I enjoyed the write-up in the March 1999 Strategist on how the power of technology might be used to complement those areas in which existing games are somewhat unsatisfying to some participants. I have come to similar interests from other directions.

Anything that substitutes for dice look-up tables needs to have user-friendly logic auditability by other players - so that might let out a programmable calculator, which I consider to be much more portable than a "portable PC."

SCENARIO GENERATION

One bunch of gamers in some kind of campaign game, not played face-to-face, creates interactions of forces that could be the scenario generator for another bunch of gamers who meet face to face, but the campaign gamers have a lot of emotional baggage with the outcome & objectives in which they want to weigh down the face to face group, who in turn want scenarios in which any side could win, which is why I believe matrix games are a better source of scenario generation, outside of computer models. The campaign gamers rate of creating scenarios in need of resolution is not going to handshake well with the rate at which the face-to-face groups go through new scenarios, which is a design challenge familiar to other kinds of game design.

The hunger of face-to-face gamers for meaningful scenarios is not going to be satisfied by what passes for today's computer games industry, but perhaps if we look at the computer games which are considered to be hopeless today & thus available for a song from 5 & dime type places - do any contain capabilities for incorporation in a club campaign?

There's also the issue of whether some shareware program is practical on a spectrum of different PCs - it might be simpler to seek a web site that generates scenarios.

Consider a computer game in which it is possible to cheat results of a confrontation of forces. This renders the game almost useless as a traditional challenge, but this could be used in conjunction with FTF games played using the scenario it creates, then use the cheat to key in the results of the actual gathering.

SUPPLIES

When a military unit has lost contact with its supply line, how long can it survive? This is an issue of its capacity to carry around essential supplies, and morale is factored in. Supply lines might pass through areas infiltrated by snipers, raiders, traitors, and terrain hassles like pot holes & mud. Thus, the speed at which supplies flow to where needed is affected by enemy action, weather, road conditions, traffic jams, ability of drivers to get distracted or lost. In the real world, no one wants to be the quartermaster, except embezzlers, handling any kind of book-keeping for this kind of interest.

But, if the human interaction with supply in a game can be made relatively painless, then gamers might be more enthusiastic about incorporating that reality. Consider a very simple computer model in which territories or areas are coded as totally under the control of one side or the other, and with various degrees of grey in-between, including some terrain codes related to how easy it is for infiltrators to be hidden from normal patrols. The players would not get the precise numbers from the computer on the degree to which an area they think is under their control is in fact infiltrated, only some figure on the proportion of supply vehicles & supply convoys that disappeared, were found looted with no survivors, arrived late with a tale of ambush, arrived on time with no hassles.

The map might be reprinted every turn, with copies to each side that are not identical - one side adds a bridge, which the other side does not get to see until they send reconnaissance scouts into that area, whose odds favor seeing the bridge, avoid fatal contact with enemy, actually get their information back out again. Computer can handle resource management with delayed intelligence reports. Can it handle simple road math? Players designate which areas move into which areas with what objectives & computer informs humans when table top scenario has been created between units above some size that it resolves.

After battle, victors have option of sticking around next turn to pick up weapons etc. dropped by losers, which may not be interchangeable with yours, depending on historical period (training, ammo sizes) This sort of thing may be easier to implement by a pure umpire system, in which the areas are color coded, or are a grid of percentiles adjusted by influx of various kinds of forces - each round pick a different supply line & roll one dice for each section some convoy passes through - is the dice greater than the percent of trouble - it makes if is it lower - it is wiped out is it equal - it stops there until next turn and tries to continue.