In the Sept/Oct 1999 issue of MWAN, there's an interesting article on one group's attempts to transform COMMAND DECISION (CD) "...to improve COMMAND DECISION'S playability..." Why, in particular, CD was chosen is not really explained... although the author states: "...In doing this we aren't picking on COMMAND DECISION, indeed, if we didn't basically like the game, we wouldn't have bothered reforming it." a. The movement distances and weapon ranges were changed. b. The armor HE 'to-hit' procedure was changed. c. The "buckets of dice" firing procedure was changed. The text cites that CD calls for a possible 22 10-sided barrage of dice to be tossed when a stationary German Panzer Grenadier Company with half-tracks fires. The change produced a total of 5 dice to be tossed for the same German Company. d. Since there were now fewer hit-dice tossed, the number of hits a stand could take was lowered. e. The marker system was changed. The original CD had spotting markers and hit markers and morale markers. The text stated: "... a single stand might find itself dragging around up to six markers..." Spotting markers were eliminated, morale markers were eliminated, hit markers were reduced, and order markers were reduced. f. The morale system was changed. Morale markers were eliminated. The number of missing stands in a unit were, themselves, indicative of the morale level. g. The original order chit system had a possible 7 orders. This was reduced to 4, and orders such as "Take command", and "Recall" were tossed out. h. The text referred to CD's "... most vexing rule loophole, the dread 'who moves first' problem". The transformed system gave the option to move first to the most experienced troops, and no longer had the order chit system as the deciding factor. Looking at the above, one sees that in developing a 'more playable' CD, what has been produced is a fairly emasculated CD, in fact, it just ain't CD any more, not with all the changes made to the guts of the original system. The author neatly summarized his findings, sort of a eulogy to COMMAND DECISION: a. The secret of a failed game is to try and simulate everything. b. A game should emphasize movement and maneuver. c. Emphasize how military units moved and interacted with the enemy, and not the size of the hatches on a Sherman. d. Avoid long lists of modifiers. If there is a long list of modifiers to make a rule work, the problem is probably with the basic rule. e. Use 'top-down" design. For example, in "bottom-up" design, you'll consider the effect of one rifleman, and multiply his impact by the number of rifles in the unit to get the total effect of the unit. A small mistake at the single-rifle level will thus be multiplied many times over. Back to PW Review October 1999 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 Wally Simon 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