I've never really 'got into' 'computer' gaming... and never had an X Box or whatever!!!

But was remembering the 'early days'! Commodore 64 with cassettes!  Or 'Arcade' machines in the Pub! 
Not thinking about 'Mario', 'Pac Man', etc just the more 'war' things... though 'Asteroids'  counts!
Any fond memories?

I had a good one from Airfix! 'Dam Busters!' Rather advanced for the time. Multi role. From memory...(a LONG time ago!):
Pilot took off and flew.
Navigator moved round a map to get to target.
Flight engineer panel for revvs/speed.
Bomb Aimer to use the 'special' sights and drop the' Bouncing Bomb'.
Front and Rear Gunners for nightfighters and, maybe Flak posts.
I ACTUALLY completed the mission a few times! lol

'Down The Pub'... arcade 'Asteroids' was a 'fave'... and there was a similar style 'Tank Combat'  thing which used to get a real hammering! On a holiday, there was a sort of 'Star Trek' space game which was pretty good, too!

When You Think... !!! LOL!

I've been thinking and I'm struggling to remember the early computer wargames I played.

Back in the day we had an Atari console, and played 'tennis' and pac man, space invaders and a really simple adventure game - all of which came in cartridges. A few year later I had a BBC micro with a cassette tape drive, and remember 30 min game load times and attempting to copy games from my mates. But most of these games were arcade or adventure ones.

Towards the end of uni I got a first generation mac book, mono screen, built in track ball, and HD! Remember playing lots of Civilisation on this, which was pretty much a war game! Might and Magic was the adventure game at that time.

Later Age of Empires was a big favourite - but not a pure wargame.

I'm actually thinking I haven't played too many wargames on computers. Lately I've largely moved away from computer games (apart from the odd one on my phone) as I spend so much of my working day in front of a screen.

Does minesweeper count

"Arnhem" on the Amstrad CPC6128 was a big favourite of mine. Once I'd mastered it I could regularly rescue over a million paratroops from Arnhem

Arcades: Asteroids (rubbish)*, Battlezone - your tank game? (better), Defender (totally rubbish), Scramble (excellent), Donkey Kong (pretty good), Phoenix (not bad).

Computers before PC - no real 'war games'. Driving (Stunt Car Racer) and strategy (Populous, SimCity) games on an Amiga.

On the PC - First-person shooters: Doom 1 & 2, Quake 1 & 2, Half-life. Strategy: Command & Conquer & it's sequels, Warcraft I & II, Starcraft.

Still have Command & Conquer & Tiberian Sun installed on this PC - only games I still play, but not very often nowadays.

* My ability at these games, not the quality of the game

Missile Command was my favorite arcade game.

Also had Ancient battles on the PC in 1993

Arnhem comment - made me remember the Close Combat series - was this late 90s? The Market Garden one was my favourite. I remember spending stupid money getting the last version of the series from the US, game cost + shipping + import fees - about 3x retail price 

Combat Mission was another later one I played quite a lot, but it just became so time consuming having to move every squad at first person level, after spending an age checking for enemies.

Played a lot of Annals of Rome on the amstrad cpc

Quote from: fred. on 20 May 2021, 08:14:32 PM
Arnhem comment - made me remember the Close Combat series - was this late 90s? The Market Garden one was my favourite. I remember spending stupid money getting the last version of the series from the US, game cost + shipping + import fees - about 3x retail price 

Combat Mission was another later one I played quite a lot, but it just became so time consuming having to move every squad at first person level, after spending an age checking for enemies.

Sounds more like "Close Combat" than "Combat Mission" to me. Those plus "Company of Heroes," Blitzkreig" and "Steel Panthers" have eaten up more of my life that I care to remember

These days it's Valheim that occupies my time.

Close Combat was top down, real time, but pausable. It was squad level, but you dragged out command lines for units to move or fire along. And total force size was pretty manageable - 12-15 units IIRC

Combat Mission, was 3D (ish) view and often its fog of war meant viewing from first person was necessary. It was also turn based, you plotted all the moves then executed the turn, and then had to review it several times to see what had happened. I think a lot of the problems were down to scenarios that were just too big to practically play with the scale of the game and the FoW. This is a common wargames problem of stretching games to breaking point

My games of Close Combat had way more than 12-15 units a side and I played Combat Mission mostly zoomed out to the max. Different strokes for different folks, clearly

Perhaps different versions, this is the one I played the most the units are at the bottom left



Available for just over £4 now https://www.gog.com/game/close_combat_2_a_bridge_too_far

Oi! What's all this 'Early computer wargame' stuff about  Close Combat? Some of us are still playing it!

First 'wargame' I had was on a 'tweaked' ZX-81 c1983/4? It was an Ancient Imperial Rome game with written command input, and combat results were fed back as numbers and I think the odd 'won/lost/retreat/follow up' written report. There was a map but for reference only to show which bit of Europe/Africa/Middle East you were being slaughtered in. No graphics. I've still got the ZX-81, and the game audio cassette , but foolishly threw away the analogue b/w tv it worked with because I had forgotten why I was keeping it and binned it about ten years ago.

Rectory Road in the 60s, Oxford University's computer (the size of your house) used to run Star Trek, you had to fly round zapping Kingons (on paper, as screens weren't invented yet). Does that count?
It had to run 24 hours a day, so everyone would troop back there after the pub for their 'shift'. It's where my Mun and Dad met my godparents.

When I left home in the early 80's I flatted with a fellow wargamer who had a Apple II+ along with a whole swag of SSI wargames and other programmes. The Apple took pride of place in the main room and we wasted/spent a lot of evenings playing everything from "Fighter Command" to "Wizardry"......some great memories of those times!