A 1970s boardgame takes about 1,500 hours to complete(openculture.com)
openculture.com
A 1970s boardgame takes about 1,500 hours to complete
https://www.openculture.com/2022/02/the-fiendishly-complicated-board-game-that-takes-1500-hours-to-play-discover-the-campaign-for-north-africa.html
73 comments
This appears to be a repost/summary/blogspam of a 2017 kotaku piece: https://kotaku.com/the-notorious-board-game-that-takes-1500-...
I was wondering why I was reading a vaguely paraphrased Kotaku article.
Blogspam is a pernicious cancer.
Blogspam is a pernicious cancer.
That's pretty hilarious considering this nagging popup i got
> It looks like you’re using an ad blocker. With almost half of web users now running ad blockers, it’s now getting very hard to sustain an educational website and keep it free.
I guess they had to resort to grabbing stuff off kotaku because those horrible adblockers killed their ad revenue... :^)
> It looks like you’re using an ad blocker. With almost half of web users now running ad blockers, it’s now getting very hard to sustain an educational website and keep it free.
I guess they had to resort to grabbing stuff off kotaku because those horrible adblockers killed their ad revenue... :^)
Now I want to know if the high school kid finished the game. Mostly as I can't decide which answer I'm hoping for.
A recent (8 days ago) comment on the hexandcounter subreddit post announcing that game says they're still playing, though it's not confirmed by Jake himself.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hexandcounter/comments/6r645b/my_fr...
The last official update was a year ago, they were just over 1/3 through the game.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cigarettes/comments/lez1wn/camel_cr...
(Personally, I don't find any of the - very few - claims to have played a full game solitaire to be plausible, and I'm not aware of anyone even claiming to have played a full multiplayer one.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/hexandcounter/comments/6r645b/my_fr...
The last official update was a year ago, they were just over 1/3 through the game.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cigarettes/comments/lez1wn/camel_cr...
(Personally, I don't find any of the - very few - claims to have played a full game solitaire to be plausible, and I'm not aware of anyone even claiming to have played a full multiplayer one.)
"It's still potentially ongoing five years in" is the most depressing answer.
As a board gamer, I'm not sure it is.
It is participating in an art piece that was created with painstaking attention to detail. One of the games I have is a WWII submarine simulator ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17484/silent-war ). While play testing it, the realized that the US fleet was sinking too much tonnage. After going back over the records they realized that at any time, some portion of the fleet wasn't out in the ocean but rather in dock getting refitted. Adding that to the rules brought the tonnage sunk back within historical lines.
They could have changed the victory conditions to match the values that aren't in agreement with history - but they didn't. This is part of the (for lack of a better genera description) American Simulationist genera where the goal is to model the thing as closely as possible with rules and cardboard.
---
I've played some two day games. Games where you spend an entire weekend playing one game. With the right group of people, it's quite fun. And then the next weekend, we play another game.
I've also done PB(E)M games where the game can last as long as the person running it keeps it going. ( http://rickloomispbm.com ).
This, to me, isn't any different than someone who is still playing an MMO - just a different medium of play.
It is participating in an art piece that was created with painstaking attention to detail. One of the games I have is a WWII submarine simulator ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17484/silent-war ). While play testing it, the realized that the US fleet was sinking too much tonnage. After going back over the records they realized that at any time, some portion of the fleet wasn't out in the ocean but rather in dock getting refitted. Adding that to the rules brought the tonnage sunk back within historical lines.
They could have changed the victory conditions to match the values that aren't in agreement with history - but they didn't. This is part of the (for lack of a better genera description) American Simulationist genera where the goal is to model the thing as closely as possible with rules and cardboard.
---
I've played some two day games. Games where you spend an entire weekend playing one game. With the right group of people, it's quite fun. And then the next weekend, we play another game.
I've also done PB(E)M games where the game can last as long as the person running it keeps it going. ( http://rickloomispbm.com ).
This, to me, isn't any different than someone who is still playing an MMO - just a different medium of play.
> painstaking attention to detail.
Eh, not really. It's an art piece for sure, but as much dada as simulationist. As Berg said, it was designed as "a wretched excess." I think Jake's CNA game is less the gearhead obsession in so many of the WW2 simulations and more like the attitude described at https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/940888/
“Well, Troy,” I went on, “I want to be the guy who suddenly, at age 42, does spend hours doing this kind of thing, if only to feel what it’s like to take back a little piece of the soul I’ve sold to the company I slave for, to the obligatory evenings with people I’m not sure I even like, to daily errands, the lines at the DMV, to tax forms, to tedious family visits. This game is a slap in the face to all thinking creatures who live in such dire fear of the sands sifting through the hourglass. Playing a monster war game on this scale is ridiculous, a waste of energy, a waste of time, and so I want to do it. Let spite rule the day, Troy. Let’s learn and play A World at War!”
Eh, not really. It's an art piece for sure, but as much dada as simulationist. As Berg said, it was designed as "a wretched excess." I think Jake's CNA game is less the gearhead obsession in so many of the WW2 simulations and more like the attitude described at https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/940888/
“Well, Troy,” I went on, “I want to be the guy who suddenly, at age 42, does spend hours doing this kind of thing, if only to feel what it’s like to take back a little piece of the soul I’ve sold to the company I slave for, to the obligatory evenings with people I’m not sure I even like, to daily errands, the lines at the DMV, to tax forms, to tedious family visits. This game is a slap in the face to all thinking creatures who live in such dire fear of the sands sifting through the hourglass. Playing a monster war game on this scale is ridiculous, a waste of energy, a waste of time, and so I want to do it. Let spite rule the day, Troy. Let’s learn and play A World at War!”
Should we be flagging it, then?
The unacknowledged secret to a lot of these games are that the maps and the rulebooks were the final product; they weren't really meant to be played, and certainly many were never played before they were published. Plenty of SPI games were absolutely unplayable and hopelessly broken, but you could spend hours upon hours reading the rules, looking at the maps, and going to the library to read more about the battles.
If I had to guess, I'd say 98% of all copies of hex+counter wargames are never played, just pored over and dreamed about.
If I had to guess, I'd say 98% of all copies of hex+counter wargames are never played, just pored over and dreamed about.
They were played then, as the college kids had the time and the lack of distractions. In a few cases, they were played by 10-20 people blind/moderated. Some, yeah, were turkeys but they made games and also games-in-magazines which published a whole lot of stuff. Some, on the other hand, were excellent.
Remember, no pc's, no laptop's, no social media and the constant inability of (geeky) college males to score. Gotta do something other than schoolwork.
Remember, no pc's, no laptop's, no social media and the constant inability of (geeky) college males to score. Gotta do something other than schoolwork.
Had some great times in college playing Risk. We would set up three or four boards in different rooms and each player was separated and couldn't see each other. We then had "scouts" who went between rooms to provide limited reports about the other armies.
There was much beer and weed involved.
This sounds like a much improved version of risk.
There were computers, whether at home or at the university. But playing with clever humans is much more challenging and rewarding than playing against a computer. That hasn't changed.
> but you could spend hours upon hours reading the rules
My brothers and I bought Axis & Allies about 25 years ago. We spent a few hours trying to assimilate the rules.
Then we got bored and did something less mentally taxing.
We concluded that Axis and Allies was supposed to teach you the futility of war.
My brothers and I bought Axis & Allies about 25 years ago. We spent a few hours trying to assimilate the rules.
Then we got bored and did something less mentally taxing.
We concluded that Axis and Allies was supposed to teach you the futility of war.
The rules of Axies & Allies are not particularly complex or long.
You're thinking of Tic-Tac-Toe.
Me and my friends played Axis and Allies for probably close to 500 hours in the 80's (middle & high school)
Me and my friends played Axis and Allies for probably close to 500 hours in the 80's (middle & high school)
I'm trying to convince the wife to let me build a games room "for the kids" but really I miss the old days of Axis and Allies...
Tic-Tac-Toe? A strange game.
A&A and Supremacy were our go-tos.
A&A and Supremacy were our go-tos.
It was an allusion to the movie War Games.
Air Superiority was also one of our favorites.
Air Superiority was also one of our favorites.
That was a hard enough to catch reference that I felt the need to post that I "got" it.
I played a lot of A&A in the early 90s, as well as DnD.
I played a lot of A&A in the early 90s, as well as DnD.
A&A Supremacy was alright, as was Theater-wide Bio-Chemical Warfare, but Global Thermal Nuclear War was clearly the best.
Did you ever complete a game of Supremacy without nukes?
you are wrong. in the 80s kids and young adults did not spend their days on twitter on instagram and some of them spent hours playing wargames. there was a vibrant market for it at the time with magazines and shops supporting the players.
GP is correct. CfNA was specifically a joke and never intended to be played. Some others like AWaW are monster games by today's standards and were actually played, but still an order of magnitude smaller. And lots of wargames were (and still are!) a broken mess when they prioritize fidelity (or the author's idea of fidelity) over the player dynamics.
Plenty of people (mostly the same people, 40 years older) still find the time to play them. I still think 98% of copies go unplayed.
The market for buying/selling them is still fine (especially with the internet now), they're enjoyable to read and collect. I've got a dozen myself.
The market for buying/selling them is still fine (especially with the internet now), they're enjoyable to read and collect. I've got a dozen myself.
Lots of roleplaying games are like this too. The Tingleverse RPG will doubtless have some players but you can't sell enough volume to justify that book based on those players, that book exists because lots of people will read it, maybe imagine some scenarios or characters and then move on never having tried to see if the game is actually fun to play because they got what they wanted.
I think that this applies to a lot of board games in general, today too. It feels like many were play-tested like two times or something by people that were bad at playing board-games, because some mechanics/races/strategies are so powerful or useless.
For war games though, it was probably really hard to find someone to play against that wanted to put in the hours ...
For war games though, it was probably really hard to find someone to play against that wanted to put in the hours ...
I not saying you are entirely wrong, but we did spend months playing things like Fire in the East, 2 m2 map and 2500 pieces. I have most of that series waiting for me to retire. :)
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8993/fire-east
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8993/fire-east
I also left out solitaire plays. People get a lot more solitaire plays in than they get plays in with other people.
Hmm, that sounds like my teenage experience of Star Fleet Battles.
I should’ve stuck with just the base set and looked for people to play it with, but I kept buying the expansion packs instead.
I should’ve stuck with just the base set and looked for people to play it with, but I kept buying the expansion packs instead.
My brother certainly played these grognard games and made up his own too. It’s hard for people today to grasp how far people in the pre-screen days went to find entertainment.
My interest in computing was fueled by the desire to automate games like Car Wars.
Interestingly, now that hacking pretty much any of the data management and calculations is not a problem, the desire to sink into some complex game world is gone.
Interestingly, now that hacking pretty much any of the data management and calculations is not a problem, the desire to sink into some complex game world is gone.
For me it was to automate Ogre, which seems like a logical thing since it's supposed to be a machine.
Of course, you can buy it today.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/517780/Ogre/
Of course, you can buy it today.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/517780/Ogre/
Neat. 25 years ago, on Civ II or III, I blew a gasket on an 18 hour game and haven't been able to play since.
He said, proudly frittering away time on social media.
He said, proudly frittering away time on social media.
25 years ago would probably have been civ II. Source: I was playing it as a 7 year old and vividly remember learning that the UN was really a thing after building it in game.
Civ II's wonder video for the UN still gives me chills today, it's the best, that soundtrack and imagery was just evocative.
But I do wonder if they intended to be cynical with the ability, which is - ""peacekeeping" - allows a democracy to declare war 50% of the time" :). The game putting scare quotes around "peacekeeping" doesn't help, heh.
(Normally a democracy in civ ii cannot declare/start a war, having the UN overrides that.)
But I do wonder if they intended to be cynical with the ability, which is - ""peacekeeping" - allows a democracy to declare war 50% of the time" :). The game putting scare quotes around "peacekeeping" doesn't help, heh.
(Normally a democracy in civ ii cannot declare/start a war, having the UN overrides that.)
Ha - as a kid I definitely didn't pick up on that. I just enjoyed collecting wonders and watching all the videos. The UN one was great. I loved the videos from Alpha Centauri too, another Sid Meier contribution. Wonderful games (pun very much intended).
Yeah it didn't concur to me either until I was rewatching them on YouTube a couple years back.:)
Alpha Centauri was something special, they never did manage to recapture the magic with beyond earth.
Alpha Centauri was something special, they never did manage to recapture the magic with beyond earth.
That level of complexity still exists but in a different form, (modded) Arma3.
That has a ridiculous level of depth and complexity that is hard to describe without playing it but hundreds of weapons, vehicles, equipment, a fully modded medical system (CPR, Airway Management), technically accurate radios with dozens of channels, ballistic system that accounts for wind/Coriolis effect).
Insanely deep and yet still really good fun to play as a unit.
That has a ridiculous level of depth and complexity that is hard to describe without playing it but hundreds of weapons, vehicles, equipment, a fully modded medical system (CPR, Airway Management), technically accurate radios with dozens of channels, ballistic system that accounts for wind/Coriolis effect).
Insanely deep and yet still really good fun to play as a unit.
I did same, also using the C64 PETSCII graphics to draw the Car Wars vehicle sheets: https://i1.wp.com/geekdad.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Car...
I remember my friends playing D&D and I couldn’t get past the idea that “This is pretty much made for a computer…”
I played to make them happy but I really just wanted to play it on a computer. When that started to materialize I was pleased.
I played to make them happy but I really just wanted to play it on a computer. When that started to materialize I was pleased.
I will generalize D&D to all pen and paper role playing games.
But you are right for a subset of them and wrong for a much larger subset of the games. There are people that play D&D more as a tactical wargame with a set story, and is basically just a game you would play on a computer (And those games exist!). But for many many other styles of games, the point is that you are using your imagination and flexibility to react to the story that no computer could do. Or alternatively there are many games that are more of a collaborative storytelling - improv game that may occasionally use dice. There is a very large spectrum of games.
But you are right for a subset of them and wrong for a much larger subset of the games. There are people that play D&D more as a tactical wargame with a set story, and is basically just a game you would play on a computer (And those games exist!). But for many many other styles of games, the point is that you are using your imagination and flexibility to react to the story that no computer could do. Or alternatively there are many games that are more of a collaborative storytelling - improv game that may occasionally use dice. There is a very large spectrum of games.
You need a conflict resolution mechanic. There are games which just don't bother providing one of those at all, and I feel like they're not really games. I don't hate them but I rarely will choose to play one and I can't remember anything from such games I have played, it's just too flimsy.
I've had a good time in games with a fairly lightweight conflict resolution, like certain classes of action are going to involve drawing cards from a (conventional) card deck, but I most enjoy playing something where it's about an even split between tactical combat (which yes, a computer game could do) and full roleplaying. I enjoy 4th edition D&D, apparently enough people didn't that 5e undoes many of the changes I liked.
One of the big problems older games often have is their resolution mechanic traps the GM by allowing for conflicts to end in a way that destroys the story. There should be a chance that our bullshit "merchants" cover story doesn't work and we get arrested, or our weapons are confiscated, or something else interesting happens. But a chance that we're just dropped into a pit of acid and die instantly is rubbish. If we're trying to open the Space Tomb it's OK if a bad roll means all the sentries inside are alerted, or the Galactic Archaeology Police are on their way to investigate tomb robbers, but it's not OK if now the door can't be opened and so the entire adventure is impossible.
I've had a good time in games with a fairly lightweight conflict resolution, like certain classes of action are going to involve drawing cards from a (conventional) card deck, but I most enjoy playing something where it's about an even split between tactical combat (which yes, a computer game could do) and full roleplaying. I enjoy 4th edition D&D, apparently enough people didn't that 5e undoes many of the changes I liked.
One of the big problems older games often have is their resolution mechanic traps the GM by allowing for conflicts to end in a way that destroys the story. There should be a chance that our bullshit "merchants" cover story doesn't work and we get arrested, or our weapons are confiscated, or something else interesting happens. But a chance that we're just dropped into a pit of acid and die instantly is rubbish. If we're trying to open the Space Tomb it's OK if a bad roll means all the sentries inside are alerted, or the Galactic Archaeology Police are on their way to investigate tomb robbers, but it's not OK if now the door can't be opened and so the entire adventure is impossible.
While I agree on the collaboration, I found early D&D computer games required a lot of imagination.
> But for many many other styles of games, the point is that you are using your imagination and flexibility to react to the story that no computer could do. Or alternatively there are many games that are more of a collaborative storytelling - improv game that may occasionally use dice. There is a very large spectrum of games.
Absolutely. The joy (occasionally frustration for the DMs, but a good DM will keep the guard rails working and keep the partly at least faintly on track) of a good campaign, especially more than a few sessions in, is that the characters start becoming more in depth, and you get the dynamics out of that you'd never see in a computer game. My barbarian is (still) upset with our rogue about the murder of a little halfling who was genuinely helping us out, and doesn't consider whatever excuses the rogue makes to be valid.
And if you want to go completely off the rails, it's common enough to hear from the DM, "Well... OK. Roll for it." Usually nothing happens, sometimes something insane happens.
There was a conflict between characters in a previous session about where a particular soul should be crammed, which was literally resolved by what amounted to a mage war. "I do this." "No you don't." "Yes. I do." "No." With a few other people contributing various bits and pieces. "Yes, I do!" "Nope, you have to reroll that die. I use my luck altering ring." etc.
It can be far, far more than just combat rolls. I agree, if what you want out of D&D is pure combat, then a computer does it well, but... it still doesn't match the joy of doing it with other people. Having your piddling little gnome sorcerer who's a level or two behind make the final hit, with a 2hp roll. Again. And again. After everyone else has been dumping 20, 30hp attacks into this set of enemies. You can get the combat mechanics with a video game, but that has nothing on a group, around a table, with a couple beers, just having a ball.
I've played D&D-type games with various levels of technology over the past few decades (ranging from heavily computer aided, with program based leveling and such, maps via projector, etc, down to pure paper, rulebook, and whiteboard-on-the table with rulers for movement). I honestly enjoy the lower tech ones more. The best blend I think I've played, which was largely due to the DM being excellent, was paper-based for the players ("You're responsible for leveling, here are the rules for it. You miss something, well, too bad. We'll see if we can work it in later."), with a TV set in a gaming table for maps. A bit of Gimp layer magic, and we had an absolutely amazing "fog of war" layer, where the DM could remove the black layer as we went around corners and such on the pre-made maps. It added some of the benefits of technology, while still keeping us bound to paper, pencils, and dice.
On the other hand, we currently have an excellent DM who, as near as I can tell, loves being a DM substantially for the excuses to build bridges, towns, cities, and all sorts of other stuff in practical craftwork - think 2-3' square landscapes and such that something will play out on. We get brickwork carved into styrofoam, painted, detailed, etc. It's amazing, and it's physical in a way no computer game is.
But I'm also a person who has spent his whole life in tech, and more and more hates what it's become. So there's that.
Absolutely. The joy (occasionally frustration for the DMs, but a good DM will keep the guard rails working and keep the partly at least faintly on track) of a good campaign, especially more than a few sessions in, is that the characters start becoming more in depth, and you get the dynamics out of that you'd never see in a computer game. My barbarian is (still) upset with our rogue about the murder of a little halfling who was genuinely helping us out, and doesn't consider whatever excuses the rogue makes to be valid.
And if you want to go completely off the rails, it's common enough to hear from the DM, "Well... OK. Roll for it." Usually nothing happens, sometimes something insane happens.
There was a conflict between characters in a previous session about where a particular soul should be crammed, which was literally resolved by what amounted to a mage war. "I do this." "No you don't." "Yes. I do." "No." With a few other people contributing various bits and pieces. "Yes, I do!" "Nope, you have to reroll that die. I use my luck altering ring." etc.
It can be far, far more than just combat rolls. I agree, if what you want out of D&D is pure combat, then a computer does it well, but... it still doesn't match the joy of doing it with other people. Having your piddling little gnome sorcerer who's a level or two behind make the final hit, with a 2hp roll. Again. And again. After everyone else has been dumping 20, 30hp attacks into this set of enemies. You can get the combat mechanics with a video game, but that has nothing on a group, around a table, with a couple beers, just having a ball.
I've played D&D-type games with various levels of technology over the past few decades (ranging from heavily computer aided, with program based leveling and such, maps via projector, etc, down to pure paper, rulebook, and whiteboard-on-the table with rulers for movement). I honestly enjoy the lower tech ones more. The best blend I think I've played, which was largely due to the DM being excellent, was paper-based for the players ("You're responsible for leveling, here are the rules for it. You miss something, well, too bad. We'll see if we can work it in later."), with a TV set in a gaming table for maps. A bit of Gimp layer magic, and we had an absolutely amazing "fog of war" layer, where the DM could remove the black layer as we went around corners and such on the pre-made maps. It added some of the benefits of technology, while still keeping us bound to paper, pencils, and dice.
On the other hand, we currently have an excellent DM who, as near as I can tell, loves being a DM substantially for the excuses to build bridges, towns, cities, and all sorts of other stuff in practical craftwork - think 2-3' square landscapes and such that something will play out on. We get brickwork carved into styrofoam, painted, detailed, etc. It's amazing, and it's physical in a way no computer game is.
But I'm also a person who has spent his whole life in tech, and more and more hates what it's become. So there's that.
computer rpgs cant do even a percent of what you can do with pen and paper...
It was actually a good game and could be done today with a little bit of laptop support. It was deliberately tedious but that’s not too bad. Doable with 2 and very good with 4. Played it a number of times. There are pc games that look to be more tedious so the genre still exists.
It’s also far from the largest board war game by a little over half.
Look for DAK for a less tedious same scale effort.
It’s also far from the largest board war game by a little over half.
Look for DAK for a less tedious same scale effort.
Why would the length of the campaign deter you from playing it? Isn't it great if you know you have enough content to play the game for the next 20 years?
I play Gloomhaven with friends. Since we live in different parts of the country, we only meet up to play twice a year to play. It will take us years to complete Gloomhaven. It's awesome. It means we can just keep playing long into our retirements (at which point we might meet and play more often!)
I play Gloomhaven with friends. Since we live in different parts of the country, we only meet up to play twice a year to play. It will take us years to complete Gloomhaven. It's awesome. It means we can just keep playing long into our retirements (at which point we might meet and play more often!)
I was personally very unhappy with gloomhaven's decision to spread the content out so wide. I think they could have structured a much stronger game experience if they just focused on a core 10 to 20 modules versus the over 100 they have.
Not to say they couldn't include more modules, but when you're trying to progress a storyline it's really frustrating to have multiple sessions (most many hours long) in between you a plot development.
Not to say they couldn't include more modules, but when you're trying to progress a storyline it's really frustrating to have multiple sessions (most many hours long) in between you a plot development.
Ehhhh... The plot in gloomhaven is really pretty minimal. It's a matter bones choose your own adventure stringing together episodes in a fun combat tactics game.
The problem is that some of the retirement quests depend heavily on the plot structure - "kill 5 bosses" can be 20 scenarios or 5 scenarios depending on where you are in the campaign. Similarly for some of the monster-specific quests; some even become impossible if you get them too late and don't want to replay old scenarios.
I think it would have been better as 8 starting classes, 8 unlockables, and two more compressed campaigns with some other progression compressed accordingly.
I think it would have been better as 8 starting classes, 8 unlockables, and two more compressed campaigns with some other progression compressed accordingly.
> Why would the length of the campaign deter you from playing it?
"Campaign", in this case, doesn't mean something like Gloomhaven's scenario-driven design, with a single character pad and a couple card decks that need to stay in order between serial 1-4 hour play sessions. It's a single game, with huge maps and logistical tables whose state needs to be tracked for the entire duration.
> Isn't it great if you know you have enough content to play the game for the next 20 years?
"Content" in games is generally awful and the modern focus on it is destroying what makes games interesting. Most games, especially competitive games, should become more interesting with repeat plays as you explore the systems involved. Gloomhaven works because the story "content" is largely divorced from the mechanics/dynamics of the scenario so you're playing "the game" dozens of times, and those systems are interesting. Modern narrative campaign games that don't have anything interesting going on in a much smaller inner loop are trash.
"Campaign", in this case, doesn't mean something like Gloomhaven's scenario-driven design, with a single character pad and a couple card decks that need to stay in order between serial 1-4 hour play sessions. It's a single game, with huge maps and logistical tables whose state needs to be tracked for the entire duration.
> Isn't it great if you know you have enough content to play the game for the next 20 years?
"Content" in games is generally awful and the modern focus on it is destroying what makes games interesting. Most games, especially competitive games, should become more interesting with repeat plays as you explore the systems involved. Gloomhaven works because the story "content" is largely divorced from the mechanics/dynamics of the scenario so you're playing "the game" dozens of times, and those systems are interesting. Modern narrative campaign games that don't have anything interesting going on in a much smaller inner loop are trash.
Because time is finite, and if you want to experience other things -- or other board games -- it's hard to justify sinking this much time into a single experience.
Maybe some are fine experiencing this one thing over many months/years, but most people (by far, I would guess) would prefer experiencing more of a variety in the limited time we have.
Our group is playing Jaws of the Lion, but only play it about once every few months, while still playing several other games in between.
But depending on how long a given campaign would take, it might take more than we want to invest in a single game -- in the example of this article, that would take a lifetime for us.
Maybe some are fine experiencing this one thing over many months/years, but most people (by far, I would guess) would prefer experiencing more of a variety in the limited time we have.
Our group is playing Jaws of the Lion, but only play it about once every few months, while still playing several other games in between.
But depending on how long a given campaign would take, it might take more than we want to invest in a single game -- in the example of this article, that would take a lifetime for us.
The game that famously accounts for Italian soldiers needing more water rations so they could boil their pasta.
As soon as I read the headline I knew exactly what game it was, and, having never played it, I only really know it for "the wargame with special rules for Italian pasta".
I love these types of games though. Renegade Legion: Prefect is possibly my favorite hexgame, and I spent more hours solo'ing games of Succession Wars than I ever did punching giant robots in the face in actual Battletech.
I love these types of games though. Renegade Legion: Prefect is possibly my favorite hexgame, and I spent more hours solo'ing games of Succession Wars than I ever did punching giant robots in the face in actual Battletech.
Wargamers are dedicated folks. My brother has had a nearly continuous series of plays of Third Reich, an Avalon Hill game from the same era, since the early ‘90s. Same group of guys using a special 2x magnified board he had printed and mounted on the wall over a thin sheet of metal so they can use magnetized counter holders. I think they get 3 or 4 completed games in a year meeting once a week.
This is not true. My father normally crushed my forces in about 5 hours.
You might be think of a different North Africa based game.
Afrika Korps perhaps:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2259/afrika-korps
Afrika Korps perhaps:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2259/afrika-korps
Tried to convince my mate to have a room in his house dedicated to this game so we could have a play. Sadly life (and children) got in the way!
Imagine if you succeeded and 500 hours in the kids knocked over the table or whatever the equivalent is. You dodged a bullet there.
Growing up I had a mentor who started a game of this (or something very very similar) with his father in the early 80s that extended into the late 90s. The board was omnipresent in my memories of his house. They really loved war sims there. Anyways. Crazy game.
I used to spend many weekends playing all manner of extremely complex time-consuming board games. A hobby for the childless. Maybe in the future…
I recall being warned not to play this game. Warned of people that started and obsessed over it to the exclusion of all else for months at a time. Panzer Leader and Panzer Blitz were recommended instead.
The title is misleading. There are several board games from the 1970s that takes way less time to complete.
Growing up with PC games, I was always fascinated by wargames as a genre. It seemed like its own little world, largely disjoint from the rest of PC gaming, likely owing to its genesis in tabletop gaming. My understanding is that pretty much from the dawn of the personal computer era, wargamers were already looking at ways to automate and adjucate all the dice-rolling and table lookups that were in many ways inherent in the genre. There's a fantastic strategy gaming podcast, Three Moves Ahead, which had an episode on a game that's considered to be a classic of the "wargame that successfully automates the tabletop experience" subgenre, and it's an interesting listen, if you're into strategy games: https://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/episodes/korsun-pocket
I've started dabbling in the genre a bit over the past decade - tabletop and computerized - and what really intrigues me is, broadly speaking, there's been a pivot away from complexity in the past few decades, particularly in the tabletop space. If you think of a wargame as a sort of playable model of a conflict, you can look at the gameplay mechanics as a tool for abstracting away or illuminating and emphasizing what people believe are important factors in a battle/war/etc. There's a significant current of thought in modern wargame design circles that believes the old-school rivet-counting complexity you see in the article missed the forest for the trees. So, you instead see games that in clever and elegant ways evoke specific aspects of various conflicts in relatively simple-to-grasp games.
On the table-top side, there are quite a few games that have moved to a sort of card-driven model where you play from a hand of hidden cards. In particular, you have things like Twilight Struggle which evokes a specific sense of uncertainty, paranoia, and tension that's quite impressive, especially as the DEFCON counter seems to inexorably creep towards 1.
On the PC side, Unity of Command uses a very elegant model of supply chains to evoke how maneuver warfare worked on the Eastern Front in WWII. It's striking how well a collection of rules that can be summarized on a single page manages to result in deep strikes and encirclements of large groups like those you see in military history books. Unity of Command is interesting in that it is a game you could in principle play as a tabletop game - it's just that while the supply chain model is extremely easy to grasp and visualize, it'd be an enormous pain to track manually (Well, that, and you'd miss out on the deviously nasty opponent AI). If you're at all curious about the genre, it's worth a look.
I've started dabbling in the genre a bit over the past decade - tabletop and computerized - and what really intrigues me is, broadly speaking, there's been a pivot away from complexity in the past few decades, particularly in the tabletop space. If you think of a wargame as a sort of playable model of a conflict, you can look at the gameplay mechanics as a tool for abstracting away or illuminating and emphasizing what people believe are important factors in a battle/war/etc. There's a significant current of thought in modern wargame design circles that believes the old-school rivet-counting complexity you see in the article missed the forest for the trees. So, you instead see games that in clever and elegant ways evoke specific aspects of various conflicts in relatively simple-to-grasp games.
On the table-top side, there are quite a few games that have moved to a sort of card-driven model where you play from a hand of hidden cards. In particular, you have things like Twilight Struggle which evokes a specific sense of uncertainty, paranoia, and tension that's quite impressive, especially as the DEFCON counter seems to inexorably creep towards 1.
On the PC side, Unity of Command uses a very elegant model of supply chains to evoke how maneuver warfare worked on the Eastern Front in WWII. It's striking how well a collection of rules that can be summarized on a single page manages to result in deep strikes and encirclements of large groups like those you see in military history books. Unity of Command is interesting in that it is a game you could in principle play as a tabletop game - it's just that while the supply chain model is extremely easy to grasp and visualize, it'd be an enormous pain to track manually (Well, that, and you'd miss out on the deviously nasty opponent AI). If you're at all curious about the genre, it's worth a look.
Reminds me of 'the cones of dunshire'