Folded DAK Maps

I am thoroughly enjoying the DAK experience, but like many others I have limited playing space. Here's a tip for others based on my experience at limiting map space for those who aren't bashful about map folding. Photocopy all the miscellaneous tables in the sea areas of the maps, and make little one-sheet paste ups of the parts needed. Then fold Map B to show only rows 32-60, and fold map C to show only rows 24-47 [Ed. note: not 49.xx?]. Now put the two northern, folded edges alongside one another, and you got a playing area of 560 x 730 mm (about 22 x 29 inches), even smaller than one standard Gamers map.

To handle the desert oases, I use Post-It notes as off-map boxes, placed at the southern end of each map: Siwa/Ain Zeitun for map C, Giarabub for map B. On each Post-It, draw lines in the direction of places one might want to go to/from the oases, place the names of the places at arrowheads on the post-it, and then write the number of truck MPs alongside each arrow (now serving as an unstylish road).

By distilling Maps B and C down into less than one map in size, you might be able to play some of the bigger scenarios without too much trouble. Another advantage of this map arrangement is that now the Allied and Axis players can sit opposite one another instead of alongside one another, and save on lateral neck strain.

Before you do this, be sure and spread out all the maps together somewhere to appreciate the vastness of it all and the vast expanse of desert to the south of where the game action usually is. If you find yourself forgetting about all the desert hexes when playing in this condensed mode, try buying the soundtrack to The English Patient and playing that.

[Ed. note: "Post-It" is either a trademark or registered trademark of the 3M company.

Computer

Let me begin by saying that when I turned my old XT into a 386SX, I spent about $1,000 upgrading to what would have cost me $2,000 or more to buy off the shelf. But after all the work my system was obsolete the day I finished putting in the last Seagate drive. I have called several servers in my area and a) since I have no CD ROM drive they cannot give me software (give? I mean sell), b) my 2400 baud modem won't even get me into the local library catalogue any more (9600 required). now I could spend my money on a new, immediately to become obsolete system or on Gamers games. Which seems preferable to you?

Ed note: Easy question! Hey, those games you bought 7 or 10 years ago still play fine. You want to upgrade them to the latest series rules, you can do that too.

In any case, I've never seen your web site, nor do I get e-mail from Dean. No, I am dependent on the U. S. Postal Service and, of course, Operations.

Oh, your getting together with Kevin Zucker: OSG's new edition of Napoleon at Bay has better pieces, a redesigned map, a very good senes of changes to the player's aids, and a spiffed up set of rules.

Ed note: I'd say a significantly revised set of rules. Note also that throughout its nomadic publication history, NaB and the Campaigns of Napoleon series have always been unmistakably Kevin's.

The relationship between Kevin's design and, for example, the NBS is approximately comparable to the relationship between the OCS and the TCS. In any case, a good snag on The Gamers' part for the consortium.

"Dumb and Dumber" may be the most truthful article I have ever read. What might have been added to the bold type in the editorial is the statement that "the best way to learn the nuances of a new system is to play someone who can humiliate you, and learn by watching how he is whupping you." Now that takes a certain amount of detachment, but all us old "veterans" (farts) ought to be beyond our teenage egos. Furthermore, what do you learn about either the system or the battle being simulated by always playing someone who doesn't quite "get it''?

Finally, I notices that Borodino has been removed from the NBS list in "Up & Coming." Now the dropping of such a much needed project is a blow to the fragile fabric of my reality. Must I look until my death at the bleak four color of GDW's La Bataille de Moscowa? Horrible; horrible! If you had any honor you would send me a copy of Aspern-Essling for free.

Do not despair. Borodino is not necessarily a goner. It's just that the original submission on this topic needs a good deal more work before it makes it to the stage where it can show up in "Up & Coming." And if I hear any more cracks paraphrased from Hamlet about GDW Moskowa, I'll have show up at HomerCon with a Martial Enterprises' La Bataille de la Moskowa, complete with 2-color maps. Here's a quote from the original cover sheet: "This battalion regimental game comes complete with four 22x28 inch maps, over 1000 units, rules and charts. $14.95." Those were 1975 dollars, of course.

Simulation of What?

After reading your (Dean's) Out Brief in Operations 27 several times, I think that your premise is a bit flawed. Quite simply (in my humble opinion) any simulation, no matter how detailed, ultimately contains only those elements that the designer deemed important.

Thus the successful player (or user) has learned to manage those elements that are simulated but has learned nothing about those elements that the designer left out. To use your air game as an example, a player who succeeds in the game has not learned to fly a plane. He has, however, learned to manipulate the factors and relationships that you included in your spreadsheet. To the extent that all parties involved agree that those factors capture something related to flying a plane they may have learned something about flying, but ultimately that depends upon a sense of subjective agreement and not some kind of objective reality.

Clearly, taking my position to its logical conclusion is also flawed because there are a number of real world flight simulators that are actually being used to train pilots. However, there are also pilots who say that a lesson has not been learned until it can be implemented while the pilot's body is subjected to several-G forces, an element left out of most flight simulators.

I recognize that this is just the old Holy War about designing for cause vs. designing for effect wrapped up in new clothes. By definition, we start out agreeing to disagree.

The computer game industry seems to be quite happy in making a distinction between a wargame and a simulation (although they often have common elements) and using a different set of expectations and evaluation criteria for each genre. Such a distinction would help establish your desire.

I will note, however, that computer simulations need to establish up front what is being simulated, and they are evaluated on that criteria. What, for example, is being simulated in an Antietam game? If there are rules that limit the Union player's actions because of the character flaws of General McClellan, has the successful player demonstrated skill in utilizing a large army or has the player demonstrated skill in micro-managing an army through its inept commander? Is either "the battle of Antietam"?

I will be much more prepared to accept the simulation label as applied to boardgames when they can deal with some of the following issues: Time and space boardgamers have accurate maps and detailed knowledge of the cost to move from place to place; Staff friction -- boardgamers make their decisions at one level of command and carry them out at another level. Subordinates consequently do what was expected and with knowledge of their place in an overall plan; and Historical hindsight -- boardgamers know that Lee is a better commander than McClellan but that Lee has only half of McClellan's strength and base their expectations accordingly.

Finally, I will note that the simulation label has had the most success when the thing being simulated has been an object, typically manipulated by one person. Additionally, the object behaves according to understood and agreed upon models from physics. The accuracy of the simulation can then be evaluated in terms of the underlying physics.

This is not nearly as coherent as your Out Brief, but I couldn't let it pass without saying something.

Dean Responds:

I'd like to thank Jamie and the others who took the time to respond to my OPS 27 Outbrief (it is always nice to know that what I write is both being read and invokes some kind of response). I do disagree that what I was talking about was some sort of re-hash of the "Design for Cause / Design for Effect" argument others have used to try to justify their design decisions in hindsight (as if they really thought about such things before the design decisions were called to task after release...in my world, that is called "rationalization" at best, and "excuses" at worst).

I see no point in going down that road (that wasn't my intention in the editorial, nor is it now) and I have even less interest in running about worrying about "simulation" vs. "game". I've written my thoughts on that issue before and do not want to waste more type-space on that matter.

Since neither of these fits well with what I did want to say in that editorial, I must not have expressed myself clearly at all.

I did not intend to say that game players should "experience" the event being simulated (that the event being simulated is -- somehow -- real), or that their playing of a good game should be a subshtute for real experience in the subject matter at hand. No, what I called for was an evaluation of how natural are the tools available to the player and what the player learns if these tools are not natural.

For example, an operational game might show "increased reasources" by some sort of Activity Point the player assigns to his units. Is this what real commanders do -- assign Activity Points? Another game might allow the player to build up supplies, establish credible logistics and replacement pools, and provide for more unit activity by assigning roles to different formations based on the desired plan. Sure, a critic could say that both players are doing the same thing -- just with different levels of detail, and in a sense they are correct, but my point is which is more 'natural' and which allows the player more depth of understanding into what goes into real operations. I think the answer is obvious.

To directly show that this is not a "cause" vs. "effect" argument in new clothes, look at tank-gun fire. To do so naturally, one must look at what the commander can do about it. At best (given the level involved) he can identify the targets to be engaged. That's it. The "cause school" would have us run through all the slope calculations, angle of hit, and soon in some effort to get a 'better' answer.

The "effect school" would just roll the dice to see if the tank is dead. In the above paragrah, my "natural" system would have agreed with the "cause" people, in this tank example, the natural method agrees with the "effects" guys.

The attitude I'm trying to show fits into neither camp, both camps, or only one of them based on the issue at hand. For CWB natural effects, take a careful read of David Newport's article in this issue...if you didn't already know he was talking about a wargame, would it be obvious to you he wasn't talking about real life? That sense is what determines 'natural' design.

In my air game's sense (ACM for want of a name, now available to be downloaded as freeware from the web page created by Chris Volny), the goal was to give the player the natural controls over his situation he has in real life -- stick, rudder, and throttle. Does he learn how to recycle the hydraulic system on a P-51? No. But, when he gets in trouble in his bird, he doesn't realign his "flight points" to do something about it. Instead he jerks his controls. Nor does he when lining up a shot position his aircraft precisely to avoid table breaks with the minimum of effort. Instead he tries to get his aircraft aligned with the target the very best he can. That is, he wants "best alignment", not "aligned good enough." Two very different attitudes.

This is far more natural than what is available out there. I suggest that those who don't think G-force effects on the pilot are not taken into accounted to take a look. No, you don't physically feel what it is like, but you'd better believe it affects your ability to fly your plane. This isn't "most flight simulators" by any stretch of the imagination.

Many times I must avoid calling a spade a spade to avoid incensing some of my competitors. I'm not allowed to really say what I feel about my product vs. somebody else's. I see no reason to waste my time playing coy about this air game, it is better than anything else out there (my opinion, and in this case the only one that matters). I can do this as it is not my company's product, rather it is something I developed for myself. I don't have to wait for the public to pass judgment on it as it doesn't belong to them...it belongs to me. If others are bothered by this self-confidence: Get over it! This game wasn't designed for anybody else; I'm just willing to share it to those who want to take a look.