inconsequential ruminations

After listening to the latest Point2Point podcast, I tried out Wargameroom this weekend. I am very impressed. It has to be the best bit of Java coding I have ever seen. The game files are tiny and load almost instantly. The user interface is very intuitive and the game rules are enforced. This cuts down on the play time – especially as you never have to roll back mistakes. Most importantly for me the games are cross-platform, as I run Linux at home. There is one minor bug in the Linux implementation, as that the occasional text box is hidden, but otherwise it is perfect.

Many games are available:

• 1960: The Making of a President
• Asia Engulfed
  
• Barbarossa to Berlin
• Command & Colors: Ancients
• Empire of the Sun
• Europe Engulfed
• For the People
• Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage
• Paths of Glory
• Sword of Rome
• Twilight Struggle
• Up Front
• We the People
• Wellington
• Wilderness War

Apparently the next game in development is FAB: The Bulge.

The game maps are usually abstract simplifications of the original maps. I prefer this as the removal of extra decoration really cuts the game down to the fundamentals and makes the software run faster.


I played Hannibal as the Romans and got absolutely stuffed. Hannibal was about to besiege Rome with a massive numerical advantage. The guys lurking around in the Wargameroom chatroom play to a high level. At least I learnt how to play the game, even if it was the hard way.

The CC:A implementation looks really slick too. I want to give that a try soon if anyone wants to challenge me.

It is great how the enforced rules actually end up teaching you the game, as it is easy to forget or misinterpret rules in games this complicated.

A few things could be improved.

• No PBEM support. I cannot see how this could be built in without impacting the real-time experience.
  
• You cannot run a server behind a firewall without doing some port forwarding. It is not difficult, but this must scare non-technical people off. A dedicated Wargameroom server would make this easier.
  
• You cannot see the game map without connecting to your opponent. You can work around this by starting two instances of the game and connecting to yourself, but that was not obvious enough for me.
• A minor bug in Linux to do with displaying text boxes.
• The website is very basic. A nicer looking front page, wiki and forum would not be difficult to setup.
• The website is very slow. For some reason the wargameroom.com links are slow, but the underlying patmedia.net links are fast.
  
• The website chat is very basic. Again it would not be hard to improve upon.
• The source code is closed. If it were open then other skilled volunteer developers might extend the framework to support more games.
  

Despite these minor quibbles, I have joined the Wargameroom via a donation. It’s the least I can do considering this is a one man show. Bruce Wigdor has done an incredible job.

Burn the rope – with sound turned on.

I found this over at Play This Thing, Greg Costikyan’s video games blog.

The Geek is offline again, so now is a good time to update.

Agricola

Chris got the most amazing set of Agricola figures and resources in a math trade, all handmade in polymer clay. Apparently the guy who made them only traded them as he had made another set. As Chris’s English cards are laminated, it is probably no exaggeration to say that this is the nicest English language set in existence. Playing with another set will never be the same.







The game itself is still very enjoyable. I have played three times, twice with three and once with five. It is good with all numbers and is holding up well. The cards do bring a lot of variability. I am really looking forward to playing with the more player-interactive decks – as they could fix my only reservation.

I went down to Crawley to play with Michael Longdin and his friends and had as good a time as ever. My opinions of the games might be biased by the fact that Michael (almost) always wins.

Tribune: Primus Inter Pares

This was rated the top game in the Essen Fairplay rankings. I thought it was fine, but uninspiring. At least it was short and sweet. Mike Siggins and Michael think it is too short, but that is easily fixed.

Year of the Dragon

Michael rates this as his favourite game of 2007. Michael loves Age of Steam too, so he obviously likes unforgiving games. This is the second game I have played of Stefan Feld – who also designed Notre Dame, another bitch of a game.
I quite enjoyed it, but I agree with Rick Heli, that there is very little narrative feeling.

Before the Wind

This was the third, short, tight game I played in a row. I think I am playing too many games in this format. This was the most tense game of the three for me and the one I enjoyed the most. Also, the cards are very attractive, somehow balancing a modern and ancient look.

I find auction games like this really difficult to fathom. I suppose I need to work on my understanding of Game Theory or something. I might enjoy this game more if I could only figure out a strategy.

Brass

The best game of the day was Brass. I had a lot of problems reading the rules beforehand, so was delighted to have Michael teach it to me. After rereading them and two plays, I think the problem is with the layout of the rules. Martin Wallace was aiming for a Settlers of Catan style rule book, with the basic game in a short pamphlet with the detailed rules coming later. I did not like this approach with Settlers and I hate it here. The game is far too complex to understand without examples in the right places. Hopefully the rules will be completely rewritten, and blind playtested, for the new reprint.

Despite the awful rules, the game itself is excellent. I listened to Martin Wallace explaining his background in history and economics in a recent interview at the Pulp Gamer podcast, and this shines in Brass.

Hammer of the Scots

I played this with Steve at his house in Kingston and we had a great time. It is far simpler than I thought it would be. Wizard Kings is at about the same level. There are only eight pages of rules and it flows very nicely. If you have already played, then I recommend you try Above The Fields to play-by-web. The interface is a bit clunky, which would make learning the game a nightmare, but, if you have a good grasp of the rules, you will be fine.

Age of Steam – France

This is a good beginners map, and it plays well with three. Unfortunately this was Steve’s first game and, predictably, he got hammered. The last hour was totally boring for him. I hope I can persuade him to try again – as this is a fabulous game if played quickly and by people who know what they are doing.

Moritz Eggert’s eulogy for Gary Gygax is the best I have come across. You learn about the man and the early history of Dungeons and Dragons – which was my gateway into the hobby.

A transcript and a podcast are available.

Five came along to our regular games night for the first time in months, so we narrowly missed out on a game of Agricola with Chris’ stunningly improved set – more on that in another post. Instead I press-ganged everyone into playing Breaking Away. When they saw the poor quality of the components there were a few mutterings of “this isn’t going to be another Black Vienna is it?”, but I managed to supress the mutiny. Luckily this experiment worked out really well.

Breaking Away is an ingenious simulation of cycle racing. I tried to improve on the summary at the Geek, but failed, so here it is:

A luck free race game based on cycling. Players control a team of 4 cyclists. For each cyclist the player chooses one of his available movement allowances and moves that many squares. Once all cyclists have moved the expended movement allowances are replaced with new ones calculated according to the cyclist’s position in the peloton; being at the back of a group brings a high replacement value, being at the front a low one.
Sprint points are earned by being among the first 8 to cross the sprint lines so there is always a trade-off between slipstreaming (“drafting”) the other riders in order to build up high movement allowances and making a break for the front to be the first to cross the finish line.

It is surprising how these simple rules can simulate the essence of cycle racing so well, while still staying so playable. Sometimes your riders will be on fire, tearing away from the pack; at other times they will be desperately trying to stay in touch with the peleton.

Charles Vasey invited me over to try ESPAÑA 1936, one of the very few games he rates as a 10. Charles has impeccable taste, so I was keen to try it.

This new wargame from a Spanish designer, covers the Spanish Civil War – a war that I am keen to learn more about. Anthony Beevor, the author of Stalingrad, has written a book about the war that is next on my reading list.

There is a lot to like about this game. The components are gorgeous and the artwork really captures the the period.

The rules are clearly translated and only eight pages long. I read them in an hour.

This is a very streamlined system. It reminds me most of We the People or Twilight Struggle. Eurogamers wanting something more meaty should love it.

Espana 1936 is card driven, in that you have a hand of event cards. Most of these give you more troops, planes or tanks, but some give you reinforcement bonuses. There are a couple of important cards that can swing the game shape, but maybe not the entire result. If the Republicans can draw the cards that strengthen their militia and add another general, things get much easier.

It plays quickly – especially when you are up against a shark like Charles. As the Nationalists, he rolled me over with an auto-victory without too much trouble by the midgame – about two hours. As the Republicans I should have been more passive about attacking, to slow the game down, while being more proactive my defence. The Nationalists have far more and better troops, but the Republicans win if they can hang on to only three key cities by the tenth turn. A game that goes the full distance should take around three hours.

We only had one rules query. Charles attacked Santander and Oviedo simultaneously. I should have been able to reinforce Oviedo – even though in real life there are steep mountains on one side, the Atlantic on the other and only one narrow road. This bothered Charles, but I think the level of abstraction is acceptable. Avoiding this situation would either mean rewriting the core rules or putting in a special exception. Both seem overkill to me.

Unfortunately, you can only buy Espana 1936 right now from Spanish websites. Luckily an English version is in the works with naval rules and a few extra cards.

This is a fine game that captures the flavour of the war while staying very playable. I would like to play again – hopefully against someone easier to beat than Charles Vasey.

We met up with Chris Brooks and family on Friday morning and had breakfast in Russell Square. They are doing a lightning tour of Europe, so it was really nice of Chris to spare the time. His boys are growing up – Jacob is almost as tall as Chris.

Chris wasn’t impressed with the selection at Playing Games. It just goes to show how much bigger the hobby is in the US - as that’s the best shop I have found in the UK.

It was great to finally meet someone I have corresponded with over several years. When we next meet I hope we will have enough time to play some games.