One of the hardest elements to define in wargame design must be the victory conditions (VCs). I write this because VCs dictate players' actions seemingly like no other design element -- rules, terrain, forces, etc. I was re-reading Lee Forester's articles on Maneuver Warfare in the TCS and I came up against what he professed to be components to be considered when practicing MW: victory conditions, namely those of GD '40.

This is an extract of his article (Operations 18, p. 16) illustrating what I am most against: "Control of Stonne is critical. Without it you cannot win. As a corollary, if you deny your opponent control of Stonne, he cannot win. It follows that each player should keep in his plans the possibility of preserving a raiding force to prevent his opponent from winning."

What seems to be presented here as a viable strategy appears to be a most "gamey" tactic to me. I cannot imagine any real commander saying to the commanding HQ: "Not to worry if the enemy controls the objective all day during which he can observe the Meuse crossings; I intend to infiltrate a platoon late in the afternoon, denying them victory." I am sorry: this does not compute in my book. Presumably either side would use Stonne for artillery spotting, supply head, or whatever. Why else would this particular geographical objective be worthy of being a VC?

Rather than an all-or-nothing condition, or rather a measurement of victory at a single point in time (at the end of the day), it may be more realistic to accrue Victory Points (VPs) throughout the entire period. This is because, in my opinion based on 30 years of gaming, discrete VCs tend to focus players on achieving them at the expense of realistic play.

For example, in GD '40, it might be better to accrue 1 x VP per Stonne hex controlled each turn. In this manner, both players would feel the importance of contesting Stonne every hour of the day, when presumably the ownership of Stonne means something. Play balance could be adjusted, if it turned out that early capture of Stonne by the Germans would allow them to build up an insurmountable lead, by allocating more VPs to afternoon turns, for example.

The same thing can be said of the condition to have forces North/South/West/East of a predetermined location at a very specific time (and at that time only). To do so invites players to do exactly what Lee Forester advocates: rush in a French force north of xx.15 late in the day, presumably too late for the Germans to activate an Op Sheet to eliminate them. In my mind, it is too easy to write an Op Sheet giving such an order, to become activated let's say 2 hours before game end. It would be far better to allocate one side (or deny the other side) VPs for each and every turn that friendly forces satisfy a particular condition.

My point is this: in the real event, there are usually very compelling reasons why commanders are tasked with capturing an objective and holding it, while securing rear areas. Usually, the benefits derived from achieving the objective(s) accrue over time and are not solely obtained at a specific hour. I believe that pressure must be placed on players to adopt not only tactics that are realistic, but also operational plans that reflect reality. As I see it, the designer/developer can use the VCs as a powerful tool to enforce what I would call "proper behavior" in terms of realism, not gamesmanship.

If I am allowed to ramble just a little longer, I would say that this is akin to having units engage in combat(s) without suffering any penalty/cost. For example, some (older) designs allow units to overrun enemy units and, provided a specific force ratio is achieved (e.g., 7:1), the attacking side will not suffer any losses. Thus a strong unit could continuously overrun smaller units at no cost/loss to itself, where in reality, minor losses would slowly degrade that unit's performance. The all-or-nothing approach to wargame design does nothing for me: combat, movement, VCs etc. It's all the same.

The most glaring example of this comes from the "bad old days" of wargaming: a force would achieve a 3:1 ratio over an opposing force and obtain a DE result. Now, in reality, this could mean that 5,000+ enemy soldiers just died, were injured, or captured, at no cost to your forces! Assuming that you could move on to the next enemy force, this process could be repeated any number of times, provided that you could roll "right." I am most happy to say that The Gamers' products do not generally use such a paradigm.

However, it must be stated that VC selection still allows the "all-or-nothing" syndrome to creep in and adversely affect play by rewarding unrealistic behavior. I engage in a wargame to learn something about the event(s). I know that I am not a typical wargamer in that respect, but

I have observed at our club's meetings that all too often victory-driven VC-aware individuals, employing "questionable tactics/operations," manage to achieve victory or at least avoid defeat by exploiting poor VC selections/definitions, thus depriving players less familiar with that particular system/game of a well-deserved win. The comments overheard following such events generally fault the game (designer/developer) for allowing these happenings.

When you consider all the care and effort that went into system design, historical research, game development, to have the overall effect spoiled to some extent by inadequate VCs, it seems regrettable that we still seem to be stuck with "discrete" (all-or-nothing) VCs. Accumulating VPs would reward those who consistently outperform their opponent throughout a game. It would tend to reduce -- not eliminate -- the "end of the world" syndrome whereby rushing a single unit to a specific location on the last turn of a game, perhaps when the opponent cannot react, wins the game, unrealistically in my mind. If this was the only achievement of the "accumulating VPs" system, it would already be worth it in my book.

Please feel free to engage in debate over these expressed opinions. Although I do have strong opinions, I try to remain open to discussion and see it from the other side as well. It may be that what I propose is unachievable with the current wargame state of the art. I also believe that only through challenge can we improve.