Frankly, I've always had a powerful resentment for any efforts to "solve" games. To me, the very attempt cheapens the game. It turns a work of art into a dry mathematical formula. It's like writing a computer program that produces convincingly Bach-like music, then claiming Bach has been "solved." Those who buy into such drivel may go so far as to claim that some of the computer-generated Bach is far superior to anything J. S. Bach himself ever composed.

The Battle of Gettysburg is a memorable event in history--one that cost many lives and has ever since been deeply symbolic and meaningful, to the point where the very battlefield has been called "hallowed." Any wargame that covers that battle is as much a work of art as the Franklin Mint's Civil War chess set (which has a map of Gettysburg superimposed on the board); and it's a reverent extension of all that the actual battle was and all it means. It ought to be a thing of beauty, something to be appreciated and respected. Yet the puzzle- solving wargamers you describe do none of that. They don't give any of it a moment's thought. Instead they see only the game pieces, numerical values, rules of play, and victory conditions; and armed with that data, they set out to "solve" Gettysburg.

Well, the Battle of Gettysburg is not something that can be solved.

Has *anyone* mastered PB or SL? Lots of very smart people devote their lives to striving toward mastery in chess or bridge, and few of them achieve it. So it's hard for me to imagine some wargamer out there smugly saying, "Ah, I've been through all the PB scenarios so many times that I can always play an optimal game. Got PB under my belt; time to move on."

But maybe there are such people; I don't know. Speaking just for myself, I wish I could at least say I've mastered tic-tac-toe; but the truth is I lost a game to my niece not too long ago. And I'll probably blunder and lose again someday.

Thirty years ago, I had fond dreams of mastering chess, and I put some serious study into it. Today I'm still a novice, and the best I feel I can hope for is to break through to intermediate level--but I may never accomplish that.

In the early 70s, my wargaming friend Lenny wanted us to stick to Waterloo till we'd mastered it, before buying any new games. But we figured it'd take years, and probably decades, to master Waterloo. So we got impatient and started buying new games right away. I'm quite sure I'm still miles and miles from mastering even Waterloo, much less any other wargame.

Yet I did lust after ever greater complexity. I couldn't wait to get past Waterloo to Bulge, and past Bulge to 1914 or Anzio. The more "sophisticated" (i.e., complex) a wargame was, the more I wanted it. But certainly *not* because I needed a greater problem-solving challenge! Far from it. Risk and Stratego were still plenty challenging to me, and I had no doubt that chess or Waterloo could continue to challenge me for the rest of my life. No, I didn't want or need more challenge. I had more than enough of that on my hands already.

What I wanted was more of what some derisively call "chrome." I wanted a richer, more elaborate simulation (or re-creation or representation) of military engagements. If Waterloo was a sketch with a few broad brush strokes of color, Anzio was a realistic portrait. Waterloo lightly hinted at what the 1815 battle was like; Anzio depicted in some detail what the Italian campaign was like. Thus, Anzio would engage my imagination more strongly than Waterloo; Anzio would pull me in imaginatively and enable me to vicariously experience more of warfare than Waterloo ever could. It was the difference between a thin children's picture book and a five-hundred-page footnoted academic treatise on the same subject. Or the difference between a Saturday- morning cartoon and a full-length, first-rate movie.

Complex wargames may or may not have presented any greater problem-solving challenges than simpler ones (I wouldn't know). Complex wargames may not have been any more accurate in simulating warfare (I probably wouldn't know that either). But complex wargames were invariably more substantial--i.e., richer in data and detail. Thus they provided a more immersive imaginative experience of war.

That's why I was a complexity hound

On an intellectual level, my pursuit of complexity was wholly dis dishonest. When I was ten or eleven and losing to my dad at checkers all the time, I solved the problem by learning to play chess. My dad didn't know how to play, so I figured I was one up on him just by virtue of knowing the rules.

But I sucked at chess. So in high school I learned wargames-more and more complex wargames. That entitled me to look down my nose at members of the chess club and their "simplistic" game.

I was (and still am) terrible at playing games. I can't make or execute a good plan for the life of me. I'm unimaginative and inflexible, and I never bother to look ahead or consider what my opponent will likely do. But as it happens, I'm great at rote memorization--and I enjoy it. Thus, learning the rules to complicated wargames was fairly easy for me. Over the years it became an end in itself. Late in my wargaming career I spent ten or fifteen years with SL/ASL, and it was perfect for me: There were always new rules to learn (if only because I'd forgotten some between games). I never actually liked *playing* ASL all that much (actually I never did play a non-solitaire game of it), but I loved *learning* it--and the learning never seemed to end.

All things considered, monster wargames might be ideal for me. I could be perfectly content with one of those enormous things set up in my basement, just immersing myself in it for an hour here, a couple hours there, shoving pieces around and watching situations develop. And delving into the rulebook frequently in search of some obscure rule. I'd probably be happier doing that than playing another wargamer in The Russian Campaign, where I'd have to think and plan too much for my liking.

I guess that was more than two cents' worth. I'd better quit.