Fair enough. I'll admit that during my wargaming years I did learn some historical tidbits. I didn't know who Ney or Soult or Jaquinot were until I played Waterloo; I didn't know the relative speed and effectiveness of a T-34 vs a Panther until I played SL/ASL. And playing Gettysburg certainly helped me memorize the look of the battlefield and who arrived where when; so ever since, reading narratives of that battle has been more meaningful to me. In some specific (albeit very superficial) ways, I do believe wargaming can enhance the study of military history.

Players should bear in mind, of course, that ultimately they're just games. You can't trust ASL to be teaching you true lessons on WWII tactics; some of the lessons will be faulty--and as you read more, you'll probably end up laughing at some of what ASL presents. But as long as you know that, then I say: the main reason I play ASL is not to learn anything. The main reason is that it is damn fun.

Some people want to learn history, and others want to command units. That's a good point, and I think you're right up to a point. As a matter of fact, I have often argued the point. I even wrote an article about it (published in Historical Gamer magazine a while back). Frankly, I don't like wargames with command-control and limited intelligence rules; I like being omniscient and having complete control over my units. When I'm playing a game about the battle of Stalingrad, I want to see where everybody is and what they're doing---because to me it's a little like reading a book or watching a documentary: I'm there to learn what happened where and when; and how am I supposed to learn that if all the enemy forces are hidden from my view and the rules limit me to issuing a few odd orders that may or may not be carried out?

But what I realized after a while is that wargames are never really like books or documentaries. Unless players are just using the game components to replay the historical moves (which nobody ever does), the game is fiction, not history. And why should I care to have a grand overview of a fictional battle? What am I really going to learn from that? Maybe some superficial points about how far a gun can shoot or how fast a vehicle can move, but that's about it.

So, unless a wargame is going to replay history as a teaching device, its only possible value as a simulation is to give players a taste of military command. Any wargame that doesn't try to do that is ultimately just like chess or backgammon: just a fun and challenging pastime which happens to have some military-history chrome superimposed on it).

What did I move on to?

Simpler games. Games that didn't demand so much time and effort. If all a game can be is fun and challenging (and not very valuable as an educational device), then I'm quite happy with backgammon, dominoes, and other classic games. And DBA, when I'm in the mood for a war-game.

Back when I first gave up ASL, I still had a closet full of wargames. I made up my mind to keep only the ones that I could refresh my memory on, set up, and be playing within a half hour, after letting the game sit on the shelf for six months. If it took longer than 30 minutes to review the rules and set up the game, it went into the attic. I ended up keeping a couple Smithsonian titles, VITP, and Up Front (but I fudged a little on UF just because I liked it).

The trouble with that approach was that I never got around to playing any of the games I kept. They just weren't as satisfying as the complex games and monsters had been. It seems that for a wargame to really be fulfilling, it has to be either pretty big or pretty complicated. If it's not, pretty soon you end up saying, "Gee, I might just as well be playing chess or dominoes or something."

So finally, that's where I turned--back to the classics. In my wargaming days, I believed a game could be much more than just a game. Now I'm back to believing a game is just a game. So I tend to stick to the time-honored favorites these days.