The Unconventional Wargamer

I just started wargaming about 5 years ago, and not "classicaly" trained as most of you guys are but this hobby really got me into history. Yea and I got it bad. So as I play these games I typically dont play like an old school gamer and I screw up a lot, but sometimes it's pretty funny how my crazy ideas work. I roll the worst dice you have ever seen, but I can always blame it on my leaders :)

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Posted by Tanks Alot

17 May 2011

Tanks Alot

(charlescab)

United States
Fort Mill
South Carolina

www.facebook.com/HistoricalBoardGames

One of my favorite mechanics of a game is the game within a game. Many games just have a point blank objective and you just try and get there and you win/lose, but I really like when the game turns into several mini games. Some examples of this are Twilight Struggle, Washington's War, Founding Fathers, and even some block games like Julius Caesar. Hearts and Minds Vietnam seems to have a very similar mechanic, I only played half of one game and it seemed very hard as the Americans, but I really liked it

The shifting objectives. What makes this interesting, which goes along great with my lack of gaming strategy is most people think about the full frontal assault. I really like trying to come up with a creative way to handle a situation that just throws my opponent off, sometimes the fact is I don't know the historical tactic and doing what I would do as a general. Hence the name "Unconventional gamer given to my by my friend Christian Walter as we played a game, which I saw as a nice way of saying, "You have no idea what to do do you?"

It is amazing how the same game is played so different by different opponents. Dos De Mayo is a simple game that seems to have a straight forward strategy but it can be played in several different ways. I've heard a few people complain about this game as "I can't win as the Spanish" or I can't win as the French and my first thought is you need to change opponents. We all learn from each other. Twilight Struggle is one of the best examples of this. You get that feeling that "I have no idea what to do" and you just do something. I am not the best strategists to put it mildly, but I just love these games. And seeing some of the moves I have seen on the cardboard is like a work of art sometimes.

6 Comments

Tue May 17, 2011 2:40 pm

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Mark Buetow

(Malacandra)

United States
Du Quoin
Illinois

Best game company ever?

GMT Games, of course!

I get what you're saying here. There's more than just the whole game; there are parts of it going on where you have to deal with different goals. I like in Washington's war how you have to do some fighting but the point of the game isn't the fighting so much as the political situation. Twilight Struggle's a constant zoom in and zoom out--look at the world, then zoom in to Asia; zoom out again and then focus on South America. And you'll be punished if you're looking in the wrong direction or if you're zoomed in at the wrong time!

I'm not sure my first thought would be to "change opponents" if you're doing poorly. More likely you need to play better. My friend's son is an amazingly good gamer but I've been doing a better job of beating him at Combat Commander when we play by learning to play better.

My favorites are Combat Commander and Fighting Formations. The tactical games give you all sorts of things to concentrate on without losing sight of the overall objectives, whatever they may be.

Good post!

Posted Tue May 17, 2011 2:58 pm
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Tanks Alot

(charlescab)

United States
Fort Mill
South Carolina

www.facebook.com/HistoricalBoardGames

I agree Mike. Ive been playing more Combat Commander Europe and Pacific lately and I love the constant changing of plans.
As far as my comment goes for changing opponents, I didnt mean it the way it sounded, but its always good to play the game with different opponents to get different strategy ideas. Some strategies stay in the same "box". I actually didn't like Twilight Struggle the first 3 times I played it. I was totally lost, and I found a guy who wanted to learn the game and we ended up walking through a very tense game, and it clicked. So changing opponents for a single game can sometimes help you back up and look at a game from a different perspective

Posted Tue May 17, 2011 3:27 pm
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John Di Ponio

(JohnnyD)

United States
Warren
Michigan

Couldn't of said it better Tanks! I really like these types of games. Like you and Mark, I really enjoy Combat Commander but I have really taken to Fighting Formations as of late.

There are times when I do feel lost in games just due to the massive amounts of options, or sometimes, lack there of, trying to cover all my objectives. These are the times I really appreciate a good design and all the effort that went into creating it!

Posted Tue May 17, 2011 4:00 pm
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Byron Collins

(frontlinegeneral)

United States
Suffolk
Virginia

Very cool, Charles. I like this quote esp.--

charlescab wrote:

And seeing some of the moves I have seen on the cardboard is like a work of art sometimes.

Posted Tue May 17, 2011 4:28 pm
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Russ Williams

(russ)

Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk

I agree completely about the usefulness of playing versus different opponents. Not only does it avoid strategy tunnel vision / groupthink / whatever you want to call it and help break you out of a style rut, it also is a useful way to verify that you're not screwing up or forgetting some rules.

Posted Tue May 17, 2011 7:13 pm
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Lawrence Hung

(Lawrence Hung)

Hong-Kong
Wan Chai
Hong Kong

At times of finding wargamers which are so few avaliable, changing opponents is a kind of luxuary. I'd like to play games whose design gives you many options, but not too many like some Euro designs, to choose from and yet every time you would feel your decisions would likely to give different results. A case in point is Jena 20 I played recently with Kenneth. Jena 20 The game is so good that we played the game twice in a row over Vassal in several weeks. The game keeps us from making decisions from time to time, ending differently with victory going to the French and Prussian once each. Other cases include A Most Dangerous Time: Japan in Chaos, 1570-1584and Warriors of God, both are designed by Japanese who seem to be very good at the chaos theory. There is no "conventional way" so to speak but to react to the developing situations on the board constantly. Another game that would give you wildly different strategic options is Stalin's War You can by all means don't go the historical way like Hitler did. The flow of the game can be entirely different from the history but the story it tells is plausible for sure.

Edited Tue May 31, 2011 5:34 pm
Posted Tue May 31, 2011 5:33 pm
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