"Simple Computer War Games?" Topic

Does anyone know of any simple computer wargames? I am thinking of the computer equivelent of putting an artillery battery, a couple units of cavalry and a half dozen units of infantry on the table on each side (more or less) and gaming against the computer to completion in one or two hours).

I had Gettysburg by Meiers and I am thinking of something simpler than that; maybe generic smoothbore black powder game and generic tank battle game. Something like that.

I got the idea from seeing my granddaughter play a simple Farmville game on Facebook.

Thanks!

Steel Panthers WW2 allows you to build your own scenarios and create your own maps. It's like Squad Leader without the maths – you do the moving and firing, the computer takes care of the rest.

link

So does its companion Steel Panthers MBT

link

Both have AI opponents and tweakable difficulty levels

…and they're both free. See the right sidebar. They're rather large though, so they take a while to download on a slow connection

"Take Command 2nd Manassas" is very similar to "Gettysburg", and very cheap. You can control from a single battalion to the whole army. You even have the option to "turn on" a brigade's AI, so its commander makes his own decisions according to your orders, thus reducing micromanagement.

madminutegames.com

If you want something really simple, "American Civil War: Gettysburg" uses hexes and hitpoints, but I don't know if it's good at all.

i used to play DBAOL but thats not got AI – its human to human turn based play.

dbaol.com

There is an older ssi game called Age of Rifles that, as I recall, had some pretty simple but decent game mechanics. If you Google it it should be pretty easy to find.

Also, another thumbs up for the Steel Panthers series!

Thanks for the input. Maybe I was not clear. I am looking for something simpler than Gettysburg, something like playing solitare but a wargame. You have to use your brain a little, but not too much.

Maybe nothing exists like what I want. Just thought I would ask.

Age of Rifles had an introductory scenario that did exactly what you want. You picked whether you were going to be Union or Confederate and then were given a cavalry unit, an artillery unit, and 5 or 6 infantry units along with a camp. I well remember my first go at the game when I left the camp undefended and the Confederate cavalry promptly rampaged through it. You could have concealed movement (you saw only what was visible to your units) or have everything revealed. From what I recall it had a fairly good AI for the time.

I use the Computer Strategies moderation system. It allows land and naval as well as some limited air support in the modern games.

link

There are plenty of free upgrades and they are receptive to suggestions for new features.

Age of Rifles is pretty simple, and has scenarios ranging from the smallest to the largest imagineable.

Although it is a very old game, it works OK on Windows XP (ymmv depending on video drivers as it uses VESA graphics).

Computer wargames are not renowned for their simplicity as they sem to bring out the worst bean counting aspects in their game designers.

A really great game I had loads of fun with (also v. simple to play although complex under the hood) was the old Close Combat series, although they are WW2 not H&M.

I am looking for something simpler than Gettysburg

This is it: YouTube link

"Move here, shoot here", that's all :)

Thank you, all. I have some things to look at. I have never downloaded games to play, so I am a little leary on avoiding viruses, etc. but I can speak with my son about that stuff.

Take care!