Are you a commander or a controller? A strange question you might think but is it really? Let's just take a look at what I will call the typical picture of a wargamer and see whether the question is really that strange. A lone player, or even a couple of players, hunched over a large table with a flexible rule in one hand, dice readily available, tables and charts at the ready and a rule book close by. A player moves blocks of painted lead model soldiers across a terrain of cloth, sand, and polystyrene to a specified distance. This is according to his orders in a defined set of rules and the throwing of some dice at appropriate intervals. Our player has a God-like perspective of the whole battlefield seeing all the forces of both sides arrayed, and is in total control of everything his army does. All orders are generated at C-in-C level of command and transmitted to the whole army, which moves like a well-oiled machine in perfect unison. How's that for a stereotype? Consider for just a moment how command works in the real world. Command is, of necessity, a hierarchical structure with multiple levels of command. The commander of an entire army has neither the time nor the capacity to command the movement and action of every regiment under his control because this is real-time and the battle is being fought over a front measuring, quite possibly, many miles. His own field of vision is extremely limited and really tells him very little. He only really knows what the reports of his subordinates; staff officers and couriers tell him so he has no total picture of events. His information may be contradictory, out of date and incomplete but he issues commands, or orders if you prefer, to his immediate subordinates based on this. He takes this incomplete jigsaw puzzle and constructs from it what he believes are the necessary orders for the execution of his original coherent battle plan. The extent of his knowledge is governed by reports received and the perspective placed on events by the reporters themselves. They in turn receive orders and issue more detailed ones to their subordinates adding, even subconsciously, their own perspective and so it goes on through every level of the chain of command. At every level of command there will inevitably be frustration because, for a variety of reasons, subordinates will not perform as they were ordered or as they were intended. There are a variety of reasons for this. Commands may be misunderstood, orders get lost, units cannot be found, units are not where they should be or are so battered they are no longer a viable fighting force. No commander can be absolutely sure units even still exist, let alone their location or fighting capability. Exactly where units are supposed to be is really a matter of conjecture since all the time the clock is ticking and events are overtaking orders. The further back in history you go the longer communication takes, the more restrictive your view of the battlefield. Consider how far you can see with the naked eye. That is how much of a battlefield you can see and the extent of control you can exert. As you move to control a given unit you lose control of others. Remember the battle does not pause whilst you exert detail control of a single unit, it carries on. The arrival of strategy wargames on the PC have, over time, introduced 'fog of war' into the equation where you can't see the enemy forces until line of sight dictates. This has resolved a part of the problem but does not really address the control aspect in any true depth. You may not be able to see the enemy but you still control every one of your own units. The newer real-time strategy games do offer some command problems by allowing levels of command and ensuring the whole battle proceeds in spite of what you the player are doing. There are very few games out in the market place, which have really attempted to offer a more realistic view of command, be they computer or Boardgame. Rule sets such as PIQUET are starting to address command issues but they are still in the minority in the rule set arena. Including the confusion factor into a game along with the attendant frustration would greatly increase the realism. It would ultimately add to the game not detract from it yet it is rarely, if ever, done. It is my experience that the gamers themselves must take a large share of responsibility for this. They are the most avid defenders of absolute control in the games that they play even to the point of demanding its presence from the designers. Whilst possessing vast historical detail about the battles being played they fall into the trap of controlling and not commanding. Control is all about detail and possibly it's the detail that they revel in. Command cannot offer this kind of detail or its inherent certainty, though it presents a lot of information much of it may be contradictory and vague. It also suffers from periods of inactivity whilst awaiting events to unfold. This appears to be an anathema to many gamers who have predilection to do and not to think. The issuing of commands to subordinates who may or may not be obeyed or even interpreted properly is actually a major factor in the real world. Yes it is tough to retain a coherent battle plan when your units seem to be following one their own. Command is full of uncertainty, frustration, stress, anger and even anguish but when the plan succeeds in spite of all this you really can have a satisfied smile on your face. Solo gamers have used mechanisms for years to introduce unpredictability into their games which includes a lot of the command processes so they at least know all about the frustration factor. I am not saying that the introduction of what could be called a command perspective is an easy matter but I would plead for it to be given some serious thought. The Computer Games industry is slowly coming along with real-time strategy games that allow for the player to place themselves at a specified level of command and the Artificial Intelligence plays the rest. These do have a way to go yet but at least the designers are having a go. Boardgames have been around for a long time and to a degree suffer from that very fact. The complex interactions involved between command, control and communications would be no easy matter to include into Boardgames but unless someone thinks about it how will we ever know? If reading the above your passions are inflamed then it has done its job. If it has given you pause for thought about how you wargame, again it has achieved its goal. If you want to disagree, which is your right, then write and tell me, and you will be contributing to the pages of Lone Warrior. Above all remember that this is your hobby with the objective of having fun. Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #130 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com