Give the popularity of skirmish gaming these days, can we anticipate a new chess with a king on each side and no other pieces, bridge with one card per player, monopoly with each player starting off owning a patch of swampland (and no other properties on the board), and Diplomacy reduced to a downtown typing pool with squabbles over who gets the desk with a view of the parking lot?
I could get the hang of bridge if there were only four cards dealt out.
Cheers - Phil "One Club" Lewis. (Given that nickname at school when I bid one club and got a grand slam.) :-[
Quote from: FierceKitty on 28 August 2019, 11:38:09 PM
Give the popularity of skirmish gaming these days, can we anticipate a new chess with a king on each side and no other pieces, bridge with one card per player, monopoly with each player starting off owning a patch of swampland (and no other properties on the board), and Diplomacy reduced to a downtown typing pool with squabbles over who gets the desk with a view of the parking lot?
No.
Chess already is a skirmish game, there's a Monopoly Socialism that's just been released so you're not far off, I've never played Bridge but as to Diplomacy, office politics can be just as vicious and cut throat as the national kind, or maybe it's the national kind can be just as petty and ridiculous as the office kind... regardless, you might be on to something there.
Typing pool? Have you been in the hot-tub time machine again?
And Diplomacy is probably more akin to the current fad of hot-desking, where there aren't quite enough desks to cater for everyone.
Wot work ?
I commend Power Struggle to the House :)
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/55697/power-struggle
You cant Boris has closed it :d
Half our club is ancients tournament gamers. Over the years the ruleset de jour has changed but the game is always the same: minimal terrain, a big lineout, the line pivots either clockwise or anti-clockwise, and who wins depends which wing gives way first. One day I suggested a lot of time and effort could be saved by just tossing a coin; with a pocketful of change you could fight a campaign. :d
Quote from: Chris Pringle on 29 August 2019, 11:22:40 AM
Half our club is ancients tournament gamers. Over the years the ruleset de jour has changed but the game is always the same: minimal terrain, a big lineout, the line pivots either clockwise or anti-clockwise, and who wins depends which wing gives way first. One day I suggested a lot of time and effort could be saved by just tossing a coin; with a pocketful of change you could fight a campaign. :d
Did they request your resignation, or just throw you out of the window?
I love your suggestion Chris :D.
Quote from: FierceKitty on 29 August 2019, 11:58:15 AM
Did they request your resignation, or just throw you out of the window?
They pointed out that my supposedly historical games are still all just fantasy anyway.
I accept that my suggestion of a coin toss, thus relying 100% on luck, was 100% wrong as it misses the point that what the tournament gamers like is the opposite of luck, they want control (as one of their number explained to me once).
Each to their own, they're good people and I'm glad they're there.
Chris
Quote from: Techno on 29 August 2019, 06:17:06 AM
I could get the hang of bridge if there were only four cards dealt out.
Cheers - Phil "One Club" Lewis. (Given that nickname at school when I bid one club and got a grand slam.) :-[
It takes a while to get the hang of it, but, my God, it's exciting when you do.
I could quite happily count up 'the points' in my hand....and bid (quite possibly) appropriately on that.....
After that initial bid, in those days, I was completely 'stuffed'.
(What did it mean when my partner came back with '2 Diamonds....2 Spades....etc')
Fair enough....I had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do, as the hands were played....But that was it.
It WAS a game that I wished I'd had more time to learn 'properly'.
Cheers - Phil
Quote from: Chris Pringle on 29 August 2019, 11:22:40 AM
Over the years the ruleset de jour has changed but the game is always the same: minimal terrain, a big lineout, the line pivots either clockwise or anti-clockwise, and who wins depends which wing gives way first. . :d
For this reason I always ignore the terrain set up "feature" in rule sets, and just set up a nice table. If you end up with a wood or marsh in the middle of your deployment zone, use it to anchor your flank and throw a couple of skirmisher units into it to deter the enemy.
Makes you think a lot more about where you deploy what troops
Our local competition ancients gamers have taken to using preset terrain in their competition games, based on historic battles
Gives more time for pushing lead as they don't need to go through terrain set up and tear down each game
Also gives much more interesting battlefields
Must say, I often feel that terrain means too little in our games; it slows down sweeping outflanking mavouevres and that's it. Must give this some thought (esp. since yesterday was my last labouring day at the old place, yippee).
Congratulations on the new freedom ;) :)
Thanks. Glad to get away, though taking leave of a few colleagues was a bit sad.
Quote from: FierceKitty on 29 August 2019, 11:59:18 PM
Must say, I often feel that terrain means too little in our games; it slows down sweeping outflanking mavouevres and that's it. Must give this some thought (esp. since yesterday was my last labouring day at the old place, yippee).
I think that's because with our "all seeing" view of the battlefield we know where everything is and its effect on our troops/ Where as a commander would have sent a message telling unit to advance to an objective, without being able to see the stream and marshy area between them and the said objective.
Mmmm. I'm pretty well commited to the random movement distance method (with terrain and type modifiers) to give at least some recognition to the fact that the plain plain may sometimes be rough stuff when you've got your horse in the gorse.
Quote from: FierceKitty on 30 August 2019, 12:27:38 AM
Mmmm. I'm pretty well committed to the random movement distance method (with terrain and type modifiers) to give at least some recognition to the fact that the plain plain may sometimes be rough stuff when you've got your horse in the gorse.
For the Warring Empires rules I wrote years ago, rather than variable movement, I had variable terrain effects: you didn't know until you actually moved troops into it and rolled the dice whether a given village would be a mere speedbump or a stone-walled fortress, or whether a patch of woods would be easy open going or dense, slow and liable to make troops emerge in the wrong direction, how crossable a stretch of watercourse was ... I still think it's a good idea, don't know why it isn't used more often in rules.
Chris
Bloody Big BATTLES!
https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BBB_wargames/info
http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/
Quote from: Chris Pringle on 30 August 2019, 11:13:21 AM
For the Warring Empires rules I wrote years ago, rather than variable movement, I had variable terrain effects: you didn't know until you actually moved troops into it and rolled the dice whether a given village would be a mere speedbump or a stone-walled fortress, or whether a patch of woods would be easy open going or dense, slow and liable to make troops emerge in the wrong direction, how crossable a stretch of watercourse was ... I still think it's a good idea, don't know why it isn't used more often in rules.
Chris
Bloody Big BATTLES!
https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BBB_wargames/info
http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/
Yes we sometimes use that for watercourses when playing most rule sets. I also used to like the Principles of war rules where you through or an adjustment to the quality of your troops when they were first fired at. Both seemed to work well
We do something similar with wooded areas.