play. A few wrong moves and all this posturing and provocation could ignite into something far worse. It is up to the players assembled in Bush House to try to war-game us back from the brink.

Now Banks moves among the crowd, handing out jobs like sweets. During this phase of a game, a real-life general might get a tap on the shoulder and tumble to become a low-level functionary for the first time in decades. A career poo poo-eater might get to feed somebody else the poo poo. (Maybe the general.) Anyone � a data specialist, a science nerd, an archive-dwelling academic � might find themselves near-omnipotent for the day. With a pointed finger, Banks elevates four random people to play as Russian high command. In a corner of one of the conference rooms, put aside for their exclusive use, the four newly minted Russians are told they can organise themselves and their decision-making however they want. �If you want to be equals here, that�s fine,� says one of Banks�s PhD students. �Or if you want to appoint a dictator, that�s fine, too.�

The four look at each other as if to say: a dictator, ridiculous! Of course, they decide to collaborate. There�s a physicist from California who has a long beard and an even longer braided ponytail. I�ll call him Tim. He sits next to a spectacled, serious-minded European who in the real world works for Nato�s operations department. I�ll call him Matteo. Across the table there�s a mild-mannered lecturer from Hungary who wears a purple sweater. I�ll call him Zlatan. Making up the group is a suited British woman, another Nato employee, who works in analysis. I�ll call her Amy. As the game begins, Tim, Matteo, Zlatan and Amy collaborate well, cordial in their strategic discussions if not always their strategy.

Presented with a range of possible opening moves, Russian high command decide to prioritise the destabilisation of Finland. But how? Decisions are debated and stress-tested before an irreversible commitment is made. Should their imaginary Russia go hard after its objectives? Or should it be more oblique, Putin-esque, harder for outsiders and enemies to read? Tim the bearded physicist is already wondering about sending warships into the Baltic. As an opening gambit, I take this to be the equivalent of starting an argument with the c-word or an arm-wrestle with a chokeslam. But Tim�s one of the four in charge and that�s why everyone has come here today: to find out who they are, as much as what they might do in a highly stressful, highly consequential scenario.

Purple-jumpered lecturer Zlatan seems a sweetheart. After Tim has spoken he suggests something less belligerent � maybe a few extra passes over Finland in a spy plane? Matteo, already emerging as a first-do-no-harm type, adjusts his spectacles and wonders whether even this level of aggression is too much. Maybe a bit of email phishing in the region? The suited analyst, Amy, sides with Tim. �I�m thinking we escalate early. We provoke them. It�s what the real Russia would do.� The others nod through her suggestion. After an hour of play, Amy has emerged as a leader of sorts.

Tim the physicist, already on a second bottle of Coke, seems to be hankering for a role as her enforcer. There�s a balcony just off the Bush House conference room. Noting that it�s eight floors to the tarmac below, Tim makes the first of many, many jokes about the possible use of this balcony for intimidating subordinates. There are loads of subordinates. To explain: while these four make the big calls in one conference room, dozens of other players have been randomly assigned roles in the lower rungs of Russia�s military machine. Half of the 100 attendees were selected by Banks to play as Russians and half were selected to play as Nato people. From 11am onwards, subordinates begin to walk in from their other conference room, bringing updates about their successes or struggles in related mini-games.

An attache from cybersecurity comes in, then one from diplomacy, another from info ops. �Comrade,� Tim calls them. Everyone is taking the game more seriously now. Banks had warned me it always takes an hour of awkwardness for everybody to settle in and submit to their roles. The four Russian commanders are standing over their maps now. They dismiss visiting underlings with little waves of the hand.

It�s lunchtime. The players are taking a break. Out on the balcony I speak with a woman called Catherine. She�s eating a plum and enjoying the view over London. A few hours ago, she was picked by Banks to play as one of the Nato commanders. In her day job she�s a lower-ranked employee of that same organisation, a middle-ranking staff officer in a department called experimentation design, which studies and anticipates possible future developments in international conflict. I�ve been admiring her leadership skills all morning. She�s a sort of wartime Churchill mixed with peak Angela Merkel, imperturbable.

�War-gaming is about preparing for the future,� Catherine says. �How do you make the best of a bad set of options? How do you navigate a space that isn�t black and white, where the view of the decision-maker is blurred?� Catherine has worked in fields related to war-gaming for some time and, along with Banks, she helped me understand some of its history.

For centuries, people have used games to anticipate the future of war and to prepare for it. There was a 16th-century card game, or kartenspiel, that was used to teach basic military principles to the courtiers of Charles V, explains the academic Roger Mason in his 2018 essay Wargaming: Its History and Future. A dice game played in early 19th-century Bohemia simulated the management and movement of a large body of troops; another, played by Prussians of the era, involved the submission of written military orders to a neutral umpire. During the first world war, leaders in Britain, Germany and Russia used war games to consider new problems of mass mobilisation brought about by advances in transport; in the second, Mason writes, �the Japanese wargamed the attack on Pearl Harbor, the invasion of numerous targeted islands, the attack on Midway and a possible offensive in the Indian Ocean�.

According to Banks, analogue, in-person war-gaming fell away as a prominent military tool in the 1950s and 60s because of the rise of computers. Ever since, it has come in and out of fashion, Catherine explains, depending on the particular circumstances of an era: �Right now it�s the flavour of the day, because the problems of the allied nations are not black and white.� There�s counterinsurgency abroad. �Hybrid activities between near-peer competitors.� Almost-wars. There�s a lot of grey in the world, Catherine says, and war-gaming �is a method to perfect our ability to navigate these grey spaces�. Later, Banks quotes a line by the late economist Thomas Schelling: �One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or heroic his imagination, is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him.�

Having finished her plum, ready to war-game once more, Catherine sits back at the Nato command table. She�s across the conference room from the Russians, out of their hearing but in sight. Holding and arranging stacks of cards, and moving tokens around a map, the two groups glance suspiciously at each other from time to time but keep their distance. They are supposed to communicate only through players who have taken on a role today as diplomats. At the moment, there�s no appetite for negotiation. Nato is about to embark on its flashy border exercise, and over on the Russian table, strategy-trained Amy asks her colleagues, �Do we have anything to make their exercise look bad?� The group dove, Matteo, suggests they try something gentle. Maybe a little space-jamming. The others say no, no; even purple-sweatered Zlatan disagrees. He seems to have turned more hawkish since lunch.

Throughout the afternoon, these war-gamers are distracted by what Banks calls �injects�. You or I would recognise them as plot twists, meant to amp up tension, place the decision-makers in a bind, or raise or lower the overall pace of their play. On a large monitor that�s been placed between the two command tables, fictional news alerts appear. Undersea sabotage off Estonia. A Boko Haram raid in Nigeria. An Iranian attack on the Kurds. The players get better at distinguishing which major events may not matter much to them, and which smaller nuggets of news might be important. Informed of the suspicious death of the US ambassador to France, Amy thwarts any possible discussion of the matter by reminding her Russian colleagues that, with Nato, Finland and Ukraine their top priorities, �we don�t care about the Americans�. When there is a news alert about an energy crisis in Sri Lanka, Zlatan sits straighter in his seat. �This is huge for us,� he says. Amy agrees. She sorts through the cards on the table until she finds the one that�s labelled �CUT ENERGY SUPPLY�.

As they set about strangling the world of more oil and gas, Zlatan seems to be growing in confidence and influence at the table. When it�s announced via news-ticker that a Russian warship in the Black Sea has exploded, someone whispers, �Bastards.� Tim the physicist says, �See, I told you we should have done an anticipatory counterattack.� Zlatan (sweet Zlatan!) coolly suggests that they escalate the level of threat in response. Some sort of military manoeuvre might do it.

Amy isn�t sure. �We�re already doing a missile test,� she says. Isn�t that escalation enough? Tim sides with Zlatan, pitching an airspace incursion. If things get difficult in the aftermath, Tim continues, �we can always call it a pilot error�. Matteo doesn�t fancy any of this. Hesitant as ever, he points out that none of them know how much escalation is too much escalation. �We don�t know where the red line is,� Matteo reminds them.

He is right. Only Banks and his assistants are able to keep an accurate count of �escalation tokens� that accumulate throughout this war game. If players on either side provoke their opponents too much or too far (if they get their calculations even slightly wrong), they might pass an invisible threshold set by Banks and his team. Beyond this, they will all lose control of this standoff and events will spin towards disaster � Privately, Banks has told me he doesn�t expect the threshold to be breached. He promises he�ll be keeping things spicy and tense for the players. But he does not expect the world to end by teatime.

Now it is 3pm. The mood has turned a bit weird at the Russian table. The nearest curtains have been drawn to block out the glare of the sun and this enhances a bunkerish paranoia that seems to hang over the group. A spotlight shines down from the ceiling of the conference room. It happens to frame Zlatan in a perfect cone of light. This feels right, because Zlatan is deferred to more and more for decisions now. Tim backs him up. Tim�s his man. I find myself thinking of Zlatan and Tim as Jack and Roger in Lord of the Flies, the leader who rises from obscurity and his muscle. It is with difficulty that I take myself away from this developing spectacle to catch up with those more sober folks on the Nato side.

Someone has neatened all their maps and their game cards into geometric alignment. Catherine takes notes on everything that happens. Debriefs from those Nato underlings who wander through from next door are brisk and efficient. We are informed about successful troop movements, influential media blitzes, cunning psy-op campaigns. When I return to the Russian table, former leader Amy has vanished. It turns out she�s now playing a sub-game in the other conference room � the underlings� conference room. Whether relegated by choice or by coup (it�s not clear), Amy has moved to a marginal role in information.

Matteo remains with the other two commanders but he seems quieter, his caution of less and less use to this other pair. It is the age of Zlatan and Tim now. �Can we get intel on the Finnish ports? � We�re gonna escalate again � We should reinforce offensive cyber � They�re not gonna know if we mobilise there, it�s not even escalatory � Don�t make me send you outside to the balcony � What�s the readiness level of our northern fleet? � I�m expecting a bit of blowback on � We should try to make gains in [outer] space � We could certainly use gains in space.�

By 4pm, an imaging satellite has been shot to smithereens, troops from both sides are on the move and a sarcastic American woman playing as a Russian diplomat has somehow persuaded the UN security council to condemn Nato for starting all this with a provocative border exercise. A news alert flashes on to the screen. The Doomsday Clock, which tracks the likelihood of global annihilation, has been set to 30 seconds to midnight, the severest threat-level since its inception. Zlatan, barely pausing to register this, is fingering a card labelled �DOMESTIC REPRESSION�. Tim wonders where his missile launchers have got to.

It�s about now that I wander over to Banks. Wearing an unreadable expression, he is observing the game from the side of the conference room.

Er, are we still OK here, I ask him?

Banks raises an eyebrow. He says that his PhD helpers have been discreetly tallying the escalation tokens on both tables and, in fact, we are running a bit closer to the point of no return than he expected. Banks doesn�t think the players will escalate matters much further. There�s half an hour left to go in the game, and ways they can row back from disaster, if the savvy and the will are there.

The afternoon sun, magnified by the balcony windows, is making it hotter and hotter in the conference room. I know this is only a game. We all know this is only a game. Even so, I�m nagged at by an impulse to get off the eighth floor. I find myself wondering: does Bush House have a basement? With supplies?

By the time Banks calls an end to the game, Finland has been utterly destabilised, the UN and Nato are barely on speaking terms, and billions of dollars� worth of military equipment has been deployed or destroyed. Zlatan and Tim rise to shake hands, hitching up their trousers, pleased at how their day has turned out. Starting to recover their manners, they drift over to commiserate with their counterparts on the Nato table. Curious, they stare down at the neatened cards, finally able to see what it was this Nato lot were trying to achieve behind a haze of missed diplomatic signals and exploded-satellite debris. �We were playing to win,� Tim notices. �They were playing not to lose.�

As for Zlatan, before he wanders away to the next-door conference room for biscuits and a debrief, I catch him muttering to himself. He�s looking down at the Nato board and saying, softly, �Boom, boom, boom.� It turned out that Zlatan was a terribly effective warmonger when he was asked to be. It�s almost as though he�s muttering his goodbyes to that all-powerful persona who for seven hours held all our collective futures in his hands. By the time he is in the other room, leaning against a wall and listening to Banks deliver a final address, Zlatan is one of the crowd again: a sweet Hungarian lecturer wearing a purple sweater.

Things almost went badly wrong today, Banks tells the players from the stage. The way he designed his war game, there was room for both sides to accumulate 115 tokens between them �without plunging the world into nuclear horror�. There are gasps when Banks says they accumulated 114 tokens today. �The game escalated precipitously at the end,� he explains. �You all got very eager. You missed crossing the threshold by the narrowest of margins the game will allow.�

Perhaps it counts as a sort of achievement. It certainly leaves us lots to ponder as we file out of Bush House. I glance up at the eighth-floor balcony, glad to be back on solid ground. I buy a pasty from Greggs and wolf it down, feeling obscurely grateful for the opportunity. A few days later, at the weekend, Banks sends me an email. He�s embarrassed. He made a mistake. Either he or one of his students botched the count. The final tally of escalation tokens in the game wasn�t 114, it was 116.

Boom, boom, boom.

# ? Oct 2, 2023 08:57

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

# ? Oct 2, 2023 10:05

Endman: May 18, 2010; That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even anime may die

Kaiserreich is hilarious because the developers obviously understand left wing politics in the Western world really well, which is why all of the post-communist-revolution countries in the West have eleventy different flavours of socialist party representing the entirety of the red portion of the spectrum of natural light.

Also Oswald Mosley is a �maximalist� socialist in their reality :allears:

# ? Oct 2, 2023 10:07

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Those so called professional wargames scan like total bullshit to me. Firstly its playing a boardgame without being allowed to read the manual. Im sure this will be explained as realistic, but the thing is that game definitely has a manual, which is far from realistic.

Secondly its just assumptions stacked on top of assumptions, firstly by the designers, and then by the players. "Its what the real Russians would do" lol and further lmao.

Thirdly it is entirely unclear what any of this poo poo is supposed to measure or demonstrate. The journalist, rightly, focuses a lot on the social dynamics of the Russian command. But then, if you had ran the exact same game with the exact same people but picked different rules you couldve had wildly different outcomes.

So what, really is the lesson here?

Even in the context of the game, what exactly are actionable takeaways for the participants?

Orange Devil has issued a correction as of 11:14 on Oct 2, 2023

# ? Oct 2, 2023 10:19

John Charity Spring: Nov 4, 2009; SCREEEEE

Endman posted:

Kaiserreich is hilarious because the developers obviously understand left wing politics in the Western world really well, which is why all of the post-communist-revolution countries in the West have eleventy different flavours of socialist party representing the entirety of the red portion of the spectrum of natural light.

Also Oswald Mosley is a �maximalist� socialist in their reality

Kaiserreich has a lot of baggage from its earliest versions which were very clearly made by people more interested in literature than history or politics, which is why people like Orwell and TE Lawrence got weirdly prominent roles and there's ancient events about Tolkien and so on. It was also very clearly done by people who bought into horseshoe theory and the historical 'syndicalists become fascists' stuff was mixed up with 'communists are the same as fascists'. From what I've seen the more recent developments have rowed back on this to some degree but there's a lot of inertia there

# ? Oct 2, 2023 10:31

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Orange Devil posted:

So what, really is the lesson here?

Even in the context of the game, what exactly are actionable takeaways for the participants?

I tend to broadly agree, and there's an element of STDH in the story, but something that stood out to me was that even in a situation where the exercise is being done under somewhat controlled circumstances, and even when it's just Westerners bringing in their own assumptions against other Westerners, they still can't help but escalate all the way to nuclear armageddon

the actionable takeaway here would be for a Chinese or Russian strategist to look at this and conclude that the Anglo-Americans and their lapdogs are going to end the world if you let them

# ? Oct 2, 2023 11:29

Endman: May 18, 2010; That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even anime may die

gradenko_2000 posted:

I tend to broadly agree, and there's an element of STDH in the story, but something that stood out to me was that even in a situation where the exercise is being done under somewhat controlled circumstances, and even when it's just Westerners bringing in their own assumptions against other Westerners, they still can't help but escalate all the way to nuclear armageddon

the actionable takeaway here would be for a Chinese or Russian strategist to look at this and conclude that the Anglo-Americans and their lapdogs are going to end the world if you let them

Remembering that Douglas MacArthur and Curtis LeMay existed, that last part sounds completely plausible to me

# ? Oct 2, 2023 12:10

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Orange Devil posted:

Brigade level grand strategy lol.

Supreme Ruler does this with battalions, and with no way to actually organize them.

Orange Devil posted:

Those so called professional wargames scan like total bullshit to me. Firstly its playing a boardgame without being allowed to read the manual. Im sure this will be explained as realistic, but the thing is that game definitely has a manual, which is far from realistic.

Secondly its just assumptions stacked on top of assumptions, firstly by the designers, and then by the players. "Its what the real Russians would do" lol and further lmao.

Thirdly it is entirely unclear what any of this poo poo is supposed to measure or demonstrate. The journalist, rightly, focuses a lot on the social dynamics of the Russian command. But then, if you had ran the exact same game with the exact same people but picked different rules you couldve had wildly different outcomes.

So what, really is the lesson here?

Even in the context of the game, what exactly are actionable takeaways for the participants?

They're mostly planning exercises so people can develop the skills of staff work. The actual scenarios, whatever, mostly it's about testing doctrine. Does everyone follow doctrine predictably so actions are coordinated even if communications break down? Does doctrine help rapid planning in a fluid situation? How quickly are orders written and passed along? How are orders interpreted? etc.

In one of the Japanese war games before iirc the DEI campaign, there was a physical fight during a war game where a carrier air group commander put one of the task force commanders in a headlock.

Frosted Flake has issued a correction as of 12:17 on Oct 2, 2023

# ? Oct 2, 2023 12:11

The Chad Jihad: Feb 24, 2007

TBH I always wanted to do one of those big wargames with all the roles

# ? Oct 2, 2023 12:52

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

The Millennium Challenge gets a lot of controversy over the allegation of the first-run results getting thrown out after Gen Ripper's shenanigans, but the IJN had their own proto-Millennium Challenge in that when they gamed-out the Midway operation, Nagumo's carrier force was virtually attacked from the northeast, just as Spruance historically would, resulting in severe damage to the Kido Butai, but they ignored that result and simply ran the plan again, on the basis that the Americans couldn't possibly come from that quadrant.

# ? Oct 2, 2023 13:05

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

The Chad Jihad posted:

TBH I always wanted to do one of those big wargames with all the roles

The Wargames Exhibit at the Canadian War Museum is on right now if you want to get a feel for it. There's some discussion about hosting an exercise as an event because of the amount of feedback like that, and given how closely involved CFC and CADTC are in it, that might be a great way to build on the exhibition's success.

gradenko_2000 posted:

The Millennium Challenge gets a lot of controversy over the allegation of the first-run results getting thrown out after Gen Ripper's shenanigans, but the IJN had their own proto-Millennium Challenge in that when they gamed-out the Midway operation, Nagumo's carrier force was virtually attacked from the northeast, just as Spruance historically would, resulting in severe damage to the Kido Butai, but they ignored that result and simply ran the plan again, on the basis that the Americans couldn't possibly come from that quadrant.

Was that the one with the brawl I'm thinking of?

Check out A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II if you haven't already

By 1941, Winston Churchill had come to believe that the outcome of World War II rested on the battle for the Atlantic. A grand strategy game was devised by Captain Gilbert Roberts and a group of ten Wrens (members of the Women's Royal Naval Service) assigned to his team in an attempt to reveal the tactics behind the vicious success of the German U-boats. Played on a linoleum floor divided into painted squares, it required model ships to be moved across a make-believe ocean in a manner reminiscent of the childhood game, Battleship. Through play, the designers developed "Operation Raspberry," a counter-maneuver that helped turn the tide of World War II.

Combining vibrant novelistic storytelling with extensive research, interviews, and previously unpublished accounts, Simon Parkin describes for the first time the role that women played in developing the Allied strategy that, in the words of one admiral, "contributed in no small measure to the final defeat of Germany." Rich with unforgettable cinematic detail and larger-than-life characters, A Game of Birds and Wolves is a heart-wrenching tale of ingenuity, dedication, perseverance, and love, bringing to life the imagination and sacrifice required to defeat the Nazis at sea.

It's about the Western Approaches Tactical Unit and how they developed all sorts of modern ASW techniques through playing a giant game. It's how they discovered U-Boats were making surface night attacks, for example. There was no evidence, at the time, but the outcome of their games suggested that it was happening. It turned out that they were right, it's how U-Boat aces like G�nther Prien were making their attacks, and the Allied countermeasures helped win the Battle of the Atlantic.

Frosted Flake has issued a correction as of 13:14 on Oct 2, 2023

# ? Oct 2, 2023 13:08

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

Orange Devil posted:

Those so called professional wargames scan like total bullshit to me. Firstly its playing a boardgame without being allowed to read the manual. Im sure this will be explained as realistic, but the thing is that game definitely has a manual, which is far from realistic.

Secondly its just assumptions stacked on top of assumptions, firstly by the designers, and then by the players. "Its what the real Russians would do" lol and further lmao.

Thirdly it is entirely unclear what any of this poo poo is supposed to measure or demonstrate. The journalist, rightly, focuses a lot on the social dynamics of the Russian command. But then, if you had ran the exact same game with the exact same people but picked different rules you couldve had wildly different outcomes.

So what, really is the lesson here?

Even in the context of the game, what exactly are actionable takeaways for the participants?

The take awaynfrom this is that mid level Western functionaries crave nuclear death. I remember people reporting about these types of events back during the Bush administration and they always ended in nuclear war

# ? Oct 2, 2023 13:27

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

Endman posted:

Also Oswald Mosley is a “maximalist” socialist in their reality

Yes all the real life fascists are socialists in Kaiserreich, unless they're national populists(socialists).

# ? Oct 2, 2023 13:40

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

KomradeX posted:

The take awaynfrom this is that mid level Western functionaries crave nuclear death. I remember people reporting about these types of events back during the Bush administration and they always ended in nuclear war

It's because, particularly when the media is there, demonstrating that you're a bold, risk taking, go-getter is a smarter career move than playing conservatively and "losing". That was sort of the genesis of the Schlieffen Plan. During German war games and staff exercises, going to war with both Russia and France led to all of these gloomy, pessimistic, defensive plans. In comes von Schlieffen who creates this audacious plan that could totally alter the strategic situation (if it worked), and he's celebrated for it immediately. It wasn't even really a fully developed plan,

"(Later historians) judged that the physical constraints of German, Belgian and French railways and the Belgian and northern French road networks made it impossible to move enough troops far enough and fast enough for them to fight a decisive battle if the French retreated from the frontier. "

but the fact that it was idk, a bold and unexpected way to achieve victory, transcended the actual physical limitations that staff planning is supposed to account for. As they say, "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". War games that have politicians or the media involved always end up in officers trying to make a name for themselves with razzle dazzle, because it's staff planning in the peacetime army, this is their vehicle to do it.

# ? Oct 2, 2023 13:41

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Frosted Flake posted:

Supreme Ruler does this with battalions, and with no way to actually organize them.

They're mostly planning exercises so people can develop the skills of staff work. The actual scenarios, whatever, mostly it's about testing doctrine. Does everyone follow doctrine predictably so actions are coordinated even if communications break down? Does doctrine help rapid planning in a fluid situation? How quickly are orders written and passed along? How are orders interpreted? etc.

In one of the Japanese war games before iirc the DEI campaign, there was a physical fight during a war game where a carrier air group commander put one of the task force commanders in a headlock.

Then you wouldnt want to randomize rules and instead have everyone perform their actual role to see if they suck though.

# ? Oct 2, 2023 13:52

PerniciousKnid: Sep 13, 2006

Orange Devil posted:

Those so called professional wargames scan like total bullshit to me.

This sounds like SUSD playing the Watch the Skies megagame, but less educational and less competent.

# ? Oct 2, 2023 14:18

Typo: Aug 19, 2009; Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

gradenko_2000 posted:

The Millennium Challenge gets a lot of controversy over the allegation of the first-run results getting thrown out after Gen Ripper's shenanigans, but the IJN had their own proto-Millennium Challenge in that when they gamed-out the Midway operation, Nagumo's carrier force was virtually attacked from the northeast, just as Spruance historically would, resulting in severe damage to the Kido Butai, but they ignored that result and simply ran the plan again, on the basis that the Americans couldn't possibly come from that quadrant.

the officer in charge of the wargame literally just changed the dice rolls that said the Japanese carriers got sunk by the attacking airplanes

later on he resurrected sunk Japanese ships for future operations

the IJN officer playing the party of the Americans protested about how that's BS and the games are rigged but the dude in charge was just like nah deal with it bro lol

Typo has issued a correction as of 14:57 on Oct 2, 2023

# ? Oct 2, 2023 14:50

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Orange Devil posted:

Then you wouldnt want to randomize rules and instead have everyone perform their actual role to see if they suck though.

Getting to be in charge or show the wide range of your dazzling skills to the press and your peers is part of that as well.

"Would I rather be a planner on Bde artillery staff or a ~~division~~, ~~corps~~, army commander, now that the reporter from the Globe and Mail is here?"

:thunk:

# ? Oct 2, 2023 14:58

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Also there's the fact that it's a game with a win condition. Don't know about the rest of y'all but when I play a game I try to maximize my chance to win using all available options within the rules. So if I'm playing Twilight Struggle and it's the late era and I'm behind on points you bet your rear end I'm going to make risky plays that could easily force me in a Defcon trap (leading to nuclear war and me losing) because getting lucky and avoiding those while having my risks pay off is my only remaining chance to win, and also I'm not actually risking billions of lives.

Orange Devil has issued a correction as of 15:15 on Oct 2, 2023

# ? Oct 2, 2023 15:07

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

I have bad news about war being a game.

# ? Oct 2, 2023 15:08

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Orange Devil posted:

Also there's the fact that it's a game with a win condition. Don't know about the rest of y'all but when I play a game I try to maximize my chance to win using all available options within the tules. So if I'm playing Twilight Struggle and it's the late era and I'm behind on points you bet your rear end I'm going to make risky plays that could easily force me in a Defcon trap (leading to nuclear war and me losing) because getting lucky and avoiding those while having my risks pay off is my only remaining chance to win, and also I'm not actually risking billions of lives.

No, I liked doing the artillery staffwork the way I really would, because I am not a power gamer, but a role-player.

It's why I play on the 24/7 Immersive Brigade Headquarters Life RPG server in GTA Online.

# ? Oct 2, 2023 15:08

supersnowman: Oct 3, 2012

Frosted Flake posted:

The Wargames Exhibit at the Canadian War Museum is on right now if you want to get a feel for it. There's some discussion about hosting an exercise as an event because of the amount of feedback like that, and given how closely involved CFC and CADTC are in it, that might be a great way to build on the exhibition's success.

I wasn't too impressed with the war games exhibit but I think a hosted exercise event would be really nice to show how those games can be used for more than mere entertainment.

# ? Oct 2, 2023 15:49

PerniciousKnid: Sep 13, 2006

Orange Devil posted:

Also there's the fact that it's a game with a win condition. Don't know about the rest of y'all but when I play a game I try to maximize my chance to win using all available options within the rules. So if I'm playing Twilight Struggle and it's the late era and I'm behind on points you bet your rear end I'm going to make risky plays that could easily force me in a Defcon trap (leading to nuclear war and me losing) because getting lucky and avoiding those while having my risks pay off is my only remaining chance to win, and also I'm not actually risking billions of lives.

If they wanted realistic results they should've promised to kill everyone in the room if they crossed the escalation threshold.

Edit: Or break all their smartphones, probably achieves the same result.

# ? Oct 2, 2023 16:26

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 20, 2024 22:21

FrancisFukyomama: Feb 4, 2019

do military war games also use hexes and unit chits the way our shut in nerd war games do

# ? Oct 2, 2023 16:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Strategy & Wargames - middlebrow autodidact "history buffs" who yearn to pull levers

«‹›162 »