"Ancients: More Abstraction, More Fun?" Topic

Writing in Slingshot magazine #277, editor Richard Taylor makes this observation about wargames:

…wargames tend to be more fun and provide more game when they adopt a much higher level of abstraction, either overtly (like Lost Battles, where small unit interactions are deliberately abstracted out), or by default (like DBA, where whatever the man-figure scales may say, we think of the battles as being on the largest scale, and movement and maneuver is totally abstract).

Do you agree?

Yes

Absolutely not.

There's a point where things get too abstracted, too generic, so that one is basically just playing checkers with miniatures (IMO of course).

No

There is probably a sweet sport in there somewhere. I do like my games where there is an appropriate amount of detail for the level of command you are dealing with. An army commander is probably not interested in the whereabouts of specific skirmisher units. He is not going to adjust individual formations. he is going to give high level orders and his subordinates will carry them out as they see fit. With an army game, the lower level detail can be abstracted out. Similarly, if you are playing a skirmish game, I might expect to see a fair bit of weapon and armor detail.

What WatJ said.

Lost Battles, feels very much a wargame, has more abstraction (apparently) than DBA, and plays without real complications.

And it feels like a simulation of the battles of the day.

Many other rules do not seem to make any attempt to simulate, and end in some horrible middle ground muddle of simulating a game based on history, and poor history at that!

I just wish someone would write a Lost Battles style ruleset for massed 18th – 19th century battles, so that I can command the French army at Waterloo or the Anglo Dutch at Blenheim.

What WATJ said.

I'll also add this: I prefer a simple game that uses lovely miniatures and nicely detailed settings. I don't want to have to refer to a bunch of charts. I prefer games/rules such as Impetus, Volley & Bayonet, Commands & Colors, etc.

Depends. The problem with wargaming the ancient period is the lack of good information on most (if not all?) battles. And a lot of the extant information can be viewed as having questionable accuracy. So one can glean data from the sources and create rules (Romans used sword, Macedonians used pikes, Romans generally won, so pike armed troops should always lose to sword armed troops), or abstract a lot to get the 'feel' of ancient combat (this block of soldiers impacts that block of soldiers): mayhem ensues. Abstraction in the ancient period allow good 'feel' without loss of flavor (sounds like a commercial!).

Like most things in life it is a balance. Some abstraction is good but not too much.

Yepper – That's why I like WAB – which may also be why some don't. Dean

It depends on what you want in a game. One gamer's fun is another's root canal.

Doug

IMO, Not for me. Not a fan of Ancients.
IMO…

Interesting, DeanMoto. I consider WAB to go in the opposite direction.

Caesar: Maybe I misread the OP – but, to clarify, I'm thinking WAB manuevering can be really skirmishy – especially the open order movement – which I love. That said, when the unit may be representational of a large force, some folks find this a bit much. I don't, of course Dean

As an addendum to my earlier comment, Although I'm switching my units over to Impetus, I still really like WAB. It was what I played for several years, and I still believe it to be an excellent set of rules, and a fun game.

No.

DBA – 12 elements represents every army regardless? No.
It's a game with ancient minis but that's where it's similiarity with ancient warfare ends.

Lost battles is a great simulation but I'd hardly call it fun.

Games can go into a lot of detail and be fun. I've had fun games of 7th/Warrior/6th/FOG and just as easily had unenjoyable games of teh same rulesets. I've played HC and had fun but other times I've felt a little empty after a game.

A lot of it has to do with who you play with, the players understanding of the rules, the setting of the game (tournament/club/my dining room)and each players expectations of the game. Someone may take great pleasure in extracting the best out of his Warrior troops due to his encyclopedic knowledge of the rules and tactics required while another may be happy to just see his newly painted Aventine phalanx win a combat even while the rest of his army runs away.

In summary IMHO a simpler game is not necessarily more enjoyable.

I prefer a fair amount of abstraction, so yes, I'd agree.

NO

Too much detail equals less fun but you can over abstract.

My first encounter with DBA was a refight of a real battle with 20-30 elements a side and that was great.

DBM brought just enough more detail to get me hooked but eventually when I tired of DBA and took a step back I concluded that actually there was probably too much abstraction in the game, at least in the explanation of why the fiddle moves were reasonable. In the end DBM was for me at least very much a game rather than a wargame.

I have played Lost Battles and that was too abstract as well.

At the moment I like the level of detail in FoG which for me is about right.

Each to their own IMO.

Nope; any level of abstraction can be fun with the right rules, the right size of action and (most important) the right group of gamers.

No.

As always, there are some things that just don't matter and some that do – a lot. There is a sweet spot, I think DBM is about there, but lost it on the milli-measurement/units clipping others/morale abstraction stuff.

Yes to the original point, generally …

I think the 'sweet spot' idea is right.

Contra Hammy, I think FoG misses the sweet spot by quite a margin: I quite like the game, but the manoeuvre possibilities can be preposterous – all tourney/no history (that spoils an otherwise good game for me, but no doubt the tournament masters would just find another vehicle if FoG denied them their quest for the magical edge).. but that's just one opinion amongst many …

I have a pet peeve about how the term "abstract" is used in discussions like this. For me abstract is opposed to concrete, whereas in these discussions it's used as if it was the opposite of "detailed". Any situation where one thing is used to represent another, ignoring the physical characteristics of the thing that doing the representing, is abstract. All simulation gaming is by definition abstract; board games are in a sense more abstract than miniature games.

So for example, saying "you cant see anything on the other side of that one-inch hill is abstract", but "true line of sight" is concrete. "I don't see a pistol on that figure, so he can't fire a pistol" etc.

All simulation gaming is by definition abstract; board games are in a sense more abstract than miniature games.

Lost Battles has some commonality with boardgames …

So Hammy's point

I have played Lost Battles and that was too abstract as well.

Makes complete sense … (I agree with his point btw – just consider it more a positive than a negative )

Phil

Yep.

Yup.

In my humble opinion DBA has a good structure for you to tailor your game to more specific periods. I also play with larger armies.

So we line up two armies, each commander roles a dice, highest score wins the battle.
Can't get much more abstract than that but doesn't sound much fun to me!
Equally, trying to determine where every wound falls on every man in a 60,000 man army doesn't seem much fun either.
All rules need a balance, and exactly where that balance should lie depends on the individuals playing them, and what they want to get out of them. With the many rulesets on the market most players can find one that provides the level of detail they enjoy.
Personally, I enjoy a fairly complex level of detail, and found the level of abstraction in DBA/DBM etc much too high.

Axis and Allies – Ancients? I don't think so.

If you abstract too much you lose the feel of the period, or change your wargame into a board game.

NO!

Oversimplification is not good. I like systems that are simple but I want to have armor and tendencies of the peoples invovled modelled in a reasonable fashion.