It has dawned me recently that most of my wargaming choices are rather unconventional, in terms of actual game mechanisms. I've always been a fan of the simple beauty of Napoleon's Triumph, but I was reading a review on Board Game Geek recently which in no uncertain terms slated NT as a eurogame, instead of a 'Proper Wargame' (whatever that is).
That got me thinking: in terms of what is currently available within the world of war gaming, what can actually be considered conventional anymore? Napoleon's Triumph is a good example: only the most backwards of Grognards would say that it isn't a wargame altogether, but it does seem to stretch the definition of the word in some ways. An entirely deterministic system would seem to defy the alleged attempts of wargames to model the chaotic nature of combat, which is usually done by the addition of randomness within the model. Some would claim that the randomness is even necessary for the wargame to exist in the first place and that any system in which it is not present, by definition isn't a wargame.
Although I can understand these conclusions, I do not respect them. Every single wargame in existence is a necessary abstraction, created in order to model something that is very difficult to model at the scales that are considered in wargames. For example, what is the difference between abstracting one element of war (the element of chaos that is omitted in most wargames by the omission of 'fog of war' elements, while not allowing the abstraction of another system (the random nature of combat)? The former is a well-established element in many war games (although block games intentionally avoid this abstraction), while to many, the latter would be heresy, as seen by some of the back-lash against Napoleon's Triumph.
To me, such arguments feel more like attempts to cling to established tradition (dare I say, almost reactionary attempts). Any arguments claiming that the abstraction in one game is too much seems, to me, to not fully understand the nature of wargames as a whole: the entire hobby could not, and would not work without abstraction, and it becomes just a matter of how much you wish to abstract away. This is why I feel that Napoleon's Triumph is such a wonderful design: because the abstraction works well in terms of what the game is trying to represent, which is a high level simulation of the battle of Austerlitz.
For me, wargames have to provide the correct feeling. The breakdown of Corp structure as the battle progresses, the way that cavalry screen ride defiantly on the flanks of enemy Corps, the mad cavalry charges, the artillery bombardments, they all feel right. The ebb and flow of the battle is also beautifully captured in simple mechanisms. But enough gushing about Napoleon's Triumph, as there are many other examples I want to give.
One of the recent games I have played is Unconditional Surrender, which I had a first taste of last weekend. For numerous reasons, the design was something that I enjoyed immensely, but the game is very unconventional in many of its ways. The combat system is especially wonderful in this regard: instead of using force ratio, or roll to hit or any of the more traditional systems, it uses a system that I have seen put to good use before in We the People: 1d6 + a LOT of DRMs (yes, yes, We the People uses 2d6 but the system is similar enough). The system is very easy to use: to calculate DRMs you just go down a list so it is very difficult to miss something out.
What makes it stand out, however, is the complete lack of combat factor/maneuver points on all counters in the game. This seems to be a punch to the face of historicity, since all the armies present in the game are exactly the same, but in actual practice it makes the game work remarkably smoothly and some of the DRMs still allow the units to be sufficiently different from each other. What really works well within the game, however, is the way that mobile/assault combat works.
Mobile assaults allow you to keep moving and potentially attack an enemy more than once: this is especially useful when using tank units to punch through the enemy lines. Since in USE you activate the units one by one, this means that you can use that panzer to isolate an enemy unit which is then mopped up by your infantry. It is also possible to assault, which can only be done if you haven't used that unit to do a mobile attack and can only be done once per activation. You can then add multiple units to the assault.
The combat in USE has therefore a much more organic, flowing feeling in comparison to most other games. (when I say this, I am aware that systems such as OCS have a much better defined exploitation phase). If I see that my tank unit is managing to exploit successfully, I can immediately do something to widen the gap. Games that allow you to move and then attack (such as No Retreat, which is by no means a bad wargame), do allow you to Advance After Combat, but your ability to react to victories is more limited. As well as that, the Advance After Combat seems to be extra movement on top of the movement allowance, while in USE, it is an integral part of the movement allowance. Units that don't need to move up to the front before attacking can exploit a lot more than units attached to the frontline already, but this is not something that is modeled very well.
Another wargame I have enjoyed playing is Maria, which has a pretty crazy system for combat. The map in Maria is divided into squares which are assigned a card symbol: you have a hand of combat card which resemble cards from a standard playing deck. If you are fighting with an army, you have to use the suit that matches the area your army is in in order to help you win fights. This seems rather gamey, but it is a very distinctive way of modelling terrain, in a way. Sometimes you might need to retreat to a more defensible area, which no doubt happened during the real war of Austrian Succession, but it seems counter-intuitive in a way. It is difficult, even for me, to go past the abstraction in this case and see what the gameplay elements are trying to represent.
Lastly, one final game which is unconventional in every sense of the word is not a game, but a series: the COIN series to be exact. I won't go into much detail (I've already delved in depth about the games in my COIN and ADP reviews), but the way that the game tries to abstract the conflicts is also very innovative, attempting to add the actual events that happened during the various insurgency in a way that doesn't make the game predictable. Yet again, this is an attempt not to make the make the game historical, but to give the correct feel to the game, while still making it playable.
This, in the end, is the point of this particular article. Abstraction in wargames is omni-present and I feel that in terms of recent games, what is acceptable and unacceptable abstraction is a moot point for me now. The game shown above are all undoubtedly wargames, yet their main objective is to make the war FEEL right, no just play like history intended. In the end, it is important to note that wargames as a whole are completely a-historical or otherwise they would not be games at all: recreating a war by constraining so tightly to the events of the war paradoxically makes a game less of a simulation and more of a historical recreation.
This is not to say that historicity is unimportant or that games that attempt to be historical should not be produced, but I feel that sometimes the design space is constrained by attempts to make wargames of all types, no matter their design space, be historical with the stigma that if they aren't, then they are not truly wargames. I think in recent years the developments within the genre have shown that this is not necessarily true and I am truly excited about what the future will provide us and that, hopefully, it will provide games that cater to all kind of wargamers, without constraining what the genre can do.
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